Tom Roper's Running Training

Down to three miles

Thanks to Wednesday's knee injury, I ran for the first time since this afternoon, and instead of the proposed 15 miles, made do with 3. I had a swimming lesson yesterday, and the knee was fine (I'll say nothing about the flipper-induced calf cramps), but then that did not require my knee to bear weight. In fact today I managed the three miles with a little stiffness.

I think no period of marathon training passes without some injury, so though I am twenty miles short of this week's planned total, I am not too dismayed. I shall be back to normal next week.

Total miles this week: 15.12
Nine weeks till the Brighton Marathon.

Gratuitious picture of my knee:

 

Knees

I can run for mile upon mile in the countryside, over tree-roots, badger's setts and rabbit holes, ice, snow and slippery leaves and keep my balance; put me on a flat urban surface and it's another story. About three miles into a seven mile run today I fell, grazing left knee and arm.
This took place on Green Lanes, near the entrance to Clissold Park. I had decided to go as far as the park, run round the perimeter, and return. Garmin-less, I worked out that this would make the required distance.
The knee bled copiously and my leg was streaked with blood all the way down my shin. I must have looked as if the zombies from nearby Abney Park cemetery had been chewing my leg.
As I ran on, passers-by glanced at me warily; only one young woman, bless her, asked if I was all right. 'Did you know you've hurt your leg?' she asked, nervously.
In the park, so well know to me from the years in the eighties when I lived in a gorgeous flat overlooking it, there were small definite signs of approaching spring: small buds on the horse-chestnuts, daffodil stems poking up beside the paths.
The winners of Janathon have been announced

Janathon winners

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Hills

There are few hills in EC1, so today's requirement to run eight hill ascents was going to be difficult to achieve. I remembered that Margery Street, near Mount Pleasant sorting office, has a hill. It is not quite long enough for the two minutes ascent the programme prescribed, but it is about a mile away, so fitted the need for a warm-up and cool-down at beginning and end.
It was hard work too. Who knows what the office workers at the Children's Society or the customers in the café on the corner made of my Sisyphean progress?
I think it did me good

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

The last day of Janathon

I should have done something unusual for the last day, wrestled a yak, swum the Hellespont or climbed the Shard (the new skyscraper going up by London Bridge, a modern Tower of Babel if you ask me). But I ended with a whimper, not a bang, with a little cycling, six miles all told.

Looking back, when the idea of Janathon was mooted, I thought it impossible. How would it fit with marathon training? How could I manage something athletic every day, in the longest, dreariest month of the year? And yet here I am at the end, having, with the exception of some days when I have medical certification, managed it for every day, mostly running but also cycling and swimming. I feel much better for it.

There is the small matter of a sestina that I promised JogBlog, but which I fear has not yet been written. Perhaps a Pindaric ode instead? All Janathoners are in JogBlog's debt. We prostrate ourselves before her.

Day 30 of Janathon, a half marathon

Down in Andalucia, the brave people of Running Commentary ran a hot half marathon at Almeria. Here it was damned cold, but in their honour I tried for the same distance, including quite a lot of forest running in Friston forest, while we're still allowed to.

It was cold when they went for the run. It was the sort of cold that would stop you thinking about the thing with the women. It was cold. The shepherd gave them the wine, the wine kept in goat skin. They drank it. It was good. Before the war, it had been different. Now they could do nothing. Somedays, the gypsy woman brought the aguardiente . That was good, and when they had drunk it they talked about the dead man, and about the thing with the women. Then they slept, waking no better.

I bet Hemingway never kept weekly totals, but here they are:

Total running miles this week: 33.2
Ten weeks till the Brighton marathon

Day 29 of Janathon: ballet, flippers and a seafront run

In which I went to the ballet (amazing), had another swimming lesson in which Alan the instructor fitted me with flippers in an attempt to correct my kick, and ran four miles along the seafront in a bitter wind.Tomorrow, a half-marathon.

Day 28 of Janathon

I cycled: five miles, or a little over. Today is a rest day from marathon training. This isn't much of an effort, but it will do.

Day 27 of Janathon: to Barnsbury and beyond

I took myself off for a five-miler, once more an exploration of places I used to know. So I went up to King's Cross, then up to Barnsbury and Canonbury and back. It was bitingly cold.That is probably all I can say, without giving way to excessively personal reflections on people and events a long time ago.

 

Pig-sticking

I had a lie-in and rose at 5:45, waking from a dream in which I was duty manager in a former, hated, job, and had to deal with a wild boar loose in the building.
Off I went for six miles along the sea-front. The weather forecasters had said it would be cold, so I had laid out a jacket , gloves and an ear-warming headband the night before. In the event I did not need any of these. Neither did I meet any wild boars.

8 x 400m fast and 200m recoveries, or contrariwise: day 25 of Janathon

I had knocked the sedative out of my system sufficiently to run at lunchtime, so I summoned up the genie of the Garmin and commanded him to make me run eight sets of fast 400 metres, with 200 metre recoveries and a mile warm-up and cool-down. Garmin Connect is down at the moment, so I can't illustrate the point, but for some reason the fast 400m and slow 200 m sections were put back to front so the recovery came before the effort. It took a little while for me to work out what was going on, but once I did, I ran some sections fast and others slow, so the general effect was achieved. I also took myself through some intriguing parts of Hoxton and De Beauvoir Town. Somewhere near here the Bolshevik party held one of its congresses in exile; I must find out where.

Update: Garmin Connect seems to be functioning, so try this: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/65118888