Running – Page 9 – Not a Jogger

Mud, Sweat and Ray Mears

On Sunday I ran 17 miles through mud, rain, barbed wire and private property. Over dams and down hills, through nature reserves, woods and car parks. I was at my parents’ for the weekend and was more than ready to swap the litter of North London for the lambs of rural Rutland.

I got up early and crept downstairs to read the paper and eat breakfast alone in silence. Two hours later I was all dressed up and waiting in the hall for my dad to finish his tea, like a teenager late for a party.

After an initial stretch of road-side running, my route headed towards Rutland Water. Within 15 minutes of being dropped off in Manton I had turned my ankle on a stony track, covered my trainers in mud and tripped over a tree root. The rain got heavier as the route opened out and I rounded the grassy hills into the wind, but I was still smiling.

It was hard to keep my pace down in the first few miles, I was feeling so good. It doesn’t help that the first 5 miles of the route are like a mini-rollercoaster. No massive hills but a lot of sharp rises and falls, which make it difficult to stick to an even pace. As I headed towards the North shore of the reservoir I tried to slow down, to the bemusement of a crowd of woolly spectators.

The next 7 miles were fairly uneventful – I know this route really well and apart from a couple of very sharp uphills it’s mostly smooth cycle tracks. The rain stopped for a while and I tried to concentrate on maintaining a steady pace, keeping my head up and remembering to say hello to passing walkers (not in London now, Gina).

At 12 miles, I took a literal turn for the worse. I headed into Egleton village, assuming I could add on a few miles to the run by retuning through the nature reserve. This turns out not to be the case. After going through two different gates saying “no entry”, and testing my internal compass to breaking point, I eventually decided to climb over two barbed wire fences in the belief that this would lead back to the road. Were 17 miles were about to turn into 22 with only some sport beans for sustenance? Where was Ray Mears when I needed him? I ran up a(nother) dirt track anxiously. A road! Relief.

We’d arranged that Dad would pick me up again at the end, and I’d calculated my timing to the minute. He called me 10 minutes before the agreed meeting time. “What are you calling me for?”, I panted. “We’re here, but you’re not here, where are you?”. “I’m still running, I’ve got 1.5 miles to go yet”. “Oh well, we’re here, shall we wait?”. I did not reply.

The rain started up again in the last couple of miles, which was dispiriting, and then my sister called for a gossip, which was disconcerting, but eventually it was over. I ran the last two miles at faster than marathon pace partly for the hell of it, and partly out of fear that Dad would actually drive away.

I ended the run tired, wet and very very dirty. Also happy.

Running with Salmon

Today I ran a mile carrying a packet of smoked salmon.

This is happening a lot. Last saturday I ran with a loaf of bread, the previous week there was some minced lamb. There just aren’t enough hours in the day to fit in running, shopping, cooking, eating, working and travelling so I’m doing a lot of combining.

This morning I took a half-day off work to prepare for a weekend away. I made a cake for my mum, I packed my bags, I thought about cleaning the bathroom and went for a run so that I could have a hangover tomorrow. While mixing the cake, I was thinking about lunch. I should make a sandwich and take it to work but there was nothing in the fridge. Marks and Spencer was on the way home… hence the smoked salmon.

I did get a few odd looks. There are a lot more people on the street at 9.30am than 6.30am. The salmon was flapping as I ran. I struggled to hold onto the packet with my slippery gloves. Running down Crouch End Hill, it temporarily got away, but I recaptured it and brought it home.

The sandwich was delicious.

Our Mutual Running Friend

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.

Marathon Pace, and other mysteries

The marathon is still eight weeks away, but it’s like a mountain in the distance. You see it every day, it’s part of the landscape, you might even have climbed it before, but one day soon you’re going to wake up at the foot of it staring upwards in panic.

One of the main ways to counter the marathon panic is to plan. I love to plan. Training, logistics, fuelling, outfits. The only important thing to plan though, really, is the hardest of all: how fast to run it.

I decided my marathon pace before I ran a step of my training plan. I wanted to finish in 3 hours 30 minutes, therefore my marathon pace would be 210 minutes divided by 26.2 miles: 8 minutes per mile. Last time I did the same, with 4 hours and 9 minute miles.

They’re not quite the same, though, are they, 8 minute miles and 9 minute miles? There might be a tiny flaw in my logic here.

Recently I listened to a marathon talk podcast “training talk” about marathon pace. It was comprehensive, bordering on confusing: pace of your last marathon is important but you shouldn’t set your sights too low; current training performance is key but you shouldn’t get carried away if it’s going well and set your sights too high, you need a race strategy but you should be flexible on the day. Hmm.

The best piece of advice, and the one I’m taking with me up the mountain on the day, was that your marathon pace should feel too easy at the start, and hard at the end. I think that fits well with my experience of running at 8 minutes a mile so far. I am trying to ignore the fact that 9 minute miles felt very tough at the end of my last marathon, assuming that any miles feel tough at the end of a marathon. Right?

With marathon pace in mind, I set out on Sunday to run a comfortable (but not easy) pace over 13.1 miles. I finished in 1 hour 38 minutes. I have no idea what that means.

Small Mercies

Another day, another 5:55 alarm call.

If I get up at 5:55, by 6:10 I can be running, dressed, teeth brushed, cats fed. It is such a pain to have to feed them before being able to get outside – the stinky food, the loud miaowing, the time spent making sure Ted doesn’t steal Bill’s food.

Today, on my way back home after a terrible hill session in the rain, I was struggling up Crouch Hill feeling sorry for myself when I passed a dead cat on the pavement. He was beautiful. A tabby, quite small, laid out as if sleeping by the fire on a particularly cold day. There was a smudge of blood on his nose and his eyes were closed to the rain. A lump rose in my throat.

I fought back the tears for the remainder of my run. How pathetic, I thought, whilst unable to stop. A 36-year old woman blubbering over a cat she never knew. I couldn’t stop thinking about the poor driver who had hit the cat, the person who had moved it to the pavement, the owner missing him at breakfast time…

I was all set to write about the joy of returning to hill “sprints” after a couple of weeks’ absence, but it now seems unimportant. Back at the flat, both cats ignored my return. They had been fed, what did they care for this sweaty human invading their personal space? I choked back a feeble sob of gratitude.

Do Recovery Runs Really Work?

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.

Anticipation, Procrastination and Dread

I ran 18 miles yesterday. It was the first ‘proper’ long run of this marathon training schedule, meaning longer than 13 miles. A mere half-marathon? Pah! I laugh in your face. I could take you on any day. An 18-miler, however, means preparation.

I had planned to run mine on Sunday. Actually, I didn’t plan it, the plan dictated it and I didn’t question it. On Friday night, however, I checked the weather forecast: sun and mild on Saturday, rain, wind and cold on Sunday. At this point I had already drank two beers. I had to stick to the plan. On Saturday morning I went for a miserably lovely 5 mile run in the sun. I ate toast and bread and pasta and cake. I drank litres of water. I spent all day in a bad mood.

On Sunday morning I woke to the sound of rain. I cheered myself with the thought that every minute that went by was a minute closer to it being over. I got out the vastly expensive pink rain jacket I never wear and my camelpak water bottle holder and put them on the bed. While I brushed my teeth, Bill S Preston Esq sat himself on them and looked up at me. ‘Who goes out in this?’, he seemed to be saying.

It wasn’t a bad run. It was wet, my running gels were disgusting, but I stuck to my pace of 8 minutes 30 seconds a mile and it felt ok. It was a lot better than the same run when I trained for a marathon in 2010, when I can remember thinking my legs were going to snap off my hips like a broken barbie. Having already run 26.2 miles, you know that in a long run things will hurt, you will panic about being injured, then mysteriously they will stop hurting. Then something else will hurt. It really is just pain, and it really will go away.

Getting back home, filthy, soaking and stiff, I was elated. It was over! I could actually start to enjoy my weekend; the relief was instant. I have now learned my lesson. Sunday long runs are out, Saturday long runs are in. Subject to weather forecasts.

This week’s numbers:

Tuesday: 6 miles (intervals)
Wednesday: 4 miles (easy)
Thursday: 6 miles (steady)
Saturday: 5 miles (with 3 mile tempo)
Sunday: 18 miles (2 hours 32 minutes)

Total: 39 miles

Early Bird

I seem to have become a morning runner.

I have always been a morning person – when I was a kid I used to get up at 6am on a Sunday to spend two blissful hours scraping through my pile of lego before anyone was up to moan about it. I’ve never been a morning runner, though. When not training for a race I never darken the streets until after breakfast, at least. I run about 30 seconds to a minute slower per mile on any run completed before I’ve had some tea and toast and a bit of a sit down.

Morning runs used to be torture. Even on mornings when I hadn’t drunk any wine the night before, I felt hungover. Attempting any kind of speed session led to nausea and, well, other natural urges.

I started running in the mornings out of necessity. Fitting marathon training into your life is difficult, and getting a run out of the way first thing leaves you free to slot in the little things like meals, a social life, a job. More importantly, it stops your run from being derailed at 6pm by a sudden deadline or urgent visit to the pub.

I realised recently that I now start almost every run, even the weekend ones, before 9.30am. I run most without breakfast and they’re fine. They aren’t amazing sessions – those still only tend to happen once I’ve eaten – but they’re nothing to throw up about.

In an ideal world I wouldn’t have to go to work and I could run at 10:00am every day, after breakfast and while still feeling positive about the day. That’s what it must be like to be a full-time athlete, I sometimes think mid-run, I could do that no problem. Then I have to stop and walk up a hill.

The Unfortunate Brevity of the Running High

I went for a beautiful run this morning. Dawn broke as I sallied forth along the more charming roads of Crouch End, turning the sky pink behind the terraces and trees, lending a rosy glow to the faces of passing commuters.

Two runners smiled as they passed; two cars waved me across at traffic lights. I took it easy, running smoothly up and down the hills and enjoying the growing feeling of comfort and happiness as it became clear that this was going to be a Good Day.

Back at the flat, I held on to that happiness throughout breakfast, ironing, and five minutes playing with the cats. On the 91 bus crawling along the Caledonian Road, it reduced by about half, but was still keeping me afloat. Opening the office door, I walked in and my happiness stayed outside in the hallway.

I made myself a coffee and ate a biscuit. Perhaps that would bring it back? No. By 9:30am, it had gone. I found myself contemplating an extra run tonight.

This is how it starts. One minute you’re a woman who likes a jog, the next you’re putting your name down for Badwater.

24 Hour Marathon Training

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!