Sponsorship Hall of Fame: Travcour
Those ever so nice people at Travcour have agreed to sponsor Trevor and I for our Russian Visas and we are overjoyed. This is a fantastically generous donation as the visa for Russia is super expensive and time consuming to obtain.
I have used Travcour for years and the many stamps in my passport are a testament to their swift and efficient service…they have got my visas for jollies around Africa, Asia and even my visa to China last year when my paperwork was a mess and I was running around panicking. It has always been a pleasure to use them as they take care of all the footwork and stress and I really happy to point people in their direction for visas, travel documents and legal services….
Travcour joins our Sponsorship Hall of Fame and will receive an official thank you photo from the race which we would like to think they will display in their offices….
Travcour (UK) Ltd have been helping the traveller since 1985. We have over time developed good working relationships with all the Foreign Embassies and Consulates as well as most tour operators allowing us to offer you a visa service which makes it faster, easier and a more secure way of obtaining your travel visas. We make sure that you have the latest visa documentation as well as up to date visa information. Travcour (UK) Ltd also offer a fast UK Passport renewal service as well as legalisation of documents, visa authorisations/invitations, birth, death or marriage certificates, meet and greet at airports and a delivery or collection service. As we pride ourselves with being the cheapest travel visa and passport agent on the market today, should you find another visa agency cheaper for obtaining your visas or passports, we will not only match their price but better it regardless of whether you are applying for an India visa, Chinese visa, Russian visa or a British passport.
Sunday, March 4th, 2012, Philip and Trevor will be running across the frozen ice surface of the world’s largest, oldest and deepest lake, Lake Baikal in Siberia. It's generally considered one of the 10 toughest marathons in the world. Philip and Trevor are running in support of Iain Rennie Hospice at Home, a charity offering specialist and supportive care and advice for patients with cancer and other life threatening illnesses in their homes.
Wednesday, 31 August 2011
Tuesday, 30 August 2011
Massage
Massage
Today was a change of pace and I found myself on Paul’s treatment table..
Paul is an outstanding therapist but I hate going to see him as it normally means a long lecture about not having stretched properly and ninety minutes of pain as he manipulates me back to health. His treatment table is as important as the supplements I am shovelling down, the weights I am lifting or the beastings that Trevor keeps dishing out.
Today was a painful session and Paul may as well have just hit me with an iron bar or stuck a red hot poker up my….well, you get my drift….but my knee feels a lot less sore and I now have much more mobility.
I also learnt that ITBS is one of the leading causes of lateral knee pain in runners. The iliotibial band is a superficial thickening of tissue on the outside of the thigh, extending from the outside of the pelvis, over the hip and knee, and inserting just below the knee. The band is crucial to stabilizing the knee during running, moving from behind the femur to the front while walking. The continual rubbing of the band over the lateral femoral epicondyle, combined with the repeated flexion and extension of the knee during running may cause the area to become inflamed.
Although interesting and likely to win the pub quiz at some time in the future this was not much comfort and I did apologise for yelling, ‘get the **** off me your insane lunantic…’ at Paul several times as he pummelled my leg. He took this in his stride and shut me up by jamming his thumbs into my calves until I screamed like a girl and begged for mercy.
Running, as I have often said, is never fun and always painful.
I highly endorse Paul and can hardly wait to be back on the table in a week’s time….
(well, half of that is true…)
Today was a change of pace and I found myself on Paul’s treatment table..
Paul is an outstanding therapist but I hate going to see him as it normally means a long lecture about not having stretched properly and ninety minutes of pain as he manipulates me back to health. His treatment table is as important as the supplements I am shovelling down, the weights I am lifting or the beastings that Trevor keeps dishing out.
Today was a painful session and Paul may as well have just hit me with an iron bar or stuck a red hot poker up my….well, you get my drift….but my knee feels a lot less sore and I now have much more mobility.
I also learnt that ITBS is one of the leading causes of lateral knee pain in runners. The iliotibial band is a superficial thickening of tissue on the outside of the thigh, extending from the outside of the pelvis, over the hip and knee, and inserting just below the knee. The band is crucial to stabilizing the knee during running, moving from behind the femur to the front while walking. The continual rubbing of the band over the lateral femoral epicondyle, combined with the repeated flexion and extension of the knee during running may cause the area to become inflamed.
Although interesting and likely to win the pub quiz at some time in the future this was not much comfort and I did apologise for yelling, ‘get the **** off me your insane lunantic…’ at Paul several times as he pummelled my leg. He took this in his stride and shut me up by jamming his thumbs into my calves until I screamed like a girl and begged for mercy.
Running, as I have often said, is never fun and always painful.
I highly endorse Paul and can hardly wait to be back on the table in a week’s time….
(well, half of that is true…)
Friday, 26 August 2011
Yoga
Thursday night is yoga night
A lot of people raise eye-brows when I mention yoga but it is an essential part of the training and one of the hardest work-outs. A lot of the class have come to yoga through injury or martial arts and it is interesting to see perceptions fall aside and be replaced by a real passion for yoga.
Our teacher is an inspirational teacher and I often find myself mulling over his nuggets of wisdom and using them in other aspects of my training. This combined with the hard physical practise that is yoga gives an additional dimension to training (and the ability to do hand-stands on a whim comes in handy more often than you would reasonably expect…)
From my limited understanding of yoga everything stems from the breath and controlling this. Once you master this and remember to listen to the breath a whole new world of physical practise opens up (though true yogi may counter that I have this in reverse). Many times, whilst out grinding out some miles, I have gone back to this thought, listened to be breath, and felt the tiredness slip away.
However, most yogis I know don’t take themselves too seriously as illustrated by the joke told to me at the last yoga work-shop I went on:
A student went to his meditation teacher and said, "My meditation is horrible! I feel so distracted, or my legs ache, or I'm constantly falling asleep. It's just horrible!"
"It will pass," the teacher said matter-of-factly.
A week later, the student came back to his teacher.
"My meditation is wonderful! I feel so aware, so peaceful, so alive! It's just wonderful!"
"It will pass," the teacher replied matter-of-factly.
A lot of people raise eye-brows when I mention yoga but it is an essential part of the training and one of the hardest work-outs. A lot of the class have come to yoga through injury or martial arts and it is interesting to see perceptions fall aside and be replaced by a real passion for yoga.
Our teacher is an inspirational teacher and I often find myself mulling over his nuggets of wisdom and using them in other aspects of my training. This combined with the hard physical practise that is yoga gives an additional dimension to training (and the ability to do hand-stands on a whim comes in handy more often than you would reasonably expect…)
From my limited understanding of yoga everything stems from the breath and controlling this. Once you master this and remember to listen to the breath a whole new world of physical practise opens up (though true yogi may counter that I have this in reverse). Many times, whilst out grinding out some miles, I have gone back to this thought, listened to be breath, and felt the tiredness slip away.
However, most yogis I know don’t take themselves too seriously as illustrated by the joke told to me at the last yoga work-shop I went on:
A student went to his meditation teacher and said, "My meditation is horrible! I feel so distracted, or my legs ache, or I'm constantly falling asleep. It's just horrible!"
"It will pass," the teacher said matter-of-factly.
A week later, the student came back to his teacher.
"My meditation is wonderful! I feel so aware, so peaceful, so alive! It's just wonderful!"
"It will pass," the teacher replied matter-of-factly.
Sunday, 21 August 2011
Burnham Beeches Half Marathon: 2 hours 6 mins
Today I learnt an important lesson – the day you stop respecting the distance is the day you end up on a track in Buckinghamshire wishing for a swift and painless exit from this terrible world.
Burnham Beeches Half Marathon is a wonderful race. It is well organised, friendly and quite pretty. However, it is still a half-marathon and quite hilly too (running folk refer to this as undulating and I swear that the next time I hear someone utter this word I am going to jump up and pound them to death with my ASICS yelling….’it’s hilly ************). So, my lack of sleep, my overall cockiness (‘I’ll just batter this one out in under two hours…’) and those aforementioned hills really kicked the stuffing out of me. Today’s result definitely reads: Burnham Beeches 1, Blazdell 0.
I was going great guns till at eleven miles my legs decided to give up, my head went all swimmy and I had the overwhelming urge to find the nearest pub and drink my own body weight in beer. Whilst I was giving myself a stern talking to and trying to dig deep into my energy and mental reserves I was overtaken by a speed walking pensioner, a barefoot runner and three beautiful girls who looked appalled at my sweaty unattractiveness and made some, quite frankly, inappropriate accounts about my bottom. It is this side of running that I find so annoying. There I am, deep in blood and guts territory, giving it 100% and looking hugely unattractive and I get abused by a possee of young whippersnappers whose make up has not even run. It did make me wonder why they were racing on such a lovely day and not out rioting somewhere…
If it had not been for Sean who was there screaming abuse at me for the final mile, and the fact that I had friends out running still (and whom I wanted to impress) I would still probably be running now. I crossed the finish line, almost told the marshal to shove my medal where the sun don’t shine, poured a bottle of water over myself and collapsed into a messy, sweaty pile. To be honest I could have found so many better uses for 2 hours and 6 minutes (like cleaning the cat litter box, learning a new language or building a model of the Taj Mahal from beer cans) and I was more than a bit disappointed with my time. Upon further discussion with Sean (a perfectly annoying time of 1 hour 25 minutes) I decided that, all things being equal, I was happy to have survived.
Later, after some food and a long soak in the bath the enormity of what we are planning hit me and if was only the promise of frozen yoghurt from my wife did I come out of the cupboard where I had hidden. Siberia, it seems, has already given me the finger and thrown down the gauntlet…
Burnham Beeches Half Marathon is a wonderful race. It is well organised, friendly and quite pretty. However, it is still a half-marathon and quite hilly too (running folk refer to this as undulating and I swear that the next time I hear someone utter this word I am going to jump up and pound them to death with my ASICS yelling….’it’s hilly ************). So, my lack of sleep, my overall cockiness (‘I’ll just batter this one out in under two hours…’) and those aforementioned hills really kicked the stuffing out of me. Today’s result definitely reads: Burnham Beeches 1, Blazdell 0.
I was going great guns till at eleven miles my legs decided to give up, my head went all swimmy and I had the overwhelming urge to find the nearest pub and drink my own body weight in beer. Whilst I was giving myself a stern talking to and trying to dig deep into my energy and mental reserves I was overtaken by a speed walking pensioner, a barefoot runner and three beautiful girls who looked appalled at my sweaty unattractiveness and made some, quite frankly, inappropriate accounts about my bottom. It is this side of running that I find so annoying. There I am, deep in blood and guts territory, giving it 100% and looking hugely unattractive and I get abused by a possee of young whippersnappers whose make up has not even run. It did make me wonder why they were racing on such a lovely day and not out rioting somewhere…
If it had not been for Sean who was there screaming abuse at me for the final mile, and the fact that I had friends out running still (and whom I wanted to impress) I would still probably be running now. I crossed the finish line, almost told the marshal to shove my medal where the sun don’t shine, poured a bottle of water over myself and collapsed into a messy, sweaty pile. To be honest I could have found so many better uses for 2 hours and 6 minutes (like cleaning the cat litter box, learning a new language or building a model of the Taj Mahal from beer cans) and I was more than a bit disappointed with my time. Upon further discussion with Sean (a perfectly annoying time of 1 hour 25 minutes) I decided that, all things being equal, I was happy to have survived.
Later, after some food and a long soak in the bath the enormity of what we are planning hit me and if was only the promise of frozen yoghurt from my wife did I come out of the cupboard where I had hidden. Siberia, it seems, has already given me the finger and thrown down the gauntlet…
Friday, 19 August 2011
My poor arms
Training today hurt….
Chest and biceps is, I think, a man’s workout and thus I hate it.
The first few exercise were incredibly painful and although Trevor has not been loading the bar of late it was still a brutal way to start the day. Things went rapidly downhill from there and successive exercises became harder and harder until we hit the biceps part of the routine.
Biceps are a part of a training routine that most guys love. Grab a bar, throw on some weights and pump out sets of curls until your arms are smoking and your t-shirt no longer fits. However, I loath them and my granny can probably curl more than I can. I try to visualise my arms exploding (a la Arnie) but all I get is a constant message going from my guns to my brain saying, isn’t it leg day yet…someone once told me – you build a foundation from the ground up and ever since them I have really hit my leg work-outs hard.
After the work-out I went home, made a protein shake and sat on the sofa feeling quite despondent (I couldn’t even play Playstation as I was in so much pain…). By tea time my arms were still aching so I gave up on the day and retired to the pub (for a diet coke....)
Philip
Chest and biceps is, I think, a man’s workout and thus I hate it.
The first few exercise were incredibly painful and although Trevor has not been loading the bar of late it was still a brutal way to start the day. Things went rapidly downhill from there and successive exercises became harder and harder until we hit the biceps part of the routine.
Biceps are a part of a training routine that most guys love. Grab a bar, throw on some weights and pump out sets of curls until your arms are smoking and your t-shirt no longer fits. However, I loath them and my granny can probably curl more than I can. I try to visualise my arms exploding (a la Arnie) but all I get is a constant message going from my guns to my brain saying, isn’t it leg day yet…someone once told me – you build a foundation from the ground up and ever since them I have really hit my leg work-outs hard.
After the work-out I went home, made a protein shake and sat on the sofa feeling quite despondent (I couldn’t even play Playstation as I was in so much pain…). By tea time my arms were still aching so I gave up on the day and retired to the pub (for a diet coke....)
Philip
Training and Charity Update
Although Philip and I have started training for the Baikal Ice Marathon a little while ago, it is suddenly starting to become a bit clearer with the enormity of the task ahead.
My job as Philip's Personal Trainer is relatively simple, ie to make sure that he and I are in the best possible shape for the marathon, no mean task as Philip has not run a marathon , let alone on ice.
We still have time and Philip's training is going really well, a PB at Tenby 10K recently with Burnham Beeches Half Marathon this weekend. Philip’s dedication to his training and to taking rest day as scheduled are testament to his determination to completing Baikal Ice Marathon.
Now the other side of this challenge is to raise £10,000 for the Iian Rennie Hospice at Home Charity, to me this is a bigger challenge than running the marathon. We will be holding an auction later in the year which we hope will be a big success and also doing some crazy challenges, (to be decided and ideas welcome), it will raise money to help us achieve our targets then we are up to most challenges.
So far everything is going well, Philip is on a rest day, so enjoy, as tomorrow we have training and on Sunday a half marathon (must find somewhere to run on ice) .....
Trevor
My job as Philip's Personal Trainer is relatively simple, ie to make sure that he and I are in the best possible shape for the marathon, no mean task as Philip has not run a marathon , let alone on ice.
We still have time and Philip's training is going really well, a PB at Tenby 10K recently with Burnham Beeches Half Marathon this weekend. Philip’s dedication to his training and to taking rest day as scheduled are testament to his determination to completing Baikal Ice Marathon.
Now the other side of this challenge is to raise £10,000 for the Iian Rennie Hospice at Home Charity, to me this is a bigger challenge than running the marathon. We will be holding an auction later in the year which we hope will be a big success and also doing some crazy challenges, (to be decided and ideas welcome), it will raise money to help us achieve our targets then we are up to most challenges.
So far everything is going well, Philip is on a rest day, so enjoy, as tomorrow we have training and on Sunday a half marathon (must find somewhere to run on ice) .....
Trevor
Wednesday, 17 August 2011
Rest Day
Being a rest day I took a long walk before breakfast in the Italian Alps where I am currently staying.
I have been training hard of late and want to be well rested for my half marathon this weekend so the walk was a perfect way to start the day. Once back at the hotel I dived in the shower and begun the morning ritual of massaging my muscles and identifying any aches or niggles. The water was steaming hot and I spent longer than normal luxuriating in the fact that I had some spare time
When I finally got out of the shower I was a bit alarmed to see that the bathroom floor was about an inch and a half deep in water. I did my best to mop it up with a towel but as this didn’t seem to be too effective I thought that I should get dressed and ask the maid for a mop. However, as I opened the bathroom door I was greeted with a sight which looked like it had come straight from the Sorcerer’s Apprentice than a small hotel in Italy and stepped into the main bedroom which was at least three inches deep in water. My jeans were soaked, my suitcase was more or less floating around the room and worrying sparks were coming from my laptop (my phone, of course, was floating happily on the eddies as since I have that new bomb proof case it is indestructible – come a nuclear war the only things left will be cockroaches and my IPhone).
There was not a patch of dry carpet, water was trickling out under the door frame and the carpet made a horrible sucking sound with every step. I quickly squeezed water from my clothes, throw on the least ruined jeans and threw the rest into my suitcase.
When I got to reception I looked a sorry bedraggled mess. The receptionist took one look at me and did her best not to giggle, which made me feel even more miserable, so I pulled my best, ‘oh this happens to me all the time…’ face and said, ‘You know, I think there is a leak on the toilet in my room…’ tossed my room key on the desk and hustled out of the door.
I have been training hard of late and want to be well rested for my half marathon this weekend so the walk was a perfect way to start the day. Once back at the hotel I dived in the shower and begun the morning ritual of massaging my muscles and identifying any aches or niggles. The water was steaming hot and I spent longer than normal luxuriating in the fact that I had some spare time
When I finally got out of the shower I was a bit alarmed to see that the bathroom floor was about an inch and a half deep in water. I did my best to mop it up with a towel but as this didn’t seem to be too effective I thought that I should get dressed and ask the maid for a mop. However, as I opened the bathroom door I was greeted with a sight which looked like it had come straight from the Sorcerer’s Apprentice than a small hotel in Italy and stepped into the main bedroom which was at least three inches deep in water. My jeans were soaked, my suitcase was more or less floating around the room and worrying sparks were coming from my laptop (my phone, of course, was floating happily on the eddies as since I have that new bomb proof case it is indestructible – come a nuclear war the only things left will be cockroaches and my IPhone).
There was not a patch of dry carpet, water was trickling out under the door frame and the carpet made a horrible sucking sound with every step. I quickly squeezed water from my clothes, throw on the least ruined jeans and threw the rest into my suitcase.
When I got to reception I looked a sorry bedraggled mess. The receptionist took one look at me and did her best not to giggle, which made me feel even more miserable, so I pulled my best, ‘oh this happens to me all the time…’ face and said, ‘You know, I think there is a leak on the toilet in my room…’ tossed my room key on the desk and hustled out of the door.
Friday, 12 August 2011
Tenby 2011 – 10km
Finishing Time: 51:46
It is hard to write a report on a run when all you remember is the pounding of blood in your ears, legs that felt like lead and a long, hill climb towards the end. However, I do remember one of the most pleasant finishes to any races I have run, which took me down Tenby’s main street, through cheering crowds and across the finish line where a brass band was playing.
The course was less than inspiring and seemed to take in most of the town’s less pleasant outskirts, a housing estate and the leisure centre. However it was superbly well organised and the marshals were excellent and made the race even more enjoyable.
My own time was 3mins 9s better than my personal best and, despite crossing the finish line looking like someone had thrown a bucket of water over me, I was fantastically happy. I remembered to do my stretches at the end, changed into my race T-Shirt and went away elated. It seems that the hard work done, especially the sprint training, is beginning to pay off. It is on days like this that I can almost understand why people pulling on running shoes…
-Philip
Dedication to Training
31st July:- Phil's wife Katie has persuaded him that they need a weekend away this weekend, but knowing that he has a run to complete on Saturday or Sunday as part of his training, he finds a location that has a 10K run on the Sunday.
The location is Tenby a beautiful part of the country, but before they can depart on the Saturday Phil manages to fit in a Boxercise class first.
Off they travel to Tenby later that day, for what is sure a quite day as Phil knows he has a 10K the next morning, Phil jokes about setting a PB to me over the phone. Later on Sunday I get a text from Phil saying what a great run the 10K is and that he smashed his 10K PB and ran 51min 46 secs, which is 6mins quicker than his previous best. What an awesome run Phil’s dedication to training and sticking to the plan is really working.
I think they did get some time to relax!!!!!!!
-Trevor
Wednesday
After my workout (shoulder and back) I took my protein shake and went and sat on the beach.
After working out I always feel serene and somewhat detached from the world but today, under the hot Israeli sun, I felt a deep sense of calmness. It was a moment tinged, also, with sadness, as it was on this beach that I received the call from my mum that my dad was very ill and I needed to get home immediately. I thought back to those days; days when everything seemed to unravel and when my only outlet was running. I thought about the my first gentle jogs around the village where my parents lived, the way I ran myself into the ground on my birthday, my first 10km and all the things that will lead me to Siberia. In my own view of the world it seems almost poetic that something that begun on a beach under a scorching sun should come to completion on a frozen lake in Russia. I sat on the beach until the sun set and soft music begun to drift from the many bars along the sea-front and for the first time in ages I didn’t think about my next workout or how far I had to run this weekend. It was, just for a few moments, perfect.
-Philip
Too hot...
I tried to go for a run on the beach in Tel Aviv Last night.
However, after about a mile I realised that despite the heat I wasn’t sweating and that I had started to feel most unwell. It was hardly surprising that I felt unwell as even late in the afternoon the temperature was 35C and people were merrily cooking eggs on the pavement.
After plenty of water and shade I felt recovered enough to hit the gym for my chest work out. I have trained in all kinds of strange places – huge empty hangers in the US, a spa somewhere in deepest Romania where the ex-president was said to take his daily ablutions and even on the beach in Rio but training in Israel is a whole different thing.
Firstly everyone struts around with the utmost attitude. If you put a weight down for a rest between sets someone will swipe it, people regularly come and stand in front of you so that you can see if you are doing the perfect lat raises and no one puts anything back after they have finished using it. The first time I trained in this gym I found it all disturbing but yesterday really annoyed me.
I was doing incline dumbbell press with a decent size pair of dumbbells. Halfway through my set two guys stood purposely in front of me so that I could not see how deep I was pressing, a woman tried to drape her towel over the back of my bench (whilst I was lifting) and then to add insult to injury a little old Jewish guy, complete with skull cap tried to swipe my weights when I dropped them between sets.
He must have been about 70 years old, about 100lbs wet and probably spent every weekend having little kids kick sand in his face at the beach. However, this did not stop him trying to run off with my two 30kg dumbbells.
What followed could have been nasty. I snarled at him, thinking: what on earth are you doing – you can barely lift these….he snarled back and obviously cursed me in Hebrew. I squared up to him and puffed out my chest (which certainly seems to be acceptable in this part of the world) and then he dropped the weights (on my toe) and, after making an obscene gesture, walked to the weight rack, selected a pair of 50kg dumbbells, and then stood right in front of me and banged out set after set of concentration curls.
It was at this stage that I gave up, grabbed my towel and a protein shake and retired to the poolside to lick my wounded ego.
-Philip
Chest, Arms and 7 miles
The day begun with Trevor beasting me in the gym with a killer chest and arms session.
This is a pretty tough workout; kettle-bells, chest-press, flys, incline press to pre-exhaust the chest and then a torrent of bicep exercise to complete the pain. By the time I get to the last few sets of curls it is definitely a question of gritting my teeth and trying to visualise my arms exploding. When I drop the bar for the final time every fibre in my arms hurts and I often feel an incredible calmness come over me. It is then time to go home, down a protein shake and try to recover. A few hours later I am still shaking and my arms still feel useless.
Later, after another round of supplements, energy bars and fluids it was out for a gentle seven mile run around town. I have to say that under the guidance of Trevor the runs are getting easier and I took a little bit of satisfaction in getting home in record time. Once home it was time for more supplements, stretches and a long hot shower. It seems that all I do is eat, train, wash sweaty gym kit and plan my next run but I am amusing myself with guessing what will need replacing first – my running shoes or my washing machine.
-Philip
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