When I talked to Phil last week about my chances of making the Almeria Half, he mentioned one of his metrics. He reckoned that if you can run twice the distance of the race during the penultimate week, you should be fine.
So I set my sights on 26 miles this week.
Not a huge total in times of plenty, but these haven’t been times of plenty. I was startled to see that in only one week since I started back on the sticky road to race fitness, last September, have I managed more than 20 miles in a week. And that was in November, when from nowhere I produced two 10 milers. It was the week before Ragdale, my health and fitness adventure in rural Leicestershire. How exasperating that even though those two runs, and the stay at the health spa, left me feeling vibrant, relatively fit, and optimistic, it was barely a week later that some mysterious decline seemed to set in that I’ve struggled ever since to counteract.
Perhaps the fightback has begun. Even though my weight is no lower than it was after that week in November, at least it’s moving in the right direction again, after a spectacular new year spike to pay homage to Christmas, snow, injury, and general apathy. More significantly, this week I’ve managed to bank 30.54 of your lovely English miles, including a painful 13.2 this afternoon.
The week didn’t start too hopefully, with some blister nostalgia to cope with, and the feeling I’d made a mistake in buying the insoles (see last entry). This mild gloom hardened on Thursday, when 3 miles into my trudge along the A4, the calf started playing up again. Fortunately, I was at that point in the planned rote when it was barely shorter for me to turn round and go home than it was to continue, so I decided to hobble onwards. It was a bit like the New Year’s Day 10K when, although the discomfort never went away, it didn’t tip over into a proper injury as it seemed to threaten to do for so long. I finished that midweek plod with over 8 miles chalked up, but after the 4 and 5 milers earlier in the week, still needed another 10 or so to hit my target of 26 for the week.
Pondering over the Ordnance Survey map yesterday, I decided to tempt fate. Why aim for just 10? I have to run 13 next Sunday, so might as well see if I could manage the full monty. So I drafted out a 13.5 mile route on MapMyRun, with a Plan B for 10 miles should the flesh of the task prove less resilient than the spirit of the man with the map sitting indoors by the radiator.
It helped that it was a beautiful midwinter’s afternoon. The sun was unseasonally bright, and the temperature kind enough to make a short-sleeved shirt and skimpy shorts a simple choice. With my iPod loaded up with some old favourites not heard for a while, I set off.
To get me in optimistic mood, Herman’s Hermits and I’m Into Something Good. Yes I know, profoundly corny, but the effervescence of the early 60s will always makes me feel slightly better about the world. It’s an atavistic, childhood nostalgia thing. Next up, and in a similar vein, but two decades further along the pop timeline, was the Housemartins, and Happy Hour. Final part of my planned mood-making trilogy was another huge slab of musical cheese: the London Marathon theme music. Ron Goodwin’s The Trap.
By now I’d reached the canal, and with optimistic grin in place, the music moved onto hardcore Podrunner with an hour of high tempo electronica to drive me along the towpath and off into the hills. I’d not been on these monsters since the early Boston training days of more than a year ago, and I struggled to get up the worst of them without walking. Then a flattish mile before the hills begin again. By now, 6 miles in, I was tiring, and it was time to deploy my secret weapon: a PowerGel with a use by date of 2003. I found it at the back of a cupboard this morning. I’ve long moved on from this nasty brand of gels, but thought… for old time’s sake….? According to the fading lettering, it was once lemon flavoured, but time had diminished much that was recognisable in the citrus department. Instead it had thickened up, and seemed reluctant to emerge from its packaging. Once I’d squeezed it into submission, I found that it had taken on a semi-pleasant toffee character. I wonder if this is a new discovery? Perhaps runners will take to careful cellaring of PowerGels, treating them like fine vintages of red Bordeaux.
But anyway, it seemed to do the job, though without a swig of the water I’d sensibly brought along for the ride, it would probably still be clamping my teeth together, and I would be tapping this out in the waiting room of the local A & E Department.
Newly invigorated, I got a rhythm going again as I left the hills behind and vanished from human view into the network of wet and muddy bridlepaths that criss-cross this patch of West Berkshire. Two or three miles later I rejoined the world of man, finding myself on the long straight farm track that again, I’d not been on since the distant days of marathon training, last spring.
By the time I’d flapped to the end of this wearying stretch, I was 10½ miles closer to success than when I’d set off. The last 2 or 3 miles were the circuit I usually plod as my regular, round-the-block lunchtime quickie. But this time was very different from normal. I was well into a survival shuffle by now, and for the final mile, was reduced to a mix of running and walking. Runners with more integrity than me would have considered this a 12 mile run with a final mile of warm-down, but not me: oooh no. I’d trudged 13 miles, and was going to claim every painful yard, especially as the total for the week now stood at over 30.
And the calf? Good news. Once again, it was painful, but once again, never truly threatened to ping. I seem to be settling into a pattern of just having to run with an ache in the back of my left leg (and right, to a lesser extent). I can live with that. So perhaps the new insoles really are helping after all.
On balance then, a positive week, which also included two vigorous spinning sessions, on Tuesday and Saturday, with a solitary rest day on Friday. How does this bode for Almeria? Barring unexpected events this week, I’m confident I can get round in one piece, but I’ve abandoned previous musings about gunning for a PB. Instead, Almeria is now officially a training run, and I’ve give my spreadsheet the news. Four weeks today is the Wokingham Half, and if (big if) I can keep this week’s progress going, that might be a better opportunity. A lot can happen between now and then, however. Not just injury, but the Almeria Annual Festival of Binge Drinking and Over-Eating has to be negotiated. The danger is not so much in the weekend itself, but in giving me the excuse to extend the festivities beyond. I need to avoid that man-trap, and so I have a plan.
More next time.
