It’s been a couple of weeks since I decided to withdraw or defer my entry to the Jersey Marathon and I have to say I’ve not missed it. My back is still causing me a little bother so I can only dread to think what four to five hours of pounding the roads next weekend would do to it.
I’ve had reason to have a couple of exchanges with the marathon organisers, but in this respect at least they’ve been very helpful and supportive.
I had to give them a little kick a few weeks ago though. I asked quite a while ago now whether bone conduction headphones were now acceptable. The initial response came back saying that music was distracting regardless and actually represented a competitive advantage over non-music runners. A bizarre angle if there ever was one. I’d say the runners they are inviting over, paying for the travel and accommodation for are probably getting a pretty unfair advantage too.
Wonder if they’ve managed to avoid inviting any Russians this time…. anyway….
My wife and I share a music related irritation and our sense of injustice was flared up at this stage. So, I replied, while UK Athletics rules have changed I fully accept the organisers decision on this, however this being the case I wonder what proactive steps the organisers were taking to prevent and stop runners wearing and using in-ear headphones during the run. It’s always got on my tits that an alarmingly large number of runners will totally ignore the rules of a race and just wear their headphones regardless.
I do recall that the Run Jersey Half Marathon a few years ago had a runner disqualified for ignoring an instruction to remove headphones – quite right too. If they are going to have a rule in place for safety reasons I think it’s a fair question to ask how they are going to police it better than they have in every other year I’ve taken part.
I never got an answer to that question in the end as the organisers had decided a few weeks later that actually yes we would be able to manage the risks of bone conducting headphones and we should allow them in order to comply with UK Athletics rules anyway. A result of sorts, not that I can benefit from it any more, but I’m still interested what they are going to do about those who are breaking the rules. Probably nothing I suppose. I know it can be a controversial topic but again if it’s safety related then it really should be enforced.
Anyway given what I titled this post I should probably move on to talking about future challenges. I have probably one main aim now for the remainder of 2017 – getting a sub 50 minute 10k in UK Athletics rules event. I’m still so proud of what I achieved in the Jayson Lee Memorial 10k a few weeks back but to do it in a recognised and Run Britain counting event will be so special. We’ve tentatively picked out the Poppy 10k in Bexhill-on-Sea. We ran at this multi-distance event in 2015 at which I set what was then my Half Marathon PB but knowing the course reasonably well I think it’ll be a really quick 10k course. That’s the plan for now.
I’d also quite like to get under 24 minutes for Parkrun regularly, and maybe take my PB a fair bit nearer 23 minutes.
Then at the back end of the year, training begins again for the Reading Half. I know that’s a fairly quick course so with a more healthy build up, a time well under two hours is certainly very possible. For the time being though I think I’ll just settle for all back issues going away for now.