Country House

Country House

Hello again!

For reasons I needn't go into here, I spent last weekend in a village in the middle of nowhere.

Actually, that's a bit unkind, as San Marcial is only 12kms south of the beautiful provincial capital of Zamora, which itself is perched high above a bend in the River Duero, but when you go to the village you feel as you've travelled back to a time to when...well, God knows what they did then. So it's not just a journey of the best part of three hours from Oviedo, but a massive cultural leap, too. Backwards.

In Summer, the population swells to about 400, as people who have long since cleared off to Madrid, León, or even Oviedo return to spend time in the family house they've renovated with the spoils of their new-found prosperity. There are two (yes, go on, count 'em - two) bars, and a general store even pulls up its rusty shutters and declares itself open, despite the fact there's nothing much you'd want to buy there. But although I moan, I actually quite enjoy my brief visits there, as long as I've first armed myself with a couple of good books, wine, and a crate of beer. The bars serve the robust local wine and tapas of things like sweetbreads, pig's ear and black pudding, and I always take advantage of a trip to go into Zamora and stock up on such honest delicacies to stuff my freezer (and later, my face) with.

Refuelling, San Marcial-style

 

How to make a silk purse out of these?

In nearby (well, 8kms away) Morales del Vino, there is a open-air swimming pool with gardens and a bar, an excellent place to spend the hot afternoons. In the balmy evenings you can sit outside your house and marvel at all the stars visible, while bats and swallows swirl overhead...

On the other hand, out of season, it's a grim, forbidding place. The (fool)hardy permanent residents number about 60 (a generous estimate, this), one of the bars closes up till July, and the shop disappears completely. The weather turns nasty, too. It rains a lot and can get perishing cold, with temperatures of -10ºC not uncommon.

But the main reason I let myself be persuaded to go down there are the possibilities open to the runner. This is agricultural country, and in the past, many of the rolling fields surrounding the village were given over to vineyards. These days they are more likely to be growing sunflowers, rapeseed and wheat there. But in any case, between these fields, and stretching for miles, are trails ideal for running on. Under an enormous expanse of blue sky, you get a real feeling of liberation as you cruise along in total isolation.

 

Now which way do we go?

 



I get to dig out my Salomon trail shoes, too!

 

The only sounds are the crunch of your own footfalls and the breeze rushing past your ears. Occasionally there's a flutter of wings as a frightened pheasant takes to the air - this never fails to give me a massive scare, too.  

The one downside to all this are the dogs out guarding the sheep, and if you get just a little too close, they bound towards you, snarling, and make sure you get the flock out of there, pronto. Still, that's good for a bit of impromptu fartlek.

 

Once, and only once have I seen the shepherd while I've been out in the fields running, but it was a memorable meeting, in its way. I was going along nicely one fine morning when I spied what I thought was a bundle of clothes a couple of hundred metres down the trail. As I approached, it became clear that those clothes were still actually being very much worn by someone, and this someone was taking advantage of the peaceful solitude to deliver himself of a, well, a massive poo.  Needless to say, we did not exchange pleasantries and I continued on my way, choosing not to dwell too much on how - or indeed if - he had wiped himself, and what with.

So, anyway, this past Sunday I got out reasonably early and spent a very enjoyable hour and nine minutes trotting along the trails. It's surprising how the more yielding surface underfoot slows you down (I assume this happens to others, too, and not just me): it probably loses you 20 seconds per kilometre, I would guess.

Apart from a minor incident with a sheepdog which appeared to be even older than me, it was a good outing - my legs felt fine, The Knee played the game and my lungs seem to be finally coming to terms with the increasing effort required of them. In all I did 13.2 kms (8.2 miles), for a weekly total of 37.6 kms (23.4 miles). So slowly onwards and slightly upwards, I suppose you could say.

 

Another positive is that my weight finally seems to be coming down gradually, something I put down to not only the (admittedly small) increase in my training, but also to a deliberate attempt to start being a touch more careful with what I eat and drink. But rather than explain that now, I'll leave it as the topic for the next instalment of this blog.

 

I hope you'll be there for me to share it with. In the meantime, thanks very much for reading, and enjoy yourselves as we go into November, already! 

 

Bye for now.

Country House

 

Red Shoes

Red Shoes

In the building where I live, all my neighbours know I'm a runner. When I coincide with them, which is usually in the lift up to our respective flats, or on the way down - which often means I'm standing there sheepishly in garish technical running gear - they smile and ask me how l far I ran or am going to run, always with a bemused amusement. This extends even to local shopkeepers, taxi drivers and waiters. It's always good-natured and polite, although you sense they think I'm barking mad, especially when they've caught me out running at some ungodly hour. I suspect also that they link this in some way to the fact I'm a foreigner, that in "my country" everybody - bloody weirdos, the lot of 'em - does this and it's considered normal there.

But I don't mind this - in fact I quite like it. I would far rather be defined in this way as a person. Very often people are defined by their job, or even their studies. It always amazes me when somebody I meet tells me that they're a psychologist or a biologist or an engineer, and then when I ask them where they work, it turns out they're unemployed or at least doing something totally unconnected. But the point is, that is what they studied and that is what they feel defines them. Worse, there's a man who walks round the neighbourhood constantly smoking a big, fat cigar. Now, I would hate to be defined by that.

This might all be my own fervid, febrile imagination, of course. I'm sure that in reality none of these people gives me a second thought. But I'm equally sure that they must think I love running to do it so doggedly, and indeed many people have suggested this. So, they're surprised when I tell them that, no, in fact, most of the time I absolutely hate it.

I like the person running can make me: it keeps me in good physical shape (when I actually do it, that is) and as I have to fit running around my work and life schedule, I have found that it helps me to be more efficient with my time and be better-organised. Then, there are the pyschological benefits, and it's not just a cliché to say that I feel less stressed and generally calmer as a result of running. Just imagine what I was like before!

Running represents time I can dedicate exclusively to myself, and whatever happens in the rest of my life, I can generally either disconnect from it or at least get things into perspective. I can honestly say that I have never come back from a run thinking it was a mistake to have gone out.

On the other hand, when I'm not fit and/or a few kilos over my ideal weight, then running becomes a constant battle of physical anguish and mental torture, something to get done, to get out of the way until the next time, while I hope and pray it is doing me good and that that next time will be easier and, yes, even enjoyable. Of course when it is going well, I do enjoy it; I feel all the benefits, and the numbers back me up in terms of times and race performances. But generally, it's a case of a downward spiral: the worse I run, the more I hate it, and the more I hate it, the worse I run.

As a sport, I love the idea of it. The sacrifices in pursuit of self-improvement, the committment to something which can make me a better person in all sorts of ways, the mental picture of gilding effortlessly along, mile after mile (poor, delusional fool that I am), and even the very aesthetics of running. Not to mention the great kit you get to wear these days and of course, the shoes.

Ah, the shoes...

My "wheels" of choice these days are the Mizuno Wave Rider 18s. I've got to look to protect my knee(s) as much as possible so I go for shoes with plenty of cushioning, but some of the top-of-the-range cushioned shoes of other brands are really clunky and unresponsive. I had a few pairs of New Balance shoes (1060, 1061, 1080) but while they were undeniably comfy, at times it felt like I was wearing a pair of those "amusing" monster-feet slippers. The Wave Riders, on the other hand, are light and versatile - suitable for both interval work and longer stuff. Plus, they look great:

Shoe companies have an annoying habit of mucking about with models from one year to the next, and Mizuno are no different. The Wave Rider 12 and 13 were great shoes and really popular: I had two pairs of the former and five of the latter. But someone at Mizuno decided to bugger about with the 14s and raise the ankle section to the point where they chafed your skin right off. Result? No-one bought them and I defected to Saucony, and their glorious Triumph model.

I say "glorious" because they were so beautiful, they practically begged you to put them on every morning:

 

In total I had thirteen pairs (thirteen! I should be a major shareholder in that company, by rights) and they served me very well. Even so, I always felt that while they fit well, it depended on just how you laced them up each time - sometimes great, sometimes not so great. So when I heard that Mizuno had seen the error of their ways and redeemed themselves by the time the 17s came out, like the prodigal son, I returned to the fold and snapped up a pair. 

 

As long as I can continue to find them at a decent price, I'll stick with them from now on. I would love to be one of those runners who weigh so little they can use the lightweight racing flats, but I'm not made like that. I'm 6ft 4 inches tall (192cm), and even if I'm down to my ideal racing weight, I'm still too heavy for that kind of shoe.

 

I know this because back in the day I had a pair of New Balance 834s. They were really light and I loved them, but only over shorter distances. However, I made the massive mistake of wearing them for the 2006 Madrid Marathon. I actually ran a decent race over a gruelling, hilly course, finishing in 3:14. But as soon as I got over the finish line and stopped, I felt as though my knees were on fire...

 

I tend to know when I need a new pair of trainers. I can feel it in the knees of course, but I generally feel tired all the time and sleep badly. This is usually after 700-800kms of use, which translates to one pair every 2-3 months or 4-6 pairs a year, depending on how much I'm running. Therefore this running lark can get a bit expensive, so while I wish I could afford to buy my shoes in an independent shop, the truth is I get them online at wiggle.com or SportsShoes.com. It's the difference between paying 140€ a time or 80-90€.

 

So after so much preamble I suppose I should talk about the actual running I've done this week. In fact, there's not much to report. This month I'm just keeping things ticking over, with three sessions during the week and a longer one on a Sunday. In November I will increase the weekly number of runs to five, and hopefully start to include something of quality (interval sessions, fartlek etc.) All I've done so far this week is two 5-mile runs at 4.45/km pace. Tomorrow I'll drag myself out for something similar, and then on Sunday I will be going off-road in one of of my  favourite places to run in.

 

But to find out what and where that is, you'll have to wait until the next thrilling instalment.

 

Is anyone still there?  If so, I thank you and wish you a very happy time till we meet again.

 

 

Red Shoes

 

 

 

Nowhere Fast

Nowhere Fast


Hello again!

Well, this thing is up and running, literally.

Today, Sunday, I got up early, much too early in fact, and fannied around on the computer for ages until it was more or less light, at 8:30 or so, and then headed out there.

Running nerds everywhere will be dying to know my pre-run routine. Well, I never eat anything but have at least one, and preferably two, cups of tea first. Having gone to the loo (again, two visits are better than one) and checked the weather, I get dressed for the job in hand. Unless it's arctic outside, and let's face it, it isn't very often, I always go out in shorts and a short-sleeved technical t-shirt. My concession to cold weather is a woolly hat and gloves. Occasionally I'll wear a long-sleeved base layer under that lot, but rarely do I bother these days.

When I was training for the 2009 London Marathon, I remember that practically every morning from January to March it was freezing and the streets were icy. In the space of just six years the weather has changed noticeably, and seldom does the temperature drop below 5-6ºC these days, even in the depths of winter. I wonder why that could be...

Running on a Sunday morning here has its attendant problems. If you go out too early, and around or too near the city, you are going to get some form of unwanted attention from people on their way home from the bars - or worse, from those hell-bent on continuing with the night's frivolities. The bars, pubs and discos don't seem to close at any particular time..or indeed close at all, in some cases.
 
This attention can take various forms. Shouted comments of varying friendliness are common, as are people coming to run alongside you for 100 metres or so, to the giddy amusement of their friends. I once had someone physically stop me and ask me for a light for her cigarette, and even had the contents of a McDonald's milkshake thrown at me from a passing car. Had it at least been chocolate flavour...In all of these cases, I've found it best to speed up and ignore them, if possible. The temptation to hurl an insult or give them the finger is enormous at times, but what if the following week they see you again? They might not take it too well.

If I've got a run of over two hours planned then I just have to bite the bullet and run the gauntlet of the drunks, but if, like this Sunday, it's only 8-9 miles (13kms) by waiting till 8.30-9.00 you should be all right.  

Over the last few months, as my knee improves, I've been doing shorter runs of 5-6 miles, four times a week, but clearly I have to start doing more than that. During marathon training I usually do between 45-60 miles a week (75-100kms), but at the moment I'm only totalling less than a third of that. So in fact, the prospect of running what I had planned this Sunday felt quite daunting.

As far as warm-ups go, I don't do much. A couple of leg swings and light stretches of calves, hip flexors and ankles, and I'm off. Today I had no pretensions to pace at all other than keep it slow and steady: the important thing at this stage is to get mind and body used to the idea of running ever-longer distances for increasing amounts of time.

After a Saturday which was surprisingly cold, the weather today was very mild (16ºC at 9.00 a.m.), so I immediately regretted wearing my hat and gloves, and fretted about it over the first couple of miles. I had planned a route which takes in most of the city and this necessarily involves going uphill for the first 2.5 miles. Once up in the centre it's quite flat, but then to go round the southernmost area of Oviedo you have to go up another hill of maybe 500-600m.

I like running in the city. There's plenty to look at and all sorts of landmarks to act as reference points. I know people who take the car every Sunday and drive out to the country, to run in pleasant surroundings, but I see this as totally defeating the object. One of the things I like about running is that it can be really time-efficient, especially when you compare it to cycling or swimming. You throw on your t-shirt and shorts, lace up your trainers and once out of the door, you're good to go. 

After three miles it becomes clear to me just how unfit I am. On the positive side my knee feels good and my legs seem to be all right, too. My head and lungs feel terrible, however. The latter feel as if they've been replaced with dirty brown paper bags while in my head I can think of a million reasons why I should cut the run short and head home. I expected this, though, so gamely press on and sure enough, as I go round the city centre, the negative feeling passes. At one of my favourite points on the run, I skirt the Parque de Invierno and the mountains heave into view, a sight which never fails to give me a lift.

La Sierra del Aramo

I swing round past the park and head towards the train and bus stations, which signal the start of a slightly downhill section which leads me home.

The walkway over the railway station

The bus station

In all, I did 8.1 miles (13.06kms) just over an hour and five minutes (details for stattos here). That's pretty pedestrian (5:00/km), even for me at this stage, but it was non-stop and I'm happy with the state of my legs and, more importantly, The Knee. I even feel I could have kept going if necessary. The pace and distance will come, with time and patience, as I lose the excess baggage!

I did ten minutes' stretching, 30 press-ups, and headed up to my flat, the shower, and breakfast.

I can do this.

Nowhere Fast

It's Going To Be A Very Long Road

Hello!

This is the first entry of a blog I've decided to write which is intended to be part diary, part training log with six months to go until - if everything goes to plan - I run the Brighton Marathon on 17th April 2016.

Of course the title of the blog has an element of artistic licence to it, as I won't actually be running to Brighton Pier at all, although the marathon does go past it, so I'd say that's good enough reason to squeeze an Orwell reference in.

It will mainly be about running, but hopefully I'll include thoughts on my other interests, namely football, films, books, food, politics and travelling.

I should point out to begin with that I am fully aware that it is something totally, shamelessly self-indulgent and probably of little or no interest to anyone but myself. I intend to record my progress (if any) from a poor state of fitness, mental and physical, to a point where I stand on the start line in Brighton's Preston Park in such good shape that I can be confident of running 26.2 miles (42.195kms) at a good, competitive pace and attain the goals I've set myself. What these are I'm not entirely clear about yet, but certainly I hope to go under 3 hours and 15 minutes and so regain my automatic Good For Age (GFA) place for future London Marathons.

I'm an Englishman, born way back in the 1960s, and I moved to Oviedo, the capital of Asturias, Spain, after finishing my degree in 1992. I've been living/exiled/trapped here ever since. I work as an English teacher in a private school, and am reasonably happy there. Other aspects of my life are not all that great, however, and another of the reasons for starting this blog is for it to serve as a kind of therapy whereby I get some thoughts and musings down in writing, and hopefully this will get my head back in a good, healthy place.

In fact, I need all the help I can get, from whichever source, if I'm going to reach this marathon goal, as unfortunately I'm the type of person who returns to a default setting of bad eating and other bad lifestye habits (you can probably imagine which) as soon as things start to go awry in my life. I don't intend to bore you with too many details concerning my personal life but it is definitely relevant that I reached a sort of mid-life crisis over the summer, through nobody's fault but my own. To maintain a sense of perspective, which I was recently in danger of losing completely, I must say that nobody has died and nobody has become ill or anything like that.

To give you a bit of background on my sporting career (such as it is), I started running in 2003 after years of physical inactivity and smoking, coupled with a realisation that I was putting on loads of weight (for me, anyway). Six months later, in October of that year, I ran my first marathon after some naïve and haphazard training. It was here in Asturias, and I completed it in a time of 3:20:30. The following April, geared up by this modest success, I went to Bilbao and did 3:09:56. This in turn inspired me to thinking that a sub-3-hour marathon was just a matter of time away, but in fact it proved far more elusive than I could have imagined. I began to enter races of other distances and did a whole series of half marathons in times around the 1:28 mark.

However, for whatever reason, I found I didn't make the hoped-for progress and in fact despite constant training my performances began to get worse. My HM times slipped to 1:32-1:34, and in 2007 I ran a disastrous, sweaty marathon in Madrid in  3:33:07.

At this point I decided to make some changes and I set my heart on going to do the London Marathon and making my family proud of me.

The first step was qualifying. To do this automatically you have to achieve a time in any marathon of under 3:15 (well, for my age group you do, anyway). I entered the Asturias Marathon in 2008 with this goal in mind and to my surprise found that training for this slightly more modest target was far easier, both mentally and physically. The race itself went like a dream and I finished in 3:12:37.

 

 

This was good enough to get myself accepted for the 2009 London Marathon. Such was my excitement at this that my training took on a whole new meaning and I worked really hard over the autumn to get myself in top shape to face the four months of specific training from January 2009 onwards in order to attack London with confidence. That November I ran a HM in 1:27, my best for some time, and over the following months I really worked hard to improve. If in November I weighed 85kgs, by March I was down to 82kgs and this definitely helped me when I smashed my HM personal best (PB), running 1:22:50 at a local race.
 

On my way to a PB at the Trubia HM

To cut a long story short the 2009 London marathon was utterly memorable for me in many ways. I raised over £1,000 for Alder Hey Children's Hospital, all my family were there to cheer me on and just legging round the streets of London in front of thousands and thousands of spectators was something I'll never forget. In the end I didn't break three hours as I'd hoped, but came close enough (3:03:21, weighing 79kgs) to believe that the following year it would indeed be possible.

Going to register for the 2009 London Marathon

Signing up

And so it proved. Everything went to plan on 25th April 2010 and I went round in 2:59:06 (81kgs). Crossing the line and realising what I'd achieved was just the greatest feeling ever. At the ripe old age of 44, after years of trying, I was finally a sub- 3 marathoner!

Ready for the 2010 London Marathon

...and celebrating afterwards with my brother and my medal!

I couldn't possibly know it then, but that was as good as it has got. In 2011, perhaps lacking motivation after having already gone through such a massive psychological barrier, I struggled to 3:10:55 on a horribly hot day by the Thames.

Arriving at the start in 2011

Although for a couple of years I was still running sub-1:25 HMs, a decline definitely began to set in. I remember my Mum helpfully pointing out that this was because I was just too old (thanks, Mum!), and sadly I haven't been able to prove her wrong . A look at my HM performances since then tells the sorry story:

Of course, I have my excuses, and the major one is my dodgy knee, which I destroyed in a skiing accident back in my teenage years, and which forced my, erm, promising football career to come to an abrupt halt. However, I found I could run on it with no problems...until about two years ago, when the chickens came home to roost and I started to really have serious issues with it. These all came to a head at the end of last year when I found I even experienced severe pain just by walking, and it was clearly getting worse instead of better.

I kept running despite this, and and entered the La Coruña Marathon this April in an attempt to get back my GFA place, something I'd lost by only running 3:15:15 (curse those 16 seconds!!) in London in 2014. However after a heartening start to my training I found by February that the agony I was putting myself through wasn't worth it. With a heavy heart I withdrew from the race and sought medical help.

Do  miracles exist? I certainly wasn't expecting any, and less so when the specialist at the hospital told me that having to have a full knee replacement was a matter of time, and not much time at that. Almost as an afterthought he suggested that in the meantime I take a series of pills which could help to re-generate the cartilage I am lacking in my left knee, but even so I didn't hold out much hope.

Unbelievably, those pills, condroitin sulphate, have worked something close to that miracle and I am now able to walk pain-free and running competitively is now an option again.

So here I am, in October with a body which needs to shift some serious weight - I now tip the scales at an embarrassing 91kgs - but which, if there is no adverse reaction, will allow me to take on the challenge of running a decent marathon again.

I wasn't fortunate enough to get a place for the 2016 London Marathon through through the ballot system (there were 248,000 applications for 30,000 places) but on Thursday I was accepted into the Brighton Marathon (after paying 70 quid, of course), and so this journey, ending on Marine Drive, Brighton (near enough to the Pier) has begun.

Why Brighton? I considered Paris, Rotterdam, Manchester and Barcelona, but logistically Brighton works best for me as one of my brothers lives there. It's also a mass-participation event with great spectator support and generally very well-organised despite only being held since 2010.

Well, so that's the story so far. Sorry it's been so long in the telling.

I don't know how often I should post updates and what I should include. Tomorrow I plan to run 8-9 miles (13-odd kms) to make up a 22-mile week of running. Such is my decline that not so long ago I was doing 20-22-mile runs most Sundays in the build-up to a marathon. Still, I have to start somewhere.

If anybody is still reading this, thanks for your patience, and watch out for more posts if and when I can be bothered to write them. I would be very grateful for any comments and/or suggestions, which you can leave at the bottom of the page.

Bye for now!