a blog dedicated to the daily shenanigans of joe richardson

It’s official. I’m the captain slow of the group I go out riding with. It’s depressing and tough but I’m determined that I’m going to get quicker and keep up with everyone. Sunday saw me head out with Drew and another friend, Dave. They immediately fired off into the distance while I labored away, turning the peddles with everything I had and achieving speeds that I felt quite proud of. They where good enough to slow down and wait for me and we rode together for most of the ride. We covered over 40 miles and, I’ve got to admit, they where some of the hardest I’ve ever done. There weren’t any huge hills, like the ones I experienced last Wednesday, but there was a headwind. It just didn’t seem to let up at all for the whole ride and made it a nightmare. Oh well, it’s all good experience. The trip out contained something i haven’t had on other training rides, that was a mid ride history lesson. We passed by the site of The Battle of Marsdon, which happened during the Civil War. A short stop was called for as we stopped to look at the information which laid out the positions of each army in relation to where we were stood. Interesting and informative! Check out my Flickr for a few pictures from the ride!

One of the other things that possibly didn’t help my cause on Sunday were the 5 pints on Saturday. It my defense I had been at Wembley to watch York play and their victory deserved a few celebratory beers!

With the first event, The Manchester 10k, looming a sprint session started the weeks training and Chicken joined me to make sure I wasn’t slacking off. Just to make things even more interesting, my body has decided that now would be a great time for me to have a chest cold. Joy of joys. Anyway, with some truly inspirational quotes coming from Chicken I managed to cover the half mile in a new PB of 3.28. I didn’t exactly cover myself in glory for the rest of the sprints so I’ll leave that there for now.

It seems that mother nature has it in for me this week. On Monday’s bike ride with Drew the idea was that we would ride out into the head wind before heading back with the wind behind us. That was the plan anyway. To me it felt like we had a head wind for a good 25 of the 35 miles we cycled that day. Anyway, on today’s run it felt that at every turn I took the wind still blew straight into my face and doubled in strength.

The main goal for the run was basically to build a bit of confidence after the disastrous run on Friday. On Friday it felt like running through mud after just a mile and then, at about mile 3 my left hamstring tightened up which meant I had to stop, stretch it out and then continue, rather gingerly, for the rest of the run.

So, to get a bit of confidence back I wanted to cover about 5 miles in a reasonable time without any tightness in my hamstring. I set off and quickly realised that the wind seemed that it wanted to blow me either back to the house or into the river. Apart from the wind, the run was fairly uneventful and I achieved what I intended to do by completing 5.25 miles in 45:53 minutes. A time that isn’t spectacular but achieves what I set out to do. With three months to go before the first event, the Manchester 10k, and my aim for the event being to run a sub 50 minute 10k and I should be well on for that.

Don’t forget about the gig at City Screen on the 16th March!

Lets start with Friday and the run that, well, it was the worst run if the year so far. Following on Tuesday’s run and Wednesday’s turbo session I took Thursday off and arranged a run on Friday evening with Chicken. We set off to do about 4 miles and, after about 2 miles my legs just felt dead and my lungs didn’t seem to want to function at anywhere near their full capacity. Nether the less, we pushed on. Chicken striding out confidently and me…wheezing away and getting more and more frustrated with every step. Now, I’m not going to bother you with the time as it’s nothing to write home about. While disappointed that the run Shakey pointed out to me that I had at least gone out and trained which is much better than sitting on the sofa doing nothing.

That brings us up to Monday, which bought with it a bit of sunshine and a new training partner. Drew is someone I’ve known for about 10 years now and I’ve played rugby with for a few years and keeps himself very fit and he is seriously into his bikes. Anyway, Drew contacted me last week saying that he would be off worth this week and wondering if I fancied going out on the bikes.

A rather fuzzy headed Drew turned up at my house just after 9. It turns out that Drew had been at an open mic night until 3am that morning and was feeling just a bit rough. It also explains his need for the Camelback of water Drew bought with him…

Anyway, we headed over the ring road and around a few villages that I desperately tried to remember the names of before we doubled back into a village I believe was called Cattal and proceeding onto Tockwith and Long Marsdon and finally coming back into York through Acomb. In all, about a 35 mile route, which is by far the furthest that I’ve managed on a bike!

While that’s all great, I’ve got to admit, even with a pounding headache and dehydrated…Drew was much quicker than what I could manage. Still something to work on there then.

I’m quite ashamed to say that it had been two weeks without going out for a run. Sure, the snow had made things a bit tricky to get out and train but I had made sure that I had kept my legs turning by sitting on the turbo trainer. In all, I know that I could be doing more.

The weekend started on Friday night with a few beers and the York Triathlon Club year opener with Shakey. All signed up and with new Tri club kit ordered we heading into town for a beer, banter and training talk. Saturday should have seen me heading to Grimsby for the Mariners vs York game. Unfortunately the game got called off due to the weather so the trip was cancelled as well. Still there was rugby on the telly and more beers in the fridge. Sunday saw a trip to the cinema with Alice and Mary followed by a beer and food in House Of Trembling Madness…Combine all this with not training, things hadn’t really moved forward too much.

So, it’s been back to the grindstone this week with a Tuesday night session with Shakey doing 2 mile sprints, which I have documented well hear before. Setting off the pace was a little too fast we completed the first two mile in 14:55, a new PB! We rested for around 3 mins which is just enough time for us to get our breath back and for the lactic acid to really kick in before setting back on the return leg. On the return my legs felt heavy and my lungs just couldn’t seem to get enough oxygen into my body and I quickly fell about 5 meters behind Shakey. Determined not to fall further behind I kept clawing a few meters back, the effort of that took even more out of me but I felt determined that I wasn’t going to get further behind. That return leg was completed in 16:05, which equals my previous quickest for the distance. In all I’m really pleased with the effort and I know that I really didn’t have anything else to give on the run.

The rest of Tuesday evening was spent eating and stretching…even though all my legs wanted to do was to seize up!

On Wednesday, after breakfast, I set the the bike up on the turbo trainer for an hour session and, as soon as I sat on the bike, I could feel last nights run. In the hour I did 10mins warming up then followed by 3x5mins all out efforts on a big gear followed by a few mins just letting my legs turn on a small gear and then another 10min cool down. It was tough. I can’t lie, it was really tough. Quickly covered in sweat and breathing as if i’d run 10miles this session was tough but, these sessions

Shin splints are horrible and can cause more problems if you just try and train through the pain. I know, I’ve been there, trained through the pain and ended up with the stress fracture. It’s not good and it sets your training back even further than just taking a week or so off while the pain subsides. After training last Wednesday we went to our friends for food and a catch up. The food and the company where as great as ever but the problem was my shins. I mentioned it briefly in my last post that I had been having pain in my shins but, in truth, they had been bothering me for a few weeks but nothing that didn’t ease fairly quickly. Last Wednesday though, it felt like they were on fire and I really struggled to enjoy the company and the food as I sat there in agony. The only thing for it was to rest, stretch as much as possible and try to stay off my feet. I achieved this with mixed success to say the least!

When Chicken text me at the weekend about going for a run I couldn’t really turn it down. Not only had the pain eased but I felt better for having a few days off (while still maintaining a healthy diet). Chicken and myself have played a bit of 5-a-side, had nights out that neither of us can work out what the hell happened and he became my main training partner when I trained for The Royal Parks Half Marathon. Never short of a motivational quote and a word of advice Chicken doesn’t just like a pint…He loves a pint.

I know Chicken is really up for doing the 2 miles time trial and that he didn’t really want to keep the session to around 45mins. With that in mind I gave him 2 options, the first one was to do the 2 mile time trial. The second was to do a session of 5x800m sprints with full recovery at the end of each sprint…you know, just to get that lactic acid really building up,  down by the river. Personally, I didn’t want to do the time trial as I’d done it 6 days earlier and the idea was to do it every few weeks to monitor my progress. Chicken agreed so we headed to the river for 40mins of hard work.

The warm up was a gentle jog to the river, followed by a stretch and then the first 800m. Despite Chic slipping on a large stone and me nearly running into a large chunk of tree , we did the first 800m in 3.34. To our surprise we managed exactly the same time in the second 800m. The third was a gentle 800m which is where we both first really felt our legs getting heavy and our lungs burning. Exactly what should happen really. During the recovery from the gentle 800m we decided that we needed to aim for negative splits on the times and, even though heavy legs had set in, we needed to try and beat the 3.34 that was our previous best. We set off for the fourth 800m and really pushed ourselves to try and beat that time and we where convinced that we had beaten it by at least a couple of seconds…We hadn’t…we’d gone 2 seconds slower at 3.36. I felt that competitive urge and I think that Chicken felt the same. There was no way that we weren’t going to beat it on the fourth 800m. The last thing Chicken said as we set off was “I’m gonna drag your arse over these 800m in under 3.34″… Well, that but in a geordie accent. The fourth 800m was hard but with a final push we did it in 3.31. We’d done it! We’d beaten our previous best. The endorphins really began to flow and the jog home was accompanied with a hug grin and a certain spring in our steps.

So, that’s training all caught up with…Now, don’t forget to buy your tickets for the gig on the 16th March. 3 good York bands, for £5 and all the money going to a great cause! Tickets are available from the City Screen box office of by going to the link below.

http://www.picturehouses.co.uk/cinema/York_Picturehouse/Whats_On/All/Date_16_3_2012/

So, Wednesday bought a hectic day, but one that bought some good news and a really good training run to ease the stress of dealing with people all day. I’ve got to admit that it wasn’t easy dragging myself off the sofa, where I had plonked myself, but I’m pleased I managed it.

I left the house with the idea that I would just do a steady 4 miles or so. Just something so I could text Shakey saying that I’d gone out and done something. When I turned onto Bootham I instinctively turned right to head towards Clifton Green and then down to the river to stretch my legs out a bit. I’m not sure what happened really but I felt that I was running well and making good time so, in an instant, I decided to do one of the training sessions I need to repeat every few weeks to help track my progress. Just my luck that this session really hurts. That session a 2 mile time trial. It sucks. Basically it’s run two miles from Bootham up to York’s ring road then have a full recovery at the end (just enough time for the lactic acid to really kick in) before doing the return 2 miles with the aim of running the return leg quicker than the first leg of the run. The first time I did this I had Shakey setting a very quick pace. A pace that was right on the limit on what i could manage but I wasn’t about to admit that to my training partner. The first two miles was done in 16:15 with the return in 17:05. This time, with no ones else to push the pace, I did the first leg in 16:30 and the return in 17 mins dead.This means that I’m slightly sower on the outward leg but a bit quicker on the return and, as it was pointed out to me, it’s the return leg that’s important in this session.

Away from training the good news which I spoke about earlier is around the gig which I’m organising to help raise funds for The Huntington’s Disease Association. All three bands have now confirmed which is one head ache out of the way, and tickets are NOW ON SALE!! A massive thank you to We Could Be Astronauts, The Littlemores and Montego Bay who are all giving up their time for free to help me raise money for a good cause! Friday the 16th March at The Basement is gonna be a very good night.

I’ve also had a really productive meeting with a good friend who runs a PR agency and is helping me get the news out about everything that we have coming up. I will admit, I’m a little nervous about the photo call that Duncan’s setting up…

Oh, so you want to buy tickets for the gig, that’s easy. Hit the link or visit City Screen York  and snap them up, they won’t last long!

http://www.picturehouses.co.uk/cinema/York_Picturehouse/film/Basement_We_Could_Be_Astronauts/

The Royal Parks half Marathon seems like a long time ago now. The pain and struggle of those 13.1 miles have subsided and I’ve agreed to take on a small series of challenges to raise money for The Huntington’s Disease Association. It started with taking part in the London to Paris bike ride but it now seems to have grown to be more than that. I’ve added the Manchester and York 10k’s into the equation and, as long as I get a place in the ballot, the Great North Run as well. Still, it keeps me busy and out of trouble.

At the end of 2011 I decided that I wanted a challenge for two reasons. First, to raise money for a good cause, secondly, to keep me motivated to continue training and generally feeling fit and healthy. I decided that I’d done running that year so I should do something different. A couple of friends had done the London to Paris bike ride in 2011 and really enjoyed it. That was it, I’m sold. The mere fact that I didn’t own a bike didn’t stop me so I signed up and bought myself a Specialized road bike to train on as well as the obligatory helmet and some fancy clip in pedals and shoes.

A few weeks ago I had my first real long ride out on the bikes with my friend, Tom. He led me on, in his words, a short loop around Sheriff Hutton and back into York. A distance of around 25 miles. All went well and I remembered to unclip out of the pedals every time we came to a halt until pretty much the last junction we came to. For those who know York, it’s the junction on Haxby Road leading onto Clarence Street. Tom managed to make it through the lights before they turned to red but I didn’t. In a moment of panic I tried to shout and signal to Tom that I had got stuck at the lights just as I ground to a halt. It’s at this point that I remember that I’m clipped in but it’s too late. The bike had stopped and I couldn’t do anything other than fall. Off I went in front of a group of students and a long line of traffic. A kind lady got out of her car to see if I was ok, which was nice. I was fine and with nothing more than a large dent in my pride I hit my pedals hard as soon as the light went green.

I’m told that everyone who uses clip in pedals has one such experience and it was nice to hear concern in another of my training partners voice when he rang in response to a text I sent him telling him about the fall. Once I’d said I was fine and explained what had happened Shakey promptly laughed his socks off. He was heading for a swim session with York Triathlon Club at the time so I hope he had stopped laughing by the time he hit the pool.

I kind of kept the running up over October, after the half marathon and through to January but I’ve had an ankle injury which has left me unable to train properly for a time. Since the 3rd of January I have been out a couple of times a week with an old rugby friend who now takes part in endurance events. Shakey has pushed my running and I’m seeing big improvements from the tips and tricks he’s given me. He is the one who introduced my to the now dreaded 5x800m sprints with full recovery. He also introduced the idea of 2 mile time trials with the aim of negative splits. I’ve only done that session once but have another booked in for next week to chart my progress. The first time I did them Shakey led them out and we set a pace were I couldn’t talk, as they say on The Biggest Loser “If you can talk, you aren’t working hard enough”. The first 2 miles we covered in 16:15 with the return 2 miles in 17.45. To be honest, I wasn’t too disappointed with those times…but neither was I too pleased. It sets a bench mark for next time.

Today, I’ve been for a steady 5 mile run which took me 46mins to do. The aim was just to stretch my legs out a little and to keep a constant pace. The bad news is that my ankle is playing up again and I’m getting a lot of pain in my shins. This could well be the start of shin splints so I’ve got to keep it light and stretch at every opportunity.

Right, I think that brings us right up to date…