Hills

That was hard.

The one problem with knowing that Berlin is almost perfectly flat is that I haven't had much incentive to do any hill training. None of my runs are entirely pancake like, but I don't do anything that could be described as more challenging than gently undulating.

I knew when I entered the 30k race I did today that it would be far hillier than my normal routes, and that I'd struggle, so I went into it with a very modest aim (to break 4 hours), and with no illusions about the number of walk breaks I'd need to take. But still, it was hard.

The rain during the week didn't help. The route was almost entirely off road, and paths that might simply have been a bit tricky before, downhill with stones and roots, turned into muddy, slippy bogs which I wasn't going to attempt to run for fear of breaking my ankle again. And the uphills, well they were never going to be easy, but I'm sure the rain didn't help.

I thought I'd made an OK, solid start and was shocked when I got to the first water station and it said 5k (at 50 minutes), then even worse at the second which said 7.5k at about 1 hour 20. Then bizarrely I spent half an hour or so walking up the biggest hill in Derbyshire (or that's what it felt like), got lost and went round in circles, and got to the third water station dot on 2 hours and it said 16km. I suspect that the first two were wrong - but I'd been seriously considering giving the whole thing up as a bad job when I thought I'd only covered 7.5k in 1 hour 20.

The problem with the second half or so of the race was that the field was fairly small and spread out and (aside from the problems with navigating - I've never done a race where you get given a map and an emergency phone number before!) it was hard to find someone to race against which is what normally keeps me going in races. Picking someone near me and trying to stick with them or beat them to the finish. This time everyone was just too spread out. There was little sign of the person in front, and the person behind was running slowly enough that I could take regular walk breaks without being overtaken.

It wasnt my best run ever. It wasn't fast, and it wasn't all running. But I beat my 4 hour goal coming in at around 3:45 (timings approximate - I didn't start my watch on the start and only remembered a minute or so in, then I managed to take my watch off, put it in my bag and nudge the reset button on the way to the shower!). It's another 18.6 miles under the belt, and I now only have one long run before Berlin!

And after that, I must do some hill training.

Stats

Just noticed I've run exactly 800 miles this year as of today! It's taken me 5 days, 4 hours and 40 minutes and 35 seconds(not all at once!).

Wow!

I can do this!

Let's hear a woo, swiftly followed by a hoo!!!

You may have noticed that my mood rises and falls with the fate of my long runs. When my long run goes badly I feel like I may as well withdraw from Berlin now, and when it goes well I'm on the top of the world.

Well, today it went well.

My knee and hip have improved a lot with the new running shoes. My old ones are still OK, but not for long distance stuff. They did me really well in managing a 47 minute 10k and two half marathons, but above that distance they just don't have enough cushioning. But the new ones, yes, my knee and my hip like them.

So I was feeling a bit more confident, other than one fact. This week I was meant to be attempting 20 miles. The furthest I've managed before is 17.2 miles last week (it was meant to be 18, but I miscalculated the route slightly). And it was painfully slow after 8 miles. 20 is a big jump from that, particularly to do the sort of 20 that gives me confidence rather than knocking it. The last thing I wanted to do was to run 8 miles again and walk 12 instead of 9.

A new route was called for. And this is where I started to get scared. I like running along the canal because it's pretty flat. As Berlin isn't a hilly race I reckon I can get away without too many hills in training (although next weekend's 30k race is reputedly very hilly). My normal route does have hills, but for a bit of a confidence boost I wanted to try something easier.

My first thought was to do what I normally do, which is run half the distance out, turn round, and run back. There is one fatal flaw in that plan, which is what is to stop me turning round after 9 miles, or 8 instead of 10 if I just "don't feel like it". The race appealed to me because it gave me the incentive to carry on to the finish, and I wanted a route that would make me do the same.

So I took a deep breath and measured 20 miles up the canal. I got very scared at this point. 20 miles is, to state the bleeding obvious, a long way. As I kept on clicking my way up the canal on the internet route measurer thingy I started to realise just how far. The Gods smiled on me, and there was a town (with a station!) at the 20 mile mark. The problem is, that town is Keighley, and anyone with a passing knowledge of West Yorkshire will realise that it's not exactly on the doorstep of Leeds City Centre. Obviously not, it's 20 miles away. But when you realise it will take you over 20 minutes to get there BY TRAIN and you're thinking about running back, you start to wonder what sort of insanity has taken hold.

Anyway, I decided to take a deep breath and just do it. Apart from some incredulous comments from friends (you're doing WHAT?), it seemed like a vaguely decent plan. Flat all the way, other than a couple of short downhills at locks. Traffic free, off road, a more forgiving surface. It just involved running from Keighley to Leeds.

It also involved sitting looking like an idiot on the train dressed in my running gear as I got to the start of the route...

Luckily the train was the Leeds-Settle-Carlisle train so there were lots of active looking people on it with their mountain bikes and hiking boots, and plenty of Camelbaks on show. But still, I was sitting there in shorts, with my knee strapped up, looking scared.

The scariest moment was when I got off the train, looked at the map (it was about a mile from the station to the canal itself) and set off. That's the moment when I really wondered what I was doing, and whether it was remotely sane. After that it was surprisingly fine.

I had a gel/walk break strategy and stuck to it perfectly. I had 2 gels on me, and planned to have one at about 7 miles and one at about 14, taking a 2 minute walk break to get them out of the Camelbak and get them down. I took Lucozade sport from the Camelbak hose every 20 minutes or so, which broke the run down into more manageable chunks. Apart from a short unscheduled Paula stop in some bushes at about 9 miles, I just ran, at a nice steady pace, and didn't have any drama.

The only point where I started to struggle was at about 17 or 18 miles. I started feeling really thirsty. I'm not sure whether it was the liquid or the salts or carbs in the drink I was craving, but I felt like I needed something every 4 minutes or so at this stage. My legs weren't actually that bad, but I felt almost too thirsty to carry on running until I stopped, had a few sips and then started again. I managed the last 2 or 3 miles doing a run/walk strategy, but unlike last week it was far more run than walk, and the fact that the last stretch was down a regular route for me helped me to set landmark targets to run to.

I got back to the car, which I'd parked between the canal and the station, and while I was tired I think that on marathon day I could have carried on. If there was a medal (and free beer!) waiting for me at the finish I could have done those extra 6 miles. They might have been run/walk miles, but I'd have been able to do them. Not to mention that the night before the marathon I won't have been to watch a rugby match, slightly tipsy, then decided at 10.30pm to go to a late opening pub, walked a couple of miles in silly shoes, drunk a couple more glasses of wine and got in and watched tv until after 1am, so I should have more energy.

Overall I averaged almost spot on 10 minute miles, taking 3 hours 18 to cover 19.75 miles (which is close enough to 20 for me). The pace felt pretty comfortable throughout, so if I can run a minute per mile faster on race day (which seems to be what they recommend - that your long runs are a minute per mile or so slower than race pace), I should be in the ballpark for that 4 hour finish. Of course, it all depends on those last 6 miles, but at least now I'm confident that I can at least get to the start line to even attempt them.

Holy Crap

45 days. That number goes down every time I look at it. It's starting to get into scary territory.

The good news though is that I seem to have made progress on the knee/hip front, and ran 8 miles today in the new shoes without any real problems, or any pain during the day.

This is a good thing, and hopefully it will let me kick on for another long run at the weekend.

"The Secret of Endurance is Not Getting Injured"

And this is my theme for possibly the next six or seven weeks. My hip and knee are still playing up a bit, and I'm starting to reconsider my goals. OK, so I'm theoretically capable of running a 4 hour marathon, but it's my first so even getting round will be an achievement, so why not focus on that?

So this week, I've given myself some slack. I'm not going to call it cheating, or being lazy, although the increasingly dark mornings aren't helping my motivation. No, I'll call it trying to nurse myself through this injury without falling too far off schedule. So I cut one of my midweek 5 milers from my schedule, and I switched my long run to Saturday when I was coming off 2 days rest, with the intention of seeing how I feel before doing my pace run. At the moment I'd rather focus on distance than pace.

So today was intended to be 18 miles. I had a route in mind (the one I attempted last week) but hadn't measured it. I knew it would be between 17 and 18, and that would do me. I started off OK again, and got to 8 miles again. But then my hip started niggling. It wasn't the horrible pain of last week, but it was niggly. I decided to switch to a run walk plan to make sure I got round the route, no matter how slowly.

Just as I started my next run interval after the first break I tripped on something and went flying to the floor. That also put me off my stride a bit, as I was covered in dirt with grazes on my hands and legs. Plus my boobs hurt, having taken some of the impact (I didn't realise they actually stuck out!) So there was maybe more walking than I'd intended, but I kept going, and I made sure I never walked for too long without at least a short run interval.

In the end I made it home and had covered 17.2 miles in just under 3:15. That's not great, but equally, it's a start for rebuilding my confidence that I can get past the 8 mile mark without giving up and going home. I think I've decided to modify the schedule for the next few weeks. My medium long runs have a maximum of 8 miles, and bearing in mind that's precisely the point where pain strikes I want to try to increase those runs just a little to see whether I can push the pain point back a little. So I'll be trying for 8 - 10 miles, and I'm considering focussing on distance rather than pace tomorrow, because that's more important to me now.

I've also bought myself some new (different) shoes with a bit more cushioning, so I'll see whether those make any difference to the pain.