Tom Roper's Running Training

Two days to go

I didn't run yesterday, nor will I run today. I ought to be feeling like a coiled spring. Instead I feel a curious lassitude.

Every runner's eyes are on Sunday's weather. While the Met Office forecast says 18℃, Dr Stevenson, the Marathon's medical director warns of 21℃: http://brightonmarathon.co.uk/warm_weather.html. Either way, we need not fear the cold.

And in today's post came a sponsorship cheque from one of the Running Commentary community, MarathonDan. Dan is running dressed as an 9-foot tall stick of rock for Cancer Research. Do sponsor him here: http://www.justgiving.com/brightonrock2011. If you're feeling flush, you could sponsor me too; I'm running for Moorfields Eye Hospital Development Fund.

Catalogue d'oiseaux

Yesterday I ran my last run before the Brighton marathon, apart from a very brief excursion in marathon kit on Saturday morning. I went, on a gorgeous afternoon, to South Hill barn, Hope Gap and Seaford Head. As I reached the highest point a lark sang above me and I listened, trying to understand his song, the trills, turns and glissandos. If I could run the way he sang, naturally, unforced, fast....

It is something of a relief to have the last run out of the way. I need no longer fear injury, another fall on the flinty paths and a cut knee. As the Burra Mem is laid up with a broken ankle, I am perhaps over-conscious of the fragility of the parts of the body humans use to run. I worry about illness too: a headache and a sneeze might mean a cold, if so, will it be over by Sunday?

The long period of self-denial that has characterised the past seven and a bit weeks, to wit my abstinence from alcohol for half of the sixteen week training programme is taken a stage further today, when I renounce coffee. Prepare for shakes, headaches and other withdrawal symptoms. Is there any point to this asceticism? I think so, for I believe coffee tends to dehydrate, thanks to its diuretic effect.

I discovered that Southern, contrary to their publicity, are not running any extra trains on Sunday on the Seaford line, and the earliest one would get me to London Road at 8:25, which is a little too late for a relaxed walk to the start, deposit of baggage, and finding the green pen, so I shall drive to the University and use the park and ride.

Last speed session before the marathon

The last Tuesday speed run consisted of six quarter-mile fast runs, at 10k pace, according to the rubric, with 200m recoveries and warm-up and cool-down. I enjoy these, though I'm neither good nor fast when I undertake them.

Today the wind blew and the sea spat foam over Seaford front. A high tide brought the water rushing over the promenade at Splash Point. It's good to get these conditions out of the way before the marathon. Here's to a calm, bright, but not too hot, Sunday.

Pace over the quarter miles:

First .25 miles: 08:56
Second .25 miles: 08:57
Third .25 miles: 09:02
Fourth .25 miles: 08:40
Fifth .25 miles: 08:44
Sixth .25 miles: 08:35

 

Brain fodder

In the week before a marathon I need something to make me think uplifting thoughts. I don't want to forget about running, but neither do I want to be reminded of its grosser physical aspects. Two things come to my rescue:

The Winning Endeavours project, a collaboration between Archives for London, London Metropolitan Archives and the British Library, which shows images of the 1908 and 1948 London Olympics, and more besides, incuding archive pictures of the London marathon. I'm sure I'd run faster if those elegant Edwardian ladies were cheering me on.

Copyright of Hillingdon Local Studies Archives and Museum Service

The second is the latest in the Marathon 2500 lecture series, to mark the 2,500th anniversary of the battle of Marathon, in which Thomas Scanlon of University of California, Riverside, will discuss War and Sports

From the website: 'Both sport and battle were "contests" for the Greeks, agones, in their terms.  We will here look at the fascinating and puzzling legend(s) of Pheidippides (or whatever his name was), ancient long-distance messenger runners ("day runners" hemerodromoi) as a class, ancient footraces in the stadium, perhaps a bit about the Olympic truce (on the theme of sport and war), the Marathon Race in the modern Olympics, and modern long-distance running.' You can either join in the webcast live, or listen to the archived version after the event.

One week to go

In a week's time I will have finished. I will be drinking my first alcohol for eight weeks, and insisting that I will never run another marathon again. For today, I ran a mere ten miles, some of it in thick fog, though the Cuckmere valley was in bright sunshine. I have now run at least 451.18 miles in fifteen weeks in training, probably more, given various Garmin breakdowns. Another 26.2 will be as nothing. This week saw my last ever run at work, a hills session-though central London hills are not quite the same as we have here in Sussex, Lloyd Baker Street was the best I could find, and two five mile runs along the front. I should have run a further four miles yesterday, but the small matter of taking my wife to hospital after she fell downstairs and broke her leg rendered this impossible.

Miles this week: 25.86
One week till the Brighton marathon.

It's not too late to sponsor me for Brighton. I'm running for the Moorfields Eye Hospital Development Fund and you can support me at: http://www.justgiving.com/tomroper

Memory and running

Last week I undertook the longest weekday run of my marathon training, nine miles along the banks of the Regent's Canal, as far as Lord's.

As I ran, perhaps thinking ahead to the marathon, I wondered why memories of runs fade so quickly. The next overlays the last so soon. Once, on the Beachy Head marathon, I met a runner who carried a voice-recorder and kept up a commentary for the whole race. While this would preserve every moment, I wondered who it might be for; did he invite his friends round for dinner and play it to them, all four or five hours worth? Did Borges's character Funes the Memorious, who could remember everything in every detail, run? After a run, I am like those drivers who drive a route so frequently that when they arrive at their destination they remember nothing of how they got there. I do remember a fragmentsof overheard conversation, though from one cyclist to another, 'no, he's not my boyfriend, he's just a friend, he's gay' .

On my way along the tow path, I went back through time, through the strata of my own life. Camden Lock represented my twenties and thirties, before the market became the huge thing it is now. Then the zoo, and the Snowdon aviary, which we visited when I was a boy, shortly after it opened, when I must have been nine or ten. I wondered how the system of double doors prevented the birds from escaping. From the tow path I I could see large numbers of ibis. It is not hard to understand why the Egyptians thought them sacred. Then to the villas around the park; my mother had lived near here before the war, and we would sometimes visit friends of hers. The atmosphere during our visits would be tense, as it often was with my mother at social occasions. I would be sent to play with the host children.

 

Two weeks to go

Or so there were on Sunday, and I'm late writing up last week's running. I have some more to say about one of them in any case, which deserves a post to itself. It was a hard week, and from now on things become easier. For Sunday's long run, I chose a route I haven't run for some time, along the front, through Tidemills, Newhaven, out to Piddinghoe along the banks of the Ouse and up an amusing little hill to the downs above Peacehaven.

Milage this week: 40.1
Two weeks till the Brighton marathon

An exaltation of larks

It's rare for nature and the man-made calendar to fit so neatly together, but today they did. Tonight at 23.11 it's the vernal equinox, and today could not have been more vernal. I ran out to Bo Peep, Firle Beacon and Beddingham hill in hazy sunshine, with birds singing their heads off and daffodils waving in the breeze in the gardens I passed as I made my way out of the town. On the high parts of the downs larks sang everywhere. Did you know, by the way, tha among the many species of larks, there is one known as the Monotonous Lark, Mirafra passerina?

I only ran 14.6 miles, but that was good enough. I don't mean to start my taper too soon, but this week life has slightly got in the way of running. Next week will be better. My number came: 8211.

Total mileages this week: 33.21
Three weeks till the Brighton Marathon

Midweek running

Three midweek runs: an early morning run at home, out of the house in the dark, up and down the seafront trying to run fast for one mile sessions; a run along some of the Regent's Canal at lunchtime yesterday, and today the touristy route, down to Watreloo bridge, along  the Tahmes path and back over the Millenium Bridge. Do we still call it the wobbly bridge? There was a curious sight on the river, several launches and rigid inflatables with armed soldiers or marines in them, as well as police. I wondered if we might be at war with the Dutch, and Van Tromp had strapped a broom to his mast once more.

Rest day tomorrow. One of the ways in which I count down to the end of my job is the number of lunchtime runs I have left. It is now six, three this week and three next.

Four weeks to go: to the Greenwich meridian and beyond

It is a complusory part of my marathon training that one of my long runs shoudl be an out and back run towards Brighton. I chose today for twenty miles, the longest distance I'll run before 10th April. This route crosses the Greenwich meridian in Telscombe, where a 1930s monument stands on the cliffs to show precisely where 0° 0′ W is. It was a hard run, in mist and rain when I set off, though the weather changed for the better on my return trip. My feet hurt, and hurt still. The cliffs above Newhaven are not for the nervous; in place erosion means that the edge is too close for comfort. Considering I was tired from a poor night's sleep (we had most of the 17-year-old population of Seaford staying with us last night), I think it was a decent effort.

Miles this week: 43.22
Four weeks till the Brighton marathon. I see their Run Brighton site is now live: http://www.runbrighton.com/