Stability Through Motion

Hello running fans.

My left foot continues to improve, but I’m sticking at 25 miles per week running at the moment, nothing longer than 13 miles, and the rest of the time is spent cycling – 70 to 100 miles a week. Now then, I ran the High Wycombe Half Marathon last Sunday. Due to my lack of long runs, the Brussels marathon is in some doubt, but my fitness levels felt good, so I thought I’d combine my two current exercise regimes in one day by biking to High Wycombe, running the Half then biking home.

Below is the route I devised, a thirty mile trip one-way along lovely quiet leafy roads, particularly early on the Sunday morning, or at least it was quiet until it hit West Wycombe when it becomes the nightmare that is the A40 for just a few miles.

The little road from Stanton St John to Worminghall is definitely amongst the quietest roads I’ve ever biked along – skirting the beautiful Bernwood Forest, Shabbington Wood and Hell Coppice. I say quiet, but it crosses the M40, so it’s out as far as sound recording locations goes. When out cycling these days, I’ve always got half an ear open for sound locations, and half an eye open for video locations – summer breezes wafting through treetops, fields of wheat, that sort of thing.

So I arrived in good time for the start, parked the bike, ate a marine oat bar (thanks Alex), made the outrageous decision to run in my cycling shorts and stood around about half way back from the start line. The sensible plan was to go round at training pace, perhaps speeding up a bit for the second half if I still felt good, and if the foot felt okay. Of course I just couldn’t resist the temptation to overtake people, and starting so far back there were quite a few people to overtake. After chatting to a few runners for a while, there was a sharp descent and I got a bit carried away. My legs certainly wouldn’t let me run sub 7 minute miles after that bike ride, but things went well enough for me to record a 1:39 time and not suffer too badly. At this point I was absolutely famished and ate my way through the generous goody bag handed out to finishers: mini mars bar, mini fruit bar, apple, along with the Mule bar, home made oat bars and banana that I’d brought myself. After a five minute stretch I jumped back on the bike and wove my way home. My legs pretty much gave up when I got to the Stanton St John hill climb, there was just nothing there!

Recovery – well that just consists of lots of food, water, and a bit more biking. Honestly, I really didn’t want to, but we ended up cycling another 8 miles in the evening, and another six or so the day after. They do say, they do, that a bit of light exercise is the best form of recovery from hard exercise, and I do reckon, I do, that it’s true. The principle is that it gets the blood moving through the damaged muscle tissues, helping repairs. However, I’m not sure what all this biking is doing for certain creative parts of my body, perhaps we will never find out.

I’ve now returned from a foot inspection at the physio and have been passed fit, although with instructions to strengthen my foot, which just means clenching your toes a lot through the day. Weak feet, bah, how many other stupid bits of my body do I have to exercise! I’m completely losing track of which exercise does what, grrr.

I’m going to attempt a longer run at last this coming weekend, and the biking mileage can reduce to sensible levels. It’s been fantastic while the weather was good, travelling along quiet country roads and covering so much more ground than you can with just your feet alone. I feel a lot more confident on a bike, though still unwilling to take it seriously as a sport, as it just might require too much kit or bike mending knowledge.

So after all this, the Brussels plan is still up in the air – I certainly won’t be aiming at a PB if I do run it, and then I’m still registered for the Snowdonia marathon at the end of October. In the meantime there are some 5k and 10k races around that I could target, and shock news, after six or so years I’ve finally joined a running club – the Headington Road Runners. The hope is that this’ll spur me on to greater effort for a year or so until I retreat to the lonely hills. Speaking of which, I’ve been reading of Arthur Machen again recently. Remember, fairies are not to be taken lightly.

So I spent some time recently standing on a tennis ball, one foot at a time, in an effort to stretch out the soles of my feet. Occassionally I’d felt tightness and cramping in this area, so I figured this would be a good idea.

Then my latest 20 mile run drove me to the pages of Human Anatomy for Artists, which is, well, just much more artistic than Human Anatomy for Runners, and has lovely pictures. Here I found a full description of the Abductor Hallucis, the muscle responsible for my current malaise.

The treatment, as ever, is frequent icing, and no running for at least a week. That’s not a perfect start to the new marathon training schedules. Grrr.

The experiment
————-
I have been a one-man experiment for the last 3-4 months, doggedly following the low-mileage / high intensity schedules from the Furman Institute of Running. I followed Furman schedules for 10k and HM last year with some success.

The task:
==========
Based on 5k PB of 18:19 last year and 10k PB of 37:55, I followed the Furman schedules for a predicted marathon pace of 6:49 (sub 3). This consists of 3-4 runs a week, one speed session, one tempo session, one long run, significantly faster than in most other schedules. These are interspersed with cross-training days, which for me consisted of biking for an hour.
For race day, based on my Half Marathon result (1:25:55) and given a general lack of confidence after a 2 year marathon gap, I aimed at an actual MP (Marathon Pace) of 7 minute miling, which would get me a 3:03 marathon PB.

Shakespeare marathon 2010: 3:11:43
Antwerp marathon 2008: 3:13:02
—–
April 2010
—–
125 miles run, 65 miles biked
hrs (sessions)
bike – 4:25 (4)
run – 15:14 (13)
total cardio:19h39
race pace: 5 in 4h52
avg pace: 7.19
Long runs: 20m @ 7:05

—–
April 2008
—–
124 miles run, 24 miles biked
hrs (sessions)
bike – 1:30 (2)
run – 16:24 (15)
total cardio: 17h54
race pace: 1 in 1h19
avg pace: 7.53
Long runs:  17m @ 8.21

—–
March 2010
—–
159 miles run, 171 miles biked
hrs (sessions)
bike – 11:10 (13)
run – 20:06 (15)
total cardio:31h16
race pace:  4:17h   4 sessions
avg pace: 7.36
Long runs: 15 @ 7.42, 22 @ 7.35, 15 @ 7.14, 20 @ 7.18

—–
March 2008
—–
181 miles run, 92 miles biked
hrs ( sessions)
bike – 5:57 (6)
run – 24:32 (20)
total cardio: 30h29
race pace: 1 @ 1h22
avg pace: 8.07
Long runs: 23 @ 8.00, 21 @ 8.34, 20 @ 2.40, 15 mile race @ 6.51, 19.5 @ 10

Feb 2010
—–
133 miles run, 119 miles biked
—–
hrs (sessions)
bike – 7:44 ( 9)
run – 16:57 (14)
total cardio:24h41
race pace: 1 @ 45 mins
avg pace: 7.38

Long runs: 18 @ 7.50, HM race @ 6.31, 20 @ 7.30, 18 @ 7.30

—–
Feb 2008
—–
175 miles run, 48 miles biked
hrs  (sessions)
bike – 3:00 (3)
run – 23:42 (20)
total cardio:26h42
race pace: none
avg pace: 8.07
Long runs: 20 @ 8.37, 18 @ 9.00, 14 @ 8.34, HM @ 6.43

—–
Jan 2010
—–
164 miles run, 111 miles biked
hrs (sessions)
bike – 7:10 (8)
run – 21:44 (18)
total cardio:28h54
race pace: none
avg pace: 7.55
Long runs: 20 @ 7.54, 17 @ 7.30, 15 @ 7.20, 13 @ 8.18, 17 @ 8.12

—–
Jan 2008
—–
152 miles run,  102 miles biked
hrs (sessions)
bike – 6:30 (7)
run – 21:09 (18)
total cardio:27h39
race pace: none
avg pace: 8.20
Long runs: 21 @ 9.06, 21 @ 8.00, 18 @ 8.34, 13 @ 8.30
————

Phew, right, bit of a mess, but I think that made some kind of sense and was vaguely readable.

The result
=====
3:11:43 achieved in a very painful marathon with a real last-6-mile fade, my first ever.

My previous PB was 3:13 set in Antwerp in April 2008.
There are obviously many other variables, not least the fact that I’m two years older, and over 40 now.

Despite fading from my target drastically (splits of 1:31 and 1:40), in retrospect I’m quite impressed I managed to just PB while following this schedule.

Training time:
————-
The total aerobic training time is really not far out, although the average pace is way up in 2010, as expected from the Furman schedule with its faster running. This puts paid to the idea that Furman is ‘easy’, requiring less time. I gave it as much welly as the Runners World schedule from 2008, and in fact reckon that to get the best results you need to double the amount of time I put in to cycling at least, so it’s not a plan for the short-of-time in search of a PB.

Injuries:
———–
NONE. This was after all the primary reason for starting the plan, after shin splints during a brief toy with a higher mileage Hadd regime last year, so I’m happy with that result. Even when I return to a plan with more running, I’m convinced of the benefits TO ME of cross-training and/or leg strengthening. I have a very sedentary job, and a very sedentary background prior to taking up running 6-7 years ago. Arse on chair for 10 hours per day DOES NOT EQUAL fit for running.

Mental attitude:
—————–
It felt great to be running faster quite a lot, and I enjoyed knowing exactly what I had to do in each session, or if not enjoyed, then I felt challenged and invigorated! Some of those reps were sick-making.

Single race result = lack of conclusive proof of anything at all!

I put all this training into one race of course, and so many things can go wrong or right with a race that it can be hard to judge a training schedule solely on this basis. Stratford 2010 was hotter than I’d have liked. I’d been feeling low on energy for two weeks prior (iron deficiency?). But the sore quads in the race I’d be inclined to think were the result of fewer long runs and less time on feet (no long runs over 2h40). The last long run was a 20 miler faster than I’ve run 20 miles before. I did worry that this took a lot out of me, and looking back at the logs I’d say that it probably did, in combination with an iron-low diet. It felt so good at the time, that a pace of 5 secs per mile faster for a further 4 miles seemed to be an easy task.

I’m confident the Furman schedule could work for me, but I would need to at least double the biking mileage to a respectable level. 30 miles a week is barely reaching a normal commuting level, but the winter this year has been a bit off putting as far as biking outdoors goes. I dislike those ‘I know a guy who . . .‘ type statements, but . . . two guys on the RW forums who I chatted to achieved 2:47 and 2:59 respectively. The key factor seems to be that that they have a good background in triathlon, and generally did a lot more cross-training than I did.

What happens next:
————
Given that finding training time is always a problem, I’ll probably now return to a 5 x running per week schedule + 1 cross-training session. Looking at such schedules now, they just look so nice and easy! I could go for a run and not even bother to look at my watch. Ahhh, this’ll be such fun! If the 5 x per week schedule works out well, who knows, I could finally commit to even higher mileage. There’s always the struggle with lifestyle though, and my underlying knowledge that it’s the hills that will finally lure me, not a road marathon time target.

In conclusion my dear friends, I would definitely use Furman again, especially if any higher-mileage injuries recur. I would recommend it to others too without question for distances lower than marathon, and for the marathon if you’re prepared to commit time to the cross-training, or are already a duathlete or triathlete.

Monday 3rd May – a trip out at 4am to the quietest woods in Oxfordshire again, at Whichford. This time I knew where the birds hung out, so headed straight in their direction, scaring a herd of deer across a field, and was set up by 4.30am ready to record.

In the early evening I ventured out on my first post-marathon run, a ten mile loop of Wytham Woods from home. Oh the bliss of not having to take a watch or worry about time! My quads were quite cross about the steep downhill section out of the woods, and have obviously not recovered yet from Stratford.

A cold start to the day at 3am, driving to Whichford to record a dawn chorus in the quietest wood I could find in Oxfordshire. Here’s a photo from Geograph:

Photograph of Whichford Wood in the spring © Copyright Barrie Eyre and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence. Please note – the bluebells are not out yet!

After a false start in the pine woods at the top of the hill with some tawny owls, I dropped my tartan blanket (oh no!), was freaked out by a wavering torch light seemingly approaching the woods for about ten minutes then settled in to some gorgeous road free and air free natural sounds.

Go get Adobe Flash Player!

All recorded with the trusty Sennheiser ME66/K6 combo, Sound Devices Mix Pre and Olympus LS10.

So with all last week’s sessions put to bed, it’s semi-officially time to taper. That means running progressively fewer miles over the final three weeks to rest the legs ready for the big day. It’s also traditionally the time when you feel restless or lethargic, hungry or dejected, worried, obsessed, twingy (endowed with twinges), sleepy, or any number of other symptoms which might be psychological and might be nothing to do with tapering at all but more to do with incipient death.

Since I forgot to mention it, the big day itself is at Stratford – the Shakespeare marathon on 25th April, when most people in the country will be running in London. As it’s the weekend when Shakespeare is supposed to have been born, I’m wondering if I shouldn’t be learning some sonnets to recite to myself when the going gets tough.

I’ve bought myself yet another bag, groan. But after all, I don’t have a lime green one yet! This is mostly because I hate trying to drink from drink stations, stopping, tripping up over discarded cups or bottles, and need to take some fuel in the form of gels along with me. I can’t seem to run with a belt on, the most obvious solution, but have run marathons with a backpack before (bigger ones) so this lightweight small affair looks like it might just do the job rather well.

This week’s plan:

• Tuesday: 8 x 800m in 2:41 each with 1:30 rest intervals
• Wednesday: 1 hour biking
• Thursday: 5 miles @ 6.26 per mile
• Friday: 1 hour biking
• Saturday: 5 mile easy run
• Sunday: 13 miles @ marathon pace (6:50) on the Stratford route

The plan for Sunday’s run is to make it a race practice, running with the backpack and fuel, at race pace (in fact faster than race pace), on a single loop of the marathon course, including the much hyped Greenway, a straight 5-6 mile stretch of disused railway track.

In other news I took an exam this morning, my first for over ten years, and am now an Adobe Certified Expert in Dreamweaver! In celebration I bought the lime green rucksack pictured above and some caffeinated energy gels. Mmmmmmmmm.

I realise I’ve been hopeless keeping this blog up to date with this year’s marathon progress. Sorry! After religiously following the Furman schedules based on a 18:19 5k time, aiming at 6:50 marathon pace, I’ve reassessed my marathon target time.

The Furman plan would predict a 3 hour marathon based on that 5k time, but that would be a 14 minute PB from my last PB attempt marathon, two years ago. I’ve decided to be cautious, or sensible, depending on your own relationship to sense, and aim at 7 minute miling throughout, leading to a 3:04 marathon. If I can achieve this, it’ll leave me with a lot more confidence that I can go sub 3 either this year or next, with a bit more training. What’s a matter of five minutes over 3 hours after all?!

Here’s a grey-clouded picture from last Sunday’s long run in the Lampeter area – fantastic quiet country roads on the Sunday morning of the hour change. Hills – they take you higher.

Mynydd Llanybydder 15 mile run

This target reassessment is partly due to the Half marathon time, which is a 3:03 predictor rather than a sub 3 predictor, and anecdotal evidence suggests that you need a 1:23 time to really feel confident about going sub 3. I’ve also felt that 6:50 is really hard to maintain during marathon pace training runs.

I’ll continue the next couple of weeks – yes it’s only a couple of weeks, argh! – training for 6:50, which means a really hard 20 miler this weekend at 7:05. I hope this will all make the eventual marathon itself feel a little more achievable.

Although I’ve now run six, or is it seven marathons, I really have very little skill at computation, I’m already very nervous about this one. 26.2 miles feels like unknown territory yet again, especially at this kind of speed, a good 20 seconds per mile faster than 2 years ago.

One more hard week of training which will consist of the following:

• Tuesday: 10 x 400m @ 1:19 (5:17 minute miling)
• Wednesday: 1 hour biking
• Thursday: 8 miles at marathon pace (6:50 mm)
• Friday: 1 hour biking
• Saturday: run easy 5 miles (no watch, no aim)
• Sunday: 20 miles @ 7:05mm = MP + 15 seconds
• Monday: collapse in a heap

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:

Go get Adobe Flash Player!

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.

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.