Blog 10 – Over and probably not done with

Trevor Pask writes:

A month since the last blog and so this one will have to be both a summary of last-minute preparations and a postscript to the day itself.

At the time of Blog 9 I had missed my final 32k long run because of a chest infection and suddenly felt horribly unprepared. What I did was follow good advice and just pick up the plan when I was recovered, which was week 14 of 16 weeks. I did the intervals, the tempo sessions and a 25k. The latter was on the warmest day I had run in since autumn 2022, but I thought it was good preparation in case London was warm – little did I know…

Week 15 was a bit disjointed. I did all the tasks on my plan, but on different days. A final long(ish) 17k went well on Thursday; then on Friday Din and I flew to Boston on a Boeing 787 ‘Dreamliner’ -more of which later. On paper flying to Boston, getting to a hotel at 9pm local time on Friday, then making our way to a new parkrun in a different country seemed a bit tight. It wasn’t. Four or five stops on the green line underground and a short walk got us to Jamaica Pond Parkrun for 8.30 and a delightfully scenic Parkrun in a new continent. Surprisingly, I could still run after the flight, but the first runner home did it in 14:59 which kinda suggested that Boston takes running seriously!

I was only on the outside looking in at Din’s race, but my impression of the Boston Marathon was that it was rather like the London Marathon would be, were it to be organised by the Serpentine Running Club – flawless organisation, but you qualify, you train, you run. You can run for a charity, but you still have to qualify and wear the charity shirt. No dressing up as the US Constitution or a crate of Boston Tea Party tea. While I was waiting for Din at the end, I spoke to people from a running club in Massachusetts. They were tracking their runners. One had slowed dramatically in the last 10k and obviously had a problem. Their projected finishing time had become 6 hours 30 seconds, and her teammates were desperately trying to call her. The urgency being that one second over 6 hours and the Boston Athletics Association mark you down as a DNF. Inclusive London this was not.

With London to think of, I went for an 8k run after seeing Din off on marathon day morning; and did a 5k when back in London after the flight home. With London to think of, I hadn’t taken my intended marathon day shoes to Boston, thinking that there was a very slight chance the bag could go missing. It did go missing and while I was sensible over shoes, I did take the shorts I intended to run London in. My bag also had all the memorabilia Din had acquired at Boston, apart from her medal (worn on the flight to explain my penguin waddle – Din). The bag eventually turned up at home at 5.30pm on Saturday evening – 4 days after being checked in at a very chaotic Logan Airport.

By Friday, I was over the flight home on a Boeing 787 ‘Dreamliner’. The same company in the 1930’s built the world’s most advanced fighter plane and spoilt the image by calling it the ‘Peashooter’, but I digress a little. It doesn’t matter what you call the aircraft; in the normal seats, the only thing most people dream about on an overnight flight from the US is being able to afford a less normal seat. At least Din and I were lucky. Lots of flights from Boston were cancelled in the days after the marathon and people were still getting back to London (via Spain) on Thursday.

So on to London. I didn’t linger at the Expo. I picked up my number, signed my name on the wall, picked up some gels, took some photographs, and headed back home as I kept getting vaguely worded texts about the missing bag. Holding the number suddenly made it seem real. Thanks to a tip-off at hills coaching, I had worked out late in training that I was probably losing energy on the long runs by not fuelling properly beforehand. I had started to eat more from Thursday;  consciously eating more than I normally do was the single thing that made me feel as though I was preparing for something significant. I had an image of myself as a rocket being topped up with fuel until the last few seconds before launch. (This was before the Elon Musk’s ‘Starship’ blew up just after launch, so the analogy was helpful only for a while)

Saturday was Parkrun in Gunnersbury: I volunteered, eating biscuits as I told people to keep in line in the funnel.

Then it was Sunday…..

Blackheath was cold and damp, but I found a sheltered spot, ate some white bagels, drank some coffee, and met some Dutch people from Meppel, a small town in Northern Holland near to where Din’s father used to live. They were amazed that I had been there dozens of times. I said that I had run the Amsterdam Marathon three times and it was my PB by some way in 2019. ‘Oh, that race is rubbish, it’s all flat!’ said the man who lives in a country most of which is reclaimed land below sea level. There are a few hills in the far south near the Belgian border, but if he is in a running club in Meppel, his hills sessions are about 200k away. I also spoke to two American women from Austin (1) who asked me how they got back from Blackheath to central London after the end of the race.

‘But you will be in central London.’

‘Don’t we start and finish here?’

‘You start here, but finish in central London. That’s why all these trucks are here. They take your stuff to the end’.

At that point I realised that my preparation wasn’t too bad after all.

As to the race. It started well. I didn’t run out of energy, and my nutrition preparation worked to the extent that I did not suffer any nausea. Until 28K or so I was gradually working off the distance and enjoying the experience. At the 28k point though my right hip flexor started to hurt and at 28.5k I had to run/walk. I had just been half daring to think of a PB, but the marathon distance chose that moment to bite me.

So not the time I was looking for, but in the overall scheme of things, that is a small consideration. I enjoyed the training and all the support on an adventure since I was privileged to get the place in December. Even with my problems, in the last third, there was no point in the race where I was not overtaking people or being overtaken. One must be driven even to half try to do these kinds of things, and the personal journey of these past few months means that I have realised how driven I can be. However, it is important to realise that events like London are bigger than individuals, and I did feel like one cell in a large animal that was flowing through the streets of London that day.

Din was waiting for me at the end, and I could not have done this without her support as well as numerous other people in the club and beyond. Jenny Bushell’s training plan was also invaluable, along with the sessions on stretching, nutrition, and sport psychology.

Post-marathon I ran 3k on the Thursday and went back to Parkrun on Saturday. Saturday afternoon I travelled to the Isle of Wight to be a marshal in a circumnavigation walking/running event. Din and I did it last year: 108k non-stop and I still have a toenail growing out. I was a marshal between 9pm and 5am at the 82k point – 750m from rest stop/aid station 6 at the highest point on the island. My brief was to encourage people up the last bit of the hill; and use my judgement to make sure anyone in trouble made it up. Over the 8 hours there, I saw a bell curve of abilities go through – basically people who were likely to finish between 16 and 26 hours in an event with a 36-hour cut off. As with London, irrespective of times and fitness, everyone who went through had given it everything by that point and was running on empty with 26k still to go.  I had to help 7 people to the rest stop and carried 6 rucksacks. One 18-year girl was crying because her mum/partner had had to pull out at 53K with severe blisters. She was crying because she was scared of the dark and had walked 30k in the dark on her own. That is being driven and determined.

So, I have entered the public ballot for next year and have the Green Belt Relay, the Chester Half Marathon and the London to Brighton 100k version of the Isle of Wight challenge. As last year, Din is marshalling on that one, so we will probably meet at about 1am, somewhere on the South Downs. The next marathon is Chicago in October - for which the 16-week plan starts on 17th June! Driven, but only in the sense that these sorts of things are life-affirming.

Thanks again everyone.

(1) In Boston we learned that Texans who travel always say to other Americans they are from Austin or Houston or Fort Worth, not Texas. Might have something to do with one state arguing with most others that someone getting more votes in an election doesn’t legally mean they have won it.

Blog 9: Best Laid Plans

Trevor wrote on 2 April

Today was the day when I was planning to run from home to Kew Gardens, run the Kew Half Marathon, and then run home. The total distance would have been 32k or thereabouts. It would have been the final long run before London in three weeks’ time.

None of this was to be though.

After my long run last weekend (of which more later) I started to develop a sore throat on Monday. I decided to miss running on Tuesday, but by Thursday I knew that any running for the rest of the week was out. I have been through the symptom cycle of sore throat, coughing, headache, running nose and headache. I am getting better now, but after being ahead with my training schedule, I am now thinking through the date permutations of running before I am too close to London for the costs to outweigh the benefits.

I travel with Din to Boston on Friday 14th for her Boston Marathon and will be back on the morning of Wednesday 19th. That will be time to get over any jet lag. There are two Parkruns in Boston (in the city, not 90 miles away) and probably some chance to run elsewhere, but all the training effectively has to be done before the 14th. So not where I wanted to be, but it could be worse. Without the chance of a ballot place for London I would have trained for Brighton, and I would not have been well enough to run that today. Din caught the infection before me, has lost two weeks, and has only two weeks to go before Boston.

In retrospect, I could have done the 32k on 26th March, but in terms of effort, I think I did far more. The plan that day was to get the 65 bus to Kingston, run to Hampton Court, then run the Hampton Court half marathon. I did that, and it got me an eventful 28k.

No issues getting to the race village. Kingston to Hampton Court was in the rain and I went at a good pace despite having to carry a backpack with something dry and warm to travel home in. I would need that after becoming well acquainted with the tow path and surrounding roads during the next few hours.

The set-up near the Palace was the same as for the 10k which I did in November 2021 as the comeback race from my meniscus injury. The field though was huge – approximately 4000 runners. The route was back down the towpath to Kingston, over the bridge. Then down the towpath, then Portsmouth Road to Surbiton. On to Thames Ditton and back to Hampton Court Bridge. Back down the towpath again to Kingston, then left into Hampton Court Park and back to the Palace. Basically this was the same route as the Kingston 16 miles the week before, but in reverse and a scenic park detour.

The problem was that towpath was covered in deep puddles, and the road sections were crowded on narrow paths. I was constantly being overtaken or overtaking, as many runners were either in the wrong starting wave and/or were finding the conditions difficult as I was.  A few drivers on the Portsmouth Road also thought it was fun to drive into the standing water to spray already wet runners (or maybe that was my mindset?).

Once I got to the Kingston Bridge for the second time, I thought  ‘Just a few k though the park to the end. Almost done. Easy. No lorries to spray you with rainwater in the park.’ I didn’t reckon on the final 4k being a quagmire of ankle-deep mud. (NB: quag= shaking; quagmire = shaking mud.) At that point it was just get to the end and forget the distance and time. Enough was enough. Just get to the end and don’t risk an injury by tripping up in a pothole. Over-the-top medal and a can of beer, but better was the dry shirt and relatively dry hoodie. Just get home now and get warm. 

I have walked to Hampton Court from Northfields in 3 hours and 40 minutes. On 26th it took me 3 hours to get home. No buses at Hampton Court. Eventually an R86 to Richmond – which stopped just beyond Twickenham due to roadworks. I walked into Richmond. No 65s for at least 35 mins and then the one that might show would stop at the Great West Road due to …. road works. I got a District Line to Chiswick Park, but signals held that up, as well as the train to back to Acton Town. At Acton, I finally had some luck. A Heathrow train was cancelled and was only going as far as Northfields. Did I care at that point? Northfields is my stop. Who cares about the tourists needing Heathrow – although to be fair I did advise a couple of elderly Americans what to do as they were confused that Northfields did not look like a major international airport.

Din met me and I said, “I only did 28k, but the journey back feels like 42k on its own.” In a way I think it was good cross-training as I was so cold, tired and miserable I got into the trance-like auto pilot stage you can get at the end of a marathon. I just felt it in a bus shelter in Richmond figuring out what to do when faced with a 36-minute wait for a bus that probably never arrived anyway.

But the future is still positive. I will recover and I will be able to get London. The plan is to re-enter the schedule as soon as I get through a short test run. Things will need adjusting because of the Boston trip, but I am more determined than ever to do this.

Thanks as ever for the support.

Blog 8: Not just the running

Trevor writes:

When I wrote my last blog, I was at the end of week 9 of the 16 week training cycle and I said that the next 5 weeks were critical in that there was nowhere to hide. It is now the end of week 11, the next three weeks are even more critical as there is no time left, even if there was a place to hide.

 At the end of week 9, I wrote the blog after running 24k on a Sunday morning. At the time, I wrote about overcoming the fear of distance – imagining how far I had to go and feeling a sense of panic even though I had done similar distances before. Four days after the 24k, I went out again on Thursday morning and did 25.5k along more of less the same route. Not ideal in terms of recovery and tiredness in my legs. The distance however seemed to pass more quickly even though my pace was a little slower. Fortunately, my work gave me the flexibility to run on a Thursday morning which was an experience. There are whole sections of the Thames towpath which are nearly deserted at that time. The only other runners I saw were a group of mothers with babies in running buggies who almost mowed me down near Twickenham. They were running as if they owned the path – which to be fair – at 10am on a weekend morning they usually do.

All positive, then we came to the 10k in Chester on Sunday the 12th.  The reason I did the long run on a Thursday was because Din was running for England in the master’s competition with Wales in the Chester 10k. I decided to run the 55-minute tempo programme that had been in my training programme from Thursday – a long way of saying I swopped Thursday and Sunday. I was completely confident before the 10k. I slept as well as you can in a Travelodge next to a nightclub on a Saturday night in a small town. The windows had been glued shut for a reason. I warmed up properly at the race village at the racecourse. However from the start I felt hot nauseous and stiff.  When I got back to the racecourse to pick up my bag, it felt as though I had dropped it off a day, not just over an hour before. Thinking things through, I was probably still tired from the long run, following the speed up slow down instructions on my watch didn’t allow me to go with the flow of the other runners, and I probably didn’t sleep as well as I thought I had done. The nausea was the biggest puzzle as I normally suffer this after  about 18 not 2k.

Less of a surprise in retrospect was the lack of hot water in our ‘budget’ (a relative concept admittedly in Rip off Britain) Travelodge hotel. The Avanti West Coast service home also didn’t disappoint - fictional seat reservations, no hot water for drinks, no Wi fi, exact money cash only payments for cold drinks, but only £25 per head (cash only) to upgrade to ‘premium economy. I have booked the same hotel in Chester in May as Din is representing England again in the half marathon. I suspect Din may shower first next time to get the scarce cool as opposed to the plentiful cold water.

So a lot to think about for week 11.

Intervals Tuesday, tempo Thursday, slow Parkrun at a very wet Gunnersbury on Saturday and then on to the next long run.  I was signed up to do the 20 mile run at Kingston, but on sound advice from Din, decided to scale that back to the 16 mile option. Because of route changes, the 16 miles at Kingston was 26.6k which would be a consolidation of the 24/25ks I have been running and give me the next two weekends to ease out to 32k. The Kingston races are really well organised, but am 8am start in order to use the market place as a race village and on the day number pick up means a very early start. On the positive side that is good training for getting up for the Eagles bus to Greenwich.

The run at Kingston was a real mixture of experiences. I was not looking forward to the two 8 mile laps, but I went through 5k quicker than the slow parkrun the day before, 10k at the same time as the Chester 10k the week before, and my 21k time was  comparable to the last two standalone half marathons  I have done. All very positive. What let me down was a combination of my mind and my stomach. I can suffer from nausea on long runs, and this started to kick in at about 15k. I think the trigger today was a gel I took at 14k. I have learned not to experiment with gels on long runs, but a type that had normally been fine, tasted awful today with an unpalatable grainy texture. Thinking about it now makes me feel sick. My learning point from today is that if that happens again, I should just throw the gel away and use one of the spares I always carry. The mind let me down as the nausea hit on the least attractive bit of the route – the road section after Hampton Court. I had to stop for a marshall at a road junction and the logical (anti running) part of my brain told me to run walk for 10 minutes to control the nausea. The nausea cleared, but the runner part of my brain now knows that had this nausea hit me on the towpath by Hampton Court, I would have probably kept running and the sickness would probably have cleared just as quickly. As it was, as soon as I got off that road and was on the final 4k into Kingston, I sped up and finished strongly.

So the lesson from today is, even if a gel is a brand and flavour I have taken a hundred times before, if it tastes unpleasant, I should throw it away and try something else. The formulation could have changed, or the gel could have been on a shelf for years. What went through my mind today though was:

• You have had this gel dozens of times before, it must be ok. This is just you.

• These things cost £1.80 a shot, you can’t throw it away.

• I have to this gel now as I am by a litter bin. If I have the spare, I will end up littering.

Logical, but not helpful thoughts part way through a 26k run. Next week I am back in the same area running the Hampton Court Half plus some extra. This long run wasn’t ideal, but I learned something and I am getting stronger. I can’t wait to go back.

Until next time, and continued thanks for all your support.

Blog 7: the other job

Trevor writes on 5th March

As I write this, I am at the end of week 9 of a traditional 16-week marathon training plan. It’s obvious that there is nowhere now to hide, and the next 5 weeks are critical.  From now on, there is only one ‘LSR’ under half marathon distance, and that’s in the taper week. In late March I have a ‘rest’ with a half marathon race at Hampton Court; apart from that I must go to 32k twice, 29k, and 24k.  I must also factor in three other running sessions pw, strength and flexibility work, remember my nutrition and hydration; and perhaps most importantly, ensure I get plenty of rest. Effectively, at this point of the training cycle it becomes a full time job – or a second job if you already have a day job. This presents its own challenges.

I have been fortunate when training for previous marathons in either being on a career break working on my PhD, or working where I was largely free to organise my own day. Luckily, this situation continues with my current job. There is a whole staff meeting in the office every three months, but I work from home on long-term projects. While I have remote meetings to attend, I have huge freedom to structure my time as I want. In practice, I tend to structure things like a traditional working week (even to the point of taking a short walk in the morning before I start, to simulate travelling to work). I am hugely fortunate in this respect. The time and effort involved in marathon training at this stage of the cycle still impacts. I have the utmost admiration for runners who manage training around more restrictive work and other commitments.

I ran 24k this morning – all the way to Teddington Lock on the north side of the Thames; then back along the south side via Richmond, the Old Deer Park, Kew, and Gunnersbury. Din did part of the same route with me; but had 29K on her plan, so did a slightly different route along the Thames and more in Gunnersbury to practise for Boston hills. It was a glorious experience, with dozens of other runners all obviously on long club runs or training for a Spring marathon. Unlike Din, I didn’t see the dog called Nelson who was bright enough to play hide and seek with his human family; but I did see two cormorants feeding in Teddington Lock (1). Overall, it was a great experience; but despite the long slow pace, I’ve been tired for the rest of the day. My face also feels blasted by the cold. Monday is a rest day, but week 10 contains an interval session, an easy 5k, an 8-10k tempo session, and another 21-24k. That is the regime now. The test of the marathon isn’t just the 42k on the day, it’s these weeks of preparation.

For me, the real learning experience from today’s run was to overcome the fear I get thinking of the distances involved in long runs. As I mentioned in Blog 6, I often experience a wave of panic when I visualise how far training runs and marathons are. When I got back today, I couldn’t believe I’d run as far as Teddington and back. I clearly did, but it already seems like a dream, or a film I half remember of a long-distance runner. It doesn’t seem like me.

In the last blog I asked for advice on how to overcome my fear when a well-intentioned spectator calls out ‘Just two Parkruns to go’, when I’ve just run the furthest I’ve run in training. The consistent advice I’ve received is to break the runs down into sections (‘blocking’) and just think about the next element. The Thames at Isleworth is 5k from home on the way out, Eel Pie Island 10k; crossing the river at Teddington Lock was 13k and over halfway for a 24k run. Kew Bridge on the way home is only 4k to go, and as I’ve run that route literally hundreds of times, once I am there I know I’m almost home. The only thing I was worried about this time wasn’t someone shouting ‘Less than a Parkrun to go’; but possible crowds, as I had forgotten to check if Brentford were playing at home!

The maddening thing is that none of this is new to me. Last year I jog/walked nonstop from London to Brighton – 100k. I’ve done it several times and am signed up for it this year a month after London. Someone in my 7am start wave at the Old Deer Park was starting to panic as she thought of the distance and time involved. I told her not to worry. She just had not to go flat out, and only think of the 12k to rest stop 1 in Surbiton. Then reset the target as rest stop 2 in Nonsuch Park at 25k. Just after the tunnel under the M25 is the farm stop at 40k. Just keep going and resetting. Soon she’d be halfway, and from then on counting down, not up.  I didn’t see her again after the collective irrational mad dash to the gate onto the Thames Path, until the finish at Brighton racecourse the next morning. She came over and thanked me for the advice 22 hours earlier. She had finished 32 minutes ahead of me.

So the solution, as well as the problem, was and is in my head. Not 100% in the head, as I think I’m making some progress with nutrition, but more of that in the next blog. 

Until next time, and continued thanks for all your support.

(1) I also spotted an Icelandair 787 which had been painted up with a Viking long boat along the side – it even had an oar by each window. I had the unkind thought of Ryanair thinking up a way of making passengers row during their flight. I laughed aloud as I stopped to take a gel. Two Wimbledon Windmilers out a long run looked at me as if I wasn’t taking it seriously enough. Perhaps I wasn’t, but it helps to be a little mad at times.

Blog 6: In my head ...

Trevor Pask writes:

In terms of training, the last two weeks have been like the 12 to 14k point of previous marathons I have run. The excitement of the start has worn off, and the crowds are thinner. The running is still comfortable, but this is the point where things can start to go horribly wrong in the mind rather than the body.

In Brighton in 2019, 14k was out on the costal road running away from Brighton towards Eastbourne.  There wasn’t a soul around apart from other runners and marathon support people.  Quicker runners were already coming back the other way. I told myself: Get a grip. There are far more people behind you than ahead. It’s been harder in training than this. Just keep going. It’s the turnaround soon. Turn left soon, run up a road towards the posh girls boarding school, turn around, then back to the pier and hallway in no time.

Unfortunately, when I turned left off the coastal road, the tiny loop which was all of two dots on the map on front of the overpriced T shirt, transpired to be a two-way snake of runners disappearing about a kilometre into the distance. Some devil flicked a switch in my head at that point. I did not start to run slower, but I suddenly visualised how far 42.2k was. A seed of doubt had been planted.

I got around the loop and back to the pier on the seafront. This was both the 21k and 11k point. The tail of the field was still coming through on the other side of the road and I shouted encouragement. I knew that whatever I had felt about the quicker runners coming the other earlier was as nothing to what these people had to face. Obviously having taken advice from an anti-sports psychologist, Brighton Council had decided to send two refuse trucks literally inches behind the tail walkers and the final group, to hoover up the paper cups and debris from the road. One driver was smoking and flicking ash out of his window and horning the last competitors to get a move on as if he had a shift to finish. The sheer callousness of that spurred me on until 30K, and the loop around the derelict power station come wood storage yard. This is where the seed of doubt started to grow.

Amazingly there were some spectators dotted around this part of the course. One of them read the name on my bib and shouted:  You can run faster Trev. Only two parkrun to go!’ The phrase made me think: S…t twice around Gunnersbury is miles. The logical part of my brain countered: Two parkruns to go is that same as running six of the eight you need to, it’s all ok. These thoughts were working through my head, but then course went through a pallet storage area. The smell of the chemicals in the wood made me feel nauseous and I slowed to a walk thinking I would be sick. I wasn’t but the relief of walking made the seed of doubt grow some more. I ran most of the remaining 11k, but while I was close to my marathon PB, in the power station, my mind had been set on finishing not pushing. I missed a marathon PB by ten seconds.

So the point of this is that the mind can give up before the body, and as important as the physical preparation for London is the mental side. I am now into week eight of training and the long runs are becoming more challenging. I need to use them for physical strength, but also to anticipate what might trigger doubt, and devise strategies to manage the doubt if it emerges.

On the last long run of 24K - to Eel Pie Island and back with a partial lap of Gunnersbury at the end – I asked Din who was running with me – why she thought one of my two planned 32k runs fills me with apprehension, while the other I look forward to. One involves running 5k to Kew Gardens, running the Kew gardens half marathon, picking up a medal and then running 5k home. The other is a dedicated 32k (20 mile) run in Kingston as part of running festival there. Two long laps down to Hampton Court and back and then four 1.6k laps around Kingston’s town centre. Same distance, largely the same tow path terrain. I have done the distance before in previous training plans. It is tough, but that is the point. The two events feel different though, and the only reason for that must be in my head and nowhere else.  

Why do people think that is and what might the reasons be?  I have some ideas, but I am interested what other runners think.  I won’t have run either by the time of the next blog, but I will share any thoughts and suggestions people may have made.

Until next time, and continued thanks for all your support.

Blog 5: Sober Reflection

Trevor Pask writes:

Feeling sorry for oneself and getting agitated about not being able to exercise was thrown into perspective with the news on 3rd February of Rob Willin’s death.

I had a conversation with Rob about mortality in October 2019. He gave Din and me a lift to Silverstone to run a half marathon around the racetrack and perimeter roads. I have been to the Grand Prix every year since the 1980’s. I mentioned to Rob that Silverstone has changed enormously over the years, but in the summer I had walked around taking photographs on Friday practice day. I stopped on Hangar Straight, which is the one bit of the track which is unchanged and realised that I was standing where I had watched the race on my first visit in 1987.

I mentioned to Rob that I had been overwhelmed for a few seconds with a sense of my mortality. 1987 was 32 years in the past. 32 years into the future would be 2051. If there was Grand Prix racing in 2051, the cars would not be burning fossil fuels and the odds were that I wouldn’t be there to see them anyway. Rob laughed aloud and said that was exactly why we had to do the things we liked while we could. 

Gunnersbury Parkrun on 4th February celebrated Rob by clapping rather than holding a minute’s silence. I was there to try my first post-Covid run. I had tested negative (just) on Wednesday.  I had no idea of the pace I could do, or indeed whether I would get round. Apart from a coughing fit at 4k I surprised myself with a 31-minute time. That convinced me to take up my place in the 10k Winter Run in central London on Sunday.

The plan was to do a low stress run.  45 minutes after leaving home in Northfields I was still at South Ealing due to signalling problems. Four runners from the North Midlands who had set off at 3am to drive down and park up in Hounslow started to stress at the delay. ‘Don’t worry.  You can just join another wave. No one will be in the right wave anyway’ I said, to reassure them. It didn’t. I suspected they thought I was just telling them what I thought they wanted to hear. Two left the train to vape nervously on the platform. They obviously wanted to pace up and down but didn’t want to move too far from the doors in case, by some miracle, the train suddenly left.  Eventually though the train started to move, but as it picked up speed, the stress levels of all the runners increased as it seemed we might have a chance of meeting our start times after all.

Jogged from Piccadilly Circus to the bag drop. Got irritated with non-running tourists in the toilet que. Weaved through the crowds to the start. Got waved through as no one was looking at bib colours. Crushed in the start funnel then off.  Not Jenny’s warm-up preparation, but good to be in an event! I was even in the correct (pink) wave.

The Winter Run is 10k around closed roads in Central London. It is flat and technically fast; but has an inspirational mix of runners of all abilities starting in most waves. I spent the entire 10k overtaking and being overtaken. Garmins tend not to work accurately amongst tall buildings, so I ran on perceived effort and dead reckoning on the distance markers. Brilliant encouragement from other Eagles on the course. Near the end I realised that a couple were using me as a target to wind it which was uplifting.  Net result: 1:02 and no coughing fits or knee twinges. I even took a few pictures of other Eagles in the baggage reclaim with one of my old film cameras. If all goes well, the images might be ready for blog 7!

Major problems getting home, but that was not the point. The point isn’t either that it was good to be back in training which it is. The point is, as Rob said at Silverstone three years ago, ‘we must do these things while we can’.

Until next time, and continued thanks for all your support.

Blog 4: The skeleton airship hangar!

Trevor Pask writes on 23 January 2023

The end of week three of 16 weeks began and ended on a Sunday at ‘The old airship hangar’ at Farnborough Airfield. The old airship hangar doesn’t have any walls. It is the framework of a very long, tall and narrow hangar which has been restored as a huge skeleton-like monument on the technology park at Farnborough. It’s a Grade II listed building dating to 1912, when what we now think of as conventional aircraft (heavier-than-air machines with wings to generate lift and engines for propulsion) were still thought of as being impractical toys which eccentric people (usually American or French) played with. The real future of flight was something twice as big as a football pitch, full of highly explosive gas, powered by temperamental petrol engines that created lots of heat and sparks. For good measure, to stop the gas escaping, the airship’s fabric envelope was coated in a flammable resin, with a tendency to create static electrical discharges. Also, every man (and they were all men) who thought this was a great idea - from Mr Rolls and Mr Royce, to Stan who swept the hangar floor - had been a hardened smoker since the age of 12. What could possibly go wrong?

With 16.6k on the plan, what could go wrong with doing a tad more and having a go at 21.1k at the Farnborough Half Marathon? The race village was situated in and around the old airship hangar. What better omen could any plane spotter want? Din was there looking for an England Master’s qualifying position. Craig Batterham was there looking for good time on a flat course. The plan for me was to relax into a long slow run and enjoy the spotting opportunities.

Farnborough is 29.5 miles from Ealing. On Saturday the average speed on public transport was 6mph. The final leg was a rail replacement bus from Woking to Farnborough whose driver navigated by stars rather than road signs. Travelodge was functional, but rooms are 8/10th scale models of real hotel rooms. By 9pm I had a headache and a sore throat. I said, “I think this is 60/40 I do this tomorrow, and if it’s not working, I’ll pull out at 5k when the route gets back near the hangar”.

Awful night’s sleep. In the morning I didn’t feel great, but never do the first night away in a hotel; and told myself, ‘The headache and gritty eyes are normal, you always feel like this, it’s ok. If it were easy there’d be no point’. We had feared - 9˚C at the start, so the -5˚C seemed manageable in the ‘shelter’ of the airship hangar: almost balmy. Meeting other Eagles Vicky Chan and Lisa Watson at the baggage drop seemed another good omen, and at 9am we were off for a tour around the hi-tech business park, the airfield, and some army training areas.

I have never run in such intense cold before. For the first 5k my hands were so cold they felt as if they were being dipped in boiling water. My breath froze on the inside of my sunglasses, and for 12k until it warmed up to -1˚C there was frost on my arms. Like Din, I wondered for a couple of seconds why they had put ice cubes in the cups at the water stations; but all was still going well until it felt as though I were breathing powdered glass, and at 10k I realised I had completely lost my voice. I maintained much quicker than race pace for 15k just to try and keep warm, but after that it became too painful to breathe deeply, and I jogged home the final few k.

Mission accomplished.

Magical mystery tour home on the buses again; but started to look forward to week 4 of training after a deep night’s sleep. Unfortunately the cough started on Monday, and that night I had dreams of the cold at my upcoming track coaching intervals session. Tuesday, I felt awful, and made a spur-of-the-moment decision to take a Covid test, as I was due to marshal at an ultra-walking event at the weekend.

Positive.

Headaches, persistent dry cough, blocked nose. Most telling of all: I haven’t left the house for 36 hours, have walked under 1k, yet don’t feel jumpy!

So I tell myself that I will get better. Lots of time to go.  I also tell myself that Covid is serious if it is this bad after two shots and two boosters. Was I reckless at Farnborough? Did I make it worse, or did I demonstrate that being able to run at all for 21k in -5˚C - with what I now know were the early symptoms of Covid - proves that I am stronger than I think? Maybe, but not that strong. Perhaps, I thought, like the smokers around the airship, the thing’s too big to explode. One smoke won’t harm.

Positive news is that despite the cold [and a frozen Camelbak hose - D] Din got her England Master’s qualifying slot.

Until next time, and continued thanks for all your support.

Blog 3: ‘To jog or blog?’

Trevor wrote on 12 January 2023:

Week one of the 16-week training cycle ended on the 8th. I am on Jenny Bushell’s group beginners’ plan, but as I have already run 9 marathons, the instructions I have is that I can make the scheduled long runs longer if I want! I signed up for a beginner’s plan because when I was first learning Spanish, I spent a couple of years trying different methods and ended up being able to say things like: “I am sorry, but I don’t have a carpet on my bed.” I decided to do a beginner’s course from scratch to fill in what I ‘d never learned properly or had forgotten. I now still get carpet and pillow confused, but remember blanket because as one exasperated Spanish teacher once said: “Why did Jacque Cousteau make a documentary about a manta ray? Manta, blanket, a fish that looks like a blanket. It’s blatantly obvious! This is easy Spanish!”

What is blatantly obvious for most runners for most distances, is that a plan needs to be followed if you want to be successful and/or not injure yourself. After my knee injury in April 2021, the way back to running later that year was by following a ‘couch to 5k’ programme: which was as demanding as any running plan I have done. It forced me to do things very gradually. After I did that, I did a 10k plan, and eight months after the injury ran a 10k race. I was six minutes off my pre-injury time; but convinced myself that I could do the Manchester Marathon in April 2022. I completed the race, but I wasn’t ready because I picked up other injuries along the way. Basically, I wasn’t strong enough. Chicago in October 2022 was better, despite the long runs being done at odd hours of the day or aborted because of the late summer heat. I still wasn’t as strong as I needed to be; or had been at Amsterdam in 2019.

With a Spring marathon, cold and wet weather and (until late February) short days are the main limiting factors to balance with work and other commitments. I am fortunate (or unfortunate) in having a job where I work almost completely from home. That gives me more flexibility than most runners, but it still requires a lot of planning to fit in the required running sessions, as well as the strength work…and rest.

The plan I am on involves running 4 times per week. The extra guidance for me is that as I am not really a beginner, I can go to five sessions some weeks, or increase the lengths of the long runs earlier in the programme. The shape of each week is continuous interval sessions on Tuesdays and Thursdays, an easy Parkrun on Saturday, and a long slow run on Sunday. The modification I made on week one was to run a 10k race in Regent’s Park instead of a 10k slow run. A 10k slow would not have been too much for my comfort zone; and I wanted to keep Din in sight, who was using the race to attempt to qualify for the England Masters [F70! Din] 10k in Chester in March. The second long run on 15th is due to be 13k, but I’ll move this up to 16k; then the 16k to 21k.

Just one and half weeks in, the plan has changed my perceptions of training, in that I now look forward to the long runs! The continuous interval (Fartlek) sessions are proving to be more challenging than conventional intervals, as the continual changes of pace do not provide any time to reflect (nor any rest!). Maybe that is the secret of intervals – they make the 20k+ Sunday runs attractive because it’s the one time of the week when the Garmin isn’t barking an order every few minutes. That could become irritating.

Until next time, and continued thanks for all your support.

Isn't that a line from Ghostbusters?

Trevor writes:

Officially the 16th week training programme starts on Monday 2nd January, but as Din is doing Boston which is just before London next year, I joined her programme a couple of weeks ago to get me used to the regime.

I bore people about a PhD I recently completed. The very first time someone used the ‘Dr’ title to refer to me was in front of a medical doctor who then looked at me as if I were a lower form of life and asked: ‘Just what exactly are you a doctor of, Dr. Pask?’ I should have said ‘Housing law and economics’ but instead probably confirmed all the medical doctor’s prejudices by answering ‘Isn’t that a line from Ghostbusters?’ (See about 1.10 in this clip)

I have gone off on a tangent, because someone once mentioned to me that there is a strong statistical correlation between PhD students and marathon runners. PhD students are not necessarily the brightest people around, and marathon runners aren’t necessarily the quickest runners around. Both endeavours (and many others) however, require a long-term focus and a stubborn personality trait, which has the fancy academic label ‘grit’. Making a career from the obvious, some psychologists noted that students who completed research degrees were not the most knowledgeable or intelligent, but those with the ability to stick at things and do hard repetitive tasks for a goal that was months or years away.

Like a lot of academic concepts grit is just a label for lots of other attributes, but it seems appropriate for marathon training. Going into the training programme for an April marathon in January can be quite a gritty process. (I have to say though that some physical grit on Osterley track and the streets in the cold snap just before Christmas would have been helpful!) On the positive side, although the chances of falling are massively increased in icy conditions, intense cold makes previously unpalatable energy gels quite pleasant.  After an hour or so in - 2˚C a strawberry and yogurt gel tastes like a strawberry mivvi ice cream, not the usual sickly sweet nausea-inducing experience. Who would have thought that liquidising a mixture of ice cream and sorbet, heating it up, then swallowing the lot in one go on a hot day on Kew Bridge, garnished by the diesel exhaust of a 65 bus, would not instantly give you the energy for the final 5k of a long run home?

One of the areas I know I need to work on from previous marathon training cycles is nutrition. I tend to suffer nausea after around 28k on long runs - a common problem - which I will devote a blog to in this series, so we can share past and current experiences. The other areas I aim to cover (perhaps ambitiously?) are staying injury free, the non-running side of training, fitting in running around work, and enjoying some non-running activity to keep a sense of perspective on this process.

Until next time, and continued thanks for all your support.

The journey to the start line in Greenwich

Trevor writes

In the starting area at the Chicago Marathon in October, I had a conversation with an American runner who said that he had a sure way of getting a ballot place for London. What was that? Well, he had heard that if you donate your entry fee, then your name went into a second ballot for some extra places. This was bound to be successful. Yes, but that just means you have a one in thousand chance, not one in two thousand. Nothing is sure in a ballot.  My club in London gets four places, and five years in a row I was one of max twelve people who qualified and I still didn’t get a place. One year I was one of five for four places. Yes, he sighed, but my problem was that I was not thinking positive thoughts!

I wasn’t at the Christmas Party, because the original plan was to be in Telford for the 10k on Sunday morning. It was a Masters qualifying race and Din was going to try and qualify by running, not via a lottery. Wisely, we called off Telford: partly because of the snow and - 5˚ temperatures, but mainly because Avanti trains couldn’t guarantee getting us there and back. So we volunteered for Junior Parkrun at a frozen Osterley. I was tail walker. The regulation tail at Osterley is heavy, hard to run in, and on a cold day all the kids there wanted to run. So started my London Marathon 2023 training! 

The formal 16-week training cycle starts on 2nd January, but as well as the 2k tail walking, I have already started to pre-prepare. London will be my 10th running marathon. They have all been eventful, and during these blogs, I will probably share stories and details of what I did well and what I did badly. This marathon, however, feels special: not because it is the 10th or because it’s London, but because I have a place instead of other runners in the club who are as, if not more, deserving. The journey to the start line in Greenwich will be made with that in mind.