training – Running Ink

Running not working its usual magic? Me neither…

So here I am, with all the time in the world… and I’m trying to figure out why my beloved running feels so bloody hard.

Imagine someone offering you the chance to train without interruption. You can run daily, if you choose, on near-traffic-free roads, through parks swaying with blossom, woods carpeted in bluebells. And you’ll still have time for that daily core workout or strength session, too. Nutrition-wise, there’ll be no dinners out, no takeaways or boozy evenings fuelled by crisps and peanuts. All your usual commitments and routines – work, travelling, errands, family visits, nights out – will be temporarily put on hold while you focus entirely on your running. It sounds like something I might have wished for in the past. But now? Well, here I am, with all the time in the world… and I’m trying to figure out why running feels so bloody hard.

Maybe it’s all the energy I’m expending on worrying. When will this be over? What if I get it? What if I give it to someone else? Will a hug ever feel safe? What will become of my business? Will my teeth decay? Should I try to dye my own roots? Am I drinking too much? Am I thinking too much? Will life ever be the same? Should I want it to be?

Or perhaps it’s just that running’s lost some of its purpose. When we say we ‘love running’, is it truly the act of running – the process of putting one foot in front of the other – that we mean? Or is it the end goal that drives us? The shiny medal, the time on the clock… Or the opportunity to connect with others in a shared experience? Or the need for some respite from all the things that normally crowd our days and overfill our diaries? With all these ‘drivers’ absent, some of my reasons for running have just melted away.

In the lockdown world, I find myself setting out for runs and simply conking out halfway through. I slow to a walk while my body and mind squabble over the question ‘what’s the point?’ It’s not a happy place to be – so I’ve been looking for solutions. I’ve found it’s better when I run with a purpose – doing what you might call a ‘session’ – rather than just a run. Having to concern myself with hitting or maintaining a specific pace, or running for a set distance or duration, makes it feel less futile and more engaging.

Other distraction tactics have also helped me stay the course, which I’ve outlined below. Regarding number 5: At the end of yesterday’s run, utterly spent and walking, two magpies landed in the field next to me. I cursed, and wearily executed 10 squat jumps before carrying on. For some reason, I felt better afterwards.

Count your cadence (the number of steps you take) for 1 minute. Then see if you can up the number by 5-10% over a subsequent minute, by thinking ‘fast and light.’
See how many different types of birdsong you can hear, or even identify (although birds are bastards and hide/fly off so you can’t identify them!)
At the end of each km you run, speed up for 20 seconds before returning to your previous pace. This is called surging and a) teaches you to recover on the move and b) prevents you getting into a plod.
Pick up a pebble or stick. Run fast for a short time – such as 30-60 seconds, put your item down and jog back to where you started. Now run fast again, aiming to get at least as far as your pebble/stick. If you get further, move it before jogging back. Repeat as desired. Works on hills, too!
Play running roulette: you pick a random scenario – eg. you see a cat/postbox/magpie on your run. A red car (or any car, if you’re in the sticks!)/horse/bus passes you. Any and every time this scenario happens, you stop running and do 10 jump squats (or pick your own poison!!) before continuing.
Run for a view. The bluebells are out in force at the moment. Blossom trees are in bloom. The fields are awash with sunshine yellow rapeseed. Go and look at something beautiful.

Keep the faith, runners!

You might be finding it hard to find purpose in lacing up your trainers and getting out there at the moment. I know I am. Races, parkruns and club/group sessions nationwide are all cancelled until ‘further notice’ and it’s impossible to know how long the current situation will go on for – or if it will get even worse and render us unable to get out for runs at all.

So, difficult as it might feel (and provided you are well, of course) I gently urge you to maintain your running. Running helps to reduce stress and anxiety, both of which have a negative impact on the immune system. In fact, running itself helps to maintain a healthy immune system, provided you don’t run to exhaustion. Being outdoors is far healthier than being cooped up inside, especially if being indoors means close proximity to others. (I do find it hard to believe that UK Athletics has issued a directive to cancel all running group sessions, when gyms and yoga studios remain open.) Keeping your routine, as far as is possible, helps to bring a sense of order at a time when everything feels a little out of control.

If you are used to running with others, you might struggle with the idea of going out alone. Perhaps you could team up with a friend or fellow runner from your running club or group? Or go out as a small group, keeping your distance from each other and avoiding any spread of respiratory droplets by refraining from spitting, nose clearing, coughing and sneezing.

As one of my group members so wisely commented this morning, ‘physical distancing’ would be a better term than ‘social distancing’ – in these anxious and uncertain times, we need each other more than ever. If you do run alone, you can still share and discuss your achievements on social media platforms – we are posting our twice-weekly Rye Runners sessions on a virtual whiteboard and inviting members to report back when they’ve completed them or any other runs. This helps us all feel like we’re still part of a community – and that there’s a point to getting out there and clocking up some miles.

What if you don’t feel comfortable about running at all in the present climate? You could use this time to do one of those many running-related tasks that there’s never time to do. It could be something physical, like strength training or plyometrics. Drills in the garden? Or if you’re not up to that, why not do a kit inventory and clear-out, or clean those mud-laden running shoes? Running isn’t going anywhere. It’ll still be here when all this craziness is over.

Keep the faith and stay safe.

A race against time to get back to fitness

After being felled for nine days by a brutal virus, my marathon is hanging in the balance…

I’m facing the situation with equanimity and I’m not sure if this signifies a new maturity and perspective or suggests I don’t care as much as I used to about my running goals. As a dedicated over-analyser, the fact that I don’t have the energy for such navel gazing right now is a clear sign that I’m not fully recovered. For the moment, it simply feels good to be upright again.

The day before the virus struck, I ran 9 miles, 6 of them a tad faster than marathon pace. It felt unreasonably hard, and I should have suspected something was amiss. The next morning – Saturday – it was too late to cancel my coaching duties and I muddled through two hour-long sessions before heading home and climbing straight into bed, fully clothed and shivering. When I woke up, feverish, late in the night, I still had a stopwatch and whistle around my neck.

I didn’t get back out of bed again until the following Saturday and it took me a further two days to put on my running shoes to see if I had anything to give. Not much, it turned out. But two miles is better than being stationary and whatever panic my mind conjures up about how little time I have left and that 20-miler I missed on Sunday, my body knows that it needs to ease back in gently, deadline or no deadline.

Detraining

I’m thankful to my dear Garmin for notifying me at regular intervals that I am DETRAINING. No shit, Sherlock! But the scientific research makes for dispiriting reading. Studies suggest that fitness declines are sharpest in the first 12-14 days of inactivity, levelling off thereafter. One study of trained athletes found that levels of enzymes associated with endurance performance halved in 12 days, while VO2 max dropped by 7%. Another study showed a rapid reduction in blood volume, a lowering of lactate threshold and a greater reliance on carbohydrate metabolism (instead of fat). But on the brighter side, the research suggests it doesn’t take as long to regain recently-lost fitness attributes as it did to earn them in the first place.

I just have to hope I still have time to make the start line at Brighton.

Listening to your running body

If you listen to your body, what do you do when you hear a red flag flapping in the breeze between your ears?

‘Listen to your body.’ You’ve heard it a million times if you’re a runner, and you know that it means you have to pay attention to those warning signs of forthcoming doom in the guise of injury, pain, illness or temporary burnout.

But it’s not always that easy to tell exactly where these warning signs are coming from. Are they kosher? Have they been issued by the central governor in your brain (who I like to think of as my inbuilt hard-hat-wearing health and safety officer)? Or are they from a different place in your mind – perhaps a region of the brain concerned with motivation or emotions?

The reason it matters is that it might affect what you do when you ‘listen in’ and hear a red flag of some kind flapping in the breeze between your ears. Is it the rational, if somewhat over-zealous governor speaking? Or is the ancient reptilian part of your brain trying to protect you from attempting something that might cause you discomfort or that you might not succeed at – like an 18-mile long run with the last four miles at goal marathon pace?

Yesterday, my plan was exactly that run. But I woke up under a dark cloud and the idea of surmounting such a session felt almost impossible. My muscles ached as if I’d already done the bloody thing, and I was devoid of bounce. Aah, I thought. Better listen to my body. It’s definitely saying ‘no thanks.’

Decision made, my mood brightened and I got on with other things. Physical stuff, like digging in the garden and chopping wood. By late afternoon I was so energised I felt inclined to do the run – but knew there wasn’t enough daylight left to fit it in. Tomorrow, then.

That is, today. It loomed large in my mind from the moment I woke up. My calf felt tight. My stomach felt a bit funny. My socks didn’t seem to fit right when I put them on, making me worry about chafing and blisters. But this time, I acknowledged the alerts and carried on with my run preparation regardless. This, I decided, is not physical, it’s mental.

The run started off feeling harder than it should. ‘WE FEEL TERRIBLE!’ my body told my central governor in a panic (it’s always shouting). ‘HOW WILL WE MANAGE 18 MILES? WE’VE ONLY DONE TWO AND WE’RE EXHAUSTED!’ ‘We’ll be OK,’ replied the guvnor. ‘We’ve got plenty of water and energy gels and it’s a beautiful day. Only seven more miles till we turn for home…’

I shaped my face into a smile (making sure to include my eyes in this forced expression of joy) and carried on. I took in the vivid blues of the sea, lakes and sky, and the yellows and greens of the fields. I listened to the birds singing, ate my energy gels, turned at 9 miles and sped up at 14. And I made it home without my calf (or indeed, anything else) hurting, my stomach exploding or my socks chafing.

Listening to your body is good advice, but knowing whether it’s got something worthwhile to say can be a tricky business.

Nifty fifty? Sub 3.30 or bust at Brighton marathon

I’ve got a big birthday coming up this year. I’ve set myself a challenge to attempt before it arrives – a sub-3.30 marathon. I last achieved the heady heights of a sub-3.30 ten years ago, and thought I’d packed away my PB-chasing shoes over the distance (my only two marathons since then have been as a London Marathon sub-4.30 pacer and a windswept hilly affair in Orkney). But I’ve surprised myself with a hankering to know where I stand against the 26.2-mile beast as I approach my half-century. So, on April 14^th I’ll be toeing the line of the Brighton Marathon.

I’m excited rather than scared. OK, I’m a little scared (any goal that’s worthy of your pursuit should send at least a tiny shiver down your spine) – but unlike in my younger years, the fear isn’t of failure, it’s a healthy dread of the hard work and discipline I’ll be putting in over the coming weeks.

Being the wise elder that I now am (!) and with ten more years’ experience of coaching runners, I’m fully aware that there’s a lot more to attaining a goal than picking one off the shelf and doing what it says on the tin in order to achieve it. When runners approach me about coaching, they often say ‘I’d like to go for the sub-4 [or sub-3 or sub-whatever] please,’ as if they were picking something off a menu. The assumption is that providing they do everything the programme says, they’ll get there. But it’s not that simple. You and I could follow the exact same training plan and run the same race but get totally different results because we’re bringing two completely different bodies, sets of genes, experiences, mindsets, strengths and weakness to the table. There is no set formula – for example, 40 miles a week, or three 20-milers – that everyone gunning for sub-3.30 must follow. Some will do far less and still get there – others could tick all the right boxes but fall short, or end up injured and not even make the start line. The truth is that coaching doesn’t start with the programme, it starts with the person. And if there’s any runner’s strengths and weaknesses I know inside out, it’s surely my own.

“Coaching doesn’t start with the programme, it starts with the person.”

I view putting a training programme together the same way I do cooking. At first, you follow a recipe to create the desired dish. But over the years, you become more like the Swedish Chef in The Muppets – omitting certain ingredients while adding a sprinkling of this and a dash of that to tailor it to your own requirements and preferences.

Given what I’ve said about individuality, it would be foolish to share my marathon plan with you, even if you, too, are 49½ years old and looking to relive your glory days. But I will tell you that it is built around a fortnightly cycle, rather than a weekly one, in order to fit in a range of different training intensities without overloading myself or omitting those all-important easy runs. And that I’ll be hitting my peak weekly mileage earlier – and staying there for longer – than I used to, allowing me to focus on increasing pace and leaving space for cutback weeks before a taper.

There are no guarantees, of course. It’s an experiment – an educated guess based on what I’ve learned about myself as a runner over three decades but especially the most recent one, in which I’ve come to accept that you can’t simply bend the body to fit the mind’s will. But perhaps the most important thing I’ve learned thus far is that while having goals adds purpose, structure and excitement to your life, it’s the pursuit that provides these, not the attainment. And on that, there is no age limit.

Sam VLM hi res — Pacing VLM – a fun and rewarding day out!

This article appears in my Murphy’s Lore column in Runner’s World magazine’s March 2019 issue.

Sick note

It’s Friday night and I’m sitting here with a Lemsip, thinking about when life gets in the way of the best laid running plans. It’s week three of being ‘under the weather’ – week three of no running other than my coaching commitments and, more worryingly, week five of the 16-week marathon training plan that had started off so well…

Much as we might do all we can to optimise our performances, it’s a reminder that we are not ultimately in control of everything. There’s little to be done to hurry illness along – and the same goes for injury. You simply have to sit it out and do what you can to make your return a smooth one.

I’ve remained positive, up to a point. I thought of the first week as an unscheduled but probably quite welcome rest and took the time to do some extra core training. Week two, I spent some time rejigging and fine-tuning my marathon training plan. Week three, though, and I’m beginning to wonder whether all my recent hard work has gone down the pan. If it was just any race, I wouldn’t worry so much. But I don’t do many marathons these days, and if I’m going to take on the 26.2-mile beast, I want to give it my best.

My mileage has been in single figures this week. But before I panic, and push myself beyond what I’m currently capable of, I remind myself of the sage advice I once received from a fellow coach. What would you advise someone else to do in your position? The thought of telling someone who has been unwell for a fortnight and still feels bunged up and exhausted to get back on track and not risk missing another week’s training is then put into context – and sounds as preposterous as it frankly is. So, I’ll wrap my hands around my steaming mug, settle down with an extra blanket and try my best to be patient.

Lemsip

Surface tension

Are you a road runner or a trail runner? It’s not a question that I could answer definitively – I run where the day’s route takes me, be it through a leaf-carpeted woodland (this morning), along a city street (last week) or across a muddy field (yesterday). Each has its own pleasures and challenges.

But some runners can be very snobby about surface. A trail aficionado recently commented on Twitter that ‘people who do road marathons hate themselves.’ You’ll find similar disparaging remarks about tarmac enthusiasts if you look at trail running forums and specialist publications. The gist of it is that road running is deathly dull/bad for you/a poor substitute and that running off-road is in all ways more fun, healthier and generally superior. I think it’s an unfounded and unwelcome division – like vegans dissing vegetarians – we’re all runners, aren’t we?

The tweet came to mind at the weekend, when I was toiling along a public footpath bordering a field that the farmer had decided to plough to the very edge of the barbed-wire fence. Each time my foot landed, the clump of earth underneath it would either crumble or roll, creating angles at my ankle and knee joints that would have a biomechanist brandishing their goniometer with alarm. Any views to be appreciated went unnoticed, since I had to keep my eyes firmly on the treacherous trail.

There was little relief to be had when I reached the stile, which was so overgrown with nettles that getting over it could have passed as a ‘I’m a celebrity…get me out of here’-style challenge. ‘Fun, this is not,’ I thought to myself. Fifteen minutes later, the nettle stings fading (the secret is to avoid touching them) I was floating along a blissfully smooth tarmac lane. The ironed-flat surface rendered me surefooted enough to appreciate my surroundings – ripe blackberries in the hedgerow, leaves just turning in the autumn sunshine. My good mood was restored.

Now, I’m not claiming that road running is more enjoyable than trail; nor ‘better’ in any way. I love the ever-changing demands of an off-road run – one minute, mud is sucking at your trainers, the next you’re bounding through knee-high grass, leaping over tangled tree roots or skipping from rock to rock. But it’s hard to find any kind of rhythm – which is why I also relish the clean, rhythmic clip of feet on tarmac and the space that that metronomic movement seems to create in my head.

One of the reasons the anti-road brigade say that trail running is ‘better’, is that it puts less stress on the body. Intuitively, it makes sense (softer surface equals a softer landing, right?) but there has been surprisingly little research to back up the claim. In fact, studies seems to suggest that there’s a complex and entirely subconscious interplay between our limbs and the surfaces we run on: the ‘stiffer’ the surface, the ‘softer’ we make the limbs, and vice versa. It’s known as ‘muscle tuning’. This continual adjustment of limb stiffness to match the surface the brain expects us to land on means that the resultant force is pretty much unchanged regardless of surface.

More recently, researchers have posited the theory that trail running may be healthier (though there is not data to prove that trail runners sustain fewer injuries as yet) because of the variety offered by the mixed terrain and undulations. Each footstep is slightly different from the last one and the next one, so the forces exerted on the body are applied in slightly different ways, reducing the risk of overuse. This makes perfect sense and is probably also why varying your running shoes, rather than wearing the same pair all the time, has been linked to a lower incidence of injury.

Variety is almost always better than doing the same thing all the time – but when it comes to running surfaces there’s no reason why a brightly-lit town pavement or a country B-road should not form part of that variety.

This article previously appeared in my Murphy’s Lore column in Runner’s World magazine

We’ll be Running Forever

On a sunny 4th July last year, we were vacating our neat, grade-2 listed Georgian cottage for rental and moving into a hastily-purchased Decathlon tent.

The ‘Crazy Thing’ we’d talked about wanting to do for so long was finally happening! Dogwood campsite in Brede, East Sussex, was to be our home for two months while we wound up our working lives ready to set off on the Cape Wrath Trail and explore the wild open spaces of Scotland on foot, by bike and kayak.

I’ve documented how it all went on this blog – suffice to say it was a wrench to leave and even more so to return to a grey wintry February. Nothing felt quite the same after our adventures. So in true Crazy Thing spirit, we decided – quite suddenly – to sell the house, downsize (though not to canvas this time) and start a running company together.

Running is our passion – it’s how Jeff and I met, and it’s a thread that binds us, both through coaching and our own running antics. Between us, we have 60 years’ running experience and 13 years of coaching. We’ve pinned on hundreds of race numbers – in events ranging from one mile to one hundred miles. It’s something we hope and plan to do for the rest of our lives, hence the company name, Running Forever.

But we don’t just want running for ourselves. We’d like to help as many people as possible fall in love with running and make it a lifetime habit. Whether it’s for health, fitness, mental equilibrium, competition, personal challenge – it doesn’t matter. What matters is that we help each person who comes our way discover their own joy in putting one foot in front of the other.

We’re offering a range of running-related services, from one/two-day running adventures and retreats to running groups, bespoke coaching and workshops.

(While we build our website, you can find out more about what we do here.) We hope you’ll join us somewhere soon! In the meantime, we’ve got a neglected and rather dilapidated timber-framed bungalow to turn into a home…