Tom Roper's Running Training

Rain, steam and speed

I needed a Turner prepared to lash himself to one of the cliff top benches, as J M W was lashed to a boat's mast to paint Snow Storm - Steam-Boat off a Harbour's Mouth, to record today's run. I set off for a variation on the Seaford Head run, along Chyngton Road and up the hill to South Barn. Here I went along the path to Coast Guard Cottages, as seen in the film of Atonement. The view was wild, the sea rough and boiling at the foot of the Seven Sisters. Beowulf might have flung himself into just such a sea to fight Grendel or Grendel's dam. In the half-light of a late winter afternoon, leafless bushes had been flattened by years of wind to resemble the backs of angry cats. Running was tough but not impossible until I turned into the wind. I toiled up the hill from the cottages: I had thought that the declivity here might be sheltered, but it was not. When I reached the top of the cliffs I could barely stand, never mind run. I had to hold on to fence posts for support. Thinking it unsafe to spend to long near the edge, I decided to turn inland a little, and came back along the paths of the golf course.

The effect of the wind may be seen in the graph below. Look at the spike in pace after the two and a quarter mile point.

From university to university

My conference running habit has not had many outlets in recent years. The days when I would nonchalantly knock off a few miles in Washington DC, or up Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh, are gone. I wonder if Sweder, as he lives the rock'n'roll life on the road, has taken his running shoes and kit with him.

I have run in Manchester before, and along a similar route, but this morning I set out before dawn from the University of Manchester and ran to the University of Salford. It was a four mile trip there and back, and by no means beautiful. The tall buildings blocked the Garmin, signal, the city centre looked dank and miserable in the early light, and then the road to Salford runs by closed buildings, old disused mills and boarded churches. The only sight of nature was the river Irwell, as I approached the end of the journey out, but the experienced of looking down over its gently curved meander was tempered by the six-lane road beside me. The anecdote about Engels came to mind: as he was writing the Condition of the Working Class in England, he met a Manchester bourgeois, and held forth at some length about the atrocious conditions in the city. The bourgeois listened patiently, and replied, 'and yet there is a very great deal of money to be made here. Good day to you, sir'.

My cough troubled me more than usual. I attribute this to the inner-city pollution. Oh for the clean Sussex air.

Come on, Grandad: Brighton 10K

In spite of slight preparation, to wit no running in the previous week and a failure to observe my usual pre-race abstemiousness, I finished the Brighton 10k in under an hour, gun time of 58:26, chip time of 56:41, and placed 1700th. This time is 11 minutes slower than my personal best for the distance, 45:25, achieved over the same course, but I was fitter and better-trained then.

Though I drove to Brighton through heavy rain, Saturday's winds had abated, and it was dry by the time I and the others were herded into the starting pens, like so many downland sheep. I passed the minutes before the start in silent speculation about the private lives of those crammed next to me. Once the gun had sounded, it took two minutes to cross the line. I headed east at a reasonable pace, nine-minute miles or thereabouts, but after the Blackrock turn, into the wind, I began to find it hard work and my pace slackened. I knew that many runners were passing me, but concentrated on keeping going, reasoning that I could speed up once we had turned again and had the wind behind us once more. I took offence when a spectator shouted out, 'come on, granddad' at me, until I realised he was with a small boy and was encouraging his son to cheer on another runner, the shouters' father.

The trip back to the finish was easier, the distance passing quickly. By the time we reached the ruins of the West Pier, I was ready to speed up and was running strongly for the last couple of kilometres. The redoubtable Sweder, taking time off life on tour with Motorhead and others, stood near the finish with his camera. After the finish I met him, and Seafront Plodder and RunningCommentary, who had fought a fiercely disputed contest.

Sweder, RunningComm and I took ourselves for restorative pasta, salads, wine and beer, and a discussion of literary and cinematic presentations of the roadie, the modern equivalent of the wandering journeyman of the medieval guilds, and other topics. It was an agreeable and successful day.

The next race will either be the Mince Pie Ten Mile or, if I am required to marshal that one, then some other December event over a similar distance.

The windfulness is terrific

Less than twenty-four hours to go till the Brighton 10K, and this was the scene at Splash Point in Seaford, twelve miles or so east of Brighton. It was barely possilbe to stand.

The cloths of heaven

I ran on Sunday afternoon, after a day of rain, choosing to run the length of Seaford Bay, from home to Splash Point, to Newhaven east pier and back, with a loop thrown in to take me through Tidemills, to add some extra distance to make the whole up to eight miles. There are some possible variations on this theme: I could take in the top of Seaford Head, and make the turning point at the west end the cliffs by Newhaven Fort, or the west pier.

The eight miles were easier than I thought they might be, and good preparation for next Sunday's Brighton 10K. The dark clouds out to sea reminded of the lines, The blue and the dim and the dark cloths, Of night and light and the half light, in Yeats's Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven, heard most recently at Alexandra and Jeremy's wedding the previous weekend.

Last week was also the sixth anniversary of the onset of this bout of running madness. At lunchtime on Friday 7 November 2003, I put on some shoes, a t-shirt and some old rugby shorts, and ran for three muddy miles on the downs at the back of the University of Brighton's Falmer campus.

Aedh wishes for the cloths of heaven

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams

W.B. Yeats

Robert McFarlane on the South Downs

I missed it when broadcast (11 pm is past bedtime for those of us who toil in the Great Wen), but anyone who runs on the Downs will enjoy Robert McFarlane's account, in five fifteen-minute episodes, of a walk from west to east. I note this is the second time recently I have written about a fellow of Emmanuel here: the last one was Peter Burke.

It's still on the iPlayer at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006x3hl though the first episode reaches the embargo point tomorrow, on Monday 9 November.

They also serve, who only stand and wait

Returning to running after a dose of suspected H1N1 flu, and with a week's leave at half-term, I have quite a lot of runs to record. As I now have a feed from Garmin Connect in the left hand side bar, entitled Recent Running, I'm no longer going to quote statistics in these posts, though I may make an exception for races. So this is what's been happening in the running world since I last posted:

24 October: I marshalled, hence the title of this post, at High and Over for the Beachy Head Marathon, in filthy weather. I've been a competitor for the past five years so it was strange to stand in a field encouraging the runners and pointing them in the right direction. I've known some wet and windy Beachy Heads, but never anything quite like this, so everyone who ran is to be congratulated, but especially the winner for the eight time, Stuart Mills of the University of Brighton, and the Seaford Striders who took part; Ryan Stewart was the first Strider to finish, in fifth place in 3:24. See these photos by Chris Wrathall

25 October: my first run for ten days over Seaford Head. The rain that soaked the marathoners had gone, though there was still a strong wind

27 October: a late afternoon run along Seaford front. An evening fog was developing, and a tongue of mist projected out to sea from Newhaven harbour mouth.

28 October: a club run with the Seaford Striders, again with thick fog in places

30 October: an evening run along a shortened version of the same route as the Striders

1 November: a seafront run in very windy conditions.

While all this was going on, Martin Bulger of the Seaford Striders and author of Living Makes You Run Longer achieved his 150th marathon over the Beachy Head course on his 60th birthday. You can recognise his achievement by sponsoring him in aid of the Meningitis Trust. In other news, Paula Radcliffe came fourth in New York.

In this week I achieved a total of 25,82 miles. That's about five times my usual weekly total at the moment.