rainsbury.com

Gang Show 2011

Big Al — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 11:57:14 +0000

Gang Show 2011 from Ali Rainsbury on Vimeo.

A quick and dirty video of Gang Show from the wings. Shot and edited on my iPhone, because I can!

Birmingham Half

Big Al — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 09:57:30 +0000

After the disappointment that was the Wilmslow Half, I looked around for another Half I could do to have a stab at a better time. The only one that I found that I could do was the Birmingham Half in October. I finished in 1.47, a 9min PB over Wilmslow (although not quite as quick as I’d like, I still want to get under 1.45 as a minimum for 2011).

The organisation was a bit crap. Everyone had coloured bibs to denote your starting area, and predicted finish time, but the pens weren’t segregated, and there were no marshalls to ensure you went into the right pen, so there were a lot of very slow runners down at the front. Also, the start/finish line was poorly sited, which meant that immediately after the start (and the finish) you had to funnel down from a 4 lane road, to a 2 lane road. Obviously this caused a lot of congestion at the start, but even more so at the finish, where some of the slower runners had to queue for up to 10mins to cross the finish line! Fortunately I missed most of the congestion, and ran a pretty good race, it was the never ending hills at the end that robbed me of my sub 1.45 time :-)

Tatton Triathlon 2010

Big Al — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 09:47:15 +0000

I had two major goals for 2010, complete a Half Marathon in a decent time (0 for 1 so far), and complete the Tatton Triathlon in a decent time. Going to Japan hampered my preparation, and I did nowhere near enough swimming or biking. I finished with a time of 3:00:52, beating Dave from work by 15.9 seconds! I was quite happy, especially as I’d predicted my time would be 3:15 to 3:30. I was a touch disappointed by my run time, 53mins is 8 minutes slower than my PB, and I’d hoped to get round in about 50mins based on the brick sessions I did. Overall though, I was very happy.

Great Manchester 10K

Big Al — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 09:08:02 +0000

I had a disappointing start to 2010, with a poor Wilmslow Half marathon time. Things brighten up in May, with a very quick 5K at the Reebok Manchester May Day 5K, culminating in a 3min 10K pb time of 45:28 at the Great Manchester 10K.

The course was nice and flat, although it did go past The Swamp, with some very good runners setting some impressive times.

GS10 The Full Monty

Big Al — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 16:02:35 +0000

Work and the Japan Trip kept me away from Gang Show far too much this year, so there’s not a lot to show you. Enjoy!

Wilmslow Half

Big Al — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 12:09:13 +0000

Unfortunately a week of earlies (with Gang Show each night), and two days of camping proved to be most unsuitable preparation for the Wilmslow Half. I was relatively happy to get round in under 2hrs, 1:56.44, but was disappointed to be some way off my target of 1:40 to 1:45. Still, not too bad for my first Half.

WHM10-Half Marathon Results

AC/DC at the MEN

Big Al — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 17:11:41 +0000

]]>

Stockport 10

Big Al — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 15:20:14 +0000

Last “proper” race of the year (assuming you don’t count the excellent parkrun’s). The Stockport 10 (miler) is famous for two things. Two bloody steep hills, and an, erm, eccentric, finisher’s goody bag.

This is the longest race I’ve done to date, and was far too excited about it when I woke up this morning. The race was actually quite fun, and the hills actually didn’t present much of a problem for me – training in and around Glossop has it’s advantages, there is only one flat (ish) route in the area, everything else is a hill!

Very happy with my time. I wanted to get round in at least under 1:30 hrs, and would have been very happy to get around 1:25, so I was absolutely stoked to get back in 1:21.

The pictures below are the T-Shirt all finisher’s got – a very nice Technical Tee with a relief map of the route on the front – and the contents of the goody bag (see the video at the end), and a map of the route.

Navigators Go Wild in Wales

Big Al — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 06:50:56 +0000

A small video thingy and some photos.

And so conludes a summer of racing!

Big Al — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 13:11:03 +0000

Yesterday saw the final race that I’ve signed up for this year (excluding the weekly parkruns), the Tatton Park 10K.

Over the last three months I’ve ran the Reebok Sizzler 5K series, the Marple 10K and the Tatton 10K. I’m now seriously considering the Wilmslow Half Marathon next March (right after Gang Show, that’ll be good prep!), and the Tatton Park Triathlon next September.