Another Marathon Gone!

Well, I'm not going to be doing Seville.
The cost of flights shot up in the week before I decided I would be fit enough and I have decided to run the Stamford 30k on February 11 instead. A total budget of £400 to run a marathon wasn't part of the plan. My marathon will now be in Rotterdam on April 15 and I can run the Finchley or Ashby 20's on March 18.
My 90 year old mum has just been diagnosed with cancer of the gullet and with tests and treatment plans to be discussed I needed to engineer another opportunity to see her before leaving on holiday on Feb 13. The choice of Stamford puts me 18 miles away from Spalding where she lives.
I haven't raced since December 17 and with the Christmas period out of the way I have steadily increased my mileage. I am determined to run 200 miles or more in this mildest of Januaries and I am well on target to do this. The long runs have started feeling easier and the mid distance runs are getting faster.
Long runs do etch themselves on the memory as they give you time to think and your heightened senses seem to "absorb" the world better. I also find they feel like an expression of your individuality when you complete them alone. You are just running and running and running and the rest of the world passes by oblivious to how far you have come and how far you are going. It just seems to place you in a sort of parallel existence.
Last week I did a 15 miler midweek and a 13.5 hilly run on Sunday. This latter one was on a glorious sunny morning on the lanes through some nearby villages and hamlets immediately to the north of where I live. Although the countryside is not truly hilly, my run took me through two hilltop villages and down into the three valleys around them. Thus I got 1000 feet of climbing in and finished after 2 hours feeling pretty pleased with myself, as the pace was slightly below a sub 4 marathon.
Today's run was a real epic though. Yesterday I took a day off as my achilles tendon was showing signs of regressing to the state of soreness and stiffness that I suffered with in September. This was probably due to me "burning up" an 8 mile tempo run at 8 minute mile pace the night before! My willpower was severely tested by listening to the evolving weather forecast - damaging gale force winds and heavy rain for today! Despite the banging windows this morning, I decided "to hell with it" and decided on an off road meander along the Wendover Arm of the Grand Union Canal, up onto the Ridgeway path and back through Wendover Woods. There weren't many dog walkers out - and no wonder. The squally weather had brought to a climax the "thinning" of many trees that has been going on for a couple of weeks now, and all the paths were extremely muddy. Those on the steeper slopes of the Chilterns were virtual waterfalls! As I ran up out of Wendover onto the Ridgeway, the full force of the wind was whipping the bare beech and oak trees into a manic waving frenzy accompanied by a moaning and the occasional disconcerting crack. On several occasions I had to hurdle recently fallen trees and large boughs. The rain when it came was fierce and mostly horizontal, but it wasn't and eventually in the last mile the sun came out.
I love runs like these. There is a sort of highly private primeval pleasure in them. You start off clad in all your high-tech gear, relatively comfortable and after about a mile your shoes are muddy and full of water, your shorts are sodden and that waterproof is hanging lankly. 20 minutes later and you look down at your legs to see they are a salmon pink colour from the wind and rain. You have no time to think of how you are feeling as all your attention is focused on your route and where to put your feet. An hour into the run and this is all that matters, and a glow of satisfaction grows from coping with the demands being put on you by terrain and weather. I finished the last downhill mile back to my car in an almost euphoric state. Did anyone see me clap my hands and shout out "Yes, yes, yes!"? If they did they had the tact to keep themselves hidden from this middle aged loonie.
But the trees were quite scary - at one point in Wendover Woods I came across a birch that had been cleaved in two, one half still waving manically in the storm, the other half blocking the trail. I nervously looked up at the others around it as I straddled over the branch and continued on my way. How do you know which one will fall next? The hand of fate stayed away, than goodness.
I know from the runners' forum that I contribute to, Fetcheveryone, that many, indeed most, runners seem to stay on the roads or the treadmill and some even have issues with "getting shoes dirty". They are missing out. Offroad running on a foul day is as good as on a beautiful sunny day. In fact it's always fun, challenging and exhilarating in a way that running on the road can never be - not to mention a treadmill!
I think I'll hit the woods again tomorrow - or should I ration this pleasure?

Into the "Marathon Year"

Well, something had to give over the holidays and it looks like it was my blogging!
...and my waistline.
...and my running -well not that much.
...and my "cross training". The pool has been not seen for a couple of weeks, but I can blame the England Cricket Team for that! Early morning / late night agony in front ot Sky TV live from down under doesn't help put you in the right frame of mind for driving out in the dark at 7 am to head off and do 40 lengths.

In my last entry I was just about to run my last race of 2006 and the fourth in 5 weekends at the Great Langdale Christmas Pudding 10k on December 17th. Well James and I ran the race and both posted PB's. Mine of 46.28 was just 15 seconds LOWER, YES LOWER! than his. Not that we are at all competitive, father and son. Of course not.

I periodically forget just how much I love the Lake District. Perhaps it's remoteness - 4 hours on the M40 / M6 is remote - and keeps it out of your mind as a place to visit for a short period of time. As a holiday destination for Mr and Mrs Coffeeman, it lacks some of the things that ensure marital peace - blue skies, calmness, dryness and warmth - so we have just not spent as much time up there as we should have. I have kept a romantic notion of the Lakeland Fells since my teenage years. (I have no interest in the lakes themselves, except as scenic foreground for the main characters). Two "team-bonding" field trips as a grammar school boy were my first real experiences of the great outdoors and I can remember a real feeling of wilderness up above Wasdale. Easter holidays 1971 I think it was.

On the saturday before our race and with our Fiat Punto packed with an absurd amount of his paraphernalia for 2 weeks christmas vac, James and I checked into a B&B in Ambleside and headed off for the start of our race in the Langdale Valley for a recce. After heavy rain for a couple of days all over the country, I was amazed to see the fells of the Langdale horseshoe topped with fresh snow. After a pint and some soup in the Sticklebarn Tavern, we needed very little mutual egging on to yomp up the waterfall path along the ghyll to Stickle Tarn. It's what "lads 'n' dads" do isn't it?

We struck lucky with the weather. It wasn't raining and we could see across the valley! As we hopped our way back down to the hotels I did begin to wonder whether it was the perfect preparation for a 10k the next day, but the view and the mild feeling of conquest was worth it!

The next morning the weather was even better and James even ran in his sunglasses. If every race in the UK had a setting like this one, well everyone might want to be a runner! The sharp odour of wet sheep in our nostrils, 500 or so runners headed off along the lane back towards Elterwater on a "Cumbrian undulating" out & back with a loop in the middle. After starting slowly we stepped up the pace and were soon running at 7:30 pace, picking off other runners all the way. James had done virtually no training, apart from heavy exercise of his pint glass arm, since the Ravenstonedale 10k and I was determined myself to run as fast as I could. At 3 miles he complained of some calf stiffness and said he would ease off a bit, so off I went (I thought) and I gritted my teeth through the tough uphill miles between 3 and 5 to finally finish near to my ultimate goal time. I intended to jog back to meet James and was just getting my breath when he clapped me on the shoulder. He'd been beaten - but not tamed!

Considering the time of year I got in some fairly good running over the holidays - and it was pretty sociable stuff - in tune with the season. Gangs of multi-generational runners cluttered up the by-roads and footpaths around some sleeping Buckinghamshire villages. The old guys complained of their niggles and aches and pains - the young guys just kept looking back occasionally to make sure they weren't handing their dads too much of a hammering. Touching really. It continued to be pretty mild, but I still managed to develop a "stiffness" in my left hamstring that pulled me up sharp on a 5 miler with James around the streets of Spalding and there's been an easing off since. Too much roadwork, not enough flexibility exercises, and some general stagnation may be to blame. It's not an injury needing treatment - yet! And I have just run 11 miles on it at marathon pace without much of an adverse reaction. My endurance feels good and a marathon 5 weeks from now should really hold no fears for me now.

I am now very much back where I was in late September, but without the acute achilles tendonitis and with some new PB's at 10k and Half Marathon that point to a sub 4 hour marathon if I have that endurance. The only way to really be confident will be to run the 2 20 mile plus runs in the next 3 weeks. Let's hope the legs hold out!