Prague Marathon

Well, that's my fifth marathon this year done. I've been back from Prague a week now. It was a great trip. I flew out on the Saturday (very early) morning, lost my guidebook at the airport but found my way across town via bus and metro to my hostel (very nice) checked in and then walked over to the marathon expo. Picked up my number without too much fuss and then had the day looking round Prague, which was nice. I've only really been through Prague and that was once, very quickly about 9 years ago. It's a very very pretty city so if you get the chance I would recommend that you go.

The race itself was quite tough. Or at least I found it tough or some reason. It was very very hot and I lost a lot of moisture. The course was nice and pretty flat, the cobbles were a bit tough on the knees though. At one stage I was on course for a sub 3.22 finish but then I started to slow down and at about 35km I blew up a bit but managed not to stop or to walk, which was good. I then perked up a bit and finished in 3.33. Could have been worse I suppose. I found not one but two restaurants that served vegan food. One had everything vegan. I went there for lunch after the race and pigged out. That was fun.

My friend Randeep also made this for me



More pics are here

http://www4.marathon-photos.com/scripts/event_entry.py?event=Sports/GKDE/2009/Prague%20Marathon&bib=475&search=1

Next up is the Great Manchester run, (10km) tomorrow. I've run this every year they have had it. This year my Dad is running as are my younger brother and several friends. It should be a really good day. I just hope the weather holds.

Triathlon time

Tri Nations vs the UK (2/5/09)


Well, since this is supposed to be a blog about running and triathlon I’m happy to report I did my first triathlon of the season. It was the tri Nations Vs. the UK (the UK won – eat that NZ, Oz and SA) at Dorney Lake, out near Eton no less.

At first I was regretting entering this. It was on Saturday morning so I had to get up at 5.30 to eat and drive down there for registration at 8am for a 9.10 start (I was in wave B). However, I found the place OK and the drive down was nice.

I have to admit that I was a bit nervous about this race. I have not been doing much swimming recently, (though I’ve done a lot of bike and run training). However the swim itself was only 400M and I did have a wetsuit. One brave soul was without which turned out to be because he had some issue with his suit which meant it was out of action. Anyway well lined up for the safty briefing for the race and then jumped into the water. It was cold but not too bad once you got used to it. Then we were in the familiar territory of treading water waiting for the canoists to move out of the way and the klaxon to sound. Soon they were counting down and then all of a sudden off we went.

Now, I’m not the best swimmer, not that I’m bad I perfectly capable, I’m just not that fast. Usually that is not a problem in triathlons. The ones I have done so far I’ve just started out going nuts doing front crawl with the nutters at the front and then after getting kicked, punched and swum over gone and hung out at the back doing breast stroke and then made up time on the bike and run. Unfortunately this time this tactic did not work so well. This was a small field and an early season event so even though I swam a good time for me I was way behind on the swim and never managed to make up the time on the bike or run legs. Still I was not last and I really enjoyed the race.

On existing the swim it there was a stiff breeze which meant cycling in my tri-suit was very cold. I had to do four laps of the lake and then two laps of the run course. It took 1.29.13 hours. Not a bad result but with T1 and T2 times of around 2 minutes each I really need to do a bit better

You can see pictures here

http://www.iesphotography.co.uk/Pixaria/gallery/Swim_Tri_Nations_The_Fix_Dorney_Lake/image/394/ This is me on the swim

http://www.iesphotography.co.uk/Pixaria/gallery/Run_Tri_Nations_The_Fix/image/707/
This is me on the bike

http://www.iesphotography.co.uk/Pixaria/index.search.php?sid=1066&img=1
This is me on the run

The good thing is that I really enjoyed it and have the triathlon bug back!!
Also if you go to http://www.thefixuk.co.uk/TRINationsTriathlonResults09.htm and look at the banner picture you can see me just to the left of centre as well as find out my results.