Brexit blues begone - Race to the King report

After the utter shock of Friday morning's Brexit news it was onwards to the
South Downs for Race to the King ("RttK") organised by Threshold Sports.
RttK is a 52 mile ultramarathon starting near Arundel in West Sussex and following the beautiful South Downs Way to the steps of Winchester Cathedral.  The name comes from Winchester Cathedral being the burial site for the earliest English kings such as Alfred (of the Burnt Cakes)
and Canute (of the Tides).  I wonder what Alfred and his ilk would have made of
the referendum result?

The race can be attempted in one go or you can break it into two days with a stop at an overnight camp at the halfway point.  Going through Race to the Stones in 2014 in a oner, I was quite jealous of the people stopping at halfway there, and had decided to give this option a go for RttK.
This also meant that I could race Day 1 to knacker my legs out and then Rosie could join in for her first attempt at a marathon on Day 2.   Day 2 would be mostly walking, giving a good "time on feet"
workout which is good training for the later stages of an ultramarathon.

Saturday was a very early start, following an evening at a Proms concert in Lewes (where the band diplomatically didn't play the Rule Brittania ending on the concert programme!!) I was up at 2:30am to drive to Winchester and ditch the car.  Into a shuttle bus for the 52 miles back to the start line and we arrived in good time for an 8am sendoff.  My plan was to run pretty hard on Day 1, not completely flat out but not holding too much back either.  I wanted to see how I would do against
Spartathlon cutoff pace (4:45 for the 1st marathon) on a tough course - hilly and on
pretty rough trail.  In truth I was hoping for much better than Spartathlon cutoff pace, but I hadn't really analysed the course and it turned out to be hillier than I expected.  There was another minor problem too - the checkpoints put on by Threshold were so good that it was soooooo tempting to hang out at them for longer than necessary. So I lost a good few minutes with general faffing and chatting but it was all very good fun and I decided not to let the time stress me too much.

I felt pretty good all morning, running the flats and downhills at what felt like a decent pace and marching the uphills as well as I could.  I passed a lot of people and not many passed me, so confidence wise that was pretty good.  One person who did pass, at a thunderous pace, was Joasia Zakrzewski  who had been on the last shuttle bus to the start which was 1.5 hours late from being stuck in traffic.  So Joasia was hammering through the entire field from the back and there were probably only a handful of people she didn't catch outright, going on to win the race in a time of 7 hours 57 minutes!  To try to give an idea of just how good this is, the 2nd place finisher (a man) was over 18 minutes behind and less than 10 people broke 9 hours, never mind 8 hours!  Stunning stuff.

The last few kilometres coming into the overnight camp were through a forest where the trail was really tricky.  Very narrow, very hilly, and lots of slippery tree roots and moss.  A chap in front of me
took a bad tumble and for a minute we thought he had broken his ankle.  So it was a pretty careful walk after that and I came into the camp exactly on 4:45 for 43k.  I was a bit worried by how close this is to the Sparta cutoff, so decided to do a bit of post race geekery and figure out a comparison of the course profiles which had me feeling much better about things:

The afternoon was spent mooching at the camp, enjoying the rugby and Euro football (ok, and a couple of local ales) and generally relaxing.  I then headed down to Petersfield to meet Rosie at the station, and had two odd/scary/weird conversations with the taxi drivers on the way there and back:

Taxi Driver 1: i'm gutted about Brexit.  I was amazed that 4 million more people
voted to Leave than to Remain
Me: it wasn't that many mate, it was more like 1.6 million
TD1: no, no it wasn't, you're wrong. It was 52 million people voted for Leave and 48 million people voted for Remain
Me: oh right, yeah, ok

Taxi Driver 2: i'm loving Brexit.
Rosie: what do you think of Boris for PM?
TD2: yes, very pleased, think he talks a lot of sense.  The only one who
talks more sense is Farage.  I like to compare him to that guy from the 30s, you know,
Enoch Powell.
Rosie and I: oh right, ok

Definitely a case of nod, smile and get the flock out on both occasions!

Day 2 was a gentler affair than Day 1.  It was Rosie's first attempt at the marathon distance
and she hadn't had much of a chance to train for the event, so pacing and fueling would be important to ensure we got to the end.   We ran the first few miles at a decent clip
and thereafter settled into a steady walking pace with a few jogs thrown in where we could.
The fueling of course wasn't a problem with all the goodies laid on by the organisers, the main
problem being the cake was so good we were getting worried about actually gaining some KGs instead of losing some.  The scenery was beautiful and it was fantastic to be out in the fresh air,
just concentrating on a simple activity instead of trying to sort out all the usual chores
that we normally find ourselves doing on a Sunday.   For both of us the most frequent
thought of the day was "I don't really want to get to the end of this".   But get to the end you must
and we soon found ourselves tramping through the outskirts of Winchester and then a fun finish on the steps of Winchester Cathedral.  Job done then and well done to Rosie for completing her first marathon in fine style.

Next up in the training plan is a "double" run in the Yorkshire Dales with running buddy, party DJ and fellow Spartathlon entrant James Ellis.  James completed Spartathlon last year and is back for more this year determined to improve his time, so I am mildly terrified of what is in store on the rolling roads of Yorkshire!  We'll be aiming to cover 80 miles over 2 days and I suspect most of that will be at slightly faster than Sparta pace. So the tests are getting tougher as we get closer to the event.... there are only really around 10 weeks of training left available, so it is time to focus.

https://www.strava.com/activities/622225535

Sun up over the start

Served by the Kings

Which way now Britain, which way now?

Follow the pink gorilla?

This girl can

Bottom of Butser Hill

This girl did!!

Spartathlon prep race 1 - Goonies Run

Training for Spartathlon has been going pretty well, although i'm nowhere near the mileage that others on the British Spartathlon team are pulling!  I've been getting up to around 50 - 55 miles a week for the past 3 weeks, which is a lot for me, but most of the rest of the team have been completely caning it it seems.  One Thursday I was in 3rd place on the Strava team leaderboard having had a good few days of running.  My big run was still to come on the Friday and I duly mustered my way through 30 odd miles.... smugly uploading my run to Strava I was thinking that i'd get up to 2nd place, perhaps even the mighty heights of 1st, but found that I had actually dropped to 9th!  Fair play to everyone on the team, they are really putting in a great effort to get ready for the race and it's awesome to see.  I'm looking forward to seeing it pay off for folks in September.

Last week, Jamie and I headed out to Walton on Thames for an event hosted by Phoenix Running...the "Goonie Run".  Phoenix run a series of events on the Thames path, all loosely based on classic old school movies and with some of the coolest (and heaviest!) medals ever.  The format is designed to appeal to all types, shapes and sizes of runner and is very inclusive.  The race is run on a 3.3 mile loop and lasts for 6 hours.  Complete 1 lap and you are considered a finisher and receive a medal, 4 laps gets you a half marathon, 8 laps a marathon and anything over 8 laps is an "ultra" marathon.  My goal was to run 60km in the 6 hours, because that's essentially the pace that you have to hit
for the first 5 or 6 hours of Spartathlon.  This equates to 37.2 miles, but in this race because only whole laps count we would have to run a bit longer and actually achieve 39.6 miles.    12 laps it was then, and we set out on a pretty warm and sunny morning feeling good and trying to keep to sub 30 minute loops.  This plan went well through the half marathon point (1:55) and marathon (3:56) but we were starting to slow a little and although we weren't noticing the heat too much it was perhaps
having some effect.  When I say "we" I actually mean "I".... Jamie hadn't run for about 5 weeks since his Brighton and backwards London marathon escapades, but Jamie being Jamie was still looking spritely and very strong.  He just has a natural steady running pace that eats up the miles with no apparent effort, and I know for sure that he could have kept to the 12 lap plan without much difficulty.  I, however, pretty quickly made the decision to pull the target back to 11 laps and Jamie was fine to go along with that.  I think 12 might have been doable but it would have been an almighty effort for me, and I didn't want to completely ruin myself and risk injury.   So we chilled out a little for the last couple of hours, threw in some walking breaks and even had time for a couple of photos. We finished with just over 36 miles in 5:52 for second place.  The winner, Scott Ulatowski,
absolutely smashed it and ended up with 13 laps and a little over 42 miles.  Very impressive stuff and he was smiling and looking very smooth all the way round.  It turned out the previous course record was 12 laps, so ending up on 11 wasn't so bad after all and well done to Scott for raising the bar for future races!  

Many thanks to Rik Vercoe and the team at Phoenix Running for putting on such a friendly, relaxed and well organised race.  Check out their other events at http://www.phoenixrunning.co.uk/

Here is the race data (unfortunately my Garmin died a few minutes before the end of the last lap):

https://www.strava.com/activities/602623116/overview

And here is a photo where some folk (thanks Guy Osborn!), with some justification, have compared me to a gypsy lady:

Mission almost accomplished then and I managed to hit a pace that would work fine for Spartathlon. The slight complications being that this was flat as a pancake whereas Spartathlon is hilly and whilst this was warm for the UK it was nothing compared to how hot Greece is likely to be!!  So much more work is required and that'll continue on the weekend of 25th/26th of June at the "Race to the King" on the South Downs Way in Sussex.  This is a double marathon going from Arundel in
West Sussex to Winchester Cathedral.  I'll be taking part over 2 days, aiming to race the first day and then hook up with Rosie at an overnight camping stop before run/walking day 2 together.  It'll be Rosie's first ever marathon distance so all very exciting and i'm looking forward to supporting her in the challenges we'll face on the way.

Spartathlon!

Well I thought I would try to resurrect this poor neglected blog with the news that I have a place in this year's edition of Spartathlon.  What on earth is that I hear you say... well I shall try to tell you....

Spartathlon is a footrace in Greece honouring the legendary Greek messenger Pheidepides who was said to have run from Athens to Sparta to beg the Spartans for help as Athens was about to be invaded by the Persians.  Unluckily for Pheidepides the Spartan king refused to help as they were in the midst of a festival and drinking/dancing/sacrificing didn't mix with warfare back in the day.  So after giving him some shelter and no doubt a bit of sustenance they sent the messenger back on his way to Athens.  Luckily for the Athenians, on the return trip Pheidepides encountered the nature god Pan, who said he would fight on the side of the Athenians if only they would pay him more attention.
Emboldened by this news the Athenians managed to fight off the Persians thereby saving all things we now hold dear in our Western world.  Democracy, freedom, that kind of stuff.

For around 2000 years no one was daft enough, brave enough, or needed to, recreate Pheidepides' journey.  No one that is until some British RAF officers, led by John Foden, attempted it in the early 80s.  They figured out an approximation of the route and set off from Athens at sunrise on the first day and arrived at sunset on the second day (the times stated in the legend), thereby proving that the journey described in the legend was indeed possible.  The modern Spartathlon was born and it has become one of the most prestigious events in the crazy world of "ultra" marathon running.

You'll have noticed that so far I haven't mentioned the distance from Athens to Sparta.  That's because it's a terrifying 153 miles (or 246 kilometres for metric people) although that's far from the scariest aspect of the race.  Here are the other scary bits:

- you have to run the whole thing in less than 36 hours.

- you have to run the first 50 miles in less than 9 hours 30 minutes.

- there are 75 checkpoints along the route, every single one of which has a cutoff timing point.
Fail to meet the required time, you get pulled out, no exceptions.

- the route is not flat.  There are many undulations and it goes over a mountain the size of Ben Nevis
at the 100 mile mark.

- it might be very very hot, temperatures can get into the high 30s.  Obviously, being a bald Scot
not known for a great tolerance to the sun, i'll be hoping for more benign temperatures!

- the drop out rate is typically 50 to 60% of the ~400 people who start.

- there are many many tales of people who i'd consider to be stronger runners than
me training like demons and not managing to complete the race.  Some of them multiple
times before finally managing a finish.

So aside from trying to stop myself being terrified, I guess I should really do a bit of training this summer.  I have place number 23 of 24 in the "Britsh Spartathlon Team" which is not officially related to Team GB but go all out for representing the UK in the best manner possible.  So I want to give myself every chance and make sure I represent the team as well as I can too.

More to follow on various Spartathlon topics over the next few months.

http://www.spartathlon.gr/en
https://britishspartathlonteam.org/
https://britishspartathlonteam.org/spartathlon/
https://britishspartathlonteam.org/2016/03/21/darren-strachan/
https://www.strava.com/athletes/12391747/training/log

A Step in the Right Direction

There's a long way to go both speed and distance wise but Sunday's Epsom 10 mile race was a good marker for where I stand with my 2015 running goals.   A 1:11:44 (7:11 min miles) over an undulating course in miserable conditions gives me encouragement that I'm not a million miles off the first mark (sub 90 minutes at the Fleet Half Marathon). That's going to require 6:50 minute miles, a speed that right now I could probably only maintain for about 3 miles.  By Christmas time I hope to be able to hold that pace for 8 miles and if so then 2015 will be off to a good start.

Splits and Garmin:

http://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/638999946

Big Running Goals for 2015?

Fleet Half Marathon: sub 1:30
Brighton Marathon: 3:05 (good for age time to gain a London exemption)
National 100k Championships: sub 9 hours
Spartathlon: finish!

Hm, I wonder if I should have kept that to myself:

http://www.ted.com/talks/derek_sivers_keep_your_goals_to_yourself

Pipelines a Go Go

Like most companies, at Betfair we're learning our way in to a Continuous Integration development and deployment strategy.  Whilst it's just one step on a long road of delivering all our apps like this, it's good to see some of our groundwork pay off and see some green on our Thoughtworks Go Pipeline status:

All we're doing here is having our 3rd party developer curl/post an RPM package into our yum repository and then automatically deploying it out to Linux boxes.  Fairly simple stuff, but as a team we had to jump through a fair number of hoops to get there.  Understanding how Go Agents work, configuring sudoers files to allow the appropriate commands on the boxes, working with Go environment variables and parameters were all bumps to navigate.  Even for something this simple though, the payoff is considerable.  Our old process would have been for the 3rd party to ftp the package onto a temp directory on a dev box, our maxed out Op Engineers would take it, install/promote it to yum, and run a shell based install across all the boxes using func.  If something went wrong, they'd have to ssh onto individual boxes and figure it out. The Go process is fairly similar, just automated, and neatly removes the dependency on the Op Engineers and the troubleshooting part.  If you see Green, you know the package has been successfully put out into the wild.  If you see Red, you just drill into the Pipeline and quickly find the problem in the Task->Log.

Inspiration on the tube

Last night I had the good fortune to meet two inspirational people on the tube home. One had hardly any sight after a bad accident years previously, his companion was completely blind from birth. They were on their way to a dance class in Central London, navigating their own way around the tube. You could see it was stressful for them but they managed their way around with very good humour and grace, which was doubly impressive given it was rush hour and the train was rammed. Despite the disability, they'd obviously both made a decision to get on with life in the best way they could, which was pretty humbling to be honest. Not only that, the gentleman who was completely blind was a concert grade viola player and pianist. When I said wow and asked how he managed to do that he just laughed and said "practice every day".