Tom Roper's Running Training

Spring comes laughing o'er the hill...

…crowned with wreaths of daffodil', which always seemed odd to me as we sang that chorus from one of J.S. Bach's secular cantatas in the school choir. It must be damned hard to make a wreath out of daffodils. I tried to find the German text, to compare the original, but without luck. The chorus goes on, cheerfully, to remind us that. 'soon will come the winter's cold, Soon our hearts grown dull and old'.

Today's long run had both elements, vernal pleasures such as snowdrops and lambs, and reminders of my age and dullness. Although the intention was to do twelve miles, taking in Firle Beacon, which would have been four miles less than the programme required, after the fourth mile, as I began the ascent to Firle Bostal, I realised how unfit I still am. My pulse was prestimissimo and my legs felt as if they couldn't carry me another mile, never mind another eight. I turned and ran down, making my way home across country to the path from Bo Peep. I'm afraid to say I walked up the hills. In the event, I ran 9.6 miles by the time I reached home. I had taken no drink with me, and I'm sure some water and perhaps a gel might have helped. Perhaps I should not have returned to training so soon. Still, it is behind me. and I press on to Eastbourne next Sunday.

I have now abstained from fermented and distilled liquors for a week. I must say I feel much better for it even though I recognise the truth of the old drunk's saw that, when you're sober, how you feel when you wake up is as good as you're going to feel all day.

Total mileage this week: 29.78
One week to the Eastbourne half marathon
Seven weeks to the Brighton marathon

Sans eyes, sans teeth, sans everything

I ran a mere 2.75 miles today; I'm slowly building fitness up again after the bronchitic interlude. On Thursday morning I ran 3.75 miles; measure this against the programme I should have run six miles on Wednesday and seven on Thursday.

There is another reason for taking it easy. After running on Thursday morning, I visited the dentist, where my last remaining upper teeth were removed, one more of my lower ones, and dentures fitted. I hesitate to admit this in public—wearers of false teeth were objects of ridicule and easy meat for lazy comedians in my youth. Not an issue of the Beano or Dandy appeared without a false-teeth joke. I too laughed at Hoffnung's Oxford Union speech: 'the teeth on the top are fine, but the ones one my bottom hurt terribly"*.  Moreover, I fear that the dewy-eyed maidens among my readers, once they know the truth about my dentition, will no longer swoon with unrequited longing over these posts and their author, but turn to other, faster, younger, male runner-bloggers with a full set of thirty-two.

Still, when all's said and done, I run with my feet, not my teeth. Dentures take some getting used to, and I was worried that they might impede my running. For the past two days, I have over-salivated like anything, and as for eating…So I am pleased to have proved that I can run with them. They didn't fall out. It isn't comfortable, but running isn't about comfort. Now to build up some distance.

* From the section of letters he claimed to have been sent while working at the DHSS  (Department of Health and Social Security for younger readers). My favourite still is, "I have been in bed with the doctor for a week and it doesn't seem to be doing me much good".

On humoral theory

I'm reading David Wootton's Bad Medicine at the moment. Last night, as I read about humoral theory, blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile, I wondered what Hippocrates or Galen would have made of the massive amounts of phlegm I have been producing. It consisted of  ten 200m fast runs with 100m recoveries, and a mile warm-up and cool-down

It represents a return to hard running.

 

Back to running

After a twelve day gap in training, I took my last capsule of Amoxicliin (500mg) on Sunday morning, put on my running shoes and went out to try out my legs. I ran a mere three miles, and they were difficult, what with the spams of coughing and the sweating, but I completed them. Was it wise? Perhaps not, but I have a marathon to run in eight weeks time. I have abjured strong drink for the remainder of the training period (with and xepction made for my birthday).

I missed the Brighton half today. I was too late for a place; perhaps just as well. There's a great deal of unhappiness about the course, which seems to have been about 0.4 of a mile longer than it should have been. Garmins aren't accurate, I know, but this time it looks as if the complainers have a point.

Two weeks to the Eastbourne half marathon
Eight weeks to the Brighton marathon

A hiatus

It seems hardly worth blogging: last week's training consisted of a snowy hill session and then nothing. I have succumbed to a bronchial infection. I saw a doctor this morning, who advised me not to run for another week. That will make two weeks lost to training. A sixteen-week programme can bear that, but not much more. Still, I was lucky I chose Eastbourne as my half-marathon. Luckliy all the places in Brighton had gone by the time I booked my pre-marathon half. I would have been in no condition to run a half on Sunday.

The days lengthen, the weather is milder. There is time to train.

Last Sunday there were three weeks to the Eastbourne half marathon and nine weeks to the Brighton marathon.

Running in the snow

Now Janathon is over, I am absolved from the responsibility to blog about my running every day, and to omit no detail, no matter how trifling. So I conflate four runs into one post.
Wednesday: five miles, early in the morning. It has turned cold
Thursday: another five miles, cold again, but these were run in daylight, so I profited by this by running off road, over to the Cuckmere and back over Seaford Head.
Friday: rest day
Saturday: swimming coaching in the morning, and the coach worked us hard–there was a new student in the group, so he set us some drills and left us to it, and three miles at twilight in the evening.

Then the snow came, and I was supposed to run twelve miles. I managed nine and a third and, though this may sound like self-justification, I believe that nine and a third over snow, some of it deep, is as good as twelve miles on easier surfaces. And the beauty of it! When I was a school-boy, if we rushed to a window to look at a snow-fall during a class, the teacher would beat us back to our desks, and the study of the gerundive, with coarse oaths, exclaiming, 'haven't you boys ever seen snow before?" Of course we had, but we had never seen this snow, on this day, and, fifty years later, those of us still alive rejoice that we saw that snow. The open fields were tracts of white, and the paths which I, six feet tall, can run down easily, were difficult to negotiate, the hedges being bent under the weight of snow. Yesterday's swimming, and the exertion of running through deep snow, drained my strength and I called it a day. Nevertheless, this week I have run further than any week since training started.

Total this week: 29.46
Four weeks to the Eastbourne half marathon
Ten weeks to the Brighton marathon