Concrete training.
Two weeks to race day.
This morning's long, slow run was the same as last week's, i.e. 90 minutes of slow, steady, plodding, followed by a lung-busting 30 minutes at 'race' pace, which of course makes it difficult, but then, that's the point of it, I suppose. According to the book I'm reading, it's the combination of endurance training followed by a longish burst of race pace when you least want it that teaches you about 'finishing strong' and learning more generally to pick up the speed when you are far from feeling as if you can. That's the theory, anyhow. I don't yet know if it really works, but I have to say it's oddly satisfying finishing the long run with a much harder, faster, effort.
The day had actually started rather earlier than intended. It was to be a modest lie-in sort of a morning, coming as it did after four successive early shifts, which included two of the 03:30 super-early starts needed to squeeze in a run. However, at 07:30 this morning there were no less than three concrete trucks lined up, buckets churning as they waited to pour a new platform at the train station across the road. Meanwhile, on the other side of us, our neighbours had employed a roof cleaner who had, I suspect, the city's noisiest compressor set up on their front lawn, which is separated from our bedroom by only a paling fence and their driveway. This compressor and a frightful hissing emanating from the cleaner's pressure hose nozzle on the roof was awakening not just us, but the entire neighbourhood that hadn't already been woken by the convoy of cement trucks at the station. As I lay there now more than wide awake, deafened in my own bed by the various industrial activities which by any normal standards were happening far too early on a Saturday morning, I took stock of the situation and resigned myself to starting my scheduled long run somewhat earlier than expected.
But, to hell with it, if I was up earlier than needed, then I was going to have some breakfast first. A mug of hot tea and not one, but two wicked slices of buttered toast and Vegemite (a rare treat given we consume hardly any bread in these low-carb times) and I was raring to go. Odd then, it was, that as I put on my running shoes, my left knee and right shin started whining pitifully, producing sharp, but in reality fairly lame stabbing pains as if trying to dissuade me from even attempting a run today. These days of course I'm used to these pre-run shenanigans which appear all too often, but almost never have even a modicum of legitimacy behind them. Sure enough, as soon as I tied my shoelaces and stood up, the pain subsided and I went about collecting water, gels and the like before starting the run.
Gels, did I say? Yes, gels. Of course, gels aren't really necessary for a two-hour run, especially of the long and slow variety, but if I'm to attempt the full marathon distance later this year, then one of the big hurdles I have to overcome (apart from the more obvious one of actually running the hundreds of required kilometres in training) is to get my tummy to better tolerate food on the run, and so I'm starting the process early, slowly building the number of gels I can tolerate whilst on these longer efforts.
So, as astute readers may have gathered, I've been trying a few new and different things of late. These include:
* Disciplined warm up and cool down before and after every run. This has actually proven to be very useful in greatly minimising soreness (and, I hope, injury).
* Training myself to run with a higher cadence. This, conversely, is proving difficult, but I'm persisting. No obvious benefits as yet.
* Regularly consuming gels on my longer runs as part of my 'digestive training'. Necessary, but hard to assess any benefit as yet.
* More cross-training. Well, this is mainly extra walking, but the books say it all counts, so I'm counting it.
* Improving my breathing and running posture. I think this is working; it's not always easy to tell.
* Stretching more often. This is definitely helpful, but it's still not ingrained sufficiently to be a daily habit.
* Drinking less booze. I'm sorry to say that this has been an abject failure.
And so today's gel-munching, cadence-boosted effort gave me a total of 41 kilometres for the week across four runs, which is pretty close to where I want to be at this stage. I still have no clear idea of what sort of time goal I should set for the half marathon, but I'm also fairly relaxed about it. It will be what it will be, and a more-than decent launching pad for what comes next.
Mighty May
