Tom Roper's Running Training

The week after

It seems something of an anti-climax, on the day when so many flog themselves round 26.2 miles in the Great Wen, to boast of four-and-a-quarter miles, but it's all I have to report. It was hard, but I'm not sure to what extent that was because of the Brighton marathon a week ago, or to be attributed to yesterday's swimming coaching, a taxing stamina session. 

The run itself was over a familiar, short route, to the Cuckmere and back by way of Hope Gap and Seaford Head. I thought of a remark I meant to make about last Sunday: in that pre-race heightened state of awareness that every runner will know, about how the hours before the race were like being in love, that every piece of music from Radio 3 on the car radio seemed to have been chosen for an esoteric significance to my situation. For the record, these were Butterworth's Banks of Green Willow, Debussy's La Cathedrale Engloutie, Beethoven's overture Die Weihe des Hauses and the last movement of Mozart's Clarinet Quintet. One day I may explain why these works speak to me so clearly, and I may find I reproduce this  pattern of music before future marathons.

I have a strategy for the summer. I want to enter as many of the Sussex Grand Prix races as I can, and take advantage of the evening races that form a part of the series; this may make a contribution to my club's efforts in the 2012 Grand Prix. Moreover, if I run at least eight, I shall be given a medal at the next Seaford Striders awards evening, though I won't have the great pleasure of receiving it from the hands of Julia Armstrong who gave the prizes for 2011. So the plan consists of the following:

• Petworth 10K (not an SGP race but the idea of running in the grounds of Petworth House appeals)
• Rye 10 miles
• Worthing 10K
• Brighton Phoenix 10k
• Bexhill 5K

I may also include the Seaford half marathon, and the Bewl 15. Juneathon looms menacingly.

In the longer term, the next marathon will be the Three Forts in 2013. 

The Brighton Marathon 2012

Haile Gebrsellasie ran the Berlin marathon in 2:03:59 in 2008, a record that stands. Peter Some won the 2012 Brighton marathon in a time of 2:12:03. I finished it in 4:46:12. By comparison you might find that unimpressive but I'll have you know that was forty seconds faster than last year. Indeed, though this was my twelfth marathon and I am now fifty-seven years old, this was my fifth fastest. It has tremendous crowd support, a huge field of runners and the sea.

I arrived at Preston Park at around 8:30, with only time to leave my bag, relieve myself and join my starting pen. I failed to make contact with anyone I knew at the start, but, misanthropic as that may seem, it may have been a blessing. It's easy to be overstimulated at the start of a marathon, and above all I wanted to avoid going off too fast.  I had decided to use the metaphor of a symphony, of four movements, for this race, and the first movement was not to be taken too fast.

At the very start my ankle hurt, but as I ran it loosened. I found myself, by accident, with the 4:30 pacer and stayed with him until more or less half-way. As each mile past he led his group in a cheer, to the surprise of the spectators. I noticed a loutish tendency on the part of some runners to throw half-finished drink bottles to the side of the road, careless of whether any spectators might be standing there. After the run out to the east, the route returns to the centre of the seafront, and then off to Hove. I lasted well until the end of the long run west up New Church Road, including a new excursion into Portslade. After we turned to run back down New Church Road, I began to weary and, at the next drinks station, found myself pausing to drink. This was necessary in any case, as I had some difficulty with the water pouches handed out, which either fail to deliver any liquid at all, or squirt too much and choke the thirsty runner. Then out to Shoreham power station, the so-called road to hell. By the time we turned, and ran back westwards for four or so miles, I had had it. I ran, pausing at drinks stops, but without any speed. The splits below tell the story. I made it to the end with absolutely nothing left.

I was not disappointed, but I do not think I will do Brighton again. There are too many parts of the course in which, like laboratory rats, we are sent running in one direction and then back on ourselves. And it is a road marathon, better for fast runners, but I'd rather be on the downs. As chance might be, when I returned to the car, there was a leaflet for the Three Forts marathon under my windscreen wiper. Perhaps next year? In the meantime I shall take a week's rest from running, return to swimming training on Saturday, and plan my summer campaign of shorter distance races.

 

Marathon eve

This morning I went to the marathon exhibition, not to pick up my number, which I already have, but to browse, to admire exhibition stands selling jacuzzis and beetroot-based energy gels. I took two pace bands, one for a 4;30 finish, one for 4:45. It was a great pleasure to run into former BSMS runner, Claire Rank, now proud proprietor of Crank personal training. I watched a display showing the course and came away.

It was a day for decisions:

• I will wear the older, but more comfortable shoes
• I will take the 4:45 pace band. This is the more realistic target

I have prepared and packed all the kit I'm taking. I rely on a checklist prepared by Running Commentary. So, the die is cast. Alea iacta est.

Death or glory

[I wrote this post on Thursday evening: for some reason it was never posted]

As I write this post, I am following the tweets from the Classical Association conference, where Professor Chris Carey, with the aid of Percy, a teddy bear dressed as a gladiator, is giving a plenary lecture on Ancient Athletics. See #CA2012 if you're interested.

Last night I ran for the last time before Sunday,  three miles through fields of lambs. Today I drove from one meeting to another along the seafront and looked over at Shoreham power station. For all the mythology that has grown up around that stretch of the course, when I look at the map I see that it is only about three miles in total. I worry about the weather: the northerly wind is going to make it cold, but not so cold that I need to wear anything more than my running vest.

It's hard to think of anything but the marathon; I fear I may not be at my most productive. An unexpected e-mail has just come from a fellow Strider, out of running through injury. He urges me, if it gets tough, to think of it as another training run. 'Above all, enjoy it', he says.' I have a feeling you will.' Good advice, which I will heed.

The marathon as Gesamtkunstwerk

Apart from the chance to wander up the byways of the biomedical literature, another advantage of my current job is that I travel. This stops me becoming stale, and offers the opportunity to listen to the radio while on the move. I'm usually a Radio 3 listener, but this morning I happened to turn on Radio 4 hear Kathleen Jamie on Woman's Hour. At one point she compared writers to athletes: each has their preferred forms, or distances. She, a poet and essayist, is a sprinter. I suppose writers of novellas and short stories are middle distance runners, while marathoners undertake the great long novels of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Or, in verse forms, a marathon might be a Homeric epic in twenty-four or even twenty-six books.

I find it interesting to think of Sunday's marathon as a large-scale work of art, but what should it be? I think less a work of literature, perhaps more a dance, as Julia Armstrong and I observed in her podcast the other week. Or maybe a work of music, an opera or a symphony of Mahlerian or Brucknerian proportions. So I shall run on Sunday in four movements, each approximately 6.55 miles, a first movement, a slow movement, a scherzo and a finale. This is not a simplistic attempt to dictate pace, a mechanistic allegro, largo, presto then allegro, but more a way to think about the different phases of the race. I will report back on how this works in practice.

First movement: start to the new sewage works in the middle of the A259 (on the way out...we also pass these on the way back from Ovingdean). if in sonata form, then the exposition would be the first  two miles, the development the middle two or three, and the finale the final mile or two.
Second movement: sewage works to Ovingdean and back to the halfway point on the road above the finish on Madeira Drive
Third movement: halfway point to the first aid point in Portslade
Finale: to the docks, the turn and the run back east to the finish

Then again, perhaps it should be an experience that brings together many art forms. I doubt if Wagner would recognise his concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk in the spectacle of a few thousand runners on the streets of Brighton, but it makes sense to me.

 

Marathon anxiety

This is the last week, and every entrant for Brighton must be in a similar state of mind. In the day job, as a medical librarian, I found myself looking at a database subject heading for castration anxiety.

I could not find a heading for marathon anxiety, but I'm sure that's what I am suffering from. During a last speed session on Seaford front this morning, I presented with the following symptoms:

• An unfounded belief that my right knee, shin and ankle will not last the course. I suddenly find I have twinges in parts of my body that I never knew I had
• Shoe anxiety: should I wear the very worn pair, which has seen me through all my long runs, or the faster, newer but less comfortable ones I wear for road training? Buying new ones is, naturally, out of the question at this late stage. Suppose my cats eat my shoelaces the night before the marathon?
• Forebodings about the Shoreham stretch, those long miles round the docks with few spectators and nothing but will-power to keep one going
• Weather neurosis: will it be hot, like last year, with exhausted runners carted off in wheelbarrows? Or wet and windy like last weekend?
• What if aliens invade and take us all off to their galaxy, to farm us as we farm cattle and swine? What if I wake, turned like Joseph K into a giant insect? What if the road collapses and we all fall into a sewer and drown?

Some of these fears can be planned for; for the others, I can do nothing about, so it is not worth worrying. As for castration, it is, I hope, unlikely.

A week to go

With a week to go, I ran today for ten miles in Friston Forest. On Good Friday I took part in the Good Good Friday Friday run.

To deal with the latter first, it's an annual event that I last took part in in 2009. We meet at Brighton Marina, jog out to the wire fence by the water works opposite Telscombe The, and race back, about 3.75 miles each way. It was a fine afternoon, and the runners were fast, but I felt it no disgrace to be 24th out of 24 finishers, for many of them were very fast indeed.

Today, I went out in drizzle, but quickly found the rain top I had put on too hot-making. I went on a loop through the forest, up to the hill above Jevington and back again beside the A259. At the top, I stopped for a drink and everything was quiet: the only sounds were the dripping of rain through the branches, and the faint pop-popping of guns in the distance. On the way back I startled an egret and heron, side by side in a pond near the Cuckmere.

I feel ready for the marathon. I worry about my legs and my ankles, and which shoes to wear, and a hundred other things, but so one does this close to a race.

 

My number

 

Miles this week: 27.23
One week till the Brighton marathon

A run with the Striders

I ran with the Striders on Wednesday evening. As the evenings lighten, the possibilities of running off-road begin to increase again. We meet, hear brief words from our captain, Martin, form ourselves into groups, and get out quickly to make the most of the light. It's pleasing to see fellow runners progressing, moving up to join faster pace groups, though I stay with the slow-to-mediums.

We ran up over Seaford Head, to Hope Gap, back towards the Golden Galleon and up the hill we have dubbed Sheep Hill. It was a glorious evening, offering fine prospects of the Seven Sisters and we managed most of the course in daylight. I felt puissant, running well on the ascents. There are few runs left before Brighton.

Nevertheless, with an old friend's funeral to attend the next day, I could not help thinking that I, and every other runner there, has only a finite number of runs left. So we must make the most of them.

The funeral meant no running today, but tomorrow there is the Good Good Friday Run.

A podcast, and some hills

The hills first: early this morning I ran up and down bits of Seaford Head, for a hill session, as the sun came up and light spread. It was cold at first, but running uphill warmed me up very quickly. There's something very agreeable about the pattern of interval running on hills, the hard slog up, and the gentle trot down, over and over again. I could not say I could carry on forever, though. It is taxing stuff.

So much for that; far more exciting news is that today a podcast, in which Julia Armstrong talked to me, went live. Julia has recorded eighty-one of these to date, with far more illustrious runners and artists than me, and I urge you to explore the archive. So wide is her choice of subjects that everyone will find something to listen to with interest.

Recording the podcast, on a beautiful afternoon last week, was a pleasure. I felt no nerves, unlike most interviews, when I identify strongly with the little cavalier boy in W F Yeames' When did you last see your father.

Talking to Julia and Andrew (aka @DoctorPod) was easy, even for a diffident conversationalist like me, and I wished we could have gone on all afternoon. From running we strayed to cover sailing, poetry, our relationship with the natural world and more. Do listen.

Running fashion notes

The big question for today's long run was what, or more exactly, how much, to wear. There was a chilly wind, so I wore a t-shirt covered by a long-sleeved top, with the sleeves pushed up. I was more or less the right temperature throughout the sixteen miles. The hero of the day was the shirtless runner I passed between High and Over and Fiveways. Sir, I salute your fortitude.

For much of the rest of the run I passed a number of walkers and runners, all clutching maps. They must have had a staggered start, for walkers and runners were intermingled. I asked what it was and was told it was a challenge walk.

With two weeks to go, I feel in good shape and spirits. I see that Sweder will keep his morale up by imagining his wife holding a pint of Harveys aloft at the finish. I must find a similarly motivating mental picture for my own use.

Miles this week: 38.07
Two weeks to the Brighton Marathon