's funny how one bad run can seemingly muck everything up. I've been training well of late and was considering drawing up a proper schedule to attack a race when a disastrous run yesterday left me contemplating my own personal Titanic.
It was only this morning when I got to work convinced it was Friday and realised instead that it was in fact
Thursday, that I discovered my error and had in fact missed a rest day in my training. No wonder I had a bad run.
Duh. Obviously I've been training
too hard.
Often when I have a bad run I dive straight into my "best of RC" collection and read a few pages of the best of Andy's (and others) musings here. Reading some of Andy's work from last year has made me wonder about where I stand at the moment. Am I a runner, or am I a non-runner who sometimes runs? Am I on that train of mediocrity, only occasionally getting off at a station for a bit of a jog, or have I left the railway altogether and become a committed perambuist?
As Neo would say, the problem is choice. And my friend Mergatroid (not his real name, but close) frequently says (to my annoyance) that nothing is impossible in life, it's just a
decision.
And to be fair to myself, whenever I have seemingly jumped back on the train due to illness or injury, I have decided to push through and get over the problem and get back out there. I may be older, fatter, slower, but I'm still ticking over the kilometres when I can.
But I could do better. And I really want to
do this thing. I don't want to die wondering whether I had a marathon in me or not. I don't know why it's important to me, but it is. Physically, I still have question marks, but I think these can be overcome.
A big factor that has helped me has been to drop the 3 or 4 days per-week training schedule. For me, this running thing has to be a lifestyle choice - it's just something I do virtually every day, like eating or personal hygiene. When I have too many days off each week it becomes something I have to schedule into my life, and that's annoying and requires motivation. I remember being impressed by Andy's mate who runs a mile every day. I thought that was rather clever idea, and perfectly manageable. For some reason it also reminded of an interview I heard with Yehudi Menhuin, who was being asked how he motivates his violin students. He said that whipping yourself into a motivational frenzy will never work. Instead he simply encouraged his students to at least take their instrument out of its case and "say hello" to it each day. On that basis he figured the violin would be an integral part of their lives, and having picked it up to say hello, students were more likely to practise a few scales or play a piece for their own amusement. Rather clever, I thought.
So for the past three weeks I've been jumping on the treadmill six days a week. I haven't had much of a plan in doing so, I just jump on see how I feel. It was particularly easy when the cricket and tennis was on the TV, but even at other times I was amazed how easy it was to bash out a few kms. Only once did I give up after just a couple of hundred metres, and even then I felt good for having gone through the motions. Most days I've done a minimum 3km and as much as 12km. Had I drawn up a training plan, it would be much harder because it's an imposition. This way, it's just something I do each day. And it's amazing how often I've put in an hour's session, and somehow it just seems to fit in to my lifestyle. I don't have to schedule it, it just miraculously slides in there nice and easy.
In fact it's all rather Zen - now firmly implanted in my psyche, it just materialises each day and works itself out.
OK so yesterday's bad run makes me think I'm still a long way from being able to schedule a serious race committment, but I'm thinking now that I will get there, and this is the year.
For now I'll keep up the daily runs and get there by stealth... at least I'm off that train.
De-training.
