running with God

Yesterday completed a 2 x 10 km (the longest nappy shopping trip I'm sure I'll ever do!), and it took til about half way through the return leg to really start opening up to God, and I can honestly say it changed me that day. I had a couple of attitude issues, wasn't particularly feeling like talking to Him, or praising him, but he ended up having his way, and by the time I got home my whole perspective had changed. He is good!

Otherwise, just to mention that the good form factor is still a long way from something I am defaulting to, but I can sense the increased efficiency as I focus on gentle footfall, raising the knees, and good stride-length.

Mmm, just loving the return to figs, find them so digestible and delicious!

Smoking 30 minutes!

In midday heat, I set off in the 30s for a tempo effort that ended up being slightly stronger still than that. So funny, I arrived at the surgery where I had to pick up some results and was breathing really hard and sweating buckets, the staff were actually concerned I was going to have some sort of cardiac arrest!

Gentle and increasing warm down for 3 km really encouraged me that my quality of recovery  is definitely improving. The times are not yet, but it's hard to see that not coming soon. With the marathon now less than two months away, it's hard not to already caught up in dreaming about the day and race strategies etc. There was a great quote I read from Ryan Hall yesterday about how the race is mainly run with your head until the last 10 km, then the rest is from the heart, "going to the well" as he calls it. He also stresses the importance of staying well away from the well during the tapering phase, which is so hard to imagine when your hero's easy pace is your max pace!

15 miler this time, in 30 deg heat...

The idea was
- get used to running the heat
- do the distance in sub 2 hrs
- achieve this with a strong negative split
- squeeze in a long run in an otherwise full weekend!

Some of these were achieved, and there was another big psychological boost I wasn't expecting from such draining conditions, and poor closing strategy: I felt really good later and even today (day after). The getting used to running in the heat really is  a continuation of Martigues-Carro, under similar conditions. I'm beginning to wonder if last year's Luberon marathon was just particularly hot to reach 30 deg in early october. I'm hoping for a good bit cooler this time. In any case, what continues to work for me is really taking the prehydration seriously over the hours (if I remember), the hour, and the last 20-30 minutes especially. I am convinced by the advice that says you will never (and if you read Noakes: should never) finish the exercise with the initial hydration levels. What I find a bit weird, to be honest, especially with all the stomach issues I have had, is that I can drink so much water prior to putting my body under the strains of running hard, and it all goes in, every precious drop! Whereas, drinking more than two mouthfuls during, can be a source of stitches and discomfort. I'm even now drinking up to and over a litre in the last 15-10 minutes, and this even avoids some of the pre-race toilet trips too!

15 km in the hills

This run finally gets a fairly low score. Yes it was beautiful, yes 15 km didn't feel very far, and yes I was really able to pick things up towards the end (when I wasn't being too lazy and listening too closely to some training talk).

But, my wife was left with my son, and had really wanted to get on. She didn't ring me (which would have meant that I REALLY pick things up on the way home), which she should have done, but I still didn't organise it properly. "my bad".

This route is actually to be a night route that I hope to be doing again soon with my head torch.

Blog development ideas and ankle

My mind feels somewhat confused about an idea of organising advice and insight that I have heard and experienced, to share this on the net while also having it as a resource for myself. In fact, even the process, which would be a long one, will in itself cause me to learn a lot. Aspects to be covered will include the obvious:

Nutrition, hydration, injury and health management, kit, race preparation, race strategy and pacing, training plans...

These are obviously to be specifically focussed on sport. However, one of the key parts of this blog, which is inspired by Ryan Hall's Running With Joy, is to bridge the gap between faith and running. In fact that whole idea of gap is pretty much done away with actually by Ryan! So a separate article on that. Another possibility I would be open to, which would keep me plugged into the running press, would be to have a book review section, with a standardised, summarised section, potentially in bullets of what was good and resonated with me.

Another rather unique link, since I function in-between various cultures, would be to develop a spreadsheet of terms and their translations and that link into the rest of the articles. This document is to be freely modifiable by anyone, and will hopefully build on the knowledge that's out there. One I simply hadn't got until this week was the term "strides" which needs to go in there.

Oh yes, the ankle! Well, I can still feel it, so it seems right just to pull right back from the training schedule I am following and take it a bit easy. Today was a gentle 5.5 km. Feels right to have done that. My aim is to build things up to resume things next week, as last week was week 4: a deliberately lighter week. That said, my build-up to my spring marathon, from which I ended up having to withdraw, is a stark reminder to me of the be all and end all importance of simply getting fit at a rate my body is happy with.

Twinge once! Twinge twice! Sold!

Went out for what should have been my second "Fartlek" session. But for the second time in a week following a fast interval, I twinged my ankle early on. I wasn't lazy. I tried to run it off but felt it again after some stretches. That's it. For me, a recurring twinge like that means intervals are over. That doesn't mean the session is over though (note that the previous time this happened was before Martigues - Carro where I flew along at threshold, no ankle issues there). I later picked up pace to 160 bpm. Yep, my heart monitor is back in the game, and I hope to really build in some heart rate based training once and develop some understanding here. Hall uses it quite a lot, and there's some good stuff to be gleaned from marathontalk too.

YET another set of earphones have failed on me, but the silence is a blessing, and is freeing my mind to think and also to talk with God. For a while now I have stopped listening to anything when doing intervals as its just too hard for me to concentrate on the content.

Time for bed :)

Martigues - Carro, 16.370 km, heat, and a great tempo challenge!

We set off in a really warm 31 degrees. Prior to that I had drunk pretty regularly during the day and 1.5 litres in the last 20 minutes. It felt scary to be sweating so much just in warm-ups.

Had the usual bizarre sensation of looking down at the watch after a couple of hundred metres and noting that the pull of the crowd and the euphoria of the start had me going at something crazy like 3:30/k. The goal was to average around 4:07, so I forced myself to slow down a bit. By the time we hit the hills I was definitely almost spot on on the flat sections. Then the hills, that lasted for about 10k, one of which was so brutal many of those around me had to walk. I don't know why I thought keeping a 4:07 average would be so achievable, maybe I just thought that the downhills would compensate for it - of course they do a bit, but never totally. All in all, however, I ran a good race, really focussing on the subtle interchanges between recovery and pushing again, building in slight slowing prior to hills to attack aerobically, and progressive momentum building on the long downhills that had me sweeping past those who thought they should quickly pick up the pace simply because it's a downhill. In the end, the garmin was fairly unnecessary except perhaps in the first three or four kilometres. I was genuinely excited to do it and thrilled and privileged to be able to what I did, and it was for Him.

Really nice as well to connect with a few of the local runners I used to run with from the club in le Rove. They're all a bit older than me but Albert, who is well into his sixties, still pushed home in 1:17 for the 16.37 km course.

I hope to update this blog with some snaps and altitude info...