Antipodean Training Programme - Episode 6: Jacob's Ladder
Not far from the Johnson residence lies a unique feature of the Perth landscape known as 'Jacob's Ladder'. It was erected by Perth city in order to teach hasheletes the meaning of the words 'unfit' and 'knackered'. Consisting of several flights of concrete steps leading from Mounts Bay Road up to King's Park, set into the 60-degree slope of the Mount Eliza escarpment, it is used by almost every athelete in Perth as a means of wearing themselves out in short order.
On an average weekday morning or evening, there are maybe fifty people running up and down it, in various stages of distress. As a means of hill-training, it is without equal - eight rounds of the ladder is enough to make your knees feel a million years old, and your calves feel like they've just been microwaved. Breathing is usually a problem at the top...
Jeremy usually manages three rounds at double-step sprint, before collapsing in an exhaused heap at the top, and taking the other five lot more gently. As a means of putting you in touch with your own mortality, it can't be equalled. Castle Hill is going to be a piece of piss after this..
Not Again!
Arse.
Bugger Nietzsche. That which does not kill us makes us knackered and walk a bit funny.
Yes. Baboon Bottom 2 - Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the underwear.
Pants: Bad
Vaseline: Good
Bury 20: Ouch!
OoooOOOOooooOOOOOooooOoo.
What would you do?
Official physio of the Cantabrigensis Par-Marahashing team, Raoul, had his way with me last week (ahem). In fact it sounds like he's having his way with half the team at the moment. Following a tired 18 mile trot with Winst and Stuie, my calf went twang. When it hurts, the obvious thing to do is run it off on a Monday hash, right? So by Thursday last week I felt compelled to let Raoul get his thumbs in. It started OK, Raoul was gentle on the calf compared to Barely Legal. But then he happened upon my secret shin splints. And wandered up my legs to my lower back, and eventually saw to kneading my buttocks with his elbow.
Why am I telling you this? I don't know. The trauma I expect. I was in bits. Apparently I have no core strength, am overpronating through my uber-anti-overpronating trainers, and am horribly lop-sided. Which is all very well, but I've got a marathon to run. So I did the sensible thing and listened to my inner laziness and did nothing for 5 days. Then I tentatively went for a run, and here I am a week on. Calf is fine. Shin splints fully outed and back still sore. But I'm OK really.
So this afternoon I spoke to Raoul and told him my plan to run Bury 20 on Sunday. And he laughed, and I felt silly. And we negotiated, and he said I could do the 10 miler and see him again on Monday. And I thought, oh OK, what am I always telling BL...better to rest and get better than make things worse. But then I went to the gym and did some speed training and I feel fine!! Great in fact. So....what would you do?
H-villages, leek soup and Brad's pub trail
The H-Villages 2007: -Great SHelford
-(H)Addenbrookes
-NewHam
-GrancHester
-Bar(H)ton
-Haslingfield-Harlton
-Haslingfield
-Harston
-Hauxton
-Little SHelford
Great SHelford
The "Villages Beginning With H" route was March 2006's Last Big One.
It was 20 miles that time, but has since been corrupted to become a quality-not-quantity (my running motto) 12.5 miles of villages (red shortcut), only some of which have an H.
However, Ed, as is usually the case, had his own ideas about the route, the pace and what might constitute a biomechanically efficient running style. I guess the same style worked well for Morcombe and Wise, and the mud splatter goes out sideways like a boat's wake rather than back and up like a bicycle back wheel. So a loop featuring Barton, Haslingfield and Harlton (including a tour of the clunch pit) made it 16.5 miles.
The best bit of the H-villages was, as with most running; stopping. Stopping was all the better as Sarah had made a really big pan of Leek and Spud soup.
Without the soup I'd never have made the other endurance event of the day:
Subject: [radc] Brad Memorial Hash Crawl (today!)
I expect Brad will be too pissed to answer his mobile by 3pm, so here's my number: **** *** ***
To recap, The Brad Memorial Hash Crawl:
-1pm start at Rad
-Invitees: All hashers, non-hashers, rowers, bar regulars, irregulars, Aussies, women of questionable virtue, and bar keepers. Canadians need not apply.
-Point: To usher Brad gracefully (but firmly) out of Britain
-Theme: Make Brad cry
-Motto: Get back, get back, get back to where you once belonged
Cheers,
Bloody Barbie
To be a top Marahasher you need to carefully balance training, nutrition and recreation.
So long, Pedalphile!
There are some people in everyone's life who take up a special place as an emotional touchstone, moral compass and ever-steady confidante.
Brad, on the other hand, has been drawling and God-bless-America-ing at us all for three years now, and the powers-that-be have decided that enough is enough and are redeploying him to the middle of a large desert in Nevada. Last night he laid a trail to commemorate his passing on.
I've never seen such a large pack on a February night (Winst counted 95 in the circle), and I've never seen the entire pack unilaterally add a beer stop. Warmed t'cockles of me'eart.
The circle featured: -
Pedalphile: Hare and celebrated septic
Virgins: Welcome to Hubertus, Mitzi, Jade, Steve, Matt and Rene! Hope you all had a good time and hope to see you again soon! Thanks to Sonia, Zam and Indra for being buddies and taking care of the virgins.
Welcome back and goodbye again to Geraldine! Hope you don't stay away so long this time.
We were pleased to host "When I ..." and "Quilty arse"; visitors from Tavistock.
Sinners: - Bloody Barbie (leading the hash unstray). Barely Legal (not seeing to his Leaky Boiler). Hash rename!: Leaky Boiler (nee Sausage Slipper). Bunter. Abi ([something undecipherable]). Wifebeater (probably short cutting).
Next week the hares are Jellybean and Barely Legal.
On on
TK
South Downs Way
It was about 6.30pm last Friday when Talking Bollocks rang.
Where are you?
Crawley. (Nice)
Are you coming home tonight?
No, I’m off to Brighton – the South Downs Way run.
Bugger thought TB, as he looked at his car at Ely station, and wondered how he was going to get into the house or lay the bash trail the following morning, when his car and office keys were safely locked away in his office in Peterborough.
It did not look promising, as the train journey to Brighton on the Sunday morning was accompanied by torrential rain, thunder and lightening. Undeterred, a small but perfectly formed pack of three met at Brighton Station, and set out through town, then up and up past the racecourse and onto the ridge. As we hit the South Downs way, spirits were high. There had been nothing more than a few spots of rain, and the wind and clouds were with us, giving fine views of Lewes and the sea. Bliss.
I think the first inkling that my 14 mile estimate may have been slightly out was as we approached the village of Southease (complete with ye olde church) after coming off the ridge for the first time, and the GPS was already recording well over 10 miles. I was reasonably sure this was about half way - must be some mistake.
Watching Breezeblock and Whippet sprint into the distance up the 217m climb between Southease and Firle Beacon, I dropped back to a brisk walk, and was reminded of the Talking Bullocks joke.
The young bull says to the old bull, ‘lets run up that hill and screw one of those cows’.
Says the old Bull, ‘no, lets walk up and screw them all’.
Not that I fancy cows or anything. Or the sheep that were waiting at the top of the hill.
The Breezeblock strategy of keeping up with Whippet proved to be a poor one, as legs got tired along the ridge. With my parents and Mrs Whippet waiting at the pub, I had high hopes as we came down off the ridge again at Alfriston that we would be back within the revised timetable of 3 hours, after a short run along the river in the beautiful Cuckmere valley. Unfortunately, we hadn’t counted on the bastard shiggy from hell that was the levee next to the river. Think bad day at the Somme after a heavy downpour. Every step was a struggle, until finally we decided to abandon the river and head back along the road.
Whippet and myself agreed the final GPS reading was 21 something. Bugger. But at least we have calibrated the Howell mile – it appears to be about 50% more than your standard British one, and the Sussex Best and Roast Beef tasted fantastic.
8.50am Tuesday morning. Legs still tired. Shouldn’t have even attempted the hash last night. Now where’s my keys.
9.00am I must have had them last night to get in from the hash.
9.05am Bored now. My keys must be here somewhere.
9.10am F*ck, F*ck, F*ck, I do not believe how inanimate objects can hide themselves whenever you are in a hurry.
9.15am Ring Talking Bollocks.
Hi Rob, how’s things going in Peterborough today?
Fine, yourself?
Fine, going really well – have you seen my keys?
What do they look like?
Front door key, bike key, locker at work with laptop inside it key, that type of thing…
Redmayne Arnold and Harris key fob?
Yes – how did you guess?
Mmm, they sound exactly like the spare set I borrowed from the agent on Saturday, currently sitting in this envelope I’m about to post back to them…
Snow......
Thursday cross training.
Easier on the knees than Mt. Shelford, more fun than 8 miles of slippery snow covered riverbank - build a large snow feline.
The real training part starts when you decide to drive home and discover that your car keys are not in your pocket. Having selected the acre of snow most likely to contain the keys, shuffle and kick systematically for an hour with a torch and wet feet.
I've been back since, with my spare keys, to collect my car. My current hypothesis is that the keys are somewhere inside a ton of still melting snow cat. Bugger.
Snow......
After last week's scaling of the North and South faces of Mount Shelford, this week's 8 miler required something a bit flatter, so a run home from work to Waterbeach along the river was in order.
This looked like a good idea till Wednesday and then the snow came!!
Running in the dark and only being able to see the snow on the path ahead glowing in the moonlight made me constantly nervous of losing concentration and ending up very wet.
Well I managed to get home without falling in the river, but I'm not sure I'll try it again without trail shoes as it was pretty damn slippy.
At least on Saturday we'll be running in daylight, double summer time can't come in soon enough..
Speed training
If you're feeling masochistic, try this pyramid I came up with yesterday. You do speed sets of 30s, 1m, 2m, 3m, 3m, 2m, 1m, 30s. On the way up the pyramid you take as much rest (jogging) as you've just run. On the way down you take as much rest as you're about to run. Throw in 10mins warm up and cool down at either end and you've got a good 43 minute session.
If you're not feeling masochistic, I came up with another (probably non-novel) idea, whilst doing the stupid pyramid scheme: - it seems like speed training would be more fun if it were more like speed dating. Perhaps you would warm up, go and look at some training for a minute, and then decide it wasn't for you. Repeat 5 or so times and then go to the pub.
Hills, Curry and Woodfords Wherry
Great Shelford hill training with a warm up to Scotstsdale's garden centre - 5.5 miles of high altitude Cambridgeshire. Does training get tamer than this?Stuart's marathon plan required 5 miles of gratuitous knee wear. Both of us being bored with treadmills we thought we'd try out one of the (only?) available hills in Cambridgeshire. Rachel had to "entertain clients". Hermione was "on a marketing course". Ankle deep in excuses, Stuart and I were on our own.
Given the severity of the expedition we had carefully scoped out an emergency recovery facility -
The Railway Tavern - convieniently situated on the return leg of Hinton way.
So on Thursday night at about 7.30pm we set out to storm the South West and North East ascents of "Hinton Way". It rises from 15m to >45m at the summit. We stormed the summit twice, just to check it was really there.
Our planning prudence was entirely justified. We got very thirsty. The Woodfoords Wherry and Thai food afterwards at the Railway Tavern was just what was needed.
What we learned:- We learned that treadmills could benefit from being sited near to well selected pubs
- The ropes we took weren't necessary - you can be too careful
- And the hills? we can handle hills.
By God ! ..... I've finally figured-out how to hack into the old blog.
I kept getting sucked into some sort of parallel universe, (a new Google based blog space perhaps ?). If it was a vision of the future, the bad news is that all evidence of our existence has been erased... it was horrible !
The weather down here has been a bit crazy lately .. very hot, very dry, lots of enormous
bush fires ..... its apparently all Al Gore's fault. Australians are currently very upset because the
government is telling them they will have to start drinking their own (recycled) effluent.... not likely ! Most agree that the solution is obvious .... more beer !
Paris looms large, and I can tell that I haven't been doing enough running because I have far too many toe nails (9). Hope to go for a quick run tonight, but Sydney is so damned hilly (remember hills ?). Its really hard to find a flat course, and hills make me a bit weepy so I end-up running round and round Centennial Park (n x 3.7km = ?). After about 3 laps it gets very boring.
