Before you ask this isn’t some obscure reference to the recent events in British politics, rather it is my attempt to understand where my training should be heading next.
Reset
It’s been a strange time for me post-London. The main goal for the whole year had been to see whether I could hit a sub-2:50 marathon time, I did this at London, and now feel lost. This wasn’t something that I had planned for. The plan I had envisaged after London was to train hard for a number of 10ks, which would culminate in obtaining a personal best at a half marathon in October or November. This would potentially lay the foundations for deciding whether to go for a Winter marathon to see if I could improve my time from London. There is no reason why I can’t continue with this plan for a revised time for a Winter marathon, but I am still thinking about how and what the commitment will look like post-London.
After having some good exchanges with my coach about new paces that would be needed to get a personal best in the Winter, I have to say that I was pretty shocked at the new speeds I would need to be training at. I knew that I would need to work harder than I did in my training for London, but if I am completely honest I had never even considered running at those paces and what they would equate to for the shorter distances I intend to run over the Summer/ Autumn.
I think that’s partly where the feeling of being lost is coming from; in that I had never thought about running at those paces before that came as quite a shock. Indeed the time I ran at London was a shock to me as well. So there is definitely an element of not feeling entirely confident with what I have got to do next, which I appreciate is a key component of achieving my goals. If I don’t believe or cannot know how I can complete my training, then it’s certainly not going to help when I line up for a race.
Besides my confidence I have noticed some patterns in the way that I recover from the marathons I have ran. There are two key things that I believe will be the biggest challenges to my running over the Summer and going into Autumn:
- I seem to get a significant leap forward in my marathon performance and then find it hard to then run at the paces for shorter distances, which would correlate with that particular marathon time.
- There has only been one year since I have started running where I have successfully trained for two marathons in a year; and that was when I first started running in 2014. (I define success', as achieving the goal I set out for that marathon. It doesn't necessarily have to be a personal best).
There’s a certain amount of relief in realising that these are areas I can improve in. I have stated in previous posts how hard I found to combine my running with the problems I had with my house in 2018. So I hope that I can offer myself some space to decide on how I approach my running, without suffering the setbacks that happened in the Summer of 2018.
Goals
It was whilst thinking about my running and the training that would entail, that I found inspiration for how I could plan my Summer from Joe Rogan’s interview with Derren Brown. In it Derren Brown says:
Finding something bigger than yourself in life and throwing yourself into it; is how we find meaning, and meaning trumps happiness’
What I took away from this, is that I had a choice between taking it easy over the Summer or working hard towards the goal I would set myself for the Winter of 2019. I found further comfort from two blogs that I regularly follow.
The first was from someone I briefly ran with and is now an ultra-runner up in Scotland. This post was about her training for an ultramarathon called Transvulcania. What I took a lot of comfort from was her account of how the training went for it; describing the ‘foreboding’ feeling that would appear before big training sessions and how she dealt with that. Reading that gave me a huge sense of relief, as I had been feeling that for some time since I started working with my coach. The combination of being provided with challenging workouts and having to do these on my own, had more often than not left me with a feeling of nervousness as I approached Tuesdays and Thursdays in the build-up to London. So to know someone was going through a similar feeling was incredibly reassuring.
A blog by someone called the Running Man, another ultra-runner coincidentally, has provided a video on the amazing Yiannis Kouris; who I have been meaning to watch for a while. So will be using that to get me through the tougher days/ weeks of training.
What I do know is that I am going to have to find a focus on something that is going to pull me through training, a goal that is not only going to make me afraid but at the same time really challenge me to go out there and push myself.
Nike: just fluke it…?
I have held off from talking about Nike before London, as I didn’t want to inject my build-up with any sort of negativity. Two things though have caught my attention about Nike, which I feel no one is really picking up on or even bothering to discuss in a massive amount of detail.
The first issue is with Nike’s Vaporfly shoes, which claim to make you 4% faster. From what I understand- though whoever actually reads this blog please do correct me if I am wrong- these shoes shot to fame because they were the shoes worn by the great Eliud Kipchoge during the Nike Breaking2 project; where Kipchoge narrowly missed out on breaking two hours for the marathon. This in itself is an incredible achievement, and from this Nike proceeded to market the Vaporfly shoes as being able to make all runners 4% faster.
Apparently they have been tested and can make many runners that 4% faster. I saw and heard many runners talking about the benefits of the shoe,and why they thought it was vital for getting their new best time at their chosen time. Whilst I partially understand this point of view, it somewhat depresses me that this is a salient (if anecodotal) state of running.
Anyone who has been running for a decent length of time and consistently, will know that what suits one runner will be the polar opposite for another. Someone who religiously turns up to Park Runs, will hate cross country or maybe they will love it; the variations of what does and doesn’t work for runners is nearly infinite. So it comes across as strange- to me anyway- that the Vaporfly has managed to achieve this 4% faster statement with very little challenge whatsoever. I am aware that Addidas had a similar marketing feat with their special foam, but I haven’t witnessed this sort of hype around a shoe before.
What I found most saddening is the debate people were having about what this shoe would or wouldn’t do for their performance, versus the cost of purchase. It saddened me that people were not having the same sort of discussions around how they could tweak their training plan in relation to speedwork or mileage say. I appreciate it is a free world and everyone is entitled to their way of running; indeed, I would be contradicting the point I made about a variety of approaches to training. That said it is a detriment to running that Nike have obtained so much dominance with their 4% message. When there are so many other ways that people could improve their running, which are arguably cheaper. Finally it is worth remembering that when Kipchoge was a young man and achieving his Olympic track times, he seemed to manage just fine without the Vaporflys.
A more worrying concern is the revelations about Nike’s attitudes to its female running icons, such as big names like Kara Goucher. Many athletes shared a common story of Nike refusing to pay them when they can no longer run, due to being pregnant; and then Nike pressuring them to return to running with little regard to their wellbeing or views about the best way to return. The story was bravely broken by Alysia Montaño, and one can only imagine the stress of weighing up the repercussions of never being sponsored by Nike and letting people know the truth.
Once the story had broken more female runners who had previously been sponsored by Nike echoed Montaño’s story. The article shared above reveals how Nike quickly did an about turn, however it seems this change of heart only came about because of the negative publicity Nike was receiving in the era of the #metoo movement.
What the article shows in the contradiction between the marketing Nike puts out about its female athletes, and how it actually treats. I thought this would have affected Nike’s sales and how their precious Vaporflys were perceived. Anecdotally this hasn’t seemed to happen, and no one seems to be concerned about Nike’s treatment of its top female athletes. Indeed it seems strange that there appears to be little mainstream media coverage in the UK of how unfair Nike has been to its female athletes; is this because of the fear of newspapers losing advertising spots from a big marketing giant or Brexit? No one knows.
It all leaves me wondering if for all of Nike’s marketing about standing behind Colin Kaepernick; it’s claims about being more than just a brand and the performance of its shoes are all rather...vaporous?
I’ll finish on a more positive note in this section, about World Rugby’s drive to include more women in the game. Despite stopping playing rugby nearly five years ago, the sport will always hold a place in my heart and it’s great to see it becoming more inclusive.
And finally...
I suppose my thoughts in this blog have been about what I do next and striving for that next goal. So I thought Joe Rogan came out with some wise words when he was speaking with Derren Brown:
I am firm believer in the importance in engaging with difficult tasks. Seeking comfort is the worst thing someone can do for overall happiness. Overall happiness come through the atttitude of enjoying the struggle, embracing difficulty and realising the benefits. Overall happiness comes from an amazing sense of wonder towards a challenge, the unknown and the possibilities. Working towards things, whilst having no idea what the end result will be. No idea where this epic task is going to go and being genuinely nervous about doing it everyday.
I hope I can live up to this mantra in the next running challenge I take on over the Summer.
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