Tom Roper's Running Training

The Brooks Brighton 10K, with some reflections on Moyle's law of steatopygia

@Sweder, who was off running up Antipodean mountains, recounts somewhere on the Running Commentary fora an observation the late Moyleman made at a Brighton race. Both of them arrived late and, as they caught up with the back of the race and, as they made their their way through the field, Moyleman observed that the size of runners' bottoms decreased. He postulated a relationship between running speed and bottom size that has been born out empirically at many events since and deserves to be known by the names of its discoverer.

I thought a great deal about this as I ran this familiar course, trod by me for the seventh consecutive year today. Time was when I whizzed round, recording a personal best of 45:25 in 2005. Today I plodded, towards the back of the race. I try not to look at other runners' bottoms too much at races; people can get the wrong idea. Nevertheless I saw enough to be able to tell that many of the runners in my pace-group had buttocks of considerable mass.

In warm conditions, and with little room for manoeuvre at the part of the course where the slower runners meet the faster ones coming back, it was hard work, but the last 3.5K particularly hard. By the time I was within a kilometre of the finish, I found myself able to speed up for a few metres, but unable to sustain it for longer, falling back to a plod. Nevertheless, I finished in under an hour, 56:23 being my official chip time.

Update: I have located, with help from its author, the post in which Moyle's law was first articulated. And, if you want to read about real running, try this: Point 2 Pinnacle

A running anniversary

It was on 8 November 2003 that I started running again, for the first time since my son, now 20, was a baby. It was a colder November than this one, and I plodded out over muddy tracks through Westlain wood behind the University of Brighton's Falmer campus, where I worked at the time for the Brighton and Sussex Medical School.

So I have marked this anniversary with a small revival. Since last Sunday's Crowborough 10k, I have resolved to start regular running again, and have managed two short outings. I need to get back to fitness in time to start training for the Brighton marathon. If I do a sixteen-week programme, then training must start on Boxing Day.

In which I run a 10k on very little training

/p>

Since being baked alive on the Lewes Downland 10 mile,  I have run little: a short-ish outing every Sunday and that is it. For that reason, I abstained from last weekend's Barns Green half and was in two minds about today's Crowborough 10k. In the event, I went and enjoyed it.

This race had to be cancelled last year due to the weather. The original early December date fell to the early snows, and a rerun was arranged but was also snowed off. Crowborough is the highest town in Sussex and, even today, felt chilly in a north wind, and a grey sky led some to wonder if we might not be snowed on today.

I drove there through the Sussex countryside, with Finzi and Delius on the radio, suitable pastoral accompaniment. We huddled in the school that did was Race HQ, leaving it till the last possible moment to venture out to the start.

The race began with a long downhill, and turned off a main road after 3k or so into a lane, where runners were faced with a ford. Those of us brave enough to take the ford rather than the bridge to the side, as I did on my second lap, are rewarded by having our photograph taken. Then there was a long climb up the lane, and a turn onto a main road and the half-way point, where there were drinks, and a woman sitting outside her house playing Sousa marches on an accordion. Then, for this is a two-lap race, we did it all over again.

Towards the end I was flagging. I had enough to overtake one runner towards the finish, but was passed myself by a young woman, looking fresh as a daisy. I now have a 25th anniversary t-shirt.

I had forgotten how much races can exhilarate. This one was certainly a case in point.