Remember the Alamo
Pacing, that's the problem. My usual training rate is around 3.5 pts/hr, but only for the 3 hrs after the hash on Monday night.
Some context: I'm in San Antonio this week for a conference and thanks to Pukes of Hazard managed to get out to the hash yesterday. The weather here has been unusually cold recently, but yesterday was gorgeous (said with the thickest Mancunian accent you can muster). The San Antonio H3 is an old hash, and are looking forward to celebrating their 1069th run next week.
Good live trail with plenty of off road stuff, and nice weather. The SAH3 take their hash religion seriously, and the circle was good fun, with many many songs. The downdown beer of choice is Lone Star Lite, which is like sex in a canoe, and tastes awful if it's not ice cold. Give me a pint of habit every day. I mean any day...
Then it was off to a local bar for some quality hashing. Quite a lot, as it turned out. I started drinking at lunchtime and finished, erm, don't really know when, but I feel like hammered sh*t today.
Worth it though - hope you all had a good time under Winston's masterly Mastering. See you next week, and to the San Antonio H3: CHEERS!
Wrestling my Demons
Been a bit quiet of late, because I've been busy wrestling with my demons. The demons being various textures of shiggy...now re-named "f***** mud'. In the soon to be infamous word of Esra - recent training runs have been utterly 'shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit'. With apologies to Breezeblock and Limpdick who kindly organised said runs and seem to be totally immune to the devil's spawn.
This week however has been a shiggy free week with a fine trip around the Folksworth 15 with Personal Trainer. Managed not to tantrum at him and in return he egged me on to an 8.30 final mile including a dirty great hill (wow the power of the Garmin nerdometer and all the new kit I've bribed myself with in the past few weeks).
All of this was secondary, of course, to the main event, the post race runners' cake. The Yaxley runners had laid on a veritable cornucopia of handmade delicacies, and for this they will be receiving the highest race commendation I can deliver through the runners world website.
As for my mental state going forward...roadrunning it is for me, and the formation of CAMNAS (Campaign for NO ARSING SHIGGY). Anyone wishing to sign up will be welcome to contribute to a book containing fine shiggy free runs, need not have a beard and should like beer.
On on.
Zen and the Art of Marathon Training
To: WinstonSubject: FlatlineWoke up feeling crap, so no pulse for me today... :-(Have a good weekend!- JTo: JuliaSubject: Re: FlatlineBeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee...................Clear!...........Phhut!..................bip...............bip................bip........There. Pulse restored. But take it easy anyway.
That was fun. I think I'll go and defibrillate the cat, he's been a bit lethargic today.
W
To: WinstonJust make sure you shave a patch first or you'll have to deal with that singed cat smell...
So I spent the entirety of saturday in my pj's, following Winston's advice instead of the training schedule's prescription. And it was lovely! I ran the washing machine four times (look Hermione, I'm writing about washing too!) and completed a thorough excavation of my desk. And I thought:
Oh but I should really run.
But I feel crap.
But I haven't done a long run since...
But I'm running because I like it!
I am hereby officially ambivalent about running this marathon. For now, I'm gonna train when and because it's fun. Maybe I'll run on April 15th, and maybe not. Either way, Paris is still the most lovely place to spend a long spring weekend.
Right now I like this plan. It has the potential to be more relaxed than the spring '06 plan (train for a marathon, write 40k words, and secure employment/immigration status).
And it's a new year - a good time for new plans, dancing in the Rad, and trips to the southern hemisphere (4 weeks tomorrow!).
Ommmmm...
Happy Birthday Steve (Where are you?)
Steve's birthday is 18th January. "Fat and Old" is how Julia told me he described himself on the morning of last year's marathon, despite being svelte and younger than me.
How's it going now? Happy Birthday!
Steve last blogged just prior to his attempt at the Bondi to Bronte Ocean Swim in December. I did hear that it was a bit rough and only 50% of the 1600+ entries finished. The report didn't say what happened to the rest. So, eaten, rescued or smashed to bits? Has your running suffered? Still training with the Sydney Striders? Cold you chuck in a few references to mud, snakes maybe, cold bottoms or nappy changing.
On the training front, I see that a certain botty-fondling element appear to be, err, "mounting" an attempt on your 27th mile trophy. I think you're safe, they're doing it all wrong, their training regimen (Runner's World?) is entirely lacking in abstinence, Yorkshire tea and wholesale toenail removal.
Go Velma!
Apologies to BabyJogger
Stream of consciousness
Days to FLM: 98
Last run: sunday 14th, 10 miles
Alert status: Coooool blue.
Now, that was more like it. A beautiful pale blue morning, temperature just right, and ten flat dry miles done just under the pain radar. Nicest run I've had this year, in fact.
So I got to thinking. Which in itself is remarkable, as anyone who has seen me running or tried to hold a conversation with me while running could testify. Generally, my state of mind while running could most accurately be described as 'near catatonic' - the simple question of what to have for a post run breakfast can take up to 1.5 miles and needs to be considered near the end of a run, or I will forget by the time I get home. Mostly my runs consist of several hours of poor mental arithmetic. Let's open a window into the world of synaptic meltdown:
'
Hmmm, there's that funny shaped bush which marks the 2 mile point and it's....oooohhh, he really shouldn't be let out in a scull...anyway, it's now 9 minutes 15 secs since the last mile marker or is that 10 minutes 15? Yes, 10 minutes....ooofff, he's quick, why is that really quick runners always blast past you with millimeters to spare? Anyway, 10 minutes 15 but I should take off 30 secs for the shoe lace incident and that means I should get to the next mile marker at 31 minutes - is that the where the drain meets the river or where that funny boat was moored yesterday? If I run the whole thing in 10 minute miles that will be.....what did I want for breakfast again?'
I have tried varying the topic over the years: I spent a considerable amount of time while training for the Paris Marathon attempting to hold conversations with myself in french, but since these conversations largely consisted of me explaining to myself, in french, that my french was very poor, and since carrying a dictionary proved impractical, the wheels soon came off that drive for self improvement.
However, this morning my brain was remarkably co-operative, so I fell to pondering the vexed question of running for charidee. Recently, this is something I have avoided, largely because there is something that irritates me about the predictability of the question ' who are you running for?', following from a conversation about marathon entries. Selfish as it is, I'm running for me, actually - fund raising is not a compulsory part of any training schedule. Pestering friends for sponsorship is also a miserable activity for a reluctant saleswoman, and I'm wary of doing it too often.
Still, since I was in a positive frame of mind I gave myself a stern talking to and came to the conclusion that my squeamishness about pestering people is not very significant compared with the chance for someone to innoculate their baby, build a school or even die in dignity and comfort. A little bit of leg work and occasional embarassment is a small price to pay.
Plus, I get an opportunity to dress up as Velma Flintstone and run 26.2 miles. Now that's irresistible.
The mile, definitions and usage
Statute mile, about 1609m
Nautical mile, 1852m
Irish mile, about 2048m
"Chris running mile", highly variable, but likely to be much longer than any of the above.
The original plan was to start at Fulbourn, run up Fleam Dyke to Balsham, back down the roman road, and then into Cambridge in time for Sunday lunch at the Burleigh Arms. Chris claimed it be around 15 miles, Rachel and Hannah and I were foolish enough to believe him. Rob however had enough sense to bring a mountain bike.
I was feeling a bit lazy and didn't really want to run that far, so I decided to shortcut back to Fulbourn, and in the end everyone else followed suite.
It started off innocently enough with an enjoyable run along the top of Fleam Dyke and across a couple of fields to reach Balsham. It's fair to say that Balsham was not a high point of the day, with people variously suffering from mud, navigation difficulties and punctures. There followed a good few miles of Hereward Relay grade shiggy, some of which can be seen here modelled by Hannah. Fortunately the rest of the roman road was much better, with the large hill (yes really!) proving especially popular.
Total distance, with shortcut back to Fulbourn, 16.3 miles. Oops.
Fortunately, the Burleigh Arms let us in despite the mud, and provided a Sunday roast of awesome proportions.
Finally, apologies to Barley(?) Legal for being an hour late at the Burleigh Arms, which wouldn't have been quite so bad if Rachel didn't have his wallet, leaving him unable to buy beer.
Antipodean Training Programme - Episode 4: The Friday Hash
So, time for some proper high-intensity land-based training at last! Perth was the first place outside of KL/Malaya to sport an hash, and as a result it has over 20 hashes, catering for pretty much all the various different varieties of hasher* All of them follow more or less the same rules, although the songs are different. I ran with the Friday Hash yesterday, who were running in Greenwood (out near Joondalup, in the northern suburbs). Fine bunch of hashers, about a third of whom came here from overseas somewhere. About 40 mins of gentle running through streets and parkland in the glowing sunshine found us back at the beerstop, where a vast array of food and cold drink suddenly appeared out of the hash trailer
(now this device would be a useful innovation for us, if only to provide somewhere portable to keep Brad locked away). Much banter and hash-sinner-reporting ('charging') ensued, with the familiar penalties. However, Perth is fairly spread out, meaning people have to drive to get to hashes, so the downdowns are 'splash' (Beer and ginger-beer) rather than proper beer. Probably a good thing, since Jeremy was fined at least twice for front-running and competitiveness, plus the obligatory visitor downdown. Oh, and yes, I got lots of stick about the cricket!
Not sure it did much for my Paris training programme, but it was fun! If I'm not crewing at the RPYC again on Wednesday, I'll be investigating the Heave-Ho Hash House Harriers and Harriettes in Fremantle / Wireless Hill.
*Except for Poofters. Obviously. Read the Australian Hashing Rules...
Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa
Last run: 6 miles (this evening)
Days to FLM: 108
Alert status: Amber (Don't panic, Captain Mannering)
It has been pointed out to me that my contributions to this blog may be a little, ummm, tangential to its main point. However, 'write what you know' is a sound maxim in life, and since what I know at the moment is mostly a) the arse end of a baby and b) the inside of a washing machine, you lot are getting off lightly.
Still, I like to rise to a challenge and as it happens, Christmas marked a bit of a running related milestone when I looked at the Runner's World intermediate marathon schedule and realised that week 1 was suddenly relevant. Unfortunately this revelation coincided with three weeks of inactivity which have largely put me back to square one as far as base fitness is concerned, so I need to proceed with some caution. Which provided me with a splendid excuse for avoiding the frankly unappealing combination of 70mph winds, hail and 1:4 sheep tracks when in the Lake District, in favour of a warm fire, Jim's excellent pate and another viewing of Audrey Hepburn's bizarre 'Cockerney' accent in My Fair Lady.
Back to Cambridge and time, and my excuses, have run out. Once again Runner's World shall become my bible, I shall obsess unhealthily about the exact distance between two points on the river, and not only will my brain be writing cheques my body can't cash, but my knees will be maxing out their credit cards and my hips filing for bankruptcy.
And once again I shall spend much of my life stuffing dirty kit into a washing machine. Which is sort of where I came in, really....
The tyrrany of numbers
Third time out I shouldn't be so surprised by this, and yet once again I've drawn up a training program based on the FIRST program and spent the afternoon comtemplating it with a dull ache of dread in my guts.
The time until the race (15 weeks) seems short, as does the time before I'm meant to be training fast over 20 miles; less than 3 weeks. Holy shiggy!
On the other hand, the total mileage involved (almost 400 miles, about equivalent to running to Paris from home and then running the marathon twice) is pretty daunting, as is the time it will take me - between now and April 14th I'll spend over 48 hours running. This doesn't include hashing, or cross training, for which you can add another 30 hours.
Right, I'm definitely not doing another one. Again. Again.
Antipodean Training Programme, Episode 3: Nautical Training Plan?
Well, looking at the RW week-2 training schedule, it says I should be doing a warmup followed by "3-4 miles at a brisk pace" today. The only problem is that I'm supposed to be crewing the foredeck of a J24 in the New Year handicap out of the Royal Perth YC tonight, and there's a big prize at stake...
Combine the two? Not very windy, so bound to take ages to sail the course... brilliant, Jeremy! So, let's see - a J24 is about 7.5 m long and 3m or so in the beam... makes it about 25m round the gunwales. A 4-mile run is about 6.5km, and Jeremy's training route will be: along the port cockpit rail, over the companionway, swing out past the side-stay, over the rail onto the foredeck, round the fore-rail not putting too much weight on the dodgy stanchion, hang on for grim death to the forestay, back onto the foredeck, round the starboard sidestay, down the other side of the companionway and cockpit, over the transom-rail (stepping on the helm's head on the way), along the port cockpit rail, over the companionway, swing out past the side-stay, over the rail onto the foredeck, round the fore-rail not putting too much weight on the dodgy stanchion...etc...
errrrmmm.... 260 times.
You know, I don't think the skipper is going to be too happy with that. It could well be the first case of crew being hung from the yard-arm in WA for 200 years.
Hmmm.. Best make today a rest-day then...
Oh! What a luvverly New Year!
Just back from winter altitude training in the Lake District. Plenty of great quality hash training got done - those long dark nights combined with 144 pints of Milton beer to form an explosive combination.
Ed and I went and let the side down by going for a trot up the hill, along the ridge and back. Unfortunately we didn't take any photos, but if you imagine standing on an open top bus at 70 m.p.h. in a rain storm you'll get the picture. Particularly amusing was working hard to get down a 1:4 slope against the wind.
Have a hashy 2007!
Gee it's great to be back home (not!)
Well, on the positive side the weather was pretty good this morning for the New Years Day hash. And Santa (aka Bloody Barbie) has brought me a shiny new pair of Asics Nimbus on his duty-free sleigh (c/o USAF).
On the negative side I've just found the training schedule on the runnersworld web site. Gulp. And much as I enjoy jogging along the Cam towpath, I can't see it measuring up to the trails I was dawn running in India (pix below).
Hoppy New Year
Underwear
