The charity I'm running for is the Sailors’ Society.  Now it's clearly not as glamorous as the ones with the cute puppies, but as an ex-sailor I know the benefit they can bring. 

It's a tough and lonely old world out there on the oceans and even salty sea dogs like me need company and messages from home.  More importantly, many sailors these days are from places such as Somalia and Bangladesh and their families aren’t just able to dash off an email with little Rupa’s school test results.

The Sailors’ Society will bring them messages from home and help with problems they encounter at sea.  As such they provide a very valuable service and I hope you will support them - and me! - generously.

Thank you.

 

What running has taught me – part 10 (27 Apr 09)

That has to go down as one of the best days of my life.  Mickey Thomas scoring in the last minute of the last game to win us the title at Anfield was ecstatic.  If I’m lucky and have kids I hear their birth is pretty good too.  But running the marathon will be one of those rare experiences I’ll cherish forever and relive frequently.  It was, quite simply, fantastic.

I was nervous the week before but in a good mood on the day itself and sat on the tube making friends with fellow runners.  This in-it-together atmosphere continued all the way to and in Greenwich Park, though by then my nerves had ramped up and I was feeling apprehensive about what lay ahead.

But when you see four Wombles, three donkeys and a twelve foot nurse called Rob you tend to relax a little.  I also didn’t have much time to think because five minutes after being in place the whistle went and we were off.  Even if the thousands of people in front meant it took 25 minutes to reach the start.

I felt stiff and in mild pain for the first few miles, though knew it was the kind you run off.  The crowds were thin, but even so I started to get a few of the magical things which saw me through to the end – complete strangers cheering my name.

One of the best tips I got was to print my name on my vest.  When you do, and if you run close enough to the crowd (as I made sure I did), men, women, kids and grandmas cheer you on.  What a feeling that is.  What an uplifting, propelling, wonderful feeling to hear random people congratulating me and urging me forward.

The crowd was absolutely fantastic.  They didn’t cover every inch but there weren’t many yards that were empty.  The cheers were the best bit (and let me say again just how amazing they were), though we also had kids handing out sweets, firemen dousing us with water, bands playing us on, drummers proving a beat, people on balconies with house music backdrops, pubs with MCs shouting out names and other things I’ll probably only remember once I hit Send.

It wasn’t only the complete strangers who propelled me forward either.  Mandy and Lily were at mile 7 somewhere near Dom and family.  Romi was at mile 8, Mandy moved to Docklands to be at mile 18, Gian, Scott, Rob and Richard were at 22, Dave at 23, Paul at 24 and Natalie opposite Parliament. 

Each person, each milestone, gave me something to look forward to.  I only actually saw Mandy, Lily, the boys and Paul but knowing they were there was enough.  Other things broke down the distance, crossing Tower Bridge, turning for home at Docklands, hitting the 20 mile mark, seeing Charing Cross and going up the mall.

The race itself went by in a bit of a blur.  Miles 8-12 were hard in places because I knew the distance still to run, but the Lucozade sport and the cheers saw me through.  Parts of Docklands were tough, but sports gels, more Lucozade sport and more cheers saw me through there. 

The really tough miles were 20-26.  My feet hurt every time they hit the road, legs were heavy and tired, I could barely throw a smile at the people calling my name, every mile took an age to pass and the people walking were very tempting to join.

But I even loved how hard it was because it was so hard.  I knew I wasn’t at my limit and if I kept going I’d feel proud.  Plus, walk then and I’d be walking till the end.   So I gritted my teeth, pushed myself forward and managed to run every step of the way.  And I was right, it feels great.

By no means was it all hard, in fact I’d say it was fine most of the time and wonderful as often as tough.  There were many times the sheer spectacle of the event gave me goosebumps, I put on headphones for a bit and wanted to bounce for joy and frequently thought this is so great I’ve got to do it again.

I think the heat and my leg and the crowd meant a fast time was an impossibility.  But I’m so glad I decided to take it slow and savour as much as I could.  I ran past the outstretched hands of kids giving them high fives, grinned at my supporters, ate a few sweets here and there, congratulated other runners, took in the beauty of London and the magnificence of the event.

Thanks for that must go to Jerry.  But I’ve got to go a bit Oscar on you now and thank many other people for their help in getting me through. Firstly, Nick for inspiring me to do the marathon in the first place.  Never thought I could do it, so glad I have.  Everyone who gave me tips and ideas in the first few months, JB and Alan for a kind word after every blog, all the words of encouragement during the injury, great advice from Rob, Chazz and Romi, everyone who sponsored me, Mitch, Dom, John and Eli for being a running partner, all the very many supportive texts and phone calls, mum for telling me about Adidas’s runner tracking a huge bow of appreciation to everyone who came down, Debbie for being there at the end, Greg and Erica for taking me home and Scott and Richard and Gian for allowing me to relive the experience last night.

Well that’s it for me, no more blogs from here.  The marathons I think I’ll continue.  The cheering was so intoxicating and as I’ve probably left it too late to be a rock star it looks like marathons are all I’ve got.  In fact I’ve been trying to register for next year’s all day. 

Thank you all for reading, I hope you’ve enjoyed joining me on my journey.  It’s been a fantastic experience and to anyone thinking about doing the same I can only say yes.  It wont be easy, but that’s the point.  It will be rewarding no matter what.

Dave

*Running diary*
Tue - 5 miles, approx
Wed - nothing
Thu - nothing
Fri - nothing
Sat - nothing
Sun - 26.2 miles in 4 hours 36 minutes.

What running has taught me – part 9 (20 Apr 09)

Running round other cities makes you feel like a local.  Okay not in Istanbul, there they just think you’re a freak.  And actually things weren’t much better in Amsterdam.  However, in Washington you fit right in.  Not only that but because my wonderful running partner/tour guide Anne and I had jogged past the White House, Capital Hill, a whole host of government buildings, museums and monuments to dead presidents I’ve come up with a new business idea.  Running tours. Like the hop-on, hop-off buses you see except without the bus.  Or the hopping.

As you may be able to tell from my jaunty writing style it’s been a good week.  Back on schedule for the first time in a long time I managed two speedwork sessions on Tuesday and Thursday, two easy runs on Wednesday and Saturday and twelve miles yesterday. Tuesday’s run was best of all.  Twelve hill sessions, twelve times running up hills for two minutes at a time.  Feeling exhausted at the top and exhilarated at the end; both because I’d finished and because my legs held up.  Yeah for both of them.

Still not sure about making it round on Sunday though.  Not a week on Sunday either, this coming Sunday, five short days from now.  There’s not much more physical training I can do, it’s all about the mental stuff now: trying to feel strong and confident, coming up with coping strategies, visualising key points throughout the race and imagining the glorious, glorious, finish line.

Though to be honest, the whole thing about the finish line has never been a big part of my training.  If I could take one thing from these past six months it’d be I understood the journey is the destination. This is not about the end but the expedition; the ups and downs, the pleasure and pain, testing myself and not always passing but always better for the attempt.

I have been in a particularly bad mood these past few weeks and think now the injury has been the cause.  I’ve taken a huge amount of self-confidence from running, from being able to do it at all to being able to do it pretty well.  The sub four hour marathon was supposed to be the cherry on the cake, incontrovertible proof of my ability, the cornerstone on which I’d build a future more secure.

Letting go of that goal has been more challenging than I’ve appreciated.  It’s thrown up a great deal of self-criticism and doubt.  It’s caused me to feel deeply frustrated and pretty damn angry. I’ve had to manage disappointment, loosen my grip on a outcome I thought necessary and emerge the other side feeling good about plan B.

Which I think I do.  Plan B is to enjoy the race and not worry about time.  It’s to understand getting to where I am from where I was is a good thing and enough.  It’s knowing there can be other marathons, that I don’t have to do it all for this one, and to realise how old I’d feel in a few years if I got my best ever time now.

 

What running has taught me – part 8 (13 Apr 09)

Progress.  My leg is better; it’s still not right, but it is better. I managed three runs this week, one Wednesday, one Saturday and 16.5 miles yesterday.  Although yesterday’s made me realise just how hard the marathon will be.

The icing, heating, stretching and rest had all made such a difference I managed to make it down the stairs like normal people do for the first time in four weeks.  I also bought a knee brace, new bouncy shoes and stronger anti-inflammatory painkillers and felt fine after Saturday’s four miler.

So typically I decided to push the long Sunday run.  I thought if I could do 18 miles I’d be fine for the race.  I probably would have made it too had I also not thought I needed to run half the miles at target marathon pace.  Not my new target marathon pace, oh no, that’d would be way too sensible.  My old target marathon pace.  You know, the one I haven’t trained at for a month.

I did the first few miles slow and felt great.  I was full of energy, free of pain and thought I could run forever.  Seven miles passed easily and I strode on to the canal with the confidence of a Kenyan come down from altitude for the first time.  Eight miles, nine miles, here we go…

At first I couldn’t work out why my minute per mile pace kept increasing no matter how much faster I went.  Then I realised I was looking at my lap time.  Ignoring the twinges in my leg I switched the iPhone to Five Star Dance tunes, turned the volume up and headed towards Ladbroke Grove.

You know you’re in trouble when you can’t make it up the sort of inclines that bridge canals.  That and increasingly laboured breathing, more urgent nudges from my leg and ‘what-on-earth-are-you-doing-you-idiot’ looks from Marley.  So I slowed down.  Back to normal running pace.  Back to reality.

It wasn’t enough.  Marley looked tired so I dropped him back at the car, changed my shoes and headed back out for the last four miles.  I made two and a half.  The last little bit, as little as it was, was just too far.  Trouble is, I’ve got to run ten miles more in just two week’s time.

Not so long ago I thought the marathon was ages away.  Now it’s too close.  Two weeks!  I’m not ready, don’t feel ready anyway.  I know the adrenalin and crowd and crystal meth will surely help.  But if anyone knows anyone who can get it pushed back to the end of May there’s a drink in it.

Only one lesson this week really.  Don’t be fooled by the first five miles.  Oh and I’m not Kenyan.

 

What running has taught me – part 7 (7 Apr 09)

I don’t make it easy on myself.  First long run after a weeklong rest was on the treacherously uneven pavements of .  It truly is a beautiful city, but I wish they’d done some work on the cobblestones in the last, oh I don’t know, 1,000 years.  Still, I managed 13 miles and, more importantly, made it to the bathroom this morning with barely a grimace per step.  Progress!

I changed my attitude towards the injury this week, I took it seriously.  Until now I’d adopted the twin strategy of hoping it would go away and pretending it didn’t exist.  Which might work for the bogeyman but wont for a problem that requires attention and rest.

The old approach saw me doing some of the stretching my new Olympian buddies told me to, but I didn’t ice or heat the thing, didn’t stop when it started hurting and didn’t even bother to work out the difference between a sports masseur and physio; I just thought one beat you up for twice as long but didn’t charge twice as much.

In my mind my magic body would heal itself without me doing anything different and that I had to keep running now or I’d collapse mid way round on the 26th.  But last Monday, after the pain refused to go away, I went to the Runners World forums, looked up “how quickly lose fitness” and found it takes at least three weeks and even then not very much or very fast.

Phew.  No need to panic then.  Have another week off and I’ll still be fine.  Get some proper, stress-free, rest.  Add a new this-is-not-going-away-so-take-it-seriously approach with ice packs just before hot ones, stretches twice a day and even sleep in compression tights (proper male sporting ones, with stripes down the side and athletes on the box and everything).

But why did it take me two weeks to go to the forums?  They’re always where I tell other people to go, hell I even had a business that told big corporations to treat the views there seriously.  So why can’t I take my own advice?  First because we never do, do we?  Second, because when it comes to problems like this I can be a little on the ostrich side.

I have a tendency to try and ignore a problem I don’t have a solution for, don’t think I’ll find a solution for, or for which I don’t like the solution I’ve found.  Of course, life has a wonderful way of placing the solution in front of your face, and an irritating way of forcing you to take it whether you like it or not.

I increasingly find these solutions on the internet, but I’m sure all the Buddhists out there will claim a good long look at a leaf will provide similar insight.  Regardless how it comes, I’m going to take this week as proof that seekers find and focus works.  Can’t tell you how fantastic it was to be running (almost) pain-free again.

 

What running has taught me – part 6 (31 Mar 09)

It’s been a tough week.  Apparently running 19 miles on a bad leg is not the cleverest thing in the world and I spent most of last week in pain.  Well actually that’s not true, I was fine provided I didn’t move.  Stairs were worst, the only way I could navigate them was by doing a little Palomino-style kick with my right leg.  I looked great.

Back to the clinic then.  This time to be treated by the driver of the New Zealand Olympic bob sled team; no, not the driver of the minibus, the bloke at the front who steers the metal tube down the ice chute at 70mph.  He beat me up a little in the name of making me better and told me to run the next day if I wanted to.  I wanted to.

But I couldn’t.  Had to walk back from the Heath after a short, slow, run in a lot of pain and a very bad mood.  Had to face the prospect of the rest of March off.  Wondered if I’d even be fit for the end of April.  Realised I was probably being a bit of a drama queen and should get round.  Don’t like missing training though.

My thinking goes like this: the only way to hit my target is to reach or exceed every milestone from here to marathon day.  Which means I’ve now either got to let go of the idea of a sub four hour race, or adopt the belief that I can still do it, even if I have to miss a few speedwork sessions and a long run or two.

My dad once showed me our 70 year-old gardener slowly scything through long grass.  “Watch him”, he said, “he might not go as fast as younger men but he can keep that up all day and will end up doing more than they”.  This advice has stayed with me ever since.  I’ve never actually lived by it of course, but I have always remembered it.

Guess now’s the time to try it; necessity being the mother of doing what you absolutely don’t want to and all that.  Truth is I don’t have much choice.  I was supposed to run for four miles on Saturday, I managed two.  Yesterday was another 19-miler, I managed five.  And that’s on top of  missing two runs mid-week.

But as the wise bob sled driver man said “the point of training is to get you better than you were before, not worse", so there’s no point me pushing through now and being laid up even longer.  Tried that, didn’t work.

As I write I realise just how obvious the solution is and, because I’ve only just realised it, how much I resist it.  Well I guess there’s nothing else to do but rest till I’m ready the build up slowly and see what happens in four weeks.  The countdown has begun.

Talking of which, a few people have said they might come down to watch me run and I thought now would be as good a time as any to say, YES PLEASE.  Can’t tell you how much a lift it would give me to see a friendly face at different points round the course.  It’s supposed to be a great day out too, one of those rare times when gets together.  That should be celebrated in itself.

 

 

What running has taught me – part 5 (24 Mar 09)

Last week I said I wanted to be more like my dog. This week my wish came true. Only it wasn’t that the ladies found me more strokable (I’ll probably never have ears as soft), or even that I managed to take the running in my stride. The opposite in fact, we both developed a limp.

His seems to have been cured by a couple of days not running, mine may need a bit more work. I tried his medicine, skipped two runs and had what amounted to three days off. This helped, I soon missed running and used the morning walks on the sunshine-bathed Heath to get my head around work problems.

Even so, my knee still hurt and I decided to see a physio. Luckily for me the person I was allocated turns out to be an athlete who has represented Jamaica in the long and triple jump in the last three Olympics. Well I say luckily, I think her pain threshold is perhaps a notch or two above mine and I spent most of the half hour trying not to wince too visibly as she pummelled and pounded away.

There were other good and bad points too. Can’t tell you how good it was to hear her say she’d admired me for running a marathon. That’s an Olympian, admiring me. However, she wasn’t so complimentary about my cool down routine and told me, very strictly, that I needed to have a cold bath after the long Sunday run.

Of course before I could experience that joy I had to actually run. Not something I was looking forward to given my last big outings and the whole pain thing. To get round I decided I’d use the heart rate bit of my heart rate monitor and stop being so obsessed with my minute per mile pace.

One of the things that has taken the joy from running, and caused the injury too I bet, has been the constant focus on time. I’ve gone from just wanting to finish to wanting to finish in under 4:30, then under 4 hours and lately it’s even crept to around 3:45. Give me another month and I’d be angling for a place with the elites.

Or not. I decided it would be better all round to download a different schedule, set my maximum heart rate and then run to 76% of it. Whole different story. I don’t have to run up hills as fast as down and can be more sympathetic to fluctuations in my natural rhythm. Which I do have, despite any evidence to the contrary.

I started this yesterday and whilst my knee hurt from the very first step and stayed that way for just about every step thereafter, I did feel a lot less tired and managed to complete the 19 miles, yes 19 miles, in a decent enough time. 3:20 if you’re interested.

 

What running has taught me – part 4 (17 Mar 09)

They call this the Monster Month.  The task is to get more miles on legs and to hit target times.  Which means longish runs on Wednesdays, very long runs on Sundays and fast runs on Tuesday and Thursday.  I like Mondays mornings a lot these days.

The running, not so much.  The big improvements are behind me and the marathon a long way ahead.  I’ve gone from being delighted I could keep going to being resentful I still have to.  Given I’ve got more than 200 miles of running to do between now and the 26th April what I need is a new attitude.

I’ve tried pessimism before, thought I could protect myself from disappointment by keeping myself so permanently.  Doesn’t work of course, a pessimist is no less disappointed when things don’t work out, but an optimist finds the silver lining in all clouds no matter how grey.

However, this approach doesn’t work when it comes to expectations.  Expect something to be easy and you’re profoundly disappointed when it’s not.  Moreover, the disappointment frequently gives way to a voice which moans about things being unfair, or unduly hard or, worse, tells you that you’ve failed somehow.

On the other hand, expect something to be hard and it turns out to be hard, well that’s just right, the natural order of things, the way they’re supposed to be.  In fact, if they’re not hard either you feel great about your prowess or push a bit more until they become so.  Win/win either way.

Before I started this someone told me that running was mostly psychological. This helped me go further the first time and the second time and just about every time since.  My expectation was it would hurt, so I wasn’t surprised when it did, in fact I even started to like that it did.  I flipped from seeing pain as proof things aren’t working to proof they are.

The opposite is also true.  I always expect the smaller Saturday runs to be a piece of cake and then deeply resent being just as tired as on ones twice the length.  Then there’s the paradox of being able to run a half-marathon faster than for the bus.  Compare that with the expectation-free Marley who seems to take all runs in his very graceful stride.

So what gets me through this?  Clearly it will help to expect this period to be tough, to realise I’m at a plateau, to dig in and knuckle down and to try and be more like my dog. 

Dave

 

What running has taught me – part 3 (10 Mar 09)

A lot of personal change is difficult to measure. The problem is one of comparison; it’s hard to say if our approach today is very different to the one six months ago because all we really do is compare it to last week. And because most of us don’t change much in a week the tendency is to think we’re not changing at all.

This is not true with the running. In October I had trouble staying on a treadmill for more than a minute. I kid you not, one minute. My first run wasn't that much better. The manual said to take walking breaks as necessary, I took two, the first a whole seven minutes and half a mile into the run. Last Sunday I ran for three hours.

Progress has been achieved by following the manual. I’ve relished the boundaries it gave and felt reassured by the knowledge if I just stayed within them I’d finish the marathon fine. They’ve pushed to just the right degree, not so hard I want to quit, or so little I get no reward. And crucially they’ve given me a clear record of how far I’ve come.

However, unless accompanied by a regimental personal trainer the problem with all such manuals is they’re subject to interpretation. Which is a problem for someone who’s a bit too competitive with themselves, who always feels they should do a little more and who fails to account for changes in circumstance, as I found to my cost on Sunday.

Recent deadlines have seen me not eating or sleeping enough, which wasn’t ideal preparation for going on a 17 mile run with someone significantly faster than me. I still would have been fine had I told him I was tired and wanted to go slow. Instead I tried to keep up and allowed pride to get in the way when it started to hurt. If that weren’t enough, I cleverly clipped my toenails a little too close the night before too.

Boy did I suffer. The last seven miles were hard, the last two agonising. His schedule had him running 18 miles, I said I'd do the extra mile to keep him company. But for the first time in five months I couldn't keep my promise and stopped as soon as I hit the 17 mile mark. Which actually was the first thing I did right all day.

So what have I learned this week. That the point of boundaries is not to break them. That when it comes to change you can’t know where you are unless you know where you were. That some days it’s okay to go slow because improvement doesn't travel along a smooth trajectory. Oh and to be careful with those clippers.

What running has taught me – part 2 (2 Mar 09)

Seems to me there are two kinds of obstacles in life: the ones you're supposed to be steered by and the ones you're supposed to push on through.  Running hasn't taught me the Zen-like trick of knowing which is which, but I have learned there are a lot more overcomeable obstacles than I thought.

Now it's not often I quote Will Smith, but in this speech http://tinyurl.com/5bqs32 he says the key to life is running and reading.  Reading, well that's obvious right?  Running perhaps not so.  Yogi Smith says that learning to run means learning to defeat the person in your head who tells you to quit.  Ignore him and success awaits.

I reckon he's got a point.  There have been moments on just about every run I've done where I've thought "Cor, I wouldn't mind stopping right now".  The satisfaction I get from running, the sense of achievement, and yes, even the joy, comes from carrying on.

I love running downhill, but only after I've run uphill first.  It's the getting over the hill that's pleasurable, keeping going when my legs are heavy and breath is short, doing long distances with aching knees and sore feet, these are the places I now find pleasure because I've discovered I can do a lot more than I thought.

And this is the transferable skill.  For those of us trying to do great things, whether that's raising kids right, getting through an economic crisis or building the best damn debating site in the universe, it's inevitable we'll face times when we think we can't make it and when we doubt ourselves and our abilities.  Running gives me a set of experiences with which to counter those doubts.

 

What running has taught me – part 1 (23 Feb 09)

Patience is not one of my more prominent qualities.  In fact, the very act of pacing myself has always been something of an intangible concept.  I understand the idea okay, it’s implementing it I have the problem with.

Running is different though.  If you launch off too fast you’ll exhaust yourself; that’s why people hit the wall.  So when I ran my first ever race yesterday, a half-marathon in , I knew pacing was key.  The problem is, this meant starting slowly and being overtaken by just about every single bloody other person in the race, including, gallingly, four men in full ostrich costume.

Fortunately, I  restrained my competitive instincts and stuck to the plan.  The shame of being overtaken was soon replaced by the joy of overtaking others.  I ran fast up the final two hills and finished with a burst of speed that had me signing the Chariots of Fire tune in my head, at least I hope it was in my head.  Anyway, I had a target time of under two hours and in the end I ran the 13.1 miles in 1:53:55.

So here’s my point.  Modern culture is so youth obsessed there’s a tendency to feel that if we haven’t had great success by 30 we’ll never make it.  Or that even if we’ve experienced success early on, by the time we hit our 40s our best days are behind us.

Running has taught me that’s rubbish.  That we sometimes feel as though we’re falling behind when in reality we’re just saving ourselves for later.  That we need to find our own pace and ignore other people going faster or more slowly.  And primarily, that it’s not important how you start, it’s important how you finish.