How do you get to Dublin? Well I wouldn’t start from here, as the old joke goes. But too bad. It’s where I am.
I’ve mentioned several times that this week marks the beginning of the traditional 4½ month marathon schedule. And yet… what schedule?
You see, I don’t yet have one. Perhaps I’ll never have one.
It’s one of the things that changes as you accumulate marathons. It’s not complacency. Just familiarity. Even a sense of comfort. You know what you have to do. I know what I have to do.
Trouble is, I’ve always known what I have to do. I’ve simply never actually done it before. I get waylaid by drifting focus, by periodic boozy weekends, by inertia, by lapses in sensible eating, and by occasional injury.
Hal Higdon, in his Marathon – The Ultimate Training Guide puts it like this:
To become a successful runner/marathoner, you need to: (1) follow a proper diet, (2) eliminate extra body fat, (3) refrain from smoking and avoid heavy drinking, (4) get adequate amounts of sleep and (5) exercise regularly.
I reckon I score an average of half a point for each of those. Typically, while going through marathon training:
— I eat perfectly for most of the time, and like a pig on the brink of starvation for the remainder
— I always lose weight, but changing from obese to merely fat isn’t good enough
— I don’t smoke (gave up in 1995). I don’t drink alcohol with any frequency, but when I do, I tend to go about the task with disproportionate gusto
— I try to get enough sleep. I’m usually in bed by midnight, but never manage to get my eight hours. Something wakes me between 5:30 and 6:00. I think it’s the elderly earwig that’s been gnawing at my brain since 1974
— I exercise regularly during a training schedule, of course, but I rarely manage to complete a week with all boxes ticked. I miss midweekers here and there, or end up turning in a curtailed weekend long run.
It looks like I’ve been applying about 50% effort, which surely explains why I’ve rarely hit my targets. It’s a recursive process: not hitting targets leads to low expectations and a loss of motivation. This killer combination guarantees failure.
It’s unrealistic to expect a full house. At some point during a four or five month marathon training spell you’re certain to come up against social events, celebratory dinners, unavoidably late nights, disruptions to your schedule from travel or work commitments. The occasional injury, or simple, honest fatigue.
A perfect 5/5 is probably undesirable too. There has to be a trade-off. Some judicious belt-loosening can be therapeutic. Yet I hesitate as I say that — I know all too well that this is where the aspirant marathon runner’s Bermuda triangle is found. That stretch of uncharted sea where good intention meets indiscipline. It’s not a battle I’ve won before, but this time I must.
Hal’s list is good as far as it goes, but it isn’t quite enough. It deals only with the body, and not the mind. I think they carry equal weight, each half of that equation simultaneously feeding and draining the other. It’s a complex marriage, but you have to make it work. And more. I may have made it function but it’s never bloomed, and I think this is where the secret lies. It’s the difference between running a business that survives, and a business that flourishes. Up till now I’ve managed to keep the taxman at bay. I’ve invested a lot, but not especially wisely. I’ve worked hard but not hard enough. The shareholders have been patient, if bemused (and how lucky I was to have found them). But it’s time to pay that dividend, or they’ll be off.
Today I followed tradition, and took Day One as a rest day. No mileage beyond a stroll round the corner to the medical centre, for a post-dog-bite tetanus jab.
My task this evening is to rest.
Tomorrow I run.
