23rd April 2024
Civil Engineering Labour Solutions – by
Rich’s final pre-marathon training update
With just a matter of weeks until runners hit the streets of London for the 42nd London Marathon, this is the final update on Rich’s training. Next time we hear from him it’ll be a reflection on how race day went and what he’s planning for his next challenge.
Until the Covid-19 pandemic, the London Marathon had always been held in the spring. 2022 is the third, and probably final time, it will be held in October. From a runner’s perspective, spring marathons mean that training takes place over the autumn and winter months – dark, cold and typically wet, but arguably less arduous than training through the heat of summer.
That said, whether you train in winter or summer, 26.2 miles isn’t a distance to take lightly. You have to be in the right headspace and take a methodical approach to your training.
Much like running a business in the face of ongoing uncertainty.
This month we are sticking with Rich’s training before giving you a SLS round up. And that’s because we need you to dig deep and make some donations to The Lighthouse Charity!
So – here goes for the final pre-race update.
Setbacks are inevitable – not insurmountable
In life, business and marathon training the odd setback is inevitable.
To date training has been going well, however over recent weeks Rich has been struggling with a bad back, leading to a slight disruption to the training plan and a missed long run.
Before going on – this feels like a good point to remind you to click here to make a donation.
The cause is tight IT bands, hamstrings and calf muscles. The good news is that this is familiar territory as Rich has had the same problem before, and has a physio plan in place to tackle it. Physio exercises and a small cutback in miles is already doing the trick to a point with shorter runs feeling better over recent days.
At this point in marathon training runners would usually be looking forward to tapering (which means gradually reducing their weekly miles to make sure they aren’t running on tired legs for race day). However, in this scenario, the injury means Rich’s last long run was 18 miles – not long enough to taper properly.
This is a setback, but it’s not insurmountable. Having run London before, Rich is well aware of the power of the crowd to carry you through when things get tough towards the final 6 to 8 miles. And, just as being “time served” in business allows you to plan for choppy economic waters, Rich has run enough marathons to know he can go the distance, even if the pace has to be adapted to preserve his legs. In fact, he’s even been heard to comment, “it’s only a marathon” when talking about his training.
Don’t be fooled though, this doesn’t mean that he is in any way disrespecting the distance – that way lays danger. But he does draw confidence from the fact that his trusty Garmin shows Rich runs further than 99% of Garmin users.
If we were to draw a business lesson from this it would be that, even if things don’t go entirely to plan, having experience means you can confidently make sound decisions about how to mitigate changing risks in order to keep moving towards, and ultimately hitting your goals.
What’s the plan for race day?
At the time of writing there wasn’t too much of a race day plan. The final weeks of training will enable decisions to be made about whether to go all out racing, or whether to slow the pace a bit and enjoy the atmosphere that London is so famous for.
You may have heard of runners “hitting the wall”. It’s the point in their race at which finishing feels like a pipedream. Legs are tired, the brain can start sending unhelpful messages and mindset can be a significant challenge. If running hard on race day, Rich anticipates hitting the wall around mile 18.
The trouble with that is the route can be a little low on support between the Isle of Dogs and mile 21. After that point, the crowd support is phenomenal and powers you through to the finish. But you’ve got to get yourself to mile 21 first!
Of course, you can help provide virtual support and encouragement by clicking here and making a donation to the Lighthouse Club construction industry charity.
Race day fuel strategy
One of the most important things you can do on race day, and in the run up, is to fuel properly. For first time marathoners, knowing how they need to fuel themselves during the race is something you try and work out during training. There’s is an absolute golden rule in running that you never fuel on race day something you haven’t tested in training. After all, nobody wants their own Paula Radcliffe moment!
Some runners use gels, others use hydration powders. Rich finds that taking on 100 calories in the form of “real food” every 30 minutes or so works best for him.
So what does Rich Allen pack in his race day snack box?
It has to be small, easier to eat on the go and not too heavy on the stomach – and chocolate and malt loaf are two tried and tested snacks.
Buy Rich a beer for a good cause
Grand gestures and large donations are always lovely to see on the fundraising page. But just as important are the smaller donations – they all add up.
Why not buy Rich a metaphorical beer or coffee? Just click the link and follow the instructions.
So now we’ve plugged the charity link as much as we can decently do in one article, what’s going on at SLS?
Projects going from strength to strength
While mainstream media is full of doom, gloom and recession, we can report that the reality feels somewhat different. Projects that had been stalled are now getting underway and August 2022 was the second biggest month for Skilled Labour Services since pre-pandemic.
High customer and staff satisfaction
As a labour supply business we’ve long prided ourselves on doing one thing really well. Supplying great staff, with the skills our clients need. And it seems that we are consistently delivering on this promise.
Clients tell us our teams are reliable, consistent and properly skilled which is leading to longer contract times due to being asked to do extra work. We’ve also heard that you like seeing Ricky out and about visiting projects on site as you feel reassured that we are visible and here to help if anything does go wrong (unlike our competitors).
Meanwhile our staff feel more engaged as they are treated as valued employees – rather than simply a commodity to be hired and fired without a second thought. Our stable back office team means our workforce knows there is someone to support them when they need us.
All in all, it’s creating an enhanced experience for our clients and the workforces we supply to them. Win win.
Is finding good labour a problem?
With an extensive database of tried and tested groundworkers, and a great reputation, Skilled Labour Services certainly aren’t finding it as hard as some to find reliable, skilled workers. In fact, our unique approach to labour supply means we tend to have our pick of the available workforce. And that means our clients’ get the cream of the crop when they need us to supply labour for their projects.
If you’re working with labour suppliers who have proved to be unreliable, providing substandard workers and not taking the time to get to know what your projects really demand, maybe it’s time to take a different approach.
