Tom Roper's Running Training

Rest day: in whelming surge of chlorine and cheap scent

Here the term 'rest' is used satirically, for while this may be a rest day in marathon training, Janathon knows nothing of the idea of rest. So I went swimming, thirty lengths of the Seaford Head pool, 22.5 metres long, so that's 675 metres in all.

I prefer to be 'in whelming surge of brine', but my plan to swim in the sea throughout the winter came to grief in late November, defeated by the falling sea temperatures. I doff my cap to the Seaford Lifeguards, who enjoyed their annual New Year's dip yesterday with a sea temperature of 4.5 C. Maybe next year.

I was made more sharply aware of the pleasures of sea-swimming by the pollution of the indoor pool: halfway through my swim by a woman who entered the water having drenched herself in a pungent, artificial floral scent which poisoned both air and water; afterwards the chlorine pong clung to me.

I also cycled to and from the pool. I wish that Ironmonger Row, one of the most beautiful indoor pools in the country, were open. I've been working nearby since October, but my contract comes to an end in March and the baths are closed for refurbishment until May 2012 at the earliest.

To Bo Peep, or as near as dammit: Janathon day 2

It was bright, cold and the downs were at their finest. I took myself on a route well-trod when I lived nearer the start of the path to Bo Peep (for non-Sussex readers, a point high on the downs where there are, unsurprisingly, sheep). I was to run eight miles; from the old house I remember that it was three miles to the field just before the bostal† and, magically, as I reached the same point I saw that I had run exactly four miles. I am always amused by these serendipities of distance.

Hard work, but the lesson I learn from week two of the training is that rest days occupy their places in the training week for a reason. Trifle with them at your peril.

Time: 1:32:13
Distance: 8.25
Pace: 11:02

Total mileage this week: 29.22

† a Sussex dialect word. See the OED:  ? < Old English beorh a hill (barrow n.¹) + Old English stíel(e, stile n.¹ But the explanation ‘seat on the side or pitch of a hill’ given by Bp. Kennett (see Halliwell), suggests Old English *beorh-steall

To understand all is to forgive all: my first Janathon run

Tout comprendre c'est tout pardonner. When Charles Ryder meets Sebastian Flyte for the first time at Oxford in Brideshead Revisited, Sebastian, before vomiting through the window of Charles's room, explains that it is not the quantity of drink he has taken that makes him feel unwell, but the variety.

After a night of modest potations, some amontillado before supper, red wine with scallops and with the Stilton that followed, a couple of bottles of Harvey's porter, and a single glass of champagne at midnight, I woke at 4 am from a dream in which I wandered the streets of Paris, searching for a lavatory after undergoing brain surgery without anaesthetic. I was surprised to find I had a raging headache and an urgent need for the lavatory but, if I had thought for a moment, the clues were in the dream.

In spite of this I joined some thirty or so Seaford Striders for our New Year's Day run from the Martello tower to the sailing club  and back. This is a restrained and genteel affair. The faster runners moderate themselves to the pace of the slowcoaches, parents run with children, and at the end we all had a biscuit. The weather was grey, but by no means cold. The figures below include one mile jogs to and from the start.

Time: 43:31
Distance: 4:65
Pace: 9:22