Still Running (weakly). Issue 117

PAST – inspiration –“Thermals, chocolate and a sense of humour,” was one ultrarunner’s definition of what it took to survive the longest races.

Sometimes, in these days of ever-increasing sophistication and complication, it is interesting, instructive and even inspiring to reduce – but not dilute – life to its simplicities, its norms, its sine qua nons.  Boiling it down allows us to experience the essence.

The French novelist, Gustave Flaubert (Madame Bovary), considered God’s three greatest creations to be, “The sea, Hamlet, and Mozart's Don Giovanni.”  I would probably say, “Mountains, King Lear, and the Pearl Fishers duet by Bizet (the Bjorling/Merrill interpretation).”  My daughter said, “Human beings, mountains and the love of animals, especially dogs.”  My son said, “Beer, crisps and olives”!

Frank Woolley, a Kent cricketer, born 1887, had the most sublime batting technique, so it was said that, “Woolley will bat for us in heaven, and Mozart make music”!

One round-the-world yachtsman, when asked by a journalist what he had been looking forward to on completing his voyage, said, “A hot shower, a cold beer, and a warm woman.”  Well, he had had many a long, lonely day at sea to come up with that!

Thom Gunn, Anglo-American poet, once pronounced that he could indeed die happy as, “I’ve travelled, I’ve been happily in love for 40 years, and I’ve read ‘The Brothers Karamazov’ by Dostoevsky three times.”  Read his poem, On the Move, whose last lines could well define running: “At worst, one is in motion; and at best,/ Reaching no absolute, in which to rest,/ One is always nearer by not keeping still.”

Those of you who have read my book will know that I had that last line on my wall at college, until my roommate amended it to, “by not keeping S.Till”!

I think I’ve just about made some of that relevant to runners!

PRESENT – perspiration – In my book, I suggest that living healthily is quite simple – sleep seven soundly, invest internally intelligently, move more miles, push, pull, press, live, leave lightly, embrace, enjoy empathy.

Picking our way past the author’s desperate need to force his ideas into the SIMPLE acronym, these six ideas have to do with sleeping well, eating well, doing some cardio, performing some weight-training, living sustainably, and, in the broadest sense of the words, loving thy neighbour.

When lymphoma threatened to diminish my horizons last year, these six principles stood even more starkly as my guides.  And the last – loving thy neighbour – was seemingly sub-consciously promoted by the universe. 

For some reason, I felt the overwhelming urge to be nice to people.  My family and friends will tell you that this is something that does not come naturally to me.  But I would chat to people in the street – only a few of whom ran away.  When driving, I would let other cars out of side-roads.  I would ‘like’ Facebook posts about what people had for breakfast – for goodness’ sake.

Philip Larkin (20th century English poet) wrote in An Arundel Tomb, “What will survive of us is love.”  And in love’s broadest sense – the positive, empathetic feelings we hold for any other person and the incalculable impact we have on our fellow humans every day – that is surely true.

FUTURE – suggestion – In the Clare Elms piece a fortnight ago (she’s since broken the W60 1500 world record again), I touched on the comparatively simple training regime that has brought her numerous world records in recent years.

Speedwork Intervals, Maintaining Pace, Long Endurance (there he goes again!  He can’t help himself) – these were her priorities every week.  (I would alternate speedwork and hills.)  If you can put everything you can into these key sessions, then you too will reap the rewards.

The long runs provide the necessary endurance to hold the required pace over the target distance, the hills and speed intervals supply the leg strength and raw speed to make that pace feel easier (at least at first), and the maintaining pace (tempo) sessions work directly in the crucial pace zones, moving the athlete from where they are to where they need to be.

To give you an example of a tempo run progression, one of my athletes was determined to take her half marathon personal best from 2:11 (almost exactly 10-minute miles) to under 2 hours (9-minute miles).  Initially, she could just about run a tempo effort at 10-minute miles for 4 miles.

We built up from 3 separate miles at 9:30, to 2 continuous miles at 9s, then 3 separate miles at 8:30, and so on, eventually reaching 4 miles non-stop at 8:30s – indicative, in a training context, of an ability to hold 9s for around the required time!  We were inching her, week by week, towards the required pace.

Those tempo sessions were the most crucial runs of her week, in my opinion, but could not have been successful without the intervals, hills and long runs working on her other gears at the same time.

SIMPLE – but not easy!