Tag: Folkestone Half Marathon

Giveaway: Win a High 5 Marathon Race Pack!

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The less said about my marathon training the better. Despite having a plan, and planning to stick to my plan, my plan so far hasn’t really gone to plan.

I did, however, sort-of successfully complete a 12 mile run a week or so ago, with ‘sort-of successfully’ meaning I managed to do the twelve miles within the minimum 13 minute miles I need to do to finish Dymchurch Marathon within the six-hour cut-off time and claim my medal and goody bag before everyone’s packed up and gone home, a-la London Duathlon 2013.

But since that twelve mile run, I’ve done what I believe the technical term for is ‘fuck all’. I haven’t even been to the gym or gone on a walk. I cycled to the station on Saturday but although I would count that as a valid form of exercise during an ‘athon, I’m not sure I can call it cross-training for a marathon.

Despite all this slacking though, I’ve entered the Folkestone Half Marathon which is taking place this Sunday. If I run it this time as badly as I ran it last time (limping over the finish line in about 3 hours) then I’ll probably decide the marathon isn’t for me and hope Helen, Cassie and Rachel don’t find out I’ve wimped out and never talk to me again.

Don’t be a loser like me – enter my giveaway and win stuff

Anyway, just because I’m a loser who has lost the ability to run quicker than I can walk, doesn’t mean everyone else is and so, if you’re training for a marathon and would like to win some stuff to help you fuel before, during and after training and the race itself, then I’ve got just the giveaway for you.

High 5 marathon race pack

Win all these things

High 5 marathon race pack

High 5 marathon race pack

What’s in the box

High 5 marathon race pack

Suitable for vegetarians, yay

Maxi Milk Maxi Nutrition Recovery Protein Shake

The winner will also receive a case of 6 chocolate protein shakes

With thanks to Discount Supplements, one winner will receive:

  • an XL Nutrition High Protein Flapjack Jumbo Bar;
  • a case of 6 Maxi Milk Maxi Nutrition Recovery Protein Shakes; and
  • a High 5 Marathon Race Pack containing:
    • Iso gel plus x 1
      • Iso gel x 2
      • Energygel plus x 4
      • Energygel x 8
      • Protein Sachet x 1
      • Energybar x 1
      • 10 tube zero x 1
      • 3 x sachet zero X’treme
      • Run Bottle
      • Run Lounge membership (3 month membership FOC)
      • Marathon Nutrition Guide

So, that’s everything you see in the photos (don’t worry, you’ll get a nice new one sent directly to you; you won’t be getting my battered and opened one).

How to enter

To be in with a chance of winning the High 5 Marathon Race Pack, just leave a comment below letting me know which marathon you would love to do if time, money, family commitments, etc., were no problem.

I’ll draw a winner at random after the closing date of Saturday, 24 October 2015.

UK entries only, sorry.

Royal Parks Half Marathon report

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I know I should have blogged about the Folkestone Half. I even started it a day or two before the actual race but then didn’t finish it. I did finish the half though, although in a very very very slow time. Afterwards, me, iliketocount, helsbels, Travelling Hopefully, Travelling Hopefully’s husband Rich and helsbels’ two friends Jimmy (who will be getting a blog as he will be doing Janathon) and Helen, went to Googies for lunch. You can see my lunch and my recent recreation of it on my Planet Veggie blog.

Helen, Jimmy and Helen drove back to London afterwards, while me, iliketocount, Travelling Hopefully and Rich went to the pub. A very strange pub that you’d never think was in Folkestone due to its mahogany tables, crystal sherry glasses behind the bar, a baby grand piano and Mendelssohn and Brahms coming through the speakers (I know it was Mendelssohn and Brahms: not because I’m a secret classical music fan, not because Shazam told me (although I did try it) but because the Classic FM DJ told me).

Shaun then took us to his favourite pub in Folkestone. Shaun’s favourite pub is a dirty shithole full of scary people with more tattoos than teeth and so we quickly drank up and left Travelling Hopefully and Rich to continue with their Folkestone pub crawl while we headed back to Ashford.

That was two weeks ago.

I almost didn’t make it to the Royal Parks Half. I looked at the train times and the only train to get me to the start on time was leaving at a stupidly early hour and there was no way I was getting up at 4am to run a race I hadn’t trained for. Even if there was going to be pizza and beer afterwards.

helsbels kindly offered me her sofa bed and at first I accepted, mostly due to the fact that it meant we could go out for pizza and beer the night before the race but then I declined as I knew I just wouldn’t be able to sleep as I can’t sleep in a strange bed.

But then, hurrah! a new train was added to the high speed timetable that would get me to the start on time without leaving at a stupidly early time.

So yesterday morning, I got up at 6am and caught the 7:43 to St Pancras. I arrived at Hyde Park with what I thought was plenty of time to put my bag in and go to the toilet.

Then I saw the baggage queue.

It was a long queue. Luckily, it did go down quite quickly and then I joined the toilet queue. Which didn’t go down quickly and I was still in the queue well after 9:30 when the gun for the first wave went off.

I eventually crossed the start line at around 9:55am and did my first mile in under 10 minutes, fast for me at the moment. The second mile didn’t take much longer. 5k came quite quickly and I was feeling fine until 5 miles when my leg started hurting. My leg has been hurting all through my training and during Folkestone Half but luckily hadn’t turned into an injury. Because I didn’t want it to turn into an injury, I seriously thought about DNFing at 5 miles as I didn’t want to walk/limp for 8 miles. Then I decided I didn’t want to wait ages for everyone else to finish and I also didn’t want to turn up at the restaurant and tell everyone I was a loser.

Then at 6 miles a smile spread across my face as I saw Shaun on the pavement, camera poised. I gave him a ‘thumbs up’ (which is really naff and almost as annoying as that ‘fingers-as-quotation-marks-thing’ that makes me want to bash with a hammer the fingers of the person who is doing it) and said ‘my leg hurts’, to which he replied ‘no pain no gain’ which made the girl running behind me laugh. Seeing Shaun gave me a bit of a boost and I carried on running, albeit very slowly, until about mile 8 when my leg started hurting too much for me to carry on running and so I started walking. Shaun popped up again at mile 12 and told me to stop walking and to start running. I hobbled along a bit quicker for a while then started walking again, when he ran up to me and said not to start walking as soon as he was out of sight. Bah.

I walked up to the last stretch and Shaun, Helen and Jimmy were there to cheer me on but I didn’t have it in me to run again until I was practically at the finish line. I ran/limped over the line, turned off my Garmin, which despite me taking flipping hours, was still ticking over, and got my medal and goody bag. Which was just a bag with nothing in it. I JUST RAN 13.1 MILES AND YOU GIVE ME A BAG WITH NOTHING IN IT? It’s a swindle! Luckily in the park there was a tent giving out free stuff and we got free biscuits, Shreddies, teabags and toothpaste.

A pub was found, then we went off to meet fairweatherrunner, fortnightflo and abradypus – who had also done the race – for lunch at Prezzo.

Then, strangely enough, me, helsbels, Jimmy and Shaun went to another pub on the way home.