#296-299 Enigma Quadzilla

Marathon #296 - Enigma Quadzilla Day One done! Horrible, wet, cold windy day at Furzton, my least favourite of the Enigma routes, but pleased enough with my run, 3:58, so now have a sub 4:00 at all the Milton Keynes Lakes. Spot on pacing with a 1:47/2:11 split, might have had something to do with the rain too as I started to fade when that started, but happy I managed to stop myself from 1) messing about too much 2) tucking in to the aid station supplies as trying to be strict with eating for a few days! Great to see so many familiar friends and faces! More of the same tomorrow!

Marathon #297 - Enigma Quadzilla Day Two done! Day got off to a pretty bad start as got stuck in traffic for about 90 minutes trying to escape from Luton so started very late, legs died about mile 8 and the "lets run on empty" exercise came to a bit of an abrupt end! But with some calories inside me I perked up a bit, weather brightened up, endless laps of the Furtzon Lake, could be worse! Lots of nice little chats with others on the way around and eventually I finished! And that's about all I have to say about that one! lol

Marathon #298 - Enigma Quadzilla Day Three done! Bit of a grim day in the howling wind and the odd short sharp shower but was less puddles than yesterday so that's something, a moderately better effort today, sub 2:00 for the first half before the battle in to the wind left me on the losing side and the walks got longer, the chatting got longer and the time got longer! But meandered around OK and best part of the day was being able to witness Keith Luxon hitting #100 and Stefan Klincewicz hitting #50 so a big well done to them both!

Marathon #299 - Enigma Quadzilla Day Four done! On the plus side the rain largely held off, but the wind was blowing pretty strongly again which made it all a bit of a chore around my least favourite lake on the planet! Luckily some of my favourite people on the planet were running round the lake with me so that makes it all worthwhile! Another Quad done, I actually think that may be double figures for me now with the Original Seattle Quadzilla , 3 x Enigma Quads, 2 x Barrow Quads and the ones I've made up from individual unrelated events... and that's before we even get to the 5x5s and 10x10s! lol Glad to be done and dusted though and looking forward to #300 next week at Martello Marathon!

Pre-Race

This was to be my third Quadzilla and in theory some decent training for the 100 milers coming up and chance to do them "hungry" and shake off a couple of pounds as my eating of late has been pretty awful. As it turned out neither goal was really achieved very well! But its an Enigma event, lots of friendly faces there and if I'm in the country then I'm there!

Race

Thursday # 296 - The Bad news was that the race was switched on the Thursday from the usual Caldecotte venue to Furzton due to flooding, this is the least favourite of the lakes, couple of short sharp hills, too twisty and too crowded in my experience. Throw in a few huge puddles and mud the instant you step off the path to pass two folk wandering around or someone out with their dog isn't quite my cup of tea. On the plus side, at least there was an event on! The day was horrible though , cold, wet and windy (which was basically the same all week). Only goal was to do a nice sub 4:00 and 3:58 was pleasing, had a real wobble at mile 21 as was hungry... so that kind of worked.

Friday # 297 - The day was awful, got stuck in traffic out of Luton and arrived very late and by the time I started I was playing catch up by 30-40 minutes, rather lost all motivation and after a few decent miles I got a real case of the wobbles about mile 8 and that was the end of the "being hungry" weight loss exercise! Tucked in to goodies, felt far better but just messed around and ended up with a 5:40 time, probably 4:55 or so Garmin time. Mmm...

Saturday # 298 - By now the wheels were well off on the eating and as much as an incentive to keep me going as much as actual fuel for running. Dreadful downpour with hail at some point to add to the misery and more than once I was wondering what I was doing as by now wasn't achieving any kind of diet, running or anything goals really! Just bimbling around, racking up low quality miles really. Windy, cold and wet and whilst its great to see so many friendly and familiar faces, was just a hard, long slog today and didn't really enjoy it. Enjoyed the yummy pub meal afterwards though and a couple of pints of cider... that made me feel better!

Sunday #299 - More of the same really, I think had I not already committed to #300 at Martello Marathon the following week I might very well have just skipped this day. Rachel was spending the day with her parents and I could quite happily of just gone home and put my feet up! Really hate that lake now and the cambers and twists really not done my legs any favours, right quad, ankle and hip flexors all unhappy. Wasn't great, but got it done and of course afterwards was glad that I did!

Things I Learnt