This training diary was originally set up to log my build up to the Arc of Attrition 50 at the end of January 2024.

However at the end of October 2023 an old lower left leg injury burst back into life forcing me to withdraw 14 miles in during the Lighthouse Marathon and with the deferral date only three days later I felt I had no option but to defer my place to the 2025 edition.

You can find the training diary for 2024 on another page. This one starts at that Lighthouse Marathon event and plots my journey to the Arc 50 in January 2025. I failed to get to the 2nd checkpoint. But achieved my two goals of being on the start line and having a grand day out. 

I won’t be looking to do the race again. 

2025 Arc of Attrition : TRAINING DIARY

Jan 2025 - this is it! Now or Never! And it was Never!

ARC 50 what happened
Meeting these 6 people for the podcast was the highlight of my Arc 50 adventure
With Nicky Edwards Arc 50
With Nicky Edwards on the start line - Nicky finished - fantastic effort!
TRC Arc 50 2025
At the Minack start with Pete Sowerby, Amanda & Jig Berridge
Arc 50 Kit
I didn't take all of this - but it felt like it - Ridiculous!

So what next? 

This dairy concludes now but we are going to keep the podcast gang WhatsApp group going which will be great and I know that Matt has already entered the KVK on May 10 which I did I think in 2023. I might give Cousin Jack a go which is scheduled for March 8th. I have completed it twice and I remember after the first time I did it in 2019 I said I would never ever do it again and that meant never ever run in that part of the coast path ever again but maybe I do need to get out there and do it. I should be able to do it within the cut off of I think seven hours indeed in 2019 I think my time was around four hours 40 minutes and maybe it would give me a bit of redemption on that part of the coast path.

I had the DNF in the lighthouse marathon out there and now the DNF in the ARC 50 and in-between I’ve had a DNF on the 32 mile Black Rat so that’s three successive coast path long distance distance DNF’s which I think is telling me something don’t you?

In the summer there is the Powderham Castle 24 organised by Conquer 24 who had a stand at the running show and I do like the idea of a 24 hour event a bit like the Hope 24 I did in 2023 where you can take your tent and you can take your time.

I am looking at some point to probably do another running podcast and at the moment I’ve got in mind that it will be aimed at the over 60s running arena in the same way I do the Silver Stumps over 60s podcast with my friend Grant Timms.

Tuesday Jan 28th – I’m dictating the last few days of this diary on Tuesday so if you are reading through it chances are I won’t have corrected all the dictation errors so you might see some strange names and some things that don’t make a lot of sense – I will sort those out at some point – so I guess the question is what Next – well this will be the final entry for this diary because it was a training diary for the Ark 50 which is now been and gone. I have no ambitions or plans to do this again, I don’t think I would qualify to enter going forward and I really don’t think I wanna put myself through all the agonies of the training in the plan and the preparation. I want to get back to enjoying running and enjoying taking part of events that will be within my capability so I’ve got my eye on a few things this year if I decide to keep on running which I have to do.

Monday Jan 27th – as arranged the podcast gang got together this evening at 7 pm on zoom to share their experience and of course it was one of mixed emotions with those who had finished and only just finished and those of course who for various reasons didn’t finish. I also did reveal to them off at the end that they would be the final guests on the Running 44 @ 60 podcast. I made the decision around Christmas time that I would finish the podcast after the ark and indeed I would finish my business one in its current format at the end of February. The Running Podcast was only meant to continue until I finish the Classic Quarter at the end of May 2021 and here we are over 3 1/2 years later and well over another hundred episodes later still going. That journey has been incredible and on reflection I think I knew despite all my meticulous planning and bravado and people telling me that I would smash it but I knew that it was unlikely that I would finish within the cut off and the size of the pack, confirm that, but I still had a grand day out

Sunday Jan 26th – I had run with that heavy Pack four 3 1/2 hours and so my legs particularly my thighs were aching a bit on Sunday morning, but I had no other niggles or injuries so what about my reflections on what happened?

Clearly, my biggest error was the weight of the pack. It was absolutely ridiculous how much stuff I took and how I even thought that I would make my estimated times carrying it all. Yes I missed the last couple of weeks of training but ultimately I don’t think that made a huge difference. Looking back on my training through these pages I had planned throughout the year of 2024 to do more Ricky runs which I didn’t do, I did all the wraps and I did put in some mileage but of course at my age, you have to balance mileage with rest and recovery.

I think the bottom line was that I had the entry for the race and when people asked me how I was feeling I kept saying that I just had two ambitions firstly to be on the start line and secondly to have a grand day out and without doubt I achieved both of those so on that basis I was happy with what happened. I also have to recognise that my age and the fact that I’m not really a proper Runner it’s ridiculous to think that I could complete what is a hugely challenging an audience and brutal event. I checked the details for my age group and initially the results suggested that they were only four finishes in my age group but ironically and rather funnily the guy listed as winning my age group when you checked his times he was massively timed out at Saint Ives but then did the last 21 miles in just over an hour to Porth Tower – clearly he hadn’t removed his tracker and he was in a car and the tracker was beeping along.

What are the highlights of the buildup was undoubtedly getting together the podcast group and they did exceptionally well. Anya finished in 13 hours and nine seconds stop Matt came in in 1445 and Nicky who only just made St Ives and Godrevy checkpoints in 15 hours and two minutes Hhimani who was in wave one finished with just over seven minutes to spare whilst Richard unfortunately got timed out by just a few minutes at St Ives and Tom who was going along really well picked up a mysterious knee injury a few miles from St Ives that basically stopped him bending his leg so although he arrived at St Ives with 25 minutes to spare, there was no way he could physically go on.

Saturday Jan 25th – so this is it race day has arrived. I need to check but I suspect it must be two years since I sent my original entry off for the 2024 edition. I was concerned that I wouldn’t be able to cope with this massively early start but when the alarm went off at 4 am, I was actually feeling excited and energised and the first job was to put the porridge on which would take about 20 minutes to cook slowly. I filled up the water bottles and the bladder, cut up and repackaged the hot Cross buns and got my race kit on stop by 4:45 am my daughter and I were on the road with her driving to race HQ. We were on the road outside race HQ just after 5 am but already the queues were forming to get onto the site and it did take another 15 minutes or, to reach the place where I could jump out. I offloaded my drop bag into the back of a big van and then made my way to the shed type holding place. It was there that I met Tom, Himani, Nicky and Matt. Who have all been on the podcast over the last 2 1/2 months. I then decided to go and find the queue for the coach only to realise I was in the wave one queue so I left that and then I bumped into Richard who was another member of the podcast gang. My running club friend Amanda was also there and she and I just hung around until it was time to get on the wave to coach and we were the last 2 to get on one of the coaches. I tried to have some sort of nap on the coach down to the Minack and when we arrived, Dawn was breaking. Given the weather that it happened across the UK during the week we were very lucky that Saturday was going to be weatherwise a pretty glorious day for January.

We disembarked from the coach in the main car park which is about a 15 minute walk uphill to the Marc and then I saw several familiar faces, we had a running club photograph with a four of us who were taking part and with 45 minutes to go, I decided to join the poo queue, not realising it was going to take forever to get to the front of that queue. Indeed, I’m glad I left my Pack at the top of the steps where some marshals were because I was still in the queue when the wave one starters got going. Indeed, several of us in the queue commented on how little some of the front people in the wave won’t start were carrying. How did they manage to squeeze all the mandatory kit into tiny backpacks? Did they even have the mandatory kit with them? And if so why weren’t they checked at the start line? There was plenty of time to do that and with the organisers I’ve had the balls to disqualify them on the start line if they weren’t carrying the mandatory kit?

I finally got out of the loo and made my way back up to where I left my Pack put it all on and was ready to walk down to towards the start only to realise that I hadn’t taken out my bag my podcast recording kit stop so I had to take stuff off take the pack off find the kit plug it in loaded up and by now there was only a few less than 10 minutes to go to the so I normally wrap the wire up through my shirt but I just didn’t really have time to do that so then I made my way down because the wave to start was much further down the steps and the wave one start which I don’t understand why that was the tape was already in place and I was the only one walking down towards it so I kind of had my moments of glory ha ha would be ironic that within a couple of hours I would also be the only one at a certain point on the course. I simply ducked under the tape and found myself with those right at the front of wave too so I stayed there and then the countdown, which was a little underwhelming given the nature of what I’ve heard about the iconic Mark start which t clearly wasn’t gonna happen in terms of smoking music and drama and whatever else so I think I was probably the fifth person across the line at the start and then of course he inevitably people started coming past me and we went across the car park and then join the footpath, which at that point is very much single file so I found myself in the privilege position I’ve been towards the front but he having to step aside for lots of people to come past and I didn’t mind that because I knew I was clearly out of position.

I went through the 1st mile in about 16 1/2 minutes which against my budget was fine because that was 20 minutes but I was expecting given the fact that realistically apart from stepping aside and my Matchbox recorder needed falling off once I’d had nothing really to slow me down and it was a relatively flats 1st mile so I was thinking it should be around 14 minutes. The route then opens up and yeah there were a couple of bits of ups and downs and all that sort of stuff but I had budgeted to be at lands end in 67 minutes but when mild two came through at 17 minutes that was when I first got concerned I was just going too slowly and that the pack was just too heavy.

I eventually got to Lands End in about 75 minutes and then I rather stupidly decided I should get one of my water bottles filled up. I had this idea that it was leaking and I think it was because the top wasn’t quite secure but there was a lot of faffing around for me to take off my pack get the thing out get it back in and by the time I left lands end I was around 15 minutes behind my schedule. Sennen soon arrives and I was great to see my running club friends Mark Claire and James but it only really dawned on me when I looked across to the far end of the car park and I could see a guy in a blue dark top that actually there is no one else around that stage it hadn’t dawned on me that actually I was almost last already. I was also gutted to find out when I had a gel at that point that I had somehow lost the plastic rubbish bag that we’ve all been given so I do apologise for whoever had to retrieve that somewhere on the course, stop a guy called Steve Carter. I think caught me up sometime after this point but he had spent 20 minutes at Lansend having his knee bandaged up after falling over. By now I lost sight of the guy in the dark blue shirt and at certain points on this section heading towards Cape Cornwall there are some climbs with some great views from the top and I remember one of those climbs fairly early on in that section looking out in front of me and not seen any runners and then turning around and not seeing any runners I hadn’t thought of course about the sweepers because at that stage I genuinely thought I was the last person to be running but of course that wasn’t true because the sweepers would’ve been with me had that been the case.

With what I estimated about an hour to go to get to Cape Cornwall I stopped and opened my pack up to retrieve my phone which was in my coat pocket and I then called my daughter to tell her that based on my calculations at that point I realistically wasn’t going to get to the next checkpoint at Botallack with any time to spare whatsoever and I knew that I needed plenty of time in hand to have any chance of getting to St Ives. I had estimated arriving at Cape Cornwall at 11:34 am. When I rang my daughter it was 11:31 am according to my phone records and at that stage I was thinking I was well over an hour away from Botallack and the cut off for leaving there was 1245 and I had on my estimate plan to leave there no later than 1205 so I had a 40 minute buffer indeed I was expecting to be at Pendeen at 12:47

Then estimated that if I left Pendine at 12:5 6.9 miles to the Zenner junction I could do in just over two hours and arrive at 1456 and then take another two hours to get to Saint Ives at 1655 because the cut-off are leaving there was 1715 it was very obvious to me that there was no way in the world. I was going to be able to run any faster through that section than I had estimated and indeed given the struggles I was having with a pack even if I’d offloaded all the excessive food, I just wasn’t gonna be able to catch up the time from Cape Cornwall so when I called my daughter, I asked her to come and pick me up and explain the situation I got to Cape Cornwall and the irony was that it was a glorious day. I’ve been pretty fed up by then if it had been a wet and rainy day stop there was a spectator at Cape Cornwall – just the one who told me he was waiting for his wife and he was following her on some sort of live trails tracker and he was reading the read out that she had until 115 to get to Vitalic and he thought that was to avoid the cut off. I had to explain to him that what the app was telling him was her expected arrival time at Botallack and that the cut-off for wave two was 1245.

There was a young lad photographer arrived and asked me if I was okay because by now I was in the car park using a picnic bench to simply unpack my bag and make use of my mandatory kit because I changed my tops put on my insulated gilet and my waterproof jacket so that I didn’t get cold waiting for my daughter to arrive. I then phoned the hotline and explained that I had stopped and they advised me that I needed to go to Saint Ives which I had to do anyway to collect my drop bag and have my tracker cut off.

My daughter turned up in great time with a flask of tea and we went to Saint Ives where there was lots of action going on with runners from all the different races and I found the aid station and explained what was going on collected my drop bag and met my daughter in a car park and then we went back to Truro so every cloud has a silver lining and when we go back to Truro my son and his girlfriend arrive from Canterbury. It was still a glorious day so we went almost immediately to Perth parked on the beachfront and walked out to have a paddle in the ice cold water, my daughter and my son’s girlfriend went into the sea in fact my daughter went fully into the sea. She must be crazy! We then dried off and went for a drink sitting outside at the watering Hall pub how glorious was that on a January day where the rest of the country and indeed parts of the world were being battered by storms, and then in the evening we went out for a great meal in Truro so the silver lining of leaving at Cape Cornwall was all that I might well I’ve got to Botallack but then I would’ve struggled on and I suppose I could’ve dropped out at Pendeen because I really wouldn’t have been fancying going all the way to Zenner clearly been the back marker because I did see the man’s wife come through at Cape Cornwall and a few minutes later the final runner with the sweepers and of course the two those two runners did carry on to Botallack but would’ve been easily cut off at that point.

Friday Jan 24th – you have to go to Race HQ to register, pick up your running babe, your drop bag and your tracker which is fitted onto your pack for you. The weather on Thursday was pretty horrendous as yet another storm hits the UK and on the Facebook UMB arc page there was some chatter that already the parking at race HQ was turning towards a mud field. I decided on that basis that I might as well get there as early as possible for the midday opening of registration, and yes the parking field did begin to look a bit muddy but it wasn’t that bad and I was second in the queue for registration. This involved proven my identity and then having my kit checked. Everyone was advised to take it in a tub and I had quite a big tub, but I only had the mandatory kit options. This was a straightforward exercise. I was then given my race bib and my drop bag and a pretty ordinary T-shirt which didn’t specify a race or year or anything. I thought I would not have ordered a T-shirt but I probably did thinking about it when I first entered thinking it would be a nice souvenir if I got round so I took it anyway I do think that the mandatory kit thing is a bit of a fast stop. I can well understand why they should be such a kit list and it makes total sense that runners should carry what is specified because essentially you’re gonna be running in winter on a coast path and if something happens, you need to be able to look after yourself. I do think though having observed the front runners of the 50 at the start on the Saturday that I couldn’t believe how small they’re running packs were – they must have micro versions of all the kit that I had. And it did say in the event guide/rules book that kit would be checked. I would be very interested to know how many people during the run had their kit checked, especially when they crossed the line – I suspect it was absolutely no one at all so why bother with all that kit? Wouldn’t it make sense to check the kit of the finish, so that before the place prizes are handed out people had to have there kit checked. 

When I get back I make a big mistake – I carefully transfer all the mandatory kit from my tub into my very big running pack. Stop. I then fill my new running belt with half a dozen gels and I’m also going to take a bigger running belt which was a front pocket for food and also where I can store my pace notes. The big mistake is that I then fill the back pack with all of those foodie bits I mention. And when I test it for Waite I completely overlook how much one and a half L of fluid will weigh which I will need to add first thing in the morning. The upshot is that I end up taking a pack that is just massively too heavy for me ultimately to run at the pace I need to. I set the alarm for 4 am and go to bed about 7:30 pm.

Thursday Jan 23rd – Final check of all my route notes, looking at the scheduled estimates for each part of the course I’m feeling relatively confident that I’ve got a fighting chance of at least get into St Ives and then see where we go from there.

Wednesday Jan 22nd – I meticulously get together everything needed for the mandatory kit list – it is very extensive and I’m glad that I have purchased a 20 litre backpack for it to all go in. I also plan my nutrition working on the basis that I’m going to be eating three different things on a 45 minute cycle in order to ensure I’m taking on enough carbs – those three things will be a gel, chewy block, and something of normal food which will vary between a bit of hot Cross bun, some Chai seed flapjack bar, Jaffa cakes, tunnocks bars, mini-cheddars, crisps, malt loaf, some biscuit type things I bought, etc…

Monday Jan 20th – my regular sports massage with Lee Wheston. My foot is fine. My Hamstring is fine. I sleep lots this week and I’m feeling ready to go. 

Thursday Jan 16th – writing this just before the 3rd get together of the six Arc 50 runners who volunteers at the end of October who got together to tell their build up story

We all had an email today confirming final arrangements. I’ve spent a good chunk of the afternoon planning each section – times, cut offs, trying to remember key places etc…I do have lots of notes and although I failed to recce the route as I had planned I have over the last 3 years run all of it at least once. Looking at my predicted timings the key as with most runners of my speed will be the section from Pendeen to St Ives. Not helped by a tweak to the cut offs. You have to leave by the cut off not arrive! 

That could be decisive for me at St Ives. 

I went to park run on Saturday and did set up then hiked around as the sign pick up person. On Tuesday night I ran 5km on the treadmill and felt a bit of a hamstring tweak towards the end. The next day Wednesday I went for a haircut and pushed towards the barbers to ensure no got there before me and fell it thinge! 

The Running Show is on Sunday the 12th. It is 13 days to the Arc 50. I receive lots of Arc encouragement from show visitors. This is a great motivator for me. I’m planning to be on the start line and see what happens from there. I’ve bought an insulated gilet and a bigger back pack. No point in any long outdoor runs now. I’ll keep doing the morning s&c workout and as I have been doing over the last couple weeks do some treadmill and indoor biking work. I do feel I’ve put on some weight in the last couple of weeks! 

I feel as though I’ve lost a couple of weeks of training. The plan was to do the Dunes in the dark with Tracy on Wednesday 8th. The weather though is pretty awful so we meet on Zoom instead and record a podcast previewing the Cornwall Running Show.

    • 4th – Saturday – Trelissick parkrun  – 3 – 3 – I organise the pacing and do the 40 minute one which gives me time on feet. Foot feels ok. 

Dec 2024 - 13 runs 87 miles - 25 days at end of Dec to the Arc 50!

My left foot is sore underneath. This first started on Wednesday 18th and its not got better. The road run on the 27th was not a good idea. As the year ends I am now concerned about the Arc. My plan was to use the time between Christmas and Jan 11th – 2 weeks before the run – to add some mileage, hill reps and course recces. Today (31st) I’ve been to Falmouth and the walking to and from the station and around the town has left the foot feeling sore. I’m using a wobbly foam roller and golf ball on it. Right now I’m thinking I’ll be on the start line and see how it goes. No point in not starting as I’m not going to do this run again and I’ve paid lots of money to be on the start line. Even if it means I have to withdraw 5 miles in at Lands End. Let’s see what happens over the next few days. 

    • 27th – Friday – Truro run  – 6.5 – 86.5 – up and out by 7.30am with a head torch to get a run early. Head down Coosebean then down Newham Trail and back via Barrack Lane and up Falmouth Road. 
    • 25th – Wednesday – Christmas Day parkrun- 3 – 80 – I do set up at 7am and then achieve the goal of being under 30 minutes. Legs feeling a bit tired after yesterday. 
    • 24th – Tuesday – Christmas Eve Trelissick run and hill reps  – 10 – 77 – I’m there for an 8.30am start. Head off and after 4.5 miles I arrive in the filed. Time to get back on the hill reps. Last time I did this full on it was 19 so today I take almost 70 mins and do 20. Each up and down is around a third of a km so around 4 miles in total just running up and down the hill! Jog back then to the car park which is now very busy as it’s a mild day. 
    • 23rd – Monday – TRC Social Run – 5 – 67 – last TRC run before Christmas so a last chance to wear the running jacket with the lights on and I took the oblong Bose speaker to blast out a Christmas playlist. Can still feel the foot. 
    • 22nd – Sunday – 45 mins on the indoor bike as no pressure on the bottom of the foot.
    • 21st – Saturday – Trelissick parkrun  – 3 – 62 – I spend the week trying to shake off the cold etc..I seemed to have picked up when I was away at the beginning of the month. I missed the TRC outing on Wednesday to the Mousehole lights. The same day I somehow attracted a pain on the bottom of my left foot. It came from nowhere and to start with it felt like it was going down the middle from the toes to the heel – that would change to feel like its going across the middle. I give it a test out at the parkrun. On the way down to the start I did consider pulling out but went ahead and it got better as I ran. 
St Piran's Revenge Goodies
St Piran's Revenge Finishers Goodies
TRC at St Piran's Revenge
TRC at St Piran's Revenge

 

    • 15th – Sunday – St Piran’s Revenge  – 6 – 59 – This was my favourite run of 2023 and it didn’t disappoint. Lots of sand, uphills, downhills, steps etc…a great but tough combination – slightly longer than last three with a pointless half climb up the Dunes included so 3 minutes on my time from then. Will it retain top spot in my favourite runs? 
    • 14th – Saturday – Hill reps and Marshalling  – 3 – 53 – I have been feeling under the weather since I returned from my trip with a cough / cold. I was planning to go early and do 20 hill reps which is my last time +1 target. It’s raining when I get up so I hang back and in the end have enough time for 11. I’m happy with that. Mileage includes jogging to the field.
    • 11th – Wednesday – I used to be a pub  – 8 – 50 – Run there and back to club and lead the run visiting the sites around of 18 former pubs. Hard to believe I did this previously in 2021. How quick does time go! 
    • 9th – Monday – TRC Monday Night Run  – 7.5 – 42 – I leave Wellingborough starting around 10am heading into St Pancras  > turn etc Paddington > back to Truro around 5pm – its a crisp clear evening so decide to get into the house and out again for the run. 
    • 8th – Sunday – Sywell Park  – 4.5 – 34.5 – Al, Baron and myself head out in reasonable weather to the park. We have to climb the locked car gates and amble round one lap and back. Good to out running with these guys. 
    • 7th – Saturday – No parkrun day  – we were hoping to do a local parkrun but yet another storm means they are all called off
    • 6th – Friday – Swell Park, Earls Barton  – 10 – 30 – A third successive 10 mile run. I’m now in Earl’s Barton near Wellingborough in Northamptonshire. My Silver Stumps co-host and old college mate has this week officially retired from his job at Northampton Uni. He’s rounded up 3 other old college mates for a weekend get together. It’s 1km to the park then around 4.7km per lap and 1km back. 
    • 4th – Wednesday – Lincolnshire villages  – 10 – 20 – I’m up in East Barkwith in Lincolnshire for  flying visit to my brother and his family. Arrived via train last night so out for a run at first light. East Barkwith > South Willingham > Hainton (hoping to see my great grandfathers shop but since I was last here the shop has closed and is now part of the house it was based in) > East Torrington > West Torrington > West Barkwith (between these last two you can usually see down to my grandfather’s farm but it was a bit foggy so couldn’t see it) > back to East Barkwith. 
    • 1st – Sunday – Roseland Run  – 10 – 10 – I need a run so I join the speedy’s for a multi-terrain run down on the Roseland starting at Porth. Good as I have to work hard to keep up and a good test for the legs after yesterday’s hill reps and parkrun. Moving time is about 1:55 so pace is good given terrain. 

Nov 2024 - 12 runs 122 miles - 56 days at end of Nov to the Arc 50!

    • 30th – Saturday – Parkrun – 8 – 122 – Arrive at 6am. Do set up then start in field to do 19 hill reps which cover 3.7 miles and take just over an hour. Jog back to parkrun start and then do the parkrun in 29:30 so pleased after all the hill reps to break 30 mins. This is hill session 9 starting with 11 reps in August and adding one each time- aiming to do this every two weeks. 
    • 27th – Wednesday –  Away in Southampton for a business event so use the hotel gym and bang out in a warm room 5k in around 29 mins. Following morning before breakfast do 2.5km. 
    • 24th – Sunday – Mob Match  – 5 – 114 – The annual run in Falmouth which precedes the GP presentations for the year. It’s very wet! Run in contacts. 45:16 which is down on last year’s 43:58 but ok and runs in the last two days. Picked up  a trophy for ‘turning up’ after completing 11 of the 14 GP races. 
    • 23rd – Saturday – ‘Not a parkrun’  – 7 – 109 – Storm Bert see’s high winds predicted so all local park runs cancelled. Down to Boscawen Park to do my own – bit like lockdown days. I thought one lap of the park perimeter would be 1.25km but GPS suggested 0.81 – so I ended up doing 5 laps but GPS caught up to recognise 1.25km by laps 4 and 5. Jog there and back to get the mileage. 
    • 22nd – Friday – Long Road Run  – 11 – 102 – away working Wed/Thurs and Fri am meeting up with Beth so Fri pm run down Newham Trail > Malpas turning circle > back
    • 17th – Sunday – Long Road Run  – 18 – 91 – it’s still mild by Sunday although there is a little bit of hint of rain in the air. I decided that I need to get out on the roads and do some road mileage which means no walking. I end up doing 18 miles in three hours 32 minutes so I’m pretty pleased with that. I took the lower road to Idless then followed that up to Shortlanesend, turned right pass the pub going past the school and heading onto the back lanes which eventually come out at the park-and-ride. Then following the nearly finished cycle/pedestrian path to the new bridge over the A30 going over the bridge to the far end turning around and coming back.  In Threemilestone cutting down onto Lower Polstain Road which goes round the back and comes out on the top road near the Spar shop. I cut down onto the Newham Trail. Follow it to the first road junction and then go left up Old Falmouth Road which is quite a climb – cross the road go down Morlaix Avenue almost to the bottom where there are some steps up onto Barack Lane I go up there come out at the Thomas Daniel and by that time I’m getting close to 18 miles.
    • 16th – Saturday – Parkrun hill reps  – 4.5 – 73 – I’m back on the Marshal front in the field so that means I arrive early. Grab my Marshal lanyard and top about 7:15 and then head off to the field and this week it is 18 Hill reps. I have a way of distracting myself, which is running down the hill, clean my glasses and then I run a third of the way up the hill and on the left-hand side collect a leaf as a counter and then for the remaining 2/3 of the hill I go through a speech. It is amazing how this works as a distraction. I only start the distraction technique after I’ve seen the parkrun setters uppers so my challenge is to try and do five or six reps before they turn up.  Occasionally I don’t need to go through a speech because there are people around on the hill with their dogs so I can talk to them instead.  I managed to complete the 18 just inside the hour mark –  59:19.
    • 15th – Friday – Hayle to Godrevy  – 9.5 – 68.5 – So now I’ve done one recce two days later I do another one! This time I catch the train down to Hayle and I follow the route through the Dunes again recording for the podcast. I’ve done this several times including a couple of times in the dark with my friend Tracy Waite last year but this is the first time I’ve been through it this year so I make notes take photographs and record key landmarks on the route and record a podcast. On the way back I think for the first time ever I managed to follow the exact path on the way back as I did on the way there – when I’ve done this before, certainly in the first half of the way back, I’ve usually ended up over to the left or right of the actual way  path at some point stop. I stop at the Sandy Bay Café on the way back and pick up some seeded flapjack type cake which I resist the temptation to stop there and eat it with a cup of tea as I’m pushing hard on the way back trying to run quite quickly just to improve my fitness and also my knowledge in reverse  of the route. In my hydration vest I carry a change of tops which I then get to the station and the weather is still lovely  I change into and having bought a cup of tea from a café near the end of the North Quay Road, enjoy my seeded flapjack and my green tea. The photos of the route are a mix of the three times I’ve run this in the last two years. Start bottom left and follow up on left – right sequence for each row. 
Bottom of track after Gwithian Car Park - path you want can be seen on right hand side of photo
Not far past Gwithian turn right onto same path as walker - follow it to end of Dunes
'Crossroads' with broken fence -the CP sign is 100 yards ahead at 11.30
Broken post - go right
Big stone at car park entrance
Funnel at end of car park
End of stretch hugging beach line on left - follow the cafe sign
2nd kissing gate after Cafe sign - turn right up to Cafe
Start of Mexico Towans - 150 yrds on is a fork - go left
Drop left towards sea - then right through thick sand - path runs parallel to beach
Not that far in - go left and then up path on right
Start of Riveria Towans just past Surf Life Saving Club
Big bins on right short road section ahead - go left
Start of path after short road section which started at the big bins
    • 13th – Wednesday – Zennor to St Ives  – 11.5 – 59 – Wednesday the 13th it is my son‘s 25th birthday crikey how did that happen! and finally I get out on the arc 50 course. It’s a lovely day and I drive the 30 miles to Zenner but as I’m getting ready in the public car park I managed to damage one of my poles which eventually during the run will snap almost completely. When I get to the start of the run at the junction from the track down from Zenner to the coast path I realise that my watch has only got 7% battery left. I can’t believe that I didn’t check this!

      So I decided to use the watch just to tell me the time and rely therefore on recording and noting where various landmarks are on the course and how long it takes me to get to each one running at a gentle pace trying to emulate the pace I might be running on the day.

      It’s a glorious day and a real pleasure to be out there and as I run it I can’t believe that I’ve not been here and done this during the summer, but we are where we are and now is the time to really focus on getting ready for the route and visualising what it will be like to successfully complete this section.

      A shout out to an elderly lady called Cheryl and, as she told me, her nearly 80-year-old husband who she referred to as Tricky Micky– I met Cheryl a couple of miles into the run and she explained that Tricky Micky would be coming up behind her carrying a rucksack with big loppers as he does some course clearance during their regular Wednesday walk of this part of the footpath, which she told me they’ve done every Wednesday for 24 years – how about that!

      So I make it to St Ives and then I return following the footpath which goes across the fields and clearly is a much quicker return. It’s still a glorious day when I get back to the Tinners Arms in Zenner so I treat myself to a sweet potato curry lunch which I eat outdoors. Hard to believe this is November! I’m so glad I’ve finally got out on teh course to make notes, take photos and record on the run. The recording turns into a 20+ minute podcast episode which refers to many of the photos of ‘landmarks’ below.  
Metal gate 2 with fancy top 116 mins
First full sighting of St Ives 125 mins
Gap in Big Stones squeeze through 102 mins
20m Boardwalk 93 mins
1st CP go left 106 mins
2nd CP Sign 113 mins
85 mins Fence
Metal Kissing Gate 95 mins
Trig Point 76 mins
Stone Bridge 68 mins
Stone Stile 50 mins
Stock Grazing Gate 63 mins
Sea front 25 mins from Zennor
Big Balancing Rock 45 mins
Zennor junction start
Big rocks - straight after beach pic 26 mins
  • 9th – Saturday – Hill Reps – 4.5 – 47.5 -17 Hill Reps at Parkrun before Marshal in the field, there seems to be a lot of interest now in my pre-parkrun hill reps people asking me how many I am doing and my reply is always one more than last time.
  • 8th – Friday – Time on Feet Run – 14 – 43 – 3 hrs 1 min  – Time to get back out there – inspired by last night’s recording with six ARC 50 runners. I do need to get out on the course – targeting next week for that. Today I’m down at Trelissick. I try and avoid repeating too much with a target to be running for three hours. It is a lovely day and the legs feel fine although a few times it feels as though I’ve stood on something. That happens the first time just before an hour. I stop and take off my shoe and sock but can’t find anything. Pleased with the run 5 days after the Cornish Marathon. 
  • 3rd – Sunday – Cornish Marathon – 26 – 29 – 4:51:53  – I’ve been saying for quite a long time that this was a race I would never take part in because it’s on the back roads around Bodmin Moor therefore very few spectators around and probably on the day 400 runners or less. And then two weeks ago I realised that my usual Friday training run wasn’t possible because I had a meeting in Plymouth so I would have to do the long run on Sunday, that is today, so I might as well pay my entry fee and take part in the run and use it as a training run and ultimately run a bit further than I would’ve done in a normal training run. So I convince myself I wasn’t actually entering to do the race. I was rocking up to do a training run that happened to involve a lot of other people. Most of them would not be around me but usually there would be someone within sight. I’ve got a lift with Peter Sowerby and it was a great day, the running conditions were ideal for early November no rain no wind and a temperature that was comfortable. I felt relatively warm all the way through with a base layer and a running vest – in fact at one point, I thought I might have to take the base layer off because I was getting a bit too hot. I did the Run / Walk 4 minutes 1 minute method that I used in Brighton and it worked really well and I was delighted to come home in under five hours. Only 10 minutes slower than Brighton which given the amount of Hills on the Cornish marathon, I was very pleased with so my confidence for the ARC 50 has increased a bit but I recognise that it will be a lot tougher to run and obviously a lot slower but I think this is not a bad base to be at about 11 weeks out.
  • 2nd – Saturday – Parkrun Pacing – 3 – 3 – I’m doing 40 minutes as a leg loosener before tomorrow’s race. 
Trevor Lee - Cornish Marathon
Still got gloves on so think this was relatively early on
Trevor Lee Cornish Marathon 2024
Think this was at Jamaica Inn so 15.5 miles in - during a 1 minute walk

Oct 2024 - 14 runs 102 miles - 86 days at end of Oct to the Arc 50!

  • 30th – Wednesday – Club Night- 3.5 – 102 – run to club night there and back and take a coached session 
  • 27th – Sunday – MTRS Rosemullion 10k – 6 – 98.5 – pushed hard to test legs after hill reps – really pleased with 64:43 and being ahead of Tris and Matthew Stobart – not finished ahead of Matthew at parkrun for a long time. 63:54 in 2022.  
  • 26th – Saturday – Parkrun set up then hill reps then marshal – 3.5 – 92.5 – adding one more than last time (2 weeks ago) so 16 today. Distracting myself by going through my TRC Chair leaving speech on the uphills. 10k there and back brisk walk to Truro City FC. 
  • 25th – Friday – hiking round Perranporth golf in high winds carrying bag 
  • 24th – Thursday – 45 mins indoor bike 
  • 23rd – Wednesday – Club Night – 11 – 89 – run there and back and in-between lead a 7.8 mile steady run taking in Coosebean and Newham Trail.  
  • 19th – Saturday – Parkrun – 3 – 78 – Set up training for a couple of runners so actually ran the parkrun for first time in while (excluding pacing) – 29:20 was ok after yesterday. 
  • 18th – Friday – Training Run – 17 – 75 – wet second half. Lower road to Idless then 2nd left out of Idless to SLandEnd – usual back roads top of  hill up past farm on corner turned left > small triangle turn right > next ruinable keep right and follow to left turn up to park n ride. Out to new bridge – turn around – round back of Threemilestone – then down new ham and up first road and final hill up Treworder road to finish
  • 15th – Tuesday – 5km on treadmill 
  • 14th – Monday – TRC Monday Night Run at Trelissick – 6.5 – 58 – great away night for ten Monday group. Followed by a visit to teh punch Bowl and Ladle. £5.85 for a 500ml bottle of 0.5% Proper Job which only cam out today. £5.85! No wonder not many people go to pubs these days. 
Trevor Lee Park run hill reps
Using leafs to count hill reps in the Trelissick parkrun field.
View from parkrun meeting place around 7am on Oct 19th
  • 12th – Saturday – ParkRun – 4 – 51.5 – I arrive realty and jog over to do the field hill reps before marshalling. Plan is to keep doing one more so this is my 5th go in the last 8 weeks or so which means 15! I use the leaf system to keep tally! Felt ok after 16 miles the day before. 
  • 11th – Friday – Training Run – 16 – 47.5 – I’ve located Friday am to training run but not done many. The sun is out so I decide to get going at 9.30am. Head to Idless then onto Shortslaneend then over to Threemile stone park and ride, round back of TMS come out at Spar Shop and then Newham trail to turning circle. Felt really good trying to run at 140 bpm and below. 
  • 9th – Wednesday – Club Night – 5.5 – 31.5 – run to the club then join a 6 mile group but i dip out at the Woods to short cut back – we’ve got a Club Standards meeting and then I get a lift back into town. Legs feeling tired tonight. 
  • 7th – Monday – TRC Monday Run – 10.5 – 26 – TRC Tywarnhayle 10k on Sunday – rain rain rain but as the man on the mic somehow my kit survives! The big speaker is outside covered by an old car seat cover which proves very waterproof. The rain continues on Monday and Trafalgar roundabout floods in the late pm causing some travel chaos. I jog down to usual Boscawen Park meet point but no one arrives! One guy does and then I see Andy W run from his estate – I manage to get his attention and the run is now from Garras Wharf – it is reduced but I stay out running several of the Truro road hills. 
  • 5th – Saturday – Parkrun  pacing – 3 – 15.5 – always enjoy passing – I start off doing 39 but then switch to 37 on the hill. 
  • 2nd – Wednesday – Ostend – 6 – 12.5 – last full day of our stay and great weather – pre-breakfast run today is along both jetties then across which is now a flat beach – 3.5km along the beech then back along the prom. The next day I’m on the train from Ostend to Brussels then Eurostar to London then London to Truro. 
  • 1st – Tuesday – Ostend – 6.5 – 6.5 – great airbnb with Beth overlooking the beach. Go for an explore run along the jetty and prom and then back into the city trying to find the bakery from yesterday! I found it the next day with shutters down. Looks like we enjoyed the last day before it closed for a break.  

Sept 2024 - 11 runs 115 miles - 118 days at end of Sept to the Arc 50!

Trevor Lee Canterbury parkrun
At the Canterbury parkrun
Trevor Lee Treggy 7 2024
Heading to the finish of the Treggy 7
  • 28th – Saturday – Canterbury Parkrun – 9 – 115 – 4km there, 1km to coffee and 5km back so 9 miles in total! Lovely day today. HQ is the University of Kent Sports pavilion – with start and finish alongside a football pitch – could it be the one I played on for Nonington v UKC all those years ago. Make some new friends over coffee which is at the Templeman library building. My time of 27:27 I’m happy with. They have two pavers – 26 and 28 so ideal for me! Travel on Sunday to Ostend to meet Beth. 
  • 27th – Friday – Canterbury Explorer 9 – 106 – Walk with Jim to work then set off to explore starting at cricket ground. It starts to rain after a couple of miles! Check out where the parkrun is then stop off at the Foodhall near the station hoping a cup of tea will drive the rain away! Carry on for a bit longer but not much enthusiasm for taking photos! 
  • 23rd – Monday – TRC Monday Night Run – 7 – 97 – Felt good stretching along at the front for the first mile or so but then  drop back!
  • 21st – Saturday – Parkrun hill reps – 3 – 90 – Set up with Andy W then stay at field to do hill reps. Aiming to do one more each time so today its 14. 
  • 20th – Friday – Road run – 10 – 87 – I was all geared up to head to Cape Cornwall to do the Arc section to Pendeen but even though the weather was looking great I couldn’t bring myself to drive there and then catch a bus from Pendeen back to St Just – all for a section of around 4 miles. So instead I walked to the top road then ran to the new A30 pedestrian bridge and back. 10.25 miles in total. Th path isn’t fully finished but it’s the first time I’ve run to and over the bridge. Out in 54:30 and back in 51:30 pushing the pace over the last mile or so. 
  • 18th – Wednesday – Club Night – 7 – 77 – I run to club then lead a 5 and a bit largely off road run in St Clements woods – by the time we leave the woods the light is fading fast.be headtorches next time. Legs are aching so I get a lift back! 
  • 14th – Saturday – The Woods 34 – 70 – I’ve entered the OAK version which gives me 12 hours to complete as many of the just slightly over 4 mile loop through the woods at the Heidi that I can stop I took with me a large container full of home-made pizza, rolls other snacks plus a giant flask of green tea and various gels, plus I was right next to the set up area where food was being offered I also had in my books several spare shirts and the odd pair of socks and I did use the shirts a lot because I hadn’t realised that I would have to wear the hydration vest and tape with me the mandatory kit on every lap. So that made it given it was a beautiful day a bit of a sweaty old Run so I was very pleased to have taken spare shirts with me. I’m usually at these sort of events about 90 minutes before the start time but for whatever reason I was late getting there and I parked up then went to register. They went back to the car which was only three or four minutes away to get my gear and by the time return the race brief was on the way! So everyone who was running whether they were doing the 369 or 12 hour version set off at the same time at 8 am and we headed onto the loop, I was towards the back because I was planning to take it nice and steady and try and run the same pattern each loop in other words if there were bits to walk which there were a few small inclines then I would walk those on every lap and apart from that I would run or shuffle everything else rather than run first four laps and then largely walk some of the others. I managed to go the wrong way twice on lap three, firstly when I was following a couple of girls who were quite well ahead of me and then they suddenly turned back and said we’ve gone wrong and then secondly just be on the 2 mile marker there were some short appeal steps where you turned left but for some inexplicable reason I turned right I kept going along this track think, that I would get to where the marshals were to steer us up the biggest incline and they just weren’t there and eventually I joined up with those that were starting a new lap who then kindly pointed out this to me so I turned around and ran back and that turned that lap into a 5 mile and it also disrupted my plans a little bit for each lap because I was aiming to run each lap in roundabout 49 or 50 minutes and then take the rest of the time up to the hour to have a cup of tea and a bite to eat feet up for a few minutes in the chair and then crack on after that. After five laps just over 21 miles I stopped for an hour and just put my feet up tried to have a power nap and then got going again and then after lap six I had a bit of a rub down with a massage people and then on lap seven I ran with a guy who was a couple of laps ahead of , but he was at the stage where he wasn’t running as fast as he would probably had done earlier and he drag me along. We were talking all the time and I ended up doing that lap four minutes quicker than lap six so this took me through to get it onto Woods 5 o’clock and at 10 to 5 I left on my last lap which took just over an h, and that was me done and the organises rang the bell as I signal to them that this was definitely the last time I was crossing the finish line. So I ended up completing 34 on a bit miles and I suppose yes I could’ve shuffled round maybe another lap possibly two who knows but I didn’t want to push my luck and knowing specially that I had to drive home and I had to be up very early in the morning in order to get down to Le Key in Truro by 6:30 am to firstly help set up the Truro half marathon and then do all the commentary for it throughout the rest of the morning so by the time on that Sunday I got back having enjoyed a delicious large portion of chips and curry sauce after we cleared all the stuff away and then been to the Skinners brewery for a well earned drink I was feeling a little tired but typically and I don’t know whether anyone else suffers from this when I went to bed I was really tired but my legs were still twitching around a little bit and I struggled to get to sleep because of that even though I’ve had a long soak in the bath kind of thing as well before I went to bed so maybe it’s just my legs. Maybe this is on the Saturday of course maybe they were just saying huh? You need to get back out there and do those extra two laps!
34 miles done - time for feet up!
Trying to untangle my poles as the biggish uphill is imminent
  • 11th – Wednesday – 5 – 36 – Club night – join the transition group – didn’t run there and back as we had a management meeting. Could be my last full one as the next full one is the AGM and I’m hoping I will be replaced! 
  • 10th – Tuesday – Zwift – 45 minutes on indoor bike
  • 8th – Sunday – 7.5 – 31 I was planning an Arc recce – Cape Cornwall to Pendeen but the weather was poor on Friday and worse today so I went for a 9.30 am run around the Trelissick trails for the first time in ages. No repeats on the route which took just under 90 minutes. a good shake out for the legs after yesterday. 
  • 7th – Saturday – 7.5 – 23.5 Parkrun – 13 hill reps with a jog there and back and then paced 40 minutes. And then 6 mile there and back walk to the football. 
  • 6th – Friday – Treadmill  5km – slow start then building speed to come in under 30 mins. 
  • 4th – Wednesday – Club Night – 9 – 16 – feels like my first club night running to the club and back for a while – I lead the 5.6 mile St Clements route. 
  • 1st – Sunday – Treggy 7 – 7 – 7 – this is the 11th of 14 races in the 2024 Grand Prix series and a very good test to ensure that my hamstring is fully recovered. I start off behind a couple of clubmates but managed to go past them before halfway not realising that at that point I was the sixth man in a Truro vest so much to my surprise later on that evening when I check the results, I found myself listed in the Truro first team! – That is definitely a first and unlikely to be repeated – we finished fifth team overall.

    I came in in 65:35 which was a very similar time to my 7 mile Mag 7 race at the beginning of July and I maintained up a hill which is a quarter of a mile long my record of not walking a single step in this year’s Grand Prix series – pre-race I had one of the precision gels and a beetroot shot and during the race I had a Precision energy bloc. 

August 2024 - 7 runs 43 miles - 147 days at end of August to the Arc 50!

  • 31st – Saturday – 5 – 43 – Parkrun marshal so a chance to do 12 hill reps this time. 
  • 28th – Wednesday – Same again – steady 30 minutes on the treadmill to test the hamstring. Seems ok. 
  • 27th – Tuesday – Steady 30 minutes on the treadmill to test the hamstring. seems ok. 
  • 26th – Monday – Bank holiday and Truro FC are playing at their new stadium in Threemilestone – which is as you might expect 3 miles from Truro so I walk there and back briskly as part of my training.
  • 20th – Tuesday – Playing cricket for Cornwall Seniors and I managed to tweak my left hamstring batting and then my right one slightly when fielding. Cricket is one of those games which looks innoculus but actually, I reckon I get as many injuries with Cricket if not more than I do with Running. So I have to hang back until I hamstrings are cleared up so I’m foam roller and stretching.
When your presentation doesn’t go to plan
Again not sure where this is - given I'm looking ok I imagine it was before Portloe
  • 17th – Saturday – Parkrun marshal and hill reps – 4.5 – 38 – I arrive early for my spot as a marshal in the field at parkrun so that I can run up and down the famous Parc run hill 11 times before the runners come into the field and I take up my duties as the field marshal – this is a great way to do Hill wraps and is probably more beneficial for me than just running the park run every time so I’m going to try and do this as often as possible going forward.
  • 14th – Wednesday – Club Night Tehidy Woods – 4.5 – 33.5 – a lot of driving this week, up to Surrey on Monday, play cricket there on Tuesday and drive back Wednesday morning before getting a lift to the club night in Tehidy Woods and join a nice gentle group which is just ideal for what I needed.
  • 10th – Saturday – Sticker 5 – 5- 29 – Evening race – number GP 10 and my 9th – the one I missed was the Indian Queen half which was last Sunday – day after the RAT. This is a good test of both my legs and my Running confidence to a degree. I start off quite steady and gradually work my way past a few people to finish in 47:13 which is quite a bit down on last year’s 43:35 but nevertheless I’m more than happy with that. I also take a first ever precision gel before the start and I have a precision electrolyte drink to sip also before the start and both seem to work pretty well.
  • 10th – Saturday – Parkrun pacing – 3- 24 – I do 35 minute pacing – my first run since the RAT DNF. 
  • 8th – Thursday – ARC 50 Planning post RAT DNF – In the 108 cafe I start planning my training runs. I had already broken the route down into  nine sections so I now book dates in to run them and check transport options to avoid too many out and backs. The failure in the Black RAT has without doubt given me much more focus on the ARC. Every cloud and all that….
  • 5th – Monday – Black RAT reflection P2 – I rang Andy Williams and late am we recorded. See below for all the fuelling stuff that emerged during our recording. This 30 minute recording could save my ARC 50 attempt! I order some Precision Hydration gels and electrolyte tablets and chews. 
  • 4th – Sunday – Black RAT reflection – I turned 6.25 hours plus pre-start of recording into a 25 minute podcast episode. It was really useful to be reminded of what I was thinking and how I was feeling. 
  • 3rd – Saturday – Black RAT – 21 – 21  – I ran the 11 mile White Rat in 2019, the 20 mile Red Rat in 2022. I was entered for the Black in 2022 but picked up a stupid injury playing cricket. In 2023 I jibbed out because of a combination of the weather the camping arrangements and a couple of minor niggles. 2024 game on. I’m away at 5.10am, register at Porthpean, catch the bus to the start at St Anthony. First 12 miles all is good. I’m at Portloe in 3 hours. But then soon after that things start to fall apart. The course gets much harder but nevertheless by mile 15 I’m shuffling / walking a lot.
  • After 16 miles all I’m thinking about is getting to Gorran Haven checkpoint – 21 miles – and calling it in. Which is what happens. I’m comfortably inside the cut off but the thought of shuffling / mainly walking another 11 miles is too much. And I don’t want to be waling that much in what is a running race. So 2 questions of course to direct: Firstly did I make the right call? and secondly why did I feel like I did? It’s a Yes to Q1. As for Q2 – I simply didn’t;t do enough long run training. Since the Brighton marathon at the beginning of April I ran 12 or more miles just once – The Smugglers Scuttle in June – the day before I did run 6 parkruns so I guess that counts. Clearly not enough. For contrast in the 3 months before the Brighton marathon I ran 12+ miles 8 times.
  • Fuelling – I got this wrong as well. I took flapjack, hot cross buns with crunchy peanut butter, mini malt loaves, mini cheddars, several gels, chewy bloks, chewy energy bars – despite all that food I didn’t enough.By the time I finished I had only had one gel and after the Portloe stop I hardly ate anything. On refection I just didn’t eat enough. At Portloe I had some Water Melon although it was a golden colour rather than the usual red. I had a half a bag of salty crisps and I had a pee. I didn’t necessarily need one.
  • So what about drinking? I set off with 3 liquid carriers. Water in the carrier in my hydration vest. In one fall I had a Maurtens 160 sachet which I planned to ‘save’ for the last few miles – that was a stupid idea in itself. In the second flask I had the ginger energy drink. At Portloe I’ve no idea how much of the carrier I had left quite a lot I thought so i didn’t top it up. I did pour another Ginger sachet in and topped that up. Writing this I reckon I drank in those 21 miles and 6 and a quarter hours 2 litres maximum. Turns out everyone else was drinking nearer a litre an hour.  My friend Andy Williams had storming run in the Plague and we compared notes during a recording on the Monday for the Running 44@60 podcast.
  • He used Precision Hydration having tested 2 other brands in practice, including Torq which has been my brand of choice for gels. He told men how on their website they offer a plan. So I put in the details. What came out is below. So over the 6.25 hours I took to get to Gorran Haven I should have taken on board 281g of carb. One of my Torq gels was 28g and the Torq energy bar 34g. I had one of each. So that’s 62g. 22% of what I needed! Ok I would have some carbs from the hot cross bun stuff and flapjack but I’ve no idea how much but I suspect no where near what I should have had. A mini malt loaf is 19g of carb – I carried loads of those but i don’t think I ate any of them. As to fluid the info below suggests over 6.25 hrs ( I put in the calculator that it was hot but not very hot) I needed almost 4 litres of fluid. I probably had less than half of that.
  • Talking to Andy and looking at these numbers I can’t believe I made so many basic errors. It’s like the person who struggles in their first Marathon because they don’t drink or eat enough. I wrote a whole chapter in my book about this – why did I not read it! 

July 2024 - 7 runs 29 miles - 178 days at end of July to the Arc 50!

Trevor Lee 200th Parkrun
Doesn't look as though I'm moving! Finish funnel beckons!
Trevor Lee hove Prom Parkrun 2024
One for the official photographer after the run - I am claiming a FKT!
  •  
  • 31st – Wednesday – Club Night – 5 – 29 – I take a coached session in the park so the miles come from there and back via the club and the does and taking part in some of it. This has been my lowest mileage month when I’ve not been injured for a long time. I’ve done a couple of races and been away for Jim’s graduation but I have been feeling a bit under the weather and de-energised. Very unlike me. Have I had covid somebody asked? Possibly I guess. 
  • 27th – Saturday – Taunton – 4 – 24 – in Taunton for my England Athletics Coach in Running Fitness final and assessment. I do 3 and a bit miles before breakfast – getting lost a few times even though I took a map print out with me to follow a course round some public meadows – turns out where a parkrun is held – we had to report to our course though at 9am.  We do some running when we are the athletes for our colleagues coaching. 
  • 20th – Saturday – Parkrun – 3 – 20  – still not really feeling it run wise and I’ve lost interest in playing cricket – is my sporting enthusiasm waning? It’s the wettest I’ve known for Trelissick during the actual run. We’re all soaked at the end. 29:36 ensures I’m under 30 minutes. Good debrief on the coaching programme with Kelly and Kate afterwards. 
  • 17th – Wednesday – Turkey Trot GP 8 – 4 – 17  – the first time I’ve done all 8 of the first 8 in the Cornwall GP series. In 2109 I did 8 in total of the 13 to get a small trophy. It is best 8 places to count so I’m unlikely to improve my standings after this – I have to hope in my age cat few people completely 8 across the year! I am feeling bit under the weather and 35:33 is two minutes down on 2022. The highlight is that Kelly and Kate who are my coached athletes for my coaching course both come in under their target of 40 minutes. 
  • 13th – Saturday – Hove Prom parkrun – 3 – 13  – its a busy week – I drive to Canterbury on Tuesday to meet Jim and Cass at their new house. We then head to Brighton on Thursday pm in readiness for their graduation on Friday. We’ve got an AirBnB in College Road just round the corner from the Brighton flat they had. It’s a great day at graduation and we somehow get to the parkrun. It’s my 200th so I have taken all the cricket gera. I get a nice shout out from the RD and then make it round in 31: 28 – it was hot under the helmet – Cass was on hand halfway to offer water. Probably my last Hove Prom parkrun and only my 4th – I thought it was more. My 7th equal fastest ever parkrun was here – 25:24 in 2023 the day before the Brighton half. I also did Preston Park once towards the end of 2022 – that was 25:16 – my 6th fastest ever! 
  • 7th – Sunday Mag 7 GP 7 7 – 10 – I’ve gone crazy and bought some Hoka fast shoes! Only for racing! This is my 7th of the 7 GP races in 2024 so 100%! 1:05:06 is 27 seconds quicker when I ran this race in 2022. People rave about the route – I can never remember them but I don’t recall the route being one to rave about! Just the usual array of up and down hill Cornish roads! 
  • 6th – Saturday Trelissick Parkrun Pacing 3 – 3 – I do 40 minutes 

June 2024 - 12 runs 82 miles - 209 days at end of June to the Arc 50!

  • 29th – Saturday – Parkrun – 3 – 82  – felt pretty slow today in 28:37
  • 26th – Wednesday – Club Night – 7 – 79  – lead the transition group
  • 23rd – Sunday – Smugglers Scuttle – 12.5 – 72  – now came a real test – this is an out and back course on the ARC route starting at Lands End going to Cape Cornwall with th return around point up to monument where Pirate Keith hands out the booty! When we started gathering at Lands End in advance of the 10am start it was very foggy and a bit drizzly. I decided to wear a short sleeved base layer under my TRC run shirt. Half a mile in I had to take it off as I was already heavily sweating. There was no direct sunshine but no wind either but I continued to sweat a lot – more so than usual. Was this linked to the Nuropon tablet I had taken to see off toothache just before the start? I got to the turn around in 1:40 and finished in just over 3:21 so roughly even splits taking into account the time at the change around for a photo with the Pirate, collect the booty etc…I run with a woman for half of the first half and most of the second before finally going past her with a couple miles to go. I then pass a few others so feeling strong as I run my 30th and 31st miles of the weekend. I’m slightly dizzy at the end but only very slightly and do some stretches and chatting including with Phoebe who I went past with a mile to go and was an old friend of my daughter. It takes me a while to slowly walk back to the car – and then a very slow change before a brief wander around – thought about an ice cream but a single scoop was £3.55! I had a protein shake, a flask of green tea and food with me. 
  • 22nd – Saturday Trelissick Parkrun 18.5 – 59.5 – During my run round on my own on the 1st I had this thought about running before the official parkrun on the Saturday nearest to the longest day. That’s this Saturday. My planning suggested I could cover 5 ‘park runs’ allowing 45 minutes for the run including the change around starting at what I thought would be enough light on the wooded start at 4.45am. I had a recurrence of toothache on Friday and it was raining in the late afternoon. I woke initially at 3am! A bit early as I planning to leave at 4:15am but enabled me to get the porridge on. Here’s what happened: Run 1: Start 4:42am Run Time 32:57 – Run 2 – 5:24am 32:35 – Run 3 – 6:07am 32:27 – Run 4 – 6:47am 32:23 – Run 5 – 7:29am 30:18 – so I was finished just after 8am – took my bags back to the parkrun briefing area then to car to get changed ready for main parkrun. I did get a shout out for the 5 I had done. I started near the front and was keen to know how after an hour’s break and 15.5 miles my legs would respond. They were ok. My checkpoint times were good and when I reached the small fence bit in 26:50 I knew I had a sub 30 chance – and I did it – 29:43! Very pleased with that. 
  • 15th – Saturday Trelissick Parkrun 3 – 41 – 27:27 – my fastest on the course this year by 5 seconds – over stream at 6:59, into field at 10:08 back over stream at 19:15
The first of my pre-park run 'parkruns' - started at 4:42am - time of 32:57
The fifth of my pre-park run 'parkruns' - started at 7:29am - time of 30:18
  • 13th – Thursday – 4 – 38 – 5km from 108 cafe and back with a few people from  Francis clarke – designed as Running Networking its a good way to start what turns into another very wet day. 
  • 12th – Wednesday – 5 – 34 – club night and I do  coach session on the Truro chill field with Stuart and Andrew but we only have 3 takers which is a bit of a shame. 
  • 11th – Tuesday – I was originally unavailable for cricket thinking I would be helping J & C move stuff into storage but with a place in Canterbury secured they are hoping to avoid storage so I drive back on Sunday but wasn’t added to the team for a massive 9 wicket hammering by Gloucestershire so I do a rare treadmill session – building up pace to complete 5km in 29.55 then doing a very steady 10k increasing the incline by 1% every lap to get to 10% near the finish. 
  • 8th – Saturday – 3.2 – 29 –  a repeat of the same course, this time with Jim and this time instead of paddling we do a bit of beach combing, the beach is all stones and we head towards the now redundant Dungeness power stations as we can’t go to the right because that is closed off as it forms part of the over shooting for the firing range.
  • 7th – Friday – 3 – 26 –   Beth and I run nice and steadily from our AirB&B down to the sea, have a paddle in the sea and then come back along the same vehicle track. This is near Camber Sands where we have a place for three nights to take in Beth’s birthday on Sunday.
  • 5th – Wednesday – 8.7 – 23 – I arrive in Brighton around lunchtime having left at 6:30am and with Jim and Cass not due back from flat hunting until 6pm I go for a run along the seafront starting at the flat. I go all the way along the front to the point where on both the half and full marathon race turned in from off the road onto the seafront finish. Its 3.7 miles from the flat so I ran back and then go further east to past the outdoor swimming pool and then turned back along the front and back up to the flat – I was thinking about aiming for 10 miles but in the end decided to settle for 90 minutes.
  • 2nd Sunday – Run / Burst – 11.2 – 14 – this is something I’ve made up and it takes me down the newham trail out to the Malpas turning circle and back – I start the first 30 second burst after 1 mile and then repeat it every half mile – putting in what I think is a 80 to 90% effort during the burst. It’s amazing how quickly each half mile comes round so a definite good thing to do and I try in the recovery period is to get my heart rate down is close to zone two as possible.The run takes 1:56.
  • 1st – Saturday Trelissick Parkrun 3 – 3 – 28.27 – I run the course on my own at 7:30 AM and then organise the pacing as I have to leave to get back for a full day on the Zoom for my running coaches course – which feels a little bit disorganised as we have two instructors different to the ones we had in Taunton and it doesn’t feel hugely joined up between what we did in Taunton with what we are covering today.

May 2024 - 10 runs 56 miles - 239 days at end of May to the Arc 50!

With son Jim at the Trevornick 10k - he was always ahead of me - gap at the end 1:22
A paddle in the sea at Dungeness during the June 7th run with Beth -
  • 29th – Wednesday – Club Night – 9.5 – 56 –  I lead a St Clements run with Colin on the Truro Trails 10k course. 
  • 27th – Monday – Social Run – 10 – 46.5 –  I go  to the social night run on Monday for the first time in a while after the Tuesday cricket match was yet again cancelled – that’s the third match out of six that hasn’t taken place so far this year – I run down to the park and then go with the group after it less before returning into town and then I drop off the group and then tackles some long hills, firstly thinking it would be good to get 8 miles and then readjusting that to 10 so I’m running according to my watch for 1:53 overall at the pace of 11:10 – I’m happy with that and it’s just exactly what I needed to start to rekindle the motivation to get training – I really enjoy the racing but getting out and training is the tough bit
  • 25th – Saturday ParkRun – 3 – 36.5 –   Jim and I  do the park run and not surprisingly he beats me – this time by 36 seconds in 26:56 with me 27:32 which was an improvement on last week and the fastest this year for me.
  • 22nd – Club Night – 4.5 – 33.5 –  last Wednesday we had the spring version of the club 5K handicap and this Wednesday I run a planned coaching session which I need to do for my coaching course – I do think or changing pace which I set up in Boscawen park. A couple of glitches – firstly my support leader – MCT – only told me that his watch does miles and not metres as we were leaving the club despite me telling him the part of his role was to mark a course out of 70 and 30 m intervals – this was around the perimeter of the park on the 1 km loop and to be used at the end of the session – you marked it out as part of a warmup but then when the runners did the session at the end they reported back that some of the cones had gone missing – the general public love a good cone to throw around, even though they are the small ones that sit basically on the ground and they also reported that the ones that were there were clearly out of sync so a bit of a learning curve there! the upside was that I had 12 people take part from a range of abilities and they seemed to really enjoy themselves
  • 19th Sunday – Trevornick 10k – 6 -29 one of my favourite races particularly as they do very good everyday T-shirts and obviously my name is on all of them! Jim has been here for a week so he’s on the start line as well. He starts off quicker than me and soon builds a gap of a minute or so which when I time it about halfway is a minute and a half – I can’t close the gap and in the end he is 1:22 ahead of me in 56:40 with me finishing in 58:02 – that compares with 56:49 in 2022 and 54:49 in 2019 – one thing I find slightly puzzled about this event is that it is part of the Cornwall grand prix road running series but it is entirely off road – indeed more off-road than many of the multi-terrain race series events – anyway I’ve now completed the first six of the GP series for 2024 and I’m lying in third place in the category table – I am booked in for the next two events both in July which will then give me the eight races from which your best positions are taken
  • 18th – Saturday Trelissick Parkrun – 3 – 23 – 27:46 on the original course – legs felt heavy before the start – still though my fastest time this year – would be good to go sub 27 on this course over the summer 
Running 44@60 training in Weston Super Mare
A misty morning in Weston Super Mare - the prom is a great place to run
The Trelissick parkrun pacing team back in action for the first time in 2024
The Trelissick parkrun pacing team back in action for the first time in 2024

 

  • 12th – Sunday – Training Run – 7 – 20 –  I go for a run along the top road following the path all the way down to where the new football stadium is being built but where the path isn’t yet complete to go all the way to the bridge which is new and now crosses the A30 for pedestrians – when there is complete it will be a nice run which will probably be a good 10 miles out and back.
  • 11th – Saturday ParkRun Pacing – 3 – 13 –  I’ve sort of taken over the organisation of pacing which has been delayed until we return to the traditional course – so we get a full team out even minutes from 22 all the way through to 40 which is me – it is a real challenge to try and pace correctly especially when you’re pacing a run much lower than you would normally do.
  • 8th – Wednesday Weston Super Mare – 6 – 10 – I played cricket in Gloucestershire on Tuesday and then I went to a business show as an exhibitor in Filton on the edge of Bristol on Thursday so there was no point in coming back to Truro and the hotels around Filton were very expensive so I ended up going to the seaside resort of Weston-super-Mare – I had been once before probably 12 years ago or so when Beth laid in a concert competition there for St Keverne Band. I’m out for a run at 7am going along the prom then following some roads parallel to the seafront or returning with a plan to run for just an hour – the prom is very flat and later on before I’m involved in online session link to my coaching course in the evening I go back down to the prom and watch all the runners and particularly their arm movements and their feet position.
  • 4th & 5th  Saturday & Sunday –  I’m up in Taunton for day one and two of my running coaches course – I really enjoy it, keen to organise some coached sessions.
  • 1st – Wednesday Club Night – 4 – 4 – I take a coached session based on a 1km loop of Boscawen park with runners doing 20%, 40%, 60%, 80%, 100% in 200m intervals – I run there na back and do a lap with them to set up the course. 

April 2024 - 8 runs 67 miles - 270 days at end of April to the Arc 50!

Trevor Lee - Run Like Hell
Pick from 'Run like Hell' - this is on the way back with steps in the background
Trevor Lee Run Like Hell 2024
I think this is also on the way back - not quite sure where
  • 27th – Saturday Trelissick parkrun – 3 – 67 – I think the Brighton Marathon followed by two competition runs on the following two weekends finally caught up with me during supporting Dave’s virtual London Marathon. I joined him and Tim at 9 miles and I was struggling a bit to keep up thinking Dave was going too fast. After thinking I was in a play cricket this year I played on Tuesday and covered almost 5 miles according to my GPS in the field, even though I fielded at first slip for the first eight overs or so. By Wednesday I was feeling completely knackered! So this is my first run six days and after a torrid wet winter we are finally back on the original course. I’m very happy with 27:52 but is technically my fastest at is venue this year and looking at my records I only went faster than this twice in 2023.
  • 21st – Sunday Dave W’s Virtual London – 7 – 64 –  TRC runner Dave Wilcox has tried several times to get into London through the ballot and not made it so he’s now running his own version starting at 2 PM and I join him for 7 miles of it between miles 9 and 16. 
  • 20th – Saturday Run Like Hell – 8 – 57 –  Back racing again this time the second year of this event which starts and finishes at Hells Mouth Cafe on the north coast not far from Godrevy and is essentially an out and back to Portreath. It’s my first run on the coastal path this year and it’s good to record some landmark points as this is part of the Arc course. My time in 2023 was 1:31:55 so I’m really pleased to have beaten that by quite a bit in 1:27:11.
  • 17th – Wednesday TRC Clubnight – 7 – 49 –  I saunter up to club night and back, with the back fit after enjoying several slices of pizza as it’s our spring pizza night and I run about 4 miles or so with the transition group
  • 14th – Sunday An Res Helly – 10 – 42 – this is race number five in the Cornish Grand Prix series for 2024 and it’s the first time I’ve completed the first five in what is a series of 13 with the best 8 races to count towards your final position. I first did this race according to my running diary in 2006 in 1:19:12, I also did it in 2008, 2010, 2011, 2013 and 2019 which was my slowest at 1:30:19. Given it’s only seven days since Brighton I’m not expecting to get near that time but after a steady start I catch up with several of my teammates with a message that they will no doubt re-catch me at about 7 miles but they don’t! And I’m delighted with 1:33:57 given that my target was to try and sneak just under 1:40 – my brother Richard and his wife Jo arrived for a week in Cornwall the previous day and so that afternoon I meet up with them at their holiday place near Redruth and enjoy the hot tub that comes with it.
  • 13th – Saturday Trelissick parkrun – 3 – 32 – First run since Brighton and feeling okay – we are still on the winter course and I do 28:32 which is not far away from my best time on this course this year of 28:15
Rob Deering with Trevor Lee at Brighton Komedia
With Rob Deering who headlined the Comedy Club
Trevor Lee relaxing after finishing the Brighton Marathon
Relaxing after finishing the Brighton Marathon
  • 7th – Sunday – Brighton Marathon – 26 – 29 – What an amazing day! The sun came out and the spectators came out in their droves. My wave is started by Paula Ratcliffe at 10:30am – I’m recording for the podcast on the way round and I’m going to be using the Jeff Galloway method – four minutes running one minute walking. I’m keen to be under five hours – my last marathon 18 months ago at Loch Ness saw me completely blow up in the second half and turn a 2:11 first half into a total time of 5:08. and through the first half here in 2:16 and I complete second half into 2:26 – without doubt the crowds were a massive help and so I think in the last 4 or 5 miles was the Jeffing as I set myself a goal of running 0.36 miles during each of the four minute running segments in those last few miles. For a time in the middle of the run I was with the 4:30 pacers trying to get ahead of them by at least 30 to 40 seconds when I was running as they then caught me up during the walk. I dropped behind them probably around 18 or 19 miles but at around 23 miles I saw the 4:45 pacers coming towards me up on a different side so knew I was well ahead of them. The last couple of miles followed the same route as the half marathon although I couldn’t remember exactly where that finished but we emerged onto the Hove Prom with about 1.4 miles to go. It was a great feeling to get to the 25 mile marker. I walked for the 55th at 4:34 with less than a mile to go and I knew then that I wouldn’t be walking at 4:39 because I was looking very good to be under 4:45 and I didn’t want to walk in front of all those amazing people lining the route on both sides to the finish including Jim and Cass who were only a few yards from the finish cheering like mad on my side of the route and I completely missed them I was so focused on that finish line. Here are the splits:
  • 5k –   31:27     31:27
  • 10k – 32:47    1:04:14
  • 15k – 32:17     1:36:31
  • 20k – 31:43    2:08:14
  • Halfway          2:15:38
  • 25k – 32:40    2:40:54
  • 30k – 32:23    3:13:17
  • 35k – 36:15     3:49:32
  • 40k – 37:22    4:26:54
  • Finish             4:42:13
  • 6th – Saturday – Hove Prom Parkrun – 3 – 3 It’s quite a long walk from Jim and Cass’s flat to the Hove promenade parkrun but it is a good flat course so a chance to just stretch the legs before tomorrow’s marathon – I try to take it relatively easy but then push on to make sure I finish in under 27 minutes which I do in 26:54
Trevor Lee a few yards from the finish of the Brighton Marathon
A few yards from the finish - so focused I didn't see Jim and Cass taking this pic
Trevor Lee Mid race Brighton Marathon
Think this was around the middle of the race

March 2024 - 10 runs 73 miles - 300 days at end of March to the Arc 50!

  • 29th – Friday – 10 mile Jeffing – 10 – 73 – It’s  nine days to the Brighton Marathon feel as though I need to do a good decent stretch and practice the run walk method so I set my watch for the formalities of running the one minute walking and I go up to the top road and I thought the new cycle/running path was complete all the way out to the old roundabout on the A30 but 3.4 miles along the road I realised that wasn’t the case so I came back and then double back on myself again to get up to 10 miles. I was happy with the pace of around 9:40 – this will be with the exception of the park run my last run before the Brighton Marathon and as usual I am thinking I done enough training – especially as I missed a few days in a back-to-back weekend at the start of March.
  • 25th – Monday – TRC Monday night club – 6.5 – 63 – It’s my turn to lead the group and although we are nearly the end of March it’s a pretty horrible lie so it’s full on wet weather gear all round for about 10 of us
  • 23rd – Saturday – Parkrun at Trelissick – 3 – 56.5 –  Beth creates a family park run record because she ran where Bluebell who is the dog of Tom and Jenna who Beth is looking after for the day – she does well break in 35 minutes and I’m just under 29 minutes – we then go for a long walk with the dog around Idless Woods
  • 22nd – Friday – Newham with Beth – 5.5 – 53.5 –  Beth arrived on Thursday evening so we went for a heart rate zone run along the Newham Trail and back
  • 20th – Wednesday – Club Night – 7.5 – 48 –  I run to the club and then take part in one of the loops around town but don’t run back to the club
  • 17th – Sunday – Falmouth Half  – 13 – 40.5 – This is part of my back-to-back training for the Brighton Marathon and I’m very sluggish through the first 3 miles and then reach halfway in 69 minutes but the sun comes out and I go back to a goal that I used to set myself in the days when I ran these events without being a club member and that is to assume it halfway I’m in 20th position and I need to get on the podium. This worked for me really well as I ran better in the second half and I ended up overtaking 60 people in that second half to finish in a time of 2:13:45, so given the 10 miles I done the previous day I was pretty pleased with that, especially given that I have lost a back-to-back weekend at the beginning of the month after having the cough that I couldn’t shake off.
  • 16th – Saturday – Parkrun at Trelissick – 10 – 27.5 – It’s my 100 volunteer role at Trelissick Park run and my 101st overall which I took a bit of time to remember where the other one had been turns out and I do remember it now that in the early days when I was going to Lanhydrock I marshalled one point. So I do set up first and then do the park run in 29:06 and then I go through the finish funnel, jump to the car, slip on the small hydration vest and head off on a circuit around the parson trials that by the time I get back to the car means I’ve done 10 miles altogether.
  • 13th – Wednesday – 8.5 – 17.5 – I join the performance group and we go down to Boscawen Park and do by 1 km laps with a two minute walk between laps five times at half marathon pace. It starts just beyond the end of the car park finishes between a lamppost and another sign just before the mini roundabout and then you walk across the car park back to the start and do another lap. I’m pleased with my consistency as I do they fit on the path around the park between 2:44 and 2:47 every lap, getting to the 20 mph sign just under five minutes and completing  each lap just under six minutes. 
  • 11th – Monday – 6 – 9 – I lead the TRC Monday night social / recovery run –  on a bit of  zig zag around the city. 
  • 9th – Saturday – 3 – 3 – Trelissick Parkrun – the weather has been so bad that we are still using the winter course – I’m happy with 28:32

February 2024 - 15 runs 128 miles - 331 days at end of February to the Arc 50!

February was a new personal best for miles completed in a single calendar month. After doing the back-to-back runs which I was really pleased with on the Tuesday I developed a dry cough – with this been a leap year February extended to day 29 which was Thursday so an opportunity to get one or two short runs in and get to 130 miles+. On Wednesday 28th I was booked in at the Cornwall Run Lab for a VO2 max test. The cough was getting worse and it was decided that I would start the test but if during the treadmill part I started coughing, bearing in mind I would be wearing a mask over my nose and mouth, then we would have abort the test and I would do it another time. I did wonder whether that would be the sensible option anyway because with the cough I risked not getting a proper result for where I was at, but the other side of that coin was that I had done a lot of mileage in January and February so in theory my level of fitness should be for me pretty good.

The first part of the test involves sitting on a chair wearing the mask kit for 10 minutes with no talking or indeed doing anything else. It’s a long 10 minutes!

Part two was on the treadmill which was set at 0% and the initial speed was set at 3.7 kph which I did for three minutes as a warm up. 

The speed then increased by 0.6 kph every minute until I could essentially no longer carry on with the idea being that I would simply jump onto the sideboards of the treadmill so it could be stopped. I managed to do quite a lot of extra minutes – I think something like 15 or 16 to get up to around 19 minutes in total and by that time the speed was close to 13 kph. I probably could have done one more minute but I was concerned about the fact that I’d avoided coughing but my breathing was getting more laboured in the mask so I decided enough was enough.

The cough got definitely worse on Thursday and Friday to the extent that I pulled out of Cousin Jack on the Saturday as well as Andy Brown’s 60th birthday curry that night.

The following week I was away with work which included two nights in the Village hotel in Bournemouth which had a fantastic 25 m indoor pool and a massive gym. I was there on Tuesday and Wednesday nights and on the first night I went swimming for the first time in ages and did 40 lengths so 1 km and then on the second night I use the stepping cross trainer and the staircase machine followed by a 20 length swim.

I got back on the Friday morning and Saturday was then my first run for almost 2 weeks.

  • 25th – Sunday – 10 – 128 – Looe 10 –  this is race three of the Cornish Grand Prix series and the first time I’ve done all three of those first three. My legs feel okay after yesterday and I remember to take my small hydration vest utilising the new Ginger isotonic drink which I planned to test the previous day. It is horrendously wet! It is raining all the way to Looe and it is quite a challenge to get out of the car and go to registration without getting soaked and then again to the toilets about 20 minutes before the race starts. So like everyone else I’m taking shelter in my car until the last minute, and fortunately the race starts from the massive car park which everyone is using. Given the run yesterday I’m aiming to be under 12 minute miles which would get me in in under two hours although I have done this before in 1:42 and 1:43. At the halfway point I’m just over 55 minutes so I readjust my target to nearer 1:50 knowing that the last mile will be quite fast given it was very uphill at the start. Stick in two quick miles – 9:27 and 9:00 for 6 and 7 then there is a mighty hill in mike 8 (13:17) but I speed up in mile 9 (10:19) and latest mile is mile 10 downhill and then back through the town to the finish in the car park (8:51) – I’m home in 1;45:44 and its still raining although not as heavy. I am grateful for my friends Bob and Jill Fleming who invited me to their penthouse flat on the harbour front for a hot shower and lunch. 
  • 24th – Saturday – 13 – 118 – Cardinham Woods Half Marathon – first leg of the weekend that the back to back runs – it’s very damp and there are lots of big uphills but I set my goal to run of sorts up all of them – schoolboy error was leaving my hydration vest in the kitchen and this was supposed to be a cupless event but unfortunately I took two with me to give to one of my cricket friends who only needed one. I was round in 2:22 which given the nature of the course I was happy with. This event was organised by an independent company Purple Gecko and as with all these kind of events the question of value comes in given that the entry fee was £35 and the only thing you received was a generic medal but didn’t actually specify the particular event. There was one water station which was a help yourself one which you passed twice. There was no chip timing and you had to pay effectively £6 to park at the venue. I’ve no idea if there were any prizes I certainly didn’t see any and there was no mention of prize-giving. I’m not sure if the marshals were paid. Would  I do this again? Probably not for £35 but I might pay £37 to be a local member of  Cardinham Woods and get free parking but that would mean needing to go seven times a year or more to cover the daily parking charge.
  • 19th – Monday – 5 – 105 – TRC Monday night group – a nice steady run which usefully came back close to the house so I said cheerio having run to the start. That’s it now until the back to back weekend runs.
  • 18th – Sunday – 18 – 100 – long run that I didn’t do on Friday. Legs feeling  tired from all the mileage in February but by the time I have some porridge breakfast and set a goal of getting out there just after 9 am and I knew the course I had plotted as well – so down the Newham trail into Truro down to Idless out to Shortlanesend back roads to Threemilestone – road the back of TMS down to New Mills back into Truro and then along Coosebean and back to get in 18 miles. Which took me just a tad over three hours 40 minutes so an average pace of 12:12 which was okay given the fact that there were several hills and I was deliberately trying to run a bit slower. it means I have completed 100 miles in February, something I did according to my records in 2021 but with two events planned next weekend I will go a little bit over the 100 all things being equal.
  • 17th – Saturday – 3 – 82 –  No long run on Friday – legs felt too tired after the Wed session. The Merrell Agility Peak 5’s have arrived so I wear them doing set up. 28:22 is an ok time although when I crossed the stream in 20:15 I thought I could beat 28 mins. 
  • 14th – Wednesday – 9.5 – 79 –  TRC Club Night Run – our regular coaches Stu and Andrew are unavailable so I offer to take the hill reps session – the same one I did in January – 9 of us which is great – 1.5 miles to start area – which I initially get wrong and then we’re off – 11 reps 18 minutes on the pyramid in minutes: 0.5, 1, 1.5, 2, 2.5, 3, 2.5, 2, 1.5, 1, 0.5 –  a great effort and a surprising distance covered 
  • 12th – Monday – 6 – 69.5-  TRC Monday Night Run – nice and steady – that’s 4 days on the trot so rest on Tuesday
  • 11th – Sunday – 6.5 – 63.5-  Its cricket nets and whilst I want to be there I also don’t want to be there so I come up with a cunning plan which takes me on a recovery run out towards the golf club, back among Coosebean and after 5.3 miles and is up at the sports centre where the cricket nets are. I sneak up onto the balcony where there are couple of rows of seats to watch from and then there aren’t that many cricketers there so I’m kind of glad I didn’t make the effort to go and practice, I stated 10 minutes and then run back home.
  • 10th – Saturday – 3 – 57 – Trelissick parkrun 300th  anniversary event with fancy dress encouraged I’m up for it with the cricket gear which will be a good test given that I did the mileage yesterday and I was up early to do the setup today – 33:49 is good, especially given the fact that I thought I was running really quite slowly in the first 2K in particular, and the kit got a bit wet as very unusually it was raining quite heavily during the briefing.
  • 9th – Friday – 18.5 – 54 –  It’s the solo Friday morning run and it’s the longest one for quite a long time and taking the onto the roads around Calenick and Cowlands which have some mighty hills, back into town then out back to Malpas, up Tregolls out to Coosebean. 3 1/2 hours in total which is around about 11:20 mile pace
  • 7th – Wednesday – 4 – 35.5 – It’s club night but I’ve agreed to represent the club at a meeting at the rugby club where we meet today with local sports collaborations and initiatives so I only get the mileage from running an extended to and then back from the club. And the meeting leaves me a little bit perplexed as after it’s finished and still no idea what it was about!
  • 5th – Monday – 6.5 – 31.5 – Monday night gang – felt a bit steady – no front running tonight. 
  • 4th – Sunday – 6 – 25 – Newquay 10k – race 2 of the 2024 Cornwall GP series. With 46 miles in the last 6 days this is a good test. Its 700+ field and everyone race off – 16:34 for 2 miles is good and I keep that pace going finishing in 52:30 which is faster than 53:43 in 2022. According to my running diary my fastest 10k since one in Redruth in 2009 when I was 49:06. 
  • 3rd – Saturday – 3 – 19 – Parkrun day! Up early to set up with Andy Williams and record a podcast at the same time about his St Ives velar management. Still on the winter course at Trelissick and happy to get round in 29:15
  • 2nd – Friday – 16 – 16 – Having missed a long run last Friday it was important to get back into that routine immediately and so my course today involved going up Tregolls Road, Idless, Shortlanesend, Threemilestone, Newham Trail. I took with me some hot cross bun with crunchy peanut butter and I’m trying some new contact lenses so I wore them throughout the run. After about 4 miles, even though I’d had a couple of big efforts before I left, I really wanted a poo! to the extent that I started thinking about how I could do it somewhere in the countryside. I tried very hard not to think about it but that was quite tricky and it was slightly made worse when I had to keep eating! And then as I was coming towards the end of mile nine in a field alongside the road there were two portaloos and no one around. It was a daffodil field. I clambered over the gate, slipping on the drop-down side and nearly wrenching my shoulder only to discover not unexpectedly that they were locked. So my next plan was the park-and-ride. But when I got towards that I didn’t really want to lose momentum so kept on going into threemilestone and then enquired at the bus stop if there were public loos around. a man at the bus stop pointed me in the direction of the community centre, so I snuck in there whilst there was some what looked like dancing going on and boy how pleased was I to be out assured what felt like a few pounds! That was just before the completion of mile 10 and I smashed out 10 minute mile after that! I was pleased to do what was 16.2 miles and feel okay and run importantly for over three hours, the first time I had done any training run I imagine, but I will need to check, since the preparation for the Loch Ness Marathon in 2021. 

Welcome to 2024!

January 2024 - 17 runs 126 miles - 360 days at end of Jan to the Arc 50!

  • 31st – Wednesday – 9 – 126 – Club night – I lead an off road St Clements run – which by missing a turn slightly adds a bit, so with running there and back I get 9 mile sin to take me to a monthly PB of 126 miles! Spread over 17 runs and not bad considering I didn’t run  on any of the first 4 days of the month. Previous PB was Jan 2023 at 123 and before that April 2020 (lockdown) 122. 
  • 30th – Tuesday – 10 – 117 – Monday night I plan a 10 mile route with the idea when I get back from a client meeting in Newquay – around 12:45 – I’ll go straight out. That’s what I do helped by a lovely afternoon. I go up Tregolls, across to Idless to Shortlanesend, then some back roads before climbing the hill out of New Mills back to Kenwyn road. 
  • 29th – Monday – 7.5 – 107 – I’ve done the achilles stretches and decide to go out with the Monday group. A good run which take some past 100 miles for the month. 
  • 27th – Saturday – 3 – 99.5 – I didn’t do a Friday run to give the legs a rest and knowing I would be at the Penzance checkpoint station for the Arc 100 and then doing park run set up this morning. It takes longer than normal as it’s the reserve route (the field is wet) and I’m following a plan I gleaned from one of the set up team. I run round in 28:15 which is good but I can feel the left achilles a bit towards the end which isn’t great. 
  • 24th – Wednesday – 7.5 – 96.5 – For the second successive Wednesday I join 7 others in the performance group. The coach takes us onto an estate with a lop of around 300m which includes a bit of a hill. We do a lap at 5k pace which are uses to determine pairings. I’m the slowest so I’m paired with the fastest – Anna H – who at the weekend had won the Stormforce 10. I’m feeling under pressure! The session is called ‘back and forth’. One runner goes one way around the course, their partner the other way. When we meet we high 5 and then turn around and run back to the start area. We then repeat swopping starting directions. That is one set. We do 4 of those so 8 runs. The last 2 sets – 4 runs are extended so we run past our partner the first time we see them, then we high five and chase direction and then run past them back to the start. I try to run hard to ensure Anna doesn’t lap me! It’s a great session and I add the mileage by running back and forth to the club. 
  • 22nd – Monday – 6 – 89 – I go out with the TRC Monday night social / recovery run – I can definitely feel tiredness in the legs even though this morning it was every 5/6 weeks sports leg massage but I’ve got my eye on 100 miles in the month and these runs are a good way of building that mileage. 
  • 21st – Sunday – 10 – 83 – Its the first event of the new Cornwall GP season – StormForce 10 – on a day a storm is coming – Storm Isha – not though until after we have all finished.  I have 3 targets in mind – especially given the running over the last 2 days I’ve done. Target 1 is to run under 1:40 which is 10 min miles. Target 2 is to beat 1:32:18 which I did the last time I ran this in 2019 and finally the ‘stretch’ target is Jim’s 2022 effort of 1:27:58. I get a reasonable start and during the run I keep trying to stay with some club mates. Unlike most people I am wearing my small hydro vest which I have Maurtens 160 as my drink. a gel and one of those square bars Endurance Life give out. I’m convinced this helps because after 10k in 53:23 I do keep the pace going and in a sprint finish cross the line in 1:25:54 – I am very pleased with that! My course PB going back to 2005 is 1:21:04. 
Setting a FKT at The Lanhydrock parkrun dressed as a cricketer
All set up at the Running Show for podcast guests

 

  • 20th – Saturday – 3 – 73 –It’s Saturday and Lanhydrock are celebrating the 10th anniversary of their parkrun and it was there that I had my first ever parkrun  in January 2017, indeed, I ran my first 10 or so there. It is a bit if a tougher course than Trelissick, mainly because it has a very very long uphill in the last 2kms before the finish, which has a couple of particularly steep bits in it, which most people walk up.  They promoted the idea of fancy dress so, of course, I couldn’t resist wearing all the cricket gear, knowing the chances are I would set a fastest known time for someone running the Lanhydrock park run dressed in full cricket gear. The weather had changed overnight and was much milder but still dry. I made a schoolboy error though in that somehow I didn’t manage to not tie my right shoe in the way I would normally and about a third of the way in, I realised I was going to have to stop and tie it up so that meant losing quite a bit of time as I had to take the cricket gloves off and the running gloves I had on underneath the Cricket gloves. Anyway I ran it all and I really pushed hard at the end, because I realised I could still do sub 35 and I came in in 34:40 which, when I checked my records was four seconds quicker than the first time I ran in the cricket gear at Trelissick in 2021.
  • 19th – Friday – 14 – 70 – This is my third successive longest run Friday in a solo on the road run. I’ve been trying to break up the courses so it doesn’t feel too monotonous because I’m back now to the kind of training on my own I was doing in the run-up to the Classic Quarter, so the best part of three years since I did this kind of training. My course today was down the Newham Trail and then out to Malpas and back and then up Tregolls Road which is an uphill for 0.7 of a mile and then across to Idless and then taking the first left in Idless to eventually join the main road back into Truro and then some fiddling around to get to in this case, 14 miles. I took the Harrier hydration vest and in it I had a second pair of gloves. It was dry and sunny but it was very cold and as I got going along the Newham trail my hands were freezing so I stopped and put on the second pair of gloves– I do have a pair of Innov8 mittens and next time I will take with me – that evening we had the Truro Running club awards night which was great fun.
  • 17th – Wednesday – 8 -56 – I run to the club, and then having considered the hills session with Andrew Blizzard during the week, I was persuaded to take part in it, knowing that the other three runners were quicker than me. I have been meaning to do these performance sessions and they are ultimately really beneficial . So after a mile or so to the starting place we set off with a 30 second burst up the hill up this road and then returned back down. We had 30 seconds to recover and then went again, but this time for a minute. This routine was repeated with each uphill session adding 30 seconds each time until we topped out at the top of the pyramid at three minutes and then we came back down the pyramid so overall we did 11 reps and we were running hard uphill for 18 minutes. I felt pretty good and was surprised that I wasn’t a million miles behind some of the others. When we got back down to the minute and a half, minute and 30 seconds to finish I raced off at the start and tried to hang onto the leader for as long as possible. It was a cold but dry evening so perfect for this activity. The next day I felt really tired!
Truro Running Club out in force at Stormforce 10
Compering the keynote session and Q&A at the Cornwall Running Show
  • 15th – Monday – 6 – 48 –   It’s pretty cold but a decent sized group for the Monday night run which is around Truro. 
  • 14th – Sunday – It’s  the Cornwall Running Show and what a great day that was – I recorded 10 individual snippets for the podcast from visitors and compared the only speaking session at midday.
  • 13th – Saturday – 3 – 42 –   It’s Parkrun day and on the winter course at Trelissick which at last been used pre-covid. In theory the course should be a bit easier because there is no hill but the organisers have compensated for that to avoid too many PB’s by making it about 5.15 km. This is my fourth successive day of running and so I’m pleased to sneak in in just under 29 minutes.
  • 12th – Friday – 12 – 39 –  I and determined that Friday’s mornings will be my long run on the road in preparation for the Brighton Marathon. However on this occasion I had what turned out to be a pretty uninspiring hotel breakfast which I couldn’t access until 7:30 AM followed by the 200 mile drive back, so as soon as I got back to Truro around about 11:20 I decided I would get changed immediately do a few stretches gather together my hydration vest and get out for my run which I had pre-prepared course wise. I ran along the Newham Trail, back into town, out to the Malpas turning circle and then back with a bit of fiddling around at the end to get up to 12 miles. this is the first time I’ve done longest solo runs on successive weeks for ages, probably since running the Loch Ness marathon in October 2022.
  • 11th – Thursday – 5 – 27 –  I’m up in Corsham in Wiltshire for the monthly evening meeting of the south-west region of the professional speaking Association. My first such meeting. Check-in at the hotel which is also the venue for the event is at 3 PM and although I enquired and was hardly anybody staying there I was advised no rooms were ready so I changed into my running gear in the toilets and set off with an aim to run 5 to 6 miles nice and steady. it was essentially an out and back route so along the main aid for and then drop down and come back into the town through the middle of the high Street and then at 4 km I turned round and ran back and in the end I ran an average pace of sub- 10 minute miles so I was pretty pleased with that given the exertions of the evening before. I timed my return so that at 3:02 I was able to check-in and was delighted to find I had a room with a bath but the not so delighted to discover that the water was not that hot an it was coming out of the bath tap and the shower at the same time. The hotel felt like a perfect venue for an Agatha Christie murder mystery. All the regional monthly meetings are held here so I will investigate other routes for next time I attend.
  • 10th – Wednesday – 3 – 22 – No ordinary 5K tonight this was the running club 5K  inaugural track handicap championship, which for me along with most of my running club teammate was the introduction to running this distance on the track for the first time. There were two heats – one for those predicting 23 mins+ and one for sub 23 mins. I put in for 26:30 hoping that I might run sub 26 and even possibly get close to 25. I had eaten quite a bit late afternoon and did feel a touch heavy by the time I got to the track for a warmup on what was a bitterly cold evening. Runners were set off depending on their handicap times so it was just me and one of the girls in my group, who I went past at around a 100m mark. I just kept on going running as fast as I go but also recognising I needed to run within myself because it was 12 1/2 laps. Two minutes per lap is the equivalent of a 25 minute 5K and I was just about on that but then mid race I put in a couple of 1:54’s, essentially because I been overtaken by faster runner who I then tried to hang onto as long as possible. Six minute mile pace down the home straight got me home in 24:47 which I was very pleased with.
  • 8th – Monday – 7 – 19 – I didn’t run at the weekend because on Saturday morning we had a family get-together over breakfast as it was Beth’s last full day before heading back to Hampshire so I went out tonight with the social group and it was great running conditions being very cold but no wind and no rain. These Monday night runs are an important part of my training programme as I get 1.6 miles in just getting to the start and then most of the routes go through or end up back in Truro so I can drop out before the end but still get some decent mileage.
  • 5th – Friday – 12 – 12 – My first longish solo training run quite a while and this after during the week doing 5K on the treadmill and 20k on Zwift. in 2020 and 2021 I did quite a lot of solo training runs in preparation for the Classic Quarter but in those days of course we were still in Covid scenarios and you had no choice but to go training on your own. I now have a plan for building up the road mileage in readiness for the Brighton Marathon I think having a plan helps get me out the door on these solo training runs. This one took in the back roads of Truro via Idless and Shortlanesend and as such included a few hills and a bit of to-ing and fro-ing at the end to get it up to 12 miles my time was 2:16 so that in itself was good to run continually for over two hours. I will be doing some indoor stuff which I don’t count as mileage as a way of mixing up the training.
  • 1st – Monday I marshal at the annual Brown Willy event.  

December 2023 - 19 runs 102 miles - 28 days plus one year to the Arc 50!

  • That’s a wrap for 2023!  128 runs and 846 miles. Runs included 15 races and 35 park runs at 8 different venues. Longest run was in theory the 40 miles I did at Hope 24 but all in one go was the 18 mile Cousin Jack. I need to build some long run stamina in January and February. 
  • 31st – Sunday – 7 – 102 – New Year’s Eve –  I need 5 miles to reach 100 for December and to make it only the 2nd month (after January) where I have run 100 miles. I do a solo training run, which has been a rare thing in 2023 and which I need to do lots more of in 2024, heading out to Idless onto Shortlanesend and back via Boskella and New Mills. 
  • 30th – Saturday – 3 – 95 – Penryn parkrun – Trelissick is off due to debris on the course from the high winds so Penryn it is. I’m happy with 27:45 on this 3 lap course which feels like its steady downhill or a pull uphill.
Trevor Lee Boxing Day Run
Mr Colin's Boxing Day Run - Tehidy Woods > Coastal Path > Tehidy Woods
Trevor Lee - Porth - St Anthony's Head Run
Glorious Run on Dec 28th from Porth > St Anthony's Head > Porthscatho > Porth
  • 29th – Friday – 4 – 92 – Out and back to Truro College  not quite the route or scenery of yesterday but having done 10 miles yesterday I’m only 12 away from 100 for December so today’s 4 which I did straight after a couple of hours of digging up brambles in the Community Orchard was a way of getting up to 92 miles with 3 days to go to the end of the year. Leg felt very slow early on but slowly got moving – first mile 11:11 – last mile 8:31 – was aiming to try and run under 45 minutes, then 44 then 40! Got back in 39:15. Trelissick parkrun off tomorrow so may head to Penryn – largely so I can wander aimlessly around B&Q afterwards finding and then no doubt buying stuff I didn’t know I needed! 
  • 28th – Thursday – 10 – 88 – TRC Roseland Run –  organised by Amanda and Jig with a couple of options of 10 and 6 miles. I’m thinking 6 on the basis that I won’t keep up with the 10 milers.  However I’m feeling good and I set off at the front with Jig. 3 miles in at St Anthony’s Head I find myself out front and press on seeing how far I can run before they swallow me up. They don’t! But then I go back to the cafe thinking that I’ll do the other 4 miles but the 10 milers carry on on the coast path os I have run back to try and catch them up which I do. The final couple of miles is back on the road and I’m now at the back as I ease in. That stretch in the lead though made me feel very good. Not often I’m in that position! 
  • 26th – Tuesday – 7.5 – 78 – Mr Colin’s Tehidy Woods and CP Boxing Day Run – Boxing Day and I’m off to Tehidy Woods to join 5 others including course setter Colin Bathe. The route takes in the woods then over some fields to emerge at Hells Mouth cafe. Along the coastal path before cutting back into the woods. 7.7 miles. A great way to run at a good pace. I’ve now done 15 runs and 78 miles in December. There’s a chance of 100 miles but it might mean a long run on the 31st!
  • 25th – Monday – 3 – 70.5 – Christmas Day ‘Parkrun’ – Christmas Day at Polcoverack Farm. There is plenty of interest in doing our own ‘parkrun’ but gradually the field is reduced by various excuses – helped by the poor weather. So down to me and Jim. We follow a route that takes in some very muddy and soggy paths. We run together – mainly because I set the course and don’t tell Jim what it is so he can’t race off! We do 27:55 which I’m pleased with. 
  • 23rd – Saturday – 3 – 67.5 – Parkrun – My son Jim and I run the Trelissick parkrun. Pre-run he claims he hasn’t run much recently and is going to take it easy. Until the RD says ‘go’ and then he shoots off! I don’t see him until I’m coming along the bottom of the field and he’s halfway up the hill. I run hard on the downhill bit and when I get back to the stream I see him one place and about 40 yards ahead. I’m running hard but I can’t push forward and close the gap!  A few runners come past me and Jim is still 50 yards or so ahead. I don’t close the gap. He does 26:56 and I’m home in 27:14 – my second fastest at Trelissick in 2023. 
St Pirans Revenge Trevor Lee
The last stretch of beach before the St Piran's Revenge and I'm getting closer....
St Pirans Revenge Trevor Lee 2
Not far to go and I'm alongside....that competitive edge is still there!
Truro Running Club at St Piran's Revenge
Truro Running Club at St Piran's Revenge
Truro Running Club Monday Night group Dec 18th
Truro Running Club Monday Night group Dec 18th
  • 18th – Monday – TRC Recovery Run 6.5 – 64.5 –  a second run on the same day and as usual this group is pretty quick so I am languishing at the back for all of it except when we came along Redannick Lane. I had run to the start point as usual so I dived off back towards my house as we came back towards the city. This is now the second most runs in a month this year and I was certainly feeling that tonight.
  • 18th – Monday – Beth Run 3.5 – 58 – Beth was back Sunday afternoon and she has bought herself a Garmin watch for Christmas which she has already opened! And was keen to try it out so we walked up to the old football ground and then ran along the Newham Trail for just over 1.5 miles and then came back via a stop off to show her my handiwork at the Truro community Orchard.
  • 17th – Sunday – Bude Coast 7.5 – 54.5 – I was feeling particularly sluggish on this run, but nevertheless it was good to get some additional miles under the belt and gives me a chance of getting close to a hundred miles in this month which after 123 in January would be only the second month of the year with a hundred miles, indeed the second largest mileage month was 79 in June. This was also my 10th run in December, and after the 21 runs in January the second-highest month for actual runs is February and June where I did 11.
  • 16th – Saturday – Tamar Lakes Parkrun 3 – 47 –   This is the second time I have run this once around the lake course with its deceptive inclines and declines – the first time was the week before the Lighthouse Marathon and as in the notes for that run I did feel during the run the Achilles/calf which I’m now convinced was part of why I ended up DNFing. No such problem today and I used a couple of runners slightly ahead of me as pacers but the finish had changed and therefore slightly caught me out so in the end I did 27:05, maybe if I had pushed on knowing where the finish was I could have sneaked under 27.
  • 13th – Wednesday – TRC Mousehole Lights Run –6 – 44 – And so the Christmas lights run continues – this time around 30 or so members meet in Penzance for 7 PM and then we do out and back along the coastal path which is all paved to see the famous Mousehole lights. Having arrived in Cornwall in the summer of 1993 this is my 31st Cornish Christmas and it was only last year for the first time that I visited the Mousehole lights. It was a good run although I have noticed that in recent times I have become a bit of an antisocial group runner. In other words I end up being part of the group but often running on my own, this was certainly the case on the 3 miles back to Penzance. I don’t know why that is. Maybe I got to know everybody on the runs and therefore no longer have those who are you type conversations. It also might be that for whatever reason I’m often setting off too fast on club runs, which was certainly the case on the outward leg so inevitably those I was running with did start to pull away from me and then on the way back I lost contact with the group slightly in front of me. Anyway I’m sure my social running skills will return!
  • 11th – Monday – TRC Recovery Run 10.5 – 38 –   This is my 7th run in 10 days and my longest for quite some time – the run itself was 6.5 miles but it was out at Truro College which door-to-door for me was 2 miles both ways. It was our annual Christmas light run around the streets of Highertown and Three milestone. With Ben Annear having moved back to Cardiff I took on the responsibility of providing the cultural Christmas sounds for the run using one of my Bose speakers and a Spotify Christmas playlist. I also had adorned the back my yellow running jacket with lots of Christmas lights. Despite all the runs I felt pretty good and was pushing hard when it came to some of the hills. Overall a great evening, even though these Christmas runs seem to come round faster every year!
  • 10th – Sunday – St Pirans Revenge 5.5 – 27.5 –  After a test run last year this is a new event for the Cornwall MTRS series – it’s a real back to basics event, the entry fee was only £5, the finishers medal was made from string and seashells and the individual  prizes were made from items the organisers had found on Perranporth beach. I didn’t get my original entry in in time but I did pick up an entry during the week from someone who could no longer make it. Race HQ was the surf lifesaving centre which is located on the beach and the presentations were at the watering hole bar which is also on the beach which I can’t ever remember going to before but which was great. I didn’t take my watch but the 5.5 mile course was both hugely challenging as well as fantastically brilliant to run on and included running across several beaches, up and down some dunes as well as on some coastal path tracks. I had a very slow start but then I gradually haul then those clubmates that I think I should be in this sort of event and came in in a time of 66 minutes. I then voted this my favourite race that I had taken part in and completed in 2023.
  • 9th – Saturday – Trelissick Parkrun– 3 – 22 –  I do set up with Jim Spencer and then run around watchlist in 29:07
  • 6th – Wednesday – TRC Club Night – 5.5 – 19 – It is very wet and as such we have a relatively low turn out – probably about 40 runners and as such six groups become three. We run around the streets of Truro, which despite the weather are still relatively busy because it is late-night Christmas shopping, but then I dive off before they head back to the club.
  • 4th – Monday – TRC Recovery Run – 5.5 – 13.5 –  I am the slowest in the group tonight, plodding around at the back but I did push hard on both Saturday and Sunday and this is supposed to be a recovery run!
  • 3rd – Sunday – Mob Match – 5 – 8 – this is the annual event before the presentation of the Grand Prix awards for the year. Membership growth means that Truro for this particular event are part of Division I when it comes to the team competition which means it’s the first 10 home for the men and women’s team to count. It’s the only event in Cornwall where this happens all the Grand Prix events are first six to count regardless of the size of your club. So I was very excited to discover that I was listed as the 10th man home for Truro in the team event where the club was placed third. But then this moment of running fame gradually unravelled as it was revealed that only the first two teams home in each division were to be awarded prizes. And it was then discovered that one of our team members had had a problem with the timing mat and as such they were properly instated into the finishing order well ahead of me but also pushing me out of the top 10! I joked at the original onset of being in the top 10 that we would get our own prizes organised but then of course dismissed that idea entirely when I realised I was no longer in that top 10! My official time was 43:58 and the only comparison I have was really the same event in 2019 in 41:28.
  • 2nd – Saturday – Lanhydrock Parkrun – 3 – 3 – this is the second coldest Parkrun I have taken part in – Babbs Mill at the start of the year retains the number one slot! It was so cold that the organisers put back the start to 9:30am, something I didn’t realise until I wondered why at 8:30am there was no one around and I began to think it had been called off.  I went for a warmup wearing my winter gloves and my hands got even colder, so much so that I found an old pair of ski type gloves in my car and I ended up wearing them throughout the entire run. I went watchless so had no idea of my time until the email came through and it was 30:45 which given my lack of recent running I was okay with even though I don’t like being over 30 minutes for any Parkrun, but I ran 29:58 last time at this course back in April 2022 so on that basis the time was okay.

November 2023 - 5 runs 30 miles - 57 days plus one year to the Arc 50!

 

  • 29th – Wednesday – 9 – 30 – TRC Club Night  I am conscious that this is my fifth run in six days having not run for four weeks and it’s quite wet at the moment which might be the reason only Andrew Ferguson joins the run I’m leading on the 5.5 St Clements Loop through the woods and trails, and I manage to fall over but I do come out of it unscathed as far as the Achilles/calf goes. I am doing the stretching exercises I did during my four week of running everyday still.
  • 28th – Tuesday – 5 – 21 – TRC Walk/ Run Group –  keeping the running momentum going I join this group for the first time in ages although I am feeling quite slow despite this being the run / walk group. 
  • 27th – Monday – 7 – 16 – TRC Recovery / Social Run – having got through the runs on Friday and Saturday without any reaction I decide to go to the Monday night club for the first time since October, jogging down to the starting place at Boscawen Park. As I get into the run I’m pushing hard up the hills, aiming to get as close to the faster runners as possible which I do.
  • 25th – Saturday – 3 – 9 – Trelissick Parkrun – first parkrun for several weeks and I go watchless. I’m happy with 28:33 which I only find out when the email arrives.  
  • 24th – Friday – 6 – 6 – Back Running! – a jog round Trelissick with Anna – nice and steady but happy that there is no reaction. 

October 2023 - 9 runs 66 miles - 88 days plus one year to the Arc 50!

 

  • 30th – Monday – a pre-booked sports leg massage from Lee Wheston. He finds the spot where it hurts! However it seems it’s somewhere where the achilles meets the calf. He did tell me the name but I forget what he said. However what that does mean is that it may not ultimately be as bad as I thought. I’m going to target a Hampshire parkrun with Beth in 2 weeks time. 
  • 29th – Sunday – I’m hobbling around. Apart from that I feeling ok. I know though I have to defer the ARC as the deadline for doing that is Tuesday. It’s no good hanging on when I can buy 12 extra months of preparation. On reflection was I really ready with 3 months to go? Probably not. Looking through this diary I only did two or three course recces. Not enough. My long training runs are few and far between. I like my cricket but it did get in the way of training and it gave me the injury. I need to get this injury cleared up and re-focus and create a proper training and route recce plan. 
  • 28th – Saturday – 14 – 66 – Lighthouse Marathon – sometimes things don’t go to plan. My microphone muffler disappeared within half a mile of the start and as we ran down the road towards Pendeen Lighthouse there was just a hint of an issue in my lower left leg. I knew this course from running not twice in the Cousin Jack event. But today it was very wet. And very muddy. I was going ok after 7 miles. The cut off at St Ives at 14 miles was 5 hours. I was on target to get there easily in 4 hours. I could then aim to do the last 12 miles on the part of the course I was very familiar with in around 3 hours for a 7 hour total. At around 7 miles my right foot caught something on the path. I stumbled forward and my left leg got overstretched. I felt the pull all the way up my left calf. I was still recording the podcast and I left in all the swearing. The swearing as  a reaction to the stumble and the swearing when I realised it was bad and my Arc was over. I met a medic at the Zennor path which was 8 miles in. I had a couple of choices. Stop there and walk the path to the pub and wait for a pick up or hobble onto to St Ives. I didn’t want to sit in a  pub for however long feeling sorry for myself so I pressed on. The next four miles is very tough and not too many oppirtunities for running so I worked out that I could probably sell make the St Ives cut off not that I was thinking of gong on beyond that. A DNF after 14 miles felt much better than one after 8 miles. Inevitably runners caught and passed me and inevitably I fell over – twice slipping one my back once going forward. The sun though appeared as though it knew I needed cheering up! I got to St Ives 10 minutes inside the cut off and withdrew. I waited inside the people carrier for all the cut offs behind me to come through before we headed back to the finish at Rockpool. This is my first DNF – does that make me a proper runner? 
Lighthouse Marathon - Trevor Lee
About six miles into the Lighthouse Marathon
Truro Running Club at the Lighthouse Marathon
Truro Running Club at the Lighthouse Marathon
On your way to Gwithian - see the stump - take the right fork
Past Gwithian car park - past a big sign - go right and then straight on
Golf course is on your right - carry on past this footbridge
Just past Sandy Acres -WM sign is left when you look across
Take the right fork just past this sign
This is Lelant Church - 3 miles after leaving St Ives