Stability Through Motion

I was reminded the other day of my trip to Mandu, Madhya Pradesh, near Indore, India. This was way back in 1992, but the memory of my few days on this promontory, overlooking the Narmada river to the south, still lingers.

Rani Rupmati's Pavilion, Mandu

I was approached, via my Flickr photos, to add a photo of Hoshang Shah’s tomb to the Wikipedia page about Mandu. Read more about the history of Mandu, including my photo in the Wiki article.

View towards Songarh hill, Mandu, 8th Feb 1992

I visited in the dry season, but I still dream of returning in the rains, when the 15th century pavilions and palaces would be running with water.

Map of Mandu

The week I spent in Mandu was one of great food, quiet nights in an isolated room, long walks to watch the sun setting over the Narmada river valley, and rise from Chishti Khan’s palace. Ooh, I have to log off, this is becoming emotional.

Accommodation in Mandu

Years ago I read some M R James stories including ‘Warning to the Curious‘. This haunting story is set in Seaburgh, Suffolk, but the 1972 BBC version of the story is filmed partly along the beach at Holkham Bay.

Last weekend I was in the area for the Wildlife Sound Recording Society’s Winter Meeting. Standing on the beach at 3.45am on a Saturday morning was quite chilling in both senses of the word. The predominant sound was the constant roll of the waves against the shore much further out across the beach, but facing inland across the salt marshes there were birds to record later on:

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If you’re interested in the M R James angle, Chris Priestley’s well written blog holds a depth of information about the story, and here’s a clip from the BBC version:

Oh yes, and in running news, later the same morning I ran 18 miles along the Norfolk Coastal Path from Burnham Deepdale to Wells-next-the-sea and back again, right along Holkham Bay yet again, this time in clear daylight but fierce cold winds.

I PBed! For those new to this blog, that means I ran a Personal Best. I think in America it’s a PR, or Personal Record. This is one of the occasional rewards for running, along with a sense of smugness, the odd T-shirt, a banana and some lucozade. Well I really should have PBed since I haven’t run a Half marathon in two years and a my previous PB was very rusty, but it’s still always nice isn’t it?
Right, as this is a running blog, tis time for some running statistics.

Chip time: 1:25:53

Gun time: 1:26:40 (so it took almost a minute to cross the start line)

—————————
Pace / HR avg / notes
——————
Miles 1 – 4
6:53 – 191 – slow slow start edging past other runners – nonsense HR readings – strap fell off
6:21 – 211 – bit of catch up here through the town – more nonsense HR readings
6:39 – 159 – on to the prom at last but uphill, strap now secured and readings look right
6:24 – 157 – getting going properly now

Miles 5 – 8 – into the wind
6:35 – 159 – no respite here, battering wind and rain/sleet all the way along the prom, happy with the effort though
6:34 – 159
6:34 – 161
6:38 – 159

Miles 9 – 12 with the wind
6:25 – 158 – These miles were really nice, felt strong – the wind helped for sure
6:25 – 158
6:30 – 159 – Second time up the hill
6:18 – 161

Mile 13 - finish
6:34 – 162 – back into the wind for the final straight mile
1:04 – didn’t lose out in any sprint battles this time, I definitely have more push for the finish these days – intervals paying off?

Lessons learned / remembered
1. Start nearer the front. It was so cold I was reluctant to join the throng until it was too late to get nearer the front. The fact that there’s a minute between my gun and chip times says it all, and then the extra 25s in the first mile indicates the blockages encountered weaving through the town past slowing runners. I’ve got to start remembering that I’m in the top 2.5% of such a mass-participation event, not a middle of the race runner any more.

2. I still don’t need fuel or water during a Half (at least a cool weather Half). Still a big issue for me on marathons, fuelling is not a problem for 13 miles. One bowl of cereal 3 hours prior was all I had.

3. If you’re feeling good, don’t dawdle, push it! It was too easy at times to just relax (well, not exactly relax) into a pack of runners. This is called keeping focus I guess.

Conclusions
I’m happy with the result given the testing conditions and the fact that I’d consciously decided to aim to PB but not go all-out for a sub 3 indicator. Secretly, yes, I would have been happier to have run 1:24:xx and felt more confident about the marathon plan.
I was a bit concerned about endurance, as I’ve been following the lower mileage Furman schedules and not raced beyond 10k for 18 months. But no big concerns – I didn’t spot many signs of fading, the last miles were hard as expected, but not worryingly so, and I seemed to be able to pick up the pace when conditions allowed.

That said, there’s a big step up to 26 miles and my mind still says 3:05 is a more sensible target in April. But I’m in my 40s after all and no longer have to be all grown up and sensible about things!

Intrigued by the sounds heard on Werner Herzog’s wonderful ‘Encounters at the End of the World‘, I finally remembered to surf (does anyone still surf the web?) for soundclips of the Weddell seals. Listen to the ethereal, sci-fi sounds of these amazing creatures at the University of Rhode Island website, or listen to one of their MP3 files directly here. You can here more clips on the Australian Antarctic Division’s web site.

Photo by J. Smith
© Commonwealth of Australia

I was referred by the Nature Recordists emailing list to the following site, which pokes a bit of gentle fun at soundscapes:

http://onepercentfortheplanet.org/blog/2010/01/new-album-new-artwork/

Meanwhile 2010 brings me a new piece of gadgetry, with exciting flashing green lights ‘n all: the Sound Devices MixPre, identical to the one I’ve hired out in the past, but now all mine, all mine.

Oh, and recently there’s been some snow in the UK … here’s the view over Oxford from Wytham Woods taken on a recent run. The Mizuno Wave Harriers stood up to the conditions really well, much better than I did in fact.

Brighton 10k race report

This has been the target race for the last half a year, in my ongoing experiment with the FIRST schedules. Training went very well – it’s definitely easier running the fast interval paces and tempo paces now than it was in the spring, even the underventilated treadmill at the gym feels a little more manageable.

The target was 37:50, or under 38:00 and the optimistic aim was to keep at 3:45 per km. My first mistake was setting Garmin to lap miles not km (hence the miles marked below). Doh! It did display pace in km/min which helped. This was my first race ever with a Garmin, and this sort of confusion makes me think I’m still better off with just my watch with the manual lap function … or just chasing people.

okay, small warm up, a bit of getting used to the racing shoes which I’ve only used once before and never for 10k, then into the pen and negotiate a position. No talking to anyone, usually I do, but I think I was too nervous this time, then we’re off:

Mile 1: 5:57 – as ever started a bit far back, so nice speed here in the attempt to dodge past slower people who had mistakenly started in the 35-40 zone. Also running with the wind.
Mile 2: 6:04 – steady steady, turn back into the wind, but not too strong as yet.
Mile 3: 6:15 – quite lonely already as the crowds disperse, still overtaking, but no wind shelter between packs
Mile 4: 6:22 – tougher here, closer to the sea front and no wind shelter, then the turn back along the prom, and stopped to check on a guy down on the pavement. Don’t think I lost much time though as I caught up with the people I’d already overtaken.
Mile 5: 6:12 – really struggling to get the pace down lower, but didn’t seem to be able to, still feeling good maintaining pace.
Mile 6: 6:02 – wind helping much more now, and sighted the finish line banners, last push but sprinted a bit early
0.2 miles: 1:18  – all sprinted out far too early so easier pace to the line.

Result: 37:55 chip time – 38:10 gun time

A pretty blustry day, but conditions otherwise were great, and the large crowd at the start didn’t hold me up much. It was fantastic to see the lead runners coming back towards us twice too. A winning time of 29 mins I think.

So the target has been achieved and I can relax a wee bit now until the spring, lazily resisting the temptation to try and blast a few more seconds off at another 10k immediately, or test out a Half.

The success of the FIRST cross-training approach has got me thinking more seriously about using it for a marathon attempt. The reason I’d do so, rather than upping the mileage in the traditional way, is that after the race I still felt a tiny lump of soreness where the shin splints got me in January. Since January, it’s never been more than a faint memory of a very localised sore spot, but I’m worried that higher mileage on tarmac will cause it to re-emerge and I really don’t want that. I’m also happy with the cross-training, and think that combined with the weights, they help strengthen supporting muscles and thus avoid overuse injuries. I’ve also enjoyed the gruelling track sessions.

I have a month or so before a FIRST schedule or a Pfitzinger and Douglas schedule starts for my April marathon: the Shakespeare marathon in Stratford, with a target time of 3:0x. So there’s time to just go for some gentle runs over 40 miles a week or so. It’s also time to really try to activate my lazy lazy left glute. I’ve definitely been slacking there.

Other plans for 2010 include the Lairig Ghru 28 mile hill race in June and the inevitable Snowdonia Marathon on October 30th: the rematch! I’m determined to enjoy it next year after my miserable experience there in 2008. If the Stratford marathon goes well, there may also be time for a flat road marathon in October before Snowdon, perhaps Brussels again?

If I do go with the FIRST schedules, I’ll note my progress more regularly on here. If I choose Pfitzinger and Douglas, I probably won’t bother as it consists mostly of 8-12 mile runs every single day and there won’t be much to write about.

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Sounds recorded in September on a trip through Munich, Regensburg, Bayerische Wald, Passau, Linz, Salzburg, Berchtesgaden and Lienz.

All recorded using my dandy new Olympus LS-10 recorder, and some using an external Sennheiser ME-66 microphone.

Before my 10k road race, what better way to prepare than with a long hilly run on trails?

So Sunday’s run was the small matter of a drive out to the Brecon Beacons, Upper Neuadd Reservoir to be exact, and a circular run round the tops of Corn Du and Pen y Fan.

The route starts with a gentle climb along boggy forest edge until you reach the reservoir damn. Then there’s a sharp left turn, you can’t miss the hill, and a stiff climb up to the ridge of Graig Fan Ddu and a long beautiful, if windy, passage along the ridge to where it meets the main path from Storey’s Arms. Despite the cold and drizzle, there were quite a few well-covered walkers around.

There’s a short climb to the top of Corn Du, followed by a little up and down to Pen y Fan, the highest point in Southern Britain at 886 metres.

There’s just time to stop and eat a condensed milk/ginger nut bar before freezing too much in the mist, then a steep steep descent to the Beacons Way path skirting the bottom of Cribyn. This is the now the same route I followed back in the spring, but instead of taking the gentle roman road back to the reservoir, we headed up past Fan y Big along Craig Cwumoergwm and over a beautiful lonely path winding between peaty clumps to Craig y Fan Ddu and down to Blaen-y-glyn waterfalls car park. That was a really horrible bit of running, down wet slippy steps, and my quads are complaining even today about it. Then there’s a gentle trot along road and cycle trail back to the starting car park. A truly fabulous day out.

Continuing my reading of tales of terror and Gothic fiction generally, I just stumbled through Ambrose Bierce’s Devil’s Dictionary. Here are a few favourite entries:

OVERWORK, n. A dangerous disorder affecting high public functionaries who want to go fishing.

PEACE, n. In international affairs, a period of cheating between two periods of fighting

VALOR, n. A soldierly compound of vanity, duty and the gambler’s hope.
“Why have you halted?” roared the commander of a division and Chickamauga, who had ordered a charge; “move forward, sir, at once.”
“General,” said the commander of the delinquent brigade, “I am persuaded that any further display of valor by my troops will bring them into collision with the enemy.”

but best of all is:

EXILE … An English sea-captain being asked if he had read “The Exile of Erin,” replied: “No, sir, but I should like to anchor on it.” Years afterwards, when he had been hanged as a pirate after a career of unparalleled atrocities, the following memorandum was found in the ship’s log that he had kept at the time of his reply:

Aug. 3d, 1842.  Made a joke on the ex-Isle of Erin.  Coldly
received.  War with the whole world!

It’s available online at several places including here or do as I do [TOP TIP!] download the free ePub version from Project Gutenberg and add it to your free Adobe Digital Reader software. Run that on your laptop/netbook, fridge, and you can read full screen books in a much nicer format than usual, and save money not buying a specialised eReader from Sony or Amazon.

I’ve lined up a few ghost stories and tales of the supernatural to read on the laptop:

• Algernon Blackwood’s The Willows, which I’ve already read once;
• a bit of Lord Dunsany which I tried once before and could not get to grips with and
• William Hope Hodgson’s Nightlands, which also has a peculiar and dense writing style

I’m going to seek out some more Vernon Lee too.

It must be time for a bit of a running update, as my 2009 target race approaches. It seems wierd targetting a 10k, such a small distance! But the challenge is to run it at approximately 6:05 minutes per mile and knock a good minute off my PB from May.

I’ve been following an adapted FIRST schedule, for those of you who’ve lost their notes. This schedule incites hatred from all other runners because it recommends RUNNING LESS!

• Monday: rest day – phew. Maybe some weights if I’ve got the energy.
• Tuesday: repetitions on the track. A wide variety of stuff, from 10 x 400M @ 1:19 per lap to 1600M horrible horrible sessions.
• Wednesday: 1 hour biking, usually in the gym because my bike squeeks and it’s dark and cold out there. Squats, lunges, calf raises. Possibly upper body work if I’ve got time.
• Thursday: tempo session, usually incorporating 3-4 miles at 6:19 per mile
• Friday: 1 hour biking in the gym
• Saturday: 4-5 miles easy running (8:30mm). Upper and lower body weights.
• Sunday: 16 -18 mile easy run in the woods (8:30mm)

The Saturday extra run is my concession to logging miles. In the FIRST schedules Saturday should be a cross-training session, and the long run would actually be much shorter but much much faster, more like 7 minute miling.

The plan is to increase the number of days I run after the Brighton 10k race, and up the weekly mileage again. I’ve really enjoyed the FIRST schedules, and kept injury at bay, barring a constantly tight hamstring. But I’ll be targetting marathons again next year, so I think I’ll use the method I tried briefly at the start of the year – a guy called Hadd’s approach. This is almost the opposite of the FIRST approach – lots of easy miles at a low heart rate to build a strong aerobic base.

The plan is to aim at 3:0x at Stratford next April, then if all goes well, finally go sub 3:00 in the autumn of 2010.