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Well, here we are in 2016. Unbelievable. When I was at school years ago I always imagined that by now people would be walking around in shiny silver suits, eating unappetising, synthetic food and communicating in a strange, unintelligible language. Mind you, now I come to think of it, that does sound a lot like Newcastle on a Friday night...
 

 
As I mentioned last time, on New Year's Eve I was running the traditional San Silvestre race, specifically the one in Oviedo. This started at 6.10 p.m., which gave me plenty of time to get my dinner for the evening ready.
 
I had no plans to go out but I thought I would make the effort and do myself something nice for  dinner, to at least see out what has been a difficult year in a bit of style. So I spent a good part of the morning wrestling with an Iberian pork sirloin, and attempting to open it up then stuff it with dried fruit and nuts. There were, I have to confess, one or two fraught moments, but in the end I showed it who's boss and before too long I had it tamed: I'm not going to go through the whole process, but once it was done it looked like this:
 

That way, in the evening all I had to do was heat it through in the port wine reduction it had cooked in.

With all this going on, I didn't have too much time to fret about the race, but as the afternoon wore on I got my kit prepared, pinned on the race number and soon enough I was out the door. 
 
The great thing about this race is that I can leave the house in just my race kit, and by running up to the city centre and the start I get my warm-up practically done. Then there's the fantastic festive atmosphere and the thrill of running through the city under the Christmas lights, cheered on by thousands of spectators.
 
Why, then, would I fret? It's only 5.5 kms, which, as people are often very keen to point out, is nothing at all for a distance runner like myself. Well, this is true, but the problem is that precisely because it's a much shorter distance, you have to go eyeballs-out from the off and run to the absolute lung-bursting limit all the way. It's painful, let me tell you.
 
To cut a long story short, I pitched up at the start area a good 20 minutes before the gun and manoeuvred my way to a position about ten rows back from the front.

There I am, under the first tree on the left - this is the only picture I appear in...

It got ever more tightly packed as the minutes passed and I wondered how on Earth I was going to get into any sort of decent pace and even just stay on my feet. In fact, when the gun went and the stampede started it wasn't too bad where I was, although not far to my left there was a Foinavon-style pile-up, which I managed to avoid and I was away, careering down Calle Uría, the main street here in Oviedo.
 
A sharp left, and up Calle Toreno - the first hill - we charged, a reminder that sooner or later this was going to hurt, but so early on in the race, adrenalin alone takes you up those 400-500m. This hill is made yet more bearable by the knowledge, if you've done your homework, that there follows the fastest section of the race, 2.5 kms of generous terrain (i.e. downhill), and if you've got a clear run here you can really open up your legs and pile on the pace. if you're still a bit hampered by the crowds, on the other hand, you can easily lose two or three minutes, just in this section.

 
In my case it was somewhere between the two: the road was still fairly crowded and I was continually catching the heels and ankles of people cutting across too closely, but even so I found myself going through two kilometres in 7:48, more or less what I'd imagined. Here the road flattened out, but at the three-kilometre mark it suddenly kicked up and there we were, facing the biggest challenge of the day, something everybody had been terrified about...
 
The numbers tell us that we went up 40 metres in 1.5 kms, and so inevitably my pace plummeted, but in fact it was far more manageable than I'd feared; I just concentrated on decent form and keeping the same cadence, and was heartened to see I was passing dozens of exhausted runners. Come on, it was only 2 miles into the race, for heaven's sake!
 
Once at the top of the hill you are in the administrative district of the city and from here it's about a mile of gentler downhill all the way to the finish. One thing I have learned over the years is the value of doing repeated intervals of faster running intercalated with slow recoveries - in a race situation these enable you to get over a hard section and then immediately pick up the pace again, so while some used the first half-mile of the downhill section to recover form the hill, I pulled out all the stops and flew down there!
 
The crowds were really massed along the pavements here and they cheered me on as I steeled myself for a final, continual effort and we came in to the old part of the city before turning towards the Cathedral Square and the finish. The last 200 meters or so are slightly uphill but I never even noticed, but hurled myself forward and crossed the line. Done!
 


The top five in the men's race. 

23:02 for 5.65 kms works out at 4:05/km (6:34/mile), and considering my diet over the previous days, involving far too much beer, and in fact far too much of everything (no cigarettes, though, thank God!), I am very pleased with that. It was tough in parts and was never going to be the fastest course but I feel I gave it a really good push and finished very strongly - the last mile was in about 6:20. 

All that remained was for me to congratulate two or three people I knew at the finish (including the chap who came in fourth - he lives very near me and trains in the same places) and jog home.
 

At this point I would normally run myself a nice, hot bath and take a couple of celebratory beers up there with me, but then I looked at my watch and saw it was only 7:15. If i started now, I'd be out for the count by 11, if not before. So, tea it was. In fact, I held off everything as long as possible, and in fact the records show I was still drinking tea (not the same one) at 10.30...
 
If I'm going to be honest, then I must also say that I was also being a bit careful because as soon as I got home I received an extremely attractive, if tentative, offer via the medium of Whatsapp to go out later on, i.e. about one o'clock (these Spanish, eh?)...it simply wouldn't do to turn up three sheets to the wind, would it? I'd said I'd be delighted and where and when should we meet?
 
Needless to say, at that point Whatasapp crashed for the remainder of the evening (ironically, precisely what I'd tried to avoid doing all along!) and that was the end of that, my illusion crushed. As any man would have done in my position, I took solace in good food and alcohol.
 
As the donkey work had been done earlier in the day, the assembly and production of my repast was simple and fairly quick, although in fairness by the end of it I was glancing at the kitchen clock a little anxiously.
 
For starters, a simple confit of bacalao:
 

 
To follow, the Iberian pork sirloin, with port wine reduction and caramelised apples...



 

 
And once I'd washed up, it was 11:50 and so I had to get moving and plate up the traditional mix of  turrones and dried fruits, with the obligatory bottle of Cava.
 

I also had to prepare the grapes, something which I'd forgotten to, and had to do them at full speed starting at exactly 11:58 and 20 seconds. This done, I ran to the living room (not far, admittedly) and turned the television on, just in time to hear the first chime. With each of the twelve chimes, I ate a grape for luck, as is the tradition, and when this was done, I opened the bottle of Cava, drank off the first glass and started sending Whatsapps to my family and friends, albeit knowing they probably wouldn't arrive until hours later...
 
In short, quite a pleasant evening, but it would have been a hundred times better with some company, of course.
 
So, now to business. It's all well and good stuffing yourself with food and drink for two weeks, but the Brighton Marathon will not run itself, as far as I am aware. Neither, to my knowledge, has anyone standing on the podium, having achieved their goal, ever cited eating and drinking like a pig as a key factor in their success.
 
Goodbye to all that, then, fun as it was. Actually, I've got off fairly lightly and only put on about two pounds over all this holiday period. I found, furthermore, that my knee seems to be co-operating, and so as I laced up my trainers on Tuesday and headed out for a 10km easy run, I was pleased to note that all was well with the world. My little corner of it, anyway. For this was no ordinary run. No - this was the first of a hundred-odd which go to comprise the Pfizinger and Douglas (P&D) 18-week marathon training plan.
 
So I have started in Week Four? No matter, I'm in there for the duration now. 18 weeks is miles too long, anyway! But really, there was no way I was going to stick to any sort of plan over Christmas, and besides, I like the symmetry of the start of a new year and the start of serious, full-on, relentless, all-consuming, unforgiving marathon training.
 
Next time we'll all of us find out how I cope with this shock to the system and what, if any, changes I have to make to my lifestyle to be able to deal with it.
 
Thank you ever so much for continuing to follow me and my footsteps on this journey. I would love to hear from you; any comments, suggestions, crticism and - God forbid - encouragement would be really gratefully received!
 
Bye for now!
 
 
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