Running – Page 8 – Not a Jogger

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.

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.