Filed under: running | Tags: Dublin marathon, keech cottage children's hospice
…who completed the Dublin Marathon on Monday in 3 hours and 59 minutes. Not bad for someone who’d never even run a half marathon before September, struggled with various injury niggles and had laser eye surgery less than a month ago. He’s also raised over two grand for the Keech Cottage Children’s Hospice.
My cousin Rob also completed the race in 3 hours and 48 minutes. But he is over six foot tall and has massive feet, which I’m sure give him an unfair advantage.
Bit embarrassed that I only managed 4 hours and 36 minutes for the London Marathon…but not enough to want to put myself through it again.
Nice one boys.
Filed under: 1500m run, British Military Fitness, fitness assessment | Tags: British Military Fitness, fitness assessment
Shoulder recovered within a couple of days, but Thursday’s sore throat turned into a muzzy head on Friday, a streaming cold on Saturday and a cough on Sunday. The cough lingered and I had to be in London anyway, so I gave British Military Fitness a miss on Monday evening. By today, I’d gone a week without doing any exercise. 
The cough isn’t really getting any better, but I wanted to do the BMF fitness test tonight – which happens on the last Wednesday of every month. Theoretically I should improve over time, so I wanted to find out my base fitness level so I can see some progression. Let’s hope so anyway; I’m not paying £38 a month for evermore if I don’t see any improvement after a few months…
Only about ten people tonight (maybe last night’s snow put a few off) and not everyone wanted to do the test. Dan took those that didn’t want to. Steve took the four test victims candidates, and put us through the following paces:
- A timed 1,500 metre run
- Maximum repetitions over a two-minute period of press-ups
- Maximum repetitions over a two-minute period of sit-ups
- Maximum repetitions over a two-minute period of burpees
- 15x 20 metre shuttle sprints (timed)
Two of the boys (previously spotted wearing super-fit green bibs) took off across the field for the initial run, leaving me and another bloke trying to spot them in the dark. They finished a full two minutes ahead of us, and I was completely last by about seven seconds. I was then partnered with super-fit Ryan, who hails from across the pond, for subsequent exercises. I had to count while he did his press-ups for two minutes (no knees), then we swapped while he counted mine. He got to 80. I did 35 I think. Hmmm. He was jolly nice about it though.
Sit-ups were next (arms across the chest, from shoulder blades on the ground to sitting upright). Not even sure if I got to 30 of those. Mr America did 50.
Then burpees (double-leg squat thrust combined with jump up into the air), which proved to be a “great leveller” as Steve put it – we all did 30-odd of those.
Finally, I spluttered my way through the shuttle runs in 1 minute and 20-something seconds. I was struggling by that point – the temperature had dropped to 3 degrees and my chest was burning.
Nevermind, glad I did it. The scoring system is a complicated affair, but I’m pretty sure I’m firmly in the blue camp. I’m assured that my results will be online for me to look at tomorrow, with an indicator as to how far off the red group I am. Watch this space.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Have a sore shoulder – after the log incident yesterday.
And a sore throat – which was only a matter of time given the sheer number of bloody bugs around the office.
Boo.
Filed under: British Military Fitness, running | Tags: British Military Fitness, hill sprints, running
Keiran took today’s British Military Fitness class. One of the girls told me at the end of the hour that uphill sprints are his speciality. If I’d known that in advance, I wouldn’t have gone to the class. After a short warm-up, we found a “suitable” hill and started sprinting up and jogging down as a recovery. Within seconds, I was flat on my face for the second time this week, having tripped over a log that was hiding in the shadows. If I’m not careful, I’m going to end up with the same clumsy reputation as I have at work. I’m hoping that – in the dark – no one will have noticed it was me falling over twice in two sessions.
The hill was horrid – about 100m, steep, on uneven ground. Just when you got near the top, it looked like it was flattening out, but actually went up a bit more. I hated every second – but acknowledge it’s got to be good for my regular running. After about 20 mins of those hill sprints, my legs were screaming, but it was time to jog out to a flatter bit for some shuttle runs combined with double sets of floor exercises. Nastiest ones were V-crunches (ab crunches with the hands and legs out straight) and some particularly tough press-up where you had to roll over on one side as you came up with the outer arm outstretched.
I’m not sure I like Keiran’s classes, and was almost relieved when he said he’d only got a handful more to do with us. Until he said he was being posted to Afghanistan, which was pretty sobering.
Filed under: British Military Fitness | Tags: British Military Fitness, gym, mud
I’m feeling rather British, so I’ll start with a weather update. Although windy this morning, it was fairly fine. Though obviously one lady hadn’t demisted her windscreen sufficiently on the way to work, because she pulled out in front of me on a bend, forcing to do the best emergency stop I’ve done since passing my driving test 14 years ago. Luckily there was nobody behind me, otherwise they would have ploughed straight into the back of my pretty little Mini and made me cry.
As the day wore on, the weather got progressively worse and it started raining “stair rods” as my Dad would say. And basically didn’t stop all afternoon. Now, when I signed up for British Military Fitness classes, I had thought about the oncoming winter and worried a little bit about it being cold in December. For some reason, I hadn’t given a thought to the possibility of rain. As I pulled on my BMF jogging bottoms (£6 from Sainsbury’s – give me a seriously baggy arse, but are perfectly adequate for doing sit-ups in a field), I was wondering if I could talk them out of my three-month minimum commitment.
When I got there, everyone else looked like how I felt, and we stood shivering around Steve’s car while he took the register. But soon enough, we were jogging across to one of the football pitches where we did a bit of a warm-up before splitting into pairs. Starting on one of the goal lines, the first person would run to the other end of the pitch and back again, while the second one did sit-ups, press-ups, lunges, or whatever, then we’d swap over. By the time we got to leapfrogging over our partners then scrabbling back through their legs, I’d completely forgotten it was raining and was covered from head to foot in mud.
After a very short break, we were split into two teams and had to relay run around some flashing markers (it’s obviously pitch black by this time) while the rest of the team did burpees. My team won, and got to dish out a penalty to the other team – 10 exploding star jumps – though they got us back on the second round with seven jumping lunges. On each leg. For the third game, we had to maintain the nasty plank position during the course of the relay. I was the penultimate runner, neck and neck with a green on the other team. I sprinted off, running as fast as my little legs could carry me, reached the marker, turned slightly too sharply, slipped and hit the deck smack on my left buttock. Very cool.
One of the lovely things about the class is that everyone’s really friendly, which makes a change from the bitchiness in the changing rooms at the gym. There was a new girl doing her trial session, and although she gasped, “I didn’t think it would be this hard,” to me at one point half-way up the pitch, and I thought her back might give way when I leapfrogged over her, she appeared to enjoy it and made all the right noises about coming back again on Wednesday.
My joggers are in the washing machine along with every other item I was wearing, so I’ll be there too with bells on. Dirt is good.
Filed under: British Military Fitness, Commando Challenge | Tags: British Military Fitness, Commando Challenge, prospect park
I decided I quite like being bossed about by men wearing boots and camouflage trousers, so I signed up to British Military Fitness classes last week. Then failed to go to the Wednesday class because I was drinking wine and eating curry with friends; then failed to go on Saturday as well because I was in Devon eating the biggest ploughman’s lunch in the world in a sunny cafe on the beach. Oops.
I resolved to rectify this and – despite feeling a bit battered and bruised after Commando Challenge – I reported for duty just before 7 on Monday evening. I was relieved that I left work a few mins earlier than I had to – one girl was late, didn’t get a bib and was relentlessly picked on for the next hour and referred to as “girl in dirty white t-shirt” and instead of, for example, “blue number 40″ (me).
Two different instructors took the whole group together on Monday, and had us traipsing all over the park. Some small allowances were made for the beginners (blue) and intermediates (red) – “DOWN ON THE FLOOR, PRESS-UPS. GREENS 12, REDS 10, BLUES 8. CLEAR?” Obviously I did as I was told.
Struggled a bit when were were warned there were snipers in the area (in Prospect Park, Reading? Then again…) and told to get down and commando crawl into the shadows. My poor elbows and knees were already traumatised by the Bicton Park tunnels, and they didn’t like that at all.
The best bit was resting in between tummy crunches, laying down on the cool, wet grass, staring up at a beautiful starry, moonlit sky. I wouldn’t have seen that if I’d gone straight home and flopped in front of the telly-box.
It was so good, I went back to the Wednesday class tonight. Another two completely different instructors, split into two groups, all blues together. We did a shit load of running around – sprints and jogs – then swapped instructors and did sets of leg exercises, stomach exercises and upper body stuff. With a few more sprints round some goal posts chucked in for good measure. I think I’m going to hurt tomorrow.
Oooh, check this out – appears to be a new WordPress web poll feature. Or at least I’ve never noticed it before…
Filed under: Commando Challenge | Tags: Commando Challenge, exmouth, royal marines
Normally when I sit down to write these race reports, it’s a bit of a mixed bag. I tend to list the good and bad points, with ugly bits thrown in if I really have something to moan about. But I can’t do that for Commando Challange…because the whole event was awesome.
After a reasonable drive down to Exmouth on Saturday afternoon, had a glorious afternoon paddling and wandering along the beach. Met everyone else at the Quentance Farm B&B – a bit mad, but very accommodating with lots of dogs – then went out for food. Oooh, here’s an ugly bit: never, ever go to the Dog and Donkey in Knowle village. It’s run by the rudest couple in the world.
Anyway, after a reasonable night’s sleep, it was time to rouse the team for the challenge. I’d roped in a few people from work, some of whom run regularly and others who do not. Here’s the team in our specially designd t-shirts looking rather fresh, and almost completely clean.
Before the challenge
This wasn’t to last for long. After registering, listening to the safety briefing and doing the warm up, we made our way to the start line.
We set off…uphill basically…across an uneven field down a lane with quite a lot of poo, then up a series of other hills towards the course. I think this is what they euphemistically call “undulating” in Runners World. It wasn’t an easy run, and it felt more like three miles than the stated two, but we were all feeling good and had a slug of water at the top.
Into the course, and we immediately hit the first tunnel. Down on our hands and knees we went, and into the darkness. I’m a little claustrophobic so I asked everyone to keep talking, at which point they all started talking at once, creating an echoey but quite comforting feeling. Some Marines were at the end to make sure we all emerged. Which was nice.
Out of the tunnel, down a muddy hill, the next hurdle was a long, muddy pool – which came well above my waist. Halfway through it, we were stopped and told to duck ourselves right down under the water. That was fecking cold, but quite refreshing.
We ran steeply uphill after the pool. It was very boggy by now and we were weighed down by wet clothes, but glad of them as the sun rose out of the mist. At the top of the hill, we could see a crowd of supporters for the first time. It took me a minute to realise they were all gathered around the “highlight” of the course: the sheep dip. Didn’t have much time to think about it, just held my breath and was hurled through it by one Marine and hauled out of the other side by another.
Weirdly, we’d changed colour.
Me after the sheep dip
After that, it couldn’t get any worse. The tunnels got progressively smaller, more painful on the knees and eventually the elbows, but we were still having a blast. The run back didn’t seem to take half as long, and we crossed the finish line – about 1 hour 45 mins after the start, according to our support crew.
Looking slightly less fresh than at the beginning, here’s the team at the end…
After Commando Challenge
Quite easily the best event I’ve done in a long time. I’m coming back again next year.
Filed under: British Military Fitness, running | Tags: British Military Fitness, running
In a somewhat belated last-ditch effort to be ready for Commando Challenge on Sunday, I signed up for my trial British Military Fitness class tonight. A neighbour recommended these sessions a while ago as a means of getting really fit really quick. Ideal.
I went along with a female colleague from work (all of the boys bottled it) and we turned up as instructed at Prospect Park in Reading, to find a cluster of be-bibbed people milling around the car park. Spotting the newbies a mile off, a chap called Steve in proper combat trousers and boots swiftly introduced himself and gave Emma and I a blue bib (blue for beginners, red for intermediate, green for advanced). We were split into two groups, and our group jogged off behind Steve towards the dark football pitches.
Before long, we were scrabbling around on the (wet) grass as if under netting, jumping maniacally to avoid (imaginary) mines, wriggling around on our backs pretending to be dead ants – and doing thousands of press-ups, sit-ups, double-leg squat thrusts, burpees, squat jumps, star jumps, jogs and sprints around flashing rucksacks. Number 33 (Emma) and number 11 (me) kept getting told off for not doing quite the right thing, but it was all done in good humour and wasn’t too intimidating.
I have to say, I had a great time, despite feeling completely knackered now. I’ve plateaued at the gym a bit recently, and doing this might get me out of a bit of a fitness rut and have the added bonus of forcing me out of the office a bit earlier than usual a couple of times a week. It’s not cheap – £38 per month for unlimited classes, though in practice I’ll do a maximum of two a week. I wouldn’t really want to give up the gym membership to compensate.
I have to make my mind up overnight to take advantage of the joining fee waiver which applies for 24 hours after your trial class. But I’m very tempted to give it a go for a few months.
