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.