Stability Through Motion

The European artists inhabitation of Harcourt Arboretum begins next week, so things are hotting up. Or getting wet, or something. I’ve been sketching and thinking for ages, but really awaiting the arrival of all artists on the scene so we can begin conversations. I think the aim is to allow our meetings to affect the work produced, at least that’s my way of thinking. Read more about the project at the web site www.artinthearboretum.org, and visit the Arboretum between July 1st and 18th to see artists at work.

Sketchbook image of audio listening posts, which look more like parking meters … watch this space!

Cor blimey, I wonder if this gets easier.

[picture right: garish Brooks T Racer 5 shoe for racing - as yet unused!]

4pm at the track yesterday for only my second ever track session was mighty hot and shadeless. I managed the required 5 x 800m but nowhere near scheduled FIRST pace.

I knew anyway I wouldn’t reach the optimistic 2’30 required per 800m (5 minute miling!), but these are the splits:

1. 2:40 (5’20 per mile) - good
2. 2:50 (5’40) - tired
3. 2:56 (5’54) - make it stop
4. 3:06 (6’14) - poured cold water down my back for some relief
5. 3:06 (6’14) - actually feeling better

Each with 400m jogs in between.

Rubbish, but god it was hard. The first 400 I think I actually did at the right pace, but quickly slackened off. I suffered really bad stomach cramps when I finished too, but a bar of peanut brittle and some crisps sorted me out

Jack Daniels and most other schedules have my sort of ability runner doing 800m intervals in 3:00 (6 minute miling), and I probably could have kept that consistent five times. I thought the FIRST schedules were hard last week, and have just confirmed it again.

Just out of interest the world record is a staggering 1:41.

Having run 800m reps for the first time in my life, I have renewed respect for the speed these runners must go at. I’d love to watch a professional athletics meet some time.

Not surprisingly there weren’t many other people around at 4pm – just a girl practising stepping over hurdles, which I also don’t think I could do, my legs are so stiff!

Back to racing news now. I ran the Oxford Town and Gown 10k race last Sunday, and don’t believe I’ve even reported back on the 5k I ran back in April. Shameful.

Okay - the 5k, my first ever, was a great event. I caught an early Saturday train to Basingstoke, which didn’t quite seem like your dream start. However, Basingstoke is where the nearest Park Run event is held every Saturday. Basically you just turn up in the Park for 9am, and run round the park three times with about 100 others, for free! Your time is recorded, and there’s a trip to the coffee shop afterwards if you’ve time to chat. It’s such a fantastic idea, and everyone is a volunteer. The race itself was strange for me - so much shorter than anything I’ve done before, but nice and low-profile, so no pressure. There are a lot of people there who’ve really just started running, so it’s not an ultra competitive environment. Having said that, the record time is 16 minutes, which is quite bl**dy fast enough. I was confident of a sub 19 minute time, based on last year’s racing, but it had been a long while since my last competitive race (October’s Snowdon marathon really). Still, I managed 18:51, which seems a good starting point. I met up with a few people I’d met or heard of through Fetch, the running web site, and the whole occasion was really welcoming for newcomers. Highly recommended.

Last Sunday I ran in the Oxford 10k in a mixture of absolutely stonking rain and windy sunshine (not sure if sunshine can be windy . . . that’s a physics problem). I was hoping to crack last year’s PB (personal best) time of 39:18 (chip time, 39:36 gun time) and 104th position. This equates to about 6:21 per mile, or 3:56 per km, and I’d had a couple of training runs up to 4 miles at this pace or below which felt hard but tolerable.

The result: 39:16 (gun time) or 39:08 (chip time) and 70th position. Chip time is more accurately measured from the starting line to the finish, as it can take some seconds to cross the start line after the gun goes. However, I’m recording the gun time because I’m being mean to myself! In a big, congested race, unless you’re elite and start at the front, you’d always record your chip time. There are some photos of the day, which at least show how wet it was on the Oxford Mail web site.

So - onwards and upwards. As humanity pointlessly drives onward and upward, so do I. The new plan for 2009, which will disappoint fans of ultra long distance, or marathoners, is to concentrate on the 10k. My 24 week plan targets the November Brighton 10k for a record performance, somewhere in the region of 38 minutes, hopefully 37 minutes something. The longer term plan is to take that new speed into marathon training for 2010 and get that sub 3 hour time that we all, quite obviously, dreamt about as small children (except for Haile Gebre Selassie who dreamt about sub 2 hours).

They were out in Wytham almost two weeks ago now but are still emerging in several woods.

Also in progress is compilation of the footage from my various trips. Below is a close up from Afon Tawe in the Brecons / Fforest Fawr

OFVM have now kindly lent me their smaller, dinkier, Sony HVR-A1E video camera. This will let me rove a bit more widely, with a lighter tripod, because these natural beauty spots are almost inevitably a half hour hike away from a road.

The London Marathon looms, and everyone gets their running gear out to sit on the sofa and cheer on the millions. I was going to go along and add my own cheers, but the bluebell hunt continues and Sunday looks like it’ll be sunny after all, so the woods have won.

Okay, since the last reappearance of the NIGGLE, I’ve adjusted my training in two ways.

1. I’m only running on alternate days, no back to back running. This has led me to look at the FIRST running schedules from the Furman Institute of Running and Scientific Training. These are based around three intense running sessions a week plus two or three cross-training sessions. So far so good, although I’m only doing one running session at the suggested (much faster than usual for me) paces, as I’m still checking out my NIGGLE.
   Tuesday was a tempo session with 3 miles at my possible 10k pace. In fact this is last year’s 10k pace as I have no recent races to rely on. Suffice it to say, it feels fast to me - 6:24 per mile or 3:57 per kilometre, therefore 39:30 10k pace. I’ll be extremely happy if I can keep that up for 10k on May 17th in the Oxford 10k race.
2. I’ve been trying to run with a faster cadence. This is probably at the root of all the techniques that abound for trying to change your running style, become more efficient, and reduce injuries. It seems sensible advice, but it’s surprisingly hard to increase your cadence if you’re not running fast. Try counting the number of times one foot hits the ground in a minute. Mine usually hovered around 80 times, but I’m increasing that to the suggested 90. It certainly feels wierd, but I think the principle is that your feet spend less time on the ground. It beats trying to think too hard about running style, which has thrown me in the past in any attempts to alter my style. I have to say I’d always been quite happy with my style, it feels ‘natural’, fairly light, and I haven’t been THAT injury prone. But I’ll try anything to get rid of this year’s little NIGGLE.

As a precursor to the 10k, I’m finally going to race in a 5k event, tomorrow morning in glorious Basingstoke.

This is part of a weekly set of races around the country called Park Runs. They’re always 5ks, they’re free and apparently friendly. We shall see! I can’t predict anything about time because I’ve never raced a 5k. I’m quite scared to tell the truth, because it will probably mean trying harder to run than I’ve ever run before, and probably feeling like throwing up.

Oh, I guess I should fill in here all the other training I do in a week, since it’s currently quite a lot more mixed up than it used to be. Oh for the simple pleasures of January where it was run at one pace six days a week for 8 - 12 miles.

• Monday: rest
• Tuesday: tempo at 10k pace
• Wednesday: cross training, usually 60 mins on the bike at 100rpm with some short speedy bits and sometimes some rowing
• Thursday: for now just a general, off-road hilly 7 miles around Wytham. Eventually this should be an interval session
• Friday: cross-training, same as Weds. There are alternatives, but I’m sticking with biking for now
• Saturday: 10 mile run, easy. Eventually becoming a 10-13 mile run at a faster pace.
• Sunday: more cross-training as I wish

Radio 4 have just broadcast a programme about Ludwig Koch - the first person apparently to bring us recordings of birdsong. Listen

Read more about Ludwig at WSRS

Lazy country birds. I’m sure they start up at around 4am here in the town, but last night I stayed up and drove to Dry Sandford Pit at 3.30am, as you do, and sat for an hour waiting for my first tweet. I couldn’t get the dratted pre-mixer to work in stereo with the Edirol, so lugged the video camera out with me and walked round the woods with two Sennheisers in tow. Nothing but owls and disturbed crows until about 4.50am, then as the sky lightened the birds really awoke. An amazing experience, surrounded by song and only the occasional rumble of traffic from the A420, or airplane. I’m still searching for that elusive quiet woodland in Oxfordshire, where you can’t hear a road.

As always, headphones will provide the best listening experience, but steady yourself for a shock near the start - don’t keep a cup of tea near the keyboard.

Go get Adobe Flash Player!

The Science of Sleep by Michel Gondry

As I haven’t been sleeping all that well lately, we thought we’d watch this one, having enjoyed ESOSM. Hmm, well maybe it was the acting, maybe it was the script, maybe it was the direction…

Kooky Mexican guy dreams lives dreams all mixed up beautiful next door neighbour may be English may be French also has lots of funky stuff in her appartment will he fall in love will she fall in love… zzz … have they kissed yet … zzzz … why are they arguing … zzzz …did they just kiss… zzzz… zany work-colleagues muck about… zzzz… did they bloody kiss yet… zzzz… credits… oh

Lovely animation though.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have tried to watch it after hearing Herzog talk about Truth in cinema.

I dislike national identifications, but I’d have to admit that the sounds uploaded today were recorded in England, and do have more than a hint of England-ness to them. They would certainly not be out of place on a hideous union-jack covered CD called ‘Sounds of England’, with a Beefeater, the Queen, David Beckham, the sounds of cricket, frying chips and ‘My Ole’ Man’s a Dustman’. The list is endless, and it’s an audio trap I’m ever keen to avoid when compiling sounds for Transporter Mix. Nothing wrong with some lovely church bells however . . . enjoy!

Go get Adobe Flash Player!

And on the running front - I’ve finally finished off the Ridgeway! A beautiful run out and back from Avebury almost to the Barbury Hill Fort completes the route now, well, apart from the very summit of Ivinghoe Beacon. Does this mean I’m now ready to run the whole route, start to finish, in one go? Every summer several hundred runners do achieve this 85 mile feat. Mad, mad, mad, but maybe in 2010?

Another outing for Transporter Mix yesterday, in the Quiet & Relaxation Room at the Becoming Ordinary conference at the Town Hall in Oxford. This was organised by RESTORE, Oxford, a charity that ‘supports people with mental health problems do things that they want to do‘. About thirty people  took off their socks and shoes and stepped onto the platforms provided to listen to the sounds of the seashore, woodlands and parks of the UK.

I must learn to make this experience more relaxing for myself, as by the end of the day I was completely exhausted!

Here’s one particularly sweet comment:

Absolutely blown away by this experience. Love the idea of textured boxes under my feet. Sounds were very relaxing and de-stressing.

Sunday was F’s birthday, so, naturally enough, we ran in a 10 km race together. This was F’s first ever 10k, and the furthest she’s ever run. Despite the unseasonable heat and sunshine at Eastleigh, we came in under our target at 1:09, so I’m really, really proud of her. Thanks so much to all the crowd supporters who helped make it a great event.

I can’t quite believe that this is my first race since October last year. Next on the agenda is the Stratford Half Marathon. I’ve crept up to 30 - 35 miles per week again now, so might still race the Half, but think I’ll just see how I feel closer to the time. However, I’m definitely doing the Oxford Town and Gown 10k on May 17th. And, all being well, that will be a PB (personal best) attempt. Gulp.