See, montages do work

Going into training this year my personal best for the half-marathon was 3 hours 15 minutes and 54 seconds. My hopes of bettering this time were hindered by our success in the American Football season which saw preparations put back until mid-July.

Then this happened...



Well the results for the half marathon have formally come in and I cut that time to 2 hours 56 minutes and 26 seconds, over 19 minutes faster than my previous best. Booya!

The Sunday Column - 2 PBs down, 1 to go

Yesterday was the Adidas Dublin Half Marathon in the Phoenix Park. John Craddock and I lined up with a rather large field for the 13.1 mile course.

My tactics were similar to 10 miler a month earlier, run the odd numbered miles and walk the even ones. This time though to make the time go quicker I brought along my iPod, in my new little holder for it on my arm.

I had actually paced out the playlist so that I knew where I should be by the end of certain songs. Creativity somewhat took over around 5 miles in as some songs simply had to be included even if they broke the routine.

A simple tip for any running playlist: AC/DC, lots of AC/DC. Aside from that there was a shedload of Jim Steinmann penned tunes, assorted other power ballads, three variations on the Rocky theme, and Can't smile without You by Barry Manilow. Yeah, yeah we all have at least one song in these list worthy of mockery.

Anyhoo back to the race (which began with 'Start me up' by the Rolling Stones), and thanks to my system I knew I was flying on my running miles and not too shabby on my walking ones. I had a minor panic towards the end of the fifth mile (the last one under the system) when 'Song 2' by Blur ended and I was nowhere near the mile marker. I then realised that I still had the whole of Blondie's 'Call me' to go to remain on schedule and I reached it well before the end of that.

I pushed through and was still perfectly refreshed through seven miles, around the point where the fast people finally disappear from the course and stop running into the backs of us normal racers. I'm just going to say this: Races like these with just the fast people are only paper-scissors, to play the game you need the Rock.

Unforgiveable puns aside I quickly worked out that I had a problem ahead. Military Hill, or whatever its called, is the worst uphill part in the course. It's also the guts of a mile. On the first lap I walked it but I was scheduled to run it on the second lap in the eleventh mile. This would be tough.

It didn't start well. I was breathing heavily and my legs weren't in a running mood. Halfway up the hill the help I needed arrived. 'Promontory' from Last of the Mohicans. As in this:



This was some seriously motivational music! Got through the mile, well almost. The stewards were cleaning up the course and one of them asked me if I knew the rest of the way in, this lead me to believe that they were picking up course markers and putting them in their van. I said yes and asked him where the mile marker was, he said it was around the corner. When I didn't see it I assumed they'd annoyingly yoinked it (I'll explain why I assumed they'd do something so unhelpful later on) but in fact it was 2 corners away so I walked an eighth of that mile.

While walking the twelfth these two ladies approached me and one asked "Are you Emmet?" I said yes, vaguely recognising her face. "You gave us great tips last year, we wouldn't have finished it otherwise." That was really, really nice of them I thought.

In case you're wondering all I said was that walkers should run the first 50 yards or so of every mile to freshen up their muscles. I don't know if it's a physiological or psychological effect but all I know is that it works.

Meatloaf's 'Anything for Love' (thank you Jim Steinmann, thank you!) was in full swing as I hit the last mile. Man this hurt. I pushed on for the first half mile, had to stop and walk for a while, then pressed on again for the final quarter mile. As I approached the bend I could see the clock, I had a new target. I utterly needless sprinted around the final bend to guarantee success.

You see before the race my hope was a time around 3hours and 3 or 4 minutes, which would be about a minute a mile under my previous best. I figured breaking the 3 hour barrier was a little beyond my reach at this stage but lo and behold there it was, 2 hours 58 minutes on the clock. I raced around just to be safe but this 10 seconds of sprinting was wholly a case of showboating.

I crossed the line around 2 hours 58 and 40 seconds, again this will likely come down by around a minute when the chip is calculated (this discounts the time spent waiting to get to the start line). Essentially it means I beat my personal best by at least 17 minutes which is well ahead of my target.

That puts me in good stead to make a serious challenge at my PB in the marathon proper in November. The big difference between that best and my previous bests at this distance and over 10 miles, is that I set this all the way back in 2000. A time when I was a much lighter man. Still I'm confident now, whereas before I was only hopeful.

Before I go I have to say something about the organisation of the race and it's not positive. When you pay a fee to enter one of these things you expect a reasonable level of organisation. After the problems last year I wasn't exactly brimming with confidence.

Sure enough the stewarding was far from ideal this time. There were a few problems with directions aside from the bit I mentioned earlier but the most irritating bit came at the end. When I finished they had run out of goodie bags.

This is kind of important as after three hours on the road a body is crying out for something. The goodie bags come in handy in this regard as they're loaded with sugar. The last thing I expected was that they'd run out, I've stewarded at distance races before and they usually overstock to ensure this doesn't happen.

Ah well, rant over. I wouldn't let that ruin my day. I'm delighted with the time and confident I can build on this in the weeks ahead.



Just a reminder our Mycharity.ie page is up and running. You can donate there and help us reach our target for 2008.

Keep an eye out this coming week for the first Guest Post this year...actually come to think of it, it's the first ever, on the STIG for CF Ireland blog.

The latest Sunday Column possible - Back in the habit

Egads! This is nearly a week late. I was away in San Francisco on holiday last week, hence my failing to post on time. Pics are online here so feel free to give them a gander.

Despite not training as such while on holidays the oh-so-hilly streets of San Francisco ensured I stayed in shape whilst on my travels. It's just as well as I've got a half marathon in the morning!

We'll have the breakdown of how that went in this Sunday's column which I intend to post on time.

The Sunday Column - Heading to San Francisco

Tomorrow morning I'm heading way out west on holidays with Stephen Errity. We start off by flying into LA where we'll spend the night in Thousand Oaks, a much nicer sounding spot than our original plan of going to Inglewood.

From there we'll head up the Pacific coast hitting San Fran on Wednesday and staying there until the following Monday.

Oh and we'll totally be playing this...



And this...



...in the car on the way there. See you all when I get back.

MyCharity.ie page now up and running

We may be a day later than planned in announcing this but we are delighted to formally reveal the first of our two big bits of news this month.

STIG for CF Ireland's official MyCharity.ie page is now up and running. This is an easy way for you to donate to the cause online and for you to see how we are progressing towards our target amount.

This is the first year we've set up a web donation page but better late than never. The page can be found here and all support is greatly appreciated.

Learning to count/read

Oops. As reported in a recent post I managed to beat my personal best (PB) in the 10-miler recently. Well had I bothered to check the post where I posted my previous PB I'd have noticed something. I didn't beat it by 5 minutes, I beat it by 10 minutes.

My official time for this year's race was 2 hours 9 minutes and 17 seconds, over 10 minutes faster than my previous best of 2 hours 19 minutes 54 seconds. The big boost of this is that I went a minute a mile faster than in my previous best time. I need to go at least a minute a mile faster than last year's marathon effort if I am to break my existing PB over that distance so this is positive news.

Now while it's great and all that I beat my PB by more than I thought it is somewhat silly of me that I failed to notice this. You see, I had mentioned the older time in the post just before I discussed how the 10-miler went. Ah well, better that I noticed it now than not at all.

Two big announcements on the way & details of the draw...help us find a venue

The STIG for CF Ireland 2008 campaign will be making two big announcements in the next couple of weeks, the first of which is coming on Thursday. All will be revealed soon but as a hint the first one will be internet related. Yeah that's all I'm giving away for now.

In news that we can announce now, sales for the STIG for CF Ireland prize draw have now formally ceased. Thanks to everyone that bought tickets.

We plan on holding the draw on either Wednesday the 17th or Thursday the 18th of this month. We're currently looking for a venue in or near Dublin city centre, preferably a pub where we can get an area put aside. If anyone has any recommendations on somewhere that's good for that sort of thing please leave a comment.