York - Week 10

After yesterday's 23 miler my hip was pretty sore, lifting my right leg hurt but I've kind of got used to that now so wasn't concerned.

Up this morning for a crazy day and amazingly my legs feel fine, no stiffness or tightness which is a good sign.  It's GNR week which means it's insanely busy and this week will mean a bit of juggling things to get my own training in.

Today's rest day as always and no gym tonight as I'm working til nearly 8 and I just can't be bothered in all honesty.

Pretty tired today, could really do with a snooze.

Easy run day, always 6 miles up to Tynemouth and back.

Up early, get ready and loads of time to get out and run and then home, shower and work. 

Spend way too long just fannying around and I have no idea what I was doing for an hour or so but ran out of time and could only squeeze in a 4-5 mile run before home.

Had some wine tonight, wasn't planning to but then I accidentally went to the shop and accidentally picked up a bottle of wine and then next thing you know it's in my kitchen and then I'm drinking it.

As always Friday is easy miles and hills but I wake up this morning and just don't want to do it, I've literally got a very small early window to get it done today and spend about half an hour talking myself out of it and wasting time pottering about the house.

I know I need to do it and I'd be pissed at myself if I didn't do it and if I didn't do it early it wasn't happening today. 

I suck it up and go out and run, 4 miles and 10 x 10 second hills done and back home before 8am.

I don't feel smug or happy but it is Friday and I get to drink more wine tonight.

It's GNR day, it's also long run day and I need to do about 17-18 miles.

So the plan is to get up early, metro to Walkergate, jump off and run 4 miles up the coast road to Haymarket, get a coffee and walk across to start, run GNR at threshold pace and then tag on a mile to the ferry at the end.

I wake up, get my breakfast and head off, very quiet everywhere and I'm the only GNR person around, I'm feeling pretty good and weirdly looking forward to the day.

Off the metro in Walkergate and 4 mile slow and easy to town, head down to Haymarket and into Costa for a coffee, waiting in the queue and see Graham running down Northumberland Street. 

Order my coffee and wait.

My black coffee.

Then easiest and quickest coffee in the world to make.

I wait.

And wait.

They serve the lady behind me and the lady behind her and the man behind her who was getting porridge, then they serve the lady behind him who was getting a bacon sandwich and various coffees with weird names and stuff sprinkled on them.  I just want a black coffee.

I step forward and very politely ask if someone is making my coffee as I've been waiting a while.  The guy looks at me and says "we're very busy sir" and I say I realise that but people behind me have been served so I'm not sure if someone else has taken my coffee, he rolls his eyes and "I'm working through in order SIR".  Now at this point he has a very surly way of talking and side eyeing me, I'm a very placid guy but I can't be doing with side eyes from a barista at 8 o'clock on a Sunday morning.

I point out (politely) that he's really not working through in order as everyone behind me had been served and I've been stood there for over 5 minutes.  Then he begins what  I think would be a world record eye roll, it's a slow motion masterpiece of eye rolling the like of which I've never seen.  As he's doing it  and before he finally fixes me with his gaze his colleague has come across and made me a coffee and handed it to me.  I thank her, give him a huge cheesy smile and walk out the door

I wonder if he's still there finishing off his eye roll.

Off to the town moor with my coffee and flapjack and then the first of many toilet visits and argument number 2 of the morning.

They're are loads of toilets, the stretch out well over 100m and there's are about 4 queues, each one really far apart and only using half a dozen toilets.  You can clearly see most of the toilets have green on the door and aren't being used, so I just go in one, surely that's what normal people do, but apparently not.

I come out and a lady in the queue about 10m away gestures at me and shouts "there's a queue here you selfish prick".  Now, I'm a bit taken aback by this as it's the GNR, it's a happy place but I'm still reeling from eye roll barista so I'm a bit pissed off.

I reciprocate the hand gesture and point to the 20 toilets that are unoccupied and say "well there isn't a queue here".  She shakes her head and mutters something under her breath and the half a dozen people in the queue behind her then all walk across to the empty toilets.  This seems to annoy her even more but weirdly she remains in third place in her queue.

Meet the Kavanagh's, Peter and Jess and have a chat for a few minutes and then decide one more toilet visit is needed.  A bit of time has passed and there's now a lot more toilet queues but because I'm a selfish prick I decide to just start my own queue, this works a treat and within a minute or two I have half a dozen people behind me, I'm pretty certain they'd follow me to battle if I asked them.

If only toilet prick lady was still around, I'd have set them on her.

Off to the starting pens and meet Graham and then onto...

Argument number 3.

This one's more Graham than me.

Now everyone's knows you go on the right hand side at the start of the GNR, that's where the elites go.  We walk in and the marshall directs us over the 'other' side and says they are filling up that side first.  We tell her we don't want to go on that side and she tells us they're both there same and go on the same road.  We point out that they clearly don't, she refuses to accept this and looks very confused and keeps saying "it's the same road".   We tell her we'll come back later and leave and then 5 mins later walk back in and go on the proper side.  Same road my arse.

No more arguments today.

Race plan today is threshold pace, that's 7:15-7:30 miles and nothig daft, no going off fast, no chasing people, don't be a prick Simon, stick to the plan.

First mile is 7:08, second mile is 6:43, third mile is 7:02.  I'm being a twat, slow it down Jamison, slow it down.  Mile 4 is 7:20 and I switch my Garmin screen off and just run by feel from here.  The miles fly by and I feel fine.

Then I spot a lady from South Shields Harriers near me, we've been doing a bit of cat and mouse for a while and she's slowing a bit and I'm going to go past her now and push on.  I always think South Shields and the Poly should have more of a rivalry, like an east coast west coast thing with Tupac and Biggie.  We should turn up to races all tooled up just in case it kicks off and do some drive by's along the Ferry landing.  

Then I have a sudden Ali G flashback....

I run past her, turn to face her and in what was undoubtedly a horrendous Ali G impression I say "North Side" and do the Ali G fingers at her.  She looks at me like I'm fucking insane, a couple of seconds go by and then I remember I'm not wearing my poly vest, I'm dressed in black, it makes no fucking sense, she thinks I'm mad, I do a nervous smile and run away laughing to myself. 

Then I remember that I'm 'Jim' so it's even funnier.

Anyway, I keep running, miles 10-12 are as always a drag.  I've no idea what pace I'm running, I guess somewhere around 8 min miles.  I decided I'll check my watch with 800m to go.  Ideally I should be somewhere around 1:40 at that point, I'm on 1:34, I'm bang on threshold pace at 7:22 average.  Cross the line in 1:37:23, grab my t shirt and goody bag and jog to the ferry.  Then off to the pub with Peter and we're the first in, we remain the first in for about 45 minutes before the others arrive. 

One drink becomes two drinks, two drinks becomes rounds of drinks, I end up in about three rounds and I'm pretty hammered. 

Phone Gail to pick me up, go home, eat some food and then we go back to the pub.  I start work tomorrow at 8am.

All previous blogs are available to read HERE