Happy Christmas!!

(Joe McAllister)

Today I got up to go to the 24th annual Greencastle 5mile race in Co. Tyrone (Northern Ireland), to discover my car had other plans! After an hour of trying everything it decided to start!! I arrived in Greencastle just as Joe McAllister (St. Malachy's) crossed the line in first place in a time of 26:30.

However not being one to miss an opportunity I placed about 300 Active Canaria leaflets in the runners' 'goodie bags'.

On my way home I stopped in Gortin Glen to train in my new Bridgedale socks and t-shirt! Yes, it was as cold as it looks!!

PHOTOS: Alison Hill (Running Photography)

Øystein Kvaal Østerbø is coming...

(Photo: World of O)

From the 13th to the 31st January 2010 Active Canaria is offering orienteers the chance to train on the same courses as used by Øystein Kvaal Østerbø. Øystein, who is currently ranked 23rd in the World, is coming to Gran Canaria in January and will be training on the island’s best orienteering areas. Why not join him?

Active Canaria will be providing 6 different training courses on 3 different maps (two of which are over 1500m above sea level). To help you get the most out of your time on Gran Canaria, Active Canaria will give all orienteers a ‘training pack’ will all the courses and maps and information on other (running) training routes.

If you are interested contact Allan on allan@activecanaria.com or register on our site (http://www.activecanaria.com/  and send us a booking request.

SUBIDA PICO BANDAMA

Today I came second in Subida Pico Bandama, which was an 18km mountain race. I was pleased with my race as I did not really feel the effects of yesterday´s races in my legs.
The whole way I was together with Pablo Vega a road running specialists from Madrid (with fresh legs) until the decent from Bandama, where his road racing speed was too much for me, and he ended up winning by 50sec.

I finish the weekend 3rd over-all, badly let down by my lack of experience on a bike!

Mountain Bike Race

This evening I rode in my first ever mounatin bike race...needless to say I was not as successful as I wass this morning! I had real difficulties working out how to use my gears...and my chain came off at one stage! but I apart from that I think I did OK...However I have a lot of catching up to do in tomorrow's race! I have to win by about 15mins to win the weekend's races over all. I think it is possible as tomorrow is an 18km mountain race (my speciality).

1st in Vertical Kilometre

I have a short break now before my next race (my first ever Mountain Bike race). This morning a won a vertical kilometre in a time of 34.35 over two minutes ahead of Buff Thermo-cool runner ARNAU JULIÁ.
I am eating some pasta and trying to get my RunGoSay clothes dry...

Up-date later....

1ª Edición Marathon Vertical/ MTB/ Carrera

On Saturday and Sunday I will be competing for RunGoSay in the first edition of Burbujita´s Marathon Vertical Km/ MTB/ Run.

This is a 3 stage race that consists of:
Saturday 12th December 2009
1. vertical km running race (the race is 4km long, however you raise from seal-level to 1000m above sea-level).
2. 34km mountain bike race, 4 laps of an 8km circuit (this will be my first ever bike race).
Sunday 13th December 2009
3. 18km mountain race around Gran Canaria´s most famous volcanic crater (Bandama).

Active Canaria hope to promote this race 2010 (watch this space)

III VUELTA ATLETICA A ARUCAS

Today I ran the 3rd leg in a 5 leg road relay with my athletics club CAI. We got off to a good start with Efren winning his leg by about 20sec. Things didn't go so smoothly on the 2nd leg when Miguel's shoe fell off at the start of his run, leaving him about 1minutes down on the fastest times. I ran a solid leg finish 2nd behind ex-CAI member Saul. My leg started with approximately 4km down-hill (very steep in parts), the middle 1km was up and down and then finished with 3km of climb back into the town of Arucas. My time was 33.14 for 9600m. Sergio ran a good 4th leg finish 3rd in a very competitive field. Our final leg runner Rodrigo had host club Carucat's up-hill specialist Veray to contend with, and had little chance when Veray broke the course record (my course record). As always this was a very well organised race with some impressive money prizes (3500Euros in total), and it is a race I hope will be apart of Active Canaria's 2010 program.

III VUELTA ATLÉTICA CIUDAD DE ARUCAS

Tomorrow I am running for my Athletics Club CAI Gran Canaria in a road relay in Arucas. I am running the the 3rd leg of 5. For the last 2 years I have ran (and won) the final leg, however I fancied a change this year and asked to be given another one. It is a 10km leg which begins with 5km down-hill followed by 5km up-hill.

1ª Edición Maratón Vertical/Mtb/Carrera

I have just entered the 1st Marathon Vertical/ Mtb/ Run, which is a 3 stage race.

The first stage involves running up a very steep hill from sea level to 1000m above sea-level in the space of 4km.

The second stage is a 34km Mountain Bike race (my first ever).

And the final stage the next day is a 18km mountain (run) race!

I am looking forward to the two running stages, and I was looking forward to the mountain bike stage! Until I heard that the organisers are paying for ARNAU JULIÁ from the Buff Thermacool Team to come to the race. He is one of the best adventure racers in the world and he came 2nd last year in the 123km Trans Gran Canaria. It will be good to have some competition in the running stages...just hope I don't make a fool of myself on the mountain bike!

Active Canaria OFFICIAL LAUNCH!!

Tonight is the official LAUNCH PARTY for Active Canaria...

Please remember to keep checking http://www.activecanaria.com/ for updates...

New packages to be announced soon!

Launch Party photos tomorrow!!

Write-up on Bridgedale's Web-page

Allan Bogle on Bridgedale's Web-page

Active Canaria!! READ ALL ABOUT IT!!

Exciting news!! Active Canaria have just launched their brand new web-page!

What is Active Canaria?

Active Canaria is a new sports travel company based in Gran Canaria that offers affordable training packages for runners that are tired of training and competing in the cold!

For more information check out the web-page, or why not follow them on Facebook.

www.activecanaria.com

Follow on Facebook!!

Orienteering in Maspalomas

Today was the final race in the Gran Canaria Orienteering Series. The race was held on an open area north of Maspalomas and was a very enjoyable format. It was a mass start with a 'score' of 10 controls followed by a 4km loop with 7 more controls.

I got of to a shaky start, finding it difficult to get into the map. After taking a stupid route choice to my first control on the score I soon started concentrating and running better. By the end of the score I had built up a lead of about 3minutes, but was soon to losing it again after spending too long running up and down a reenterant full of cacti looking for number 10. I was caught by Fran Hernández who had a very good race. Fran and I battled right the way to the end however I came out dominant, making it 3 wins out of 3 for this year's orienteering!

El Corte Ingles Road Race

I would like to wish Good Luck! to everyone running the El Corte Ingles Road race tomorrow. I will not be running as my legs are still a little sore after last week's K42 in Argentina. Instead I am running the last race of Gran Canaria Orienteering series. A mass start 'score' followed by a set course.

Races in November and December

Over the next few weeks there are several interesting races coming up:

• 
  
  Sunday 22nd November- El Corte Ingles 5km Road Race
  
  
  
• 
  
  Sunday 6th December- Arucas Road Relay
  
  
  
• 
  
  Saturday & Sunday 12th-13th December- Maratón Vertical/Mtb/Carrera
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

The Northern Constitution

LIMAVADY NORTHERN CONSTITUTION

K42 Mountain Marathon 2009

Don´t cry for me Argentina...

I am back in Spain now after a very long journey. This is the first time I have been able to sit down an analyse my race since finish in 18th position (3hrs40). Am I pleased with my result/ time? Well yes and no...I had hoped for a top ten result and I hoped to run faster! however I have learnt some valuable lessons about mountain running! unlike track and road races it is impossible to predict times, as you are often running through "the unknown". How I had pictured the race course in my head was very different from the reality. In my head it was not as tough as the qualification race I won in Gran Canaria, so therefore I expected a time a lot faster as I was in a lot better shape! However it wasn´t long into the race I realised things were not going to be as easy as I imagined! From the gun the pre-race favourite (the winner of the Brazilian Qualification race) set a ridiculously fast pace, he went through the first 10km in under 35mins (which is fast even for a road marathon) the chasing pack went through in 37mins! I had found myself in "no-man´s land" by myself struggling to maintain visual contact with the pack!seeing 39min on my watch at 10km and feeling my legs I knew I had made my first mistake! It wasn´t long before the course started winding its way up through a forest before dropping down into a river crossing. After the river crossing at about 15km I started to get over taken by runners that had started off more conservatively, I managed to get back into a good (more sensible) pace. At the half way mark the route began to climb! and climb! and climb! I knew it would be steep..but I had unestimated just how steep! we climbed 2000m in the space of 10km through some of the toughest terrain I have ever seen! knee deep in snow I was exhausted by the time I reached the summit, the only good news was that the last 12km would be mostly downhill. On the downhill section I started to feel a lot better and was able keep a good pace going, however I was alone and didn´t realised that only a few minutes infront of me the was a tiring group which included Martin Fiz (former World Champion marathon runner). When I crossed the line I was pleased with what I had achieved however I knew there was a lot of room for improvement. (whoops...need to go catch my plane)!I will write more later!

And back over to the Canarian correspondent.

First of all, let me tell you that I was at WOMAD last night, and I’ll haphazard a guess and say that it was marginally more exciting than a ‘pasta party’. Sorry!



Anyway, enough about me... The day of the race is finally upon us and I’m sure that emotions are running high. I haven’t heard from Allan yet this morning (being it 7am over there) but last night he seemed on form and set to go. If you would like to follow the race online today, follow this link:


http://www.k42trailrun.com/index2.php


The race starts at 1pm our time, 10am there’s and there will apparently be regular updates on the website above throughout the day.


So, I shall sign off for now and wish all of the competitors (whose desire to run 42k up and down mountains will never make any sense to me) the best of luck. And, of course, send lots of love and support to ‘The Bogletron’. You show ‘em how it’s done!

One day to go...

Between training, carbo-loading and TV interviews I have had very little time to up-date my blog over the last couple of days. This morning marked the"24hours to go" mark! My days here have been following the same pattern, I get up at 7am and have my Quaker Oats with dry apricotes while reading my book (Born to Run), at 8 I put on my running gear and go for a short jog which is closely followed by more porridge. I try to relax as much as possible during the day, but this hass proved to be hard when surrounded by just beautiful scenery. I the evening I go for another short jog before consuming ridiculous amounts of pasta and then trying to get an early night.

Yesterday we picked up our race numbers and t-shirts before being whisked off to a beautiful lake to be interviewed by ESPN. Today we have been to check out part of the race course which seem to be a lot more pleasant than the qualification race in Gran Canaria. Tonight we have a race meeting to find out all the logistics of the race and we will hit the PASTA PARTY (not quite as exciting as WOMAD I know..but a little healthier!!) Tomrrow will be an early start as we have to have get on the bus to the start area at 7.45am... and the then at 10am (13.00 GMT (UK & GC)) we start running!!

You can follow all the action at http://www.k42trailrun.com/

Argentina (at last)

I have eventually managed to get online for the first time since arriving in Argentina on Monday! Firstly I would like to thank my girlfriend Alison for updatting this for me...I even like the pink writing!

After my epic journey for Las Palmas to Madrid to Sao Paulo to Buenas Aires to Bariloche I eventually arrived in my log cabin in Villa la Angostura late on Monday night. Going to sleep that night I did not know what to expect out of my window the next morning! When I woke and drew the curtains I was confronted with snow capped mountains on all sides and bright blue skies! it was literally breathe taking! After breakfast Fernado, Estrella (the winners of K42 Sahara) and I went for a jog to get our bearing...it was one of those runs that I love...we should have probably covered the distance in about 30mins but by the time we stopped to watch eagles flying over head and to take photos of lakes filled with turquoise blue glacier water we had spent over an hour running.
Today we rented a car and have driven through the Andes to a town called San Martin de los Andes which could easily be the front of any christmas card! We are going to spend the night here before returing to Villa la Angostura tomorrow to complete our race registeration and to continue with our carbo loading.

HURRAH (I say with clenched teeth).....

...after a 5 million year long journey, Allan's made it to Patagonia!! Yet, I cannot help but feel just a tiny twang of jealousy.
'Like a moveie set', '...driving through snow capped mountains', 'so beautiful'
have been amongst many descriptions that I have already been texted during my dreary day at work (not to mention the weather!). 

NEXT TIME I'M COMING WITH YOU, BOGLE!

P.S. Does anyone know any nifty tips on ringing Argentinian mobiles from Spain? The woman at Telefonica is driving me mad!

Buena suerte, Allan!

Hello Allan fans/random people who have had the great fortune of stumbling upon this blog! This is Ali, Allan's lazier half. I am under strict instructions to keep his blog updated whilst he's away racing in Patagonia.
So here we go....

I dropped Allan off at the airport this morning (at a time that I didn't know existed on a Sunday), ready for the 1st leg of his journey. There were a couple of occasions when the Irish tone went a couple of octaves higher than usual, the 1st being when we looked at the departure board and saw 'DELAYED' flashing next to his flight, the 2nd when his hand luggage (which Mo assured us would be fine) was too fat to fit in the tester stand. As it turned out though, he was sitting on the plane before schedule and Mo was right, the lovely people who sit behind the desk at Ryanair didn't even bat an eyelid.

So I have waved him goodbye and wished him good luck and await the next bit of news to come this way which he wishes me to publicise.

Watch this space.....!

P.S.  Do you think he'll like the pink writing?

P.P.S. Hot off the press... He has landed at Madrid, but cannot find baggage collection.

Ruta Doramas

Today I went to watch Ruta Doramas in Firgas. It was nice to be a spectator at a race for once. The race was a 30km trail race organised by Club de Montaña de Firgas and was won by Matias Ojeda (the winner of GC Challenger).

When the competitors were racing Guacimara and I did our last training on Gran Canaria before flying to Argentina tomorrow.

Leaving meal...

Last night I went out with a few friends to say good-bye. The plan was to go to an Argentinian steak restaurant, however I didn't book a table so we actually ended up have a Lebanese. It was a really good evening and I even got a good-luck card (thanks Mo) and a few presents. Thanks for everyone for coming along and I hope I do you all proud!

Salomon K42 Marathon 14th November 2009

My new socks...

I have just finished my first training in my new Bridgedale X-Hale Speed Demon Socks. I recently approached Bridgedales (a Northern Irish sock company) to ask if they would be interested in sponsoring for my upcoming race in Argentina and for my future races. Today I received a range of their most popular socks in the post. The Speed Demons are the perfect racing sock, light, breathable and providing support in all the right places.

The Greatest

Recently I bought Jim Demison´s book "The Greatest" (the story of Haile Gebrselassie) to read on the flight to Argentina. When it arrived I decided to read to first chapter after training one day, and I couldn´t put it down. It is a very well written inspirational story of an amazing man, and I thoroughly recommend it to all runners and sport fans. Today another book arrived in the post "Born to Run", I am definately keeping this one for the flight.

Half Term

This is the las day of my half term holiday. I have used my time off to do lots of hard training. I have started to cut back on quantity now and beginning to focus on quality.
The week started off well with a good track session (20x400m), and hill reps in Bandama (the largest volcano crater on the island), however by Friday I started to feel a bit ill. I had a cough and felt sore all over. Since arriving in the Canary Islands I have breathing problems on and off linked to dust storms that blow in from Africa. After taking Friday and Saturday off I was able to run my planned tempo run on Sunday, I didn't feel great at the start of the run but by half way I started to feel better and managed to run 1hr17 for 20km on the trails of La Isleta.
To 'help' me feel better and to try to prevent myself from catching the flu which is going around I have been forcing myself to drink disgusting smoothies of spinach, ginger and garlic. I am going to have a few easy days and hopefully attempt another 20km tempo run on Thursday.

Orienteering at 1800m

Today I went orienteering in La Calderilla (the highest orienteering map in Gran Canaria). The area was really good, but a poor map and course planning. It was an enjoyable day in the mountains and good running training, however I didn't finish the orienteering course as too many of the controls were in the wrong place or not there at all. I hope to go back to the area soon and do some re-mapping.

Training in El Hierro

I am just back from El Hierro. Even though I was there with 32 children (Geography field trip) I managed to get in 4 unforgettable runs. On the first evening there I set off at 6.30pm to try to run to the highest point on the island (Malpaso 1501m), however I misjudged the available light and had to turn back about 1 km from the summit, and had to finish the run in the dark (1h40).

The next day after walking for 3 hours with the kids I ran back to our hostel. This was an amazing run, I climbed over 1000m in under 5km, taking 45mins. The rest of the run was through some of the nicest pine forests I have ever seen (2h).

Probably the toughest run on the week was from a fishing village called La Restinga, which is a world famous diving area, back to the hostel. Although this run started in the baking sun it was long before I was running through the clouds! I can't remember a training run like it, as it climbed the whole way. This run was 100% climb, and at times was some of the steepest climbing I have ever done (1h20).

Today I only managed to fit in a 30hour jog through the forest. The pine forest of El Hierro are amazing, nothing on the ground but pine needles! the perfect recovery run!

Trip to El Hierro

Tomorrow I am going to the beautiful island of El Hierro which is Europe´s most southern and western place. It is a trail runner´s paradise, especially if you like to climbing!Its highest point is 1501m, and I plan to run from sea level to the top, which is less than a kilometre "as the crow flies".

Training in Firgas ((La Ruta de Doramas)

Yesterday I went training with about 20 other trail runners in Firgas. We were 'trail' running the route (La Ruta de Doramas) a race that is going to be there on the 7th of November (the day before I go to Argentina, so I won't be able to run).

It was one of the nicest runs I have done on the island and I can't wait to go back to train there again.

Back again!!

It has been a long time since I have updated this blog!

I have less than a month to go before the K42 final in Argentina and I am starting to get excited and nervous!

Training has been going very well recently! and I feel in good shape!

Highlights in the past few months have been winning the Las Palmas Extreme Mountain Half Marthon for the second time, buying a spinning bike (a new daily part of my training) and some amazing training runs around Gran Canaria.

Running on Gran Canaria

I have lived on Gran Canaria for neary 2 years and know a lot about the running and orienteering scene on the island. Follow the link to my Gran Canaria Running blog to get details of training and competiting oportunities.

So if you are a runner moving to live on Gran Canaria or the Canary Islands or are just coming to visit hopefully this blog will help you.

I train with a club called C.A.I (Club Athletico Insular) Gran Canaria and compete in many athletic races around the Canary Islands.