Now and then...

I have been thinking a lot about dialogue during February, and not just because of Brexit. To me the constant barrage of abuse and dogmatic belief from both sides regarding the UK's potential exit from the European Union, has highlighted the importance of continued listening and constructive debate between two sides with opposing views. I have also been thinking more about this with my running. 

I tend to find February a tough month to adjust to in my marathon training; it's when the intensity of my speed and tempo session goes up a level, whilst the mileage increases as well. The combination usually leads to me becoming fatigued- whilst I adjust to my training getting harder- and being susceptible to man-flu. It was whilst I had my head covered with a towel over a boiling bowl of Vicks enhanced water, suffering with the aforementioned man-flu, that I listened to Joe Rogan's podcast with Lance Armstrong. I had heard about this episode through the Marathon Talk podcast and it intrigued me. First of all because a lot of the running podcasts tend to focus on the positives of the sport they talk about, and secondly because I haven't really listened to a podcast interview yet where there is a disagreement between the two people talking. The interview with Lance did both of those things: it was about someone who had done something seriously wrong within an endurance sport and Joe wanted to understand why he had cheated, whilst not entirely agreeing with the reasons for why Lance did it. I thought it was a fairly balanced interview, though at some points I thought Joe was being too sympathetic to Lance's stance.I did come away, however, from the interview with a better grasp of how the cheating had occurred and what I genuinely think is a more nuanced view of the systemic problems that cycling/ running faces. An even better example is the Western States 100 Synchroblog Project. I think it is something that should be done more often in running and would allow for a more constructive debate, rather than people getting angry across social media or when an incident happens at a race.

It got me thinking about how flexible I am in my thinking towards my training with running. I was doing my usual treadmill workout in the gym, when I heard one of the regular users make a comment about the way someone else was working out. It struck me how judgemental this statement was and got me thinking about how a lot- not all of us- seem to think that we have the answer to working out. I believed I was right and that I thought I knew a lot about running, when really this was received advice from other more experienced runners. I had substituted received wisdom for actual experience; sure, there was no doubt that I had trained relatively hard and had definitely had an experience of a variety of marathons. It didn't mean that I knew everything about running. I wouldn’t say this knocked my confidence it just got me thinking about how many assumptions I had relied upon in my decision making in relation to my running.

Flowing from these general thoughts was a gradual feeling of almost disenchantment and relief towards my racing/training. I had said to myself before that I trusted the process and would allow the results to look after themselves; but I don’t know if I ever truly believed it. I reckon there was, and still is, a sneaky part of me that thinks if I train well that I will definitely get a personal best at London or even deserve it! The difference now is that I have become more accepting that the only thing I can definitely know is how I train in the present, and not use my current state of fitness as measure of how I am going to perform in the future All I can hope for is that the elusive transformation that I think all runners seek - when they are unexpectedly and sometimes inexplicably able to perform at their best- results from the training I am currently doing.

With the Reading Half- Marathon looming on 17 March and shortly followed by the Oakley 20 on 24 March, the next few weeks promises to be tough and entertaining.I want to enjoy these races and perform as best that I can from the training that I have put in, if you can combine those two things. Most of all I am looking forward to testing myself. The beginning of February was frustrating, as the Watford Half was cancelled, and since then I have put in some decent to hard long runs. That said it doesn’t make up for that feeling you experience in a race. Where all those many single moments of racing over whatever distance add up to deciding how your race will go, culminating in our many different versions of success or failure.

 Besides ramping up my training, I have been enjoying my reading. I recently finished a book called Thinking, Fast and Slow and found the ideas put forward as incredibly fascinating. Simply put the book argues that we make decisions based on simple (unconscious and conscious) rules that can be useful most of the time, but can also lead to grave decisions when faced with a significant event in one’s life. A key take away for my running was looking at decision from a statistical viewpoint, i.e. how often has it occurred or how likely is it to occur? Very useful when it comes to pacing in my view. Some may argue that pacing tables on the internet already address that issue, but I reckon data from the likes of Strava could prove to be really usefu in comparison those tables. Who knows?! Like I said above I am no expert on these things. The book I am currently reading is The Stand by Stephen King, which I am not afraid to say is quite scary. Now that I am pretty much training on my own I find fiction replaces the hole left by not having club mates to train with. Being able to read a good book stops me from fixating too much on a particular session or issues. All in all a great way to relax mentally.

In other news, it was very exciting to hear that the Stragglers Running Club has stepped in to take over the  running (pun possibly intended) of the Cabbage Patch 10 race. I think this is great news and wonder if it will be something that we will see more of in the future; whereby running clubs will have to step in and save races that have been part of the traditional race calendar.

I am still trying to focus on my sleep, and whilst my habits have got better I am still waiting to get better results; i.e. sleeping a longer number of hours. My theory is that eventually the results will follow and I have just have to keep applying the habit. Things will click into place. In the meantime I have been watching the London Marathon timelapse video of the course to get me more familiar with what I will be racing around. I am doing this, because I always find myself overwhelmed by the atmosphere on the day.

Until then I will trust in the process, as I gear up for Reading and Oakley.