Late on a Wednesday, like most nights, I’d normally be knee-deep in the BBC. Well OK, the corporation’s output would be reaching a higher intellectual water-mark than that, but let’s not get too literal. Tonight however, I must stay away from Five Live, partly because I can’t bear the egregiously phlegmy tones of that Lovejoy bloke at the best of times; but tonight he will be insufferable. In the packed pub this evening, you could have heard a pin drop each time the team he promotes scored in the Anfield Big Cup QF. What a thoroughly despicable bunch those Chelsea people are. When they went 3-1 up, the pub almost emptied in silence, which was some comfort. But even this minor consolation was largely undone by a “Happy Birthday” phone conversation I later had with a gay friend of mine who hates football, but swoons over John Terry. Apparently he’s some sort of “bit of rough” gay icon. Sheesh.
And the other reason I can’t approach the Venerable Beeb this evening is that I unwittingly missed The Apprentice, and so I can’t watch BBC2 or Five Live, both of which carry follow-up analysis which would give the game away.
Instead, I’ll turn inwards, and report that taper madness is proceeding nicely. After Sunday’s 20 mile race, I put my metaphorical feet up on Monday, before returning to tick-over mode with a couple of hours in the gym yesterday, followed early this evening by 5 hilly road miles.
Now that I’m feeling happier about the general task of finishing the marathon course, my anxieties have switched to a new target — coping with Boston’s notorious undulations. The course is largely downhill for 15 miles before presenting the marathoner with proof of that ancient axiom, that for every down there’s an up. The famous climbs start at around mile 16, just as the runners are beginning to flag. What better encouragement does a tiring marathoner need, than 5 upward miles?
Before Christmas, I made a point of squeezing a few training hills into my weekend long runs, but post-calf injury, I decided they were too risky, and took them out. Apart from a few tentative sessions on the step machine at the gym, I’ve not been near a training incline since today, when I found the longest local hill I could find, and ran up and down it twice. It’s almost exactly a mile from top to bottom, and according to the elevation graph produced from my GPS watch, an ascent of about 200 feet. This is exactly the sort of distance and climb I wanted, because (I think I’m right in saying that) both figures exceed anything I’ll find on the Boston course. The net change in elevation at Boston is much greater, but spread over a longer distance, so it shouldn’t seem as bad. Sometimes hills have greater potency in the imagination than in reality, so I needed to remind myself of what was actually in store. The conclusion was a comfort. Yes, a bucket of sweat was expended along the way, but I managed to run both upward miles without having to stop for a breather.
There were two negatives: 1) the rapid return of that excruciating pain at the top of my back, referred to in the Reading race report, that appeared within a mile of setting off, hazardously preventing me from turning my head to check for traffic turning into the side roads I was crossing, and 2)the knowledge that the Boston challenge is not so much in the height or length of the hills, but in where they come on the course — at the point where hope and sanity are starting to drain from the body.
I mentioned sweating: this was another reason to aim for exactly one hour of undulating road today. I wanted to calculate how much I sweat, and therefore, how much fluid replacement I should aim for. Recent experiences have led me to think that I don’t pay enough attention to this. I’ve always regarded the need to keep hydrated on the run as an inconvenience. It’s time I woke up to the fact that dehydration is not only dangerous, but quickly leads to a loss of performance. I don’t have an awful lot of spare resource in the talent department as it is, so why voluntarily throw away another 20% or so, which is the estimated cost of allowing yourself to dehydrate during exercise?
Weighing myself before and after, it seems that I lost precisely 3 pounds during the one-hour run — more than expected. Three pounds equals roughly 3 pints, or 1.7 litres. I think I need to do this test again, as 15 pints of liquid taken on board during the marathon is impossible.
15 pints of fluid absorbed after the marathon? Now that’s a different proposition in a city awash with Irish bars dispensing what is said to be very passable Guinness.
