No blog for a while. That is largely because I have been practicing denial. By not thinking about running and my training programme I have been able to cope with the fact that I have been prevented from doing running of any sort for over a week now.
The culprit is,surprisingly, neither calf nor Achilles, the to main concerns I had commencing this campaign. I is instead a recurrence of a hip bursitis (but on the other side this time). Having been the full and very expensive physio programme last time round I feel I know all there needs to be known about this. The cause is the cause of just about everything you can see a physio for (weak glutes). The cure is rest, ice and industrial quantities of ibuprofen. and so it is this time. Some deep tissue massage might have been of benefit but I don't believe it would have appreciably speeded up my recovery. Fingers crossed the drugs and ice packs have done the trick and things are feeling much better. Experience tells me not to get too excited too soon though. There always seems to be a false dawn but this injury already seems to have gotten better and worse a couple of times so I assume I am now on the way out of it.
Of course sod's law dictates that an injury is most likely to occur when one is furthest from home and the weather is the worst. So it was for me. Things started to feel iffy when doing a longish run in weather which seriously suggested the risk of drowning on pollokshaws road of all places. By the time I turned to come home at clarkston toll it was clear I wasn't going to be ale to run the 3 miles or so back. Some hobbled home with squelchy shoes and a drookit demeanour.
I am newly philosophical about my running. This is helping me cope with this and the genuine concern that a couple of weeks gap in marathon training is going to have a major impact on my ability to do this race. The reality though is that there is still a lot of running to be done between now and November. There is also the objective of his race which is now less about performance than about raising funds for Arc. More than that though it's about taking something positive out of this difficult year and taking control of my destiny again, even of just in a very small way.
With that in mind I am tentatively pencilling in a run of some sort in the coming days. Only if I feel sure it won't further endanger this year's targets. Keep your fingers crossed for me.
Now maybe I should do something about those glutes....
Sunday, 26 August 2012
Posted with Blogsy
Tuesday, 14 August 2012
Week 3
Total Mileage: 53
Runs: 5
The top line is consistent. I have been putting in pretty much the same overall volume for 3 weeks in a row. Consistency is good in training. Its less good if we are meant to be ramping up your overall mileage but lets not worry too much about that yet...
This week has again been Speed of Light affected. I couldnt find a sensible way of fitting in a run on Wednesday with having to travel to Edinburgh in the evening to take part in the walking audience for Speed of Light. The late night drive back through on the M8 would have been even more of a trial if i had been up at stupid o'clock in the morning so again, i have ditched a recovery run.
If i know any small thing about marathon training its that flexibility is vital and i am more than happy to take a view on recovery runs. While i think these are really important parts of the process they are definitely less important than the long runs. My target therefore is to make sure i get the key sessions in each week and then work around that.
Which would be great except i failed in that respect this week too. This time the weather was the culprit. Training for a marathon in Scotland is always going to have its climatic challenges. Whether that is a spring marathon where you have to train through the cold, wet and miserable winter or an autumn race where you do your training through the cold, wet and miserable summer. Presumably because i am now pretty much used to the rain Friday hit us with some scorchio sunshine. My afternoon tempo run looked to be a bit too much of a trial in the heat so i binned it for the same distance but at an easy pace. Predictably my performance data taunted me with my failure by not being heat affected in the slightest. Still, a good run is a good run and i didnt want to be wrecked for saturday night anyway.
Speed of Light has been covered more fully elsewhere here but in running terms it was again a joy, albeit a slightly harder joy than the rehearsal night suggested. More distance overall and fewer pauses. I definitely need to get out on the hills and have a go at running them at a less leisurely pace.
While the pace was benign the inclines still wrecked havoc on my legs. Sunday's long run was fine till late on when running downhill towards home. Fatigue and the pounding my legs had taken on Arthur's Seat caught up on me and the last mile and a half saw my pace fade. Its telling that as writing this on tuesday my legs still feel a bit sorry for themselves. 9 miles tonight should get them moving again though.
Runs: 5
The top line is consistent. I have been putting in pretty much the same overall volume for 3 weeks in a row. Consistency is good in training. Its less good if we are meant to be ramping up your overall mileage but lets not worry too much about that yet...
This week has again been Speed of Light affected. I couldnt find a sensible way of fitting in a run on Wednesday with having to travel to Edinburgh in the evening to take part in the walking audience for Speed of Light. The late night drive back through on the M8 would have been even more of a trial if i had been up at stupid o'clock in the morning so again, i have ditched a recovery run.
If i know any small thing about marathon training its that flexibility is vital and i am more than happy to take a view on recovery runs. While i think these are really important parts of the process they are definitely less important than the long runs. My target therefore is to make sure i get the key sessions in each week and then work around that.
Which would be great except i failed in that respect this week too. This time the weather was the culprit. Training for a marathon in Scotland is always going to have its climatic challenges. Whether that is a spring marathon where you have to train through the cold, wet and miserable winter or an autumn race where you do your training through the cold, wet and miserable summer. Presumably because i am now pretty much used to the rain Friday hit us with some scorchio sunshine. My afternoon tempo run looked to be a bit too much of a trial in the heat so i binned it for the same distance but at an easy pace. Predictably my performance data taunted me with my failure by not being heat affected in the slightest. Still, a good run is a good run and i didnt want to be wrecked for saturday night anyway.
Speed of Light has been covered more fully elsewhere here but in running terms it was again a joy, albeit a slightly harder joy than the rehearsal night suggested. More distance overall and fewer pauses. I definitely need to get out on the hills and have a go at running them at a less leisurely pace.
While the pace was benign the inclines still wrecked havoc on my legs. Sunday's long run was fine till late on when running downhill towards home. Fatigue and the pounding my legs had taken on Arthur's Seat caught up on me and the last mile and a half saw my pace fade. Its telling that as writing this on tuesday my legs still feel a bit sorry for themselves. 9 miles tonight should get them moving again though.
Monday, 13 August 2012
Speed of Light and the Olympics
I have many issues with the Olympics. If you are going to spend upwards of £9 Billion on something then its impossible to do it without questions being asked. Its nigh on impossible to assess whether that sum achieves any sort of value for money as nobody can really agree what the ultimate purpose of the shindig is. Are we striving for a sporting legacy or is it just about a 'national' feelgood factor? Will there be broad economic benefits or is it about local regeneration?
The evidence from previous games suggests that the quantifiable benefits will be slight. Legacy is nebulous and few games make profits. Certainly a neglected quarter of London has been substantially regenerated but from the perspective of this little corner of Northern Britain it is hard to get too excited about further massive taxpayer funded investment being siphoned south yet again. Even if one accepts the principle, has this regeneration been done well? From the lens of television coverage and extensive features in the architectural press my answer is no. The park and the athletes village look like a messy collection of fairly shoddy temporary structures arranged around an intellectually rigorous but ultimately flawed and aesthetically arid stadium. The temporary flat pack nature of many of these venues could be a virtue in these depressed and resource conscious times but that doesnt quite tally with the quite astronomical sums spent on the enterprise as a whole. Overall it looks to me like another example of how we just cant do planning on a grand scale. This might be a particular cultural issue to do with how English cities have developed in a piecemeal manner but the picturesque if not quite wacky stylings of the Olympic park are just crying out for someone to apply some sort of rigorous order to them in my view.
But. But. While there are issues it is clear that on many levels the games have been an absolute triumph. The organisation seems to have been thorough and efficient and punters have embraced almost every aspect in an enthusiastic manner. And of course there is the sporting success. It takes a cold cold heart not to have found some joy in the many stories of commitment, talent and inspiration that have filled our screens over the last few days. Bolt, Rudisha, Farah, Ennis, Kiprotich, Dibaba. There have been some breathtaking performances.
Where i do find myself bemused though is the haste with which people will suddenly discover an interest in dressage or pentathlon or BMX or whatever minority sport happens to be likely to yield a medal to the UK. I don't buy in to the notion of the UK so i have no particular affinity to 'Team GB' so their medal performance means little to me. I have therefore not had the same sort of way in to some of these odd sports that others have. Having said that, i take little more interest if there is a Scot involved so perhaps i ultimately have fairly narrow interests...
I really shouldn't begrudge these sports and their participants their day in the sun. It struck me earlier this afternoon that once upon a time it would have been perfectly normal to see minority sports on national TV as the BBC filled its Grandstand schedule with them. We have lost that now and we only hear about these things when there is a broader context to provide people with a hook. Media plurality has actually had the opposite effect to what one might expect and made such things less accessible than they used to be.
And accessability is really the key here. When people can speak positively of the fact that a still disproportionately small 70% of the Scottish medals went to those educated in the state system, we still have an issue of representation. However inspired someone is by dressage they are going to struggle to take it up. Equally while kayaking might look exciting on telly its a larger leap from the sofa to paddling down a river than it is to just strap on some trainers and get out there and be active. The current system has focussed funding on the greatest opportunities for medal success. This has had an undoubted effect on national pride but is it the best use of resources from a public health point of view? If legacy is really the objective why dont we focus our attention most firmly on the kind of things that people can actually identify with? A nation that fails to fill places with qualifying athletes at an Olympics because they dont have a strong enough medal chance doesnt value participation enough. What is that Olympic ethos again?
Around the fringes more interesting things happen however. Speed of Light is one of those and it places participation front and centre. Operating on the relatively uncharted fringes between sport and art, Speed of Light is a new work by NVA which uses LED clad runners to create patterns of light and movement on Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh. The audience themselves are also particpants in the event, walking through the work with light sticks. This is no passive spectacle and it would lose much of its resonance were there a more traditional audience/performer distinction. By emphasising taking part and the process, the artwork extends its reach beyond the performance, back to the streets where the runners train, to the workshops where the technology was developed and even to the management of the event itself. The whole thing gives off a positive communal vibe through its use of social media but also in the safety briefings which emphasise the need for particpants to look after each other. There is ultimately a very social, if not political grounding to all this and that feels particularly satisfying in this location, surrounded by the symbols of power and patronage.
In the best traditions of land art though, while the process lends resonance, the triumph of the piece is ultimately in how it alters one's perception of its context. Here the lights on the hillside end up subtley co-opting the lighting of the city beyond. All of a sudden strips of street lighting become drawn in to the composition. The fireworks above the castle become part of its narrative. Even coming down off the hill i was briefly disorientated by the lights on a passing bicycle which appeared to be a new element of choreography. As a participant there is then a very strong sense of place and time. Landscape, the city, the weather and the community that one has been drawn together for this all come together in a particularly satisfying way. Most pleasingly it does so without the obvious heavy hand of a guiding high concept. On the surface, it is about light and running and movement, it almost finds its own meaning beyond that.
Quite apart from all that, it is an absolute hoot to take part in. Without doubt this is the most fun i have had running outside of a marathon and most instructively for the Olympic legacy and our current politicians who are again missing the point about competition in sport, it is inclusive and accessible. This is running for the sheer joy of it. We are not competitive runners out on the hill, we are collaborative. That is new and quite thrilling. Somewhere in this is a way to get people involved in sport who turn aside from tesosterone fuelled competitiveness. Utopian? Perhaps, but each of us out there has a story to tell about how running has in some small or large way made us better people. Whether that be the hardcore fell runners or those who trained specifically for this event and found themselves growing in confidence with every step as they found that they could meet the challenge. Running is not snake oil. Running makes the world better and Speed of Light proves that.
The evidence from previous games suggests that the quantifiable benefits will be slight. Legacy is nebulous and few games make profits. Certainly a neglected quarter of London has been substantially regenerated but from the perspective of this little corner of Northern Britain it is hard to get too excited about further massive taxpayer funded investment being siphoned south yet again. Even if one accepts the principle, has this regeneration been done well? From the lens of television coverage and extensive features in the architectural press my answer is no. The park and the athletes village look like a messy collection of fairly shoddy temporary structures arranged around an intellectually rigorous but ultimately flawed and aesthetically arid stadium. The temporary flat pack nature of many of these venues could be a virtue in these depressed and resource conscious times but that doesnt quite tally with the quite astronomical sums spent on the enterprise as a whole. Overall it looks to me like another example of how we just cant do planning on a grand scale. This might be a particular cultural issue to do with how English cities have developed in a piecemeal manner but the picturesque if not quite wacky stylings of the Olympic park are just crying out for someone to apply some sort of rigorous order to them in my view.
But. But. While there are issues it is clear that on many levels the games have been an absolute triumph. The organisation seems to have been thorough and efficient and punters have embraced almost every aspect in an enthusiastic manner. And of course there is the sporting success. It takes a cold cold heart not to have found some joy in the many stories of commitment, talent and inspiration that have filled our screens over the last few days. Bolt, Rudisha, Farah, Ennis, Kiprotich, Dibaba. There have been some breathtaking performances.
Where i do find myself bemused though is the haste with which people will suddenly discover an interest in dressage or pentathlon or BMX or whatever minority sport happens to be likely to yield a medal to the UK. I don't buy in to the notion of the UK so i have no particular affinity to 'Team GB' so their medal performance means little to me. I have therefore not had the same sort of way in to some of these odd sports that others have. Having said that, i take little more interest if there is a Scot involved so perhaps i ultimately have fairly narrow interests...
I really shouldn't begrudge these sports and their participants their day in the sun. It struck me earlier this afternoon that once upon a time it would have been perfectly normal to see minority sports on national TV as the BBC filled its Grandstand schedule with them. We have lost that now and we only hear about these things when there is a broader context to provide people with a hook. Media plurality has actually had the opposite effect to what one might expect and made such things less accessible than they used to be.
And accessability is really the key here. When people can speak positively of the fact that a still disproportionately small 70% of the Scottish medals went to those educated in the state system, we still have an issue of representation. However inspired someone is by dressage they are going to struggle to take it up. Equally while kayaking might look exciting on telly its a larger leap from the sofa to paddling down a river than it is to just strap on some trainers and get out there and be active. The current system has focussed funding on the greatest opportunities for medal success. This has had an undoubted effect on national pride but is it the best use of resources from a public health point of view? If legacy is really the objective why dont we focus our attention most firmly on the kind of things that people can actually identify with? A nation that fails to fill places with qualifying athletes at an Olympics because they dont have a strong enough medal chance doesnt value participation enough. What is that Olympic ethos again?
Around the fringes more interesting things happen however. Speed of Light is one of those and it places participation front and centre. Operating on the relatively uncharted fringes between sport and art, Speed of Light is a new work by NVA which uses LED clad runners to create patterns of light and movement on Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh. The audience themselves are also particpants in the event, walking through the work with light sticks. This is no passive spectacle and it would lose much of its resonance were there a more traditional audience/performer distinction. By emphasising taking part and the process, the artwork extends its reach beyond the performance, back to the streets where the runners train, to the workshops where the technology was developed and even to the management of the event itself. The whole thing gives off a positive communal vibe through its use of social media but also in the safety briefings which emphasise the need for particpants to look after each other. There is ultimately a very social, if not political grounding to all this and that feels particularly satisfying in this location, surrounded by the symbols of power and patronage.
In the best traditions of land art though, while the process lends resonance, the triumph of the piece is ultimately in how it alters one's perception of its context. Here the lights on the hillside end up subtley co-opting the lighting of the city beyond. All of a sudden strips of street lighting become drawn in to the composition. The fireworks above the castle become part of its narrative. Even coming down off the hill i was briefly disorientated by the lights on a passing bicycle which appeared to be a new element of choreography. As a participant there is then a very strong sense of place and time. Landscape, the city, the weather and the community that one has been drawn together for this all come together in a particularly satisfying way. Most pleasingly it does so without the obvious heavy hand of a guiding high concept. On the surface, it is about light and running and movement, it almost finds its own meaning beyond that.
Quite apart from all that, it is an absolute hoot to take part in. Without doubt this is the most fun i have had running outside of a marathon and most instructively for the Olympic legacy and our current politicians who are again missing the point about competition in sport, it is inclusive and accessible. This is running for the sheer joy of it. We are not competitive runners out on the hill, we are collaborative. That is new and quite thrilling. Somewhere in this is a way to get people involved in sport who turn aside from tesosterone fuelled competitiveness. Utopian? Perhaps, but each of us out there has a story to tell about how running has in some small or large way made us better people. Whether that be the hardcore fell runners or those who trained specifically for this event and found themselves growing in confidence with every step as they found that they could meet the challenge. Running is not snake oil. Running makes the world better and Speed of Light proves that.
Wednesday, 8 August 2012
Week 2
Number of runs : 6
Total mileage : 53
Second week done and mileage has remained static where the programme anticipated a slight increase. I have an excuse. This is not simply lack of effort on my part but a calculated result of the big event of these next couple of weeks: Speed of Light.
Saturday was my second time on Arthur's Seat, this time as part of the technical rehearsal for SOL. As compared to my previous visit there for the Super Sunday training session, the run distance was significantly less this time, being only a couple of miles all in. That meant that i missed my programmed 5 miles for the day but since that was a recovery session i am refusing to be concerned about that.
The SOL run itself was amazing despite some minor issues (such as the lightsuit not working and not actually being able to see the hill for the fog). I am very much looking forward to both running it for real and being part of the audience. The effect of the lightsuits on the hillside is something special.
Apart from that minor deviation, the week has more or less gone to plan. Various issues have caused it to be a busier week than expected and as such the running has weighed heavier than it might have but i have generally coped and the nerdy data i collect has suggested my fitness has taken a step forward. I mostly use a figure for beats per mile from my run data to assess progress. To some degree this device helps to remove some of the differences between faster and slower runs, being a measure of running efficiency. In reality it isnt quite as simple as that. I seem to tend to get lower figures when i run more quickly suggested that my technique is more efficient then, possibly because i am running more naturally, possibly just down to increased stride length for the same cadence. Equally terrain and weather also impact the figures so it is far from an absolute measure but it helps to show trends.
The trend has been fairly static of late but it has now taken a bit of a dip. At the moment anything in the 1200s is good for me and i am now seeing some consistent runs in the range of 1240-1275. That is still nowhere near where i was earlier in the year and i still cant quite establish exactly why i have lost so much fitness since then. While i have had periods out with injury and other training disruption i dont really see why there has been such a substantial impact. I can only assume that it is down to consistency or lack thereof. Now that i am consistently getting the miles in i have seen a step change in my data and i would expect to see another similar leap in the next 3 or 4 weeks.
On the injury front, i can also see some progress. Despite some tiredness my calves are never tightening up to the degree they were earlier in the year. My achilles is continuing to be concerning though. On sunday i could feel it at varying stages of my long run. It is never enough to stop me but i can feel it for a bit before the pain fades away again. Its never good to get niggles like that on a run and even less so when you are hitting the turn on a 16 mile out and back route when you are your furthest away from home and the mild drizzle has just become a torrential downpour...
Moving in to week three though and things look more positive. It seems like my programme of stretching may have been aggrevating it. Easing off on that has improved the symptoms so perhaps my ankle just needs a little love.
Total mileage : 53
Second week done and mileage has remained static where the programme anticipated a slight increase. I have an excuse. This is not simply lack of effort on my part but a calculated result of the big event of these next couple of weeks: Speed of Light.
Saturday was my second time on Arthur's Seat, this time as part of the technical rehearsal for SOL. As compared to my previous visit there for the Super Sunday training session, the run distance was significantly less this time, being only a couple of miles all in. That meant that i missed my programmed 5 miles for the day but since that was a recovery session i am refusing to be concerned about that.
The SOL run itself was amazing despite some minor issues (such as the lightsuit not working and not actually being able to see the hill for the fog). I am very much looking forward to both running it for real and being part of the audience. The effect of the lightsuits on the hillside is something special.
Apart from that minor deviation, the week has more or less gone to plan. Various issues have caused it to be a busier week than expected and as such the running has weighed heavier than it might have but i have generally coped and the nerdy data i collect has suggested my fitness has taken a step forward. I mostly use a figure for beats per mile from my run data to assess progress. To some degree this device helps to remove some of the differences between faster and slower runs, being a measure of running efficiency. In reality it isnt quite as simple as that. I seem to tend to get lower figures when i run more quickly suggested that my technique is more efficient then, possibly because i am running more naturally, possibly just down to increased stride length for the same cadence. Equally terrain and weather also impact the figures so it is far from an absolute measure but it helps to show trends.
The trend has been fairly static of late but it has now taken a bit of a dip. At the moment anything in the 1200s is good for me and i am now seeing some consistent runs in the range of 1240-1275. That is still nowhere near where i was earlier in the year and i still cant quite establish exactly why i have lost so much fitness since then. While i have had periods out with injury and other training disruption i dont really see why there has been such a substantial impact. I can only assume that it is down to consistency or lack thereof. Now that i am consistently getting the miles in i have seen a step change in my data and i would expect to see another similar leap in the next 3 or 4 weeks.
On the injury front, i can also see some progress. Despite some tiredness my calves are never tightening up to the degree they were earlier in the year. My achilles is continuing to be concerning though. On sunday i could feel it at varying stages of my long run. It is never enough to stop me but i can feel it for a bit before the pain fades away again. Its never good to get niggles like that on a run and even less so when you are hitting the turn on a 16 mile out and back route when you are your furthest away from home and the mild drizzle has just become a torrential downpour...
Moving in to week three though and things look more positive. It seems like my programme of stretching may have been aggrevating it. Easing off on that has improved the symptoms so perhaps my ankle just needs a little love.
Thursday, 2 August 2012
Hello tiredness my old friend
After a positive first week comes the slump. Only two runs into the week and it is already looking like week 2 will be a hard slog. Not that this is a particular worry yet. I have found that fatigue tends to come in waves through a training programme and it will in particular rear its very ugly head at the start when the body is still adapting to new stresses and strains.
As an additional excuse, Real Life has poked its nose in this week. Some work travel and a terribly inconvenient stab at Champions League football have meant i have been getting a bit less sleep than i would want. It is amazing just how much sleep has an effect on training. My energy levels are right down without doing any particularly hard running and it is all down to tiredness. My heart rate data tends to support this as i am running to more or less the average rates that i would expect. This isnt proper fatigue brought on by over-training, i am mostly just needing a good kip!
That Real Life thing has also forced me to be more flexible than my OCD would like in my schedule this week. I have ended up doing my 3 longer midweek runs back to back. We will see after tonight's how that is panning out. It may be that i need to back off a little tomorrow evening, particularly as i am doing Speed of Light on saturday night.Going by the Super Sunday training session the pace of this isnt crazy and the overall mileage involved is limited but on rough and hilly terrain carrying a battery pack and wearing a lightsuit its not quite the intended recovery run i ought to be doing.
The other spectre that is haunting me at the moment is injury. This is my second shot at this particular schedule, the first having been brought to an abrupt end by my second calf strain. This time round i am experiencing tightness and some pain in my heel. Dr Internet suggests this is achilles tendonitis. The good doctor also suggests that it might want some rest. Fortunately running fora abound with stories of idiots like me who run through such problems. So, while be strategy is not conservative, i am not actually stupid. My current intention is to monitor it very closely indeed. Presently it is no more than an niggle and isnt debilitating in the least. A programme of stretches and Ibuprofen has caused an appreciable improvement in symptoms so (with very firmly crossed fingers) i think things will turn out ok.
As an additional excuse, Real Life has poked its nose in this week. Some work travel and a terribly inconvenient stab at Champions League football have meant i have been getting a bit less sleep than i would want. It is amazing just how much sleep has an effect on training. My energy levels are right down without doing any particularly hard running and it is all down to tiredness. My heart rate data tends to support this as i am running to more or less the average rates that i would expect. This isnt proper fatigue brought on by over-training, i am mostly just needing a good kip!
That Real Life thing has also forced me to be more flexible than my OCD would like in my schedule this week. I have ended up doing my 3 longer midweek runs back to back. We will see after tonight's how that is panning out. It may be that i need to back off a little tomorrow evening, particularly as i am doing Speed of Light on saturday night.Going by the Super Sunday training session the pace of this isnt crazy and the overall mileage involved is limited but on rough and hilly terrain carrying a battery pack and wearing a lightsuit its not quite the intended recovery run i ought to be doing.
The other spectre that is haunting me at the moment is injury. This is my second shot at this particular schedule, the first having been brought to an abrupt end by my second calf strain. This time round i am experiencing tightness and some pain in my heel. Dr Internet suggests this is achilles tendonitis. The good doctor also suggests that it might want some rest. Fortunately running fora abound with stories of idiots like me who run through such problems. So, while be strategy is not conservative, i am not actually stupid. My current intention is to monitor it very closely indeed. Presently it is no more than an niggle and isnt debilitating in the least. A programme of stretches and Ibuprofen has caused an appreciable improvement in symptoms so (with very firmly crossed fingers) i think things will turn out ok.
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