And now for something completely different...

I’ve actually been quite busy. It’s been quite a discovery that the law of conservation of energy does not apply to human energy. I used to think that the more you do, the more tired you feel, but it turns out that some activities are much more energizing than others – in fact paradoxically, the more energy you invest in them, it seems, the more you get back.

I'm still training, of course. I say "of course" because you as the reader know that, but I was never quite sure I would continue to train if I had no goals to achieve. I thought I would give the Madrid Marathon a go, so I signed up at the last minute. I waited to see how I felt when I woke up on the day, before deciding to head down to the start, where I bumped into a couple of English guys. As there was a Half Marathon running in parallel, they asked me if I was running the Marathon. They looked a bit baffled when I said "I think so" so I had to explain that I wasn't sure if I was going to run the full distance until I got there. I literally took it kilometer by kilometer and only started to notice the suffering coming on after 35 of these had gone by. I remember thinking "Uh oh, my foot is hurting and I've still got 7 kilometers to go… This can only get worse… It will be insufferable… I might as well stop now and save myself all the pain". Then I thought "Hang on a minute, this is silly. There's no need to catastrophize by living all the future pain in one go. Right now it may be annoying but it's also OK and I'm not about to injure myself, so I'll just take it one step at a time". It reminded me of the very first race I ever did, over the boat race course in a coxed four at the age of 15: I told myself "Just 10 more strokes then I’m definitely stopping!" over and over again. Of all the Marathons I have finished (11 to date), this was the one I was second most proud of having completed, in a time of 3:25 which was neither pushing the pace, nor boring. The best thing was that I did it of the back of my unspecific training of about 30 minutes of easy running a day, with the exception of one long run I did in the mountains of Asturias to test my legs.

I've started to take this Mindfulness lark a lot more seriously because it has helped me enormously in all spheres of my life. I’ve trained to become an instructor and have started to give classes to other people and, so far, the results are very encouraging. If you are interested in seeing what I am up to these days, have a look at my new webpage: "Attention Coach – training the attention muscle!".

IV Carrera Popular Ciudad de Pozuelo

This year, all four of us (me, my wife and both my kids) "ran" the 5K race. I put "ran" in quotes because, of course, I am not yet allowed to run anywhere in my condition, so I decided I would power walk it with my youngest. As he was too young to officially take part in the race, I signed him up for a shorter race and he entered the 5K race with a race number for the shorter distance.

I had had to get up early to go the hospital to get my (last) steroid jab before the race. As we were the slowest in the race, the coche escoba (the car that marks the end of the race) - which was, in fact, a police car - was in hot pursuit of a guy who was doping accompanied by an underage boy who had not paid the entry fee. Just as well I didn't get drug tested at the finish line.

I enjoyed walking and talking with my son, while my wife and other son were running ahead. In the end, they didn't have to wait all that long for us but, for some reason, my chip didn't register so I'm not even sure what time we did. Not that it matters.

Enjoying it was the main thing, but I couldn't help feeling pangs of competition. The last two times I have run it I have been 4th in my category and fairly high up the overall rankings. This year, much less people were running because it coincided with a very popular 10K in the centre of town. This would have been the year to get on the podium! Still, if I ask myself what that would have meant, I would say that I would have liked for my kids to be proud of their dad. I think they are more proud of me spending good quality time with them and not being in such a bad mood.

I do miss running though. A week today I have my appointment with the spine specialist. It will also be a week without medication, so it will be interesting to see how both my symptoms and my sleep patterns evolve, not to mention my mood.

TCS New York City Marathon 2015 - Race Report

Marathons can be one of two things: they can be good or they can be hard. If 2013 was a good one, this year it was the turn of a hard one.

I continued to be bothered by my back, shoulder and neck pain so I was overjoyed to find that Barajas airport now has a place that offers massages (as well as delicious smoothies). Luckily enough, my wife had had to drop me off on the early side as she had a conference call to make, so I had just enough time. I indicated on a form where the masseur should focus his attention, as well as specifying that I wanted a deep massage. It was very good, much better than I would have expected in an airport. It left me a little sore the next day, as was to be expected, but it definitely loosened me up as well as making the flight much more bearable. With the flight you know more or less what to expect but, depending on the number of planes that happen to land at JFK at the same time, the wait in customs can be quite heavy. I decided to be as "zen" about everything as possible so, after two hours of waiting in line, I didn't bat an eyelid when the customs official rudely told us to "Get out of my line" because he happened to be knocking off work at that moment. Just one more hour on the train to my final destination.

This time my friends Eli & David with whom I was staying spent the weekend in the flat, but they left me to my own devices on Saturday and were very considerate about not making any noise when they came back in the evening, long after I had gone off to sleep. After running down first thing to the Expo to pick up my number (20 minutes at a pace of 3:56 - I was too excited!) I spent the day lazing around. I stocked up on cereal bars and bananas, cooked and ate spaghetti (for 6 people, according to the packet), had a hot bath and lounged in bed. Between the flights and vegging out, I got through about 8 films in total. I watched one about a budding 4-minute miler and another about a bunch of people taking on the 4 Deserts to try to get myself in the right frame of mind. I was asleep by about 7:30 pm.

If I have one gripe about the Upper West Side, it's the number of bloody dogs there are everywhere. My sleep was only interrupted by a yappy dog that was locked up in a cage outside one of the flats in the block. And then, on my short run to the Expo a large dog jumped up and snapped at me, something that has never happened before. I would have expected Upper West Side dogs to be better behaved. Even just navigating all the dogs on outstretched leads is a tripping hazard.

In spite of the incessant yapping, I slept surprisingly well the night before, waking up at 4 am - 10 hours sleep counting the extra hour from the clocks going back. I had a light breakfast, vaselined up, put my kit on and headed out of the door towards the subway. I saw someone else similarly dressed leave their flat and head in the opposite direction. Hmmm, not a good sign. Down in the subway there was no-one around but I knew I had plenty of time and that the journey was pretty straightforward - take the "1" all the way down to the ferry - at least, that is what I thought.

Luckily I bumped into Matt at that point, who had bothered to check the status of the trains. Just as last time I spent the next 4-5 hours leading up to the race with the first person I bumped into, so it was to be this time. Matt wasn't from New York but was a Chicagoan and so at least knew the basics of public transportation in the States. Just then we were joined by Dan who was from New York and seemed to know exactly what he was doing. Rather like the pied piper of Hamlyn, the number of people following Dan grew and grew until it was quite a responsibility he was bearing. The journey was made quite a bit more complicated by some poorly timed maintenance works, but we made it to the South Ferry Terminal by 6:15. By this time the queue for the 6:30 ferry I had notionally said I would be boarding when I registered was so large that the doors closed in our faces before we could get on. No worries, we would be in a good position to get the next one. But where are all those people rushing off to? Damn, the next ferry leaves from the other gate. I managed to stem the thoughts of the injustice of missing another ferry before they crystallized into panic, and our little group made it on even getting seats without any problems. While we were swapping Marathon stories, Dan astounded us by saying that he had lost over 100 pounds (45 kilos!!) in the last few years from running - he was so lean that it was hard to imagine what he would have looked like with that much excess baggage.

In 2013 I started in the blue wave on the lower levels of the bridge; this time around I had drawn orange as had Matt. I basically followed the routine I did two years ago to the letter with the exception of not being able to do a very convincing "lucky number 2" beforehand. In spite of all the pasta and cereal bars I had been stuffing myself with over the previous days, I didn't feel bloated before this Marathon for some reason. Two years ago we had passed the time looking for the Dunkin' Donuts hats which this year were in plentiful supply; instead Matt tried to find his friend Sasha amongst the other 50,000 runners. We found him, finally, in the last waiting area before being ushered on to the upper deck of the bridge. There I bumped into a friend from Spain - Antonio - who was running his Xth Marathon (where X was a big number I can't remember), together with his son. Spike Lee was the Master of Ceremonies giving way to a slightly grating (sorry) Opera version of the USA National Anthem. I almost forgot to give a thought to the race ahead.

I had printed out my splits from 2 years ago on a wristband to give me some idea about the relative ease or difficulty of each mile, as well as an indication of how I was doing compared to my Personal Best time. I found myself fairly naturally nailing each mile split almost to the second but, during the 3rd mile (after the distracting up and down of the Verrazano Bridge), I already knew something was not right. I can't honestly say whether it was a self fulfilling prophecy, but I noticed my heart rate was significantly higher than I would have expected it to be at that pace. I imagined it was due to the unusually warm temperature and - more importantly - the 70% humidity. This was the bane of my very first Marathon in Amsterdam: in spite of it being quite cool, the humidity was as detrimental as it would have been in hot weather - after all, the body gets hot running irrespective of the ambient temperature. I had a choice to make. Do I slow down and wave goodbye to a chance at my PB but save myself a lot of unpleasantness later, or do I just go for it and ignore the Heart Rate Monitor? I decided to go for it.

I pretty much nailed the splits up until halfway (mile 12)...

...but look how much higher my pulse rate was compared to last time...

...or even just compared to a recent run at the same pace with a similar(ish) profile

I spotted negative thoughts creeping into my consciousness and instead tried to enjoy the atmosphere and to conserve mental energy for later. But, if truth be told, I was finding it increasingly difficult to enjoy and increasingly difficult not to worry. In general, the sensations were not good and it felt just a little bit too much like hard work. Also, I think as a result, I can't say that I remember as much of the race as last time. I remember finding some of the signs amusing but not what was written on them. I do remember one sign, though - "Have you ever been victimized by the Marathon" - because I saw it at least three times along the course and couldn't figure out whether the bearer was the same person or whether there were several identical copies of the same sign.

When I had been geeking around in the weeks leading up to the event, comparing my splits to other runners, I had noticed that my 11th mile seemed to be a bit slower relatively speaking, while my finish was much stronger. With this in mind it dawned on me that the reason was because this was the orthodox Jewish quarter where I suppose it was against their religion to support us. I don't remember the First Testament diverging from the Second Testament as far as Marathons were concerned... It was almost worse to have people ignoring you than running in a vacuum and, coupled with a sustained "annoying hill", it made for one of the slowest miles of the course.

I managed to spot my mate Rich in Greenpoint, just before the Pulaski Bridge at the Half Marathon mark, which I reached in 1:23:48, only 23 seconds behind last time. The live tracking was vastly superior to two years ago when the automatic tweets (that I wasted $3 on) failed to materialize. Thanks to the app, Eli & David were able to anticipate fairly accurately the time I would be passing by which was just as well, because they chose to spectate along the very densely packed 1st Avenue.

Knowing that I would probably see them around this point, I passed the time scanning the faces of the crowd and tried to look as happy and relaxed as I could. Unfortunately, my legs were feeling very heavy by this point and I was conscious of running ever more slowly. I saw them thanks to Eli's exuberant shout (which she later worried might have put me off my stride).

The second half of the race was very tough. As usual, when the Marathon doesn't go to plan, my heart rate actually slows down and my breathing speeds up. As you can see, my gadgets reported that my cadence started to decrease, my contact time increased as did my vertical oscillation and my braking force.

Red = pace, orange = braking Gs, yellow = contact time

Towards the end, my foot strike moved more to the midfoot from the forefoot, but this was due to a conscious effort to avoid my calf muscles knotting up in a ball. I thought of my friend Nat and his stoicism and I practically ran through Central park with my eyes closed.

I had got a little irritated with my mum when she had said before the Marathon "Don't be disappointed if you get cramps and are not able to do a good time". "I don't want to think like that," I had retorted. With 1.2 miles to go my legs finally locked up completely, rooting me to the spot. The crowd cheered like crazy for me to keep going, which I did after a few seconds, but I wasn't convinced that it wouldn't happen again and again until the finish line. Thank goodness for small mercies: this was the only time I was forced to stop. It was also probably the most exhilarating moment in the whole race for me.

Can you guess which part of my body hurt the most after the race? My left arm - go figure. I think I was pumping my arms so much to make up for my uncooperative legs that I wore them out completely. I couldn't seem to find a position that would ease the sense of fatigue. Bizarrely, my back and neck felt better than they had before the Marathon, so that was one thing I needn't have worried about.

Just then I saw Matt. I had wondered how it had been for him and it turned out that he had had a very similar experience to me. He had set off with the same goal time, reached the halfway point more or less at the same time as me and then started to slow down, finally cramping up in almost exactly the same spot as I had, before crossing the line a number of seconds ahead of me.

I finished shy of all three of my goals in a time of 3:02:52 in place 970 out of 50,530 and 191 in my age group. I made my way back to the flat, showered (which stung like hell) and then headed off in search of a beer. The whole of New York seems to breathe the Marathon, so many people congratulated me and asked me how I had done. I hadn't yet figured out how to tell the story but ended up practicing several versions from "there was a great atmosphere" to "it didn't go as I had planned". It's a bit of delicate situation to be disappointed with a time that for many people would be a dream time. And to non-Marathoners, a 15 minute delay seems like a trivial miscalculation - akin to missing a bus - rather than a disaster. But if you stop to think that behind those 15 minutes of difference between the first half and second half is a world of personal suffering imposed by a mind / body that just resort to various forms of torture to prevent you from going any faster, it is perhaps easier to understand. In hindsight, I think I am more disappointed about not having truly enjoyed it than about the time per se.

This was rectified to a great extent by seeing how much Eli & David had enjoyed supporting the Marathon and getting caught up in other people's stories. After some sushi, we met up with my Ultra running friend Elaine and her fiancé, Tom, in a bar Downtown. Elaine had been pacing the 4:30 group.

The girl who took this photo had paced a blind lady who took 8.5 hours to finish

While in town, I also took advantage to pop into Best Buy, which starting that very day had an exclusive on the Garmin Vivosmart HR - an activity tracker with continuous heart rate monitoring. I convinced myself that I needed / deserved one of these.

This time around I had allowed myself an extra day to enjoy New York and it was just as well, otherwise I would have felt a tremendous anti-climax. David and I went for a fantastic Dim Sum in Chinatown, in a restaurant that I had been to with my wife the previous year, where we were the only non-Chinese in the place. We had to share a table with a Chinese couple and could only order by pointing our chopsticks and nodding. It was very good quality and I felt stuffed afterwards and it was only $18 for the two of us.

One of my favourite pastimes in New York is just randomly wandering the streets and trying to find a different route every time. Hidden out of the way was what looked to be a record shop but in fact turned out to be a non-profit music archive.

Just peeking through the window I could see a whole bunch of rare Roy Ayers records. We knocked on the door but were not allowed in. In spite of being quite friendly, they seemed puzzled as to why we would want to look inside. For a company that includes "passion" in its mission statement, it strikes me as an even more puzzling thing to ask.

Note to self for next Marathon: don't tie my shorts too tight. They left an almost perfect outline in blood.

I got my NY on!

New York City Marathon 2015 Week 7/11

The main event this week was the XIX Mariano Rivas Rojano Memorial Half Marathon in Alcázar de San Juan. Someone asked me what time I was aiming for and I said that if I did 1:19 I'd be really happy but if I did 1:21 I'd be pissed off - this just shows how much pressure I was putting on myself.

The weekend didn't get off to a very good start because on Friday afternoon I did something to my upper back and neck which made it very painful to turn my head. I don't remember anything specific but I guess it is one of the occupational hazards of a sedentary job. There is a pilot to try "standing desks" at work - something that I think is a great idea - but it would just make me look too weird I think. A friend of mine who unfortunately seriously injured his back under the influence now finds its so painful to spend time sitting down that he has a standing desk. The difference is that he lives and works in Brooklyn where anything goes. Anyway, I did everything I could on Saturday to make it better - from a very hot bath to massages - even the 20' run helped a little, but it was uncomfortable to the point of putting me in a foul mood. I am not very good at dealing with pain unless I actually put my mind to it.

We arrived at Alcázar de San Juan in the early evening and went for a little walk, before heading to nearby Tomelloso to meet some of my wife's cousins for dinner. Bizarrely enough, the best pizza restaurant in Spain is in Tomelloso (which is where my wife was born) and boasts having won the prize for the best pizza in the world (in Rome, no less) an impressive 4 times! They also held the record for the longest pizza in the world at over a kilometre. In case you are interested, the restaurant is called Marquinetti. I had to try one of the world champion pizzas, but I mainly stuck to pasta. In any case, I had had a pretty substantial lunch in our local Asturian restaurant before heading south.

Last time I ran this race, we stayed with my in-laws and I had to drive 100 kms to the start (and back again). This time we stayed in a very reasonably priced and comfortable little hotel in the town centre so I only had to jog a kilometre down to the start, which served as a perfect warm up.

The start was a bit better organized that last time I ran it, when a lot of people who were still warming up minutes before the gun, squeezed in at the front at the last minute. I overheard one of them saying to his friend "Better not push in in front of these guys because they'll get pissed off; we'll just overtake them later". This piqued my competitive spirit.

The gun went off and I settled into a rhythm I hoped I'd be able to maintain for the following 21 kilometres. I checked my watch to see what pace I was putting down but noticed that I had failed to press the start button. At the first marker I heard somebody call out his split and calculated that I would have to add about 15 seconds to my watch time, Another of my pet irritations in races is when people around me are talking or joking around. I can't help thinking of those kids at my school who would say before an exam that they hadn't really studied that hard. I always saw it as an excuse, something to point to if you got a disappointing mark. For me, the whole point of a race (or an exam, for that matter) is to do the very best you can. Of course, it shouldn't bother me what other people do and, if I'm honest, what is probably most annoying is that these guys are fit enough to run as fast as me and talk easily.

Around about the 12th kilometre mark, after a slight incline, a couple of guys edged past me and I started to feel weak. Just as well that shortly after I saw my family and some friends there to support me and, almost immediately, I got my legs back again.

Partly in practice for the Marathon and partly because I think it helps, I carried about 4 and a half gels (High5 Isogel) in a little hip flask. I'd sip these every 5 kilometres or so and after any hills. The Fuelbelt and bottle was actually brand new as my previous one had worn out. They say never to use anything for the first time in race conditions and this proved to be no exception: on one occasion I pulled a little too enthusiastically at the "nipple" of the bottle and it came off in my mouth, covering me with sticky gel and causing me to cough and splutter! I'd previously taken my rings off my fingers so that my hands would be more relaxed, not having to curl my fingers to stop the rings flying off, and now I had to carry this nipple to the finish line.

The other nipple related problem was one from which I hadn't suffered for I don't know how many years: the classic runner's nipple. My wife had given me an outfit as a present and had my name and "Witness the Fitness" emblazoned on the back. I don't think she realized it at the time, but the phrase comes from one of my favourite tracks by Roots Manuva, so it was quite fitting. I would have liked for this to be my Marathon outfit but I'm afraid that it failed the test.

The last 8 kilometres were, as you might expect, hard work. I thought I might try my hand at "Mindfulness" or Mindful Running - something that I have yet to know much about but have had a curiosity about for some time, especially now it seems to be going viral. As this excellent article (which I read afterwards) explains, a common trick is to try to disassociate yourself from the pain by thinking of something else. Counter-intuitively, the idea of running with Mindfulness is to own and fully experience your pain but to stem the negative back chat that tends to follow (I can't keep up this pace, I want to stop, etc.) by focusing on the state of all the intervening systems in your body: listening to your breathing, monitoring muscle fatigue, etc. The definition that Jon Kabat-Zinn, the creator of Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) uses is

“Mindfulness is awareness that arises through paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgementally"

It may seem a bit wordy at first glance, but every word in there is important. In particular "non-judgementally" is what stops the thoughts running away into dangerous territory. I cannot pretend to be an expert on Mindfulness or even meditation in general, but I remember using a trick in the New York Marathon which worked well for me, that of imagining that I was watching the race unfold on TV. Perhaps this was too much like the "disassociation" but, having that slight distance, I was able to be more analytical and non-judgemental. So, in the race yesterday, I tried to examine my pain and ask myself questions like, "Should I push the pace a bit?" or "Is there some way I can alleviate my fatigue like using my arms more, running more upright or increasing my cadence?". I also remember thinking very clearly, "It's taken a lot of work to get to this point, 13 kilometres into a Half Marathon and these last 8 kilometres are going to be the most important ones I run in the whole training cycle so let's make them count.". Even so, I had a bit of a fade but nothing out of the ordinary. The fact that my heart rate got up to 175 and that my watch awarded me with a "Training Effect" of 5.0 (the maximum possible) confirmed that I had, at least, done my best. The photos belie the fact that it was actually 20 degrees - not exactly hot but far from cold either.

So, as you can see, I crossed the line in 1:20:23 - 30 seconds slower than my time 2 years ago but within my range of 1:19 (happy) - 1:21 (pissed off). In some ways it was probably a good thing not to do too well as I might have approached the Marathon with too much complacency. As it is, as long as nothing goes wrong between now and then, I will go for a fast time, if not aim to beat my best time.

Not a pretty sight, I'm afraid

Woah, déjà vu or what

As usual, the goody bag did not disappoint. Included was this curious bottle of wine. I'd never actually stopped to think about the Mariano Rivas Rojano in memorial of whom the race (now in its 19th year) was established. I'd assumed he was just a popular runner from the area - in fact I saw his runner cross the line a few minutes after me. Seeing this photo on the wine label with the message from Helsinki, written in Spanish, to his son made me think for a minute that perhaps he had been an internationally acclaimed athlete but, of course, that photo is of Emil Zapotek and the message is from the 1952 Helsinki Olympic Games where he won gold in the 5,000m, 10,000m and Marathon. Still, it left me curious about who the real Mariano Rivas Rojano was but searching for him on the internet only throws up references to the race in his name.

Back home I looked up how I had done in the overall rankings and was pleased to see that I had come in 30th place out of 880 runners, 7th in my age group. Two years ago I finished 30 seconds faster but in 35th place and 11th in my age group: it's true that the winner was the very same and he also finished in a slower time this year. Well, there's no point getting obsessed with the time - the real test is in just under a month's time and there is no way to be sure until I cross that line in Central Park. In the meantime, I can be pleased that I have put in a performance which is "up there" with my previous races. Most importantly, it erases the bad taste of my recent failed attempt at the distance (which ended up turning into a full Marathon)...

Monday: 4 x 8 x 70% weights + core
Tuesday: 2 x 1'-2'-3'-2'-1'-2'-3' @ 3:25 w/ 4.5%-2.5%-1% gradient
Wednesday: 60' @ 4:08
Thursday: 3 x 15' @ 3:45
Friday: 40' @ 4:04
Saturday: 20' @ 4:27
Sunday: Alcázar de San Juan Half Marathon in 1:20.23

Total kilometres: 68

Spiritually, emotionally and physically...

..exhausting! I was going to write "satisfying", which the weekend was, on all accounts but the last one. I guess it was a bit too ambitious to expect to do a good time in the 10K on Sunday, when I had to get up at the same time as I had gone to bed the night (morning) before. That was because on Friday I briefly came out of retirement as a DJ, blew the dust off my favourite vinyl records and got behind the decks once more.

The crowd at Marula were great and, once I had warmed them up with some slow burning funk I was able to take them to more challenging territory like this trio of tunes I played around 3am:

So that was the spiritual part of the weekend (some physical, too, having to lug my box of records up several flights of stairs).

Then we drove down to Ciudad Real for my father in law's 80th birthday where my wife did a "This is your life..." on him, complete with book and presentation. That, of course, was very emotional not just for her father but for everyone.

The race on Sunday promised to be a fast one as it was more or less downhill all the way. My objective was to get back a bit of confidence after what has been a patchy season. Had it been the weekend before, it might have worked out differently, but the summer had decided to turn up in a big way and it meant business. I can't really blame anyone but myself for turning out a time that I might have been happy with 4 years ago, but was far from anything I had done since. It wasn't much faster than a typical training run and maybe that is part of the problem. I'm starting to think that I need to go back to the polarized training Jonathan used to bang on about, which I have never fully accepted. If I keep training at moderate paces of 15 kph (4:00 /km) for 40 minutes then I suppose I will become good at running at a moderate pace of 15 kph for 40 minutes. I have, of course, been doing interval training but probably not pushing myself enough on the high intensities. My main quibble with the whole 80/20 training idea (80 easy, 20 hard) is that the arguments for it seem to fall flat if your main constraint is time and not energy. I can appreciate that it is better to substitute moderately hard training for easy training if you then employ that liberated energy in high intensity training, but if you are already doing 20% at a very high intensity, surely it is better to do the 80% as hard as you reasonably can? I've bought Matt Fitzgerald's latest book "80/20 Run Stronger and Race Faster" in an attempt to convince myself. The other thing that Jonathan used to say was that I shouldn't abuse the treadmill too often. For sure, if I were to do more runs at an easier pace, it would by correspondingly easier to run outside and perhaps for longer. But there is a simpler explanation for the disappointment on Sunday: as I have been doing lately, I set off far too fast for my current level of fitness and the particular conditions, even considering the downhill advantage (I ran the first kilometer in 3:19 and the second in 3:29). Then the rest of the race was the usual revising downwards of projected finish times, which is always a motivation killer. At one point I thought I might just conceivably be able to break 35 minutes; at another, the balloon marking the 38 minute pace overtook me and I was unable to respond. Note to self: next race, start off slow and get faster.

If all that wasn't enough to fill a weekend, we also brought back a litter of 5 puppies from Ciudad Real, of which my wife managed to place all but one. Unfortunately our boxer, Ema, is extremely jealous and antisocial when it comes to members of her own race, so we had to be careful to keep them apart. It remains to be seen whether we can awaken her motherly instincts and keep the puppy... otherwise a home for her will have to be found.

Yo Dona Run the Night 10K (5K?)

...or, as the webpage says, "Run the Nigth".

This really promised to be a great race. Everything was lined up perfectly: an early evening start to miss the brunt of the heat, a flat course near my house (a horse racetrack no less) and taking place the day before the Liberty Seguros 10K so that the best runners would be absent. The date also happened to coincide with my parents being here. The last time they saw me compete in anything was probably some rowing race in Cambridge when I was 17.

A not much fun queue for a fun run

What I didn't reckon on was it being the worst organized race I have ever taken part in - something of a feat considering how many I have done over the last 7 years. Admittedly, if it hadn't been for dragging my kids, my parents and my wife (who was running the 5K) along, I would have got there much earlier, but I didn't expect it to take ONE WHOLE HOUR to pick up the race number, by which time the race had already started. Also, rather than just giving the number and chip, they gave you the goodie bag with the commemorative t-shirt, so then you had to find somewhere to dump it before the race. It would have been much more sensible to give that to people as they finished, like they do in most races.

I've been living in Spain for 14 years now, but some things are so culturally embedded that they will never change - I'm referring to myself more than to the country. One of those things is how people go around roundabouts - something that still irritates me on a daily basis - but the other is how people queue. The queues were quite sensibly organized by race number but, unless you were at least as tall as me, there was no way of knowing that until you approached the desk as the signs were hard to see. But I think the real problem was that people were picking up numbers for themselves and all their friends who didn't necessarily have numbers corresponding to that queue, causing all kinds of chaos. There was a much higher proportion of people just running for fun than usual - at least, that was the impression I got from appearance and what people chose to run in - so I was very tempted to push to the front as it would make a big difference to me getting a good position at the start but I just couldn't bring myself to do something so un-English. To be fair, queue jumping is frowned upon in Spain, but its close relative - that of queuing for a large number of people - is not. I am perhaps a little bit extreme about this. My wife still laughs about the time I went to take out money from a cash point with my card and she asked me to take some out for her with her card (this was before we had a joint account). I felt bad about "having two goes" on the machine - I could imagine people who had based their queue calculation on just one turn tutting behind me - so I took the money out with my card and went to the back of the queue again. The funny thing is, this was in Spain, so everyone found my behaviour a bit bizarre (and perhaps they would have done in England too - I've yet to meet someone who does the same).

The setting for the race was ideal: it was the unused Hipodrome so the spectators could watch from the stands. They had gone to town with the audiovisuals, beaming live coverage of the race from drones and various cameramen to a huge screen. To cater for those who had been unable to get their numbers in time, there were several staggered starts. I might just have been able to salvage the situation if I had managed to get to the front of my wave, but I couldn't find my parents to give my bag to so in the end I had to leave it with a friend who I happened to spot. After all the faffing about, I just managed to get back to my wife as the gun went off (so to speak). I made a valiant but short lived attempt to get to the front but the course was very narrow and I ended up slowing to a walk. I decided instead to run the 5K "tranquilamente" with my wife.

I took up running initially as a way to channel my frustrations. The danger is that, if things go wrong, then it can end up compounding my frustration (like the lamppost incident in the Madrid Marathon). After training for this event and spending the day psyching myself up for it, not to mention loading myself up with energy in the form of cereal bars, M&Ms and red bull, it was extremely frustrating to spend an hour on a Saturday evening queuing up and then not even to have to chance to release all that pent up energy. It was the athletic equivalent of coitus interuptus. I had also looked forward to the idea of being able to run well in front of my parents. Anyway, I did my best to handle it with good grace and, even though the pace was easy for me, I tried to remember that it was a struggle for my wife. When my kids congratulated us, I didn't say anything about it not having been a challenge for me because, in some sense, it was a challenge to keep my cool (even though there were no lampposts to punch along the course).

Looking at the results, I think I would have had a good chance of a podium finish (out of 2,000 runners!). That would have been so cool in front of my family, with all the fancy media coverage. The course may have been flat, but it was quite sandy and it was a bit hot even at 9 pm, so I can't expect to have run a best time. Having said that, the third placed runner did a time of 37:21 (and the winner 36:30) which looks pretty attainable. It seems like it was more of a race to get the race number than a race to the finish line. On the other hand, another of the aspects of the race that was poorly thought out was that the 10K was two laps of the same circuit as the 5K, so the front runners undoubtedly ran into the slowest of the 5K runners. It may be that their times were relatively slow as a result, because the winner of the 5K race (an ex-Spanish Marathon champion) did a time of 16:45 which would have certainly been out of my reach.

Anyway, a bit of a shame because it was so promising. I'll give it another shot next year - if they decide to repeat the experience - and I'll pick up the race numbers during the day to avoid the crowd. Maybe they will have learnt from their mistakes too but I expect that it will attract more middling competitive runners like myself, when people see the results from the previous year.

III Carrera Popular Cuidad de Pozuelo (5K)

After my underwhelming performance (behaviour) in the Madrid Half (Full) Marathon and with just under 6 months to go befoer the New York Marathon, I thought it was a good moment to build up my confidence again, starting with a local 5K race. I ran the first edition a couple of years ago so I knew what to expect: hot weather and "annoying" hills (well, I live in Pozuelo so them thar hils I know well). This time I managed to convince the whole family to take part: my wife and I would be doing the 5K and the kids a 900m circuit. While the grownups were running, the eldest (12) could be looking after the youngest (10).

In the end, it didn't work out quite so smoothly as the eldest had other plans. It turned out that he had a birthday party to attend at the same time as the race, so I was left with the problem of finding a "babysitter" for Adrian. I say "I" because Ana was going to run the race sí o sí (yes or yes) so I would be the babysitter by default. I was pretty confident I would know someone running the race as it was near both where I live and where I work, as well as there being a chance that some of my running friends took part (in the 2013 edition, a friend who lives 265 kilometers away took part!). The challenge was to find someone who was accompanied by a significant other because it would be no use if they were also running the race. Just at the last minute I spotted a friend of my wife who had the whole family in tow, so problem solved. Ana and I went off to the start line of the 5K, which started 25 minutes after the 10K so that the two races would more or less finish at the same time. I wished Ana good luck and recommended that she didn't start as far forward as me for risk of being trampled by faster runners.

As seems to always happen when I run 5Ks, the initial pace seems to be surprisingly slow and I start to fantasize about finishing in a high position but then my lungs start to hurt, my legs feel heavy and the leaders start to drift away. I suppose I am used to running longer races and I think that I have to start off very explosively, but 5K is still 5K. When I think back to my rowing days, the standard competition distance was 2,000m (in about 6 minutes) and the Boat Race, that was considered to be an endurance event, lasted about the same time as it would take me to run 5K. There was someone who was having a harder time of it than me, who I managed to overtake, but I was passed by a couple of youngsters and their coach (on a bike).

I ran in a vaccuum pretty much all the way, to the point that I had to ask directions from a friendly policeman who told me that it was all downhill from there onward. Just as well. I looked back to see if anyone was following me and the same policeman told me not to worry, that there was no-one behind. I was surprised to see in the final results that there were a couple of people only a few seconds slower than me. As I hadn't bothered to record my time myself, I thought that perhaps my chip hadn't registered the time and someone had just assigned me one that respected the finishing order. But the video showed that I was indeed being hotly pursued to the line.

Just as two years ago, I was "pipped" to the podium (by decent margin, mind) and was the 4th "veteran", finishing 11th overall. It would have been really cool to be on the podium in front of my son, but I can't say that I really deserved it this time. Then it was the turn of Adrian to take part in his race. The starter counted down from 3 and half of the kids anticipated the start, half of them stopped and looked questioningly at the starter who waved them on - in short, a disaster. A girl fell over in front of Adrian and so he didn't get off to a good start. By the end of the second lap, he was making a big effort and it made me proud just to see that. As I said in the last post, the important thing is not winning, nor even taking part in my opinion, it is trying to do your best.

Madrid Half(?) Marathon report

Waiting for the train back home after the race, I overheard someone saying that he'd seen some people finishing with lots of gas in the tank ("sobrados") but that he had left everything out there on the course. This was the same advice I gave to my ten year old in preparation for a triathlon which he is taking part in at school this week. His mum tells him that the "taking part is much more important than the winning" but I put a little "twist" on this by saying that "it doesn't matter where he finishes relative to everyone else, but that he should feel that he has tried his absolute best". The face of concentration and suffering he wore when he ran a race last year made me much prouder than I would have been if he had finished first with a smile on his face.

So this advice was what came to mind when I did something I have never done before: I pulled out of the Half Marathon after only 4 kilometers. In spite of knowing that the first few kilometers were uphill, it felt far too much like hard work for the disappointing splits I was turning out. I remember thinking that there was no way I'd be able to maintain that pace for another 17 kilometers and that, even if I had, I wouldn't feel proud of having done so. I looked for something or someone other than myself to blame - not having trained for it specifically, having gone out on a "bender" on Friday night (as well as Thursday - something extraordinary for me these days) or just having turned 43. My head was so full of all these negative thoughts that I started to slow down and eventually stopped. I was so angry with myself that I did something I am even more ashamed of: I punched a lamp post making my knuckles bleed. I had such a bad attitude that I thought of titling this post "Growing Old Disgracefully". I sat by the road for a while, wondering what to do - do I get the metro back home, should I just finish the damn thing anyway, etc - when I had what turned out to be a brilliant idea. I remembered that a friend was running the Marathon which had set off in parallel with the Half, and I thought I could run with him for a while and try to help him pace himself.

Luckily Alessandro is quite a big chap with a beard which made him easy to spot, and I also knew that he'd be running with the 3:30 pace setter. He looked pretty relaxed and was able to keep a good conversation going without any difficulty, so this helped take my mind of things as well, I suppose, as his. At the 14 kilometer marker, the Half Marathon veered off to the left but I kept going with Alessandro to the right. A couple of race officials came chasing after me and I thought I that they were concerned about the fact that I had only paid for the Half Marathon inscription - actually, it turned out they were just worried that I had made a mistake and that my times wouldn't register.

It was a pretty horrible day but fairly good conditions for running as far as I am concerned - no wind, cool with a bit of drizzle. I didn't feel the need to drink anything the whole way and I'd already thrown away my gels (near the famous lamp post) as I wouldn't be needing them. The pleasant drizzle soon became a quite insistent downpour, however, and the puddles turned into small lagoons that were almost impossible to avoid: after stepping in a few of these it became pointless to try to avoid them anyway. We decided we would stop chatting and take things seriously at the 30 kilometer mark, just after coming out of the Casa del Campo. After this, there were several stretches that were quite narrow and where it was difficult to keep up a good rhythm, especially with people falling like flies around us.

There were a lot of supporters in spite of the rain. A major Marathon is different from any other competition in this respect: the whole city gets involved. Any shorter races don't really capture people's imagination in the same way and longer races are generally the reserve of "freakies" who are spread out much more sparsely along remote routes. At one point I saw a runner in front of us stop briefly to give his mum a kiss and I turned to watch her wiping tears of pride as I ran past. I love the emotion of Marathons - all the human stories unfolding before your eyes - it really makes the admission price of my own personal suffering all the more worthwhile.

I hadn't really planned to run the full distance nor was I even sure that I could, not having trained for it, but I felt good, and Alessandro's own story of wanting to finish without "hitting the wall" like he had last year motivated me to carry on. Of course, finishing a Marathon would take some of the poison out of the injury sustained to my self confidence by wimping out of the Half Marathon. I wondered if I would be able to get a medal for my efforts and therefore be able to say that this was the 9th Marathon I had completed - making New York this year the 10th. I thought that I would try to blag my way through the finish line and, if anyone noticed that my race number was the wrong colour, I would try to convince them by telling my story (and potentially offering to pay the difference in race fees).

Alessandro was going well but I could hear his breathing getting more laboured and saw that he was gritting his teeth with the effort. He complained suddenly of cramp in his hamstrings but was able to run through it for the last couple of kilometers. When I saw the finish line come into view I gave in to the irresistible urge to sprint for the line. More than anything else, I still needed to vent my frustration. Alessandro finished in 3:30 and change and was deservedly very happy with his race. The splits were very even and, given how easily he was able to talk during most of it, I'm sure he can knock a good chunk out of that, now that he has a solid reference time to judge himself by.

I got my medal without any difficulties but I did have to turn away suddenly to avoid detection by one of the race officials. Luckily the guy handing out the medals was none the wiser. I didn't get one of those plastic shawls they hand you to help keep you warm, though, and I really could have done with one.

By now it was really raining, even by English standards. I hadn't bothered to leave anything at the baggage check because it was situated at the finish line, about 2 kilometers from the start, which would have meant an extra 4 kilometers in my legs before even starting the race. I had turned up with a t-shirt that I had bought for 3 euros the day before from Decathlon and a waterproof poncho from a Chinese shop, both of which I had no qualms about chucking. Making my way back to the start from where I had to catch the train home was quite unpleasant. A guy working for the Metro made a gesture to say that it was crazy to go outside dressed as I was, in a vest and shorts, and said he would have offered me something to wear if he had anything.

By the time I got back home, the day was starting to brighten up significantly. In fact, the only time that it rained the whole weekend was during the Marathon itself. I weighed myself and I had lost so much weight that my scales didn't recognize me (I mean this literally). We went for lunch at an Indian restaurant where I ordered a Vindaloo with extra fresh chili, but even so I continued to shiver for at least an hour after getting indoors. I know that they say that you should try to keep warm after exercise - something which I have always found amusing as I tend to be literally steaming afterwards - but this time I went a little too far. Even though running the Marathon made me get home a bit late, my wife would have preferred that over me coming home pissed off with myself. In the end I managed to turn a bad situation into a good one, but I shouldn't let myself forget that - for all the Marathons I may have run - the Half Marathon commands a respect of its own.

Looking over the results, I saw that I was one of the last people to finish the Half Marathon, in a time of 3:31. Not a bad time for a Marathon considering I had not trained for it and that I had run the first 4 kilometers in 15-16 minutes before sitting around for another 7 or so - not exactly what you would call "even pacing". But when I looked at the overall results, I realized that, had I run the 1:20 or so that I had been hoping for, I would have finished about 35th out of 7,000, so it was clearly an unrealistic goal for my current state of fitness and preparation. Had I just run at a slightly more realistic pace with more realistic expectations, I would have done a fine time (not a personal best, obviously) and finished in a good position. Lesson learnt. I'm pleased to finally have been able to run the Madrid Marathon given that I actually live in Madrid. It's a bit like saying that I haven't been to the Prado Museum because I can go any time (I haven't been yet). I've always shied away from it because of the hills getting in the way of a fast time, but it didn't seem any more difficult than the New York Marathon to be honest. I'm thinking now of entering every year and taking it in the same spirit I did yesterday. It may seem to contradict my philosophy of always doing the best I possibly can but I don't see why I can't enjoy the privilege of having the whole city to myself (and the other 20,000 runners).

Duathlon El Amogable, Soria

Even the name was deceptive as "amogable" makes me think of "amigable" or amiable, friendly. I'm convinced that last time I checked, it was a only small detour on the way to Asturias, where we spent Semana Santa or the Catholic version of Easter, but it turned out to be anything but the case, and added a couple of hours on to the already long trip up north. At the last moment my wife suggested I went there and back on my own, and then we went as a family to Asturias from Madrid, but I managed to convince her to drive me all the way there and spend 5 hours waiting for me, all the while looking after the two kids and a dog (on heat). I'm a lucky man.

Triathlons and duathlons are always a bit of a logistical headache but I knew better than to complain about it. In fact, I was more relaxed than I usually am when we go to Asturias; normally, I am agitating about leaving the house - for example, standing near the door with my coat on - while everyone else is doing last minute preparations. Apart from not testing the patience of my wife, it was important not to waste precious mental energy on the journey: I would need it for later.

When we finally arrived at the place, it turned out to be much more in the middle of nowhere than I had anticipated. I had discovered that there was an adventure park nearby with ziplines and other activities, so I suggested that Ana took the kids (and the dog) there while I did my thing. Unfortunately, the park turned out to be closed for the day - probably because of road closures for the Duathlon...

It was all very low cost but there was a good atmosphere and people (organizers and competitors alike) were very friendly and helpful. I had remembered to pack toilet paper - which was just as well because there wasn't any available in a radius of at least 10 kilometers - but I had forgotten to take sun screen. In spite of being at 1,000 m altitude in March, it was very hot and the sun was beating down relentlessly. Once I had done all the requisite fiddling with my bike and other equipment, I tried to find Dani who I knew had brought sun screen (it's funny now to think that we used to call it "sun tan lotion"). It shouldn't have been difficult to spot his 6'5" frame among the other 200 or so athletes but unfortunately I didn't find him in time before we were lining up at the start. (Although, inexplicably for such an out of the way location, the start was delayed by at least 10 minutes, more than enough time to splash on some protection.) I left my bike on the rack but had to figure out an ingenious way of stopping it from flapping about in the wind, with the disc wheel acting like a sail. As I have one of those sawn-off saddles (Adamo), it probably would have fallen off the rack otherwise.

The fist leg of the duathlon was a 12 km run (actually, it was more than 13 km, but hey). The route was an out-and-back loop along a sandy path which we had to complete 4 times. Not the most inspiring course but the surroundings were quite pleasant and at least this way you got to see how you were doing compared to the others. The leader was way out ahead, running with a smile on his face and apparently not even having to breathe. Just before we set off, Chema had asked me at what pace I was thinking of running and, for some reason, I said 3:45 /km - which, I suppose, is the pace I had done some of my brick (bike-run) sessions at, and corresponds, more or less, to my Half Marathon pace. Ivan sensibly pointed out that it would probably be prudent to take account of the heat, so I figured I would go off at around 4:00 /km. It proved to be harder work than I had expected - maybe the altitude also had something to do with it - so I let myself slow down a bit as the run wore on. After all, there were still more than 2 hours effort ahead of me.

Finally, the moment I had been waiting for: a chance to try out my superbike on a flat course with no-drafting! If only there were pure time-trial bike races available in Spain to us amateurs - but no, the federation in control of this sport only organizes time-trial races for professional teams. I have often wondered why someone doesn't just organize a cheeky duatlon consisting of a 1K run + 100K no drafting bike leg. Anyway, I set off and soon discovered that this was not going to be a piece of cake by any standards. I distinctly remember thinking my Garmin was off because I couldn't be going that slowly, surely. But it was quite windy on the way out and not as flat as one might hope. That, coupled with two 180 degree turns per lap (of which there were 3, making a total of 61 kms), meant that the course was far from ideal. The turning circle on my bike is so wide that I found it better to unclip one of my shoes and do a kind of pirouette, but this meant that I lost a lot of speed on the following descent trying to clip my shoe back in without risking falling off the bike (if you try to clip in with the pedal upside down there is a good chance your foot will slip off completely and you will end up leaving a streak of skin on the road). It was slightly hair-raising to be belting along those narrow roads with people coming in the opposite direction, especially when several people were overtaking on both sides of the road at the same time. Then, of course, there were the cows which would occasionally decide that the grass was greener on the other side of the road.

The real problem, though, was that I started to get the dreaded cramps after only about 10 km. They didn't bother me too much on the bike as long as I adjusted my pedal stroke or stood up now and again, but they were a warning of what was to come. I tried to put them out of my mind and pretend that they would go away. All in all, I enjoyed the bike ride and seemed to get faster as my confidence grew. I was disappointed with my time - my average speed was slower than my bike leg of the Ironman in Brazil, and that was on a "normal" road bike. I still haven't managed to prove to myself that my superbike is any faster and I am left with the nagging doubt that, although it is clearly more aerodynamic - something that I did notice on certain flat and windy stretches compared to others riding on road bikes - maybe I am losing too much power from the tight angle between my hips and my torso. Who knows. All I know is that I don't want to go down that road of obsessing over bike fitting etc: at least my bike looks cool. The good news is that I found the aero position reasonably comfortable in spite of it being so aggressive.

The cramps seemed to ease up a little bit in the final straight of the final lap. Somehow I managed to do the second slowest transition out of everybody so maybe I did something wrong, although I'm pretty sure that you had to basically loop all the way around the bike racks. As mine was parked close to the start of the run, I think this maximized the amount of running I had to do while wearing cycling shoes, so maybe this was the reason.

This was the image that came to mind 100 m into the 6.5 km run: that of Mike Allen in the Ironman World Championships in Hawaii, when he got passed by Dave Scott. My legs completely seized up to the point that I was actually rooted to the spot. I couldn't bend my legs at all and I couldn't move either without risking all kinds of muscular havoc. One generous athlete offered to help me stretch but I refused the offer because I wasn't sure quite how we would go about it. Eventually I managed to crouch down and then lie down. At this point someone asked if they should call the Red Cross but I said I was only 100 m from the finish line (well, start line really) and I was fairly sure I could at least make it back that far. I began to understand why the loops of the running course were so short.

Some time passed and my legs began to ease up, so I started off at an easy pace. This is the sort of pace at which it is actually more tiring to run any more slowly. Of course, the cramps soon came back and I had to repeat the whole charade. I saw Ivan looking a little stressed but he'd evidently started the run before me - something that I found slightly depressing because I wasn't just paying in cramps for overcooking the bike leg: the bike leg hadn't been so great either. Then I saw Chema looking breezy and he gave me some encouragement as he swept past. I tagged on for a bit but then started to find myself getting short of breath and feeling nauseous. Maybe it was those gels which I greedily gulped down as I racked my bike or maybe it was the altitude. Or maybe I should have done not only "BRicks" in training but "RuBRics" - Run-Bike-Run sessions. In the end, this feeling of drowning in air became more of a stopper than the cramps but I soldiered on and - in spite of stopping a last time some 50 m before the finish line in full view of my expectant family - I "ran" with my eldest son across the line in a time of around 3 and a half hours.

My wife was understandably impatient to get moving but, another of those hassley things about triathlons / duathlons that I'd forgotten about, is that you can't get your bike until the last person has finished the bike leg. While I was waiting around, I found myself standing next to the winner, who looked a bit like an albino version of Mo Farah. As I have often found to be the case with people in a class of their own, he was very natural and asked how I'd done, noting elegantly that "everyone does what they can".

I didn't get to see Dani after the race as he'd had a similar experience to me but Chema and Ivan were at the finish having both done a good time (3:09 and 3:14 respectively). Now I only had a 4 hour car journey left to endure...

Epilogue: I felt very nauseous in the car and looked quite pale with sunken eyes. It's hard to make sure you drink enough and this is especially the case in the aero position on the tri-bike. As usually happens whenever I have suffered from the dreaded cramps, it took several days before I could walk again normally, let alone run. Probably not an experience I will rush to repeat but a worthwhile one, nonetheless.

In spite of this, when I spotted the following publicity for a 30 km race (with 3,000 m climbing) that just happened to be taking place the coming weekend near to our place in Asturias, I was very tempted to enter without any specific preparation whatsoever.

It was just as well that my family talked me out of it (my son said "Daddy, don't you think you should recover from the last one before you think of doing another?"). Apart from the winner taking about 3 hours to complete giving an indication of the difficulty, this YouTube video shows just how technical some parts of it are. Having said that I am very tempted to enter next year.

What we did do, though, was a flight with a paraglider in Gijón (Asturias) - this was my Father's day present. It was absolutely awesome, even if I did land face down in a muddy puddle with 90 kgs of pilot on top of me. If I find the time, I'll upload the video to YouTube.

I won!

Yes, for the first time in my life I actually got to break the tape in a running race! It's not that I have never won anything outright before, it's just that in a rowing race there is obviously no tape to break...

The race was organized for the shareholders of the company I work for so, seen in those terms, I was first out of over 3.2 million people. Perhaps it is slightly more representative to say that I was first out of 100. If I were more paranoid, I might suspect that there was a conspiracy against me taking part because, in spite of the race taking place in the nature reserve built by my employer just outside the campus, I found it difficult to get any information about the race and, when I tried (several times) to sign up for it, I got no reply. In the end, I just turned up and managed to snag race number 100.

The park was designed for employees to be able to go running and cycling and enjoy the wildlife; I prefer to run around outside the park because I don't like feeling hemmed in and, besides, there are too many hills. Talking of which, the course of the 5K race was quite tough with said hills, lots of switchbacks and sandy paths which my trainers had very little purchase on.

I almost didn't take part in the race as I had to accompany my wife to the hospital for a minor operation that afternoon and the timing was very tight. So I decided to stick to my original training plan the day before of 7K at a pulse rate of 172 bpm (which I did in 26:41 or a pace of 3:40 /km); normally I would have taken it a bit more easy the day before a race.

As people get ready you can often tell who the main contenders are going to be. The first clue is their body composition (i.e, how lean) and the second is their body language (i.e., how mean). Someone asking about the course gave away their attitude and it turned out to be his breath I could hear chasing me over the first half. I lead from the start line to the finish but this guy made me work hard; on the other hand, as long as I didn't get lost, I had it in the bag. I was following a little buggy which sometimes had to go ahead to move some of the tape marking the course: in fact, I actually had to jump over the tape before entering the final straight as I got there before the buggy. As I crossed the finishing line I instinctively raised my arms to an appropriate height somewhere in between "this was easy" and "this victory is the best thing that has ever happened to me".

I now had to worry about my next race, the race against time to get home to take my wife to the hospital, but I wasn't about to miss my first ever podium for overall winner in a running race! A nice surprise was that I not only won a trophy but also a bag of goodies including a portable DVD player with two screens for the car as well as some waterproof headphones and armband for listening to music while swimming. I didn't quite make it home in time so my wife went in the car and I ordered a taxi with the last few seconds of mobile battery I had left. The whole day seemed to just fit together by the smallest of margins: I got home just as the taxi was about to leave, I arrived at the hospital at the exact moment that my wife was checking in and we got sent home just in time to get to the car as the parking ticket ran out. And, most importantly, my wife's operation went well.

I decided to meet up with Dani for the Sunday brick. He lives in a nice flat part to the South of Madrid, on the way out to Toledo, very near to where Alberto Contador is from. The idea was to try out the triathlon bikes and stay in the aero position as much as possible. Dani, very sensibly, has his bike set up with a fairly comfortable position, although I was surprised that his seat was lower than mine in spite of him being noticeably taller - maybe he has longer crank arms or something. I was a bit worried about not having trained much in my much more aggressive aero position but the relative absence of hills, wind and bumpy roads meant that it was quite tolerable and I noticed the speed advantage for perhaps the first time. We got passed by a bunch of road cyclists who - as Dani put it - were going at that perfect speed that would mean we would be foolish to try to overtake them but that was just a bit too slow for us to have a decent workout. They also had the demeanour of those kind of cyclists who don't take well to being overtaken and would have surely seen it as a guantlet being thrown down. Eventually they went left and we went right and had a nice stretch of flat open road with hardly any cars. I had to drive about 40 kilometers to get to the start of the route but it was well worth it and something I may repeat even if I don't have the additional benefit of Dani's company. We rode for about 70 kilometers and then left the bikes propped up, slipped into our running shoes and set off for a 9 kilometer run. It's days like this that make me remember why I like cycling. I also gained a lot of confidence in the aero position, getting out of my head all the fears and ideas of trying to change the position.

I'M IN!