Good Days – Page 7 – Not a Jogger

Out with the Old

Happy New Year to all runners, ex-runners and would-be runners. I think that covers everyone.

It’s a miserable day in London so I’m glad I finished my 25 miles for the week yesterday. For the last run of 2011 I ran to Regent’s Park with Mr Notajogger and our friend Brian, aka the Rocket from Runcorn. As Mr N has been busting out super-fast 10k’s left right and centre, and Brian runs like a bullet from a gun, I had visions of them giving me the slip by Tufnell Park tube and running the next 8 miles by myself.

Thankfully they were kind; they kept to an ‘easy’ pace of just over 8 minute miles and took a trip to the gents’ half way round so I got a chance to get my breath back. I haven’t run in a group of more than two for years and it was surprisingly great. We (ok, I) talked the whole way round, I never once thought about stopping and I didn’t have to motivate myself to keep going, I just did it.

I wonder if this is something I should do more of in 2012? It’s more manageable than my other resolution – to run a marathon in 3:30. My last and only other marathon was a 3:55 but it was hilly and I took it relatively easy. If I can run a half-marathon in 7 minutes 10 a mile then I can run a full marathon in 8 minutes a mile, right?

2011 wasn’t a vintage running year for me. Other than starting this blog, I haven’t broken any new ground. Every race has been slower than my best, every training programme thwarted by illness. 2012 will be better.

The Nine Before Christmas

I’m really proud of myself for managing a full 9 miler to Regent’s Park this morning. So proud that I rewarded myself with half a bottle of wine, so I’ll keep this brief.

I’m going to put my feet up for a couple of days but will be back on the 27th for another instalment. In the meantime, here’s a snowy pic of me and Mr N running on Christmas Day 2 years ago. Happy Christmas!

Frosty Wind made Moan

The first really cold run of the winter yesterday. It was still zero degrees at 9am and the pale sun, which had been glimmering weakly, promptly disappeared as I shut the front door behind me.

Pavements were rimy and littered with hidden puddles of ice. As I struggled up the first hill, occasional hard pellets of snow scratched my face. Before I’d even registered what they were, they became dabs of slush and swooped down in wet whirls for the rest of the run.

It was hard. I managed 7 miles and an hour’s running – my first full hour in a couple of months. My hands were so cold they went completely numb and then extremely painful as the feeling returned in the last 20 minutes. Unlocking the door on my return, I felt like an astronaut in space gloves trying to pick up a pin on the moon.

Back in the flat, skin tingling, face and ears burning hot and cold, sweat and sleet mingling in my hair, I caught sight of a smile in the mirror.

I’m a runner again.

Race Report – A view from the sidelines

I am back!

Sadly, not back running (give me a week or so, then we’ll talk), but I wanted to write about Mr Notajogger’s amazing PB-smashing 10k performance on Sunday.

As he has mentioned, he’s been training for the last 8 weeks to try to improve his 10k time: 43 minutes 57 seconds. He followed the same schedule that I started, but then had to abandon. Mr N is very good at following training schedules. I tend to use them in the same way that I would a recipe, adding a handful of raisins here, changing the oven temperature there. He uses them in the way that he would a recipe, to the absolute letter. As a result, he knocked 54 seconds off his PB, and I am sitting on my bum eating cakes.

It was surprisingly fun to be watching a race, rather than participating in it. I particularly enjoyed waiting at the start line, watching 350 runners shivering through the announcements, whilst dressed in a parka and boots. Despite the grey weather, there was a lovely atmosphere – it really is a friendly race and my hands ached with constant clapping. There are three laps, so from the leader’s first appearance at about 11 minutes (!), there is always someone passing who needs to be cheered on.

Dan (Mr N) looked good at the end of the first lap, bang on time to break 43 minutes, which was his goal. The second lap is the killer in this race, it’s really hard to maintain motivation and not let self-doubt creep in. He dropped off the pace a bit, but was still looking good. I gave him a few choice words of encouragement (I may have shouted) at this point, which obviously did the trick as his final lap was his fastest and he finished in 43 minutes and 3 seconds. Whoop!

What is Dan doing to celebrate this great achievement, you might ask? Is he joining me on the sofa with the cake? Not quite. He is starting a new 8 week plan to knock off those 3 seconds.

Last Gasp of Autumn

Sunday was the kind of day that we used to call ‘unseasonably mild’: 17 C (62 F) in mid-November. I wonder if it’s now ‘seasonably’ mild? In any case it felt like spring, not winter, was around the corner. In my garden the rambling rose which began flowering in April is again in bud.

The last of the falling leaves were calling me outside. My bed was warm, but the sunlight was warmer. I think this might be my last ‘long’ run for a while. I managed an hour, stopping to walk sometimes, taking my weekly mileage to a weakling 15.

Enough of the self-pity, it was an amazing run. As I crossed the top of Alexandra Palace park I was on a literal and metaphorical high. I slowed down to savour the view: trees, newly empty of leaves; a blue mist over miles of rooves and chimneys; a couple sitting on a bench far away enough always to look happy.

Mid-way across the park, this song came on my i-pod. Like all the best Low songs, it sounds like sadness and glory, fear and hope. It could make a grown woman, running across a sunlit park on a November day, cry. Especially me.

A Very Quiet Weekend

Saturday dawned, cloudy and grey. I lazed in bed for a good couple of hours, will-I-won’t-I-ing. Eventually I scraped myself into my running shoes and lurched around the streets for 20 minutes like a zombie. The furthest I moved for the rest of the day was from the sofa to the kettle. I watched The Princess Bride, Harry Potter (5, I am way behind), and read the paper from cover to cover.

Sunday dawned, cloudy and grey. Mr N was planning an 8 mile tour of the Crouch – part of his “easy week”. I felt good, but how good? Not 8 miles good. I turned down his running chat for a solo amble with the latest This American Life podcast. In the end I ran about 7 miles, (with a minor walking break towards the end). The sun came out, the legs were steady and I even made it out of the house again that afternoon.

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It’s hard to read about the New York marathon, or races of any kind, when you feel too tired to train properly, or you’re unfit or injured. Even on a good day, stories that should be inspirational can feel like accusations – you will never do this.

Seriously, though, running a marathon in just over two hours must involve witchcraft. It’s as fictional as Harry Potter, as much of a fairy tale as The Princess Bride. Not so many laughs, though, I shouldn’t think.

Ironic Woman

On Sunday evening, when I decided to stop the training plan and postpone my race, I was feeling good. I was making tough choices for the right reasons. What a grown-up I was being, how sensible and measured. How, dare I say, smug.

Last night I ran home from work. I mean, RAN home from work. Like a bullet from a gun. Like a rat from a trap. Like a person who could run a really fast 10k time.

Hmm.

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.

Loooooooooooooong Hills

This morning I ran up Crouch Hill (the long Finsbury Park side), from bottom to top, five times. 5!

I used to live near the top of the hill and have always struggled to run all the way up it without walking. This morning I discovered that I could run a full 1 minute 50 second ‘long hill’ session at 10k pace from the junction of Shaftesbury Road to the big tree at the top. Not only that, but I could do it five times in a row. 5!

I also discovered that 1 minute and 50 seconds is a long time. Particularly the last 50 seconds. After the second rep I stopped looking at my watch until I was nearly at the top and that helped a bit. The fourth rep was the hardest. I gave everything I could to the final one, much to the amusement of the builders blocking the pavement at the top. Sod them, I have walked up so many hills this year that nothing could rain on this morning’s little victory parade.

I’ve no idea if these sessions will make me faster over 10k, but if they stop me walking up every hill of a morning, that will be enough.

Two for One Workout

Last night’s interval session was performed to a soundtrack of Kazuo Ishiguro’s “A Village After Dark”, read by Ben Marcus on the fabulous (and free) New Yorker Fiction Podcast.

It is an eerie tale, set in an “airtight world”, as Ben Marcus put it. I ran my 1200m intervals on a loop of surburban streets in the dying evening light. As I ran, the sentences of the story crossed the Crouch End roads like swooping telephone lines, catching me in their imaginary web. At the close of my final interval the story ended and the discussion began, but the web I had weaved still held me as I headed slowly up the hill back home.

I love listening to short stories when running, and the ones I love best are those where I have to work hard to understand them, where I have to take part. Where meaning drifts in the space between the words, waiting to be found. This was one of those stories. I savoured the delicious feeling of uncertainty, of teetering on the edge of confusion and clarity. I think that feeling might be a secret door into the unconscious mind. I felt it at the end of the film Mulholland Drive. I didn’t know why it made sense, I couldn’t explain exactly what happened (and I didn’t want to), but I knew it was right and I knew it was great. Sureness and confusion, safety and danger, all experienced at the same time.

I’m not going to make an analogy with running here. Running is sometimes a complex combination of mental and physical effort, but last night’s effort was purely physical. My mind was working on other things and the disconnection was almost total. My body was running, my mind was listening and my brain was putting together a story about memory, about death, regret, guilt, self-loathing, or just a small village after dark.