Training Report 2

23 weeks to the Lausanne Marathon.
It's been a bit of an erratic week for me as life yet again got in the way of running. Starting to train for a marathon knowing that all your weekends are fully occupied until race day might be thought to be a bit absurd, but I've managed somehow to convince myself that I can turn wednesdays and thursdays into saturdays and sundays.
We'll see how naive that looks when the mileage starts to climb in a few weeks time!
I download the Phedippidations podcast by Steve Runner every week and that gives me an hour of inspiration to keep on track. It's a perfect mixture of training tips, listeners' anecdotes and mishap stories which must strike a chord with all of us who have run, lapsed, got fat, run again, lapsed again, set goals, failed, achieved and got injured! I continually wonder exactly where I am on this journey. Could it be the start of a "second wind" of proper running?
One thing is sure, if I am going to achieve my goals, there are going to be a lot of weeks of 5 consecutive days of running followed by weekends without a run. Last weekend saw my mileage lapse a bit mostly due to a mid week rest day. Slap that wrist! I was feeling a bit jaded so I am excusing myself for the moment. Once I go onto a "proper" training programme with 18 weeks to go, I hope I can be harder on myself.
So, at the time of writing I am facing day 3 of a promised 5 consecutive days running. I am aware of a few aches and pains, notably a nagging stiffness in my left calf and a slight soreness in my right hip after each run. I hope that the years of up and down mean I can keep on the edge of progressive training whilst filtering the true warnings out my 50 year old physique's cries of wolf!
Yesterday evening I ran my first true intervals workout since I was in training for the 1998 London Marathon. It's strange how the mental attitude comes back from some hidden archive in the brain and other sessions playback in your head. I know I have to improve speed and strength. I think I already know that I will be able to finish the marathon unless I get injured, but if I can significantly raise my training pace along the way, my sub 4 hour goal will become achievable. My basic speed improved so much in my first year of serious running 20 years ago and I am fairly confident that I can also make some much more modest progress this time.
So the lunatic within headed for a hidden (and thankfully traffic free!) hill in our village with my stopwatch and bottle of lucozade sport. I ran up it's 550 - 600 metre or so length 6 times, giving myself just the jog back down to recover. It really, really hurt! Burning lungs weren't helped by the drifting smoke of a farmer's bonfire about half way up, but my brain just took this in as another obstacle to run through. The memories came flooding back - these sessions are about mental toughness, maintaining running form and energy conservation. You expect to end them exhausted and I wasn't disappointed! I gave myself a pat on the back for mental toughness and I just have the feeling that this is a sharper weapon in my running armoury than it was 20 years ago. I hope so, as the signs are that I'm going to need it.
Listening to Rocco di Luca and Bruce Springsteen's Seeger Sessions on my mp3 player was a weird juxtaposition to my grunting and pumping. I also managed to keep the head roll down in order to keep the headphones in. I wonder how Paula Radcliffe would manage that!
By the way I averaged just under 2.20 on the hills and will repeat this session bi-weekly to see how I'm doing.
Today (your wednesday - my saturday) orders me to go 12 miles or two hours on the Ridgeway.
After those hills - more hills! But I have a great reward tonight, with tickets to see Eric Clapton at The Royal Albert Hall. Now I wonder what I should load onto the mp3 player today.........