HAC again

Ran again yesterday with the Hillingdon AC and enjoyed it. Same route as last time (the 'Denham Eleven'). Last Wednesday I picked up my vest from the clubhouse, had to drive through ridiculous flooding (as in 2 feet of water) to get there. That was the infamous day of the Brexit referendum, one of the things we chatted about while running yesterday.

My two runs so far with the HAC have been at about the same pace I would have run them on my own, but they felt like less work because I was with other people. The run yesterday was nearly 11 miles but I hardly noticed the effort, it was nice and a bit strange. The first 6 miles in particular flew by without me even realizing. It's apparent that these runs have been slightly easier for me than for my partners so I think to make it harder for myself I'll get in the habit of running both to and from the clubhouse; distance from home to clubhouse is 2.5 miles so that'd add 5 miles to my Sunday runs. Won't run with them next Sunday however as that's the day of the Bushey 10k. Will be wearing my vest though.

Hillingdon Athletic Club

I'd been thinking about joining the HAC for a while since moving to Eastcote, and finally did so today. Their clubhouse is about 2.5 miles from where I live. I ran there this morning and joined a group for their 9:30 run of 10.7 miles in the countryside. Enjoyed it, came home and joined online, and ordered a team vest. Maybe if it comes in time, and I decide to run the Wycombe half on 10 July, I will wear it for that. I'm happy to finally have the opportunity to run as part of a team. Will it improve my motivation and performance? Remains to be seen, but feels good to join up.

New Gear & Bushey 10k

Just entered the Spire Bushey 10k on 03 July, about three weeks. It's only 7-8 miles NE from Eastcote and it's a Purple Patch event (those are usually good). Also has a pretty sophisticated set of chip-timed fun runs for kids. I first heard about it when a guy handing out a flyer for it caught my eye right after I crossed the finish line in St Albans. Somehow Charles ended up with a flyer for it too and he showed it to me last night when I was putting him to bed. He asked if he could do the kid's run, and that's the first time he's actively asked to enter a race. So I'm looking forward to it -- may try and beat 42 minutes. It'll be my fifth event in five months, so after 1.5 years of no races I've become as active as I've ever been.

Also have been stocking up on gear. For the past few days I'd been noticing some yellow Adidas Adios Boost shoes in the Runner's World Eastcote display window. I want to support this store, more so than any other local business, because I love that it's there. I've also been wanting to try some Adidas with their new boost material. Supposedly the fastest marathon shoes in the world. So I went to buy them on Saturday. When I got there I discovered that all their clothing was 50% off, apparently they're trying to clear out some stock to make room for a refurbishment. So in addition to the £110 shoes I spent £61 (on £122 worth of gear). Then I went back today and spent another (£110 for £220) worth of gear. A lot for me to spend on running clothes but I got some nice items from some great specialist brands:

2 Craft shorts

1 Adidas shorts

1 Ronhill shorts

1 Adidas tights

1 Craft sweatpants

1 Inov-8 fleece-lined cap

2 Montaine wool blend long sleeve shirts

1 Mizuno short sleeve shirt

1 Montaine rain jacket

I ran in the Adidas for the first time today. They felt good, not phenomenal but good. They're very light but have much more stability than most of my shoes, so they'll add some diversity to my shoe rotation which will be good for avoiding injury.

2016 St Albans Half

Ran this today, family came and did fun run. Bottom line is I did well and am happy about that. Official (i.e. as listed online) time is 1:36:56, a 7:24 pace, my 9th best half time ever (out of 12). However this official time is certainly about 20 seconds too long (more on that below) and in reality this was my 8th-fastest half. Regardless it's a good time for this challenging, hilly race on a very rainy day. My most recent half (Hillingdon 2016), a much flatter course, was 1:38:32. So I can't complain.

I know the online time is too slow because it lists both my overall time and my net (i.e. chip-timed) time as 1:36:56. This could only be true if I started right at the start line, which I didn't. It's as if my chip wasn't working so they just went with my overall time. According to Garmin I ran 13.16 miles in 1:36:40 (a 7:21 pace). I remember taking a few seconds after finishing to remember to stop my Garmin. This suggests my actual finish time was probably about 1:36:36, and that I took about 20 seconds to cross the start line, which sounds about right.

What went wrong with the timing? I'm not sure but they also screwed up my registration so maybe that has something to do with it. When I registered I signed Jade and kids up for the fun run and myself for the half. But when I picked up my number pack it was inexplicably in Jade's name. This meant they had to discard my pack and issue me a new number and chip manually, on the spot. Maybe something was off with the chip they gave me. I have no idea.

In any event at worst my official time was off by 2-3 seconds per mile. I can live with that, especially since my official time was better than I expected. I'd felt so sluggish leading up to this race that I expected it to be my slowest half ever. I was thinking this even up through the first half of the race. But mile after mile I just kept shaving seconds off my pace and I had so much energy towards the end. My two fastest miles were 11 (6:40) and 12 (6:47), which says a lot. During the last two miles I was passing so many people going up the hills -- sometimes steep hills really bring out my best.

Update 27/06/16: The race site now shows my actual net time, 1:36:29! Something possessed me to check it again today, 15 days post-race, and I was surprised to see the correction. This is 27 seconds faster than the original mistaken time, and a 7:22 pace instead of 7:24. It's also only 3 seconds slower than my 2014 time in the same race. And I was right when I said above that in reality this was my 8th-fastest half (out of 12).

Bath

Gave a talk in Bath earlier this week so had a chance yesterday morning to run along the Avon river and adjoining canal. Beautiful town and running route. Feeling a little sluggish these days however, and with the St Albans half coming up on Sunday, have decided to do some tapering. So four miles in Bath and three miles today is all I'll do before Sunday.