Can my luck hold out for another 25 days? In my universe, it’s a bigger question than Is there a god? (no); or Which came first, the chicken or the egg? (the chicken); or Will the Rowdies win the quintuple? (no).
At 6:30 on Tuesday morning I was in the gym for 90 minutes of sweat production. This wasn’t enough to satisfy my new-found craving, so I returned in the evening to top up with another 60. Well, I say “returned”, but I’m a 2-gym man at the moment, so I selected my secondary facility for the evening’s exertions.
I’ve previously presented Little Gym as the knees of the bee, but I’m starting to have my head turned by the egregious FitnessFirst. Loyal readers will recall that I stole a free day from the latter a few weeks ago. My instincts were to dislike the place: it’s big, impersonal, and a bit too smarmily ostentatious. Surely I preferred the unpretentious charm of my small, local, under-populated, slightly tatty school gym? And yet I’m slowly having to concede that Big Gym has some things in its favour. They:
- are open much longer hours, including early in the morning (the local gym opens at 4pm)
- are fitness rather than strength-oriented
- have dozens of ellipticals, treadmills, and static bikes, so you never feel under pressure to stop because someone might be waiting
- have TVs and free drinks
- have more up-to-date, better-maintained equipment that just feels nicer to use
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On the downside, they are more expensive, and they are… well, they are FitnessFirst. I’ve taken out a month’s membership, and will review the situation after I get back from the US. It has occurred to me that maintaining my gym regime might be a good way of coping with the problems I have with running in the heat of summer. An hour or two in an air-conditioned gym might be the answer. Certainly preferable to doing nothing at all. But let’s see if I get to, and survive, Boston first, and will make a decision then. Unlike the local gym, which lets me pay on a month-by-month basis, Big Gym demands 3 or 12 month contracts (plus, I bet, signing-on fees and admin charges and other pay-up-or-piss-off demands).
Let’s move to yesterday, when I did something shocking: nothing. My first rest day in 11 days; second in 15. Despite the risk that comes with overtraining, I’ve been on a training bender for two weeks now. Luckily, I seem to have survived intact.
Yesterday’s day off was unplanned. I woke early, intending to run 7 miles. I winched myself into a semi-sitting position, then just flopped back again, knowing that it wasn’t going to happen. I told myself I’d postpone it till later in the day, but as the hours ticked past, I realised it would be wiser to make it a sweat-free day.
By contrast, this morning I woke feeling refreshed and alert, and ready for a lengthy outing. I made the error of not laying out my stuff last night, so wasted too much time assembling my garb and ancillary electronics. Twenty minutes later, munching on a ripe banana, I was out the door.
It was surprisingly cool at 7 a.m. The last week or two have spoilt us, luring us into the trap of believing we’d suddenly leapt into late spring. I was wearing an old Reading Half Marathon teeshirt. It’s always struck me as a somewhat dishonest garment. It feels like some sort of ‘technical’ running shirt but it’s just a nylon shirt with pretensions. It occupies a slightly shamefaced berth in my wardrobe: not quite in with the real running shirts, but not cool enough to be pub garb. Just because it’s not cotton, it wants us to believe that it’s a full-on wicking running shirt. I don’t buy it. It’s a brutal polyester number that refuses to settle down and become comfy, and offer me the sort of relationship a man needs with his athletic toggery. I knew all this when I set off, but was offering it one final chance to come good.
I did my usual short round-the-block 3½ miler, before heading off towards the canal. Until this point I was still expecting the sun to emerge and warm my bones. Instead, something quite unexpected happened. For the first time in months, I found myself running in cold, torrential rain. By the time I reached the towpath, enough water had fallen to soften the ground, and turn the track into a slippery, muddy stream. I soldiered on, mindful that this muck-skating was unlikely to be doing my knee or calf much good. So it was a relief to come off the canal at 6½ miles, and head up the metalled road towards the sturdy farm track.
Still it rained, but the pulsating Podrunner podcast, vibrating rhythmically in my ears, kept my feet chugging through the puddles. I’d have worn a jacket had I known it would tip down like this. Instead, by the time I arrived home, I was drenched. Not only that, but the wet nylon teeshirt gave me the worst case of nipple-chafing I’ve had in years. Crikey, I had to spend the rest of the morning working bare-chested, like some alpha-geek.
The good news is that I managed 10.23 miles. This may be my last run before the Reading Half on Sunday, so I needed to chalk up a few miles to ensure I pushed myself over 30 for the week (presuming I finish the race on Sunday). This follows 35 miles last week, and an aimed-for 37 next week. Tomorrow it’s a couple of early-morning hours in the gym, followed by a leg massage and pre-Reading tactical talk in the afternoon. I haven’t decided whether to treat Sunday as a training run, or shoot for a PB. Let’s see what coach Phil has to say.
