Sunday 5 June 2005

Week 1 of my 18 week marathon training for Loch Ness hasn't been a staggering success. Tuesday's plodding 5 miler in Guildford was to be a painful-but-necessary sort of inaugural dam-busting run. Flowing from that evening would be the purer athletic juices, as it. as it were.

And I'm sure it was of beneficial, but I've not been able to build on it. The very next day, I came down with a rare spot of illness. Nothing serious, just a sore throat and phlegmy chest - but enough to rule out running. Instead I managed a gentle bike ride on Wednesday, but had to skip Thursday and Friday completely.

The weekend's been a bit brighter. The cold had pretty much gone by yesterday morning, so I chalked up a tentative 3 miles, followed by just 4 today. So only 12 miles for the week, but I'm finding it hard to get anxious about falling behind. In fact, I've given no thought whatever to what my training plan is for this one; the best idea seems to be to move from the assumption that it was a Hal Higdon 18 week plan, and instead realise that it was a Bob Glover 16 weeker all along. Looking at it like this, I'm still more than a week away from starting the proper training, so in fact this turned about to be an excellent time to become ill. All's well that ends well.

It's been quiet on here for a few days, largely for reasons mentioned at the end of the last entry: I need to crack on with my long-standing writing project. I've started with a critical re-reading of the material I put together last time I worked on it, and had to make some radical butchery. That took about 12,000 words out of the equation, which is rather sad. Still, this morning I managed to add a further 1500 or so, which has raised my spirits a bit.

Friday 10 June 2005

Life throws a great handful of stuff at you. Some fragments stick, some bounce off and land on someone else; most hit you and end up just blowin' in the wind.

One bit that stuck to me, years ago, was one my sisters telling me about a teacher of hers who adored Jane Austen. At that time, she'd taught Austen for more than two decades to hundreds of girls, yet there was one book that she hadn't read, and didn't plan on reading till she retired from teaching. She needed something to look forward to.

I have a similar thing with Bob Dylan. For years now, I've had a bootleg copy of Dylan live at the Philharmonic Hall in New York, in 1964. The thought of listening to it was strangely unbearable. I wasn't sure I could handle the pleasure of it.

When did I buy it? I can't recall exactly. I had two main splurges on Dylan bootlegs. First in New York in 1975, 18 years old. Main reason for going was to hang around in Greenwich Village and brush up on my Dylanology. I visited every record shop I could find and bought as much obscure Dylan stuff as I could afford - though in those pre-credit card days, that wasn't a huge amount. Then about 10 years later I found a few more unofficial rarities on a market stall down the Portobello Road. I picked the '64 concert on one of those occasions. But I never played it.

Bobophiles favour different periods. I'm an early 60s man rather than a mid or late 60s man. Others think that the mid 70s was his best. For me, the '64 concert saw him at the pinnacle of his powers, which is why I couldn't bring myself to listen to it. Then some of the tracks appeared on an official album called the Bootleg Series, Volumes 1, 2 and 3, about 15 years ago - which I heard. And then the Philharmonic Hall concert itself was released as a legit album just a year or two back. I bought the CD, and it's been sitting on top of my computer, staring at me for a year or so.

Tonight, after either 20 or 30 years, I finally listened to it.

Phew. It's just too brilliant.

At last, I can get on with the rest of my life.

Monday 13 June 2005

OK, it's back to business.

The seven weeks since Hamburg have been profoundly unhealthy. In that time I've run only 10 times. I've stuffed myself with empty calories and fat, and sunk into the sort of lethargy that only a marathon can provoke. It's a familiar experience.

The (perhaps surprising) consolation is that I never feel a sense of sacrifice or gloom about buckling under again. Conversely, I get a great feeling of relief. When I talk to non-active friends, they seem to think that getting down to four or five months of marathon training must be like walking into a prison cell. But it's exactly the opposite - it's like being released from one.

There are 16 weeks to go till the Loch Ness Marathon on October 2. Tonight I pattered out a panting, stilted 4 miles. It was painful and difficult, and unusually for such a short distance, I twice had to stop for a short breather. But there was something almost gratifying about the discomfort; it's like putting down a marker. Here is where I was. This is as bad as I'll feel for the next 16 weeks.

I don't have a strict training plan. I'll cobble together some hybrid from the bones of previous campaigns. I've been through my spreadsheet, filling in the blanks with the enthusiasm of someone planning runs for someone else - which is how it feels from this distance.

The Hamburg experience taught me a lot, which isn't the same as saying that I'll act on these lessons. I think I need some longer midweek runs, and I need to have stronger legs, and I need to lose more weight. I've scheduled some longer Wednesday runs, but whether I run them remains to be seen. The bike will, I'm sure, transform my legs into unstoppable pistons, so that's OK. Weight? Oh dear. Here we go again. I'm currently 10 pounds heavier than I was on the morning of the Hamburg race, so there's a lot of work to do there.

But here we are, this is it. And it feels great.

Tuesday 14 June 2005

Out at 6:30 this morning for the same run as yesterday evening. This time, the 4 miles were executed without any stops, and I felt twice as strong. It's heartening to know that lack of fitness can be attacked so effectively, so quickly.

Hurrah for the jury who acquitted Michael Jackson. In the eyes of the mediocre mob, Jackson's real crime seems to be eccentricity. For some mystifying reason, many find this to be a deeply threatening human characteristic. I rather like it.

Predictably enough, the internet messageboards have been throbbing with misspelt indignation today. Anything that annoys these people this much just has to be a good thing.

Wednesday 15 June 2005 - The Bracknell Forest 5

Self-control in the face of temptation, particularly in the realm of confectionery, isn't a claim I ever thought I could make. Now I'm not so sure. After this evening, I've gone up in my estimation.

Just as some races are planned, even entered and paid for, a long time in advance, but never actually done, others just ambush you. Lying in wait for me this evening, hiding among the trees in the Outlook Centre in Bracknell Forest, was the Forest Five. I hadn't even heard of it yesterday. Today, I know all about it.

The race emerged after a thought that I should extend some of my midweek runs. Wednesday seemed like a good candidate, and today's Wednesday. As a kick-off, I should go out and run five miles, I thought. But it's a funny distance to run on my own. I'm happy with my short, round-the-block 3.5 milers, and anything stretching into 7 miles and above can be dealt with by heading out along the canal. But five miles? An irksome sort of distance. A little research uncovered this event. It seemed like the answer.

Bracknell isn't overburdened with a good reputation. It's regarded as a slightly bourgeois Luton - but only slightly. Mention it, and people who've never been near the place exhibit an instinctive wrinkling in the nose and forehead areas, and they break off eye contact. We've been there a few times to visit the admirable Arts Centre - the only place we know within a 20 mile radius of where we live that will show a decent non-blockbuster film. Passing along the ring road, the modern, high-rise town centre is clearly visible, but nothing has ever tempted us into it. There was something in the news recently about 'clone towns' - those whose individuality had been all but extinguished by the creeping presence of identikit retail chains. Bracknell is that kind of place.

So I was surprised to hear that there was any sort of forest there at all - but sure enough, a bit further past the Arts Centre you come across 2600 acres of forest and trails. What a stunning discovery. It's wonderful.

A midweek race in summer, I've realised, is a grand thing. I need to do more of them. They tend to be short, which is always a bonus, but there's a special pleasure in thrashing out the remnants of a tough day's work (as today's was) in the middle of a dense, pine-scented forest.

There were probably 500 of us there, paying guests of the Bracknell Forest Runners. A tenner to pay on the night was a little steep, unlike the five miles that lay before us.

Mile One was awful. If I'd known any prayers, I'd have been reciting them. And if it hadn't been a race, and more to the point, if I'd not paid £10, I might have bailed out after a couple of minutes. By this point I'd already muttered something similar to "Oh dear" a couple of dozen times. I was dog tired, and still feeling blubbery and inflated. You often hear sports people talk about feeling "pumped up" for a race or a match. I often feel that too, but I'm not sure we mean the same thing at all.

I started close to the back. This was going to be a slow and gentle jog up towards the base-camp of my October marathon. After half a mile I was wondering whether to stop for a walk. It was that bad. But I didn't. Instead, I tucked in behind two rotund middle-aged ladies as they discussed their favourite sweets. One described how her neighbour had give her a box of hand-made Belgian chocolates recently as a thank-you for looking after her schizophrenic hound while she went to Bruges for a weekend with her husband to celebrate a wedding anniversary. Trouble was, she explained, although all the chocolates were different, they had identical wrappers. Most weren't very nice, she reported, but she'd had to unwrap and eat them all to find the good ones. Her friend panted orgasmically alongside her as the kaleidoscope of ingredients, flavours and textures were detailed. "Sometimes you just have to finish eating a sweet to know for sure that it ain't a good 'un". They giggled. Well, it passed the time until we reached the first mile marker, then I had to let them plod on ahead of me. It was that bad.

The second wasn't much better. Here, I really slowed down and just had to grind out the yards. I could feel my hot sweat starting to seep through the top of my head and sprinkle over my pathetic knees. Why do I do this? It was turning into the most miserable run I could remember in a long time. Trudge, trudge, trudge.

The great consolation was the forest, its fragrant embrace, and the soft, moist trail that made an interesting change of underfoot scenery. So far removed from the office, the city, the motorway, the Powerpoint presentation. Gradually, I started to think, "what does all that matter anyway?" I could feel myself being soothed and massaged by my environment. It probably matters quite a lot, but not all the time.

I managed to keep on through the second mile marker, miraculously without stopping for a breather. The course was flat apart from the few hundred yards before the Mile 3 sign, where suddenly the trail plummeted. Oh god, this could mean only one thing.... and the concomitant ascent wasn't long in coming. It was a bang in the face. Sudden, and over pretty quickly. I even carried on shuffling up it without dropping anchor. At the very top we were met by the 3 mile marker and a grinning marshal. Here, along with most of the other loiterers, I finally stopped for an arms-akimbo walk.

The 4th mile was no easier, but I was now becoming tempted to enjoy it. Perhaps it was the prospect of finishing. My horrible state of personal disrepair meant I was feeling really quite tired, but as long as I could just hang on I'd be OK.

And then... and then something happened that really shocked me.

As I lumbered across the fourth mile marker, I dragged my eyes up from the spongy mud beneath me, and looked ahead. It was a long, straight trail down towards the finish. There were eight people stretched over the hundred yards in front of me, and between that group and the finish line were another 12. I know that because I counted them as I overtook them.

It was a strange experience for me. Unprecedented, I should think. The last mile of a race is always horrible, but this time, I just forced myself to run as fast as I could. An 08:45 mile won't sound hypersonic to many people reading this, but over here where I come from, it felt like it. I'd looked at the first bunch of runners ahead of me, and felt suddenly disdainful of them. Not a snooty disdain, but a competitive disdain. An unfamiliar feeling of "I can beat you if I try". I also remembered that I did a marathon a few weeks ago, and shouldn't be shrinking from a 5 mile run. So I just sort of plunged forward, taking in as much air as possible, trying to get a rhythm going with my feet. I managed to keep going like that for a mile. It was startling but satisfying.

Through the funnel at the end, panting and moaning and whimpering, where I collected my rather elegant "Forest 5" mug, cup of water and... and Mars Bar. Oh wow, what a delightful sight that was. Since the overheard conversation about Belgian chocolate, I'd been dreaming of the stuff, wondering if I should stop on the way home for a bar or two. And now here I was, after a 5 mile run, being presented with a slab of soft toffee and chocolate. And then I remembered I was supposed to be losing a few pounds, and shouldn't be eating this rubbish. A terrible time to have a crisis of conscience. So I didn't eat it. Instead, it sat on the passenger seat, tormenting me for 20 miles. It's now in the fridge, where it will stay, an eternal symbol of sacrifice and inner resilience.

That sort of thing.

Sitting in the car park, my face a sweaty beacon of smugness, watching a young couple drinking Pimms out of their new race mugs, I had a few overheated minutes to reflect on the evening. The dreadful first 3 or 4 miles, than that exhilarating final one. Good enough to sweep away all that went before it. This was a fantastic race for me. I'd tugged at a door that I'd never had the self-confidence to go near before. It had opened, and all was well. How different I felt now about the race, compared with my half-way verdict.

Trouble is, all races are different, despite looking the same. Most aren't very nice, but you just have to unwrap them all to find out. And sometimes you have to get to the end of one before you know for sure that it's a good 'un.

Sweet.

Sunday 19 June 2005

Forgive me Father, for I have sinned. I didn't go for my long run today.

Actually, my dad didn't mind, and didn't even seem that interested in my confessional when I called to wish him a happy Father's Day.

Phew, what a scorcher. I rarely believe anything that Texans say, but I should have taken the advice of those guys from Austin we sat next to at the pasta dinner in Chicago, the evening before the marathon in 2002. When it's hot, y'git out at fo' in the mo'nin'. Yes, their running club meets at 4 a.m. for their hour-long runs.

A couple of times, I looked at the hazy garden through an open window. Later, later... But the grass never did get cut. That bed never did get dug. We spend 90% of the year pining for long, hot, summer days but when they arrive, most of us grumble like hell and retreat under our stones. But if it gets me out of garden duties, I don't mind at all. Trouble was, it also made the prospect of a run deeply unappealing.

So the first week of my Loch Ness training has passed without a long run (even though a 'long run' at this stage of the game means no more than 6 or 7 miles). Not a great start. When I should have been running through the twilit countryside I was on my 4th pint, and the only running going on was that of the ice cold beer down my gullet.

Things, as they say, can only get better.

Tuesday 21 June 2005

Midsummer Night.

After that pretty dismal showing at the weekend, I've now managed 3 runs in 24 hours. It's not an attempt to catch up - that's not a strategy that seems to work. I just need to find some fitness again after a slothful few weeks. I'm finding it hard to shift the excess weight, and to feel really good about my running again. The only way I can think of to deal with this is to attack the problem head-on.

It's still very warm, but at least it's now possible to walk, and even run, the streets without that smothered feeling. The humidity has dispersed. It didn't stop me having a terrible run last night, but it wasn't general unfitness to blame this time, but bad preparation. My old adversary, foolish hydration strategy popped up again. For some reason I thought it wise to drink a pint of water before setting off. It didn't, as I'd hoped, prevent me from overheating and keep thirst at bay. All it did was to make me feel bloated and clumsy. Having to stop to walk after a hundred yards should have been a clue. I still managed 4.3 miles but it was a long and slow slog, not helped by the decision to explore a new route along a footpath I noticed only recently. It turned out to be a bridleway alongside the ye quainte olde M4e motorwaye.

7:30 this morning, I was out again, this time for a much better, stronger and fresher run through the start of the frenetic village rush hour. Yes, I saw the postman and two people out walking dogs - all within 10 minutes of each other. This was a decent 3.5 mile run without any problems.

Then this evening I joined up with the local running group again, the Reading Joggers. I like this gang. All ages and abilities, helpful, friendly and welcoming. Hard to ask for much more. It's interesting to compare these summer jaunts with those first few frozen weeks in January and February when the runs were always in the dark. Now, instead of tracksuits and woolly hats and gloves, it's all singlets and lycra shorts and water bottles and panama hats.

OK, so I made up the bit about the panama hats. And the water bottles, come to that. Two people wore lycra. But there were at least several singlets in evidence, including the debut of a rather fetching royal blue number I picked up in a massive shopping mall in Rocquetas del Mar, where we went to meet up with Antonio again after the Almeria Half in January.

A good month to buy running vests...

Wednesday 22 June 2005

Not much to report beyond a distended, clammy 4 miler this evening that I struggled to finish without a walk break. What's preventing me from feeling on top of my running at the moment? Is it the weather? Or my current corpulence? Dehydration? Lack of motivation?

No, it's not really any of these things, though none of those first three help the situation. There's no lack of motivation. I'm as excited about the road to Inverness as I was about those to Chicago, Copenhagen and Hamburg. Though probably not London because it was my first marathon, and I was overawed by what I was doing. I don't suppose that can ever be repeated.

Something that indubitably contributes to this feeling of lethargy is simple tiredness. As in sleepiness. Getting to sleep at night is no problem, but I seem to wake very early - sometimes 4 or 5 in the morning. I eventually drift off again for a couple of hours, but am never totally rested. All day today, I looked forward to running this evening, but once I got home it would have been easy to have just shut my eyes and drifted off in the armchair. I'm frequently tired when I set off running. It can't help.

So I suppose I'd better go to bed.

Good night.

Sunday 26 June 2005

I've bent over backwards to try and improve my stretching techniques, but I still don't feel as supple as I'd like at this stage of a marathon training schedule.

I keep looking at the figures in my spreadsheet, trying to make sense of the apparent fact that I've managed a perfectly respectable 29 miles this week, yet still feel unfit, undertrained and, like Marx's proletarian hero, in a state of perpetual struggle.

I suffered a nutritional calamity on Saturday, having been lured to a posh Sussex eatery by my wife's aged aunt. There I was ambushed by an Everest of roast beef and roast potatoes, followed closely by a dangerously shifting pyramid of apple pie and custard. It took a full 24 hours to recover sufficiently to go running.

It was worth the wait though. Yesterday I ran 9.4 miles. Or let's say I travelled 9.4 miles under my own steam. The hot and exhausting return leg of the expedition to the drinking tap at the Kennet & Avon Visitor Centre at Aldermaston was studded with brief walk breaks, partly to admire the clumps of fluffy grey cygnets clinging nervously to Mother Swan, and partly because I was knackered. My only adventure came when I approached an angler who had a very long fishing rod laid across the path. Just as I was about to skip over it, he shouted "Hang On! Better safe than sorry!" He then began rapidly pulling the rod out of my way. "Don't worry", I called back, "I think I'd have been pretty safe". To which he replied: "I don't give a fuck about yooo, mate, it's this rod. If you damage it, you'll owe me a lot of money."

He was serious. I was so pissed off with him that a few yards further on, I picked up a sizeable rock and lobbed it back into the canal next to where he was fishing. "OY!!! YOOOOOO!!!" What a cry he let out. I just legged it, happy in the knowledge that he'd never catch me, and that I'd frightened the fish away from his valuable fishing rod for a while.

Even if slightly fragmented, and not fast, it was good to get 9½ miles under my belt - my longest plod since the beginning of April.

Monday 27 June 2005

It hurts your backside the first few times you try it, but the pleasure eventually comes if you persist with it.

Cycling. Today was supposed to be a rest day but I thought a spot of two-wheeled cross training might be a good way of squeezing those faggots through my intestines. For the benefit of American readers, I should explain that a faggot in Britain is different from an American one. Here's a recipe from the BBC.

Yes, faggots and mash. Far too stodgy for a run, but nothing that a 10 mile bike ride can't cope with. It was a great evening for a leisurely meander round the local lanes and bridleways, checking out a few possible running routes, and feeling generally bucolic. I wish I knew the names of more birds and trees and plants. I'd love to describe it better than saying that there was a lot of chirping coming from the trees, and a lot of green stuff growing beneath the hedgerows along the lanes.

In case you hadn't realised, I've started an RSS feed for this site. If you don't know what this means, don't worry. Neither do I really, but I decided I needed one. Check out this page for a few basic details. If you already have an RSS reader, you can subscribe to Running Commentary with this URL:- http://www.runningcommentary.net/archive/runningcommentary.xml.

Tuesday 28 June 2005

"If we don't change direction soon, we'll end up where we're going."

I've no idea who Irwin Corey is, but his warning was in my mind as I embarked on another toughie this evening with the running club. Only 42 minutes, but the 4 and a bit miles we covered were one long, dramatic splosh through thunder and lightning, and a torrent of warm rain.

As I drove through it to meet up with the group this evening, I was sure that hardly anyone would turn up, but I was wrong. The turnout of about 30 was pretty healthy, and said something positive about this bunch.

The quote hung around my thoughts because I'm still not comfortable with the way things are going. At least I'm doing the miles, but they're not easily won this time around. Feasting on faggots and mash, as I did yesterday evening, hardly helps, I admit, but I know I need to shed a few pounds to get that breakthrough I need. Given the weather this evening, this is a pretty awful metaphor, but it's like waiting for the monsoon to come. Anyone who's travelled in India or the Far East during the hot season will know that sense of tension that precedes the break in the weather, and the sense of relief and optimism that floods the world as those first few dramatic hours of rain hit.

Actually, it's not really very much like that at all, but I've written it now, and that's that. So we're now lumbered with this muddle-headed image till the very crack o' doom.

Crikey. Sorry about that.

Talk to the foot...

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