Friday 14 January 2011

Richard Belton


Well, where do I begin? I don’t fully know what to say, but feel writing my thoughts down will help me to understand and accept what has happened. I was going to write about my performance at the Lancs XC Champs last weekend, or about my training, but these kind of things all seem pretty trivial now.

13 months ago, our good friend Pistol Pete Holmes was taken from us in such tragic circumstances. Such a wonderful man, who anyone would be proud to say they were friends with. He was living his dream and had so much to offer the world. This really stopped me, along with so many others in Loughborough and beyond, in our tracks. So just over a year on, and it happens again. Another great young man, taken from us far too young. Richard Belton or just Belton to those who knew him had so much to look forward to. He had just taken up a new role within British Triathlon, leaving British Volleyball to take on this new role. However it was during a volleyball game yesterday evening with his friends that this tragic incident happened.

My memories of Rich were of running with him, especially this year on a Tuesday night ‘tempo’ where he had to stop with stomach cramps but urged me to keep going. I also remember going out riding with him and Vardy and them showing me new cycling routes. My other prominent memory of Belton or Seal as we nicknamed him was at the Loughborough Christmas Ball in my first year, which was undoubtedly my favourite. Spending time with him and his closer friends at the pre-ball jam in his house is something I will never forget.

I am running for Loughborough tomorrow in the Birmingham League, where I shall be wearing a black ribbon on my African Violet vest, with my run being dedicated to him. My thoughts are with his family and close friends.

RIP Belton xx

Friday 7 January 2011

"Consistency is the key"

So here we are in 2011. It always seems to amaze everyone how fast a year goes by, 365 days, 52 weeks or 12 months. Where does it all go? How much of it do we waste?

Well I did this whole evaluation phase at the beginning of September, as I'm sure a lot of athletes do. I had just got back from a 'lads' holiday in Bulgaria, and was as far from an athlete as you could possibly be (the only way you could tell I was an athlete was the fact I read 'Running with the Buffaloes' whilst I was there). I had come back 1.5 stone overweight, still injured and with a horrendous lifestyle. I also decided that the last year of my life had been quite wasteful, and so I decided it was time for a change. I don't know how much the book I was reading affected my change in attitude, but I'm sure it was a big part of it. I felt all of a sudden as if I had a fresh focus and desire to try and fulfil my potential. 

Now when I say I changed things, I don't just mean I changed the odd thing here and then, I mean whole-scale changes to the way I live my life. The root of the problems was being injured, so I sought out the best physio I could find in order to try and put an end to my 3 year injury nightmare. This man was to be Duncan Mason. A few friends had mentioned him to me in the past, and so I decided it was time to take their advice, get down to Manchester and get myself sorted. Next my sleeping patterns had to change. Going to bed at 5am and not getting up until 1pm is not the lifestyle of someone who wants to get the most out of their athletics. This inevitably meant night’s out had to be severely cut back and in came 11pm bedtimes. Next to change was my diet. Carrying an extra stone and a half, or in real terms 9 bags of sugar is far from ideal!! I can only imagine the stress that was putting on my body, trying to run carrying all that weight and this can’t have helped my injuries. Finally my training needed a drastic upheaval, or more accurately, my approach to it had to change. Coming back from an injury and trying to get yourself fit for a big race 4 weeks later is just not conducive to getting the best out of yourself or establishing any kind of consistency in your training. I feel I am quite clued up on how to train, just through speaking to knowledgeable people and reading Lydiard et al's methods, so why wasn't I putting all this into practice? After all, "consistency is the key".

Within two weeks I felt like I was back on the rails to some degree. I had seen Duncan twice, and he had found the root of my injuries and set about fixing them. Exercises and treatment were the answer and I was soon back doing some easy running. My lifestyle was soon back to what it used to be before I went to Uni, with normal sleeping patterns and a good healthy balance of home cooked food courtesy of mum. And finally I spoke to my good friend Tom Cornthwaite, and we agreed it would be best that he oversaw all of my training again, just like when I had my successes on the Mountains. 

So here we are just over 3 months later and I feel like a different person. Touch wood, I have had no major injury problems during this time, but continue to see Duncan (who has worked wonders with me and I would highly recommend him) in order to keep on top of any niggles and potential injuries. He recommends all his patients do this, such as Andi Jones, Dave and Andy Norman and Michelle Ross-Cope to name but a few. My lifestyle is still pretty good, and I am also working harder at University, which is obviously important, this being my final year. My diet is much better too. I made a pact with Nathan Bibby one night back in October that we would give up chocolate, cake, biscuits, sweets and crisps until Christmas. Although I used ice-cream (Ben & Jerry’s half baked to be precise) as a loop-hole, we both stuck at it, and this has massively helped with my bid to get back towards my best racing weight. I have realised it is much harder to lose weight than to put it on, so I won’t be ‘bingeing’ again in a hurry. So at 10.5 stone I have lost about a stone, and so only have a few pounds to go to be at my optimum weight!

On the training front, with Tom’s help, things are moving in the right direction, and I have even raced 3 times (would have been 4 without all this snow!). But that is another story in itself and shall have to wait for another day (hopefully a bit sooner than the 7 months since my last blog!)

Thanks for reading and I hope you like the new Runners Blogs site,

Pete