September, departing summer hath assumed

[Charliecat5]

Askwith is already in my heart… Whalley I have not read, but in this technological age that was easily resolved.   And Wow… in the first two pages he has done a much better job of articulating exactly what I was trying to say in my last outburst.  

“Let’s suppose that people replaced the easy, all pervasive lure of the city marathon with the world of birdsong, cloudbursts and mud.  Replaced the structure of the training plan with the freedom of following their nose.  The taped, marked, marshalled roads with the adventure of not knowing exactly where they were going to go.  That, to my mind, would be winning.  No demons, just you and the world, working it out together”.   Perfect. 

As for running… I’ve been out twice since the weekend.   Last night took me up to the top of Kingston Ridge and back.  A familiar run, I know exactly how far it was and have a pretty good idea of my pace (poor).  Tonight was about exploring.   The original plan was to run from home to the top of the golf course and then head onto Malling Down to head and back through the valley past the allotments and home via Pells.   However, it was heading towards 7pm, so having offered to pick up la famiglia from the station I decided to drive to the station and run from there.   Best laid plans and all that… they wanted fish and chips for tea… so we drove to South Street which thus marked the start of my run. 

Now usually before I run up Chapel Hill I have already had a mile or so warm up.  Running it cold was somewhat challenging… made bearable by the remarkable views from the top.  By the time I had reached the top of Malling the sun had had time to set the clouds on fire.  “I haven’t got a camera, but I have a memory now, a memory I can carry around for ever”*.  This is what I call running.

In terms of running naked… so far, so good.  I have no idea how far I ran tonight.  I’m guessing it was around 3 miles, but I can’t be sure.

In terms of health, I am still struggling.  Every time I try to put the engine under load it is as though the air filter is blocked… the carburettor simply cannot get enough oxygen.   Very frustrating. 

On the way home I passed a man carrying a palm tree in a shopping trolley… that’s not something you see every day.

*Boff Whalley

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

Whalley's good. Askwith's good. McDougall is fantastic. What we need though are a few more RC authors. There's some good writing being laid down round here. Maybe a compendium?

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

In terms of running with or without the technogadgets, I have also done both. For me, I still like to run with a GPS, but don't always look at it and can, if so inclined, quite easily run without a plan and only look at the watch afterwards with a vague curiosity as to how far and/or how fast I ran. But I get the point that one is still some kind of slave to the device when doing even that.

I do dream of running for its own sake in some kind of alpine paradise. That would be fantastic. Reality, however, is for me far removed from that. The watch at least gives it purpose when it's no longer that enjoyable.

[Sweder]

In terms of running with or without the technogadgets, I have also done both. For me, I still like to run with a GPS, but don't always look at it and can, if so inclined, quite easily run without a plan and only look at the watch afterwards with a vague curiosity as to how far and/or how fast I ran. But I get the point that one is still some kind of slave to the device when doing even that.

Ditto. I use Runkeeper (on my phone). I turn the voice updates off and never look at it during a run (phone stays in my pocket, unless I stop for any length of time, ie for the dogs, and have to pause RK). Afterwards I can interrogate the data, or not. I'm used to this now, so every run is pretty much a 'free' run, constrained only by the time or the gumption I have to invest. 

I've long thought a compendium to be the way forward. We tried the podcast route (we were right to junk that, it was horrible). The difference in running and writing styles would make a decent short story-style collection, perhaps in small book format, the kind you find at the checkout of a bookstore (remember those?). Relatively low cost, both to produce and for buyers.

Ray Hamilton, a friend of mine and SPs, has published a few 'Miscellanies' of his own, with some success. I'll speak to him about this. We'd have to seek each author's permission, of course. I see these as a series of small books, each with a theme or 'flavour' that ties the stories together. We could do one on the P2P featuring extracts from various race reports/ travelogues/ diaries. This is not meant to be a great commercial enterprise - it would most likely lose money - but if the process is relatively painless it might encourage me to go for the bigger story - the story of the Moyleman. That's the one I really want to get out there some day.

[Charliecat5]

The good news...  I ran 16 miles today.    The bad news… it took a bloody long time.

On Friday morning I got up early and went out for a run… and for the first time in three weeks I could actually feel oxygen getting into my lungs... it was all reasonably pleasant.  I ran approximately 5 miles, but of course I can’t be sure due to the lack of anything technical monitoring my every step.

This gave me the confidence to try to beat my 15 mile barrier today.  This time I did wear my watch, as I wanted to know my distance, but I turned off both the pace and also the split times – so all I could see was the distance.   The run was a tough one.  Kingston Ridge, Valley of Death, back onto the ridge, Southease, Itford Hill, Glynde and then over Caburn.    In total 702 metres of climbing.

However, whilst all of this is good… it took me three and a half hours to cover the distance… which was pitifully slow.   The only positive I can take is that my moving pace wasn’t too bad… it was the stops that murdered it overall.    The lead Moyleman guys ran an additional 10 miles in 30 fewer minutes.  Good grief.

On another note, I completed my ‘200 miles in 100 days’ today.  204 miles in 85 days.  I’ll take that.

   

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

You are a champion. End of message.

[Charliecat5]

I really couldn’t be arsed to go running last night, even though it had been planned all week.  And I very nearly didn’t make it; but following a stern word from Mrs CC5, I went.   I had decided to do a quick 3 miles around Sweder’s circuit, which I achieved, but my bloody lungs are shredded… I was really struggling to get enough oxygen into the engine.   This was very frustrating; particularly as last week I thought I was getting better.

I fear this is starting to put the JS20 in jeopardy.  I’ve had my doubts about it for a number of weeks, as I am far behind my training schedule, but have been, and still am, keeping my options open.  There are still four weeks of training available to me.  I’ll see what happens on Sunday’s long-haul run.  If I can crack out a decent mileage at a decent pace… then we could be on.  If I can’t then… … … …

Even with shredded lungs I managed a reasonably respectable pace last night – 8.18 min/mi which includes a steep hill.  This is still quite a way from my record on this route, but acceptable given the circumstances.  You may of course be wondering how I know this, given that I am now running naked!

I’ve fallen off the band-wagon.  The watch is back on my wrist.  I took it out last weekend for my long’un and realised that if I switch off all the notifications and just leave it tracking distance, I can leave it alone and not worry about my performance.  Even on last night’s run, it was noticeable that I was running to my body’s needs and wants, rather to what the head was trying to tell it.  Weak willed… may be.  But it seems a fair compromise to me!

On an interesting note… I was looking at my total elevation over the last 89 days and have now climbed the equivalent of Gangkhar Puensum in the Himalayas, which is an unclimbed mountain of 7,570 metres (according to Wiki).    Everest is 8,848 metres – not there’s a target.  

[Charliecat5]

Hmmmm

I went for a run at the weekend.  I had about 12 miles planned over new running ground (but previously biked ground).  I managed 3 miles before I gave up and turned for home – achieving 5 miles in total.  Same old issue – heavy lungs and lack of oxygen when ramping up the power.

The ongoing question: is this an issue of the mind or is it real? 

This question has led to me to do two things this week.

1)      I have made enquiries and will be joining the local athletics club.  They seem a really cracking bunch of people and do quite a lot of their running over the Downs.  This hopefully will provide me with renewed motivation and also the kick up the arse I need to improve.  I love running with BGG (some of my best runs have been with the old bugger), but our respective workloads make the alignment of diaries quite challenging.   This gives me the opportunity to make some new running friends - they were impressed that I am a co-founder of the Moyleman - I have kudos before they have even seen me run!
 
2)      I went to see the Doctor this morning – the lack of oxygen issue (whether real or otherwise) has been having an impact for over a month now and over the last couple of days it has got worse.  I don’t do Doctors, so this was quite a rare event for me.  The outcome is that nothing is materially wrong… but I need to listen to my body and ease back on the running for a couple of weeks. 

This has just confirmed the view I have feared for the last few of weeks.  The JS20 ain’t going to happen. 

I’m going to sit in the corner now for a while and sulk.

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

Hmmmm
 
2)      I went to see the Doctor this morning – the lack of oxygen issue (whether real or otherwise) has been having an impact for over a month now and over the last couple of days it has got worse.  I don’t do Doctors, so this was quite a rare event for me.  The outcome is that nothing is materially wrong… but I need to listen to my body and ease back on the running for a couple of weeks. 

This has just confirmed the view I have feared for the last few of weeks.  The JS20 ain’t going to happen. 

I’m going to sit in the corner now for a while and sulk.

Hmm indeed. In my not inconsiderable experience with medicos concerning running fitness and the like, they nearly always say that kind of thing, but rarely is it sensible, just overly cautious.

Even so, do not fret over the JS20. There'll be plenty of other races, especially now that you are joining a team of misfits and masochists, i.e. a genuinely real athletics club.

Just don't forget us back here in virtual-running-club world. We're still here. Really, we are.

To prove it, I'm going for a run in the morning.

 :o

[glaconman]

Hope you're managing to get back into full-working-order. The body is a remarkable thing but spanners get thrown into the works occasionally.

Certainly joining a club has the potential to be a game changer in terms of your interest in training and competing.

And, as MLCMM said, having target races is ok but you also need to be realistic and re calibrate from time-to-time.

[Sweder]

Which club has let you in - ah, blessed their number with your presence?

[Charliecat5]

Which club has let you in - ah, blessed their number with your presence?

I went to see the nice men and women at LewesAC.  They seem a great bunch.   Trouble is, since popping along a couple of weeks ago I haven't been able to make it back there for a proper test drive.  Firstly, I was told to give the running a rest by the doctor, and then work, work, work.  Plus having pulled out of the JS20... my mojo seems to have taken matters into its own hands and continued running... but sadly over the horizon without me.

I need to get back out there... so if you fancy a little excursion this Sunday I could be tempted. 

With a bit of luck I will be able to join the professionals on Thursday this week.  What they will make of me I don’t know.  I did mention that I run with you… they just kinda frowned and rolled their eyes… 

Work wise this autumn, it has gone from being busy to absolutely crazy.  Good from a work point of view… but fitting in the running will become quite challenging… albeit all the more important if I am to have any chance of retaining my marbles. 

P.s. I have just read Glaconman’s report – bloody ‘ell.



 

[Sweder]

Sunday morning's good for me. I'm off to QPR around 11 so 9am would be about right for an 8 - 10 miler
Happy to do less if that suits you, or more, but more would mean starting slightly earlier.

Work is harry bloody hatstand at the moment. I got back from holiday and haven't stopped since.
Off to Spain with SP next weekend then Hamburg and Panama, all before mid October. I WILL run in Panama, thought. The rainforest trails are astonishing.

[Charliecat5]

Sunday morning's good for me. I'm off to QPR around 11 so 9am would be about right for an 8 - 10 miler
Happy to do less if that suits you, or more, but more would mean starting slightly earlier.

Let's go for 9am at the pond and see what happens... running free as it were... 

[glaconman]

Work wise this autumn, it has gone from being busy to absolutely crazy.  Good from a work point of view… but fitting in the running will become quite challenging… albeit all the more important if I am to have any chance of retaining my marbles. 

P.s. I have just read Glaconman’s report – bloody ‘ell.

You could move to Yorkshire. Two West Sussex properties would probably buy a small village in the South Pennines. Get a south facing garden for your veg. A paper-round for your (proper) beer tab (optimistic). Write that novel. Run every day (if you don't freeze to death).

 

[Charliecat5]

Work wise this autumn, it has gone from being busy to absolutely crazy.  Good from a work point of view… but fitting in the running will become quite challenging… albeit all the more important if I am to have any chance of retaining my marbles. 

P.s. I have just read Glaconman’s report – bloody ‘ell.

You could move to Yorkshire. Two West Sussex properties would probably buy a small village in the South Pennines. Get a south facing garden for your veg. A paper-round for your (proper) beer tab (optimistic). Write that novel. Run every day (if you don't freeze to death).

 

I like where you are heading with this... but a few points:

Saying we're from West Sussex is like asking a Yorkshireman if he's from Lancashire.  We live in East Sussex and are proud to do so.  Although I am from the peak district.

I don't have two East Sussex properties (and if you're suggesting that Sweder and I should sell our respective properties and move in together then no.  NO.  NO. Have you not met him?)

A paper round sounds good.

After Saturday night I'm not drinking again, ever (well for October).  It involved a lot of beer, a game of rugby, a police man, a night on the sofa and the best part of Sunday in bed.  It didn't involve any running.  

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

'Ever' ... 'October' ... hmm, are you suggesting the world will end in October, or merely that your concept of 'ever' doesn't stretch beyond four weeks? Haven't you ever heard of publishers' lead times, damn it!!