1st at Rhyl half marathon

A hard earned 1st place

I ran Rhyl half marathon today which went out along a seafront promenade and then back again. Going out was tough. There was a head wind, my effort was too hard and the first and second place guys were getting too far ahead. At one point they were about 1 min ahead of me. But at half way I decided not to reduced my effort as I might just catch them. It was tough. I had to just think of my breathing to distract me from the pain. I couldn't let myself think that there was X miles left. "Just do the next mile as fast as possible" was what I thought. It paid off. I caught them both in the last mile.

In other News, Friday night I had coats and my spare key stolen from my front porch. I had to pay for new locks and replace the coats. From now on I'm locking my front door as well as my other one. Just didn't think anyone would bother stealing coats and shoes. Right pain in the. .. because the insurance won't pay as the porch door was unlocked and the coats were worth about £175 in total. They did also go around the back of my house but the security on my shed is top notch so they didn't get anything from there. Opportunists.

My YouTube 5 min plank

Here's the YouTube video. I don't think it'll go viral but hopefully you'll see that I kept good form. Danielson's 5 min plank: http://youtu.be/nlpG0xfQits

Personally I don't think there's much to gain from going over 5 mins that you couldn'tgain from spending the time doing ssomething else. I feel like I gained more for a running benefit mentally rather than physically because it's taught me how to deal with pain a bit better.

Advanced plank challenge

Hi
For those of you who have finished the plank challenge I set: 30 days to a 5 min plank I've now done an advanced challenge.  Err it is so far just one person and I should finish my final 5 mins in a couple of days!

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Alk8O_1IBwswdEFJb00zNjdUZGtZVmtLUkpLQ2dKZ0E&usp=sharing

Just see the "advanced" tab on the spreadsheet and keep updating it.

Spread the word and lets see if we can get more than 2-3 people on the challenge this time.  Although anyone can start the 5 min challenge at any time as I've left that on there too.

Thanks

Daniel.

Plank: 30 days. 5 mins

Do you need some motivation to do a bit of strength work to hopefully improve your running?

We might be more motivated if we set ourselves a challenge, so here it goes...

The challenge is to be able to do a 5 minute plank by the end of 30days.

I've set up a spreadsheet to log progress.  It also has a plan in it.  Anyone can add their name to it.  Please join me. You can start at any time; just log your start date. Here's the link:

Spreadsheet

Please spread the word, share, like, copy n paste, make a poster!  The more people doing this the better.  I'm not on Facebook so please feel free to post a link or whatever it is you do.
The spreadsheet can be edited by anyone so please be careful with it.  I'll try to remember to make backup copies of it.
I am on Twitter and will try to spread the word there. Use hash tag #plank30to5 my user name is @d_weston

Welsh International Runner at the Anglo Celtic Plate 100km

This was my first 100km and my first time running for Wales. I finished in a time of 7h43m. I FINISHED! I'm so glad to be able to say that because there were about 2 times in the race when I thought I wouldn't finish. I think the reasons I managed to finish were mental strength and support of the team managers, Mike and Arwel. Because my main aim was to finish to count for the team I couldn't risk pushing it too hard. Also since it was my first I wasn't sure if my body would hold out. And I had a slight hip niggle so overall, next time I do a 100k I should easily knock off 30 mins. Things I learnt, Counting my breaths over the miles, Eg. 400 per mile was a good technique to distract me from the pain. Never think of the whole distance. Break it down e.g. In 5 miles I'll have a banana. I need a bigger taper and no races for at least 5 weeks before. I should drink more and eat more. Nuts and bananas are good. that's it for now I'll add more later. Later: The course record was broken today and that made the race even more exciting to be part of. Steve Way (marigold on fetch) broke it in 6 hours 19 mins. To me that is the biggest achievement imaginable. Awesome stuff. Some funny stories: My team mate, Jason Dickinson (JasonD on fetch) was only two minutes behind me so we had a funny, good banter going afterwards. I told Jason I waited ages for him and took my time to let him catch up!! In reality I had to work hard at keeping in front of him. I wouldn't let myself stop running or take any corner wide! If I had to run an extra 1 meter I was cross! In hind sight this is funny because 1 meter over 100,000 meters is nothing! The only time I did stop was to go for a wee. I needed a wee at about 25 miles but I told myself that as a "treat" I would let myself stop for a wee at 35 miles. The portaloos were right next to the course so I didn't even have to stop for long. I would like to end by saying thanks to Welsh Athletics for giving me to oportunity and also a big thanks to Mike and Arwel who worked hard during the day to support the Welsh team (much better than the English support team). Bye for now. Daniel

Pre Anglo Celtic Plate 100 km

I'm not sure what to say but want to record something to look back on in the future.

Next week I'm running in the Anglo Centre Plate 100 km as part of the Welsh Team. This will be my first race running for my country.

I know that the race is also the National 100 km championships and a trial race for the GB Team for the World 100 km in Doha on 28th November later in the year. The qualifying time of under 7h02m is right at my limit and everything would need to go right.

In reality I'll probably just see how I feel on the day after doing 10 miles and then decide if a sub 7h is possible. It's a 6m45s average pace.

Manchester Marathon

Well i aimed for another sub 2h30m and got no where near again. And again I'm blaming the wind instead of myself and admit that perhaps it's outside of my grasp.

The thing is that if i decide a sub 2h30m is unachievable for me then i might give up trying and i don't want to give up trying.

Good news is that I totally smashed the first half in 1h15m but then the second half smashed me. My next challenge is 100km in May.

Baby crying, got to go. My blogs are not as long now with a newborn

BTW I did 2h37m