Sunday 28 June 2015

Medal Watch - Southport Half

Another medal reveal for today, this time it's Southport Half, more details here.  I think it's pretty.  Technically tourists are not entered into Southport Half, we're guests as part of the tour and don't pay an entry fee.  BTR have kindly paid for our medals.

Medal Watch - EHM Marathon and 10K

I have to say that I'm a little underwhelmed by this year's 10K medal.  I know other people love it and it's not a bad medal.  If I hadn't seen the marathon medal I probably would have thought it was OK.  I think the problem is that I love the half marathon medal which is pretty epic, showing Warrington's golden gates where this year's races will start.  Maybe it's the lack of colour in the 10K medal or that it looks a little cluttered with trying to fit in so many images but I'm just not that keen on it but it is a personal taste thing after all.  It's not a bad medal by any means (It's still a million times better than Milton Keynes) so it's more that they did too good a job with the half medal that it's hard for any other medal to be compared to it.   Foe more information about Warrington's best half marathon click here.



Thursday 25 June 2015

Medal Watch

I've not done one of these for a while so there's quite a few to get through.

Fylde Coast Running are certainly pulling out all the stops with their medals recently.  The gossip around the Blackpool Marathon/Half medal got me to enter the race and then they told me that the medal for Windmill Half would be even better.  I'm so gutted that I can't run it because they've released the medal before the race for once and it is so good that a photo just won't do.  You have to go on their facebook page and watch the video.  I really like their Summer 10k medal too, I would be doing it if it wasn't the day after the tour.

Sefton Park 5 Miler has also done a great job again.  I quit the race last year and never got the really pretty medal and so I have a score to settle.  It's the only race I have ever quit. I will be getting one this time!!


No medals from BTR but they have released the t-shirt design for the two tours.  The Tour of Merseryside T-shirt actually has the names of all the participants on the back with a motto saying "It's not about me it's all about us".  I really can't wait to own one, only ten more days until it starts.  I love love love the Wirral Whistle Stop Tour t-shirt, I think the design is so great.  We're going to get a whistle too to make ourselves as loud as possible by the time we get to Wirral Half.  Speaking of Wirral Half, the t-shirt for that race is nice too  (You get the Wirral Half medal and t-shirt of you do the Wirral Whistle Stop Tour) as is the one for the 10K, shame I can't do both races.


Friday 12 June 2015

Live from the Liverpool RnR Expo


The Running and Endurance Show, aka the Liverpool Rock n Roll Expo, is taking place today at ACC Convention Centre in Kings Dock Liverpool.  This blog will be updated throughout the day to highlight what's happening and you can see the schedule here.  The expo is open from 1pm until 7pm today but it is also open 9am until 5pm tomorrow.  It's open and free to all so you don't need to be running one the races this weekend to attend.

11:45 Stage is being built. Anyone else excited? 

11:50 Met my friends Cici from the Dopey Group. She's been on a tour of Euope to get here from Guatamala to run the marathon and 5k and she's even volunteering at the expo today. Classy lady. 

Signs are up. 


12:06 I just walked past Geo Melichar!! Starstruck!

12:29 This blog is brought to you by Starbucks, literally. 😀

13:00 People waiting for the expo to start


13:09 Number collections has began. Lines are not too bad and lovely Adrienne is manning the Solutions desk. Seperate desk for corral changes too. 


13:28 And we have wifi. They let anyone in here. Found Ken and Stan already. T-shirt collection is much easier than after the race. 

13:32 Katy Alex just finished singing. Love her, heard at the press conference earlier on in the year too. 


13:34 Rob is getting ready for press conference. 

Geoff Smith is on stage too now in his Boston Marathon jacket. Talk about a man who has earned the right to wear the logo!!

13:42 Timothy More, mayoral lead for sports and culture, talking about how the event is good for Liverpool and how it's a great place to have it. Liverpool really takes to heart the combination of sports and music. 12 thousand runners will take part, a 50%. 

13:44 Geoff Smith, true legend. Says Rock n Roll races are about going out and having fun. He just joked about how he would run in the dark so that people wouldn't see him running but now there's so many people out there doing it and it's amazing. Also, he's had two hip replacements so now is the time to beat him. "It's about fun and rock and roll", love him. 


14:08 You need to go and Jenkies, Frankie and Kenny are maning the photo booth and you can get some funny photos whilst holding you bib using the massive dress up box. I'll share my freaky horse photo later. 


14:23 I'm seriously in love with these No Show CEP socks. They were number 11  of my top ten picks at the Manchester Expo but I should have put them higher. £13.50 and really pretty colours. You get a free waterbottle if you spend £20 and the thrown is back. I'll link to the Twitter thrown campaign later for those who haven't seen #BeSuperior on Twitter. Good news for those who want a tshirt the same as the pacers too, CEP can order them into the country if you email them. They're limited edition and you won't find them anywhere else. 

14:51 So runner Lornah Kiplagat has done her own brand of clothing and it is so so so so nice but also its proper technical stuff and there's no ugly pink girl stuff in sight. There's a lot of print and bright colours and no two pieces look the same. The philosophy behind the clothing is that by making a woman pride it helps bring female runners together and creates support for each other. Very #thisgirlcan. It ain't the cheapest clothing, tops and shorts sart at around £45 and a jacket (which is amazing I want it) is around £85 but there's £5 off everything at the expo. 

15:05 Vital Events are giving out codes to get 20% their races including Southport Half marathon. 

15:12 Ronhill are hear selling their old clothes off cheap as always. 

15:15 Geo has taken to the stage. He is an ambassador for RnR races. He reckons the best thing about RnR racers is the journey together with friends, the ones you have and the ones you make, and the bands. Plus he is a big fan of water stations. He Couldn't finish his first 5k but rather than it defeating him it empowered him to train. He ended up doing a full instead of the half and was so nervous that he couldn't even remember how far he was running. He really believes that the RnR participants are a family that form a community to support each other and that they rock. Races are discoveries of new places to him but it's the people you see as you run as well as where you are running past which make authentic experiences. "This is a global party and I'm excited to rock Liverpool"


15:38 They've got the World Rocker medal here. It's Hugh!!

16:15 The Brist Triathlon Foundation Trust have a stand here and they're giving you the chance to do a Dri Tri. 500 meters rowing, 1k on a bike and then 20 jumps. Me and Kenny went head to head and it was tough. He beat me by a mile. 

16:36 High 5 are here with their Gel and Bar tasters and they're doing a similar deal to Manchester expo with a box of goodies for £10. It's the Rasberry energy plus and the Citrus on course and you can sample both (but best not to use them on Sunday if you haven't tried them on a run). 

16:48 Just been talking to the lovely ladies at Maui Jim. They actually have quite a few sports style sunglasses that look pretty cool. Prices start at £120 so not probably one for people like me who have to get a new pair every week cod I lost the old ones somewhere but they are pretty impressive. The lenses are designed to filter out glare and give you colour clarity. Try the fish test and see how different it looks. These are the results with the HCL Bronze lenses. 





Thursday 11 June 2015

Mike Rossi investigation lives on

A while back I posted a summary of the evidence collected so far in regards to whether Mike Rossi, the guy who made his own unsent letter to a school principal go viral, cheated to get into Boston Marathon.  To view my original block click here.  You might ask why does it matter, the race director of Via marathon cleared him right? Well, actually no.  Rossi has not been cleared of anything. Via released a statement saying the following:
“...while there is data from Rossi’s participation in other racing events indicating that Rossi’s time may not be accurate, there is not conclusive evidence that his time in the 2014 LVHN Via Marathon is inaccurate.... Rossi will not be disqualified unless additional conclusive information arises in the future."
He wasn't cleared, there just isn't enough evidence at this time to say without a reasonable doubt that he did cheat in the review panels opinion.   Interestingly, rather than cause people to give up investigating it's kind of become a siren call for people to keep kicking over the stones in hope of finding that key piece of evidence that Via would need.  No fat lady has sung yet and it doesn't look like any steam has been lost by the lack of a disqualification on Rossi' part.  

One interesting piece of evidence to come out of it is the analysis of a group of photos on the course when the runners cross a bridge.  Forum member concernedBQer put all these photos together in a gif file in order to analyse whether it would be easy for the photographer to miss someone at the point.  The images where checked for the top 200 finishers and graphics were added to show each of them, as they pass the photographer their number turns green.  199 runners were identified, only Mr Rossi was absent.  Each image shows the reference number and time stamp.  The gif has been transfered into a video on youtube by Tony Rigdon who has given me permission to share it here.  Draw from it any conclusion that you wish but a finish time of 3:11 would place Rossi somewhere in the middle of this group.



Tuesday 9 June 2015

Exclusive - Liverpool Rock n Roll Expo Schedule

Exciting stuff, just got the schedule of what's on at the Expo in Liverpool this weekend.  I'll be doing a live blog from from the Running and Endurance Show (It's fancy name) from 1pm on Friday.  I'm going to actually charge my phone and everything this time because the line up looks pretty great.  Those who read my blog or know me will be pretty shocked to hear that I've actually heard of one of the speakers, George Melichar.  I think this man embodies the idea that running is and should be for everyone regardless of what pace you run at and you don't need to like like Mo Farrah or Paula Radcliffe (Not that I know what either of them look like) to consider yourself a sports person.  I can't help but just love people who love running and racing.  He seems crazy in a good way and so I'm really looking forward to what he has to say.

After George is our very own Rob Griffith.  He's quite the quick come back king on RDB so I think this should be quite amusing to watch assuming any that any of you RDB folk are brave enough to stick your hands up.  If anyone wants me to ask a question on their behalf let me know and I'll pass back the answer for you. I know he likes to talk about his beard a lot.  It might also be interesting to find out his take on why he thinks the race series attracts so many volunteers or if you want to go a bit more controversial you could bring up the latest lawsuit in the US were race volunteers are demanding to be paid.

I had to google Geoff Smith I'll admit.  The marathon runner who was a member of Southport Harriers and Liverpool Harriers has won Boston Marathon twice, in 1984 (by four minutes!) and 1985 (when they still wore those tiny tiny shorts on the Whitley 10k medal?) and he has represented Great Britain at the Olympics twice and came second in the New York marathon.  He's still a regular at Boston, doing interviews and commentary.  I watched a great interview with him about leaving nothing on the table and the importance of training (I'm not likeing the sound of the Heartbreak Hill but there's like no chance of me every getting to run Boston so I don't think I need to worry about it).  There are no bib collections on Sunday.

Both men are going to be at the final social run tomorrow.

The route talk through at 5:30 also sounds pretty interesting and then you can listen to fellow pacer Gary Nixon.  Most of the line up is repeated on Saturday with a few added extras including a nutrition talk from High 5 and me and some of the other pacers at 2:30 in our lovely red CEP pacer kit.  You can also collect your t-shirt from the expo too, which saves having to wait in the lines on Sunday, as well as collect the 5k/Mile bibs and any half/full bibs that weren't posted.  You'll need your half/full bib with you to collect your t-shirt.  If you can't make it to the expo on Friday you can also pick up your 5k number before the race from 7am.  You need to remember the confirmation sheet and photo ID to collect your number.


Location: ACC Convention Centre, Kings Dock, Liverpool Waterfront L3 4FP
Opening Times
Friday 12th June: Afternoon,  13:00 – 20:00     1pm-8pm
Saturday 13th June: All Day,     9:00 – 17:00      9am-5pm

Warrington 10k

Just over two weeks to go till the Warrington 10k. This is a fast & flat multi-terrain 10k set in Woolston Park. This year it will be chip timed for the first time! Enter Now!
See www.warrington10k.org.uk for more info.


Setting the pace - Official CEP LRnR Half 3hr Pacer

It looks like Liverpool Rock n Roll will have another good year for women according to race director Rob Griffiths.  This is a comment he posted on facebook today.  I've been tracking the percentage of women in races, mostly in the North West, ever since I saw the stats at the the last Liverpool RnR.  You can read that article so far here but I'll be updating it in a week or so to add Liverpool and some other races into the league table.


Amazing Graffiti style tech top and Ultralight compression socks kindly donated by CEP

I'm looking forward to meeting some of the women and men who will be racing on Sunday as the 3 hour CEP pacer for the half.  We will certainly be easy to spot in the lovely kit that CEP gave us.  I need to do a review of all my compression socks soon because I've finally found some that I don't need to push down after five minutes.  They're actually the ultralight run socks  (Proves how Dopey crazy I am though cos my first thought was that it's great that they're red as they'll go with my Belle and Snow White outfits for Dopey).   I might do some blog updates whilst I'm actually pacing the race,  I've been practising my 13:44 minute miles and I'm pretty excited.  I'm sure I'll be getting a lot more nervous by Saturday night but I'll have my amazing 5k medal to distract me.  I think I'll need a whole blog just to discuss the bling I'm getting this weekend.  Good luck to everyone running if I don't see you before.

If you want to run with a pacer just look for us at the start wearing this lovely outfit.  There's a gallery of all the different pacers here.