Rites of Passage

My Dad never played any sport at competitive level. By the time my brother and I were in secondary school we had already stopped asking Dad to join our kickabout or bowl to us on the worn garden cricket pitch. This type of sport simply wasn't for him. He was a strong swimmer, a wily and patient coarse angler and he took us to see cricket at Trent Bridge Nottingham, but his interest simply wasn't there for competing with a bat or ball.

So I never reached that moment when I could "beat my Dad".

This weekend my son James and I had signed up to run in the Ravenstonedale 10k, in the Howgill fells, about 40 miles north of Lancaster where he is at university. As he has never run another road race, has started running only about 3 months ago and has yet to fill his online training diary with more than 3 sessions a week, my job was clearly to coax him around. Talk in the days before was of "getting round", "breaking the hour" and "beating my sister's time". Talk on the morning of the race was of "session last night", "hangover" and "sore head".

I had asked James to run a "tempo" of about 3 miles in the middle of the week and this showed that breaking the hour was a meagre objective for him. This allowed me to turn my thoughts in a more selfish direction - I wanted to run about 52 -53 minutes for reasons of my own and I felt I would be able to "tow" him to such a time, even if he lost touch in the last mile or so.

It is one of the great pleasures of running in the UK that races such as the Ravenstonedale 10k still exist, literally and figuratively off the beaten track of the glitzy, big city centre road races. Tucked away in the lower fells of the moorland east of Kendal, Ravenstonedale is a handful of stone houses, a babbling stream and two welcoming looking pubs. It was in one of these, The Black Swan that the race had its HQ. As we got our numbers in the bar the temptation for a quick pint was balanced by the knowledge that it would taste that much better after the race. A few more than a hundred, nearly all clad in the vests of local fell running clubs, jogged to the start. Here a short shouted description of the course followed before the lowest of low key starts,
"Off you go then! Good Luck! Watch that first bend - it's a bit slippery!"

And so off we went, still chatting about what pace we would do, James loping alongside me. He and I are around about the same height (although he would claim perhaps a centimetre of inevitable superiority perhaps), but he is wiry, skinny even, and I have a "weight advantage" of about 20 kgs on him, as well as about 31 years. I should have known what was coming!

As we began the first ascent on one of the lanes out of the village, the first mile passed in 8:10. Maybe a bit too quick, I thought, but we'll soon drop into a rhythm. At mile 2 we were at 16:30, nice and steady, and I had the impression James was sitting back a bit. "Ah, that'll be the excesses of the friday night clicking in, I thought. And it's been mostly uphill so far."

"Let's try and keep up this pace and see how we are at 4 miles", I said as we turned downhill to start back to the village. We crossed the village via a bridge over the stream and on the other side was a fairly steep section leading back out on the other side. I sensed the downhill had given us a good rhythm and we had speeded up. James was alongside now and seemed not be breathing at all deeply. As I moved into my uphill style of deliberately pumping the arms and shorter strides, I sensed him gradually pulling away, so I speeded up slightly, or at least I felt I did. He passed 2-3 older runners who had been just in front of us for the last two miles. Then the reality of the situation struck me - I had been holding him back!

At the 3 mile marker the time was 24 minutes, and, seeing James glancing over his shoulder, I waved him to go on. A moment's hesitation and off he loped, his lazy stride showing promise of plenty of scope in the future if he could apply himself.

The second half of the course was quite tough (isn't it always thus?). The wind was getting up and angry low grey cloud was starting to froth over the fells. Each of the uphills seemed a little sharper now. I began to run my own race, reeling in a couple of runners and setting sights on others. The 3 mile time had told me that, if I kept to my rhythm, kept my concentration, I would "sub 50". Some earlier research had told me that the last mile was mainly downhill, so a strong 2 miles now as what I needed. I dug in, ignoring thoughts that I hadn't run at this sort of speed consistently for years, and therefore should slow down. James gradually receded into the distance, picking off one or two runners as he went on his way.

Coming back down into the village I picked off the runner I had been eyeing up for half a mile and with the finish in sight smiled to myself - just as an unknown adversary came sprinting past me! That's the nature of this though, isn't it? But someone wearing an Ipod! That's insulting! Crossing the bridge and into the small crowd of officials and recent finishers, I stopped my watch - 49'08". Very happy indeed!

And there he was, now re-joined by his sister, Lisa, looking like he'd just been for a stroll with the dog. His time - 47'43". I knew from his expression that "beating Dad" had not been one of the scenarios either he or Lisa had envisaged. But it was one that gave me an enormous amount of satisfaction, more perhaps than any of my own running achievements of the past. But he still has a bit to do before he can claim to be "family record holder" at any of the distances - although his height and nnatural running style indicate that with regular training he will run much, much faster times than this very soon. If he wants to do the work that is!

The after-race was entirely in character with this friendly well-run event for dedicated runners. A cup of homemade vegetable soup and a roll in the back bar of the Black Swan, a beautiful well kept pint of Black Sheep bitter and a prize giving ceremony led by the Howgill Harriers committee who organised the race. We clapped politely as the winner (a local schoolboy who, like James, had the impudence to beat more experienced rivals!) and the placed aged group runners stepped forward for their prizes. Last came the male over 70 prize and up stepped a wiry fellow in thick lensed glasses. I wonder if he still breaks the hour at that age, I mused? Must check the results. When I downloaded the results on monday I was stunned, and in a way gratified, to see that this gentleman had been in fact 2 minutes "up the road" from James, rather than struggling to beat the hour! You have my total respect, sir, and like the 80 plus vet at the Herberts Hole Challenge the week before, you have given me hope for the future of my "second running career".

The rest of my running week was pleasing. The hamstring problem gradually receded into a slight twinge, only to be replaced by the vague onset of some achilles soreness. Oh, well, I knew it was coming! I put in a 11.3 mile run on the Phoenix Trail in the rain, my longest run since the hospital episode and my overall mileage got back over the 35 mile barrier again. A February marathon, perhaps temporarily, no longer looks that unrealistic, and I have signed up to the Bedford Half Marathon on December 10th as my next race.

I have had a spring in my step this week - and today set off for 14 miles along the Grand Union Canal towpath near Tring.

The next father / son exploit? We're negotiating on running the Great Langdale Christmas Pudding 10k on December 17th ahead of re-patriating the boy back down south for a xmas de-tox! I have the feeling that we will "each be running our own race" from a bit earlier.

Herbert's Hole Heroes

Well we did it!

Three old git runners survived Herbert's Hole this past sunday with varying degrees of success, pride just about intact. One was complaining of a sore hamstring, one of virtually everything including gout, a headcold and a sore ankle, and the other one had no complaints, but had run for 90 minutes the day before. And that's the order we finished in really in the first race we had run together since the Flora London Marathon in 2000!

Yours truly had a good week, all in all, with the "power-swimming" helping gradually to push my sore hamstring into the back of my mind. The online purchase of a funky neoprene thigh support helped psychologically as much as physiologically, and by friday I was off into Wendover Woods for an hour and a bit offroad, hilly and wet as well. A quick 3.5 mile "burn" around the village here at a little over 8 minute mile pace on saturday morning convinced me I was again ready to race. It even had stopped raining, but not enough to convince me that the next days race would be anything less than a mud bath.

Sunday was a beautiful day, crisp and clear, with enough bite to cause me to get out the thermal undershirt as I pinned my number to my vest. After a very civilised espresso at a handily placed Cafe Nero in Chesham, we ambled with little purpose over to the start, a line of tape between 2 trees drawn across the park. I began to remember the race at that point, and earlier Paul had reminded me of the time we had run it before by unveiling his t-shirt of the 1994 version. How could it have been 12 years ago?

At 11 o'clock (not on the nail) someone pulled the tape away, and about 250 mostly middle aged club runners set off up the hill in Lowndes Park for just under 7 miles of "sun in the autumn sun". The first hill strung the field out pretty dramatically and I felt quite good, noticing that I had already "detatched" myself from Trev and Paul by the second bend.

"I'll run my own race then", I thought to myself. The grass soon gave way to some single track paths and over-taking (and being overtaken!) became impossible for a kilometre or so. The 2 km sign seemed to come up very quickly and I consciously trimmed my pace back, remembering that a weeek before I had puled a hamstring. "I do not want to finish this injured", was pretty much a constant voice in my head throughout the race and I probably got into a comfort zone on the road and flat trail sections in the middle of the race. There were one or two sharp hills in the middle but the main difficulty came from mud on the long farm track on the way back. I kept thinking - don't sprain your ankle - and thankfully I didn't.

I managed to pass a few in the last uphill stretch and finished the 10.75km ("Garminned" by Trev) in 57'32". That time put me around mid-pack. Next year I'll be quicker.

What of my two mates? Well, Trev was pretty "under-cooked". Work committments, an insidious tendon problem and a persistent head cold have kept his mileage well down and after refreshing myself I was able to cheer him down the last hill about 5 miutes back. Paul - well he was pretty much "over-cooked"! Once again he astonished us by telling us he'd run for an hour and a half the previous day with his saturday septuagenarian running partner, Alan. As a result he was pretty near the back. Thankfully he did beat the 80 year old man by about a minute. seeing this gentleman "sprint" for the line brought a cheer to everyone and gave us that sense of smugness:

"You see - running allows you to do that."

If your joints, bones and dignity survives that is....

Glory days - I did a fast five yesterday and the week climaxes with my son James and I running the Ravenstonedale 10k in Cumbria on saturday. It will be James' first foot race of any distance and I have the repsonsibility of pacing him. The whole family re-convenes in a restaurant in Lancaster on saturday evening to celebrate Debbie's birthday. Hopefully the boys will have the warm glow of athletic achievement to ease the passage of large quantities of house red down the gullet.

Now I really must get some long runs in if I'm going to marathon the spring!

Week 3 of Marathon Training. Brakes back on.

I woke up this last wednesday in an extremely positive frame of mind. I'd planned my upcoming speed session; I'd logged it into my Fetcheveryone Training plan the night before so it already felt "real". On monday I'd run an extremely "steady" steady five miler and felt I was ready for some proper speedwork again - about 15 years after my last speed session.

Of course I was wrong - 2 of my 3 miles completed; a miserable average pace of 7:45 that felt like sub 6; and worst of all I'd "tweaked" my right hamstring. Well, take the positive, at least I was running fast enough to tweak a hamstring - a "proper" injury that professional athletes and footballers get. "Self Treatment" rest - ice - anti-inflammatories followed along with my habitual internet trawl of sites showing me graphically what I might have done and what I should do about it. I ignored those that indicated 2-3 weeks rest as referring to an injury that I couldn't possibly have. The very idea of it!

Thursday then became a rest day, as I was ignorant as to whether a pulled hamstring would be affected by swimming. A pretty poor excuse for not getting out of the door at 7 am, I know. It didn't actually hurt at all, and I was pretty certain that the cause was "over-striding" on a cold morning. Subsequently I've realised how inflexible I am these days and have set my mind to increasing suppleness in my legs by much stretching. The swimming will help, won't it?

On Friday I couldn't resist the temptation of going for a run and took the dog over to Bernwood Forest for a jog (or walk) of 40 minutes. I was well stretched and wore warm long shorts to counter the frosty conditions and enjoyed a leisurely run with very little discomfort. In fact, in partial defiance of those articles I had read calling for rest, I kept going for an extra 20 minutes. You can't come home until the dog is completely exhausted anyway, can you?

I wrote saturday up as a 4 mile recovery run, with the idea to be back on schedule on sunday with 11 miles offroad.

I've spent much of the past 2 weeks debating whether or not to join one of the local running clubs and cannot really come to a decision. I was a member of a club in the eighties and I have to admit that pulling on a club vest at any sort of race changes your motivation. This is especially true when running close to home and competition between local clubs is still pretty fierce in the UK. My decision and relative angst centres around the choice out of 4, with the main factors being proximity and the suitability of the club for an aging 9 minute miler who believes he can re-capture some of his former glories. On saturday runners from all the 4 clubs concerned were involved in a Chiltern League Cross Country League "mob match" at Stockwell Park, Luton.

So a park in Luton, 30 miles away, became somewhat bizarrely selected as the site of my 4 mile recovery run, with the idea being to "suss" out some of my likely future clubmates in the series of races in the afternoon. How I expected this to help influence my decision, I am not too sure, other than a vague feeling that I might be able to pick up on the clubs' ethos by watching them race! I suppose I was looking for a good spread of abilities and some people of my own age rather than just 20 something "flyers". I must be getting back into the running obsession - as I parked the car I realised that my beloved QPR were kicking off less than 2 miles away just at the start of the senior men's race!

Unfortunately the "hammy" went again less than a mile into my run, this time with a quite easy to identify wrench that stopped me in my tracks. Unlike wednesday, I stopped running immediately, wrapped up warm and strolled across to watch the running.

For anyone who has never attended a cross-country league meeting in the UK, I will give a brief description below. They are quite bizarre anachronisms in this age of big city glitzy road races, but they embody all that I love about the sport of running and none of what I am suspicious of. No fancy kit; no costumes; no-one running for "a cause"; no celebs; and very, very little commercial involvement, the fuel for the whole day being the competitors themselves and many volunteers, most of whom are current (injured?) club runners or retired competitors "giving something back".

The juniors, some as young as 11 or 12 and usually looking frozen solid, start the day and the last two races are always senior / junior womens followed by the same for men. This usually as darkness threatens and the course is at it's most churned up. The mens race was three laps each of the two loop course - around 9 km in total. The scoring system means that most of the first 200 finishers are usually really in a race, each place being valued on merit. So beating a rival clubmate by one place is as good as one of your superstars winning the race in a sprint from a member of the same club. You never know how your club stands in a race while you're in it, so the incentive is to give it everything. Even though you are middle or back of the pack, it might be your holding off of the guy wheezing down your neck that secures promotion or staves off relegation next season.

I have to say that I enjoyed my afternoon, despite the pretty chilly weather, and the disappointment of realising I was really injured. There is something wholesome about all these grown people giving of their best for absolutely no reward other than inter-club (and of course intra club!) one-upmanship. Skimpy vests and hard man / girl attitudes were pretty much the norm, much as I had remembered from the days running in the Met League 20 years ago. I hope it won't be long before I can suffer some of the same again - there were quite a few older and even some slower than me!

What of the 4 clubs? Well all were pretty well represented, with my nearest small club, Thame Runners looking surprisingly prominent considering their low membership. I think I'll be going along there - just as soon as I can actually run that is!

In the meantime, there'll be plenty of swimming for a couple of weeks.

.....although I seem to have booked myself and 2 mates into a cross country race this sunday.
It's pouring with rain now and I have no offroad shoes. I'll have to run slowly ayway, so what the hell?

Back in the groove - Week 2 of 16

28.5 miles running ; 2 swimming sessions.
This was a good week for training.

We had cold crisp, sunny and calm weather for most of the second half of the week and at last it feels like the "true" autumn here in the UK. I feel strong, healthy and pretty well motivated. Apart from some calf stiffness and the knowledge that my achilles tendons are still potential problems, the body feels OK.

4 runs :
- an easy 6 on a traffic-free firm cycle path on monday.
- a 5 mile tempo run in the same place on wednesday.
- an offroad hilly 9.5 mile on friday.
- a mixed 7.5 miler on sunday morning in the company of my two long term running chronies, Paul and Trev.
2 swimming sessions of 30 minutes each on tuesday and thursday mornings.

This week is planned as very similar, but the long offroader will be 11 miles and wednesday's speed session will be 3 x a mile.

Why didn't I think of doing some swimming earlier? However stiff you may feel getting into the pool, it just seems to stretch you out and relax you and you just feel so much fresher on the next day's run. I have "discovered" that the local pool in Thame, just 3 miles away, is perfect for an early morning session. It opens at 6.30 for 2.5 hours of in-lane swimming and I was sharing it with no more than 12 others. 1000m of swimming is still a good work-out for me and I will try to get a bit better and a bit faster week by week.

My endurance seems to be pretty good, as evidenced by the ease with which I completed friday's hour and a half up on the ridgeway - both hilly and over very varied terrain. I won't really know if this impression is correct until I get my overall mileage up a bit and I do a run of more than 2 hours, but the signs are good. Hopefully "the base" is already there from the summer.

Strength / speed is a bit of another matter unfortunately. I know that running a marathon is not about speed, but now I have committed myself to a few races at various distances over the winter, I feel I must try to get my "comfort-zone" training pace down to about 8.30 miling. My body has probably totally forgotten the days when I used to bowl along comfortably at 6.30 pace, but unfortunately the brain is not that forgiving. At the very least I should be able to get under 50 minutes for 10k and get under 1h45 for the half by the end of the winter. This would only put me back where I was in 2000 after all. The wednesday runs and the races are going to be important. There's a couple of races I'm looking at in January, a 10k and a 15 mile. Targets will be set nearer the time.....

Yesterday was the New York Marathon and Eurosport gave it pretty good TV coverage. I watched more and more of it as it became obvious that the All Blacks were going to give our boys a pasting at Twickenham. This years was of particular interest to me for two reasons - Dean Karnazes and Lance Armstrong.

I became a pretty avid enthusiast of the Tour de France from 1987 onwards when the family moved to Switzerland, and I even began to supplement my running in the summer with some pretty serious lone cycling. I bought myself a decent road bike from a guy called Eric Loder, who had a small cycle shop in one of the Geneva suburbs. I remember the walls were covered with photos and trophies from his days as a tour "domestique" and a pro racer. I think he even got on the podium of a stage in the tour once. With mountains all around and feeling fairly fit, eventually the mind gets drawn to the challenge of climbing some of the passes that you see being tackled in the tour. In my case I managed the ascent to St. Cergue in the Jura, the Col de la Faucille, the ascent to La Clusaz and perhaps top of the lot, the "premier categorie" Col de la Colombiere which takes you over the mountains from the ski resort of Le Grand Bornand and down to the Arve valley at Cluses. The feeling in my legs on the last couple of miles of that climb is quite unlike anything I can remember in running, even in the last few miles of my last marathon, and over the last 6 years or so I've watched Lance Armstrong's dominance of the Tour de France with a sort of stupified, head shaking reverance. On a couple of occasions I was glued to my TV when on murderous climbs he would just look across at his rivals, stand up on his pedals and then just "dance" away from them up the climb to literally blow them away physically and psychologically. And in 1997 this man should have been dead, his body riddled with cancer.

This year Lance tackled his first marathon and he got in under 3 hours by a handful of seconds (apparently his VO2 max would indicate that he could be a 2:06 marathoner!). He had pacing from Alberto Salazar, Joan Benoit (both Olympic Gold medalists at the marathon) and Hitcham El Guerrouj, the middle distance phenomenum but nevertheless the marathon brought this super-athlete down to the level of us mere mortals. Here are some quotes from the man himself after the race:


“Even after experiencing one of the hardest days of the Tour nothing has ever left me feeling this bad,” he said at a post-race news conference. “[My shins] started to hurt in the second half, but the bigger problem the last 7 or 8 miles was the tightness in my calves and thighs. My calves really knotted up. I can barely walk right now.”

Armstrong called the race “the hardest physical thing I have ever done.” While he competed in triathlons as a teenager, Armstrong had never attempted a marathon.

“I think I bit off more than I could chew,” he said. “I never felt a point where I hit the wall; it was really a gradual progression of fatigue and soreness.”

There really is hope for all of us plodders!


But can anyone (even Lance Armstrong) ever match what Dean Karnazes has achieved over the last 50 days, when he has run 50 CONSECUTIVE marathons in each of the 50 states of the U.S.A. I chose the picture above because in it he just looks like any other runner - not wiry thin, not looking like he's especially quick, just pounding the streets of his local town. In fact if you read Dean's blog for this stupendous achievement, it's full of respect for the small band of runners who've accompanied him at every re-created race and a humility that Armstrong never had. I'll be buying the book, and the dvd and helping him raise a few quid more for his Karno Kids charity, which is the principle beneficiary of this extraordinary feat. Dean will probably raise less than the $600,000 that Armstrong has raised through the race for his cancer charity, but then Dean never had a relationship with a rock star or put one over on the French, did he?

Time to get the running shoes on and get that first 5 miler done.

A Winter of Running Coming Up!

Ok so I AM BACK!

Everyone keeps telling me to "take it easy", "don't overdo it" and "you've lost too much weight".
But when did I ever listen to anyone?

I twiddled about with my running last week, doing about 16 miles in 3 runs. The friday run, a 7 miler on my favourite offroad Ridgeway near Chinnor, told me that I am probably being a bit easy on myself. But when I got down to planning my running for the winter and the preparation for my Feb 11 marathon, I did think that this friday offroad jaunt rather than a sunday morning road run would be one of the core parts of my training.

So here's what I've resolved :

1. I will run 4-5 times a week only. Hopefully this will keep the achilles tendon problems at bay.
2. I'm going to "cross-train" seriously. I did this when I lived in Switzerland with plenty of cycling and swimming and I don't remember ever being injured there. It'll be swimming mostly, always once and mostly twice a week.
3. I'm going to do quite a few races while I have my weekends free. I need to hone my competitivity and give myself an incentive to work on speed and strength as well as endurance.
4. My training week will feature a build-up of mileage over the next 12 weeks before a 2 week taper.
5. All my long runs will be offroad (2 x 16; 2 x 18; 1 x 20). I will supplement this with a half marathon in mid December and a flat 15 mile road race 3 weeks before the marathon.
6. Each week I will do one hard speed or strength session, either a tempo run, mile repeats or some gnarly long hills. All these will be on firm surfaces.

I'm taking Siberian Ginseng as a speculative boost to my immune system, Omega 3 fish oil capsules, Glucosamine / Chrondroitin combo and a "men's health" multivit/ mineral.

I feel good about my planning and have written the "shape" of a programme already, with quite a bit of built in flexibility.

I'm still posting my training and routes on runningahead.com, but have just joined another fantastic UK runners site called Fetcheveryone. I am "Coffeeman Running" on both these sites and my diaries are public.