Still Running (weakly). Issue 80

PAST – inspiration – “I tottered in, collapsed on a sofa and burst into tears,” recalled one of the toughest runners ever to pull on the black vest of New Zealand, Peter Snell. This was after his first completion of the Waitarua 22-miler, from the home of Murray Halberg, himself 1960 Olympic 5000 champ on the night Snell won the 800. (Snell also won the 800/1500 double in 1964.)

John Walker literally followed in Snell’s footsteps: “Sunday – 18 to 23 miles, really hard hills around Waitarua (Snell’s course), usually maintaining 6:00 pace; Monday – 10; Tuesday – 11; Wednesday – 18; Thursday – (am) 11, (pm) 7 hard; Friday – 10; Saturday – 15 miles in about 1:21.”

It was this off-season training that allowed him to come fourth in the 1975 World Cross Country Championships whilst still an 800/1500 runner, as we noted last week. Later that season, he would become the first man to break 3:50 for the mile, and the next year follow Snell again in taking the Olympic 1500 crown.

PRESENT – perspiration – As is traditional, GB & NI comfortably topped the medals table at the European XC Championships last weekend, winning 6 golds, 3 silvers and 3 bronze from the 7 races.

Pride of place in my eyes goes to Phoebe Anderson for her wonderful finish to outsprint the Spanish and Finnish favourites in the women’s under-23 race – and for her insight into what lay behind it – “A steady grind over the years.”

And, from a more parochial point of view, it was great to see my Basingstoke and Mid Hants AC clubmate, Maddie Deadman, win a bronze medal as part of our Mixed Relay team.

FUTURE – suggestion – Hard winter work like Walker’s, above, not only enhances our basic endurance, but also expands our ability to cope with speedwork, hill-work and tempo runs, come the spring. If the body is used to such a volume of work, it will take to the faster sessions more easily, recover from them more quickly, and improve between them more readily.

My number one winter ‘speed’ session was 6 times 2 minutes fast, 2 minutes ‘float.’ This was performed in the middle of a long-ish run – 2-3 miles of easy running, then 6 strides at 90% effort, a mile jog, and then the efforts. You can start out jogging instead of ‘floating’, with the fast sections better than 5km pace. If you can replace the jogs with ‘floats’ – half marathon pace, say – this session becomes a wonderful pace-enhancer.

Such a formula was reached after much experimentation (performed so you don’t have to): 1-minute efforts were too short; 3 minutes was too long, and the quality suffered. Again, 4 of these were not enough; 8 and I was wallowing a bit!