March 2012 – Not a Jogger

My 6am Moment of Zen

In a perfect world I would never run before breakfast, but this morning I had one of those rare moments worth interrupting dreams for.

Running down a quiet North London street, towards the rising sun, the tall Edwardian villas rose in sepia like friends in an old photograph. The air was chill, but the promise of warmth lingered like a faint memory. Over our heads two aeroplanes trailed bright pink arcs in the ice blue sky, headed towards the sun.

I ran on and the tight trails frayed like unravelling ropes. Neon sharp lines shifted into salmon spray, then faded into the dawn.

I ran on.

Oh Hayfever, How Have I Missed Thee?

The darkness recedes, the days grow less dim. Buds push out from the tips of branches, bulbs split underground. Chandeliers of magnolia candles glow out from the gloom. Blossoms burst forth in a shower of froth against the blue sky.

Spring is here! Vital, glorious, hopeful!

At least it is, for two days, and then the birch pollen wakes up and my hayfever begins. Flowers are glimpsed through tears of irritation, blooms barely sniffed. Last night’s run through Regent’s Park in 20 degree heat (yes, heat, this is England) was fabulous, but for the drifting waves of pollen.

Ah, but the bliss of this morning’s run through the cement garden of Archway – the fake flowers in the hanging baskets of my local pub, the tree-less streets and bricked over gardens, the clouds of fumes from passing cars. A treat for the eyes and nose. A sight, indeed, for sore eyes.

A Confession and a Ray of Hope

First things first, the confession. You know how I said I was going to run for a week without my mp3 player, with just the sounds of my foosteps and the city for company? Well that didn’t happen.

After only two runs without headphones, both of which were grim, I took an executive decision to abandon my promise and go back to audio heaven. It was hard enough to motivate myself to get up at 5:55 am to run without foregoing the dulcet tones of Ira Glass as well.

This spells trouble for the marathon. I’m going to have to go with a TV-presenter style “safety compromise” option of wearing one headphone only, leaving me semi-entertained and only half as likely to meet a traffic-related death. Quite what I’m going to do with the other headphone I haven’t quite worked out. Perhaps I’ll tie a couple of running gels on to it.

Now for the Hope. Yesterday morning I went for a Good Run. Not only that, but one that contained fast intervals (they were only 45 seconds long, but that’s not the point).

The Running Blues

Spring is here in London, but my spirits have not lifted with the weather. My heart did not skip a beat with the clocks this weekend. Despite running along paths lined with daffodils, I’ve been feeling blue.

I’ve still got 6 weeks of training left before the North Dorset Village Marathon, and have been running hard for the last 8 weeks, so decided in advance to have an ‘easy week’ last week. Sadly it turned out to be a necessity rather than a luxury.

My creaky knees have been creaking a more than usual, and they’re making me worried. I dropped the mileage from 40 to 28, cut out all sessions and took 3 rest days. They’re still creaking. I know what it is (runner’s knee), and that if I rested for a few weeks and built up my glutes and inner thigh muscles (which I’m sure have a name) then I could sort it out. But that’s not really an option for this race.

Hopefully the quieter week will make its presence felt next week and Sunday’s uncomfortable 10 miles will be a low point. Hopefully…

Weekly summary:

Monday: rest
Tuesday: 5 miles easy
Wednesday: 8 miles at marathon pace
Thursday: rest
Friday: 5 miles easy
Saturday: rest
Sunday: 10 miles easy

Total: 28 miles

Joe le Taxi

Last night I ran for 1 hour and 2 minutes, with one line – no, one word – from “Joe le Taxi“, bouncing repeatedly through my head. That word, and I can hardly bring myself to write it for fear of what it might set off, was “embouteillage”.

This is the peril of running without a soundtrack – you have no control over what might run through your mind instead. Last night, in the middle of Hampstead, I remembered that I actually planned a list of things to think about before my last marathon, to combat this. It didn’t work.

The one good thing about the repeating “em-bout-eill-age” is that it reminded me of the David Sedaris story about having moved to France without being able to speak French. “Bottleneck” was the one word he knew and he just repeated it in reply to any question. Bottleneck bottleneck bottleneck.

If anyone had actually asked me a question during last night’s run, I may have done the same.

Experiments in Sound: Day I

Last night’s 5 mile run home was the first of my soundtrack-free week. I’m getting in training for running the North Dorset Village Marathon without an mp3 player as it’s run on country lanes open to traffic, so it would be sensible to ditch the headphones if I possibly can.

On Day I’s evidence, I’m not sure I can. I spent 42 minutes thinking about all the interesting things I could be listening to. I miss Our Mutual Friend. I miss ROCK. I must try to accentuate the positives:

Good Thing I:
I could hear birdsong .

Good Thing II:
I was more aware of my surroundings. Possibly less likely to get killed by a car.

Good Thing III:
My senses were heightened. I spied distant snatches of sunset between the rooftops, caught the pollen of early spring flowers on the air.

Of course the birdsong was drowned out by traffic for 99% of the run, and the pollen was mere punctuation in the paragraphs of exhaust fumes, bags of rubbish and dogshit. The most notable thing about running without a personal soundtrack is that the actual soundtrack was louder than ever. Upper Street at 5.30pm is not a quiet place.

Today I’ll be running from home and can hopefully find a calmer route. Perhaps that will give my brain space to adjust to the lack of entertainment. Stay tuned for updates.

In other news, I forgot to take my sports bra to work with me yesterday and had to run home in a regular one. In case you are wondering whether this might ever be a good idea, I’d like to confirm that it’s not.

Mud, Sweat and Ray Mears

On Sunday I ran 17 miles through mud, rain, barbed wire and private property. Over dams and down hills, through nature reserves, woods and car parks. I was at my parents’ for the weekend and was more than ready to swap the litter of North London for the lambs of rural Rutland.

I got up early and crept downstairs to read the paper and eat breakfast alone in silence. Two hours later I was all dressed up and waiting in the hall for my dad to finish his tea, like a teenager late for a party.

After an initial stretch of road-side running, my route headed towards Rutland Water. Within 15 minutes of being dropped off in Manton I had turned my ankle on a stony track, covered my trainers in mud and tripped over a tree root. The rain got heavier as the route opened out and I rounded the grassy hills into the wind, but I was still smiling.

It was hard to keep my pace down in the first few miles, I was feeling so good. It doesn’t help that the first 5 miles of the route are like a mini-rollercoaster. No massive hills but a lot of sharp rises and falls, which make it difficult to stick to an even pace. As I headed towards the North shore of the reservoir I tried to slow down, to the bemusement of a crowd of woolly spectators.

The next 7 miles were fairly uneventful – I know this route really well and apart from a couple of very sharp uphills it’s mostly smooth cycle tracks. The rain stopped for a while and I tried to concentrate on maintaining a steady pace, keeping my head up and remembering to say hello to passing walkers (not in London now, Gina).

At 12 miles, I took a literal turn for the worse. I headed into Egleton village, assuming I could add on a few miles to the run by retuning through the nature reserve. This turns out not to be the case. After going through two different gates saying “no entry”, and testing my internal compass to breaking point, I eventually decided to climb over two barbed wire fences in the belief that this would lead back to the road. Were 17 miles were about to turn into 22 with only some sport beans for sustenance? Where was Ray Mears when I needed him? I ran up a(nother) dirt track anxiously. A road! Relief.

We’d arranged that Dad would pick me up again at the end, and I’d calculated my timing to the minute. He called me 10 minutes before the agreed meeting time. “What are you calling me for?”, I panted. “We’re here, but you’re not here, where are you?”. “I’m still running, I’ve got 1.5 miles to go yet”. “Oh well, we’re here, shall we wait?”. I did not reply.

The rain started up again in the last couple of miles, which was dispiriting, and then my sister called for a gossip, which was disconcerting, but eventually it was over. I ran the last two miles at faster than marathon pace partly for the hell of it, and partly out of fear that Dad would actually drive away.

I ended the run tired, wet and very very dirty. Also happy.

Running with Salmon

Today I ran a mile carrying a packet of smoked salmon.

This is happening a lot. Last saturday I ran with a loaf of bread, the previous week there was some minced lamb. There just aren’t enough hours in the day to fit in running, shopping, cooking, eating, working and travelling so I’m doing a lot of combining.

This morning I took a half-day off work to prepare for a weekend away. I made a cake for my mum, I packed my bags, I thought about cleaning the bathroom and went for a run so that I could have a hangover tomorrow. While mixing the cake, I was thinking about lunch. I should make a sandwich and take it to work but there was nothing in the fridge. Marks and Spencer was on the way home… hence the smoked salmon.

I did get a few odd looks. There are a lot more people on the street at 9.30am than 6.30am. The salmon was flapping as I ran. I struggled to hold onto the packet with my slippery gloves. Running down Crouch End Hill, it temporarily got away, but I recaptured it and brought it home.

The sandwich was delicious.

Our Mutual Running Friend

When I first started running, it was just me and the road. Over the next few months, I listened to the sound of my breathing move from desperate to laboured to controlled. I heard the pound of my footsteps on pavement get faster, felt the thump of feet on grass move through my body.

Learning to run in the privileged embrace of an Oxford summer, my soundtrack was a chorus of songbirds, shouts from passing cyclists, the leering of lorry drivers. A student’s lack of funds, and the need to keep my hands free for balance, meant that I never carried a walkman. The first time I really listened to music while running was years later, when training for an aborted marathon. I remember struggling to keep hold of a skipping discman, while plodding around dusky country lanes oblivious to the thundering approach of speeding cars.

These days I never run without an mp3 player. Sometimes I listen to music, sometimes podcasts. I love a running playlist, concocted on a Saturday night for Sunday’s delectation. At the moment I’m listening to an audiobook of Our Mutual Friend (downloaded for FREE from audible), and I’m gripped.

I’m also concerned. My marathon will be run on country lanes, open to traffic, so I probably shouldn’t wear headphones. However, there are only 400 runners, so I’ll be spending most of it on my own. Can I cope for three and a half hours with only my thoughts to keep me company?

If I’m going to do it, I’ll need to train for it. Next week, I’m going to run for a week without accompaniment. No Dickens, no Arcade Fire, no This American Life.

Just me, myself and I.

Marathon Pace, and other mysteries

The marathon is still eight weeks away, but it’s like a mountain in the distance. You see it every day, it’s part of the landscape, you might even have climbed it before, but one day soon you’re going to wake up at the foot of it staring upwards in panic.

One of the main ways to counter the marathon panic is to plan. I love to plan. Training, logistics, fuelling, outfits. The only important thing to plan though, really, is the hardest of all: how fast to run it.

I decided my marathon pace before I ran a step of my training plan. I wanted to finish in 3 hours 30 minutes, therefore my marathon pace would be 210 minutes divided by 26.2 miles: 8 minutes per mile. Last time I did the same, with 4 hours and 9 minute miles.

They’re not quite the same, though, are they, 8 minute miles and 9 minute miles? There might be a tiny flaw in my logic here.

Recently I listened to a marathon talk podcast “training talk” about marathon pace. It was comprehensive, bordering on confusing: pace of your last marathon is important but you shouldn’t set your sights too low; current training performance is key but you shouldn’t get carried away if it’s going well and set your sights too high, you need a race strategy but you should be flexible on the day. Hmm.

The best piece of advice, and the one I’m taking with me up the mountain on the day, was that your marathon pace should feel too easy at the start, and hard at the end. I think that fits well with my experience of running at 8 minutes a mile so far. I am trying to ignore the fact that 9 minute miles felt very tough at the end of my last marathon, assuming that any miles feel tough at the end of a marathon. Right?

With marathon pace in mind, I set out on Sunday to run a comfortable (but not easy) pace over 13.1 miles. I finished in 1 hour 38 minutes. I have no idea what that means.