The plan for my holiday running was a simple one. Run every second day, and maintain a good level of fitness. The reality however was even simpler; to be honest it was downright stark. The sad statistics are these: seven weeks away yielded just three runs for a total of 20 kilometres. That was it. Three lousy runs and not even a half marathon in total distance covered.
Sigh.
To be positive for a moment, they were three quite memorable runs in three different countries. The first a chilly jog along the waterfront in Ireland. The second a ghostly run around an apparently deserted island in Amsterdam; and the third and most challenging was a leg and lung-testing crawl up Black Cap with the inimitable Sweder on his home turf. This last run was of course the best, in spite of my appalling lack of form. A gloriously warm and sunny day, the mighty Ash in his element, and me just trying to hang on as we scrambled up the Sussex Downs (up the Downs??) toward Black Cap - perhaps RC’s most written-about run, challenged only by EG’s beloved Kennet canal plod in Berkshire.
But holidays must end and it’s time to rule that line in the running log and start again. The first challenge should be straight-forward, but given my current state of lardy barge-arseness the annual 14km City-To-Surf fun run is going to hurt. Never mind, pain is what the P2P is all about, so I’ll consider the C2S in just six days time reasonable training. I’ll squeeze a couple of 10km runs in before race day and see how we go.
One thing is for sure though – this time I’m going to train better and harder than I have for any other P2P. This will be my fourth crack at it, and this year I’m determined to finish with a big PB. With a small gaggle of RCers also heading south for the hellish mountain run, it’s going to be a race to remember, so I’m dead-set keen to make it a good one.
***STOP PRESS***
During the night after posting that last entry I suffered an excruciating calf cramp which slightly pulled the muscle and thus ruled out this morning's 10km run. Double sigh. It looks as if I'm starting this campaign from rock bottom. Oh well, that just makes the stratospheric rise to success all the more sweet!
That's annoying. Curiously I suffered a similar condition after not running for a couple of weeks (whilst in Rotterdam). I put it down to a lot of walking on incredibly hard exhibition hall floors, but perhaps there's more to it. Fine now (touch wood).
The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph
A fine, trouble-free run this morning to test out the calf and get some k's in before Sunday's race. The calf felt back to 95% so I went out confident but slowly at first, gradually building speed to around 10km race pace for the last quarter hour, and all felt fine.
Well, I say fine, but the sad truth is that the MLCMM bod is in pretty poor form after seven weeks of sloth and debauchery. I jumped on the super hi-tech scales this morning and my weight has ballooned out to its heaviest in over two years. Body fat, lean muscle, H2O, basal metabolic rate and BMI figures are all at similarly poor levels, so I really have my work cut out for me over the next three months as I get in shape for the P2P. This is going to be harder than I thought.
10.26km 60 mins
YTD 691.3km
Track du Jour: This one says it all unfortunately...
I've still not got rid of my persistent calf problem. It seems I can walk indefinitely without it being bothered, but a run of any kind, even the simple 40 minute '2 mins run / 1 walk' I tried 2 mornings ago produced that old familiar ache. Not a pull or a tear, just a... pain, and one that hurts a lot for a few hours before subsiding gradually over about 3 days. Annoying.
El Gordo
Great things are done when men and mountains meet.
(09-08-2013, 07:42 AM)El Gordo Wrote: I've still not got rid of my persistent calf problem. It seems I can walk indefinitely without it being bothered, but a run of any kind, even the simple 40 minute '2 mins run / 1 walk' I tried 2 mornings ago produced that old familiar ache. Not a pull or a tear, just a... pain, and one that hurts a lot for a few hours before subsiding gradually over about 3 days. Annoying.
Might be best to leave the running for a few weeks and then try again. As you get fitter, stronger and lose more weight with your alpine walking, things might start to come together for you on the running front.
Stop-gap 30 minute jog tonight ahead of Sunday's race. Still feeling stiff and sore from lack of running, but we'll get there. Will be nice to just get this race out of the way so I can concentrate on P2P. As I need to do. Muchly.
5.05km 30mins
YTD 696.4km
Track du Jour: Surprisingly, I don't think this one has featured before. Non-Oz viewers may not know that the lead singer, Peter Garrett, is now a minister in the federal government (though soon to retire). Given his dancing style, this may seem a little strange, but it's true! Great clip!
I arrived at race start as late as possible. At the back of the crowd, behind even the road barriers due to the huge numbers of runners waiting there, I too waited as the elite and ‘preferred’ red-pen runners up the road ahead of us started their race a little before those of us in the green pen. Across the road from us the still slower blue pen runners were also assembling in their thousands. And behind us still further, arriving also in their thousands throughout the city were the yellow and orange waves of fun runners, pram pushers and walkers for their later start in this, the world’s biggest organised run with very nearly 70,000 people (from 85,000 official entrants) attempting the undulating 14km from Hyde Park in the city to the iconic Bondi Beach in the south-east.
It was, it must be said, a little strange that I was there at all. Only one week and two hours prior, I had unstrapped myself from the belly of a gargantuan Emirates A380 after seven weeks abroad. On our return, as if mimicking the A380’s size, my suitcase weighed 8 kg more than when we left which was bad enough, but worse my belly had an additional 3 kg of blubber surrounding it, evidence of a holiday of minimal running and, dare I say, maximal indulgence. Since arriving back in Australia a mere two brief runs had confirmed what I of course knew – that I was in somewhat less than PB form for this year’s City 2 Surf. Hence my decision to start right at the back and treat it as no more than a slow training run. Albeit a training run with tens of thousands of other runners, plus assorted bands and sundry entertainment lining the road along the way.
The weather, it must be said, was perfect. Crystal clear blue skies and a light cooling breeze – ideal conditions, and as the race started for us green pen runners, the mood was buoyant despite the intense crush of bodies and early hill climbs for the first four kilometres. The first half of the race is largely uphill, noted particularly for the aptly named Heartbreak Hill, an unrelenting 1.5km climb to the half-way point of the race, and while I climbed it without too much difficulty, I knew my time was going to be well down on my previous two attempts at this race. I hit the 7km mark in a shade over 43 minutes, not fast, but given my lack of training, the crowds and the hills, I was not unhappy.
The second half, whilst still undulating, is net downhill, with a long, fast stretch down to the seafront at Bondi. It allows for easy negative splits, and while I didn’t exactly hammer it (the 13th and fastest kilometre I completed in 5:17, as opposed to 4:37 last year) it was still a negative split race for me, the second half a little over a minute quicker than the first.
Having crossed the line and collected my medal I began walking toward the long line of buses that ferries finishers (tens of thousands of us!) to the train station at Bondi Junction, a few minutes away. I caught sight of a fellow team member (60 of us having entered through our employer) – a fellow I didn’t know. I thought he looked about my age or a little younger, but whilst chatting he ventured that this had been his 40th consecutive City 2 Surf race, and that he was approaching 60 years of age! I tell you folks, this running game does keep you young if you just stick at it!
Final time for me was an unspectacular 1h25m36s, a good six minutes slower than last year. But given my current state of bloatedness I’m not unhappy with that. I felt strong at the end and in truth could probably have knocked a minute or two off that time, but I felt good throughout and that was the main thing.
Now it’s time to focus on the P2P and those accursed hill sessions. But first, a couple of days of cross-training, helped by the arrival at my inbox of a complete ab fitness program sent to me by an athletics coach I met whilst on holiday. It’s fairly ... comprehensive. But it’s also just the ticket I think. My core has become flabby and weak, and desperately needs toning, so here goes. I’m diving in. Wish me luck.
Nicely done mate. Never easy getting back to business with a big race, but you took the right approach and took a lot out of the day. I managed to hobble round some hills this morning in my quest to map the Lewes Marathon course. More of that down the hall in a bit. I need to extract/ study the data. On, on!
The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph
Wow - well done, MLCMM. I managed to miss this one.
The numbers stood out -- 70,000? Wow! And 14km is an odd distance -- "neither fish nor fowl". About 8.5 miles I guess. It must be hard trying decide whether to treat it more like a 10K or a 10-miler.
But well done on getting back into it quickly. Must admit, I couldn't see where those excess kilos had gone but I'll take your word for it. Travelling is always a nightmare if you're trying to watch your weight. Even worse if you're on expenses. My downfall is always the breakfasts. At home I will have either something cooked, or something fresh-fruity, or something cereally with muesli. In a hotel, I'll think nothing about having all three. Followed by toast and jam. Gah!
On the other side of the argument, we are always told it's good to take an extended break once in a while to let your body recover and have its own downtime. A 4 year break might be too long (I'm starting to think), but 4-6 weeks once or twice a year sounds perfectly reasonable.
That meeting with the near-60 year old is highly encouraging though. When I look up marathon results, I always peer at the age categories just to remind myself that it's perfectly possible to run a 3:30 or even 3 hour marathon in your 50s and 60s. So many people manage it that it can't be just for the miraculous few.
All sounds good for a successful assault on the mountain.
El Gordo
Great things are done when men and mountains meet.
Two runs to report and a weigh-in. I'll do the weigh-in first at it was the most mentally disturbing.
After a whole week of running, watching diet etc. I jumped on the Chez MLCMM super-scales that tell you all the usual stuff plus the time and date of your death and what colour you should paint your living room, to find that despite my best efforts I had lost only 200 grams in a week, and had actually gained body fat.
This was disconcerting. To say the least.
Hmm, I thought. Hmm. And for good measure, hmm again. Something was afoot, and it was messing with me.
So I did the only thing a good middle-aged endurance runner could do in the circumstances and amended my training schedule. Clearly something was wrong and therefore had to change. And so instead of my scheduled intervals session, I strapped myself into the heart-rate monitor and set off for a long (make that very long) slow, fat-burning plod. Keeping my heart rate within that crucial 60-70% of MHR fat-burning zone I set off for two-and-a-half hours, intent on shifting some blubber before I deal with the speed work.
Some time later I wiped the sweat from my brow, examined myself for signs of chaffing (some, but not too bad), stretched a bit and felt a little better. 23kms had been covered at a slow, manageable, fat-blasting pace. Whether it makes a difference or not remains to be seen, but it's a good amount of distance covered - more than a P2P at least - I just have to add the slopes now. Yep, just a small matter of adding a hill to that distance and I'm set.
The other run was two days earlier, when I included a 6km hill climb in the middle of my 10km mid-week run. It went OK. Not the most scintillating of hill sessions, but it's early days yet. I remain hopeful.
Hope. Now there's a strategy worthy of consideration. The bonus with it is that it lets you sleep in late in the mornings. Oh yes, that would be nice.
That meeting with the near-60 year old is highly encouraging though. When I look up marathon results, I always peer at the age categories just to remind myself that it's perfectly possible to run a 3:30 or even 3 hour marathon in your 50s and 60s. So many people manage it that it can't be just for the miraculous few.
Interesting you should say that. I imagine (I hope) that those super-fast age-category times are set by runners who have been running much longer than us Johnny-come-latelys and who set good times in their youth as well. Or maybe that's just hopeful thinking on my part.
Whatever, I'll just keep plugging away looking for a 'good run' and let the times look after themselves. That's the ticket, eh?
(19-08-2013, 02:54 PM)suzieq Wrote: I'm impressed; you managed a very good time in spite of taking weeks off! You're obviously in pretty good shape MLCMM.
Cheers Suzie; I'm not so sure I'm in anything like my pre-holiday shape, but it's gratifying that I didn't turn completely to lard, and there is some semblance of form to build on. I think it must be true that there is such a thing as 'muscle memory', and as long as you don't let a four week lay-off turn into four months (or even years ... not looking at any Plodder in particular of course), it's possible to get back into shape again reasonably quickly. I hope! We'll see soon enough.
An endless hill. That's a treadmill set on a slope. An evil thing to be sure, and yet ... inexplicably I've come to call it my friend. Perhaps it's something of a Stockholm syndrome, or just one of those "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" things, but I have to confess I'm finishing these tough training sessions on the endless evil mill feeling pretty damned good about it all. I've two more runs to report, and whilst they are still a long way off where I need to be, given we're still 13 weeks away from race day, it seems to be to have been a very positive start.
Last year I foolishly (in hindsight) included the Sydney marathon in my P2P training. That was a crazy thing to do (although I'm damned proud to have run the 42.2km) because it took my focus off hills until way too late in the campaign, especially as I returned to training too soon after the mara and ended up injuring myself which put a huge two-and-a-half week run-less hole in my schedule. Nothing like that this time. I've cleared all races out of my calendar so that my focus now is solely on the P2P, and I've started the hill training much, much sooner than last year.
So, this week's hill climbs have been necessarily short, but brutal enough for this stage of the campaign. A 30-minute climb on Sunday followed by a faster, 60-minute version of the same hill today has me feeling pretty good about myself, although I'm under no illusions about the work still to be done. I have a clear road ahead of me, and that road is up. Endlessly so. And necessarily so too.
This is my fourth crack at the P2P and this year I'm determined to give it my undivided attention and to train properly for it. Which is to say, by not missing training days, by including the requisite number of tough hill and speed sessions and in paying proper attention to nutrition, core and general strength training.
This is going to be hard, but it'll be fun. Oh yeah.
(20-08-2013, 01:42 PM)Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man Wrote:
(13-08-2013, 11:49 AM)El Gordo Wrote: ...
That meeting with the near-60 year old is highly encouraging though. When I look up marathon results, I always peer at the age categories just to remind myself that it's perfectly possible to run a 3:30 or even 3 hour marathon in your 50s and 60s. So many people manage it that it can't be just for the miraculous few.
Interesting you should say that. I imagine (I hope) that those super-fast age-category times are set by runners who have been running much longer than us Johnny-come-latelys and who set good times in their youth as well. Or maybe that's just hopeful thinking on my part.
Whatever, I'll just keep plugging away looking for a 'good run' and let the times look after themselves. That's the ticket, eh?
Hard to say. You get the impression that a lot of the guys who were running fast times in their younger days and have spent all their lives pounding the roads manage to cripple themselves by the time they get to their 50s and 60s -- often long before that. I imagine people who have done other sports or been generally physically fit all their lives and take up running later on might stand a better chance of posting a 3 or 3:30 marathon in their, er, peak years.
Kinda academic in any case as it will never happen to me, though I do sometimes wonder if it's possible for ordinary people to run that sort of time at that age IF they had enough free time and whatever resources and equipment needed. Plus of course, the most valuable resource of the lot -- unflagging motivation. I feel it must be possible for many.
El Gordo
Great things are done when men and mountains meet.
Another cracking run today. Just a long slowie, but a little faster and a little bit steeper than usual. I set the treadie at 2% - it seems like hardly anything really, well, for the first hour anyway. After that any slope becomes challenging and this certainly kept me interested. In all it was a two-and-a-half hour plod, with the last half hour requiring some serious self-talk to get it done.
But done it is; my second 23km run in six days, making it my biggest week for ... hmm, well a long time anyway. The task now is to maintain this work-rate for the next three months. Is it even possible? Can it be done, dear viewers, or will once again we see The Penguin run amok in Gotham City and cut the MLCMM training plan to shreds?
(22-08-2013, 07:52 PM)marathondan Wrote: 2.5 hrs - a monster in anyone's book, great effort. Were you watching old Batman reruns during the run?
No in fact due to a battery failure on my laptop I ran the last 90 minutes sans any entertainment at all other than the little numbers on the treadie steadily climbing. It was also dark, so I couldn't even look out the window.
This week's weigh-in figures were far more welcome than the previous week's shock. After a week of fairly solid training I managed to lose 1.3kg of weight and 0.9% body fat, while all other figures were also heading in the right direction, which is heartening.
On the other hand this morning's 60 minute mountain-climb on the treadie was a hard lesson learnt ... I attempted to maintain my pace at an even 6:00/km as the pitch increased to 10%. This I managed to do ... just ... but the pay-back came after when I couldn't increase the pace as the pitch lessened. In fact quite the opposite happened and I had to slow right down for a time, and finished having covered less ground than last time. None-the-less, a very tough and important workout, and as I said, a lesson learned. When the going gets tough ... don't be an idiot, slow the ferk down or you'll blow up completely!
It still scares me slightly that I have an awful lot of ground to cover before race day if I'm going to give this race my best shot. However, I'm on the books and running hills, and tough ones at that, so I can't exactly say I'm not trying. I'll just keep at it and things should sort themselves out eventually.
My cross-training on non-running days is finally taking some shape. Having been sent a wad of core-strengthening exercises by an athletics coach, and finding myself unable to do many of them, I've gone right back to basics and have again embarked on the 100 pushups and 200 situps six-week programs that worked so well for me a couple of years back. Combined with a few basic dumb-bell exercises for the upper body as well as some stretching, I feel I have a workable routine in place that is starting to do some good.
Currently Sweder is on his way to this side of the planet and we have a run scheduled together on Friday. This should be a good opportunity to further build some motivation and set our focus on race day, now rapidly approching. Alright, I know it's still twelve weeks away, but those weeks will undoubtedly fly past, so it's never too early to start the mutual encouragement and lay down a few more lines in the running log.
9.72km, 60 minutes, ave climb 5.4%
YTD: 790.7km
Track du jour: Given his predilection for whooshing off a great rate of knots and leaving us mere mortals in his wake, this track is probably more appropriate for Sweder, but I'm taking it, just because it's a fabbo track to belt out a fast kilometer to.
Training's fust in August.
![[Image: tumblr_m92kekMVdS1qmp520o1_500.jpg]](http://1opinionatedwoman.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/tumblr_m92kekMVdS1qmp520o1_500.jpg)
