Blog About Sam's Thoughts And Riting Diary

Race three of four (see:  Beachy Head  & Box Hill Ballbuster ) was the Poppy Half in Bexhill-On-Sea. Held annually on Remembrance weekend, the Poppy Half commemorates the First World War and raises money for worthy charities. Last year I trained for and ran the Half as my first ‘proper’ race at that distance. I have completed Halfs (I know that looks wrong but ‘Halves’ looks wronger 😀) in the past but I haven’t trained adequately, or I've aimed to finish. Last year I raced the distance and completed it in 1:38:02. This year, as I’ve mentioned in previous blogs, my training has been somewhat different. Running took a backseat after Hastings Half in March and, truth be told, has hardly spent more than a long weekend in the front seat. Cycling has been my main form of training with running ticking along in ‘maintenance mode’. There’s no doubt I would get faster by running more but I have struck a good balance between enjoying the training (I’ve averaged over 12 h

The Ballbuster is a biannual event held in Tadworth, Surrey. The race starts and finishes atop Box Hill, which was used as part of the Olympic Road Race in the London 2012 Olympics. I decided to enter the event as it looked a genuine challenge and, aside from various marathons, there isn’t much locally that offers an opportunity to really test myself. As an added incentive the Ballbuster serves as a potential qualification race for the Long Distance Duathlon Age Group World Championships, held annually in Zofingen, Switzerland. The only criterion is to finish within 115% of the winner of your age group’s time.  For example, if the winner finishes in 3 hours, I’d need to finish within 3 hours 27 minutes. (3 hours = 180 minutes. 180 *1.15 = 207. 207 minutes = 3 hours 27 minutes.) Why not try and qualify for the World Championships in Switzerland? Might as well. That’s what I would try to do. As with every achievement in life, there would be a number of obstacles i