False dawn...

Today was cruel. Just bloody cruel. I ended our last run on a proper high. It felt like the 'best' (or least worst) run we'd done. Decent pace. Decent consistency. Not much stopping and starting. Still a good bit in the tank when we finished. In short, I imagine it's how running feels once you've reached a decent level of fitness. I remember thinking - maybe I'm there, maybe the fitness has finally come.

This morning I found out the fitness hadn't come. The run was only 3 miles long, less than half the distance we covered the other day and less than a fifth of the distance I did on Saturday's long 'un. But within 10 minutes of leaving the house everything felt wrong. 

My body felt heavy. My legs felt sore from the word go. I was puffing and panting and sweating and just feeling like I was running on fumes the whole way round. El ran far better and faster but it still felt that we were both struggling to match the other night without really knowing why.

While I've really enjoyed recent runs to the point I've risked becoming the type of dickhead who evangelises about how 'great running is', this morning I just totally hated it. Every minute of it. I think it was my body's way of reminding me that there's still a long way to go before we can manage anything like marathon distance. Or maybe it was just reminding me 'don't become one of those running dicks or I'll punish you'.  

Distance: 3.5 miles/ 5.7km
Time: 31 minutes
Total distance (Andy): 47.5 miles/ 66.3km
Total distance (Elliot): 61.4 miles/ 95.8km

14th January

The same old routes (almost always going through Herne Hill, or Dulwich Village) were getting a bit stale, so I suggested to Andy that we try a different direction. As different as it's possible to be in South East London, in any case. I mean, it's not as though we were going to happen upon some windswept moors.

So we headed out towards New Cross, with the intention of only doing four or five miles. And the new territory (which is far too grand a term) seemed to work. Our attention was taken off the slog, and the aches in our legs, simply because we weren't sure how long the roads went on for and didn't know which turns we should be taking.

The downside of this was that we got a bit lost, and lost each other at one junction (with Andy zipping past while I was checking the map on my phone) - and that added some extra distance. But it went well. Really well. No real stopping and starting, and a good pace all the way around. I think it surprised us both.




Distance: 6.3 miles/ 10.2km
Time: An hour.
Total distance (Andy): 41.2 miles/ 50.1km
Total distance (Elliot): 57.1 miles/ 85.6km

Runs of the Roses

My friend Rose, who I lagged behind in Leeds at the weekend, has started her own running blog. Take a look at http://running.rosegeorge.com/ for more. 

(Fucking hell. What exactly are we turning into. Before you know it, we'll all be baking our own bread - and blogging about that).

13th January

'Let's go before work', we agreed. 'And let's take it easy'.

So we took things a little slower than usual and only ran for a few miles. Andy had found his run on the weekend a lot less hellish (and easier to maintain) as he hadn't turned it into a series of mad dashes, interspersed with restorative walking (which, I'm proud to say, is my 'technique'). It made sense to try that approach again. Especially after my own run at the weekend had been so bobbins and painful.

The pace felt strange at first, as if we we were going far too slowly. But it ended up with ten-minute miles and, most importantly, we didn't feel whacked out when we got back. So maybe there's something in making a few changes. Less haste, etc.

And finally - good news. Thirteen weeks away today, The Paris Marathon will be over.

Sunrise and St Barnabas Church, Dulwich.

(I posted this picture of today's route to instagram, and my friend Hayley commented that we'd 'followed the route of Netley and Gull' - a reference to the Jack The Ripper murders.

The conspiracy goes that Netley, the owner of a horse-drawn cab, drove  the Queen's Physician Sir William Gull (and 'actual Ripper') around London so that he could ritualise with London's ley lines and sites related to Freemasonry. Some of those sites are supposedly around Herne Hill in South London (named after Herne the hunting god and somewhere that almost always forms part of our run). 

Now, most scholars dismiss all of this ley/masonic stuff as fiction and fantasy, but it's still a good story - and you can read more about it in Stephen Knight's 'The Final Solution' and also the graphic novel 'From Hell' by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell (the latter of whom is Hayley's dad).


Distance: 3.5m / 5.7km
Time: 35min.
Total distance (Andy): 37.6 miles/ 50.4km
Total distance (Elliot): 51.5 miles/ 83.9km

Leeds

I find that one of the worst things about running is that, if you do it a lot, you get achingly bored of seeing the same old roads and parks and pavements again and again and again.  So, as I was off to Yorkshire for the weekend I started looking forward to the idea of seeing something new, and to not knowing what would be around the next corner.

My Leeds-based friend Rose is training for the London Marathon and so she was happy to go running too. I was a bit wary of this. Rose is the friend who suggested I start running in the first place, who has about five different pairs of trainers, watches and gadgets and who is truly in love with the whole running shebang. I'm clearly a chancer who's trying his arm at this (or leg) and as we set our alarms for early on the Saturday morning, I wondered how I would get on.

The answer was simple: 'terribly'. It was one of the worst runs I've had in months and months. My legs wrecked and slapped onto the pavement like wet bread. I had to stop every five minutes. I was wheezy. I had no energy and I couldn't muster any 'inner strength', if that's what you call it. Instead, I spent the whole route watching Rose zip off into the distance. Awful (and who knows why it all went so tits, but maybe I was just knackered after a week when I'd run more than ever. But more likely, I was just shit). it was pretty dispiriting.

The scenery was lovely, though. After a couple of miles through non-descript streets and housing estates, we ended up at Eccup Reservoir - and watched the sun rise up over a cold, clear day. What was less lovely was my first gulp of Energy Gel, provided by Rose. 'It's Mojito flavour', she said, 'and it's actually nice'. It wasn't. Not at all. It tasted like a bad cold.

Eccup Reservoir.

Look at how pink my hand is on this.

Quite beautiful, eh.

Distance: Now,  I don't know the area and this map is from memory. Google says it shows 14.1km 8.7m, but I'm going to shave some distance off and say 13km/8.1m. Rose says it was less (I don't think she counts the bits where we - or more accurately, I - walked). But to hell with Rose.
Time: AAAAGES. Two hours?
Total distance: 48 miles/ 77.2km

The plan backfired...

View from the Thames path. Hours later, Fulham got hammered 4-1 by Sunderland.

With Elliot away in Leeds, I dragged my belly out of bed to attempt my first real 'long run' since the half marathon we did last October. I say real 'long run' as this seem to be how runs over 10 miles are referred to in all marathon training plans. I still count 5 miles as 'long').

I decided I'd set out to run slowly but steadily and see how I went. I remember only too well how making the error of racing out the blocks at the half marathon meant I was burst by the 6 or 7 mile mark. This time I wanted to just go slow but, hopefully, far.

My target was to do 12 miles. It was a decent morning so I decided I'd head for the Thames. I felt like a change of scenery from the south east London streets and parks. I went from East Dulwich, over Vauxhall Bridge and along the north bank of the river. I ran down there to Albert Bridge, over to Battersea park and then found the Thames Path.

I'd never heard of the Thames Path before. It's a brilliant stretch that seems to go all the way from Battersea Park down to Richmond (it may well go further). Running with the water at your side is brilliant. It's nicely distracting from the pain in your legs and feet.

I kept going on the path down to Putney. I remember at this point thinking I could turn back and do a loop or carry on down the path. I opted to carry on - the one thing I hate about 'loop' runs is that you know exactly how far you have to go to home. For me, that can really sap your morale and energy. So the new plan was to go as far as the 12 mile mark and then I'd hop on a train home.

The plan backfired. I got to Barnes. I thought it'd be perfect. It was 12 miles in and I knew trains went to Clapham Junction where I could pick up the overground home. I was all set for a nice sit on a couple of warm trains, irritating passengers with a combination of horrendous B.O from my sweating and that horrible smug look that running bastards get when they've done a decent shift. After seeing SO many of those smug bastards on my run (particularly along the Putney stretch) I felt I'd earned the right to be one. I got up to the train platform to find out that trains to Clapham Junction weren't running.

So I was stranded in Barnes and needed to get to Clapham Junction. I looked it up on my phone - 4.5 miles. Transport for London said it'd take about half an hour or 40 minutes on a rail replacement bus. I decided to stretch the legs and run it.

This portion of the run was hard. But I really noticed the difference in how my legs felt compared to when I'd finished the half marathon. Today, they felt sore and slow but, unlike October, they weren't destroyed. I think this is mainly to do with the fact I'd taken such a slow pace along the route. I ran a lot slower than my half marathon but the difference is that this time I continually ran for 12 miles rather than stopping for bursts of walking.

When I reached Clapham Junction it was fecking brilliant until I realised I'd forgotten my Oyster card. I'd packed a few quid to buy water along the way and thankfully managed to scrape together enough for a banana and a water from Lidl (about 60p) and a bus ticket home (£2.40).

All in all it was a good run. It terrifies me that the 16 miles today's run ended up as is still almost a half marathon short of what we're taking on in Paris. But at this point it's all about miles on the board and I have to keep reminding myself that I'm in a lot less pain than I was after that October half.



Distance: 16.5 miles/ 26.5km
Time: A long time (at least 3 and a half hours). 
Total Distance (Andy): 34.1 miles/ 44.7km

January 9th

I knocked on for Andy and he shuffled out from his sick bed, coughing and hacking and limping and dripping with sweat.  'Don't make me go', he pleaded. 'Please'. It was pretty embarrassing.

But we did 10km (the same route as Tuesday night) and it went well, with Andy even managing the 'Sydenham Hill bastard' (which I didn't). Catching our breath at the top, we watched as a guy sprinted up and down the damned thing like an excitable terrier - up, then down. Up, then down - his sweatless head shining under the streetlamps.

'What a fucking wanker', we both said.

Distance: 6.2miles/ 10km

Time: An hour?
Total distance: (Andy): 17.6m/ 28.2km
Total distance (Elliot): 39.9m/64.2km