OK well it's fun run season here. I've not done much running of late ("Exactly how much running have you done MLC Man?" "Ssshush you!"), but I have done a heap of cycling and walking, and a couple of shorter races should be just the ticket to get my running legs back. Actually the knees have been dodgy of late, so it'll be a test to see if ibuprofen is sufficient or whether it's time to get the dreaded x-ray thing happening and consider the surgical options. I think mainly it's the colder weather causing them some grief, so probably a bit of running will do them some good.
Anyway, time to hit the trail again and see what's what.
April, April . . . Anvil? Appropriate as I feel like I'm carrying one at the moment.
Advil? Seems a better option, what with your anti-inflammatory addiction and all . . .
The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph
A renewed burst of enthusiasm has again got me thinking about this running malarkey, so it's time again to wear my mid life crisis on my running shorts for all to gawk at and wonder about...
As I was bouncing along on the treadmill this evening, in between keeping half an eye on Rocky II which was playing on the teev and trying not to slip on my badly-needing-replacement treadmill mat, I was considering again why I do this running thing at all. And I got to thinking back many yonks ago when I helped produce a radio doco on juvenile delinquents. The programme was based around two weeks worth of interviews recorded inside a juvenile detention centre. At one point the man in charge of the centre was asked a very simple question to which he gave a rather profound answer. When asked why kids stole cars, he answered simply "Because they're good at it - we all tend to do things we're good at. That's all there is to it." It's an insight that has stayed with me, and which makes me wonder why I took up (and largely persist with) running, when clearly I am not naturally much good at it.
When we're good at something, motivation is not really a problem, but when we try to attempt something we're not necessarily well equipped for, it requires rather large amounts of determination and effort. And this only works so long as the perceived benefit outweighs the cost of attaining it.
In other words, you'd better have a darn good reason for attempting something as difficult as training for a marathon if you are to stand a snowball's chance in Hades of withstanding the barrage of pain, anguish and torment that comes with the required training.
So I have an ever compounding problem: I'm not naturally gifted as a runner; I have no real idea of what I'm hoping to achieve (well I have my reasons but they're rather vague, to be honest); and I am getting ever older - a rather unsavoury fact about which my increasingly crappy knees are forever reminding me*.
I've been looking at my very modest running achievements to date, which essentially amount to a rather pathetic collection of motley race bibs, a small bundle of finisher's certificates and precisely two race medallions. I've also run a half marathon distance exactly twice, and only in training. Some, probably many people here at RC will run more distance in a year than I have ever run (well, in my adult life anyway). And I think it's because I always seem to end up in a cycle of futility:
Motivation.
Enthusiasm as fitness improves.
Motivation fades to determination as the training becomes plain hard work.
Something (usually injury) breaks the training cycle.
I feel good! I still have the benefits of fitness but without the pain of constant training.
Motivation and determination fade as the benefits of training are perceived to be less.
Lethargy rears its ugly head.
I became unfit and slovenly again.
Because I never get good enough at it, I'm constantly seeking the motivation required to get out there and do it... and so the cycle seems doomed to repeat itself.
BUT, one thing about the aging process is that you can't reverse it. So if I'm ever going to do anything significant, I always feel as if I've got to give it my best shot *this time*.
I honestly don't know if I want to run a marathon - I've done enough running to know it's going to be very difficult for me; but I do still feel that I should attempt either a marathon or the full-blown run of the Point to Pinnacle race which I am proud to have race-walked, but would still love to run. Difficult, but. I was well on the way last year when illness (which at least makes a change from injury) destroyed my training schedule and I found it too difficult to ramp up the training to compensate for the lost time. So, perhaps this year? It's a big thing though - it's a lot of work, and life always manages to throw so many obstacles at it that without that very clear reason for doing it, it's not going to happen even if I remain injury-free.
Well there are two big motivating factors inherent in my (relatively) new digs: from my living room window I have a commanding view of the pinnacle in question - Mount Wellington, and the road that winds up its slope. The desire to run that sodding thing is genuinely strong. And the other view that inspires me is from my kitchen window, which is a view of the local cemetery...
(Heavy sigh). So here we go again. We're away. I'll keep you posted.
MLC Man.
P.S. My best track du jour of late has to be New York Dolls' Personality Crisis
*Gratuitous use of semicolons designed deliberately to elicit annoyance from Andy; among other reasons.
Mid Life Crisis Man Wrote:*Gratuitous use of semicolons designed deliberately to elicit annoyance from Andy; among other reasons.
As a champion of the semi-colon, their use here resulted in me exploding with joy, leaping from my chair and running round the garden stark naked, lustily singing Jerusalem.
Take that as a mark of approval.
Great post, and like all good ones, it set me thinking. You're right. I can identify with pretty much all you say, even though my excuses are paltry compared with your long-term injury, against which you manfully struggle.
I'm starting to feel the sap rising myself.
OK, this weekend is pretty much written off with football and beer-drinking commitments. But Monday, I'll get out there again.
I still have this shockingly firm intention to make it to the next Ashes series in Australia, which I believe is late 2010/early 2011. Pencil me in for either the Point to Pinnacle in November 2010 or there's always the Tasmania Marathon in early Jan 2011. The Chocolate factory finish sounds good...
There are many types of runner, just as there are many types of people. And we each have different reasons to run, or to not run. So I'm happy to read what the Guardian writer said, and am interested in his perspective, but I'll resist the temptation to let it dilute my own experiences.
I've spoken to, or read, many, many long-term runners who've never run a marathon, have no intention to run one, and feel no need to apologise for it. It must be exasperating at times: to be a relatively good runner, watching the London marathon industry chugging along.
It's true that there's a lot of hype around marathons but for many of us, the experience -- not just of the race, but the training and the plannng -- is a genuinely valuable and exhilarating journey. Probability tells us that not everyone will respond in the same way though. As the writer is a lifelong runner, it may well be that he's more likely to be cynical about the marathon hype, which draws in so many non-athletes to become ephemeral marathon heroes -- before they resume their place on the couch.
Beware cheap supermarket lager. From what I read, you'll become a binge drinker, and start hanging round on street corners with your mates, shouting at joggers and suffering low self-esteem. Don't shoot the messenger though....
El Gordo
Great things are done when men and mountains meet.
As glaconman has again reduced my training blog to a discussion about beer, I'll come to the party (if you'll excuse the pun)...
When I was a lad, packaged beer (that you bought from a "bottle shop") came in two sizes: the 750ml (26 fl oz) "long neck" or the 375 ml can ("tinnie"). Then some money-grubbing wanker in an office tower somewhere decided there was a market for a trendy European beer called "Heineken". Nothing terribly wrong with that - I'll drink Heineken myself if there's nothing else to hand, except it was only available in tiny little 330 ml bottles - a trifling amount really.
Gradually the tinnie was replaced by the "stubby", a 375 ml glass bottle that was hugely successful, indeed it even successfully killed off the 750 ml longneck for a while. However, more and more European and then American, Asian and African beer appeared over the years, all of it in those piddling little 330 ml bottles. Smaller Australian brewers began emulating them in an attempt to make their beer seem ever trendier, and pretty soon everyone was packaging their beer in those tiny 330 ml sample bottles. It is now very, very hard to find an Aussie beer packaged in 375 ml stubbies at all (except for the very working class "VB", which is kind of like the Aussie equivalent of Fosters*.
However, one proud Aussie private family-owned operation, and maker of my favourite beer is fighting back and supplies of the range of Coopers Ales and Stouts are readily available in the classic 750 ml long neck.
And so my #1 training beer is one I may have mentioned before - Coopers Sparkling Ale. But I have made a pledge which will make Mr.Cooper fearful, but it has to be done. 1 long neck = 5km running. Despite being a relatively powerful beer, this will ensure my chances of drunkenness are very, very slim. In fact this might just save my life, as the 750 ml version of the beer is superb - quite superior to the smaller bottle, and not expensive. Which is a dangerous thing. Pete Townsend long ago gave Remy Martin cognac a vote of thanks on his "Empty Glasses" album for saving his life "by making the stuff so bloody expensive". I am not quite that bad an alco, but I understand his sentiment.
Um OK, not too sure why I told you all this, except I know there might just be one or two occasional beer drinkers among you all out there. Hard to believe I know among a fraternity of superior athletes, but there you are; stranger things happen at sea apparently.
I'm off for a run before I die of thirst.
Cheers.
MLC Man.
P.S. The pic shows two loves of my life - my battered Gel Kayanos (sorry Ana, these are size 10) and 15km worth of Coopers Sparkling. Look away now if you don't like seeing a grown man cry...
* Fosters is very rarely seen in Australia. Certainly I've not seen it for years. Thank Christ.
After a not-so-brilliant week of short, stuttering, abortive runs I bit the bullet and went for a long slowie this (Saturday) morning. In theory, given my cycling, walking and occasional run of late, I figured I should have enough aerobic fitness for another half marathon, so I plotted myself a cunning plan; dosed myself with ibuprofen and headed for the treadmill armed with a bottle of coloured salty water (why it costs so much is beyond me - in the old days long distance runners used sea water mixed with brown sugar, which is essentially the same thing) and grim determination and Elton John's 60th birthday bash on the idiot box to take my mind off runny-type things.
The plan was very simple - jog slowly, take a 1 minute walk break every quarter hour and see if I couldn't manage another half marathon distance; and never mind the time.
Well all was fine for the first 90 minutes, then it started getting a bit tricky but I pounded away at the treadmill as the older, heavier, hatless, and largely hairless Elton likewise pounded away at the piano. At two hours I stopped for a banana and to refill the dirty seawater bottle. At 2:04:26 I reflected that last September our mate Haile Gebrselassie had completed the Berlin marathon in exactly that time to reclaim the world record. I was nowhere near even half that distance, but at least I was still running, and at 2h15 I knew a distance PB was now assured, and as the half marathon and then the 21.4km marks went past (21.4 is the distance of the Point to Pinnacle race) I unashamedly threw my arms in the air as I visualised the finish of both events and then plodded on to a 22km PB where I finally stopped, once again a happy and contented runner.
This may not seem such a great achievement in such illustrious company as the RC League of Champions, but - as Bono often likes to say - I'm taking it. It certainly opens the door to a whole new range of possibilities. But first I'll wait and see how my knee responds over the next couple of days. If it's manageable (and I suspect it will be) all things will then be possible.
However, I'm still very slow. And it's the speed work which really kills the knees, so it's still softly softly for a bit. But at least I know the distance isn't an issue.
Track du jour - Elton's Rocket Man, for being nicely ironic.
Very impressed. And it was all done on a treadmill If I had a mere 330ml of your mental toughness I'd be running sub-3 hour marathons!!!!
Now get out there and get some fresh air
I've always got far more out of training for, as opposed to actually running, marathons. Races for me are a good excuse to train but it's the training I love. Sick monkey I may be but that's the truth of it.
Huge sympathies with MLCMan's cycle of futility; there's always something - injury, illness, work commitments - to stop us achieving what we perceive as our potential. Reading of El Gordo's recent pain got me thinking about how we (in general) so often find reasons - genuine enough - to not reach for the stars. Bob Rotella, the much-parodied golfers' guru, says that the one or two perfect shots a golfer hits in a round is not a fluke but a glimpse of the players' true potential. I've always felt I should be able to run much faster, yet there's some weird psychological barrier that I just can't break through. I get this odd feeling when I'm tired or my calf or knee is playing up that this is the testing point; if I run through this particular obstacle I'll reach another level. I don't of course; I back off, whimpering, softly cursing my misfortune.
Perhaps this is the difference between people who achieve and redefine their goals and the rest of us; when they face those barriers they jump over, go around or run through them. Most of us accept the inevitable, let the waves of reason that pulse from our daily lives wash over us as we take a whispered vow to slay that particular dragon next time.
MLCMan is one of the rare breed who, when faced with a stack of reasons to pack it in, cry 'stuff it' and charge up their mountain, bloody-minded resolve gripped in their clenched teeth like a Gurkha's Kukri. That tale remains one I go back to when I'm feeling sorry for myself. It fills me with shame and inspiration in equal measure, and invariably has me stumbling out the door and into the hills.
[SIZE="1"]Should be enough gratuitous semi-colon usage for ya.[/SIZE]
The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph
Thanks guys, I appreciate the comments, but I still feel as if I have loads to learn from you all on the guts and grit front.
Attached though is a photo taken this morning from the local canal, a short jog from my home. It's another view of my mountain - if I do finally run the bugger, then it definitely will be a gutsy effort!
Feeling good today - 24 hours after the big run I'm a little sore in the quads but nothing serious and the knees , feet etc are great!
"The real battle is against yourself. You are going to be overtaken. There will be extremely good marathon runners in rhinoceros costumes. Try not to be distracted by that."
How wonderful to be part of a sport that throws up such quotations in a serious context.
marathondan Wrote:I just love this piece of expert analysis:
"The real battle is against yourself. You are going to be overtaken. There will be extremely good marathon runners in rhinoceros costumes. Try not to be distracted by that."
How wonderful to be part of a sport that throws up such quotations in a serious context.
Yup. If EG hadn't been distracted by that badly shaven nun called "Glen" in that first FLM of his, he may have gone sub 5 at his first attempt... there's a lesson for all of us there.
April Bloody April, Nothing Rhymes With April.
