It's 445 am, pitch black and I'm not really sure where I am.  Eventually I spy the door.  Trying to move as quietly as possible, so as not to wake anyone, I fumble for the key in my pocket and aimlessly thrust it in the general direction of the lock.  At the fourth or fifth attempt the key hits home and I'm in.  The door creaks open and I'm immediately blinded as harsh white lights spring into action.  Busted again by the old man after another heavy night out?  Nope, it's (apparently) much worse than that...I'm in the hotel gym in this week's Marriott and I'm about to do battle with the treadmill.

Looking at many of the posts on running forums this is a dirty little secret that I should keep to myself.  It seems that "The dreadmill" isn't real running and that I should probably man up and get out there rather than slink into the gym and run the rubber road.  In fact some might have it that I should probably not bother to run at all if I can't go outside and do it properly.  Well, I'm here to fight back with the top 7 reasons (couldn't think of 10 sorry!) why I like running indoors:

7. Cupholders - Until such time as I splash the cash and solve my hydration issues with a Camelbak or just bite the bullet and hold the drinks bottle, it's a lot easier to pick up my drink, take a sip and put it down every ten minutes.
6. Dodgy knees - Being somewhat geriatric and having given my ligaments a battering in a past life my legs don't take well to too much pavement pounding.  If I have to take the fake road to glory to get to the start line at all, then that's what I'm going to do.
5. I'm a scaredy cat - not only of getting lost at 5am in an unknown US town like last week but equally of running amongst the drunks and skunks of North End on a Friday night.
4. Nipple saving - If you let me bore you for long enough I'll tell you two things about the effects running have on me.  The first is on my poor poor nipples.  They've suffered so much over the last couple of years that the scar tissue keeps them up at all times.  Add in a cold north wind, the copious amount of sweat I produce on any run and the blood will surely follow.  On race days a top brand blister plaster will do the trick and keep me safe but peeling them off is stunningly painful.  Until such time as I "go Essex" some BodyGlide and the still air of the gym are the pain free option.
3. Football - I gave up on Sky Sports at home over a year ago.  There's no way that I'm able to sit alone in a room in my house for 90 minutes and watch football.  In fact 9  minutes without the TV being turned to Peppa Pig may well be our record, so timing a run for 4pm on a Sunday or to coincide with a mid-week game is a good way to kill the proverbial two birds.
2. Toilets on tap - Unless I eat plain pasta for 48 hours before a run or ram myself full of Imodium (the long term effects of being a regular user I am far from clear on) then I need to be sure that my route takes me past a convenience or two.  Being known for an encyclopedic knowledge of the toilets of Portsmouth is something that even George Michael would be less than proud.
1. Intervals - Actually this may be the only real reason, the one that I'd genuinely use to persuade all doubters to give the treadmill a go.  There is no doubt in my mind that running intervals at set speeds for set times improves my speed.  Outside I may try to run at a certain speed for a time but will inevitably slow and/or spend half the time looking at my watch to check my speed and the time.  In the gym, on the treadmill I can set my program and I know I'll get the exact minutes at the exact speed to improve me.

So there it is, I'm out and feeling good about it.  If you have any interest left after that ramble and are thinking of entering the "guess my time" competition I'm running you'll be interested to know that I spent 1h:50m on the treadmill and either covered 12 miles or stayed exactly where I was, you decide.

Six weeks down of my twenty week training plan. For those amongst you who might be planning a guess at my marathon time based on actual data I ran a shade under 9 nine miles today in 1 hour 20.  The route was very flat, conditions warm with no breeze and I spent the time watching Luis Suarez make his bid for the FA Fair Play Award.  For various reasons my long run ended up being on a treadmill which actually avoided me answering the question that's been bothering me this week..do I drink enough?.

I was reminded on Friday of the time I tried (for a friend, honestly!) to order a mineral water in The Sheperd's Crook pub just outside Fratton Park.  The bemused barmaid looked at me for a bit, wandered off to talk to the manager in hushed tones and came back with the news that " we do tap". In Portsmouth it seems we might be surrounded by the stuff but we're not that keen on drinking water and I've always been the same when it comes to my running.  

When I very first started to run I carried a bottle of water with me but it annoyed me and constantly sipping on it seemed to be more of a distraction than it was worth.  I'm a sweat monster when I run but I've found over time that I can run for about an hour without need for any water until afterwards.  On longer efforts (I've never run more than about 12 miles in training) I take an energy gel or two in my pocket and that helps me get round.  As April looms and I start to tackle longer distances I'm going to have to work out how to carry drinks and how much to take.  At this point I'm shopping the web for water belts and hydration backpacks (any tips anyone has much appreciated).  Either that or I'll ensure I run loops of Pompey that include Goldsmith Avenue and I can pop in for a glass of tap....

Week 5 and not an inkling of the svelte, toned marathoner with a spring in his step.  In fact I'm feeling heavy legged almost all of the time right now.  Lurching out of bed in the morning sees the limbs of lead hit the deck so hard the floorboards are in danger of snapping, climbing the stairs is a thigh burner and I'd sooner be wheeled around the office on my chair like a Corporate Davros than go through the agony of actually getting up to walk to the photocopier. In fact, rather bizarrely, the  only time my legs don't feel tired and heavy is when I'm running.  Sure, the first mile is as exhausting as ever but once I'm warmed up I actually feel quite relaxed and ready to pile on the miles.  Hmmm, maybe the marathoner is hiding in there somewhere after all..

Anyway, following the huge amount of fun I had at HellRunner in November I decided to do it all again and this weekend ran the Brutal 10k at Longmoor.  The husband half of the dynamic Whitewick duo couldn't make it so I ran the course with Paula.  I have to say that I was somewhat relieved that she decided not to wear her Christmas Tree fancy dress costume.  Not only were precisely none of the rest of the field in fancy dress but we'd have been more likely to expire somewhere half way round from waterlogged roots than to finish.  Cross Country in this format is bloody hard work: plenty of short sharp hills, sand underfoot for much of the time, freezing lakes and a good dose of wet English weather.  It sounds like a recipe for a horrible day but you'll hear squeals of delight all the way round (not from me obviously - far too butch) as people splash into muddy puddles, squelch through ditches or slide down mud chutes on their backsides.  The GPS watches are left at home; they wouldn't survive and time or PB's don't really matter, and instead you're given the chance to pander to your inner child and wallow in the mud, mud glorious mud.  In short, if you've not entered a cross country race since you left school then you should because you are missing out on some serious fun.

So, new year looms and it's back to the roads for me as I up the mileage again.  Four runs planned for this week and I'm hoping to get a first use of my very favourite Christmas present - my head torch.  So far it's come in handy for searching for things in the garage, changing light bulbs in the bathroom and jet washing my trainers in the dark.  Hopefully it will actually prove just as handy for running!  I'll let you know.  

Happy New Year to all.

On The Wagon

Well they do call it the Long Slow Run I suppose.  Yesterday, for the second weekend in a row, I laboured through the long run at a snails pace with a sore head and alcohol rushing from every pore.  During the first week of my training I did wonder how I was going to adjust to running slower so that I could train up to the marathon distance.  Four weeks later I can tell you that all you need to do is attend the office Christmas party and you'll be running so slow moss may well begin to grow on you.  With a young family and a demanding job I don't get out too often so I can't regret making the most of the opportunity, but I was definitely regretting the Sambucca shots and the last few JD & Cokes somewhere around the middle of Portsdown Hill.  Today, the effects of a long last week at work and a couple of beers at Poker Night made me too lily-livered to even venture outside and I shuffled along on the treadmill in the warm.

It's obvious, but the last two weeks have definitely proved to me that booze, late nights and running just do not mix.  My days of having a skin full on a Saturday night ahead of 90 minutes of (admittedly crap) football are a long way behind me.  As I said, I don't get out too much anyway and I generally don't drink at home so I'm hoping that I won't have to try too hard to keep to the promise I've made to myself not to train with a sore head again. Dryathlon here we come....

Anyway, 4 weeks in and the quality of some of my runs may have been poor but at least I've managed to stick to the plan so far.  I'm slowly getting used to running consecutive days and with tired legs.  In fact this week I did answer for myself a question that has always bugged me - how can you ever describe a run as "recovery"? When you're running twice a week every run needs to count and you need to push yourself, but when you're running more often a slow steady 45 minutes after a heavy day really does help to expel some of that stiffness in the thighs and generally speed up the recovery process.

Next week brings the the first race I'm going to enter as part of my training when I tackle the mud and puddles of the Brutal 10 at Longmoor on the 29th.  Before that of course we have Christmas.  Whatever your plans, have a great time and I'll see you on the sprout boosted recovery run on the other side.

Beware the old ladies at the bus stop.  I first learned this as an unsuspecting 15 year and that long held knowledge may just have saved my life last week.  

Summer 1984. The Los Angeles Olympics were in full swing, Prince was on the RSPCA's most wanted list and Mr Angry from Purley was racking up a fair old phone bill.  Myself and a school mate spent a week lodging with my grandma in Walton on Thames, fishing the river every day and staying up late into the night to watch Zola Budd ensure the Americans didn't have it all their own way.  We all know that summers past are always sunny but I have the photos to prove that this one was.  Each day we would hitch our fishing kit (rods, reels, nets, seats, umbrellas, bait, tackle, lager and cigarettes... lots of it, you get the drift) onto our backs and trudge the mile or so from grandma's to the river.  One day, maybe halfway through the week, we happened to be passing a bus stop at the same time as the local bus approached.  It was at this point that we learned NEVER to get between a silver haired old lady and an approaching bus.  In this instance there were probably twenty of them that surged towards the opening door of the bus at the exact moment we passed.  Twenty eight and a half years later I can still remember the painful embarrassment we felt as we picked ourselves from the floor in time to see the bus speeding off into the distance with Hell's Granny's giving us the V's from the back seat.

I suspect that most of those dear old ladies have departed this earth, but their tradition lives on and I was nearly a victim a second time last week on a run through North End.   Having been threatened and accosted by various tracksuited drunks as well as ridden off of the pavement by teenage yobesses on their Choppers (There are so many of them about that I swear a container destined for Raleigh HQ must have gone AWOL at Pompey dockyard at some point) I'm generally on my guard if my route takes me down London Road.  Combine this with the knowledge of '84 and bloodshed was narrowly avoided outside Cash Converters as the bus for Southsea pulled in.  Admittedly, dropping the right shoulder and diverting my course into a wall was painful but at least I stayed on my feet this time around.

Anyway, two weeks into my training plan and all is well.  Nothing volume of distance wise that I haven't done before at this point but I'm back into the routine and, so far, have managed to stick to it.  Last Monday did have a couple of notable firsts in that my run home from work was the first time I've ever run on back to back days and the first night run I've done.  The small amount of foresight I had in bringing a rather pathetic LED handheld torch with me was probably offset by the fact that most of the running kit I own is black.  It could just have been this combination that meant the speeding cyclist on a particularly dark section of the route didn't see me but as I dived for the bushes I could have sworn I saw the words "Bus Stop" on a sign beside the road.

It seemed somehow fitting that I just happened to be in Las Vegas as Week 1 Day 1 of my training for the Brighton Marathon rolled around.  When deciding to take on the marathon distance for the first time you are, of course, taking something of a gamble.  Over the next 20 weeks I'll be taking myself out of my comfort zone, adding longer distances than I've ever run before and more and more weekly miles.  Will my body (and mind) cope or will my running aspirations be left broken and lying in the gutter along with the ones I had about winning anything at the poker tables this weekend?!
It may well have been somehow fitting that I woke up in Vegas but the reality was that it made getting my fist run of my schedule completed much harder.  Needing to be up and out for a 6am taxi to the airport with a weekend full of over-indulgence in my belly meant I was never going to be able to run in the morning.  Last time I took an internal flight from Las Vegas I sat in the cafe waiting for the flight to be called while a group near to me snorted powder off of the table and toasted the anniversary of their first threesome with copious amounts of tequila.  This definitely a crazy, crazy place!  

Anyhow, no such interesting diversions to keep me from my coffee this morning and, once landed and transferred to the office for the day, there was no chance to run until after dark.  Since running along the 880 Freeway in the dark didn't appeal my first run of my first week of official training for my first marathon took place........... on a treadmill.

Never mind, at least (and at last) I'm underway and am now "in training".  The goal that I've pondered for a year or so is now tangibly in sight and I am actively working towards it.  If you see me and I look determined and deep in thought it will probably be because I'm in the zone and determined that nothing will stop me making it to that finish line on April 14.  Or it could be because I lost a teeny bit more in Vegas than I've yet told Emma about...

Forget the 3 R's.  The 5 P's are where it's at if you're a runner.  If you haven't got a Plan then you're going to be found out when you least want to be.  Somewhere around mile 20 by all accounts....  

It's five years since I first tackled the 10 miles of the Great South Run, and for three years now I've been run at least one GSR and half marathon a year.  Twelve weeks out from an event I'll search out my trusty training plan, dust it down and spend the next three months largely ignoring it as I bring myself to the peak of physical well being (everything is relative).  I'm confident that I know what to do now. Ideally I'll run three times a week when I'm "in training" but I'm a realist and life can get in the way.  If it ends up being just twice a week I won't worry too much.  If it ends up being just once I'll make sure it's the long run and vow to try harder next week.

First time up I wasn't sure what to do.  First time up I didn't know whether running that far was something I was capable of, so I followed the plan to the letter.  Now though I know what's involved and I know what my body can do.  There's no doubt as to whether I'll make it to the end, the doubt is whether I'll make it around as fast as I want to.  Bragging rights at work (which is actually an exercise in not holding the wooden spoon), impressing the family, beating last years time, running a negative split.  These are all challenges but they don't hold the same level of fear as that very first time.  

Now that 2012 is largely over and I'm beginning to look forward to 2013 and my first marathon, I'm once again going to be striding into the unknown and I'm going to need a Plan.  The limited research I've done shows that most marathon training plans are 16 weeks long and will have you running 5 days per week.  For me that's not going to work so I've borrowed bits from here and there and written my own.  Having struggled to make time for 3 runs a week for the last year I've realised that 5 is just not going to happen.  I've also decided that getting myself to the start line injury free is going to be a feat in itself and decided to add a four week build up schedule to the front of my plan to ensure I'm adding miles in a more manageable way.  Last, for some reason my mind responds with less alarm to a schedule that is based on time of runs as opposed to set miles to run.  Somehow "run easy for 85 minutes" reads better than "10 Mile Long Run" to me even though I'll have to work out a 10 mile route to accommodate the time.  Not sure if this makes me weird or not?  My schedule contains all the right elements - weekly long slow run of increasing distance, easier weeks once in every 4, strength work for the first period and then adding in some speed sessions, plus lots of "recovery runs"  (conceptually illogical to my lazy brain) - and is now safely installed on my PC for ready reference and possible further tinkering as I go.  

Week one starts Monday 26th November, after which I'll officially be "in training", meticulously following The Plan and ensuring as far as I can that I don't end up with Poor Performance come 14th April.  

It seems to me that a lot of the "fun" in a fun run can be retrospective.  This exact thought occurred to me more than once today as I slogged it out around the 10 miles of HellRunner, my first cross country race since my school days.

Back in the day I'd try and smuggle a cigarette or two in my running shorts.  If I jogged out for the first mile I would have enough time to stop for a quick smoke out of range from the teachers before the last of the less athletic wheezed past and I could then run back with them.  I never did make the school team.  When I left school there were no teachers around to catch me smoking so I never felt the need to doing any more cross country running.

Fast forward almost 30 years and I found myself lining up for 10 miles of leg sapping hills, puddles and a jaunt through The Bog of Doom.  What was I thinking?  When I talked my running partners Ian and Paula into it (yes it was my idea) it had all seemed like so logical...Avoid that post Great South slump by having another target race lined up already, do something different, get out in the country, a bit of waist deep mud will be god for the skin surely.

I hadn't reckoned though on doing it with a serious dose of jet lag, zero prep runs, a belly full of hotel food and the tail end of a two day hangover (well if you're in the local area it's compulsory to drink Long Island Iced Tea isn't it??). I couldn't have felt less like getting out of bed this morning and running felt like an impossibility.  But a commitment is a commitment and in any case Ian and Paula were coming round to pick me up, so I had little choice.  

As it turned out I'm glad I did get out of bed and get into the bog.  Cross country is a different sport entirely to road running.  You just can't get into a rhythm in the same way that you can on the road.  Every slippery mud soaked descent is followed immediately by an ascent that will leave your legs crying out "enough" and your lungs bursting.  What's more you get to do it over and over again.  How can that possibly be fun?  Simple, you get to jump in muddy puddles, hundreds of them and your mum won't be there to tell you not off either.  You also get to satisfy the inner juvenile in you and wade deep into a stinking bog while they blast you with smoke and assault your ears with Chesney at full volume.  It took us a lot long to cover ten miles today than it ever would on the road, but we did it as a team and we had a whole heap of fun.  I'll definitely be back for more, but next time I'll hide my smokes in a waterproof bag...

Curry, lager, Chinese, crisps, Mars Bars, cake, full English breakfast, real ale, curry, Tequila Rose (don't ask) cheeseburger & chips, lager, wine, roast dinner, curry, Jagermeister (don't ask).  

The above is just a selection of the food I've consumed in the last eight days in my "week off" since I finished The Great South Run.  Not in itself a revelation, I've broken no gastronomic ground (gastrological maybe but that's a different topic entirely) and there is nothing there I've not consumed many times before (Tequila Rose aside).  The thing that has taken me by surprise when I look back on this list is the fact that I'd partaken in precisely none of the above during the four or five weeks running up to the Great South.  

I run so that I can eat what I like.  That's what I tend to tell people who ask and it was definitely the reason I began to run in the first place.  Hitting forty, metabolism slowing and my middle a little bit more Telly-Tubby like by the day.  No time to make a regular commitment to something like a football team, and too old and crap probably anyway, so get out on the road and run off the belly.  To be honest I was firmly in the camp that said running as a hobby was pointless and boring.  Give me a ball to chase, a pair of nylon shorts and ten team mates and I'd run all day.  OK, all day might be a lie but you get my drift, football was obviously worthy of my exertion but "just" running?  Totally pointless mate, totally pointless.  Nevertheless, the belly was gonna get me and the only way out was to run.

But something changed.  For some reason, and not really a very conscious one, things changed and I'm not running to enable my Wayne Slob diet anymore.  At some undetermined moment the run didn't become the means to the food but the food became the fuel for the run. I wasn't depriving myself of anything, I'd just changed my mindset and the reason I began running in the first place had just melted away.  So why am I running now?  What is it all about?  Why do I run?


Having polled opinion it seems there are many and varied reasons for people finding their way to this sport.  The thrill of achievement, keeping themselves sane, to get some "me" time, to support good causes, to combat stress, to lose weight, to outrun the law (I think the provider of that one was joking??).  For me there are two reasons...

I entered races because I had to have a target.  If I'd paid money and made a commitment then I bloody well had to get my backside into some shorts and get some miles in. No excuses Young, there's a date to be ready by, a training plan to follow and you HAVE to do it.  And so I did.  The achievement wasn't a particular time, or a negative split, or that I beat at least one banana clad runner home but that I made it round.  And in the aftermath of having made it round (without really realising it until now when I stop and think) I discovered the first reason why I run.  As I stumbled around in the finish area, medal around my neck, tide marks of sweat on my clothes, wringing wet and smelly, XL T-shirt in hand I saw my wife and eldest daughter.  On seeing me she ran towards me and jumped into my arms (no not my wife silly) and gave me the biggest and best hug a dad could ever get. She was proud of me, I'd made my daughter proud.  A year later I held her hand and we ran the 1.5k of the Great South Mini Run together.  A year after that, at age 6,  she insisted on running around on her own and she's already talking about next year and asking how old she has to be to run in the longer Junior race.    She watched the Olympics this summer with zest.  It was treat for her to be able to stay up late and watch Mo take his second gold.  She cheered along with me like a fellow junior madman as Mo ran that majestic last lap and refused to be passed (though she did stop short of jumping and cracking her head on the light fittings in the lounge unlike me).  For my daughter running is cool, being fit is cool, I did my bit to inspire that thought and I'm proud of that. 

Reason two had actually happened a few minutes before I stumbled around that finishing area in 2010.  I had finished, I'd achieved what I set out to do.  No judgment from anyone else, no three quarters through and abandoning the project in favour of starting another, no meeting or boss or committee to decide if the project was complete to their satisfaction, no judges giving scores - I had finished.  In fact, throughout my training many times I had set myself mini goals and had achieved them.  A sprint session, some hill work, my first 5k, my first hour of running non-stop, I set the target and, with a lot of determination, I'd achieved.  As my first year of running finished I entered some of the races and distances I'd done before and my previous time became something to beat, a PB seeker.  In last years GSR I went out too fast and died a thousand deaths in the home straight, this year I set myself the goal of a negative split, and I did it.  I'm not always successful.  I miss plenty of runs, I've abandoned many midway through and some days my legs are too heavy to carry me at anything other than a snails pace.  But I keep the show on the road and I get to the start line of my goal races and when I do there may be 25,000 other people there with me, but the only race I'm in is with me.  And if I beat my PB, or run the negative split, or maybe just get round at all (goals can legitimately be reset mid-race I'll have you know) I will be a winner.  Thousands may cross the line before me but none will win my race except me and I'll take a moment to pump the fist, smile and be proud of myself and feel the feelings that make keep me coming back for more.  No Mobot moment of course, I wouldn't want to bring down any light fittings again....

Alan Next-Door is a good man to know.  I'm not 100% sure what he does but I think he's in charge of the street cleaners in Portsmouth, they certainly seem to spend a bit longer cleaning our road than any of the others.  He always stops for a chat if we happen to cross paths and always has loads of time for my girls.  If a strange car takes up residence outside for too long the chats start to include words like "deep cleaning" and it's never to long before the unwanted vehicle has disappeared.  I'm not sure if it's coincidence or if he radios in some kind of Colas air strike in the dead of night.  If I don't ask I don't have to know.

This weekend Alan Next-Door really came up trumps.  On hearing I was training for the Great South Run he appeared at the door with passes to the VIP tent.  He couldn't take advantage himself as he'd be too busy cleaning the streets of the many thousand water and energy drink bottles that the runners take one sip of and throw to the kerb.  Anyway, his kindness made the day fantastic for us as we not only got to stuff in some quite delightful grub for free (the after-race sheperd's pie was superb!) but also got to meet and talk to some of the elite runners.  Hearing them describe their races it dawned on me that the levels that we run at might be quite different but the emotions we go through during a run are similar and the elation at having completed your target is identical whoever you are.

For my part things went pretty well.  As anyone who has been listening to me recently knows my obsession with the wind direction is only just outweighed by my obsession with Imodium.  Access to the VIP tent solved the second of those  (funny that when you've got unhindered access to toilet facilities before a race you don't need to go, but when there's a four mile queue for the Portaloos you can think of nothing else!) but the first played on my mind for every step of the first eight miles.  The whole way I focussed on a nice steady rhythm and just delivering myself to that turn with enough energy to get the kitchen sink out and throw it into the wind.  Having been down at Southsea yesterday to watch my daughter in the mini race and experienced our first real blast of Arctic chill together with a 30mph wind I was expecting the worst.  In addition to that my new found love of wind forecasting websites told me that it would turn this morning to the WSW and would be straight into our faces as we ran for home.  In the end...... I really wasn't that bad.  I had to dig hard down the stretch but managed to keep my pace steady right to the end, finish with a PB before hobbling back that free hospitality.