THE GOOD BUCK

I’ve had a bit of a trauma this week. I’m in my final cycle of training. 13 weeks today I’m going for my sub 3 attempt. Do or die. I’ve been in training for 8 months. It will have been 10 months of my life dedicated to this one goal. Everything is playing second fiddle to this. I’m getting up at stupid o’clock to do runs before 11+ hour shifts, finish work, shower, food, bed. I had to get up at 05.00 on my day off to get a run before the worst of the heat in our heatwave recently. As I said I’m in the final bit. The plan is tailored to my race, I’ve just got to follow it through to the end, which is the marathon. Then on Friday, out of the blue, I got an email from my marathon saying they’ve decided to move it to April. 10 months on countdown to that fast and flat race and they’ve moved it. Just like that. Not because they had to, or because it benefits the runners, but because it’s more profitable and convenient for them. There were some choice words screamed into Twitter. I was livid, as you can imagine. I had to regroup and start looking for another race. Ideally I wanted a local, flat, marathon at the end of October. I googled flat marathons and all I could find was Chester in October. I’ve done Chester before and I remember it as being hilly. It goes into Wales and back. It was all they had so I had to book it. It’s 3 weeks too early (2nd of October instead of the 23rd), hilly, and it’s the week after the Warrington half marathon. My plan was designed for me specifically so it’s tailored around racing Warrington half, then carry on training to the full marathon. So now my plan doesn’t work and I have to throw my time at Warrington or I’ll have nothing in my legs for Chester. Suddenly sub 3 moved from being a really big ask to very, very doubtful. I was stressing out, trying to work out how to jury rig my plan. It has me on two weeks taper (light running) before the marathon and a rest day on the Sunday before, which is when the half is happening. I looked up the other flat marathons and it was Blackpool and Manchester, both in April. I’m running the Manchester to Liverpool ultra in April. So that would mess the training up for one or the other. I was so stressed and nothing was working. Then, randomly and totally unexpectedly, somebody on twitter tweeted a bit of an advert for a race they were doing. On the 23rd of October. Flat as a pancake (5 meter elevation over 5K) doing 8 laps of a 5K racing car circuit. OK, that sounds really boring, just running around a big track 8 times, but it is ideal for my sub 3 attempt. The […]

I did my long awaited test half marathon on Sunday. I larded up and rested for two days beforehand to give myself the best possible shot at it. It was windier than I would have liked, and by an ironic bit of bad timing, Garmin (my gps sports watch) are having issues. The first time I’ve noticed any problem in 11 years of running and it’s on an important test run. Typical. The problem seems to be the live pace indicator. One second it’s telling you you are running too slow, then next too fast. Not ideal when you are trying to pace at your limit for 13 miles. Anyway, I’ve checked everything in every way I can think of, and although the live pace is all over the place, the distance is exactly accurate, and even when glitching my watch can tell the time, so the overall time for my half should be right. My last half was 1.29:19 (and that was a huge PB) I ran this one in 1.26:44! I was happy with that. It vindicates Camille’s plan. I’ve only been on the plan 7 weeks and I’ve absolutely smashed my PB. Then I wanted to know where that puts me in the grand scheme of things. Is that good? I googled “what is a fast time for a half marathon?” and this was my first result: That’s age on the left, then the columns are Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced and World Record. According to that I’m 8 minutes into Elite territory! Which to me means the chart is wrong or the bar is set low at my age. I was clicking through some other data on my watch and I came across this: Again, I was suspicious, and had no point of reference, so I googled it. According to that, I’m in the excellent range for an 18-25 year old man! Hang on a minute, am I getting good? I had a thought and looked where my newfound pace would place me, on the basis of last year’s Warrington half marathon. The Warrington half has the cantilever bridge and a some long, dragging hills, so it’s not a given, but if I could hold my current PB, that would put me in the top 20, and a podium for my age group! It’s all pie in the sky at the moment, but I put on Twitter “Got to be said though, I much prefer working towards results, rather than half-arseing a finish.” That thought kept playing on my mind. The Warrington half is in 10 weeks, so I can train for the hills a bit. But if I was to continue training, next year I could be top 10 overall! I really, really, like that thought. Old, useless, duffer me, actually in the mix! I’ve decided to postpone the 100 mile run for next year. That is just too long. It would take me years to get in contention for that. It would just be aiming for […]

We’ve had a few things going on. I was worried about Wendy, she’s been having small coughing bouts every day for over a year. Then I read on Twitter that one of the after effects of Long Covid is pulmonary fibrosis, a stiffening of the lungs that reduces function until death. That is less than ideal. I nagged Wendy into going to see the doctor, who referred her for a lung x-ray. The good news is they’ve said there is no apparent issue, case closed, so she’s not going to die. The bad news is the implied “suck it up” medical advice for her ongoing cough. Meh. We took a mini break to north Wales. It was only 4 days, and it was only 50 minutes away, but it was a complete change of scene and felt like a proper break. I got to do some “Chariots Of Fire” running. And we went to Bodnant Gardens again. Always lovely. When we came back I was surprised to be back on 2 shifts a week. I thought work had picked up. I asked and they have a definite start date now. The automated sorting machinery is running in the morning and evening as they ease the new tech in, but the whole thing goes properly live on the 25th of July. Then it will be all hands to the pumps. I can enjoy the last few quiet weeks now I have a set date. I’ll be a sad panda when I’m trying to fit my training in around full time work again. Money or leisure. It’s an either/or thing. Training is going well. Sort of. I was very bored with Camille’s plan, it was too easy and too repetitive. Get up, run 8 miles, easy, then go to work. 6 days a week. OK, it’s not quite that dull. Long run one day, specialist training (hills, sprints, etc) one day, but mainly it’s 8 miles, easy. It was boring. Then I was talking to someone on Twitter and he said about running from one end of one of my run loops (Carr Mill Dam, St Helens) to the end of another of my run loops (Wigan, where the old canal meets the Mersey). He’d run it one end to the other. Being me, I decided to run it as a loop. 31 miles. Basically it was all the dumb I swore I’d never do again after reading that article. I hadn’t trained for it, was winging it, all attitude and no preparation. I set off in my ASICS (the trainers that were rubbing so badly I ended up buying a bunch of new pairs. They have been alright on shorter runs, but you can see where this is going) wearing a running vest stuffed with 2½ litres of water and energy powder. There’s an extra 6 pounds of weight. On a hot day. I was cruising for 20 miles, (which, by no coincidence, is about the distance of my long runs […]

I’ve been following Camille’s plan and it’s starting to make sense. 6 days a week running, loads of tedious “8 miles, easy” nothing much challenging. But as I’m getting into the plan (6 weeks) I’m noticing the “8 miles easy at 8.30” are changing to “easy at 8.15” and shortly “easy at 8.00”. If I do every 8 mile at the suggested pace for that week, I can see how that would work. It’s still not very challenging, but this week my long run, instead of being a tedious “18 miles, super easy” is 18 miles; 11 at 7.45, then 7.00, 6.55, 6.50, 6.45, 6.45, finishing with an 8.00 for a cool down. 18 miles with 3 of the last 4 at sub 3 pace. That’s more like it! Next week will be the test. It’s my 7th week of this plan, and ends with me having to commit to one plan or the other for the final cycle of training. Instead of my long run next week I’m going to do a flat-out half marathon. See if this plan has made me faster. I was getting very bored with this plan. Get up, run 8 miles easy, go to work, repeat. I broke the plan and fell back into all the bad habits from before reading that article “why women are kicking arse at ultra events/ what men do wrong.” I did a 19 mile run up to Carr Mill dam. Someone on twitter was up there later that day so I said about it, he replied that he’d run from Carr Mill dam (the end of one of my run loops) to Wigan down the canal (the end of another of my loops). I fancied it. Instead of doing end to end I tried to do it as a loop. 31 miles. I’m only up to 19 miles in my training, and the plan said to do 18 that day. I was wearing my vest with bottles and bladder to support myself for the distance, it was well hot so my feet swelled with the heat and weight, and I was wearing my (tight) ASICS. It was basically as dumb as it’s possible to be. My nail got so bashed it blistered underneath and swelled up. I ran out of mojo at about 20 miles, was limping by 24, and quit at 29.6, had to shuffle home. Toe was very poorly. I tried another run but it was awful. Someone on twitter told me it was a blister under my nail, and best to pop it. That was a load better. I ended up clipping the nail back as far as I could and filing it smooth so it wouldn’t snag. I’ve just been for a fast 7 mile with 5x 100m sprints and it’s not swelled up and was fine on the run, so I’m hoping that’s that. The ultra runner on twitter said I was going to lose the nail, but that’s no big. The main […]

I’ve been in two minds about a bunch of things to do with my running lately. My main concern was with my knees. You always hear people saying running inevitably smashes your knees, and I was wondering if I was going that way. I overheard talk about two other drivers who had to have replacement knees and were in a right state. My mam has had it done and, after the pain of the operation and recovery, seems to be fine with it. But either way, you don’t want to be thinking you are hastening your knee destruction. Then there’s the stretching and cross training I’ve been doing on the rowing machine. Is that good or further stressing my knee? Should I rest until it’s completely better? I can see arguments for and against everything. Today I went to see my physio. He had a look at my knees and stretched and pulled me in every direction to pinpoint the problem. He said it was just inflamed tendons. Huge relief. While I was there I asked all the questions. Running smashes your knees? Exactly the opposite. The cartilage has no blood supply. The only way you can build and strengthen it is through movement and exercise. I said I was worried I was going to end up needing new knees. “If you stop running, and put on a lot of weight, you might need new knees in about 20 years. Maybe.” I asked about the stretching and he said it was fine. And he advised cross training (such as rowing, cycling or swimming) as it is low impact. Maybe not to close the angle of my knees as much on the rowing machine (stop before my heels meet my bum, sort of thing) but basically it’s all good. What about total rest? Absolutely not. It’s tendon damage and inflammation. Tendons have poor blood supply, so massage them and exercise them to stimulate blood flow to aid recovery. Also tendons fray when they are damaged. If you just rest they eventually repair, but messily. If you exercise they knit together tidily. So many good answers. He also had me doing eyes-shut one leg balancing. Then he was stretching my about. He said I had the responses of a 20 year old man. Apparently we old dodders are only able to hold 5 or 6 seconds, knee up, balancing on one foot with our eyes closed. A good 20 year can last 20 seconds. I do it every day (with my eyes open) as part of my post run stretching, so I aced that. More wobble getting settled on my right though, which is the worst knee, so it exposed the problem. Also the leg raises are supposed to be a problem past 70 degrees. I swing to head height daily as part of my warm down. He was well made up with me. He’s given me a bunch of stretches and exercises to add to my regime and told me to […]