My Favourite Week

This is undoubtedly my favourite week in my running schedule - the one before a Big Run. Sunday sees me attempt a half-marathon for the first time in two years, so the last few days have seen me concentrate on just two things - Tapering and Carb-loading. Or as I like to interpret that, Not Going Running and Eating Chips.
Tapering is actually a fancy name for cutting back on your training programme for a defined period, to avoid putting your body through undue stress and to make sure that it's not drained of resources you're going to need on the big day. 
So, in a nod to that, my last really long training run was last week, when I tried doing 15k before work. I was thinking of doing 20k, but I woke up late and lost half an hour. It was a bit of a shambles, to be honest, very slow and several walk/rest breaks - but it'll have to do. This'll be the first time I've tried to do a half-marathon without having done at least one 20k training run in preparation, so let's hope the old legs can go the distance.
This week, I've run just the once, a gentle 5k just to keep the joints working. Any other time my conscience has tapped me on the metaphorical shoulder and whispered "You know, you really ought to go for a run today", I've just replied very firmly: "No chance, mate. I'm tapering!"
Carb-loading is supposed to be a way of storing glycogen in your muscles. The science suggests you should be doing it 2-3 days before a long race, not a whole week before. Also, chips is not on any nutritionist's recommended menu for endurance athletes that I can find. This is unfair and chipophobic. There are carbs in chips. Lots of them. Anyway, carb-loading is also a good excuse to eat mounds of pasta, so I will be doing that as well.
As to the race itself, it's the fancily-titled Thames Half Marathon which advertises itself as a "flat, fast and scenic" run, largely along the Thames towpath between Walton and Hampton 

 Court - presumably the scenic bit doesn't include the sewage plant at the 6/11 mile stage, but let's not be picky.
I had sort of forgotten exactly how far 13 and a bit miles is until I looked at the course on the map, and am currently feeling a bit daunted. Can I do it in a decent time? I'm really not sure. The other day, when I'd done 10 miles in an hour and a half, I was feeling quite cocky about it. This week, not so much. Under two hours is my nominal target. Just finishing is perhaps a more realistic one.
We'll find out on Sunday. For the moment, I've got some more tapering and carb-loading to get on with.

Smashing It At Shoreditch

Quite frankly, I'm not entirely sure where that performance came from. I wish I did, really. It'd be nice to be able to point to a dramatic change in my training regime, or an ingenious high-protein diet, or a fancy new bit of equipment, and say "Aha! That's what helped me smash my personal best" - and then keep on using it.  

But I can't. All I know is that the Shoreditch 10k run last weekend was an absolute blast. To begin with, it's a lovely course twisting and turning through the back streets of the area - flat as a .. well, I've had pancakes with more inclines.
It's the first one staged by Adidas in their "City Run" series, so they were determined to impress as a host and they did a pretty good job. Although forcing everyone to wear the same T-shirt emblazoned with the City Run logo was a little strange - and I could have done with some free water bottles before the start.
I was determined not to repeat mistakes made in the 10k I ran in May, and settled into a nice easy pace from the off. I started alongside Roger, a friend from my local Parkrun, but he's a much faster runner so I was unsurprised to see him head off into the distance after the first 200 metres. 
I think I mentioned in my last blog entry that I'd have been pleased with any time under 55 minutes, which is an average of 5.30 minutes a kilometre - easily achievable in theory as long as my stamina holds out. In contrast to the May 10k, I was - I thought - keeping it steady in the first few km, so I was quite startled when I checked my time at the end of the third. 15.05. I was running about a minute and a half faster than I'd thought.

Two possible outcomes. Either I was going to blow up spectacularly like I did in May, or I was actually on course for what would for me be a ridiculously fast time. I mentally checked how I was doing. Felt fine. No aches and pains. Breathing well. Legs not feeling heavy yet. Not much of a sweat. It might not last, but I could keep this pace up for a least a little longer.
Then, just in front of me, I caught sight of my Parkrun buddy Roger - a very good sign. If I was within catching distance of him, then I knew I was running well. I resolved to keep him in my eyeline for as long as I could. Not so easy, mind, when everyone's wearing the same T-shirt - it's hard to keep track of individuals. Luckily for me, Roger was wearing a very bright pair of lime-ish green shorts, so even in the sea of Adidas blue, he was difficult to miss.
At halfway, I was still OK. Didn't even slow down at the water stop. Could still see Roger's green shorts. At one point, I even caught up with him and overtook him (for about one stride before he restored the natural order of things). I'm still running at about 5 minutes per km, and I'm getting to the stage where I'm actually believing I can keep this going. As usual, half (if not more) of the battle is psychological rather than physiological, so that belief is vitally important.

Finally the turn for home, and the last couple of kilometres. I start feeling that ache across the thighs as your body tries to tell you it's done about all it can. My pace dips to about 5.20 and, most, importantly, there is no longer a pair of lime-green shorts in sight. I've lost Roger. I'm going to have to get to the finish on my own. I start mentally counting down the distance, in little parcels of 100 metres ("1200 to go, just 12 more of these, you can do this"). I start to up my pace, knowing that it's nearly finished. With about 300 metres to go, I start sprinting - too early, I think to myself. I pass a trio of fit-looking young women who are playing some banging tune out loud while they're running. I hear one say "Right ladies, 300 to go, let's kick it up" and the beat seems to increase a notch. Well, if they're going to start sprinting, I can't slow down, I'll just have to go faster. By now I'm flat out and I have no choice except to keep it going to the end.

I round the last bend and there it is. The finish line. Paradise. I'm practically falling over my feet now and I sort of half-sprint, half-stumble my way over it. I look down at my Garmin and I can't believe the time. Two minutes faster than I've ever run a 10k before. That's unreal. That can't be true. But it is. 
I look up and there's Roger, who's finished about 15 seconds ahead of me. And I think to myself, you know, Rob - maybe you actually can run after all.

Holidays In The Sun/Stamina In The UK

There's a lot gone on since I last updated this blog. For one thing, I've been on holiday. Generally, I'm not a huge fan of running on holiday. It's either too hot or too hilly. Or in the case of one vacation in Portugal a couple of years back when I thought I was going to pass out on the run back, both. The last time I was out of the country for any length of time was the fortnight I spent in Goa back in January, which was a particular challenge. You could only really run if you got up at dawn and headed straight out, or timed it just as the sun was dipping down below the horizon. Then you had a choice of a strength-sapping slog across sandy beaches or, if you tried the roads, a dangerous dodgem course round vagrant cows, flea-bitten dogs and the ubiquitous tuk-tuks. 

Lloret de Mar "stadium"

So I was expecting the worst, running-wise, when we took the kids to Lloret de Mar on the Costa Brava - but I couldn't have been more wrong. Right outside our apartment was a municipal running track, in a rather ramshackle little stadium, open pretty much all day and completely free to use. Its main customers appeared to be groups of elderly Catalans performing mid-morning exercise walks on the outer lanes, which meant I pretty much had the inside lanes to myself.
Some of my running friends tell me they hate doing laps of a track - too boring, no scenery and so on. Me, I love it because you're only ever 400 metres away from being able to tick off  another "segment" of the run. Also I love the bounce of the track under your feet - such a relief after the hard pounding your soles get from pavements and concrete paths. True, age and overuse had taken much of the bounce out of this particular track (a feeling I'm sure many of us can sympathise with), but even so, it was an unexpected delight.
I did mention in my last entry to this blog that I'd been upping my distances recently. So one morning in Lloret, I managed an epic 30 laps of the track (12k, or 11.95k according to my fussy and overly pedantic Garmin GPS). And that's just the start. Since returning to the UK, I managed this effort which I'm rather proud of:

It seems I've finally got my stamina back. Which is useful for a would-be marathon runner really. I've slowly been pushing the distances up, and am hoping to hit 13 miles plus by the end of the month (16k is about 10 miles for those without an imperial/metric converter to hand). 

So how did this happen? Well, I tried a lot of things but in the end it came down to stopping caring about pace. I gave up worrying about how fast (or to be more honest, slow) I was running, stopped berating myself if I was a couple of minutes slower over 10k, say, than the time before, and concentrated on enjoying my runs. Well, not enjoying exactly, but going at a pace where I wasn't exhausting myself too early. 

I start with a nice easy lope for the first few kilometres. If I feel I'm beginning to go at a pace which is seeping too much energy, I deliberately rein myself in. So by the time I'm in the last third, say, of my run, it doesn't feel like purgatory to continue.

And weirdly, not only did my stamina magically return, but after a bit, so did my pace. I'm now hitting times that are at or pretty close to my best, even with the first part of the run being at a slower pace than I was doing before.

There is a theory I've read that might help explain it, which says that at slower speeds your body burns fat rather than sugar, so that short-term energy stores remain relatively undepleted, and so by deliberately training at a slower speed for longer, you can "coach" your body to burn fat rather than sugar for longer. God knows whether it's true or not, but it did make a kind of sense.

Anyway, onwards and upwards. Huge month for me - I have two races to look forward to. One is the Adidas 10k in Shoreditch on Sunday,

at which I'd like to run under 55 minutes; but the big test is at the end of October, when I run the River Thames half-marathon - my first 13-miler for a couple of years. Training times would suggest I might be heading for about 2 hours, assuming I actually finish. I've still got a little way to go distance-wise before I'm entirely confident I'll be able to. I'll keep you posted.