Party season Is fast approaching, and, If you are anything like me as a fellow runner, you will beat yourself up every time you go for that night out, sink that pint, miss that training run, order that take away, eat that  bag of crisps or god forbid……light up….

But what effect does doing so really have on our fitness?…..

The following experiment may be of interest to you….

First, please allow me to set the scene.

On the 2nd October I ran the Chester marathon (my first mara) and  for the 6 weeks prior to that race I lived like an athlete and behaved like an absolute saint,  no drinking alcohol, no smoking, training pretty much every day & eating sensibly for the entire 6 weeks leading up to it.

Since the 2nd of October, and so for the last 6 weeks, I have lived the polar opposite life of a saint….I have literally drank, ate & smoked whatever and whenever I wanted.

Having been restricted for so long I literally went wild celebrating the marathon, If I fancied a pint or 3, I went for one, If I fancied a curry,I had one, If I fancied a smoke, I lit up (this I did most days) chocolate? yum! and if I didn’t feel like training, I took the day off.

Needless to say many pints of Guinness have been sank, lots of Richmond Superking Menthols have been smoked and as for diet, well I have  pretty much eaten what I wanted whenever I wanted. This was all meant to be for just a week (post marathon celebration  cheat week) but it quickly degenerated into 6!

In terms of training , after taking an entire week off post marathon, I have kept myself ticking over by  loosely following my level 6 training plan, but whenever I fancied another day or two off, I gave myself one!

My last training run was a 10k exactly 3 weeks ago today, my training for the last 5 weeks being largely pool, bike and gym work, however I have just been going throught the motions really and keeping everything ‘ticking over’.

Living this way, doing what I want, eating what I want, drinking what I want etc after living like an athlete for ages……, it felt liberating, although I knew it wouldn’t be good for my fitness, or so you would think….

During this time my weight has increased from a pre mara weight of 12 st 9 to todays weight of 13st 6, this I am annoyed at myself for, but what did I expect?

So going into this race, the windmill 10k at the lovely lythm st annes and organised by the excellent FCR, I was interested to see the extent of the damage living like the devil would have on my 10k PB.

For reference My previous PB for a 10k was on 27/08/16 at the Blackpool illuminations 10k where I recorded a time of 52:20.

Now, 52:20 is not a particularly fast 10k, indeed many elite and serious club runners would no doubt scoff at this PB, but what does a ‘good’ 10k time look like?,  how do we define what is ‘good?’ Don’t forget it wasn’t long ago that just getting round a 10k without coming last was beyond my wildest dreams!  So as far as I am concerned, anything faster than the average time in a race can be considered ‘good’…. On that basis, ranking 162 out of 654 runners in Blackpool tells me everything I need to know…

On to raceday  and I arrived at  Lythm lake in good time, 10:30 for an 11am start.

Registration was clearly marked in the tents by the top of the lake and once again a lovely smiley face was there to greet me and hand me my race number without any fuss.

In terms of my strategy for this race I didn’t really have one, I was just very interested to see what effect the last few weeks would have on my performance, I would start at the back of  the pack as I always have done, play it by ear, and see how we go.

Following a quick chat with some fellow runners it was time to line up at the start.

As the race was being held on rememberence Sunday a 2 minutes silence was to mark the start of the race, this was impeccably observed by nearly 1,000 runners and it gave me goosebumps.

At the end of the silence everybody started clapping which was ace and a truly awesome way to start the run!

As always I crossed the finish line pretty much dead last.

Once you get off the car park you are out onto the open road which I love. Very quickly I became aware of how strong my legs were feeling, which surprised  me, so I took full advantage of the space and began overtaking.

At this point a couple of fellow runners attached to a dog? came flying past me! this Is certainly one of the more unusual things I have ever seen at a race but those dogs were certainly giving it some early doors!

The spacious luxury was short lived however as  soon you join the trail path round the back of the lake which is fairly narrow and became quite congested.

What I love about FCR events is that every single KM is clearly signposted and a quick look at the watch for the first km revealed I was at 6 minutes so on track for a 1hr finish which has always been my time for this distance in training.

My body was feeling very strong so I mounted the bank, increased my pace  and ran along the grass verge overtaking many of the runners on the trail path.

Thankfully the trail path soon opened out into the much wider concrete promenade walkway and a 2km I was starting to warm up nicely.

The field settled down and I continued to overtake, although at 3km, I remember thinking I had pushed it  too fast too soon and would be lucky to finish inside my 1hr training time for this distance .

For the next few minutes I eased off the pace a little until I hit 4.5km at which point the  elite runners had now doubled back on themselves and were heading toward us, I tried to high 5 them but they just smiled at me, their awesome performance in showing us all what is possible giving me such a boost.

At 5km we circled the windmill and hit the water stations. I remember my time being around 27 minutes, and instead of settling for the projected 1hr finish, a bizzare calculation entered my head.

I said to myself at 5km, 27 minutes is a 5 minute per km pace plus 2 mins so if I can maintain the ‘plus 2’ for the rest of the race I could be on for a decent time here.

My body was feeling very strong, my legs in particular felt like a couple of loaded machine guns and when I squeezed the trigger and asked them to respond they replied ‘no problem’ which again surprised me, as did my breathing, which remained relaxed throughout.

Instead of flying past loads of people at once I was now picking them off one by one and as I advanced through the field it was interesting to note that instead of letting me past they would fight with me for a bit, which I enjoyed. I started playing cat and mouse with one dude in Orange and together we managed to move up through the rankings.

At both 6km and 7km I had managed to maintain my ‘plus 2 minutes’ on the 5min/ km  pace so came in at 32 & 37 mins respectively.

It was around this point that I overtook the lady attached to the dog…….

At 7km one spectator stood on the wall and shouted ‘go on Ironman’ (he saw my cap)  his words gave me such a boost that by the time I got to 8km I had actually reduced my 2min ‘fat’ by 30 secs with my time @ 8km coming in at 41:30.

I find that Hitting the 8km marker in a 10k gives me such a psycologial lift, I’m saying to myself ‘1 more km and i’m pretty much there’ so I went for it, Once again my body responded and it felt as if I was getting stronger as the people around me were getting weaker, this I couldn’t quite believe given my lifestyle over the last 6 weeks.

Hitting 9km and the work is virtually done, I was still going strong and crusied round to the finish, for a split second I thought a sub 50 race might even be on the cards but whilst I could see finish line up ahead there was still a good few hundred yards to go.

Just before we gets to the finishing straight the guy in orange, who had been sat on my tail for the last few km came thundering past me, for a split second I wanted to go after him, but there wasn’t much left, my race had now been run, and I knew it was a cracker.

I crossed the finishing line ecstatic with my watch displaying 51:17, smashing my previous PB by over a minute. (Dissapointingly for FCR the official results show gun time not chip time, but an official time of 52:02 (45secs to cross the start)  still trumps my previous PB  and I had overtaken well over 700 others from a field of 950 in front of me at the start!).

I couldn’t quite believe how this could be possible, how can it be that you can abuse your body for 6 weeks, train lightly/whenever you feel like it, do the exact opposite of what all the ‘experts’ tell you to do as far as diet is concerned and yet still deliver a PB at your next race?

I have amazed myself at the things I have learnt on my journey so far in terms of what is possible but I left Fleetwood truly bewildered at what had just happened.

So there you have it, the result that 6 weeks of  Guiness, smokes, bad diet and light training had on my 10k PB is…..

That they improved it!!!!! work that one out!

The message? be sure to enjoy yourself this Christmas, your hard work on the training front is now done…. help yourself to that extra mince pie…. go for that pub lunch…… Raise a glass safe in the knowledge that your PB isn’t going anywhere…..it will still be waiting for you in the new year……

Just like it always was…..

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Full details of my journey, together with the exact training plans that I followed for each race and of course the secrets from the Iron men themselves will be revealed in my book, which will be available to download soon.

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