Running up mountains

A week ago today, I woke up early and decided to go for a jog. We were staying in the Austrian Alps, in a resort at 1500 metres, which always makes sleeping a little tricky for the first few nights, you tend to find yourself in vivid dream mode all night and I'd woken to feel like I'd barely slept. It was cold and, thankfully, snowy outside. I'd never run on snow before, not proper snow anyway, and thought it would be a good way to wake myself up.

It was a few degrees below zero (centigrade), but I figured not to overdo the layers as running though the snow should warm me up. I wore a hat of course, beanie variety, not trilby. Stepping outside was refreshing. It was overcast and I was standing at the bottom of a steep sided valley, and my GPS struggled, but eventually got a fix.



I set off at a very steady pace toward the head of the valley along the recently cleared road. In no time, I was feeling the altitude. My heart was working about 10-15% harder than back home and I'd barely started to climb. Approaching the village at the head of the valley, I darted across to the other side of the road when I realised that an old chap had decided it was an opportune moment to dislodge 2 metre icicles from his hotel roof and that I was heading straight into the strike zone. Reaching a point where the road went no further, I turned onto a snowy path heading up.

5 minutes into the climb, I was peaking at 85% of max heart rate, without really trying. This was hard, but I trudged on. The snow had been trodden into a path, but was still deep enough to cover my shoes, and it felt that for every two steps forward, you're losing half a step in slippage.

A few minutes further along a reach a recently groomed piste. No tracks, no-one around, a blank canvas. I pointed myself uphill and began to scale the piste. It was a red run and significantly steeper than the footpath, as anyone who's been skiing would understand. I wouldn't be able to maintain this for long, so I decided to give it everything for about a hundred yards and then enjoy the descent. The heart rose to 90%+ of max on the climb and I took a deserved 30 second break at the top.

While running up mountains has its place, running back down a freshly groomed piste was one of the best running experiences I've had. I took my first few paces steadily, but gradually allowed my legs to turn over progressively quicker, the freshly compressed snow propelling me even faster. Nearing the bottom, I was at full pelt and precariously just on balance.

It was only a 25 minute run in all, but it's a whole new ball game up in those mountains.

21 mile jaunt

Blue sky, sunshine, around 15C with a refreshing breeze. Running conditions don't really get much better than this. Spirits were high and I was feeling on form for taking on the longest training run I would do before the race.

A group of us headed off at 9:30 from Roehampton Gate in Richmond Park, on a course which would take us on a long and, in places, hilly but picturesque route through two parks and along a stretch of the Thames. It was partly an out and back route, something I've tried to avoid on long runs in an attempt to keep things fresh. It didn't matter and, at times, it helped the mind visualise and prepare for what was ahead, so long as you hadn't depreciated the size of the hills and distances in the miles in between.

It was the first time, probably since school cross-country, that I'd run in a group. The longer training runs, in preparation for New York, had been in the company of my wife, cycling alongside. This time round, I don't have that luxury, so the group was a welcome break from the monotony of the long solo runs I'd completed in the weeks before. And I'm not 100% sure I would have run the whole distance if it hadn't been for the people around me.

After 16 miles, not being physically or mentally used to such long distances, the psychological battle began. Strangely, my pace had quickened. I checked my watch several times around the 15-17 mile distance, to discover we had started to clock at 8 min/mile pace. We'd set out at just over 9. At some point, my legs had decided they either wanted this to be over as quickly as possible or to stop and that an in between state of a slow jog was unacceptable. Of course, this took it's toll and I could feel my heart rate rising and my legs getting seemingly heavier. My mind eventually won the battle over the legs as I managed to slow the pace down to around the 8:30 min/mile mark for the remaining 4 miles. I certainly wasn't prepared for that, legs wanting to stop yes, legs wanting to go faster than I knew was sensible, well I'm glad I learnt that one now and not on race day.

Good week

Bouncing back after losing the best part of 3 weeks to illness, I've managed to run 4 times this week already and still planning on putting in a steady 20 mile run on Sunday. I haven't completed anything extraordinarily long or quick, purposefully easing back into it gently to try and avoid injury. Easing back in is mentally tough. Having been out for a stretch, all your mind wants to do is make up for lost time and prove to yourself that you haven't lost power and fitness, despite the break. Of course, your body will have declined a little over this time, so exercise restraint.

That said, I did get a circuit PB of 21:13 on the local 5k loop next to our house. It's quite a hilly route, more so than the regular 5k I've been running on Tuesday lunchtimes at work. On a good day, I reckon I might be able to crack the 20 minute barrier on this route, whether I want to attempt that in the run up to the marathon is another matter. I'll probably leave it for now.

Out of interest, I've pulled together some data to show the average distance covered per week, by month. I'm not decided on what is the best data to display, but I quite liked this one as it's easy to spot a trend and explain away the dips. I began to wind up training in November and December, although took a break over Christmas. I missed a long run in February, due to skiing, which made for a slight dip after January's faultless month. And the toll of the recent illness can be seen in March.

Keeping positive

The last few weeks have been tough. Cold, virus, cold again. It's bad luck, but the support and constant stream of donations coming through is a real motivator and reminds me of why I'm doing this.

Realistically, I've got to reassess my target time and am probably not looking at breaking 4 hours, but you never know how I might fare on the day. For one, I'm sure the start can't possibly be as hard as New York. No 5am coach to Statten Island followed by a 5 hour wait, sitting on a cold pavement (sidewalk), waiting for the off.

With 5 training weekends to go until the big day, theory says I need to clock up a couple of 18+ mile runs in the next 3-4, to allow me to taper in the final 2-3 weeks. Not sure what the theory is when you've not much to taper from, but I'll ignore that for now. So I plan on putting in a 20 mile run next Sunday, and I'm skiing the week after, so I'll miss that one. The 5th April is the Kingston Breakfast Run, a flat and fast 16M race along the banks of the Thames, very popular with London Marathoners wanting to get a last practice race under their belt.

Depending on what the legs feel like after that, I may try and squeeze in a 22 miler on the 12th and then ease off a little for a couple of weeks. One thing I felt last time was that I eased off too dramatically, and my legs weren't feeling race fit on the day. So I'm going to try to keep knocking out a couple of 5-10k runs in the closing stages, to keep them warm.

Getting back on the road

I've all but seen the back of the virus and now looking forward to kicking off the training again. As suspected, you come out of something like this feeling weakened and disappointed to have interrupted an otherwise promising training schedule. But I'm not disheartened.

The forced rest has allowed the shin splints to repair themselves and, despite slight cardio-vascular fatigue, physically, I'm feeling solid and niggle free. Mentally, having already got a decent 16 miler under my belt, and with 4.5 weeks of training left before tapering, I'm confident of achieving my goal of completing a near marathon pace 22 mile run in training.

I'm tempted to hold off one more day before starting again, just to be sure I'm clear, but I'll see how I feel this evening and perhaps I'll be able to take on a gentle 3-4k.

Tackling a virus

Training was all going well, then I got a cold, plenty of sneezing and the like. Not suspecting that anything untoward, I ploughed on with training, albeit at a slightly reduced level of intensity, but nevertheless completing nearly 12 miles on my Sunday run.

Come Monday, the sneezes had stopped, I didn't feel 100% but felt well enough to go out for a gentle jog. 4k later I had to call it a day, I was pooped. I passed on my regular Tuesday lunchtime run with the folks from work for the first time in weeks, barely able to scale the stairs without losing breath.

Wednesday morning, nothing had improved and I figured it should have, so I took myself to the doctor's. I got a veiled ticking off for not listening to my body and trying to run my way through it and instructed that the only cure was complete rest. So that's what I've been up to for the last few days, sleeping mainly and not even contemplating going for a run.

It's just reinforced that when you're training for months for a big event, you have to factor in something going wrong. If you start out assuming you will be able to train week in week out, you'll be disappointed. In 4-6 months of preparation, you will miss some sessions, some will be planned/reduced, due to the constraints of a holiday for example, others won't be planned and will be because of injury or illness of some kind. It's the facts. The odds are stacked against you, an average person will have 2 colds per year, I think the trick is to not let it get you down and to keep your goals realistic. So much for that sub-3:00 marathon then...;-)

Ramping up with 3 months to go

While I'm not following any marathon training schedule in particular, I have read through plenty and have picked and chosen ideas from several. To summarise, there are a few key elements which every schedule seems to contain, and it's on these that I have based my loose training structure.

I'll come back to this in a moment, but first I want to highlight one major change in my approach from last time round. Last time, intimidated by the prospect of running my first marathon, I printed off one of the first training schedules I found on the Internet and stuck to it, as best I could, religiously. It involved running 5 times a week (5 times a week more than I was used to) and, frankly, took over my life. I also, on advice, bought some running magazines and digested as much information on the topic as I felt appropriate, taking on board tips on a healthy diet, the importance stretching, when your body will respond to it and when not and numerous other niche facts which would set me up for a better life. And it was a better life in many regards, but I kind of let it take over a little, and that was a problem.

So this time round, I've decided I'm not running my life around running and that my training schedule can be less strict. Will this mean I'll beat my New York time in the London Marathon? Yes. Indirectly. At least I hope so. Albeit a small amount, I now have experience and experience tells me that the schedule I settled on last time was always going to injure me at some point due to its intensity and my unconditioned body. I know now, that getting injured in the 4 months prior to a marathon, is the one biggest hurdle the marathon runner has to overcome. If you can follow some sort of training plan and get to the start without an injury, you're most of the way there.

And, more to the point, I'll have part of my life back. I knocked drinking and, consequently, much socialising on the head last time, and that was hard and made running less enjoyable. Because it was new, it wasn't that bad, but if I sacrificed everything this time round because "I've got to do a long run in a couple of days", then I think I'd start to look at running as a chore. So my stance is less strict, although I am far more conscious of my (much reduced) tolerance these days!

Back to the key elements that I'm focusing on for training for London:

- Aim to run at least 80%-90% of the race distance in a training run before the race
- Gradually increase distance run per week by around 10%, not more
- Run no less than 3 times per week
- Fit in a longer run at the weekend
- Don't run the day after a long run, either rest or cross-train
- Exercise at least 5 times per week for a minimum of 30 mins per session
- Do everything not miss the long run session at the weekend
- Enjoy a beer and a glass of wine or two, but keep it at that and don't feel guilty

I'll let you know how it goes.