These are tricky times in the two week tapering period up
to the Paris Marathon on 12th April.
In every spare moment my mind is replaying the same thoughts of the
split times I am aiming for at 13 miles, 20 miles and then every mile from
there to the end. As if I’m not
completely knackered from that, the significance of every niggle I feel balloons
exponentially to a proportion where in my mind it becomes a portent of
doom. With this going on, it is just as
well that, unlike my preparation for last year’s London Marathon, I have not
abstained from alcohol this time! In the
weekend that marked the beginning of the tapering period I certainly needed a
beer (well, a few actually!) as I felt the psychological pressures weighing
down! This probably had something to do
with the fact that the weekend fell exactly one year on from when I sustained
an injury two weeks before the London Marathon.
It has certainly been a long old trawl since my training
for Paris started in earnest in December.
Though I may not have covered as many running miles as a number of
others I know of who are training for a marathon in April, I think when you
take account of the amount of stretching, foam rollering, pilates, and squats
I’ve completed, I am up there with the rest in terms of effort!
My Paris mission has been in mind for almost a year,
having gained my entry in the aftermath of my London Marathon experience. Looking back, I’m not at all convinced
that back then I believed I would have
it in me to run another marathon, particularly when I was forced to withdraw
from the Edinburgh Marathon I was due to have run 6 weeks after London – at
that point I wasn’t even able to run 2 miles (I did try!), let alone 26.2
miles!
However, over the 5 weeks leading up to the current tapering
period, while I have had the gremlins persistently whispering their doubts, I
have again and again proved to myself (to my genuine surprise) that in most
respects I am in the best shape of my life to run a marathon. This 5 week period started with the Hampton
Court Half Marathon, which I mentioned in last month’s post, where I had the
pleasure of running alongside club mate Frankie…
However, the most significant run for me was in the solo
training session I did a week later. My
intention was to run a conservatively paced 20 miles with the key aim of
sustaining a pace of about 9m10s per mile consistently throughout. I was genuinely cross with myself over the first
five or six miles of the run because I found myself running significantly
faster than intended but just could not get my legs to cooperate and slow
down. I believed I was messing up the
run and had every expectation that I’d hit the wall at mile 16 and slow down
significantly. However, by mile 10 I
decided I just had to continue to go with the flow and it was with real
amazement that I found myself only slowing marginally in the latter stages, to
the extent that I reduced my personal best time for 20 miles by over eight
minutes!
Two weeks later at the 20 mile Kingston Breakfast Run,
having had a niggle over the previous week that had meant I’d avoided running
for six days, I again had in mind to run at a steady, slower pace. However, once more I found myself much
stronger than I had believed possible and was even able to comfortably increase
my pace over the last two miles and knock a further two minutes off my 20 mile
PB!
To complete the five week peak of my training, in the two
weeks following Kingston, I ran a couple more half marathons (Salomon Trail
Richmond HM and Hampton Court Palace HM).
In each I achieved a time that compared favourably with any half
marathon I’d run over the previous 12 months.
Taking into account that for the first of these I also ran four miles
immediately before starting the race, I feel the improvement in my performance
has been sustained.
As things stand I have just a couple of persistent
niggles, in particular one that has troubled me for the last 2 or 3 months in
my left shin/calf/achilles area.
Nevertheless, in comparative terms I feel better than I can remember being
at any time over the last two years!
For reference, my theory about the apparently sudden
improvement in my 20 mile time is that this is significantly due to the amount
of squats I’ve been doing! This arose
from seeing a Facebook post from a Bearcat Running Club friend referring to the
“squat challenge”. The challenge set out
a 30 day programme building up from doing 50 squats on day one to 250 squats on
the last day. By the time of the first
of my 20 mile runs, I think I’d reached the stage of doing 150 squats in one
session and I am sure that the added strength from doing the programme has been
a significant factor in my improved 20 mile time. Since then I’ve completed the programme (in a
bit more than 30 days!) and hope the improvement will be sustained. Apart from the squat challenge, I am doing
loads more stretching exercises than I did in my two previous marathon training
campaigns and I have had the occasional visit to the chiropractic (after a more
intense programme I had last summer to address the legacy of my London Marathon
injury). Another change in this year’s
marathon training is that I am a much more regular participant at Parkrun. This has increased the proportion of running
I do at a shorter distance but faster pace.
Back home after the Hampton Court Palace event I had a
significant déjà vu moment. Having endured
a post long run cold bath (another regular feature of my training regime!) for
15 minutes, I readied myself to get up and found myself recalling in detail the
equivalent moment from almost a year to the day earlier, when, as I had stood
up, I had found that I could not put any weight on my right leg! I managed the manoeuvre this time with a fair
amount of caution and a massive sigh of relief!
As well as my training, my fundraising for Kaira
Konko Scout Active Support is now heading towards a conclusion and
I am thrilled to say that, in the course of drafting this post, the total
raised has overtaken my original target of £500! I am very grateful for the generous
contributions that have brought this about and any amount by which I can raise
the bar further would be hugely appreciated. A reminder that I covered more about the work
supported by this charity in my earlier posts, particularly “Jeux Sans
Frontieres” and “Certains laiment chaud “Some like it hot)”:
I
also had a proud moment when my daughter Carmella posted this message on
Facebook:
This time next
week, my Dad will have completed the Paris marathon! This year, he is
fundraising for a cause very close to my heart; Kaira Konko Scout Active
Support. All money raised from his marathon sponsorship will go towards the
construction of a borehole at Soma Lower Basic School, The Gambia. This
construction will enable the Mothers Club to establish and maintain a school
orchard, which will have long lasting impact for the school, its children and
the local community. The school
orchard project, once complete, will provide a sustainable income for the
school, food supplements for school meals, as well as a space for the children
to learn and a place where they can make their own contribution to the
development of their school. Access to
water is the one constraint, currently holding back this all important
community project; a wall has been built to protect the land, the agricultural
team have made plans for the vast area, and over 100 mothers are ready to get
started. Please support my wonderful Dad!
Donations can be made through my fundraising
site:
I hope that as I approach the Paris finish line I will have the same look of focus and determination as I seem to have had when I reached the end of my autumn challenge. I am looking forward to the thought of drafting my final installment of this series of Run Reece Run on the journey back from Paris. I hope very much I will be proudly wearing a Paris Marathon medal!
With thanks and best wishes,
John
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