March 2011

[marathondan]

Week 16 – 3 weeks to go

I canned the short fartlek after feeling slightly iffy earlier in the week, so it was a week of two very different runs.

Thursday night was the best tempo run I can remember in a long time, 10 miles at a decent pace, finishing strongly and feeling like I could have easily gone on and completed a good half marathon. It suddenly felt like I was hitting peak fitness, and all the training had been worthwhile.

Sunday night called for 20 miles. What a comedown. In fact you might as well read the entry for the same run in 2009, as it was pretty much the same. Plenty of walk breaks, and I seriously considered giving up around mile 16. However, I pushed on, and decided that two miles from home I would switch from the podcasts to the tried and tested feelgood soundtrack, which has consistently carried me home over the last few months. I struggled and shuffled to the landmark point, hit the skip button... and just got a succession of Radio 4 presenters / Tom Williams introducing their programmes. I cycled through a couple of times… where was the music? The answer – still on my hard drive, I’d forgotten to copy it across. Arse arse arse. There was nothing left for it but to shuffle, walk and limp the rest of the way home.

But all is not as bad as it seems:

1. Thanks to my meticulous records, I can see that I finished 45 secs faster than exactly the same route in 2009 – when I went on to run 3:57 in London. So I shouldn’t worry too much.

2. I know the cause of the problem: shoes. I always resent shelling out for a new pair of shoes every year just because the cushioning has gone, and this year I foolishly got it into my head that I could slightly modify my footfall and eliminate the need for heavy cushioning. But that takes careful planning and exercise, you can’t just throw it into a marathon programme and hope it will work. I checked my logs, and my current shoes have done over 550 miles, so the cushioning must be battered. No, I don’t like having to wear cushioned shoes, and there are all the old arguments about them causing more injuries than they prevent, but I have to remember that for someone of my build (6’4 / 200+ lbs) I wouldn’t be able to run marathons without them. They’re a necessary evil. Steve Asics (or whatever their CEO is called) has got me by the balls (of the feet) and we both know it. So it’s off to the shoe shop this week to get some last minute new leather.

I can categorically say that it was the pins that were the problem. Engine-wise I still felt strong, which is great, but the quads were just shot from the pavement-hammer.

Otherwise… great excitement as the race pack has arrived, and thoughts turn to logistics. The costume has had its final structural test (shoulder pads – check) and I won’t put it on again until race day now, because the paint flakes off every time I remove it.

Hopefully this run has just checked my over-enthusiasm at the right time.

Miles for the week: 29.4