London Marathon day. It’s my favourite session of the year. A sunlit, Sunday morning, and here I am, armchaired in front of the TV, in the thick of my marathon preparation. As I write, Paula Radcliffe is well on her way to another record-breaking victory. I feel ambivalent towards her. Her ability is beyond question, but the Paula industry is dispiriting. It spoils the purity of the story. Is she an athlete or a commodity? The obvious answer is “both”, but I don’t much care for the ratio. I’m happier with my own marathon prospects than I was this time in 2002, when I did the race. I’ve done more training than when I did Chicago later that year. … …
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Perhaps this is the boost I was looking for. I weigh less today than I have done since… since records began, 2½ years ago. When I ‘ran’ London and Chicago in 2002 I was under 200 pounds, though I don’t seem to have a record of the exact weights. My post-marathon visit to the Chicago Cheesecake Factory (just go and look at the 35 cheesecakes on their menu….) was the first step on the road to renewed corpulence. I’ve hovered between 215 and 220 for most of the intervening period, but for this marathon I’ve made a real effort to move down again. This morning I was 204, and I’d love to dip below 200 for Hamburg in 9 days … …
Bigger, better, bouncier news. Yes, bouncy. Tonight I felt bouncy. Have I ever talked about the running bounce? I must have. Sometimes, for no very good reason, you just feel like you’re bouncing along the road without the usual effort. It’s a good feeling. It means, or I take it as meaning, that there’s something in reserve. I’m not plodding along on empty, panting and wheezing and aching. A feeling of controlled strength, and one that gives you confidence. Just the usual round-the-block 3½ miles tonight, then back in time to listen to Liverpool surprisingly hold out against Juventus to reach the Champions League semis. What a celebration there’ll be if they manage to get through to the final. Looks … …
I’m an early-morning-run evangelist. Odd then, that this morning’s was one of the very few early runs I’ve done on this current marathon campaign. The habit evaporated during that long, wearying spell working away from home last year, and I’ve not yet picked it up again. As the world turns into spring, it’s a good time to rediscover this life-enhancing habit. The sun was out at 6:40 this morning, but it was cool and slightly raw. Good waking-up weather. It must be a traumatic experience for the body. One minute supine, warm and shut down. Five or ten minutes later, pounding along a chilly street. You can imagine the warning sirens blaring out through your internal organs. All hands on … …
How many people under 40 know what this is? Until this morning, I hadn’t realised how low in our esteem the humble bicycle bell had fallen. It seems to have been all but eliminated. Running down the canal for 12 miles, I was overtaken by a total of 34 bikes. I’ve no objection to them on the towpath. The average cyclist looks like a quivering sack of jelly abandoned on a garden wall, so it’s probably the only exercise these poor people get. Moreover, the path is part of the SUSTRANS network, so I expect to see the weekend cyclist, and believe in our harmonious coexistence. But some of them are complete tossers. Perhaps the excess weight that most of … …
Being able to distinguish between a trough and a mere dip is a bit like owning a grapefruit knife. It’s hardly ever needed, but invaluable when it is. I’m having a dip. Today was supposed to be my 12 mile long run day, as part of the wind down to the Hamburg Marathon in two weeks time. 12 miles today, went the daydream, with a restful 3 or 4 tomorrow. Butit hasn’t happened, and with the few beers consumed this evening, I’m not sure it will happen tomorrow either. I woke up knackered after a late night in front of the computer, where I’d been kicking off the lengthy (in fact, eternal) task of sprucing up this website and migrating … …
The least startling newsflash of the year so far came late morning, with the announcement of a general election on May 5th. The thought of four weeks in which no baby is safe from the rasping upper lip of some grinning, matey candidate fills most people with dismay – but I’m delighted. An election is like the World Cup or the Olympics to me. A quadrennial treat, rich in drama. The jousting may be verbal rather than athletic, but the competitive element is there for us all to marvel at. This evening I teamed up with the local running club again to do a perky 4.8 miles. How different it is to have daylight on these runs. I’ve spent half … …
Perhaps the past really is a foreign country. Ambling idly through my teens the other day, I came across a tiny snicket I’d not noticed before. Peering down it, I see myself walking home from the pub one evening, aged about 17, and coming across a very fat skinhead with his left hand around the throat of a pretty girl. In his right hand he had a hefty claw hammer, and was waving this around above her head. He was shouting drunkenly: “If you don’t fall in love wiv me, I’m gonna smash yer fackin’ face in, yer bitch.” Call me conventional, but this didn’t seem to be much of a seduction strategy. It did set me thinking though. The … …
I’m approaching that ethereal period, that no-man’s-land that is the marathon taper. The final obstacle, a 20 miler on Saturday morning, has to be cleared first, and then all I must do is toast my self-confidence on three weeks of psychosomatic illness, virtual calf twinges and moments of arbitrary derangement. The Americans call it taper madness. Here’s a useful article on the subject: www.runnersworld.com/article/0,5033,s6-51-56-0-5958-1-1X2X3X4X5-6,00.html This evening I took myself off for a 4 mile splosh through the grey, misty drizzle. I saw three other runners who looked like they were off on some Arctic expedition. Covered from head to foot in plastic and wool. Looked wretched. Bunch of idiots really. In trying so hard to protect themselves, they end up … …
Just a quickie to report on a successful 17.5 miler today. Coming just a couple of days after that slightly flawed experience at Maidenhead, this was a welcome tonic. Deciding where to go on these long runs is a problem. The simplest solution is up the canal for (long_run_mileage/2), then back again. The setting is always tranquil and arresting, but an out-and-back route is never ideal, and the longer the run the less ideal it becomes. Today I threw in a variation to avoid repetition, though it meant a long slog up the turbulent, clangorous A4. That bit wasn’t fun, but after such an awful starter, the main course – back along the canal – tasted better than ever. A … …