October 2011 – Page 2

Morning Gloom

Autumn is upon us. I ran 5 miles to Muswell Hill and back in the dark this morning.

Darkness pervaded the run in more ways than one: I forgot my watch; and I was listening to the BBC’s dramatisation of Life and Fate – the episode about the Holocaust. Returning to the flat, I felt a wave of relief. The clock was ticking on the wall, the sun was rising and the Today programme was reporting on Afghanistan, not Stalingrad.

I wouldn’t recommend running alone through dark streets listening to the sound of Eichmann eating lunch with a colleague in their freshly constructed gas chamber. I suppose there is no appropriate time to listen to this story, and that the important thing is that I listened at all, but I felt bad that it was the soundtrack to my leisure pursuit.

New shoe shuffle

I bought new trainers at the end of August. As ever, I had left it too late and waited for holes to start appearing in the toes of my existing ones (pair II) before shelling out for new ones (pair I). Pair II needed to be binned straightaway, but I couldn’t start running 30 miles a week in pair I. The worst running injury I’ve ever had (a stress fracture in my foot) was caused by a long run in new trainers in 1999.

Pair III came to the rescue – my marathon shoes, sentimentally kept on the shelf. They were in better shape than pair II, I decided. They would have to do.

I am still, after a month, alternating pair I and pair III. The new pair still feel small (they’re not) and tight (they’re the same size). Last night, running home, I had to stop and loosen the laces twice in 5 miles. At the weekend I stuck to pair III over the half-marathon distance. I know that soon I’ll break the new pair in properly, but that just as I do they’ll start to break down. The toes will rub thin, the inside of the heel will wear and tear into a hole.

Too new becomes too old so quickly and, for the brief period when the shoes fit perfectly, you take them for granted and forget you’ll ever need another.

And yes, it is my birthday next week.

Short Circuits

This week is billed on my training plan as ‘recovery week’. Apparently recovery begins with a killer session of 8 x 400m at mile pace (1600m pace, for fans of consistency).

Hmm.

I found this session much harder than the longer, slower intervals of previous weeks. I managed 30 seconds of each set before praying for it to be over. I don’t think I was going too fast, I just don’t think I can run fast over short distances. My 10k time is nowhere near as quick, relatively speaking, as my half-marathon one and never has been.

Sitting here on my sofa writing this at 10pm, three hours after finishing my run, my face is still hot and I feel a bit sick. I hope this is doing me some good in the long term, because the short term effects are not fun.

On the positive side, I discovered that the Emirates stadium is a perfect place to run circuits, and the lights of the Hornsey Road were a welcome sight on the way back home.

Return to Rutland Water

In November 2010, Mr Notajogger and I ran the first Rutland Water Marathon organised by Fat Feet. It was a beautiful autumn morning and views of the reservoir from its banks were stunning. We should know, we got to see them all on the way around, including the ones from the Hambleton Peninsula twice in a row.

Yesterday we returned to the scene of our marathon triumph (and tribulations) and covered almost half the course, in reverse. Mr N asked if that meant we would be running backwards. Then he asked again in case I hadn’t heard his great joke.

We started on the dreaded Peninsula. It’s always harder to run around than you expect, even once rather than twice; the hills may be short but they are very sharp. Conversation was sparse in the first four miles. Mr N didn’t enjoy his marathon as much as I did and I suspect the memories our run was evoking were none too pleasant. I, on the other hand, was irritatingly perky. I had such a good race that day – my training had gone well, our pace was sensible and the weather was great – I couldn’t believe my luck. Mr N had no such luck. His training had been plagued by niggling injuries and colds, then he was forced to run with Miss Hospital Corners, telling him to drink more, eat more, keep going.

Running the first half of the race in reverse offered a bit of catharsis, I hope. We moved from painful hills and memories, through long sections neither of us could remember, to the open stretch across the Dam to the starting/finish line. At 1o miles we were both tired, but our pace was quickening as the end point of Normanton Church was in our sights from 3 miles away. If only the same could have been said for it on the day of the marathon. Obscured by the constant ‘undulations’ of the shoreline path, my inner mantra of “this must be the last hill” came back to me as we coasted along to the finish on Sunday.

Maybe this year they should run the whole marathon in reverse. And no, I do not mean everyone should run backwards. Other than Mr N. He should definitely do that.