A 10 mile day, but one marinaded in the misery of a week of pain and gloom. That sounds worse than it is. I’m confident that this chest thing isn’t a cardiac problem. It’s the irritating stitch-like ache that clambers round inside my ribcage like an ape in a suit of armour. Today’s instance was more depressing than those earlier in the week. Sunday’s run is the long distance run for which the midweek runs are supposed to be preparation. Arguably, it’s not that important if the weekday runs are not wholly successful as long as the so-called LSD run goes well.
Today’s effort didn’t feel right from the start. Yesterday, for the first time, I did actually do some weekend ‘cross-training’, as stipulated by my training programme. This doesn’t mean that I have to be angry while doing it, as M’s oft-repeated quip would have it. It means some alternative aerobic activity, including walking, biking, swimming… Last week I finally reassembled my exercise bike, so this seemed like a good opportunity to test it. The test was a success, though the half hour I spent on the machine left me surprisingly knackered. The mild fatigue hangover meant that I just didn’t really feel like it.
Despite this pessimism, I duly marked out my 10 mile course on AutoRoute last night, and got to bed reasonably early. Today I had a lie-in and got up feeling refreshed but still a little achey. Within minutes of setting off I knew that this wasn’t going to be easy. The chest pain didn’t start for a while, but I could feel my lower legs getting heavier and less responsive – all within the first mile or two. I had the first twinge of ‘chest’ after 10 minutes. The combination of the two left me in no doubt that this was going to be a long and frustrating session.
And so it was. It took me 2:19 to run/walk the 10 miles. I’m not bothered about the slow time per se. It’s the failure to be able to run constantly through the distance that was dispiriting. I can’t say exactly how the run:walk ratio broke down, but for the first 5 miles it was probably around 5:1. For the last half however, the leg-ache gradually grew into a serious impediment, and I ended up probably no better than 50:50.
The one positive was that I did do the 10 miles. I’m not losing interest in the marathon – far from it – but I’m having to force myself to be more realistic than previously. I’m having to admit the possibility that I won’t be ready for London in April, in which case I must defer for a year and run Chicago instead, in October. But while I’m still covering the distances, I remain hopeful.
The news this morning was full of the news that Prince Harry had spent the past year carousing around his local pubs, and smoking the odd spliff. The news that ‘young people’ are still doing what ‘young people’ do, seems to be a revelation to Fleet Street. And as indifferent as I am to the monarchy, I like the idea of a dissolute young Prince Hal once again. It at least has a kind of historical resonance in keeping with the amusement value of having a king and/or queen. All this stuff about the royal family becoming PR agents or running media companies is pretty ghastly. They should earn their corn by riding around in solid gold, horse-drawn carriages, wearing crowns and saying nothing. It’s what they’re for, and it’s what the tourists like.
Something I’ve noticed about running longer distances is that equipment becomes more important, and prone to revealing its weaknesses. Both pairs of shoes have shown me their bumpy soles and mobile seams only after 7 or 8 miles. The double-layer socks I wore today have a seam invisible at shorter distances. My thighs have been chafed; the cotton T-shirts I wear have shown just how impractical they are.
The road to enlightenment (in both senses of the word – I’ve now lost 28 lbs since I started running) continues its long and painful course.
