Not a Jogger

“Race” Report

So it turns out that 7 hours of gardening, no proper training and 4 slices of pizza don’t help you run a good 10k race.

Yesterday I ran the lovely Regent’s Park 10k, which happens on the first Sunday of every month. I am proud of myself for turning up, but not much more than that. I knew I wasn’t in for a pb – see above for my extensive preparation – but I vainly supposed I could finish within 44 minutes.

At the start line the threatened rain clouds dissipated promisingly. It was a big field but I kept up a decent pace over the first couple of kilometres. By the end of the first lap of three my legs felt tired but 44 minutes was still possible.

BUT THEN. As I passed the start/finish line and smiled at Mr N, it was as if the world had turned from technicolour into black & white. Immediately, everything hurt. Slight inclines were mountains, breathing was laboured. People running alongside me were suddenly running past, at an impossible pace, like the Keystone Kops. All I could think was, “I have to stop, I have to stop”.

I will stop at 5kms, I thought. At 5kms I slowed down to a morbid jog. I kept this up for 200 metres. There was a slight downward hill. I felt a bit better. I will make it to the end of the second lap, I thought. I picked up a tiny bit of pace. On the approach to the start/finish, through loud-hailed encouragements from the race director, I glimpsed Mr N waiting for me to pass. I knew I had to finish the race. “I’m just going to jog the rest”, I wheezed.

I started the third lap, stopped to drink half a cup of water, and finished the race. My jog improved to a steadier run as the finish line got closer, but was never less than painful. The only positive thing I have to say about this race is that it made me want to train for another one to expunge its memory. We’re signing up for the December 10k and I am going to crack 43 minutes.

And that, my friends, is an absolute promise.

Not a Walker

Last night I ran home the long way round – 7.5 miles. I’m not doing many runs this week so I’m making them count. At the South side of Regent’s Park, about 25 minutes in to my run, I felt suddenly weary. As I crossed the bridge over the boating lake, about 3/4 of the way around the Park, I was about to stop to walk. There’s a long slow incline from that bridge to the gate and it is my least favourite section of any run there. It isn’t a hill, it barely qualifies as an incline. Yet somehow the path is awkward to run on, I’m always at my most tired at that point, and I have a history of slowing down to walk it.

Yesterday I did the same, slowed down and was about to start walking – just to the gate, then I would start running again. As my legs elongated into a loping stride and my shoulders relaxed, I changed my mind. No, I would not walk. I would do what I always encourage new runners to do when they are just starting out – slow down, go as slowly as you need to, slow down to a ridiculous level, but never walk.

Running very slowly uses a similar amount of energy as walking briskly, there’s very little difference between the two speed-wise, but the vital difference remains. Running is running, no matter how slowly or quickly you are doing it. Walking is not running.

Yesterday I stuck to running, I slowed down about four times during the run, maybe five. On the hill to Tufnell Park I thought about walking a lot. I’ve walked up that road many times; it’s post-6 miles, I feel I’ve had a good run, I deserve to walk for a bit. Not this time. By slowing down a bit I got my breath back, recovered a bit of bounce in my legs. I didn’t feel any more tired at the end of the run, I didn’t work any harder, but I feel much better about myself now. Running really is at least 50% mental effort and I have been slacking lately. Time to turn it around.

Rocking On

Last night I chose the sofa over the pavement, waiting until this morning to test out the creaking knee. This was the right choice. I didn’t feel any twinges during the run and managed to reach the top deck of the bus afterwards without causing a 91 pile-up on the stairs.

It’s good that the run was injury-free, but that didn’t make it a ‘good day’. I’m supposed to be racing a 10k on Sunday and I have rarely felt less like doing it. I haven’t kept my promise of re-starting interval training. I haven’t raced a 5k outside. I’ve just plodded along at my usual pace, well within my comfort zone, for weeks.

This morning I ran 6 miles, which was good, but I stopped to walk 3 times, which was not. I can blame it on the fact that I hadn’t eaten, that I’m not good in the mornings, but the fact is that I walked because I could. I just don’t have the motivation to cause myself actual pain running up hills at 6.15am if I don’t have to, at the moment. I need a goal, and 10k is clearly not enough.

What I’m hesitating to write here is that I need a marathon, because then I might actually have to do one.

In less scary news, the highlight of my run today was running past an extremely cool guy running in a cut-off Motley Crue t-shirt and a beanie hat. He was a tiny bit overweight, wearing flapping basketball shorts and unsuitable trainers, but bounding along pretty fast. He smiled and half-waved at me, breaking the London runners’ code. I was very tempted to high five.

Bank Holiday Catch-up

… or, With Great Miles comes Greater Risk of Injury.

We’ve been away for another weekend, so this is another 3 run post. Oops. A run on Friday night, Saturday morning and Sunday morning contributed to four days of consecutive running, the most in a while, and by Sunday night my knees were complaining.

Staying over with our energetic nephews, I had to lever myself to a standing position every time I took my shoes off and put them on again to play in the garden. Something was up, I realised, and that something was not me, stuck in an arthritic crouch on the stair carpet.

I’m not injured, I wouldn’t say, but there’s a definite niggle in the left knee. A Niggle is a runner’s term for ‘something that isn’t going to stop me from running even though it probably should’. Niggles are like badges of honour, war wounds, proof of effort. I took a day off on Monday but I could have run on the knee. “It feels better when I’m running”, I would have said (the familiar justification of the Runner’s Niggle).

As I write I am currently weighing up the sense of running tonight or saving it until the morning. The knee is fine. No, really, it is fine. If I don’t bend down it is fine. I don’t need to bend down, really, if I take my shoes off from a standing position I can stretch my hamstrings at the same time. Much better.

Home Run

Yesterday’s rain gave way to actual sunshine at 5pm and I soaked up a full 7.5 miles worth of it on my run home from King’s Cross after work.

My legs were tired, there was a twinge in my right knee – I need new trainers – and I gave in and walked up an incline for two minutes in Kentish Town. Despite this, it was a good run. I’m not sure I can put this into words, but it felt romantic to be running last night.

The shadows were long on the pavements, the park was littered with sad corporate pic-nics and passed out drunks. My body was feeling used up but I was pushing on. London looked exhausted, like the end of a party you haven’t really enjoyed. You know you have to clean up or go to bed, and everyone you want to talk to has left, but for a while you’re just going to keep on drinking anyway.

I hope I don’t pay for such hedonistic running today. It hurts to bend my knees and my shoulder is clicking ominously. The rain is back.

Gym Bunny

Yesterday British Summertime showed its true colours and rained all day, from dawn to dusk with no stop for a tea break or anything. It was impressive stuff.

I mean, depressing stuff.

Weather like that sends me to the gym. The sound of the rain drumming overhead pavements makes running nowhere on a treadmill in a basement dungeon more acceptable. To guard against boredom, I tried a fast 5k sandwiched between 20 minutes on the cross-trainer and 10 on the bike (I hate cycling). I didn’t go all out, but managed 21 minutes, 20 seconds. Next week I’ll try for sub-21 minutes outside.

My next race is a 10k on 4th September and I should probably try to get a bit of speed in the legs. I might even attempt some interval training – I haven’t done any for months. Another thing I haven’t done for months is sit-ups. Whenever I read something about how important it is to strengthen one’s core I turn the page/scroll down immediately. I am deaf to this recommendation. Core, schmore! I hate sit-ups. Last night I did three sets of 15. Pathetic, but I could still do them, which I take as a sign that I don’t need to do them. Right?

Will run for Guinness

I have been slacking again. Not with the running, but with the writing about it. I’ve just got back from a long weekend in Ireland and now have three pieces of running to describe in words. I’ll try to keep it brief.

The first was a good run – a morning jaunt to Muswell Hill on Thursday. I believe it was sunny. I ran 5 miles and walked only once.

The second was a bad run – the first of two in beautiful Kinsale (I think that’s its registered trademark). We were there for a wedding and had two windows of opportunity for running: Friday afternoon and Sunday morning. On the Friday Kinsale didn’t look so beautiful. There was rain. There was wind. On the bridge across the Bandon river there was driving wind and rain of the horizontal variety. It was August but it felt like February. The run itself wasn’t too bad, but even I thought we were crazy for attempting it.

The final run should have been the worst of the three. It was the morning after a Guinness, vodka and wine-fuelled wedding during which I spent many hours on my feet in new high-heeled sandals, dancing to a traditional Irish band playing hits by the Black-Eyed Peas. At 7.30am on Sunday everything hurt, up to and including my eyeballs, but the sun was out and we were by the sea. There was running to be had.

I have just looked up our route on mapmyrun.com, to check the distance and record it in case I ever go back to Kinsale. It was a a truly gorgeous 5 miles, through winding town streets and along the pier wall, around the harbour’s edge, over the water to a 17th century fort. I was delighted to learn that the road we followed around the headland is called “The World’s End”, and that we crossed the river on the Archdeacon T.F. Duggan Bridge.

I didn’t take my camera, but I don’t think I could have captured the scene in any photograph. The morning sun glittering towards the headland, the ruin suddenly appearing beyond the bridge, the water calm and full of sky. None of these things had been visible in Friday’s fog and to have them suddenly revealed now, as if a curtain had been pulled back, was a gift for even the weariest eyes. One of my best runs ever.

Recovery

Since Sunday’s casual 13 mile jaunt, I have been bone tired. I fell asleep on the train on Sunday afternoon, again at work on Monday (at lunchtime, rather than the middle of a meeting), and on both Monday and Tuesday nights on the sofa after dinner.

I have been doing things other than sleeping. I walked the 3 miles to work on Monday, Tuesday and this morning, and yesterday evening I went to the gym. On hearing this was my plan, an outraged colleague spluttered, “Will it never end, this quest for fitness?”. No, I thought. That’s the whole point.

Fitness is not a goal but a state. When you’re fit, you want to stay fit, or be fitter. There is no ‘fittest’.

The gym was depressing. I haven’t been for two weeks and I haven’t missed it. The most interesting thing I could think to photograph was the treadmill speedometer, stuck at 11.5km/h (my recovery run speed). If I didn’t want to lift occasional weights to stave off the bingo wings, I would cancel my membership. My knees always hurt afterwards so paying £41 a month is literally a pain.

Can you tell I am grumpy? My body may have recovered, but mood has not.

Three days, Two runs, Twenty miles

20 (twenty) whole miles.

I ran home from work on Friday night – 7 miles around Camden, Regent’s Park, etc. It was fine, but so uneventful that I couldn’t think of anything to write about it afterwards. Not a bad run, but always just a warm-up for today.

Early last week I made plans to meet my friend in Richmond on Sunday. In a moment of insanity/inspiration, I decided to run there. Door to door it was 13 miles, a full half-marathon with added traffic, crowds and sun.

It wasn’t the easiest half marathon I’ve ever run. I had to take her a parcel of clean clothes in advance, which she had to cycle home for me. There were no mile markers, no signs showing the way, and no-one to offer me drinks or encouragement along the way. Miles 10-12, always the hardest, began in Earl’s Court, which I have never run through before, and hope never to have to do so again.

It was a great run, apart from those two miles. Running through Belgravia, I glimpsed the Serpentine Gallery, Albert Memorial, and was surprised by the Albert Hall, winding my way past the back entrances of museums. I only went the wrong way once, somewhere east of Baker Street. I would not make a good Sherlock Holmes. Unless he was also able to use an iPhone.

Arriving in Mortlake, my amazing friend greeted me with cold water, a hot shower and a bemused smile. No medal, mind.

A New Dawn, a New Day…

I’m Feeling Good.

Last night in London was quiet. Unseen efforts of uniformed police and early boarding up of shops and bars may have created this silence, but it doesn’t matter. We needed it and I am grateful.

Monday night’s run took me down roads in Camden which were to see major looting only hours later. All was then calm. Mid-way through my run my sister called me on her way home in Peckham, convinced something was about to happen there. She was right. Concerned about me and where I was, I dismissed her, “I’m in the middle of a run in Camden!” I gasped, “It’s totally quiet here, people shopping, there won’t be any trouble don’t worry!”. I was wrong.

This morning’s 4 mile run took me up and down the leafy streets of Crouch End. No damage to be seen anywhere along the way, not even many metal shutters to be raised. I ran slowly, painfully, Monday’s 8 miles telling on my legs, taking their toll on every hill. I walked three times, once to change podcast, but twice just because. This is becoming a habit I need to break.

Change is possible. Hope is important.