Week 7 of 18
Lunar phase: waxing gibbous, first quarter Monday
A good start to the month.
Wednesday - 4 miles intervals along the canal at lunchtime. I increased the distance by a mile and kept the intervals at 100 sec with 90 sec rest. I much prefer these timed sessions to the old fartlek - there's no question of just hanging on to the recovery for a few more paces; the time comes up and you just have to go. The temperature was on the way down and there was quite some wind chill. Impressively, there were patches of ice on the water in the more stagnant and shaded areas, even at midday. But I braved t-shirt and shorts with no gloves and hat. The first 10 minutes were less than comfortable, but I didn't really notice after that.
Friday - still not sure where this performance came from. 7 miles tempo run was the prescription. So I dropped Emma at preschool and then jogged up to the field. The overnight temperature had been around -4C but it was a bright and clear morning. Warmup layer shed, spare bottle stowed in hedgerow, and upbeat sounds plugged into ears, I kicked off hard.
My previous lap times for the tempo session around the green have been around 12 minutes - since I got my new watch I've only once dipped under that figure, equal to around 8:20 miling. So I was a bit surprised when the first lap split came up at 10:32, suspecting something wrong with the watch. But the next three came in at 10:40, 10:42 and 10:46.
Later number-crunching showed these to work out at around 7:20 to 7:30 miling, which is about as good as it gets for me, basically very decent 10K race pace. Well, it was certainly hard work, but as hard as I would run a 10K? I don't really know, I didn't intend to run that fast, so it's mystifing as to why it happened. Certainly the ground was much, much harder then the previous week, which would have helped a lot. And I felt pretty exhausted for the rest of the day, as I have done in the past... after a balls-out 10K race.
It'll be interesting to see which mojo turns up for the same session next week.
TdJ - impossible to choose between...
1. Led Zep - Communication Breakdown. I always hope for a corking track somewhere in the last lap, and this came up trumps. Nothing more to add.
2. The Trammps - Disco Inferno, crematorial elegy to the late great Brian Blackburn, inspiration behind last year's Brighton rock epic - friend, lover (no, not mine, despite the allegations - come to think of it, not my wife's, despite the more serious allegations - not as sinister as it sounds - I think that's enough subordinate clauses), father, godfather, rocker... suddenly I noticed the sun was out, the grass was in rude health for February, the sky was flawless, and I was taken back to Northumberland coastal dog walks and cosy pubs some 20 years ago.
Up above my head I hear music in the air
That makes me know there's a party somewhere
Sunday night calls for 14 miles. The snow is currently falling; I think the temperature will be around zero, so not too cold to cry off. Will I take to the field, or (as I had been considering anyway) go urban? A moonlit snowfield might be hard to resist... but the forecast is for fog.
Nice work Dan, it looks like it's all coming together well. Intriguing to read of the cold weather there - over here summer has finally hit and it looks like more and more of my runs are going to have to be treadmill runs in front of fans for a few weeks.
You're right about the discipline of intervals -v- fartlek. That "you just have to go" moment really makes a difference, doesn't it?
Heavy* snowfall (*for Sussex) here right now. I'm finding it hard to sleep at the thought of hitting 15 miles in the hills in a few hours. Running offroad trails on a decent white carpet is always exhilarating; my usually challenging long run route will be especially brutal. With the delicious prospect of a post-run Sunday roast at noon I can hardly wait.
The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph
(05-02-2012, 12:16 AM)Sweder Wrote: Heavy* snowfall (*for Sussex) here right now. I'm finding it hard to sleep at the thought of hitting 15 miles in the hills in a few hours. Running offroad trails on a decent white carpet is always exhilarating; my usually challenging long run route will be especially brutal. With the delicious prospect of a post-run Sunday roast at noon I can hardly wait.
Sunday - 9 laps around the field for a total distance of 14.4 miles. I got out of the door at the relatively sensible hour of 8pm, togged up in woolly hat and ski gloves. After a decent snowfall the night before (and the resultant morning of dragging the kids around on a toboggan) conditions were now still and sitting around zero, with a full moon high in the sky and 2-3 inches of white stuff on the ground.
The roads were pretty clear as I trotted down to the green, but once there, the trails were anything from lightly compacted to non-existent, so a lot of the time the snow was reaching up to the ankle line of my shoes. Grip was obviously terrible (I don't own any offroad shoes) although at least, unlike mud, the stuff doesn't stick. But every step needed extra effort to control direction, which felt like the equivalent of a couple of extra miles.
The temperature was pleasant enough; only towards the end did I feel any sense of cold creeping into my bones. A faint mist gradually settled over the course of the run, but with the moon on full power, and the reflective ground, visibility wasn't an issue.
The Marathontalk interview was a remarkable chap who had a heart transplant at the age of 38, and then 20 months later ran his first marathon. Apart from the incredible positive mental attitude needed to do this, the most remarkable thing for me was his revelation that a transplanted heart doesn't receive brain instructions about how fast to beat. He went through three HRMs before working out why his heart rate always remained at 98 throughout his runs: it seems the surgeons are able to connect up the plumbing, but not the electrics. Apparently his heart does respond to adrenaline, so he has to run the first couple of miles really hard to get the adrenaline up, then the heart starts beating fast enough to deliver enough oxygen to complete the run.
As for me, the snow was taking its toll on my legs, and I finished in two and half hours, a plodtastic four and a half hour marathon pace. A long way off where I need to be, but exeptional circumstances I think. Glad I got out there and bagged this one.
Good grief! And we have the temerity to whinge about feeling a little 'off colour' now and then! Astonishing tale.
That snow/ grip/ extra mileage thing is tough eh? I'll be happy to see the back of the stuff.
The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph
I did alot of snow running a couple of years ago when it was bad here. It takes a while for your mind to adjust to the fact that you have to put in more effort on this surface. But when it shifts and you're back on terra firma you'll reap the rewards of those slippery miles.
Week 8 of 18
Lunar phase: waxing gibbous, full moon Tuesday
Wednesday – 4 miles intervals along the canal. The waterway was frozen solid in all but the most sheltered of spots. I was glad of cap and gloves this week, although still braved the shorts. I spotted 2 or 3 sets of swan footprints in the ice, which must have been made during a partial thaw, and which continued for about a mile along the canal. Someone had been pretty keen to find water, and not in the mood to fly. A good session; next week I should increase the sprint interval by another 10 sec.
Friday – no chance of repeating last week’s uber-session; fresh snow overnight meant I had a couple of inches of virgin powder to deal with underfoot. Having dropped Emma at preschool I jogged up to the field and kicked off hard, but within a couple of hundred metres I was gasping for breath and had to cut back, as my road shoes struggled for grip with every step.
By the end of the second lap, I’d decided I would can it after three laps, on the basis that I’d probably put in 4 laps worth of effort. But then at the magic point towards the end of lap three, when the field slopes gently downwards and the end is in sight around a small copse, the TdJ kicked in, namely The Surfaris and Wipeout. This put such a summer feelgood smile on my face that I was convinced to grind out the last lap, in whatever time it took.
7 miles banked.
Sunday – I was fed up with running in snow, and the pavements were clear, so I took to the streets. This session was overdue anyway; I hadn’t run on tarmac since October, which isn’t the greatest preparation for a road marathon. I did think though that the effort gains from running in mud and snow would outweigh any loss of leg steel from lack of hardtop miles.
And boy, was I wrong. By 10 miles, my quads, ankles and hips were shot. I made it round, but it wasn’t pretty. More worrying were the times: each successive 5 mile lap took 1-2 minutes longer than the last, and I finished in 4:10 marathon pace, 25 minutes off my target time. So somewhere I’ve got to find a minute per mile in the next two months.
But that’s what I love about this game. All you can do is take a couple of days rest, tweak the regime a little if need be, and then just get out there again and carry on. There will undoubtedly be more obstacles before the start line, but I just have to have faith that if I take it one step at a time, I’ll get there. And if I fail to make my target time… there will always be next year. Well, more likely the year after. Next year I’ll probably have a date with a giant chicken or similar.
But it did strike me that this is very much a game. I’m in the privileged position of being able to choose to put myself through hardship. I don’t have to worry about how I’m going to pay the bills, or how I can cope with caring for a terminally ill relative, or whether I can stay off drugs for another week. Which makes me think that unless I can channel some of this effort into the greater good, I’m just pissing in the wind. I’d love to be able to divert this energy into great works; as it is I’m not sure if it puts more into me than it takes out.
Anyway, back to the run. Positives? 1. Hopefully I haven’t left it too late to start the pavement pounding. I have a couple of months to get steel back into those legs. Henceforth I’ll alternate the medium and long runs on hardtop each week. Hopefully that will do enough, without risking aggravating the ankle that started all this hassle. 2. Energy wise I was in good shape. It was definitely all about the legs; 15 miles on a few handfuls of raisins and I was fine both cardio- and glycogen-wise.
I should mention that for the Marathontalk interview this week they’d finally bagged the big one: Haile Gebrselassie. Between the now unfamiliar traffic noise, and his accent, I missed quite a bit of it though, and it didn’t sound like a great talk. But when asked to name the greatest moment of his career, he did of course cite Almeria 2005, and taking down Andy Lynam.
Dan I'm intrigued by your hardtop experience (Sunday). I've long held the view that, for a city/ road marathon, road miles are important. I've not based this on anything more scientific than a hunch and the fact that road races kill my joints (ankles, knees, hips). Racehorses are walked on roads daily to toughen them up for firm ground (they pass my house every morning, greeted by me singing 'It's a Good Year For The Roses' as they defacate along the street). I'm trying to get at least one pavement/ tarmac session in per week (due another tonight) but I have no proof this will help come April 15th. What's your view?
I face a similar challenge with my race pace. Last week's tempo run was hugely disappointing, some 30 seconds per mile off where I'd like to be at this stage. As you say all we can do is hammer away and hope for the best. 5k Parkruns are as close as I get to speed work so I'll keep those up; they should help.
And re that HG interview: lol!
The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph
(16-02-2012, 11:33 AM)Sweder Wrote: Dan I'm intrigued by your hardtop experience (Sunday). I've long held the view that, for a city/ road marathon, road miles are important.
See my post on BB's training diary ... yep, road miles are important. And yep, they hurt. No doubt.
I'm a newcomer to this multisurface lark - until this season, and my ankle tweak, I was a certified tarmac hound. So I was shocked how difficult I found it to come back - but I suppose I shouldn't be; it's 4 months since I ran 10 miles on tarmac. Still, around the 15 miles mark is when the training starts to get tough anyhow. As I said, the biggest worry was the impact on my speed - the legs were definitely the limiting factor. All I can do is knock out at least one session a week on the pavement and wait for the steel to return. It took a full 48 hours for the soreness to go this week.
Great quote from MLCM on BB's thread - "Postmarathon muscle tissue is a war zone: widespread disruption to the muscle sarcomere, breached cell membranes that allow the contents and intracellular proteins to spill out into interstitial spaces and the bloodstream, swollen muscle fibers, and damage." We've all been there, I think. Nothing worse than intracellular proteins in your interstitial spaces. When you have to walk downstairs backwards, you know your muscles are basically buggered, even if you don't know the science.
It all stands to reason, doesn't it? Maybe trail running is the future. There's less call for giant chickens though.
But to return to Sweder and me, and our dates in April with 26 miles of tarmac... I think we have enough time. This is almost like some weird anti-massage we have to go through. A weekly session to deliberately damage our muscles. The more I think about it, the more ridiculous it sounds.
Microtears in muscle fibre and the subsequent knitting back together thereof is an interesting suject. The need to feed fifteen minutes after a long run is partly driven by these running repairs. During the Stinger in 2007 the thought of the waiting cooked breakfast made me nauseous, yet once seated at the finish I inhaled mine in record time. My body's needs demonstrably superceded my exhaustion.
I believe ice-baths - or in my case a dip in the sea - also aid this process, stimulating blood flow to speed up the repair process. As we know many sportsfolk (Saint Paula amongst them) swear by this post-run ritual. My Almeria dip worked wonders (for me if not for the aghast Almerians) allowing me to run pain-free through those same hard streets with Antonio before we left.
The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph
(16-02-2012, 05:23 PM)Sweder Wrote: I believe ice-baths - or in my case a dip in the sea - also aid this process, stimulating blood flow to speed up the repair process. As we know many sportsfolk (Saint Paula amongst them) swear by this post-run ritual. My Almeria dip worked wonders (for me if not for the aghast Almerians) allowing me to run pain-free through those same hard streets with Antonio before we left.
Another luminary on the dip list is the great Dr George Sheehan, whose daily routine was a 5 mile run along the beach near his home in New Jersey, always ending in an Atlantic plunge. He recommended it. He also recommended that runners consume two cans of beer every evening.
El Gordo
Great things are done when men and mountains meet.
I seem to recall that a past Marathontalk interviewee - a GB elite I think - keeps a wheelie bin full of cold water in his garage. With a small stepladder by the side, this provides a simple cool post-run dip.
Week 9 of 18
Lunar phase: waning gibbous, last quarter Tuesday
Wednesday - 7pm, 4.4 miles intervals round the field. Mild and muddy.
Friday - 10 pm, 7.5 miles tempo session on road. Very pleasing pace again, got home in just under the hour. My uptempo playlist went a bit wrong at the end, and I ran up my road to the following. It's a terrible song to run to, almost completely lacking any sort of rhythm or non-syncopated beat, and this performance is about as uncool a clip as you could imagine. I love it.
Ah, Fish ... he used to have a DJ slot on Planet Rock. I remember Script For A Jester's Tears coming out to favourable reviews and I quite like Market Square Hero (mostly because it gets an airing on PR now & again). Agreed, Prog is pretty tough running music (Yes's Roundabout aside).
The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph
