30 Under 30 Square Mile Talent Awards

A few weeks ago, I had a phonecall from the Square Mile group who publish a glossy lifestyle magazine in the City. Someone had anonymously nominated me for their inaugural Square Mile 30 Under 30 Talent Awards, recognising achievement among young professionals working in the City of London. I was up for the Sport category due to my marathon running and 10 in 10 attempt and had been shortlisted to the final 30. As a result, they invited me to the awards do at the Park Lane Hilton along with a few mates for invaluable drinking support. It was a very very lovely surprise to be nominated and, no matter the result, I was looking forward to a proper posh knees up.

They asked me to submit answers to several questions about my work life in the City and my running life building up to the 10 in 10, and also for 2 references which were gratefully received from Scott at the Brathay Trust and my mentor at the bank where I work and referred to the transferable stuff from my training that I could bring to my job: dedication, motivation, a large bag of sweaty running kit etc. Then it was just a matter of persuading 3 of my top running and drinking buddies, Mark, Dave and Frances, that they wanted to spend a Friday afternoon necking free champagne in smart outfits.

The awards day itself was brilliant, from the first gin & tonic, through guinness, champagne, Johnny Walker blue label whisky, wine, beer and to the last drop of vodka, it was full of fun and laughter and much misbehaviour. My mates were brilliant company and certainly helped me underline that endurance affleets can handle endurance boozing sessions too. And the icing on the cake was winning the 30 under 30 award. It was a fabulous surprise and rounded off a perfect day.

Maraton di Roma

Rome was a highlight in my marathon calendar this spring. Having studied Latin for 13 years at school and university, I've only managed a few days in Rome so this was a superb opportunity to do some sight seeing at speed. The start was right underneath the Colisseum by the Imperial Forum which brought back so many memories of the ancient texts I've read and archaeology I've studied. It was incredibly atmospheric and, being Italian and a fairly big race at 11k runners, properly excitable.

I'd been allocated Pen B which was mildly intimidating as my aims were sub 4 for a reasonable run, 3'50 for a good one and 3'40 for a great one. The first few miles were really packed and jostly with all that excess energy being used to dodge around people. For the first of many many times in this race I told myself to relax, there was plenty of time to pick it up. Hence I started out slower than target pace, all the better to soak up the views.

The weather was pretty nice for racing - warm but overcast, winter feels a long time ago on days like this. The route was flat with only a couple of short inclines and fairly fast, if you didn't mind running on cobbles. They were fairly smooth but you had to be careful, especially given my recent wipe outs on training runs and compulsion to run craning my neck at all the sights. I went through the first 5k in 26'28, the next in 26'05, then 26'01, 26'12, 26'12, 26'02, 26'21, 26'31 and the last 2.2k at exactly the same pace, a steady 8'19 minutes per mile. I was consciously holding back all the way through the race as I just wanted a strong finish without beasting myself and pacing felt so easy, like I had a metronome in my legs.

While I didn't feel tired, it helped that for several k I was chatting to a Sicilian guy and practising my Italian (and he his English), then to a Cambridge Harrier. Distractions are always nice, especially when they come in the form of talking to handsome Italians, running through the Vatican and being proposed to by a spectator! The last few k take you back through the centre of Rome, past Trajan's Column, through the Piazza Navona, around the Circo Massimo to finish back under the Colisseum. It's got to be the most beautiful city marathon I've done.

Perfect splits of 1'50 and 1'51 gave me a finish time of 3'41, even with the extra 600m my garmin clocked (I usually get a bit extra but not that much. Irrelevant of course, it's a measured route). That placed me in the top quarter of the overall field, having passed 1,200 runners in the second half, and 141st of 1,900 women. Top 10% of women is rather a nice result!

I'm training to run 10 marathons in 10 days in aid of the Brathay Trust. If you think this is bonkers enough to deserve a small donation, click on the gadget jobber to the right of the page. Thank you!

2 Grantham Canal 29 milers and 1 win!

Two 29 milers along the Grantham Canal were intended to be pure training runs; I find it very hard to motivate myself to do LSRs by myself now and needed to get a good double in. Running alongside 100 other people, somewhere new and with checkpoints to break up the distance and to provide water and food makes it much easier on the brain. That didn't make the prospect of running east along a canal for 5 hours, then for another 5hours in reverse the next day, any more exciting. I was falling asleep with boredom even before we got going.

There was a good TiT showing - me, Anna, Heather, Adam and Jim - and it was good to talk training and fundraising etc. There were also a lot of people training for Marathon des Sables, I'm so glad I don't have to carry a pack. In fact, it's a difficult call which is harder. On the one hand, we have considerably more distance, the monotony of the same route every day for 10 days, and a single hard surface. On the other, they get searing heat in the day, freezing temperatures at night, sand and terrible terrain shredding their feet, carry all their own food, have no access to a comfy bed, hot shower or clean clothes. I know which I'd rather do!

The route was dull but started off with 1.5 miles on road before hitting tightly packed sandy towpath. Somehow, I was in first lady position, a happy and entirely fortuitous coincidence with my strategy to run comfortably throughout, and to run as much as possible. By 10 miles, I was in 3rd, my mate Audrey and a red haired girl had gone ahead. I caught Red Hair after a while and lost her at CP3 at 14.5 miles. Then it got unpleasant. It was on grass. Nice, smooth, fairly dry grass, but I'm hopeless off road. I lost about 90 seconds per mile along the 10 or so miles of this in the 2nd half, but managed to keep moving. But, blinkin' 'eck, it was boring. No rhythm, flat fields, canal and lots of swans the only scenery, it went on forever. At least it encouraged me to keep running to get it over with.

By CP4 at 21 miles, I caught Audrey and we agreed to run together, but she dropped back for a walk break at 22. I was in first again. Blimey! That was proper motivation, as long as I was running I was maintaining the gap. Luckily we hit gravel again at about 24 which made things a whole lot easier. With no discomfort anywhere, no serious tiredness and a level of exertion so manageable it caused one bloke to ask me why I wasn't breathing hard, the last few miles passed quickly. I reached the finish in 4 hours 37 very very surprised and pleased, running through a tape completely made my day, and a very shiny trophy was a fab prize. I've never been 1st lady before, and certainly didn't think it possible in an off-road (admittedly off-road-lite) race.

I decided to take Day 2 easier, running comfortably but stopping for longer at CPs if I wanted to. Jen Salter had turned up anyway, looking for sub 4, so the pressure was off. I had my trophy from Day 1. Plus, with the grass coming earlier on at about 5 miles, I hadn't had time to build up more of a time cushion as I had on Day 1. Those 6 miles between CPs 1 and 2 were so unappealing that I decided to use my ipod for the first time in a race in ages and listen to an Italian language lesson that lasted exactly an hour with the aim to get to the next CP before it finished. It worked, though arriving saying "Dove posso comprare i franco bolli qui vicino?" raised the marshal's eyebrow.

After a good 7 minutes standing around drinking tea, it was back onto gravelly, sandy track, wetter and stickier than yesterday after the frost had melted, but still much more tolerable than grass. Time to see how obedient the legs would be. Luckily, there was no pain anywhere or even much tiredness so the 14 miles were pretty consistently paced, and I even managed to run the hill in the final mile back to the finish to have run the whole 58 miles. Day 2 done in 5 hours 1 minute gave me a combined time of 9 hours 39, enough for joint second overall with Audrey. My first 100 mile week, first double ultra (well, really long marathons) and first win, topped with super quick recovery, a very nice result :-)

Please forgive the impudence, but I'm now going to tag a little reminder of my fund raising to the end of my blogs. I'm raising cash for the Brathay Trust, so if you think my training for, and attempt on, 10 marathons in 10 days in May is worthy of a few quid, you can find the link on the right of this page. Thank you!

Malta marathon

The past couple of weeks had been a real rollercoaster - difficult personal stuff countered by some fantastic progress on promotion of the 10 in 10 and my fundraising. I've got an article in Runner's World (April 2010 edition), a feature on a women's running website (http://www.running4womenmembers.com/public/252.cfm), and received an exicting call from the Square Mile magazine telling me I've been shortlisted under the Sport category for their 30 Under 30 Talent Awards that recognises "ambition and achievement, potential and success of London's new elite" in the City (ok, I'm probably there to make up the numbers). I get to go to some posh awards ceremony to see if I'm one of the 30 winners and it's a great opportunity to get Brathay's name out in a brand new network of potential sponsors.

A horrible stomach bug had knocked me out cold after I got back from Seville and I'd dropped as much as 4kgs in as many days. As most of it was dehydration, I'd recovered most of it, but I was still pretty weak, and the 50 miles of training in the week preceding Malta had left me feeling quite drained. I was looking forward to a road race in the sunshine, but was far from fresh. It's an interesting route - lots of downhills but also several climbs including a long drag at about 18k, plus coming off the top of the island down to the coast means you're running into a stiff headwind for a lot of it. It starts at Mdina by some lovely old buildings and weaves around in a confusing series of wiggles before going down to the bay at Sliema. It was so confusing that the lead car took the front two runners the wrong way. After 7k, the runners realised they'd gone wrong (they shouldn't be lapping people so soon) and tried to get back on track. By 25k, they still hadn't been able to find the route so dropped out and were understandably fuming. It's a real shame as it's terrible PR for the marathon and the race director; I hope it doesn't put top runners off the race as, otherwise, it's a very well organised and slick event.

The first 10k has a series of truly exhilarating downhills and P and I threw caution to the wind and flew down them, to the point where I almost clocked a 10k PB and was on course for a 3'20 finish. Oops. Still, I wasn't after anything other than a sub 4 so it was nice to be reckless and enjoy being a kid for a while. He drifted off after about 40 minutes which let me ease off, a little bit, but now I was getting competitive. If I'd run a sub 3'45 at this race last year, it would have clocked me a top 10 ladies' finish, and there weren't that many girls ahead of me. I could see a pack of 3 though - two who looked good but not too intimidating, and one who looked like a real racing snake. I passed all 3 at about 12k, but Racing Snake took me back within half an hour. That was fine, but I wasn't having the other two pass me again, and somehow I managed to hold off any other girls for the rest of the race.

This meant, of course, that I'd been blatting it so far and running far too hard. It was great fun but bound to end in tears...... I got through to 30k comfortably but from there found I was entirely unable to pick the pace up as I like to do, and in fact was slowing down. No!!! By 35k, I confess there were a few walking breaks, 3 lots of about 100m before I gave myself a kicking. Woeful performance after the victorious finish at Seville. The first couple of hours had gone by in the blink of an eye, the last hour was epic, that's relativism for you. Still, it was lovely and warm by now, about 24 degrees by the finish, and blissful to have the sun on my back again after so long. There was no chance of a sprint finish in the last k along the bay but I came in in 3 hours 43 minutes 40.

The overall time is great given my preparation, though the pacing strategy was terrible. It's another GFA time, and was good enough for 14th lady overall. Of 70, that's not so bad, and it does make me wonder that if I focussed more on speed, less on numbers and mileage, and turned up to a marathon with a taper and ran as disciplined a race as Seville, how much better I could do. Still, speed isn't the goal at the moment and I do enough of these things to be extravagant every now and again, and I was happy to pay the hitting-the-wall price for caning all those fabulous downhills. I just need to avoid doing it in important races!