Why Are There No Fucking Signs Anywhere?!

Hello. I haven't blogged in a fucking loooooong time. Not had anything to say in a public forum. This started out as a Facebook post that seemed a little long, so I made it into a blog instead. And then it grew from there. 

Still with me? 

Good. 

It's about running. 

Still there?

Then I shall begin. 

I'll start with a bit of backstory.  I used to run on and off, quite a bit. Then clicky knees; a son and, most significantly, laziness got in the way. A couple of years passed and I didn't really run for anything except the normal everyday things like buses and when your son shouts "One, two, three... GOOOOOOO!", whilst you are pushing him in his pushchair. Then, one day, I decided I wanted to give running a go again. But I needed an in. An edge. I find motivation a difficult thing to maintain, without some gimmick to keep me interested. Then an email went around at work. It was to invite people to take part in a "Bitesize Marathon". Basically, in the month of September, you had to run the equivalent distance of a marathon (26.2 miles) in as many runs as it took you to get to the cumulative total. So if you ran 2.62 miles for every run, you would have to go for 10 runs in that one month period.  You also got sponsorship for the said endeavour and the proceeds went to the British Heart Foundation. That was my in. I quite keenly got involved and managed to run 42.51 miles, in the month of September. I was running 3 times a week and I was enjoying it. I also got extra motivation by my cousin Dan offering to sponsor me £20, plus an extra pound for every mile I did beyond the 26.2 mile goal. That extra £16 was hard earned, but worth every step. Once the month was over, I needed an in to keep me interested. I decided to just continue as I was. Every month, I would run 26.2 miles. I would only run twice a week though (Wednesday and Friday... I'm a creature of habit... without routine, I also lose motivation). 3 times a week would burn me out pretty quickly. I found it was rather doable by running my optimum distance of 3-4 miles. We are now in January and I ran 30.25 miles in October; 26.91 miles in November and 27.66 miles in December. Four months and I was still interested. Great! We are now on month 5 and I show no signs of stopping. I've just ordered some new running shoes and, after a lot of research, I got a Garmin Vivosmart HR+ watch for Christmas. It's brilliant! It shows my running time; distance; heart rate; steps and all sorts of other bits. Including telling the time! It also has GPS built in and so it maps my runs out for me. Very handy if I decided to change my route, or go less/more distance. To be clear, it isn't a Sat Nav. It doesn't tell me where to go. It just tells me where I have been, when I sync it to my phone, after the event. As I said, I'm all about those 2 runs a week and hitting that arbitrary goal of 26.2 miles a month. I need to know my distance ran. I also like to monitor my minutes per mile. Historically, I've always ran a rubbish 9:30/10 minute miles. Consistently running for four months has got me to sub 8:30 minute miles and I'd like to maintain that average.

Today I went for a run that ended up a little different than planned. Not exciting different. If you're hoping for wild adventures; car chases; kissing girls and light-sabres, you'd better stop reading now. You will be disappointed. Although, if you got through the backstory, you are pretty oblivious to disappointment. It was my first run at work with my new watch (I did a couple at home over Christmas). I'm not overly familiar with the area I work in (even though I've worked there for 8 and a half years!), beyond knowing the best routes to my office from the motorway and the location of the shops. My familiarity has grown over the past 4 months, as I have used my Wednesday dinner to go for a run and explore the area. My routine is to plan a route on Map My Run and then follow it, as best I can. The past few weeks I have settled into a run, that I can tweak slightly, depending on whether I want to run 3 or 4 miles. Today I had a top goal of running 4 miles, with an option to drop it to less (I'm full of a cold), but decided to modify the run slightly.

This is my usual 4 mile run (I know the pictures hang out of the frames, but it means you can see what is going on):

This is the tweak I made. It's simpler. Run further up the A5145 and turn right, at about 1.25 miles (my watch shows how far I have currently run), to make it one long run through Heaton (GRRRR.... we'll come back to that) Moor. Nothing could possibly go wrong.

Could it?

I passed a mile and kept an eye on my watch. 1.25 miles passed. I didn't turn. I didn't see the turn. I was expecting a major junction. I don't like turning around when running. That's no fun. Finding the way yourself is fun. Kind of. Sometimes. I blindly ran on, in the hope some right turn would leap out at me, as the best way to go. Nothing did. My watch signalled I had run 2 miles. In a fairly straight line from work. I only wanted to run a maximum of 4 miles. Shit!

So I just turned around.

Nope!

That is what I should have done, but I don't like turning around. I took a random right turn. I was in very uncharted territory now. I was further afield than I had been on any of my previous runs and was just running in what I hoped was vaguely the right direction to take me round back towards work. Unfortunately my blind right-turn had taken me onto a housing estate and I got turned around pretty quickly. Unwilling to give up, I ploughed on, in the hope something would look familiar, or a sign would point me towards somewhere familiar. My watch signalled 3 miles. I started to worry. Shops and things started indicating I was in, or near, Burnage. Where the fuck is Burnage in relation to work?! All I know of Burnage is that it is where the Gallagher brothers are from, so was probably a bit dodge. That meant I was definitely going to die!

So I turned around.

NOPE!

I ran on in the hope of seeing a sign for Heaton Moor or the A6. From my previous runs, I can easily find my way from either of those two places. 2 things became apparent. Every fucking place in the area is called Heaton something! And there are no fucking road signs on any of the roundabouts or junctions in that area! I saw a sign that said "Welcome to Stockport" (or something like that) down a right-hand turn and figured that was a good turning to take. Burnage seemed straight on, and sounded very wrong. I work in Stockport. You don't need to be an expert in navigation to realise it was my best call to head towards the sign welcoming me to Stockport. My watch indicated 4 miles (my maximum target distance). I still had no clue where I was, but hoped I was heading in the right direction now. I reached a junction. No road signs. I think it was then I shouted, "Why are there no fucking signs anywhere?!". I continued straight on and reached another junction.

A sign.

A FUCKING SIGN!

Stretford was right. Stockport was left. I turned left. Again, no expert navigation required there. The normal people amongst you will be thinking, "Were the streets deserted? Why not just ask for directions?" Hello?! There were loads of people, but do you not know me at all?! 

I. Don't. Do. Social. Interaction.

Especially with strangers!

If my only option is asking a stranger for directions, I will blindly run until I reach the coast, then (AND ONLY THEN) turn around and run the other way, like Forrest Gump, if it means I don't have to have a conversation with another human being!

I reached another junction. And you guessed it...No fucking signage. I turned right, it felt wrong, but I thought I could see a sign a couple of hundred yards ahead. I can't remember what the sign said, but it was useless as far as I was concerned. I instinctively turned around and ran the other way. That doesn't count! I had just run up the road a few hundreds yards, with the intention of running back after I checked the sign. I thought this an excellent piece of navigational instinct. Little did I know it was something different. But what was it? I carried on and 2 things happened. One: I clocked up 5 bastard miles and still didn't know how much further I had to go. Two: I crested a hill and saw the Stockport viaduct AND my office building on the horizon! Out of nowhere, there they were! I carried on heading towards them and then I realised something. Turns out that something different to excellent navigational instinct was something I believe scientists call "memory". I was back on the bloody bastard road that I'd started on when I'd originally missed my twatting turning! I suddenly knew how to get back and it was less than a mile. It was also the bit of road I originally shunned turning around on, because I don't like turning around. I was now running back along it, as if I'd turned around. Except I'd run 4 fucking miles in the process! Yeah, yeah. Fuck off! As I approached work I looked at my watch. I'd done 5.8 miles. In 50ish minutes. I. Was. Knackered!

But, you know what?

5.8 miles...

That's nearly 6 miles.

And 6 miles is nearly 6.2 miles...

Which is 10K!

I. Ran. Past. Work...

...to the park next to the office and ran a lap around the field. I ran back to the office to clock up a total distance of 6.21 miles! It took me 53 minutes and 48 seconds. A time I am extremely happy with. I got back in the office and drank 2 pints of water; had a shower and inhaled my butty and cup-a-soup. I hadn't even eaten! Here is the route I ran. All in all, it's not terrible. I instinctively/through pure luck ran a fairly consistent circle... on the end of my running up and down the same road. That thing I went out of my way to avoid doing.

The Big Race - City Of Salford 10K

So, the big day. Early start, had to be at the Lowry between 8 - 8:30, to start the race at 9:30. They close the roads off, so you need to get there before to ensure you get in. I was up at a similar time as on a work day (6:45am!) and had a quick breakfast of museli and a cup of coffee. I then decided this wasn't calorific enough and had some chocolate pop tarts for good measure.

We arrived easily enough and milled around watching all the much obviously fitter and more commited runners than us warm up. We pretended to do some daft stretches and then figured that actual stretching was in fact a good idea and limbered up. That hour of waiting was worse than the actual race, we were keen to get going. The start time came and we were off. Rick said to not try and keep up with everyone and just run at our own pace and let people pass us. Then when the siren went he was off out of the blocks and sprinting across the bridge with me shouting for him to slow down. I was aiming for a time of around 55 mins, that's (easy maths) 5.5 mins per km. After 1k we had been running for 4.5 mins. I continued telling Rick to ease off. After 2k and a time of 9 mins I decided I couldn't keep this pace up for the whole 10k and eased off a little myself. Rick got the message and dropped back. It was a fairly quiet affair for the first few K. It was just the sound of a peaceful Sunday morning and the footfalls of a few hundred people, indespered with the odd bit of panting. By 4km me and Rick were waffling as normal, it helps us run. We eat up the miles that way. The 5km point was marked by a water station. We wondered whether to do the classic swig of water, rest over your head, drop the cup. I managed to get a face full of water just trying to drink whilst running (it's an aquired skill I think). It was some sort of energy drink and I was rather sticky. I decided against pouring it over my head and finished it. We then had a few K of running down a straight road. This was the most gruelling bit. Just wathcing the runners and road disappearing into the distance and then seeing the leaders coming the other way on the other side of the road. You ran round a roundabout and ran back down. I particularly flagged on this bit. It was boring more than anything. We entertained ourselves by chatting to a bloke who was running a similar pace and coming up with comedy slogans about winning and losing. Some favourites were, "Winning is everything, taking part is nowhere."... "It's not whether I win or lose, it's whether I beat YOU!" and, "It's not the winning or losing that counts, it's whether you beat those girls running in tutus!" We eventually got over the long stretch and hit the 8km mark. We approached the island with The Lowry on again. Rick was keeping pace with me and it was agreed I could happily maintain my pace on my own if he felt he wanted to motor on from the 9km point. Around the 9km mark you run past the finish line. A little demorilaising to be so near but so far. Fortunately our girls were there cheering us on and that gave me the spur I needed. We even managed to pose for a photo mid run. Rick motored off and I attempted to keep up for about 2 strides then decided I couldn't do it. I upped my pace from my original pace but let Rick go. He afterwards felt guilty for this, but I was cool with it. Especially as I picked out a bloke ahead in a white T-shirt and thought, "I'm going to try and beat him." He was going a similar pace and was far enough ahead that I would have to open up a little and drive on. I caught him just before the final bend and by this point I was really running. As I rounded the last bend it became apparent that he had started sprinting too. We bizarrely ended up in a sprint finish with loads of people cheering us on. I'm happy to say I didn't look back and just kept running and came in ahead of him. The point was, of course, to finish in a time I was happy with, but that competitive streak in me got a little buzz out of it. I remembered to hit stop on my watch just after I passed the line and had finished in an unofficial time of 52 mins and 48 secs. As I was aiming for 55 mins I was VERY happy with this. Unfortunately the official time has not yet been posted yet and I can't remember the route to post that either.
Rubbish!

Afterwards I felt fine very quickly. My calves stiffened up from sittiing in the car and my knee was a little stiff later on. Although I felt nothing in my knee at all whilst running.

I managed to get £212.01 sponsorship for my efforts and would like to thank everyone for that. Good stuff people. We did well. I'm sure the kids supported by the NSPCC are grateful too.

Half marathon in March...........