They all make me feel welcome and I realise that I should make the most of the expertise and experience that they have. I can happily plod round 26.2 miles (well, the first time was screaming agony but the second was fine) but would like to get a bit faster so I ask Jamie, who is sitting next to me, the best way to do it. His reply is brief and to the point: track. Panic sets in. Me, on a track? I’m too slow. Too old. I haven’t done it before. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know where the track is.
16th June, 2005 My club, Thornbury, has started track sessions at the WISE track in Filton. I have no excuse so I pluck up courage and go. Jog warm-up then “slow-motion” drills. Our coach tells us about track discipline and we’re off on a session of 300 metre reps. It hurts but I realise a great advantage in track training: I actually have someone to follow! In races I’m usually so far behind that I often don’t have anyone in sight. Sometimes I get a word of encouragement from runners as they pass me and from a couple of others I know who are also training there. I do try and chase; not for long but at least it’s someone to look at.
1st September, 2009 After a few stop-start phases with track training I decide to get serious when I set my “train for a sub 2-hour half” target so it’s back to track and by coincidence it’s 300m reps again. There are a couple of regulars who turn up and who are at about my pace so there’s even chance for a bit of friendly competition.
That’s what I need to do next: work on my competitive instinct.
If I’ve got one.
Happy running!
]]>I’ve decided to dispense with big padded “control” shoes, so wore my lighter semi-trail shoes. It was great to see all the familiar faces and jostle for the 3rd row on the start line in the dark, traffic-noise ridden, cold and windy under-the-bridge area.
Then off. Neatly skipping round the pile of horse manure, we headed out. No wind - silence. It was behind us. My theory was that it would be so bad coming back, best to make the most of it on the way out. So without increasing my cadence, I thought I’d try a relaxed longer stride.
Most of the race I was in amongst some younger people - a couple of women and one man. I don’t have the results to hand, so I can’t tell you who they were. But we were swapping places throught the whole race, which was fun - in a kind of stressful, painful, panicky kind of way, with me normally gaining on the uphill (I like uphill).
On the home straight, I was thinking “I’ve nothing left - it’s just me and the wind now”, and feeling generally miserable and pathetic; that final undulating stretch is a tough way to end. But then I heard some feet pounding up behind me and this was what I needed: I couldn’t let it go, so I lengthened my stride and went for it, held the pounding feet at bay, and overtook the youngster, who I thought I’d lost.
I finished 21st out of 130 runners (a good turnout) in 18:34. Everyone was saying the wind could account for up to 40 seconds of time, so that would put me within reach of my 17:46 pb. Having only just started to get running again, that is pretty exciting.
I came away with 4 cans of lager for 3rd V45, and both my friends won more in the raffle. All in all, it’s been a productive few days, what with the £10 reward in the Mike Sully Mob match on Sunday!
]]>Parking isn’t great for the Bridge Inn and I was parked a little way up the road from race HQ as I walked over the Bridge to the HQ the bridge was shaking by the force of the wind.
On my warm up I have to admit I was not sure how to race given the course is an out and back course. first half is with the wind the second against the wind, do I go out hard and try to match front guys or do I save my energy for the second half of the race against the wind, that’s where experience comes in and I am still very much on the learning curve.
Well the gun went off and as usual I went off with a quick start, but I soon tapered that off by the 1/2 k mark and very quickly settled into my own race, as usual I seemed to end up racing by myself, about 10m in front of me were two runners, I used them to pull me through especially the very windy sections. By the last half K they had split but I still had one runner in front of me (Ben Morley) and I started to realise that with each stride I was gaining on him and soon made up the 10m and with 200m to go I past him, Ben seemed to respond and with 50m to go I felt I had to put one last push in and opened up my legs and finished 3 seconds in front.
The provisional results showed I came home in seventh place in a poor time of 17:13 (my worst of the year). My races over the past couple of weeks have been hard in different ways, but I have to be pleased, but still disappointed, in hind sight I should have run harder.
Something I will use in my next race which will be next year now, with the imminent arrival of baby number 2, I need to be around and support Emma as best I can that means not being out for three to four hours whilst racing. This doesn’t mean I won’t be running it just means that I will be training as best as I can (probably harder) and use this break in racing to build on my progress this year.
I will be pulling together a training schedule for the next three months and will post it on this blog and report my progress against it.
]]>It’s a compelling book, filled with characters, that it’s hard not to get carried away with. More than anything, the enthusiasm of the book makes you want to go for a run. It might make you want to go for a run with no shoes on.
His search for a way to run pain free leads him to Mexico’s Tarahumara indians, for whom long distance running is part of ordinary life. The story then switches between the build up to a race between America’s top ultra runners and the Tarahumara runners and McDougall’s own efforts to find out more about how and why we run.
Delving into evolutionary biology, McDougall summarises the characteristics that indicate we evolved above all as long distance runners, able to catch and kill any animal if the chase was long enough: “If you don’t think you are born to run, you’re not only denying history, you’re denying who you are”.
The book then argues that modern running shoes hinder rather than help us. Despite being a best seller, it has apparently not been reviewed by a single running magazine, presumably because that message isnt appreciated by their advertisers.
McDougall’s enthusiasm is both the strength and the weakness of the book. The essence of his argument, that running isn’t inherently bad for us and doesn’t need to be medicalised, is convincing. But at times the style of the book becomes wearing. Meals aren’t eaten, they are wolfed. There are wide eyed accounts of drinking binges. His travels in Mexico could be lifted from the Boys’ Own Paper. Something in the tone of the writing sometimes makes you doubt things even when you know them to be true.
The presentation of the information is one sided, which fits the polemical style but can be exasperating. McDougall takes aim at Nike for inventing the modern running shoe and describes Nike’s first model, the Cortez, as “the most cushioned running shoe ever created…it allowed people to run in a way no human safely could before: by landing on their bony heels”.
Later, it turns out that Mcdougall’s reinvention as a runner isn’t taking place barefooted after all, but in a pair of “old stock Nike Pegasus from 2000, something of a throwback to the flat footed feel of the old Cortez”. So was the Cortez so dangerous?
If you read the book knowing nothing about running, Macdougall’s sensationalism might make you think that American ultra-marathoners are the best runners the “known” world has to offer. I’m sure they are great athletes, but is it not worth acknowledging that the real cream of the world’s running talent isn’t competing in 100 mile trail races?
In another selective presentation of the facts, McDougall describes one of the barefoot running success stories achieving the qualification time for the the Boston Marathon. This is a feat MacDougall claims “99.9% of runners will never achieve”. Actually, the “elite” qualification time for Boston is 3:10 for men under 35. I guess it depends how you define the running population but nearly 2000 people achieved that time in the London Marathon this year, more than 5% of the finishers.
If you want entertainment and inspiration, Born to Run is definitely worth a read. It’s an incredible story, but at times too incredibly told.
]]>This morning, DB Max 10 at Castle Coombe, the race started at 10am, cold, wet and windy that is the norm on this one. The gun went, and I must admit I felt good for the first half k but I then my legs started to feel heavy, but your mind does play tricks on you. The wind w.as bad today, I did have to battle through, being 6ft 6 doesn’t help. Anyway I won’t bore you with race detail as there was not much to report, but I finished in 6th place, in a surprising time of 35:01 only 2 seconds off of my pb, given the conditions I am not surprised my legs felt heavy.
So this week, tomorrow is a day off then it will be the Bridge Inn on Tuesday.
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