marathon training – Page 3

Hamstrings of Doom

I’m not categorising this post as “Injury Time”. I’m not injured. I repeat. I am not injured.

I have a thing. A hamstring thing. It’s not painful, it’s not pulled, it’s… I don’t know. It’s basically tense. Like I’m tensing it all the time. And I suppose I am, but I’m trying not to. Though the more I think about it the tenser it gets.

Argh.

I asked the physio about it on Friday. “Should I get one of those foam roller things everyone has?”, I asked. “No”, he said, “they’re no good for hamstrings”.

So, there’s nothing I can do. I’m stretching it but, short of crouching at my desk or touching my toes mid-meeting, I can’t stretch it all the time.

I’m giving it a whole 36 hours between runs, to see if that helps. 6 miles yesterday morning were uncomfortable, verging on unpleasant. Intervals tonight, and hard ones at that (6 x 800m). Oo, I think these might qualify as Yasso 800s.

Hamstring heaven or hamstring hell? We shall see.

TWENTY MILES

Last week I was assailed by a massive wave of tiredness. It had been building for a while, but running 8 miles before breakfast on Thursday was the final push the wave needed to knock me out of my boat and leave me beached on the shores of exhaustion.

I had to take a day off on Friday. I also had to get a massage. My hamstrings have been getting gradually tighter over the last couple of weeks, to the point where I now can’t do my glute exercises (which are supposed to take pressure off my lower back) because the hamstrings won’t let me isolate any other muscles. 13 weeks of training are now setting off a muscular domino effect. Everything is over-compensating for everything else- it’s like a midlife crisis of the legs.

The massage was great, by which I mean horrifically painful. On Saturday morning I was ready for my last long run before the big day- 20 miles. I made it round in 2 hours and 47 minutes and it was fine, even brilliant, until the last 2 miles. Even the massive hill (see below) which took up 3 miles in the middle was fine. Fine, fine, fine, until 18 miles when it felt like my pelvis had caught fire, and not in good way.

On Sunday I had another rest day, so I suppose the taper has begun. No more “long” runs, but I did run 8 miles this morning, so I suppose long is a relative concept.

Weekly summary:

Monday: rest
Tuesday: 6 miles
Wednesday: 6 miles
Thursday: 8 miles
Friday: rest
Saturday: 20 MILES
Sunday: rest

Total: 40 miles

Hills, Hills, Hills

HILLS. They are now all I am thinking about.

I am such an idiot for not doing every marathon training run on the hills that are on my flaming doorstep. I now regret every easy 5 mile run around the flipping flat streets of Archway, which could have led me up sodding Muswell Hill.

This morning I had to run 8 miles and I took the hilliest route I could. Up Crouch End Hill, up again to Highgate, down to East Finchley, up to Muswell Hill, down then up to Ally Pally, down then up to Hornsey, down to Crouch End, up Ferme Park Road, down to home.

It was Hill. I mean HELL.

0 to Terror in 60 seconds

I was relaxing at work after lunch yesterday, checking my gmail (for research purposes only), feeling a bit sleepy, when I noticed a ticking time-bomb in my inbox.

The final instructions for my race had arrived, together with a link to the course profile. I hadn’t quite taken on board the amount of hills. I have not done enough hill training. I have no time to address this. I am frightened.

The instructions themselves are lovely. It’s a small race and they say things like “the race takes place in beautiful country side” and “please allow 5 minutes to walk to the start” – five minutes! I love small races.

Best of all, is this list of what each water station will have. Melon!

This Week’s Summary is brought to you by Cadbury’s Mini Eggs

I feel nervous about writing this blog today. Superstition is taking over and I’m scared of saying how well things are going for fear that they will immediately go horrendously wrong. I once worked with a woman who used to say “horrendrous” when she meant “horrendous”. She was a real Geordie character. When things were stressful in the shop she used to say “Ooo I could slit me throat”, brandishing a big set of keys on a chain.

Back to running: this week is my last before the three week taper and I hope it will be my highest mileage week yet. I have my last long run – 20 miles – on Saturday. I am so desperate to get it over with that the weekend cannot come fast enough.

I need to stop fixating on the future, there is a lot to be proud of in the week just gone. I managed my second 42 mile week, made a hole in my newish trainers and got on to the fifth and final section of Our Mutual Friend. My feet are as tired as Bradley Headstone’s must be in the pursuit of Mr Eugene Rayburn.

On Sunday the plan said “Half Marathon Race”, so I set out to run a hard but comfortable 13.1 miles. I finished in 1:39, which made me happy. I’m trying to make 8 minute miles feel easy, in the way that 9 minute miles felt easy for my first marathon. They don’t, of course.

Weekly summary:

Monday: 5 miles (easy)
Tuesday: 5 miles (easy)
Wednesday: 7 miles (intervals)
Thursday: rest
Friday: 7 miles (steady)
Saturday: 5 miles (easy)
Sunday: 13.1 miles (1:39)

Total: 42 miles

The Time I Thought I Had Run a Six Minute Mile

I had not.

I am not a scientific person. When I run intervals I think, “ok, how fast do i think a mile at 10k pace should be?”, pick a number of minutes and run for that long.

I have no idea how fit or fast I am. Which is not a problem, as I’m going away for a weekend in the middle of the Olympics so someone else can have my place in the team. I am training for a marathon however, so it might make sense to have some kind of idea of how well this is going. I measured out a route containing 4 x 1 mile sections on mapmyrun, with rest sections, before I left the house. As it was a 7 mile run, I had to try to remember where each mile section started and finished.

Wouldn’t it have been easier to just find a mile section and repeat it? Yes. Yes it would have.

The first interval was tough – lots of pedestrian dodging, uneven pavements, hay fever eyes, slight uphill. I finished it in 6 minutes 40. Hey! I thought, that’s not bad. I spent the next 4 minutes of jogging trying to work out what that would make my 10k time (as) if I could maintain that pace for 6.2 miles.

The second interval was kinder – a long empty downhill followed by a brief uphill and a flat bit. I approached the endpoint with my watch still in the 5 minute somethings. Oh my god! I thought, I’m going to run a six minute mile! I am so fit!

I was rapidly reassessing my next 5k time- sub-20 minutes, faster? Maybe I had been too hasty in giving up that Olympic place? Then came the next interval. It was mostly uphill but I still busted a gut. 6:30. Hmm.

The last interval. I’ll just take it easy I thought. I killed myself – 6:30 again.

Doubts were creeping in. Could there be a tiny possibility that I had got the distance wrong on my sub- 6 minute mile?

Back at the flat, I checked the map. Yes, I had missed out a section. Not a big section, but enough. I might have made it in 6 minutes 20. Which, over 10 k, would be a 39 minutes. Of course, I could only run it over 1 mile, maybe two with a fair wind.

The Olympic dream was over.

Easy Like Tuesday Morning

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.

Weezer and Chips

I don’t drink much coffee. In the mornings at work I sometimes have a cup of milk with a splash of filter coffee in it. A Diet Coke is a risk for me. On Saturday I had a caffeinated gel one hour in to my 18 miler and I was high as a kite for the rest of it. It contained 63mg of caffeine (a can of Coke has 32, Red Bull has 80).

By mile 10, colours seemed sharper and I was struggling to keep my pace down to 8:15, never mind the planned 8:30 a mile. By mile 15, I was bounding up York Way singing out loud to The Sweater Song. I gave up the pacing and ran home as fast as I could manage.

I paid for it afterwards. Caffeine + 4 beers + Doom Metal gig = massive headache. It was good to run long on Saturday, rather than Sunday, though. I went to a party, ate a massive plateful of pie, then went to the gig and ate an 11pm portion of chips.

Those gels are coming with me on marathon day, for sure. I’ll save one for mile 16 in the hope that it’ll carry me through the remaining 10. It and Weezer. And the promise of chips.

Monday: rest
Tuesday: 5.5 miles (short intervals)
Wednesday: 8 miles (at marathon pace)
Thursday: 5.5 miles (don’t remember)
Friday: 5 miles (easy)
Saturday: 18 miles (2:29)

Total: 42 miles

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.