Today my plan is to go through my running and mountaineering milestones in 2009 before setting targets for the next 18 months before I turn 30.
January 2009: Half Marathon Santa Pola
My 2nd half marathon in Spain went much better than the first but was still a couple of minutes off my PB, I finished with a chip time of 1:34:41 and a finish time of 1:36:12. I'm running there again in a couple of weeks and hoping to take full advantage of the flat course to push for another PB.
March 2009: Half Marathon Murcia
When I ran in Murcia I had been putting in lots of miles as I built towards the London marathon and it appeared to be paying off as I knocked 38 seconds off the PB I'd set in Bracknell eleven months earlier. Unfortunately it was a false dawn, two days later attempting to do a ten mile training run I had to stop after six miles with an injury that would rule me out of the marathon.
April 2009: London Marathon - Failed
A trip to the Doctor's established that I had a tendonitis, with four weeks to go before the marathon he prescribed Ibuprofen and two weeks complete rest. After the two weeks I still couldn't run, I kept waiting for the recovery all the time knowing that the longer I went without training the harder running a marathon would be. It didn't recover in time and I went to London and watched as thousands of runners passed by, it was a real low point.
June 2009: Monforte Del Cid Half Marathon
This was my worst experience over all the races I've done. After returning from London I had a couple of trips to the physio and within a couple of weeks I was out running again, gradually building my mileage up again but I hadn't really had the time to get to a level where I could be confident of performing well in a half and it turned out I was right not to be. I finished in a little over 2 hours, a combination of the lack of training and difficulties coping with the heat led me to resort to walking as earlier on as the 6th kilometre. From that moment on it was just a case of taking in as much water as possible at every water station and trying to summon up the energy to run as much as I could.
July 2009: Mulhacén 3482m Summited
After completing my exams I set off to climb the highest peak on the Iberian peninsula (mainland Spain and Portugal). Its really a great mountain, one I'd like to go back to do again in not so much of a hurry so I can go up some of the neighbouring peaks. It was a two day trek with a stay in a good refuge where we got a really good feed.
August 2009 Alps
Breithorn 4164m Summited - Trekking to above 4000m is always a difficult task but I'm not quite as proud of completing this peak as I could have been. We took the cable car up to the glacier and started the trek from a little shy of 3500m. It was mainly intended to get us acclimatised ready for an attempt on Mont Blanc.
Gran Paradiso 4064m Summited - Gran Paradiso is the highest peak completely in Italy. This was a proper trek over two days, it should have been much more enjoyable than it was, the guide was a disaster. We had 5 people on a rope with one guide and when one of the group said she could go no further, she was suffering with a cold, he took her off the rope and left her on her own on the glacier for the next 4 hours while the rest of us went on up the mountain. It would have been frustrating to have to go down but it would have been the right thing to do, instead I went on feeling guilty that I hadn't said anything and having lost all respect for the guide. After arriving to the top we returned to find the girl uncontrolably shaking, which went completely unnoticed by the guide. Thankfully she was ok, and we got down without a problem.
Mont Blanc 4810m - Not Attempted
My trip to the Alps was with the aim of scaling the highest mountain in Western Europe, Mont Blanc. In the end we didn't go up, the weather wasn't kind to us, with heavy snow forecast for the time we were due to be setting out we took our money back and left Italy as quickly as possibly so as not to dwell too long on the disappointment. With hindsight it was probably a good thing, going up with a guide we had lost all respect for would not have been a good idea, especially if conditions were changeable.
September 2009: Maigmo 1296m
My first peak in the province of Alicante and my first peak achieved solo, I set out on my bike from my flat at an altitude of 100m, then covered 24km cycling up to 1000m of altitude. From there it was a fairly straightforward walk for half an hour to the summit, unfortunately it was a bit cloudy, hopefully I'll be able to go up again on a clearer day. I had a small crash on the way down, apart from that incident it was a fun little adventure.
November 2009: Elda Half Marathon
When I returned from summer hols at the end of August I picked up with the running to avoid the problems I'd had the previous year, I left my preparations for Elda late and suffered for it and it meant for the rest of my preparations for London were hampered, I was constantly picking up niggling injuries until the point when the tendonitis came and I couldn't run at all. I came into Elda well prepared having done runs of 22km+ in the six weeks before and it showed when I finished just 3 seconds off my PB.
December 2009: Aspe Half Marathon
I finished 2009 on a high, with a PB in Aspe, a chipped time of 1:31:21 and in good form that I'll hopefully be able to maintain into 2010.
Tomorrow I'll move on to post my objectives....
Hasta luego
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