Tom Roper's Running Training

On running and becoming

I was in Brighton today so I seized the chance to see the Run and Become: Motivation and Transformation in the Brighton Marathon exhibition at the Jubilee library.

In a tent, made out of rectangles bearing the footprints of runners collected at the start in Preston Park, there's two video presentations, showing video diaries by two anthropology students who entered the race.

There's also a book, chained to a desk, and not for sale, according to the Library bookshop staff, at least not with them.

The back wall of the tent is decorated with extracts from Sillitoe's Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner and Haruki Murasaki's What I talk about when I talk about running, together with academic articles entitled In dialogue with the selves: personhood through the dialogues of marathon runners and Escape and empowerment: marathon running and the agentive body.

I find it a little unsatisfactory. I'd like to see the videos at leisure on YouTube, and be directed to links to the full-text of the academic articles online. I'm not sure what the excerpts from Sillitoe and Murasaki are supposed to convey.

More photos on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tomroper/tags/runandbecome/

Motivation and Transformation in the Brighton Marathon

Some motivation and transformation would be a good thing, at least in my case. I was intrigued by this announcement from the University of Sussex, which I've spiced up with some links. I hope they don't get sued by the running shop, Run and Become (I'm sure they won't, Run and Become are very nice people):

Run and Become is a Creative Campus Intiative Project run by Dr Jon Mitchell from the Department of Anthropology at the University of Sussex. It aims to improve our understanding of the human factors involved in training for and completing a marathon run, focusing on two key themes of motivation and transformation.

Two Sussex students, Helen Kearney and Adam Brickley, trained for the inaugural Brighton marathon which took place on 18th April 2010. They completed a weekly video diary in which they reflected on the process.

Two more Sussex students, Sam Pepper and Jenni Rose Human, from the Anthropology Department, interviewed Helen and Adam and a further thirty marathon runners. They used this material to write their final year dissertations.

The data gathered by the project has now fed into a book, film and exhibition, directed by Brighton artist Matt Pagett. Book and film come to embody the route and the runners, taking readers and viewers through the various physical, mental and spiritual spaces occupied and adding depth to the consideration of what it means to run.

Exhibition Times:

19-31 July 2010: Jubilee Library, Jubilee Street, Brighton. For opening times see citylibraries.info

13-31 July 2010 (with other Creative Campus projects): Grand Parade Gallery, Brighton University. Monday-Saturday 1000-1700.

[From Run and Become: Motivation and Transformation in the Brighton Marathon - Exhibition]

On to Firle

I have left some runs unreported: nothing remarkable, two runs over Seaford Head and one trip along the front. However, this week I start training for the Firle Half Marathon, a ten week programme leading to a respectable time on 26 September. I judge that, with a possible change in employment, training will be much more of a practical proposition than before.

I am joined in this great enterprise by Claire and Lelia of the BSMS Running Club. We plan to run part of the route in training, to slay the demon of the hill that takes runners up from the Old Coach Road to the top of the escarpment.

When is the 2,500th anniversary of the battle of Marathon?

Remember e-mail lists? An interesting spat has broken out on the classicists e-mail list (though the web archive seems to be broken at the moment). The battle of Marathon, after which our great race is named, took place in 490 BC. Forgetting that we went straight from 1 BC to 1 AD, with no year 0, some have proclaimed 2010 as the 2,500th anniversary, but it is of course the 2,499th. The argument becomes more complicated because schools and universities, who live by academic years, will be marking the event. The casus belli was an announcement of a Marathon anniversary event run for schools by Oxford which takes place in the academic year 2010-11, though in the calendar year 2010.

I shall run my next marathon, the Brighton marathon, in the correct anniversary year.

The scrotum-tightening sea

'The snot-green sea. The scrotum-tightening sea. Epi oinopa ponton. Ah Daedalus, the Greek. I must teach you. You should read them in the original. Thalatta! thalatta! She is our great, sweet mother. Come and look.'

So speaks Buck Mulligan at the beginning of Ulysses. I first read these words at the age of 14, in the Penguin edition. I knew what Joyce meant.

I don't know why, in a running blog, I record my sea-swims, unless that, just as every run is different, no matter how familiar the route, so, when immersed in saline, and with variations of tide, current and waves, is each swim.

This evening, for the second time recently, I came home early enough to go to the beach. After Sunday's winds, there was still some surf, and seagulls pecked at remnants of cuttlefish on the tide-line. There were no other swimmers; a few anglers had erected their rods along the beach. It was rough, but refreshing. Three hours before I had been in central London

When I was a child we always swam after school on a Thursday. My father, a GP, ran his practice single-handedly, but participated in a rota for weekend cover and Thursday afternoons. He had no surgery in the evening that day so, unless he was on call, after school we would be taken to the University bathing sheds or Sheep's Green on the Cam or Jesus Green, for summer swims, or the new indoor pool by Parker's Piece.

A short Seaford Head outing

While fitter hardier runners betook themselves to Bewl Water for the Bewl 15, I stayed at home, and, after a wild Saturday night, contented myself with a short trip. To make it a little more challenging. I did attack Seaford Head from a different direction, going straight up the difficult west face. It was windy and sunny, and the views were quite splendid. Later, defying the lifeguards' red flags, I swam in a rough sea, an exhilarating experience.

In the belief that I may soon be able to train properly and inspired by the BSMS runners who have entered en masse, I too have entered the Firle half marathon. This will change everything.

I was very pleased to see that Juneathon was won by Fit Artist, a richly deserved and popular victory.

On the last day of Juneathon...

...I managed an early morning run, a truncated version of the Seaford Head route, though the climb on the short version is more intense. It was cloudy.
So I can boast of the following:

1st June, Rome: 3.13
3rd June, Rome: 3.59
6th June, Seaford Half Marathon: 13.09
12th June, Seaford Head: 2.98
13th June, Seaford front and Tidemills: 5.61
19th June: Seaford Head: 2.98
20th June: High and Over: 6.76
22nd June: Exeter: 2.77
23rd June: Exeter: 3.82
27th June: Seaford front: 4.77
30th June: Seaford Head: 2.44

Juneathon total: 54.92 miles, 11 days out of a possible, nay, required, 30. So I do not expect to win any of the covetable objects Jogblog is going to distribute to the winners.

Please also take into consideration three sea swims of a total of around 30 minutes

Look not thou upon the wine when it is red

I ignored this wise advice from Proverbs 23:31 last night at the Newhaven and Seaford Sailing Club midsummer party and had to leave the car there and walk home, so this morning I ran from home to Splash Point, all the length of the front to Newhaven east pier, and back to the club to collect my car. Though hot, I have run in hotter conditions.

Also this week I managed two conference runs while in Exeter and had the pleasure of the company of a fellow delegates on each morning. I wish I had been able to lead them better; my intention was to run along the banks of the river, but finding the river from the university is not as easy as it might seem.

I also swam in the sea yesterday, for a good fifteen minutes. It is considerably warmer. I shall go in again this afternoon.

1st June, Rome: 3.13
3rd June, Rome: 3.59
6th June, Seaford Half Marathon: 13.09
12th June, Seaford Head: 2.98
13th June, Seaford front and Tidemills: 5.61
19th June: Seaford Head: 2.98
20th June: High and Over: 6.76
22nd June: Exeter: 2.77
23rd June: Exeter: 3.82
27th June: Seaford front: 4.77

Juneathon total: 52.48 miles, 10 days out of a possible 27.

And three sea swims of a total of around 30 minutes

More weekend only Juneathoning

I ran yesterday and today and, while Monday to Friday showed a total lack of exertion of any sort, next week I'm at a conference and have already used the conference hashtag #exeter10 to gather a critical mass of runners, three of us, who have committed ourselves to bring our kit.

Yesterday was the usual Seaford Head route. Today I went inland, to High and Over and round, to return by the Blatchington golf club. I met cats hunting, nervous dogs cowering and lost ramblers asking me the way. I'm going for a sea swim in a moment which I shall add when I get back.

Days I ran: 7 out of a possible 20

1st June, Rome: 3.13
3rd June, Rome: 3.59
6th June, Seaford Half Marathon: 13.09
12th June, Seaford Head: 2.98
13th June, Seaford front and Tidemills: 5.61
19th June: Seaford Head: 2.98
20th June: High and Over: 6.76

Total: 41.12 miles

And one sea swim of around 6 or 7 minutes duration.

Juneathon by proxy

Since my Juneathon is more or less non-existent, perhaps I can bask in reflected glory from someone else. Ella Mitchell, treasurer of CoFHE LASEC is taking part in Sunday's London to Brighton bike ride with the Hampstead Ladies GBF Team.So what, you say. So are thousands of others. True, but not many will have started the ride in Edinburgh. She's raising money for the British Heart Foundation. Sponsor her at http://original.justgiving.com/gbf