5 miles run on Monday, marathon pace.
4 miles run on Wednesday, easy pace.
3 miles jogged this morning.
2 tons of pasta to eat tomorrow.
1 race to run on Sunday.
( I tried to find a clip to put here of the scene in Wayne’s World where they do the countdown but don’t say two or one, but I couldn’t find one. Denied.)
One week to go until the North Dorset Village Marathon and I feel… I don’t know how I feel.
Or rather, I feel nothing.
Or rather, I feel lots of contradictory things.
I feel like my training has gone well: I’ve been consistent, I’ve run more miles than I did for my last marathon, I haven’t had any major injuries or time off for illness. I think I could run a marathon in 3 hours 30 minutes.
I don’t think I could run a marathon in 3 hours 30 minutes. That’s 25 minutes faster than my last marathon. The course is going to be hilly, my hamstring is still tight. Who am I kidding?
I don’t know if there’s going to be a happy ending or not. If things go badly next Sunday I will point to my tight hamstring and the fact that I went to a nightclub last night (yes!) as proof that things were doomed to failure. If things go well, then dancing til midnight (I know!) was valuable cross-training and the hamstring thing was just a niggle.
I’m in the middle of my story, I’m not in control of the plot now. I can’t turn to the final page and tell you what happens. We’ll just have to wait and see.
Weekly Summary:
Monday: rest
Tuesday: 6 miles (steady)
Wednesday: 5.5 miles (easy)
Thursday: 5 miles (intervals)
Friday: rest
Saturday: 8 miles
Sunday: rest
Total: 24.5 miles
I’ve been running twice since the weekend. On Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning I put my trainers on, left the house, did some running, stretched a bit, had a shower and forgot about it.
Martin Yelling says you should be “floating” along during your taper, and perhaps that is what I’m doing. I’m certainly not expending any major effort, contracting any major injuries or in fact experiencing anything that is in any way interesting to anyone else.
Sorry.
I have nothing to say. May this continue for the next ten days.
Yesterday morning I ran “five miles easy” in 43 minutes and it felt okay. This morning I ran “five miles easy” in 40 minutes and it felt exactly the same.
I had the same amount of sleep. I ate the same thing before I left the house (three foam banana sweets – don’t judge me). The weather was the same, I even listened to the same audiobook on my i-pod (okay, not the same part of the book). I ran the same route.
I expended the exact same amount of effort.
Easy is a relative concept.
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.
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.
Monday’s plan was uncharacteristically democratic, and offered me a choice: “Rest, or 4 miles easy, off road”. I had the day off work, mostly to catch up on sleep after Sunday’s 18 miles, and pondered the decision. I wanted to rest, obviously, but would it be better for my legs to get in a ‘recovery run’? Might this help me avoid muscle fever?
I was dubious. How would exercising my tired legs ‘bring out’ the soreness early, or in some way appease my poor broken down tissue? After a marathon, the advice is to do nothing for a week, so if you wouldn’t attempt a recovery run then, why would you do it at any other time? Doesn’t that suggest that it won’t actually help you recover?
Some brief google-age found me this great article, which puts my half-baked thoughts into scientific and properly researched terms. A ‘recovery run’ is actually nothing of the sort, it won’t help you recover, which is why most marathon runners don’t do them after a marathon. Ultra-marathoners might though, because what they really are is ‘pre-fatigued running practice runs’, helping increase your endurance when you are tired and re-programming your brain to be more efficient in using your muscles.
As I didn’t do this google-age until today, you may surmise (correctly) that I did not run yesterday, but took the rest option instead. It was great. Happily, I also avoided muscle fever last night, though I did have some very strange dreams involving running gels. Make of that what you will.
Last night I slept like a woman unable to stop running, even while unconscious. I went to bed at my customary hour (9:30pm) and dropped off in seconds. Sadly from 1:00am things were less successful. My legs were uncomfortable. I moved them. They were fine for five minutes. Then they weren’t. I moved them again. And again. At first I blamed the cats, who had arranged themselves around my feet. The fifth time I woke up, I realised that the cats were in the same position, but I was not. This continued until 4:30am, when the cats woke up and started requesting breakfast.
I am now propping my eyelids open with caffeine and drinking matchsticks to survive. I didn’t run yesterday, so I’m not sure why my leg muscles were giving me such grief. Is this DOMS or, as wikipedia more delightfully calls it, muscle fever?
MUSCLE FEVER! Out now starring Jean Claude van Damme!
Oh god I think I am delirious. I can’t quite believe I managed to run 6 miles this morning, with 10 minute intervals of “half-marathon pace or faster”, but I did.
I can’t stop!
5:55 Tuesday. Get up. Feed cats. Brush teeth. Eat small square of kendal mint cake. Put on running kit. Leave house. Go back to collect gloves. Leave house. Start running. Run 5 miles easy in somnambulant state. Get back. Consult training plan. Realise I did the wrong run.
5:55 Wednesday. Get up. Brush cats. Feed teeth. Eat small square of kendal mint cake. Put on running kit. Leave house. Go back to collect tissues. Leave house. Start running extended 6 mile route. Get back to the house at 5.5 miles. Run around block twice like an 8 year-old. Consult map. Realise I went the wrong way.
There is a lesson to be learned here. If only I could stay awake long enough to find out what it is.
As I write this, on Friday morning, the world is a beautiful place. The view from my office window may be a symphony in grey and beige, but there is a technicolour wonderland inside my head. I can breathe, I can taste, I can even smell (a bit). My cold has gone!
At least, I think it has.
Last night, however, it had not. I brought my kit to work in order to force myself to run home, knowing in advance that this was the only way I would do it. It is a good trick, particularly if you place said kit by your desk where people will trip over it, then tell all of them that you are running home tonight (for peer pressure). Then eat a large lunch and several biscuits (for guilt pressure).
At 6pm I headed home on foot with just a packet of tissues and a grimace. I had mapped out a 6 mile route winding through the depths of Clerkenwell and Old Street. After a day’s rain, night had descended cold and clear, clamping down on puddles with a black hand.
Grim faces hid behind collars and brims. Crouching lanes of traffic crept up behind me, bicycle brakes screeched and bus queue backs blocked my way. Every step seemed to be uphill, my neck craning to stay upright. At Sainsbury’s on Stroud Green Road, I finally stopped and stepped out of the dark into six feet walls of shiny packaged propaganda. I was trapped in a video game, a virtual world of consumerism, collecting points and scanning items. When I had inserted my card into the chip and pin device, I was deposited, shivering, back on the stiff concrete to walk home with the spoils.
Not a Jogger 