Tom Roper's Running Training

Running on Sundays

Oh dear. I only managed to run on Sunday, with a gap of a week since my last run. I have done no swimming either, which might have redeemed me. However, a consultation about my asthma with a doctor who once treated Steve Ovett make me hope that I shall become faster. This run was down to Splash Point, where the RSPB's kittiwake observation point is now open, though kittiwake numbers are down. Data is from the Garmin only; I wore the SportBand, but fumbled with the start/stop button.

Time: 50:40
Distance: 4.91
Pace: 10.19 (best 6.24)

Sunday run to the sea

I have now calibrated the SportBand, so the distance readings are much more reliable; so would the time and pace readings if I learnt how to stop it properly at the end of a run.

Time: 50:53(Garmin)/57.44(SportBand)
Distance: 5.01/4.99
Pace: 10.10 (best 7.4)/11.32

Open air swimming

I think I have overcome the trouble with running I've had ever since the London Marathon. I've lacked speed, but more than that, I've felt sluggish and unmotivated. Eleven lengths (506m) of the Pells Pool at lunchtime on Tuesday cured it all, so much so that I also ran in the evening. When I was a child in Cambridge, exercise invaiably meant swimming, in the Cam or at Jesus Green. My father, a doctor, lived to swim and used to arrange his rounds so as to fit in a swim on his way home. My brother and I would be taken, not always willingly. Indeed, the wet wood and urine smell of the changing rooms at Jesus Green, and the curious carvings in the wood walls, graffiti and artists' impressions of the female nude, were unpleasant, and I well remember a Sunday swim in the rain aged twelve, after which I felt very ill and was found to have viral pneumonia. I was reminded of all this by reading Kate Rew's book, Wild Swim. I shall do more of this.

For the run:
Time: 49:29(Garmin)/49.32 (SportBand)
Distance: 5(G)/5.51(SB)
Pace: 9.54 (best 8.05)G /8.58 (SB)

Some mistake, surely?

The official results were up for the Seaford 10K on the school's website, though they've disappeared now. They credit me with running faster than I think I did. My time is ten minutes better than the version on my Garmin. There's photos too, by AntBliss: http://gallery.sussexsportphotography.com/libraryhome.tlx

The Seaford 10k

Revived after a year's lapse, and over a new route, today the Seaford 10K took place, from a new base at Newlands School, Seaford's last remaining private school. Once the town was full of private schools; a search of the Dictionary of National Biography for Seaford as a keyword finds many entries where the subject went to school in the town; it also, I might add finds many where the subject died in one of our many nursing homes. The nursing homes seem to be surviving better than the schools. Newlands is the last of the latter but their survival is precarious.

The new route has the steepest hill I have ever come across in a run. I walked it and asked the marshal at the top if the leaders had run or walked it; he confirmed that even they had walked. Seaford is not a beautiful town and the urban parts of the route took us through its least beautiful districts, but this was compensated for by the country stretches. After a tedious section along paths screened by hedges, we burst out onto grassland, up to High and Over, running parallel to the Alfriston Road on its eastern side, to High and Over and then down to the Cuckmere. After running beside the river, we faced the ascent back to High and Over, steeper than anything on the Beachy Head marathon or the Jog Shop 20, then back on the same route to the finish.

The race was late starting, and I'm not sure that Newlands School's open day was quite the best place for a 10K. I saw a runner heading for the finish impeded by a grand lady in a large hat, perhapa the head mistress, who took it into her head to walk across the track in front of the runners. But I'm glad to see the event revived. My time was a personal worst again, but given the hill and that I was under an hour, I was not too disappointed.

Time: 00:59:25
Distance: 6.10 (a bit short I think?)
Pace: 9.44 (best 5.52)

That hill in full:

Four miles before the Seaford 10K

I ran for four miles on a windy evening, watching kite-surfers leaping up from the waves when I reached the sea. The Garmin's battery failed and I didn't start the SportBand until half a mile in, so this data should be taken cum grano salo.

Time: 34.27
Distance: 3.77 (in reality at least 4, possibly 4.25)
Pace: 9.07

Two days till the Seaford 10K

First run after the Seaford half: pain is inevitable, suffering is optional

I ran today, an easy five-miler towards the end of the day to Splash Point and back.
Time: 49:25
Distance: 4.93
Pace: 10.01
Those are the Garmin's figures. By way of contrast, the SportBand thought I ran 5.33 miles at an average pace of 8.33 minutes per mile.

In other running news, I was intrigued by an extract in the Guardian Review from Haruki Murakami's book on running, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. I can never remember what I think or talk about while running, let alone write a book about it. I've never read any of Murakami's novels, but I may try this one.

The glorious First of June: Seaford half-marathon

I haven't posted for ages, but shall not bother to record the few training runs I've done recently, though one, because of its exotic Dorset location, deserves a short mention. I'll plunge straight in with an account of yesterday's Seaford half-marathon.

I woke at 6.30 to the sound of rain outside, After my customary race breakfast of porridge and bread and honey, the rain had stopped and I took myself down to the front for the nine o'clock start. I collected my number from the rugby club, where, in an illustration of the demographics of running, there was one table for runners under 40, three for runners between 40 and 59 and one for those 60 and over. The man who gave me my number, 517, told me there had been 400 pre-registrations, and they expected another 100 to register on the day. I walked to the start, at the Bonningstedt promenade. Here, for the first time, there was a Sovereign FM radio van encouraging us. I'm not sure what I think about this. It is only a short step from this to the sort of excesses one sees at the Brighton 10k and half-marathons, with aerobics instructors on mobile stages inciting the runners to warm up to the monotonous sound of techno. Better than the Seaford half should start in silence, watched only by sullen pensioners, annoyed that their morning consitutionals have been disrupted
The start took me by surprises; maybe one year the starter will use a megaphone. I had put myself too near the front, and found the leaders setting a pace that I could not match, even for a quarter of the distance. I let them pass me, as we ran along the front, across the A259 and along to Bishopstone, where there are a couple of brief climbs and the first water station. Then the route takes one along some difficult narrow paths, with no room to overtake. Here we met the first mud. At Fiveways the path descends to the Greenway, then climbs again for about a mile, on a hard hill. When we reached the top, the view was obscured by cloud, though not without beauty. Windover Hill, the other side of the Cuckmere valley, was impressively cloud-hidden.
The route then descends to Alfriston on a stony and difficult track that turns to road. The water station in Alfriston is at the six mile point, and then the race takes one along the banks of the Cuckmere. The mud was not as bad as I have known it in winter but this section, with several stiles to break the rhythm, I find the most difficult and had dark why-am-I-doing-this thoughts . After the Golden Galleon, there are two ascents, both steep, the second on a concrete road. I'm afraid to admit I walked for part of these. Then I was on the top of Seaford Head, with just two miles to go. By now I'd been running for two hours. I still hoped to be able to finish inside 2:15 and pressed on. A slight fall caused by a rabbit hole didn't set me back too much, but the descent down the steep side of Seaford Head is always hard to achieve at speed. Then I was on the flat with a little under a mile to go. I tried to find some energy to increase the pace, but I had nothing left, except for a very modest increase towards the end, allowing me to overtake some other runners, but not many. I finished in 2:17:57 by my watch, or 2:18;00, according to the official times, 233 out of 316 male finishers. In full:
Time: 2:18:00
Distance: 13:11
Pace: 10.31 (best 6.51)

I was slower than I'd hoped to be. On the other hand, I find it difficult to integrate training and my new commute and I think the anti-hypertensives the doctor has given me make me tired. I now take a rest from racing for a bit, but there's a decision to be taken about an autumn marathon soon.

For an alternative view, see Sweder on the Running Commentary forum.