Thursday 2 March 2006

Here comes the sun.

I'm a big fan of the Today programme, never more so than since it came under hostile fire from the Blair government and its multifarious satellites, following the infamous Gilligan broadcast. So when, this morning, the impossibly seductive whisper of Charlotte Green revealed that today would be the coldest day of the year, I believed her. Because we must believe everything that Charlotte tells us. There is no alternative.

I kept glancing through the office windows this morning, watching for the first signs of the approaching blizzard. But nothing happened. Nothing except a constant blast of golden sunshine. Then lunchtime came, and I drove home to change. Jacket not required, but I wore one anyway, only because I had bought it this morning in Aldi's annual helping of cheap-but-decent running clobber. Along with a few pairs of Coolmax socks, 2 pairs of lycra shorts, and a couple of shirts. All for well under £40.

I've recently been getting used to running with an MP3 player or DAB radio, but today I left them behind. I wanted to enjoy the sunshine, and the novelty of warmth.

It's been a long cold lonely winter.

Here comes the sun, indeed.

But where does this leave my relationship with Charlotte...? Without trust Babe, we are nothing.

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Friday 3 March 2006

No run today, but I did go for a spot of Pilates at the local school. It's a deceptively gentle activity. Supine ballet. Here I lie on my floor mat, waggling an ankle, or drawing arcs in the air with my arms, while hypnotic New Age music oozes from a portable CD player.

At the end of it, you tend to think: Is that it then?

But when you get up and walk away, you feel stretched and buoyant.

Pilates has two difficulties for me. One is trying to remember all those things I should be doing simultaneously - feet apart a certain distance, pointing this way, breathing at "30% capacity", shoulders and hips supporting the weight, understanding the notion of pelvic centring... Let's be honest boys, retaining all this data simultaneously is not a man thing. Running the world puts quite enough on our plate without having to remember pelvic centring principles.

Second, there's the problem of following what we should be doing at any one time. The instructor issues orders while I'm lying face down on the floor, eyes clamped shut, floating one thousand miles above Planet Zog. I've no idea where I'm really supposed to be. So I contort myself to peer between my legs at the wall mirror. The distant reflection of the instructor shows a reversed idea of where my body should be. And by the time I've worked it out, we're somewhere else.

But anyway, a good and noble thing to do, even if it was at the expense of Coronation Street.

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Sunday 5 March 2006

Here we go:

Positive thinking is A Good Thing; negative thinking is A Bad Thing.

I understand the value of positive thinking, and I am, therefore, a positive thinker, rarely falling victim to gratuitous negativity, which I find corrosive, exasperating and boring.

OK?

Right.

I need to get those thoughts nailed to the top of this entry, so they can flutter freely at the periphery of your vision while you read the next bit.

I think it's unlikely that I'll get round the Zurich Marathon in under 5 hours.

The last time I hinted at such a planet-juddering possibility, I had 3 or 4 emails, and several kind messages on the forum, urging me to be more positive about my chances. I'm grateful for these responses, and genuinely touched.

A belief in the inevitability of failure tends to be a self-fulfilling prophecy, and can only accelerate its arrival. No, I don't regard failure in Zurich as inevitable, but I have to be realistic. My recent long runs have been difficult and a little disheartening, so it's no use vacantly crowing that I'm about to reach my goal, when the signs are clearly pointing in some other direction. A lifelong dedication to Queens Park Rangers has taught me that blind faith in the irrational is quite possible, but the same experience tells me that there's not a lot to be said for this self-delusion. A positive outlook may be worthy, but if it's only ever a glossy coating on reality, it will tend to deepen the disappointment. Apart from all that, there's no point in keeping a training log like this if I can't express honest doubts from time to time. Honest, it's not just tetchy negativity.

Here's my attitude -- as long as I'm not injured, I will definitely be on the starting line in Zurich on April 9, and I will give it my best shot. The plan is simple: find the 5 hour pacing group and stick with them at all costs. The success of this objective depends on two things: the experience and ability of the pacesetter, and my energy levels -- both physical and mental -- in the second half of the race.

What's the realistic worst-case scenario? Something like this: that I'll begin strongly, and by halfway, bang on schedule, I'll be thinking "What was I ever worried about? This is easier than I thought." Then somewhere round 15-18 miles I'll begin to feel exhausted, dispirited, and will gradually drop back behind the pacing group. Around 20 miles, will probably rally for a bit, then start walking, until some fat bloke in a uniform courteously ushers me to the side of the road where I'll find a seat on the dropouts' minibus. I'll perch there, staring out through the window, my salty face the colour of boiled gammon, and think that it doesn't really matter much anyway. And y'know, perhaps that's the problem. Maybe it should matter more. It's the conundrum you have to navigate when going down the "I'm only being realistic" route. To carry it off, you need to turn down the thermostat of desire a notch or two, and it might just be this reduction that turns the rationalisation of failure into that self-fulfilling prophecy I mentioned.

I said "as long as I'm not injured" because I'm nursing a twinge or two -- left calf, and left quad. If twinge becomes pull, it will be my fault. After the Bramley 20, I did nothing for 9 or 10 days, then 2 uselessly short 3½ milers in the middle of last week. Yesterday I went to the gym for a short but severe session with some weights, then today set out to run 20 miles. What a pitifully illogical regime I'm asking my body to fall in with. It's no surprise that bits of me are freaking out.

The long run began well enough. The first 10 miles along the canal were comfortable, apart from sporadic batterings from canoes and dripping oars as I shared the towpath with competitors in a canoe race. When their frantic paddling is interrupted by a closed lock, they have to haul themselves out of the water and run with their canoe over their shoulder. It's as hazardous as it sounds, especially as they often can't see where they're going. A sharpened boat on legs, coming for you at speed down a narrow path, is unnerving, especially with a flailing oar or two at right angles.

At the halfway point, perhaps I took too long to stretch and rehydrate, as I found it hard to get going again. At 13 miles I stopped for a walk. Then again at 14. It felt like rigor mortis. I began to wonder if one of those canoes had actually hit and killed me in a TRAGIC TOWPATH ACCIDENT, and that really, I was floating along in some temporary, posthumous transit lounge. Around the next bend I might come across my corpse, surrounded by paramedics and ashen-faced canoe-race marshals. Someone will be peering at my iPod, saying: "Crikey, and he was listening to Leonard Cohen at the time as well. Poor bastard. What a way to go."

No idea where I really am, or where I'm going, but just at the moment, it doesn't feel like I'm on my way to heaven.

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Thursday 9 March 2006 - Dusseldorf

DO NOT USE LIFT IN CASE OF FIRE

It amuses me, anyway, even if it doesn't quite come up to the high standards of semiotic ambiguity set by DOGS MUST BE CARRIED, seen next to the escalators on the London Underground.

I've had three days of very mild debauchery in Dusseldorf. Nothing too extreme, but in a Champions League week that featured critical 2nd legs for 4 British teams, it was impossible to avoid the siren calls from McLaughlin's Irish Bar in the Altstadt with its 3 large TV screens, each showing a different game. I spent yesterday evening there, barely knowing which way to turn. Eventually I found a spot in the corner from where I could see both the Arsenal-Real Madrid and Liverpool-Benfica games almost simultaneously. And with a 90 degree swivel, could even get an update from the AC Milan - Bayern Munich contest which, to the great delight of the Germans in the bar, Bayern lost 4-1.

For the benefit of anyone reading this in future centuries, I'll mention that Arsenal made it through to the quarter finals, while Liverpool and Bayern didn't, joining Chelsea and Rangers in that big dustbin upon which is scrawled: Oh how the mighty have fallen, and look how unhappy we are, Hee Hee!

Had Chelsea won on Tuesday, I'd have picked up £120, with a further £600 if they'd gone on to win the competition. It's my annual insurance policy against them collecting the prize they are so desperate to win. The premium isn't that high if you put it on early enough. What a pleasure it is to lose my money.

Despite the Guinness and pizza last night, or perhaps because of it, I managed to get out for a decent run this afternoon after work. Being an hour ahead, there's an hour more daylight to take advantage of here. I managed nearly 6 miles on a footpath alongside the Rhine, the river that flows through the heart of this city. Since my wine trade days, I've had an over-romanticised view of the Rhine. I used to salivate over all that stuff about the precipitous vineyards coating the sun-baked slopes alongside the river.

Here in Dusseldorf it makes a more functional contribution to the life of the community, being a well-used thoroughfare for naval and cargo boats, and the odd pleasure steamer. Still, it's a daunting sight in this handsome city, and it made a fine travelling companion for my 6 mile trip. Better than the many other runners out today, so few of whom returned my hearty Shearer salutes.

The good news is that neither of my twinges made a reappearance.

The suspense continues.

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Tuesday 14 March 2006 - Dusseldorf

I recently bought an iPod Nano, and have been teasing myself with its possibilities. Started off with a few rather unsatisfying weeks, re-exploring the less hospitable, outer territories of my own MP3-ised CD collection. Since then I've been back on safer ground -- the spoken word. It's a wholly different experience. Being a lifelong BBC Radio 4 addict, this shouldn't have been such a surprise, but it was. It's the different context that's startled me. There's something surreal about hearing languid, disembodied voices while out running. I suppose this is what believing in god must be like.

On the subject of which, I heard yet another cracking Mark Twain quotation yesterday, while listening to the podcast of Start The Week in my hotel room. It's a good edition (well worth catching if you're reading this before 20th March), featuring those two old adversaries in the evolution/creationism debate, Richard Dawkins and Richard Harries. The discussion began with Twain's observation, that Faith is believing what you know ain't so. Huckleberry Finn's perspicacity would have been lost on me when I last read it. Almost 40 years on, I should revisit, just like I'm revisiting Dusseldorf.

I arrived back yesterday, late afternoon, not feeling much like running. The hangover was mild, but travelling amplifies it. It's like carrying an extra piece of baggage. After unpacking, and marvelling at how much running gear I'd brought, I felt obliged to get out there, but knew as soon as I stepped outside that this wasn't going to work. The day was hostile and I felt remote from it. If you begin a run by yawning, you know the game's up. I spent just a minute or two outside the hotel, listening to the cold wind gusting mournfully through the angular stainless steel sculpture, before opting to kick the idea into touch.

Today was better. My early fears about the Germans being lunch-averse and working 12 hour days are deeply unfounded. It's quite OK to leave your desk on the stroke of 5 o'clock. This is good news for the runner. With clocks here an hour ahead of the UK, it gives me an extra hour of daylight to burn. I can fit in an extra hour of work in the hotel when I need to finish something off.

I'm less than gruntled with my new GPS gadget, the Garmin Forerunner 305. This is the successor to the 301. Combines speed/distance with heart rate monitor, the same as its predecessor, but has been reconfigured into a more watch-like package. Maybe I'm in a GPS blackspot here, but it's taking almost 10 minutes to pick up a satellite, and some of the readings are bizarre. If the calorie readings were true I'd be sporting the figure of Kate Moss by now.

The GPS finally woke up just as I reached the tree-lined, tarmac path alongside the Rhine.

We're fighting the final days of winter here. It's still cold in Dusseldorf, but there is sunshine to be had if you seize your chances. Again, there were plenty of runners about and even an inline skater or two, reminding me of last year's Hamburg Marathon where skaters are allowed. Cheats.

Back to the iPod. I have a confession to make. I nearly blurted it out at the start of this entry, but managed to rein myself in. I can hold back no longer. Here's the simple, chilling fact: For the past week or so, I've been listening to self-improvement audio books. Wait, wait, please.... hear me out. You see, it was like this. When I hit on the idea of talk, I began scanning the web for cheap sources of spoken-word audio. Not surprisingly, eBay turned out to be a good source. You can pick up hundreds of hours of great radio classics like Dad's Army and Basil Rathbone's Sherlock Holmes for a few pounds. If that's not your thing, there's Harry "F" Potter, or the complete works of literary luminaries like Shakespeare and Stephen King. Or indeed, a DVD containing 186 self improvement books. Eh?

Well why not, I thought? I can never motivate myself sufficiently to read those volumes on how to increase your motivation. Perhaps if I could just listen to them, something might squeeze in and embed itself in my subconscious?

Some of the stuff is unintentionally hilarious. So far, I've discovered Brian Tracy's 21 Absolutely Unbreakable Laws Of Money, followed by Ab Jackson telling me How to Organize Your Life And Get Rid of Clutter. On reflection, Alan Watts Teaches Meditation wasn't an ideal treatise to absorb while trying to run for an hour. My body got more confused than ever as this velvetty-voiced Englishman calmly urged me to find the groove with the eternal now.

Still to come are titles like Awaken the Giant Within (and if I can cope with further internal disruption, there always its companion volume, Unleash The Power Within). If I need to chill out after all that, there's Super Self Esteem Hypnosis, Procrastination to Motivation, Dale Carnegie's Stop Worrying And Start Living, and Dane Spotts' Attracting Wealth And Prosperity. On the off-chance that I'm not yet god, and still have some time to spare before buying out Roman Abramovitch and Donald Trump, I can complete my personal transformation with David Lieberman's Get Anyone To Do Anything, Dennis Waitley's Psychology of Winning, and Charles Faulkner's Success Mastery With NLP. What's NLP? The suspense is agonising, though I wouldn't be surprised if the P stood for Power. Most of these instruction manuals promise power and money.

These declamations dribble into each other, like puddles of piss at the start of a race. After a while it's hard to disentangle one earnest, urgent American salesman from another. And that's what they are -- salesmen. They promise me unshackled power, wealth, influence and personal fulfillment. And yet... while I know that many of these people are unscrupulous fanny merchants, am I alone in finding the genre strangely compelling? What they say to me is rarely new, but you have to be impressed by their brass neck. And just occasionally, you do hear something that is genuinely thought-provoking and useful.

Yesterday's 8½ mile trot along the Rhine at dusk was accompanied by the affable Brian Tracy, the chap who told me last week about those 21 Absolutely Unbreakable Laws Of Money. This time it was all about Thinking Big. Yes, I can achieve anything I want if I decide that it is to be. I have trouble with this claim, because it is clearly a lie. No matter how ambitious, determined and hard-working I am, I will never win the Men's Singles title at Wimbledon. I will never score the winning goal in the World Cup Final. This verboten area beyond realistic ambition is never addressed. But despite that, this recording did succeed in setting me thinking.

I thought about the book I was supposed to have finished writing last year; about my business ideas, and how they tend not to leave the drawing board. I thought about my Zurich Marathon doubts, and about my all-or-nothing nutritional cycles. It's something well beyond inertia; more of a nagging belief that... that people like me don't do things like this. But wasn't the London Marathon in 2002 supposed to sweep all that away? What happened to the brave new post-marathon world? Interestingly, I believe it did materialise, and that it is still there. I just seem not to have walked through its open doors yet.

This might sound like a gloomy, introspective plod along the banks of the Rhine but it was anything but. Despite, or perhaps because, I'd not run much recently, I felt strong and confident. This was one of those bouncy runs I've talked about before. The scenery isn't spectacular but it's easy on the eye. The stuff I was listening to wasn't a stick to beat myself with but a branch to cling onto, and with which to haul myself out of something that I didn't even know I'd fallen into.

I took some snaps, reproduced here with the help of Photoshop.

I thought about Zurich too. I thought some more about something that crossed my mind recently. It's pretty simple really. If I don't get my target, it's no big deal. It just means I'll have to run another marathon to try again. And if that fails, well bring on the next one. I'll have to succeed sometime.

It's a question of... faith?

Ooops.

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Thursday 23 March 2006

We're still a story without an end, though the denouement is close...

I've been following Sweder's forum diary with self-flagellatory envy. We have marathons booked for the same day, April 9; his in Paris, mine in Zurich. I suspect that the two tales, when they eventually appear, will exhibit markedly different endings. The string of hard-fought, non-stop, hilly 20 milers he can proudly pack for the journey will be more than enough to see him through. I'm sure he'll get the return his painful investments merit.

My story isn't so impressive or as reassuring, but I've strewn enough gloom on this path already, and will resist the temptation to rake through it again. We'll soon know just how short I was on preparation; further speculation is pointless. The fact is that partly through bad luck, partly bad planning, and partly a disruptive work schedule, the middle stretch of my training hasn't matched the pre-Almeria promise.

I've got just over 2 weeks left before the race. Not long enough to salvage the missed training and the failed long runs, but enough to try to 'get my head right' for the race, or at least better than it has been, and is at the moment. Maybe I can think my way towards hitting the modest goal I've set myself. As I've mentioned ad nauseam, the race has a 5 hour cut-off. Won't sound much to most, but to me it's an Alpine mountain; a benchmark I've not reached in my 4 previous marathons. To add a fistful of spice, if I'm behind the required pace at any point in the race, I'll be forced to leave the course. If that's what happens, so be it. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, it's not the end, or even the beginning of the end, but it will be the end of the beginning. If I don't hit this target, I'll have to rethink this entire running lark. At worst, I'll hang up my hairy, manly marathon shoes and stick to giggly girlie half marathons or wailing kiddie 10Ks.

I don't think I'd be able to stop running, There are too many mysteries to explore. The central, head-scratching paradox was never better illustrated than by two of this week's outings. On Sunday, another unsatisfying, stop-start 18 miles. Cold, lonesome and, to be frank, boring. This was a plod undertaken from duty, and from a sense of fear... a fear of nothing more than not doing it. I came away wondering what the point of it all might be.

Then early this morning, two days into spring, scattering rabbits on a sunlit, rural English track. In my headphones, some early, uncluttered James Taylor. For a few minutes I was running on that stupendous edge, high above and far beyond my physical location. This was the joy that has no name. A point of both confluence and separation, like a partition wall that connects two lives yet keeps them apart. It's the point where a runner's yin and yang meet; the fragile ribbon that divides all that has been, from all that is yet to come; all that could have been, from all that could yet be. The sale that determines profit and loss; success and failure. I was astride the barrier between my Zurich medal and that seat on the sweeper bus. For those few minutes, high above questions about training plans and hydration strategy, I could see it all, with clarity. That brief period was the mirror that showed both sides of the coin, simultaneously. Anything and everything was suddenly truly possible, and it must remain so.

My plan is to write nothing more until after Zurich. I love this distraction, but it is just that -- a distraction. Sometimes I wonder if the enforced navel-gazing is a contortion inadvisable for marathon running. It's my last chance to get this right, and I have to try to take it.

Next time I'll see this page will be in the days following the race. I suspect there'll be a beer by my side and a distant look in my eye. Most important, there will be a story to tell. Who knows how it will end, but I have to believe that it's still in my power to choose. I don't want to be the passive historian, just recording what happened. I'm the storyteller, the creator of the tale, so I have to be able to decide the ending I want on the day.

If I can convince myself that I have that power, I may yet have a chance.

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Saturday 25 March 2006 - Compton 20

And almost immediately, my vow of silence is broken. But then I didn't expect to run a race today. Sometimes, you just run a 20 mile cross-country race by accident. Tim of this parish, our 175-Mile Race Running Correspondent, will be reading this with tears in his eyes.

I'd forgotten about this one. Then last night, I remembered it.

The Compton Downland Challenge has been rebranded this year, in line with the trend to put a beaming smile on the face of heartbursting athletic martyrdom. The 40 miler is now the Full Fat 40, and the wimp's version is the Bare Bones 20. Today, I was that wimp.

In truth, as a physical challenge it wasn't too bad at all. The cross-country secret is that it's perfectly OK to walk when you fancy it. The great thing about this is that hills move from being objects of fear to objects of ridicule. Big hill? Ha ha! I do not care. I spit on you, big hill. I spit on you one thousand times, and I just walk up you, using the opportunity to natter with the person next to me about their hydration system.

In honour of a minor tradition in this household, one hour before the race I was still sitting in front of this computer in my dressing gown. Panic then hit me like a thunderbolt, and I jumped from my seat. 40 minutes later, I had made and drunk a cup of tea, showered, dressed, collected race essentials from all corners of the house, discussed dining arrangements with sleepy wife, visited the village cash machine, driven 21 miles, found the race HQ and a parking place, registered for the race, pinned number to chest, made myself another cup of tea, and was standing in the corner, sighing, grumbling about having another 20 minutes to kill. I could have trimmed the hedge before I left, I thought.

I hadn't been quite sure what to wear for this one. Normal race gear? Or post-nuclear holocaust survival equipment? My hunch, to go for the former, turned out to be right, though there were a few lurking self-conscious types with bulky rucksacks and protruding antennae, ticking items off extensive lists, and making last minute examinations of what they would call their survival ration pack, but what you and I would call a bag of boiled sweets.

Race HQ was the Compton Village School hall. Here I met up with 4 or 5 other members of the famous Reading Joggers, the region's paramount athletic association, to discuss race strategy. They were all calloused veterans of this great event. Their kind advice to me could be distilled down to just six words: "See you at the finish, sucker".

Following a commemorative snap, we set off around the school football pitch, and away up a steep bank into the adjoining wood, where we immediately stopped to a crawl as we squeezed through some brambley bushes in single file. Out the other side, and off we streamed across a broad field, dipping down to a stile, then up the other side of the shallow valley.

The fifth day of spring was sunny and cool. About as perfect as you can get for a 20 mile jog around the Berkshire countryside. Much of the run was across fields, some ploughed and soft; some rutted and rocky. Long tranquil stretches took us along soft tracks through hilly woodland. There was the occasional hedged lane. We passed through farmyards, past rows of cottages, and through picturesque villages like Hampstead Norreys and Aldworth (home of the Bell, best pub in Britain). Fine views were available to anyone who could lift their heads long enough to appreciate them, the best of which is probably the ridge above Streatley and Goring, two adjoining villages built around the Thames.

Around Mile 14 I fell in with Corrina, a South African runner with an enthusiasm for marathons bordering on the obsessive, though I suspect she'll never catch up with her husband who's managed the 56km Two Oceans Marathon 10 times and the Comrades (87km) a, quite literally staggering, 17 times. She was great company, and helped me get through the last 7 miles or so with a collection of tales about their marathon exploits. We ran-walked the final third of the race until the last mile and a half when suddenly we felt too guilty to walk anymore, and set off to jog to the finish. It was painful, but I had to tell my body that there was more of this to come in a couple of weeks, so it had better get used to it.

Back at the finish, eating home-made cake and drinking tea with the rest of the famous Reading Joggers, I reflected that this had been a great experience; one of the most enjoyable races I'd ever taken part in. Of course, it wasn't really a race at all -- at least, it didn't feel like one -- and this was the key to the pleasure. The Compton 20 isn't a hierarchical, competitive "I'm better than you" affair. It's a tour of some beautiful English countryside in early spring. It's a celebration of running, of companionship, and a reminder that the best things in life really are the simplest.

Thank you.

Here are some Pictures from the day.

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