Running through the madness.
It's nearly London marathon time again, and I passed my long, slow jog on the treadmill today by watching the telecast of last year's race, conveniently downloaded from the interweb and watched on my tablet which sits at just the right height on a convenient ledge on the treadie. Eliud Kipchoge won the 2016 race in 2h03m05s, which then was the second fastest ever marathon over an accredited course, and just eight mere seconds outside the record mark set by Dennis Kimetto. This year Kipchoge will be absent, as far as I can tell because he's concentrating just at the moment on the hugely ambitious Nike 'Breaking2' project to take the marathon record below the magical two-hour mark. Well, good luck to you, sir.
I shake my head at such super-human efforts, but still find it very inspiring stuff, which is why I happily watch it, especially when killing time on the treadmill. I take some solace in at least being able to run for as long, or longer than the elite athletes do in these marathons.
I mention London, but there'll be no April race of any sort or anywhere for me this year, not even the local 10km fun run due mainly to work commitments, but a May half marathon and a full marathon in July fits the schedule somewhat better in any case. My base building continues to put plenty of miles in the training log, and I'm now pushing things just a little with extra efforts on my tempo runs. I also added a 'fast finish' to today's long, slow effort which seems to be a fashionable twist to the training schedule these days. It seems worthwhile, although I'm not clear in my own mind as to why, but it does feel right and gave me a nice feeling of satisfaction today, so I guess it's a good fit with my training.
So today's 28km effort is my longest run since the Canberra marathon just on four years ago. It has been too long since I regularly ran these sorts of distances, but I'm once again churning out 20+ kilometre efforts on a weekly basis, and with my total weekly mileage now averaging well over 50km.
Meanwhile, with Armageddon threatening to break out in Syria (or maybe it already started there some six years back), the world has grown an ever more uncomfortable place in which to try and thrive. Being able to focus instead on my running and have it yield such positive results is like a God-send, and I intend to make the most of it, race or no-race. I may not be able to make sense of what's going on in Syria, but for the moment, my running makes perfect sense.
Onward, then!
April May be alright.
