A frigid runner writes from the frozen southern wastelands...
Autumn has finally descended here, with cooler days, colder nights, and that awful promise that hangs over us in the dull, dark, grey clouds promising nothing but a hard winter ahead. Well, OK, let me be honest. Here, the winter is usually mild and quite friendly, and without the bone-aching intensity of colder climes. But such is the rapid degeneration from the bright warmth of summer that already, just two days into the new season, we are missing the warm, sunny days of alfresco dining, chilled glasses of grenáche rosé, and fresh bruschetta made with home-grown tomatoes, some King Island sheep's milk feta cheese, drizzled with South Australian extra virgin olive oil... and instead, we're mulling our wine, digging out the winter woolies and locking in deliveries of class-A heating coal.
(Heavy sigh).
No, from here on it's doonas and hot chocolate, and long, dark, bitter nights; of leaving home for work in the dark and arriving back after dark, the depression seeping into the psyche like some of the darker, worrying texts of Søren Kierkegaard. Henceforth all is dark and wretched. Or, so I like to tell myself in order to justify my deep blue Stygian moods of this time of year.
Attempting to countermand this decree of gloom is my humble running log; my little athletic spreadsheet of glee, which remains a bastion of optimism whilst all around is depression and doom. And so it reminds me, as I sit here listening to the rain drumming against my window pane, that just this very morning I completed my longest run in over ten months, a pleasing 21.3km, the last half hour of which was completed at no less than race pace. This was a demanding run, in many respects, but, well, let's say comfortably completed, though easy it was not. Achey knees and a wheezy chest reminded me that this training schedule isn't getting any easier, but such has been my discipline of late that I completed it regardless, and without too much difficulty.
Helping me along a little has been The Art Of Running Faster, a great little book by British distance running ace Julian Goater who, among other things, recommends running the last half hour of your long runs at race pace, and so I tried it today. It's actually somewhat daunting to run quite some distance at the usual, prescribed 'conversational' pace, and then have to ramp it to race pace for the last half hour. But, in fact, it wasn't that hard. After a few minutes, it was more than manageable, although the thought of running an entire half marathon at that speed remains bizarrely out-of-reach, even though we know on race day all sorts of amazing things suddenly become possible.
Anyhow, if I can cram in a couple more of these long runs before race day in three weeks time, I'll be feeling fine, despite the extreme cold of the current season ... don't laugh; temperatures here have been as low as 13 Celsius, people!
Brrrrr.
April Fuels
