Dartford parkrun 39 - nineteen-forty-six

At my first claim running club we have just started our first ever Grand Prix. Our system gives us two ways of scoring points. The first is by participating at one of the nominated races and the second is by running at parkrun with each runner's best parkrun age grade of each month also being converted in points - this is called the 'parkrun bonus'. Points are awarded based on the runner's age grade score with the percentage converted into points by rounding up to the next integer.

Our race for April was the Darent Valley 10k which hosted by Swanley & District AC. It's a tough course and I'm not fully fit but I came away with a GP score of 67 points (66.04% rounded up). Earlier in the month of April I had put in a 20:01 parkrun time which gave me an age grade of 67.19% and a potential parkrun bonus of 68 points. With this weekend being the last in April it was a chance to try to squeeze another point out of Dartford parkrun.

about 1.8km into the run with adam right on my tail [photo: brian page]

So, the day before parkrun I did a little maths and worked out that in order to move up into the next percentage number I would have to run 19:46, which would give me an age grading of 68.04% and would be rounded up to 69 points. The problem was that I busted a gut just reaching 20:01 and I was sceptical as to whether I could actually knock another 15 seconds off. Anyway, it was worth a try.

So on the day I set off at an aggressive opening pace in the knowledge that within a few short minutes the run would become very uncomfortable and maybe a little painful. According to my stopwatch I hit 1km in 3.50 which was a tiny bit faster than the required pace, then after running through the gardens I headed around the bandstand and reached 2km with the stopwatch displaying 7.40 (another 3.50 kilometre). I was happy with those but knew that it was a tad faster than my actual 5km fitness level.

slightly different shot from the same point [photo: brian page]

By the time I had crossed the bridge for a second time and reached 3km things were getting very tough. The stopwatch time of 12:42 (4.02) at 3km confirmed that my pace had started to slow. All I could do from here was try to hang on. I somehow ran a cracking 4th kilometre (this one includes the second trip around the grass and incline section) and reached the 4 kilometre point with the stopwatch at 15.38. That left 4 minutes and 8 seconds to reach the 5km point.

By four-and-a-half kilometres I had started making involuntary sounds while I was running - I think this may be a first. As everyone that has run a hard 5km race or time trial will know, this last stretch can be complete agony and this really is the best way I can describe it. My running club chairman, Brian, even got some photographic evidence as to how hard I was pushing. Turning onto the grass right at the end I glanced at the stopwatch and it showed a time of 19.36 - so I gave it everything I had left...

at 4.5km and just wanting it all to be over [photo: brian page]

After the run it took me a good five minutes to get on top of my breathing and to start feel fairly normal again. Incidentally my GPS readings tell an ever-so-slightly different story as far as kilometre splits are concerned but it's pretty close. So after standing around and chatting for a little bit, I linked up with Adam - who himself had put in a stonking effort and finished just a few seconds behind me - and we went to collect any remaining signage from around the course.

There were a few problems with the parkrun laptop after the run so the processing was a little delayed and we ended up stuck in the processing queue. So it wasn't until a few hours later that my confirmed official result came through and much to my delight, it was bang on 19:46. This gave me that 68.04% age grade score and an extra point in the Grand Prix. There were a whole load of other really good performances from my team mates so we were all pretty chuffed with ourselves.

please make it stop [photo: brian page]

All over and done with for another week and I started to feel a little sad, fortunately I had put my name down for a spot of junior parkrun volunteering the next day so that's two parkrun days in one weekend, which is just about the right amount if you ask me.

The Marathon Talk Magic Mile 2014

I first did the Marathon Talk Magic Mile in 2013. Back then I was still mostly living in Central London, so I did a few of my attempts on Victoria Embankment. The best time I managed back then was 6.04. In that blog post, I had mentioned that I might do the odd 1 mile time trial every now and then. Instead of doing that, I have introduced a 3 x 1 mile rep session that I do on the 1 mile stretch that I used for myn original magic mile. I tend to do this when I run with the Trump Street SRC. It's one of my favourite runs and I always look forward to it!

mile training?

This year I was in better shape and knew I'd be able to beat 2013's time - in fact I had already run a new personal best of 5.24 a few weeks before the 2014 magic mile competition took place. Also things had changed beyond belief - I had moved to Dartford and am part of a great running community....

So instead of just running my fastest possible mile on my lonesome, this year I decided to host my own Magic Mile event and get a few others involved. I was nervous that too many people would turn up so I didn't add it to the Marathon Talk website until the last minute. It worked out that the event attracted 5 of my #TeamSLGR running buddies. So on Sunday 3 August, the 6 of us were stood at the start line ready to test ourselves over this iconic distance.

I had thought long and hard about how I would make it work. First I found a nice flat 1 mile route around Central Park in Dartford (2 laps and a tail). Then I had to think about the method of timing. I had two ideas - firstly if everybody had their own timing devices, We could all set off at the same time and everybody could time themselves. Easy peasy.

The second plan was to send the runners off while I acted as time keeper. I could then run my time trial afterwards. The way it worked out, not everybody had their own timing devices so I went ahead with plan 2. To do this I used a stopwatch app on my phone which has a lap feature and as the runners crossed the line, I made a note of the name of the runner in each finishing position. If more people had turned up then I would have issued each finisher with a numbered piece of paper that could be used to match the runner to their time once everybody else had finished. Being a course of 2 laps, it was really easy for me to note down eveybody's half-way split times.

Once everybody had finished their 1 mile time trial, it was my turn to go. To make things simple I decided to just time myself using my Garmin. By the time I returned I had the feeling that we may have all run slightly further than a mile, but it was close enough for this occasion (the satellites kept giving me different readings so we went with the longer version to start with). I made a note to adjust it for the next time we have a mile time trial.

Sunday 3 August results from the '#TeamSLGR Magic Mile': (in no particular order...)

• Dave Reid: 7.04 - (58.2% age grade) (splits 3.36 / 3.28)
• John Annett: 6.55 - (64.4% age grade) (splits 3.32 / 3.23)
• Dawn Annett: 8.02 - (59% age grade) (splits 3.59 / 4.03)
• Rachel Bignell: 8.35 - (53.3% age grade) (splits 4.05 / 4.30)
• Jane Reid: 8.10 - (58.1% age grade) (splits 4.11 / 3.59)
• Steven Stockwell: 5.47 - (66.4% age grade) (splits 2.49 / 2.58)

I thought that might be it for this year, but the following day Dave Reid mentioned that he would be going over to the course with Jane Reid for a second attempt. Now, even though I had already run a 22km session that morning (with some fast sections), I really couldn't resist joining them. So at 7.15pm we met in the park for Magic Mile round 2, which I have named 'Reid vs Reid vs 7t'.

In order to make this second session a little more competitive, I came up with the idea of using a handicap system based on the results from the first session. So it worked out that Jane would start first, then 66 seconds later Dave would start (however we got a little confused and Dave went after 56 seconds), then finally I would set off 77 seconds after Dave. In theory, over the course of the mile Dave would slowly catch Jane and I would slowly catch Dave and Jane, and we would all finish at the exactly same time!

From my point of view, seeing two runners that I was trying to catch so far in front of me was pretty demoralising and I thought there was no way I could get anywhere near them. However, the handicap system did its job and in the final few hundred metres I drew closer and closer. I ended up finishing a whisker behind Jane and just a few seconds behind Dave who had reached the finish line first.

Monday 4 August results from the 'Reid vs Reid vs 7t' Magic Mile: (again, in no particular order..)

• Dave Reid: 6.48 - (60.4% age grade) (-16 seconds)
• Jane Reid: 7.50 - (60.5% age grade) (-20 seconds)
• Steven Stockwell: 5.40 - (67.8% age grade) (-7 seconds)

All three of us had improved our times from the day before. I think the improvements were down to three things;

1. The weather was noticeably cooler and less humid (we ran this second one in the evening)
2. We adjusted the start / finish point to make it a few metres shorter (hopefully spot on 1 mile now)
3. The handicap system introduced a competitive situation to the run which made us all push a little harder

So there we go. The 2014 Magic Mile window has now closed. I didn't manage to get as close to my personal best as I would have liked. I think this may largely be down to my current 1 mile personal best time being run during a 1 mile race (Swanley Relays) and there was probably a little more adrenaline flowing. In theory I should have been able to run the same time or faster because my fitness level should have been pretty much identical, plus the Dartford Central Park course was flat and should have been a little quicker than the course at Swanley.

We have decided that we quite like these 1 mile time trials, so we are hoping to hold them at regular (or irregular) intervals. When we do it again, we plan to continue with the handicap system. However, next time it will be based on the second running of the event, so Jane will start 62 seconds ahead of Dave, and Dave will start 68 seconds in front of me. If any of the runners from the first event come along to event three, we can use their times from event one. If anyone new comes along, I will calculate their estimated 1 mile time from a recent race time of their choice and then allocate a handicap based on that.

Huge thanks to the Marathon Talk team for providing a fun way to get people involved in running the mile. I've enjoyed my second year of magic miling and by the looks of it, my #TeamSLGR teammates are now hooked too!

The Marathon Talk Magic Mile 2013

Every year, Marathon talk run a fun little online competition called the Magic Mile. This year I put my name down for it. All you have to do is run a 1 mile time trial and submit your time via the magic mile webpage. You can run the magic mile on your own terms, at one of the events or even create an event for others to join you.

I didn't really do any specific training for this apart from the odd fartlek session, which I would have done anyway. The magic mile had to be run and submitted between Saturday 24 August and Sunday 8 September.

I thought it would make sense to have a few cracks at the mile throughout the two week period, I decided to concentrate on cycling during the first week so didn't manage to put in an attempt so I only had the second week to give it a shot or two or three. My goal was to try to run the 1 mile in under 6 minutes. My previous personal best was 6.10, which I ran at the Westminster Mile event in May 2013.

To time my runs I used the Strava running app on my phone. The advantage of using this app is that it gives a breakdown of the fastest splits over the most common races distances (400 metres, 1 mile, 5k etc) throughout your run. So even if I got the start or end point slightly wrong, the app would still record my fastest 1 mile split as long as I covered the distance, which I did because the runs were always longer than 1 mile in total.

Sunday 1 September - Attempt 1

I ran my first effort on the pancake flat Bushy Juniors parkrun course just before the kids were set loose on their 2km run. I used the runningAHEAD website course measuring tool to work out exactly when to start my effort and it worked out that the first 400 metres took me to the exact point where the first path crosses the course, so I jogged up to this point and then changed into my 1 mile time trial pace.

As you can see from the screenshot above, I managed to run a new personal best of 6.06. But as the course is all on grass and is quite bumpy in some sections I thought I might be able to go a bit faster on an all tarmac course.

I also equalled my 2km personal best on the same run.

Tuesday 3 September - Attempt 2

I jogged 3.5km over to the Trump Street Sweatshop to run with the early bird SRC group at 7.30am. It was a small group and we all ran at an easy pace together for the first half, but during the second half we did an Indian interval session, which was really really good and the first time I had ever run intervals in a group - we did 5k in total.

After the SRC run I had to run along Victoria Embankment to get back to work (3.5k) so used this as an opportunity to do a second Magic Mile time trial. From Blackfriars Bridge right round to the point opposite Horseguards Avenue is exactly a mile and all on tarmac.

This time I ran 6.16. I have to say that I was really disappointed with this effort. I don't know if it was the session beforehand that wore me out slightly or if I just got my pace completely wrong during the first half (it felt like a strong 5k pace at first, so maybe a tad too slow) or if I slowed down too soon towards the end.

Wednesday 4 September - Attempt 3

I went along to Southwark parkrun's trial run and as it is a three lap course it gave me an almost perfect 1 mile lap on which to put in attempt number three. I was unsure as to whether I should go for the time on lap 1, 2 or 3. In the end I decided that lap 2 would be good, but as it was such a lovely evening and I was feeling good I ended up dialing straight into a strong 5k pace during the first lap and stuck with it.

However, even though I changed my focus to a 5k time trial I still managed to knock out a 6.12 mile split during the second lap. So not quite what I came to do but very happy to have somehow pulled a 6.12 mile out of a hard 5k run.

Saturday 5 September - not really an attempt but I'm making a note of it 4

I wasn't thinking about the magic mile at all today, instead I was running another 5k time trial. This time at the inaugural Southwark parkrun.

However, I still managed to run a fairly decent 1 mile split of 6.13 as part of the run. So I'm sticking this one in here too. Only 24 hours left before the deadline...

Sunday 8 September - Attempt 5

Today was the last day of the magic mile, so I thought I'd stick in one more attempt. I decided to use the same 1 mile stretch along the river that I used in attempt 2. I took a longer route around the Southbank to make sure I was warmed up nicely and then I turned off of Blackfriars Bridge and met the first obstacle - I was running into a headwind!! Typical, I thought.

Anyway I pressed on, dodging the tourists out for an early morning stroll. When I reached the Embankment tube station I was forced to divert into the road as the pavement was completely blocked by a coachload of more tourists.

As you can see from the app screenshot, even with the aforementioned obstacles I ran a new personal best for the mile of 6.04 - So I am of course very happy with that!

It leaves me wondering - if it wasn't for the headwind and the weaving around tourists could I have gone a few seconds faster and maybe even have broken the 6 minute mark? For now I'll leave the question unanswered because I need a break from this intensity of running.

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I've really enjoyed the magic mile challenge - I think I might even drop a 1 mile time trial into my training every now and then. As to how to run a 1 mile, I think I still need to practice some more because I feel like I should be able to run it faster than I have done so this week. Doing some specific training for the distance would help, so I'll make a note for next year!