Lost and Found

Viewed purely from the perspective of sticking to the original plan, today’s run was something of a disaster. My idea was to join the Millennium Way footpath at the point next to Kenilworth Castle I had left it two weeks ago, and then follow it northwards towards Meriden. I didn’t have a fixed turn point in mind as I didn’t know exactly how far that would be, but once I reached what felt like the right place to turn, I would retrace my steps back to the start.

The immediacy with which I managed to go wrong was actually quite impressive. I started my run in the middle of Abbey Fields, made my way over to the exit closest to the Castle, crossed the road, passed the castle’s car park and then turned onto the wrong footpath. And I knew it was the wrong footpath, because there wasn’t a black and white Millennium Way footpath arrow to be found. Yet I carried on, partly because I didn’t want to turn around and try to find the right path, and partly because this was a footpath I hadn’t explored before. And maybe this footpath would join up with the Millennium Way at some point?

The further I progressed down the footpath, the less likely that felt. I didn’t give too much thought about which direction I was going in, but I knew it wasn’t north as if I was heading north I should have been able to see various small villages along the way. Instead, other than the occasional farm building and the odd distant road, there was very little other than nature to see.

It was a nice environment to run in, but a doubt started to grow in the back of my mind – the further I continued, the harder it would be to find my way back. Retracing your steps on a named footpath like the Millennium Way is pretty easy, but on unnamed footpaths, if you see more than one arrow it can be all too easy to pick the wrong one. I was trying to make mental notes of the turns and the minor landmarks I encountered, but when you approach something from the opposite direction, that picture in your mind will look completely different to the one in front of your eyes.

Ultimately I didn’t need to worry about it. At 7km I arrived at somewhere I thought I recognised, which was confirmed a few hundred metres when I reached the junction I was expecting to see. At this point I took what might sound like an unnecessary risk – there are footpaths in four different directions, three of which I knew, so of course I took the one I didn’t know. But actually it wasn’t much of a risk at all, because having studied that area on a map quite a lot recently, I was pretty confident that footpath had to lead to Hatton, and again, 2km later, that was confirmed to be correct.

Arriving at Hatton was an odd feeling. I knew exactly the route I needed to get back to return to my car, but that route seemed like it would be pretty long. It would also be mostly uphill once I got off the canal towpath, and I knew that not only was the direct route home much shorter, it was also mostly downhill. Going home was never an option – I needed to get my car, but even though I knew I was fit enough to get back to the car without getting into difficulty, I still had to have a few words with myself to keep up my morale.

The fact that I ended up on the route I’d taken two weeks ago was a bit of a disappointment from an exploration perspective, but it did allow me to switch my mind off from navigating and solely towards running. This was particularly useful when I reached some of the more technical sections of the route, where I certainly felt more confident due to the volume of off-road running I’ve been doing recently. Sadly there were no Strava segments on that stretch for a direct comparison, but my average pace was significantly faster than two weeks ago, despite being a few kilometres further. In fact, it was faster than I managed on any run longer than a Half Marathon across the entirety of 2020, which given the number of gates and stiles I encountered is another great indicator of the progress I’ve made in recent months.

So today was certainly not a disaster. I might have felt differently had I travelled a long way to try today’s planned route, but Kenilworth is only 9 miles away, most of which is a 70mph A road. I’ll be back there soon enough and be able to try again. And as a nice bonus, it’s given me a few other options for smaller loops should the occasion arise.

To Carbon Plate Or Not To Carbon Plate?

The 5k Handicap Race is a staple event for many running clubs. I’ve taken part in three, really enjoyed each one, and knew each time that I had no chance of winning. For those unfamiliar with the format, is runner is given a predicted 5k time, and then the start times are calculated by working back from the same finish time, meaning that the slowest runner starts first and the fastest runner starts last. In theory, every runner should finish almost simultaneously, but in practice it rarely works like that. Some will miss their target time, others will improve, and this is where the race is biased against faster runners.

Consider for example a runner with a predicted 5k time of 40 minutes. If they make a 5% improvement, that equates to finishing 2 minutes ahead of schedule. A runner with a predicted time of 20 minutes might also make a 5% improvement, but that only equates to finishing 1 minute ahead of schedule. To match the 2 minute improvement of the 40 minute runner, the 20 minute runner needs to find a 10% improvement. Therefore even if the faster runner makes the biggest improvement in percentage terms, they may not be the first runner across the line and therefore actually win the race.

I mention this for my own benefit as much as anything, because for the past three or four 5k Time Trials I’ve done, I’ve found myself hoping that I’ll suddenly knock a huge chunk of time off my previous effort and suddenly get back down under 20 minutes. Yet the faster my 5k times get, the harder it will be to knock a significant chunk of time off my previous best, so it’s not a realistic expectation. Yesterday I managed to find a 1.5% improvement on my time from early March, but that only equated to 19 seconds. Another 1.5% improvement the next time I attempt a 5k would get me back under 20 for the first time since 2016, but given that my fastest 5k split is 18:55, I need to improve by about 7% to beat my 5k PB this Summer.

Is that a realistic target? It’s a big amount to find purely through training, albeit I’m planning to devote a lot more of my week to speed work than I am currently doing once I get into my next training block. And then of course there is the prospect of a return to racing. My fastest 5k split was during a 10k race in Hyde Park, where as yesterday I seemed to be the only runner at Warwick Racecourse. The competitive juices normally lead to faster times, whilst yesterday in particular I felt like I could have saved at least a few seconds with a bit of shelter from the wind that other runners can provide.

Then of course we come to the elephant in the room, carbon plate running shoes. With some shoes featuring a carbon plate claiming to boost performance by 4-5%, just switching shoes could get me a long way towards a new 5k PB. But do I want that? After all, I didn’t have a carbon plate in my shoe for any of my current PB’s, so it wouldn’t be a fair comparison at all.

The complication in all of this is that my next training block will be building towards ‘Racetober’, and neither of the race shoes I currently own will get me through until then. One of my pairs, the Asics Dynamis, are pretty worn already, and given how many miles I’m currently doing each week and how many miles I got out of an identical pair of Dynamis’, they’ll likely be in pieces by October. I do also have a pair of New Balance Zante shoes, but I hate wearing them. At anything under maximum effort they make my feet cramp (a sensation I’ve never experienced in any other pair of running shoes), so although they will most likely still be in good condition by October, punishing myself by wearing them seems unnecessary.

So, a new pair of race shoes will be needed at some stage before October, and whilst a carbon plate does increase the cost of the shoes, the alternative race shoes aren’t exactly cheap. Therefore spending a bit more for something which potentially will be noticeably faster seems worthwhile. But not just yet. Firstly, I’ve never tried on any shoe with a carbon plate, and definitely want to try before I potentially buy because almost every review I’ve seen has mentioned that they do feel different. Secondly, I want them to be almost new when we get to ‘Racetober’, so it seems like a waste to buy them now and then barely use them for 5 months. Thirdly, and most importantly, I want to see where I can get to with just training and racing to aid me first. A 7% improvement is a lot, but on the other hand, I know I have it in me because I’ve done those times before. I can get back there again. Maybe this Summer, maybe not, but I certainly want to give it my best shot before calling on technology to help me out.

Time To Rethink Rest Days?

If there is one piece of advice I’d give to any new or aspiring runner, it would be don’t place limitations on yourself based on assumptions. For a while, this prevented me from attempting a Marathon. I assumed that it was a certainty that at some stage during a Marathon, I would hit the wall and it would be agony making my way to the finish. Eventually I plucked up enough courage to sign up, entered the race still expecting to hit the wall and yet never did. I have done a couple of times since, but on that day the biggest issues I had were blisters and chafing, problems I’ve learnt how to deal with over subsequent Marathons.

Rather than place limitations on yourself based on assumptions, go out and test yourself and see how your body reacts. Sensibly of course – if you’ve only ever run a 5k, it’s probably a bad idea to set out for a Marathon, but you might be able to keep going to 5 miles if you try. Because many times you’ll surprise yourself with how your body responds. Occasionally that will be an unwanted surprise, like how in the space of 9 months in 2019 I went from being able to run a comfortable sub-4 hour Marathon to not being able to finish inside of 5 hours, but more often than not I find myself pleasantly surprised by how my body responds. My 100 day run streak for example. I’d assumed I’d either be constantly tired, my body would break down with an injury or both, yet neither happened and instead I got faster and stronger.

That run streak brings me nicely onto rest days. Running every day was fine when my longest run was around one hour, but once I found myself wanting to go for longer runs at least once per week, it suddenly became an issue. It would take so long to recover from the long run without a rest day that I only really enjoyed the Friday, Saturday and Sunday runs as the others were all slogs, and once I reinstalled at least one rest day into my week, everything was suddenly better. I enjoyed more of my runs, I felt stronger and I was progressing quicker.

I’m not about to rethink whether I should take a rest day, but rather when I take a rest day. On the whole, I’ve tended to take my rest day the day after my longest run of the week. This wasn’t based on anything other than it seemed logical. The closer to your long run, the higher your recovery needs, so therefore the obvious day to take a rest day was the day after the long run.

And I didn’t give it much thought until one week my non-running life forced me to change my schedule. I had the choice of moving my rest day to two days after my long run or taking two rest days after the long run. I chose the former, and was surprised by what I found. Often when taking a rest day the day after a long run, my body stiffened up over the course of the day, and when I came to run the following day, it was very difficult. Whereas when I ran the day after the long run, the first 15 minutes or so were again very difficult, but when I’d warmed up, I started to feel okay. After the run, I felt pretty good and that stiffness which normally set in across the rest day didn’t arrive.

Last week my schedule again forced me to change my training routine, and once again, my experience was surprisingly positive. So much so that this week, I’ve voluntarily changed my schedule, and after 27km off-road yesterday, by the end of today’s run I was finding a decent pace at relatively minimal effort. So is it here for good? It’s a case of wait and see. So far everything has been positive so I’m definitely going to continue, but it’s a very small sample size I’m working with currently. After a different long run, maybe a slightly hillier route or a longer run or a faster effort, will I feel the same?

Better Late Than Never

I ran the Barcelona Marathon a little over 3 years ago, and in the aftermath of that event, I set myself one of my more abstract running goals – being fit enough to feel capable of entering pretty much any running event. If you’re wondering what I was thinking, you can read that blog here.

And then it all went south. I was so eager to achieve this goal that I rushed back to running. Two weeks after writing that blog, I noticed a sharp pain in my knee. It didn’t slow me down or inhibit me whilst running, so I carried on. Two weeks after that, I crossed the line at the Sheffield Half Marathon and could barely walk. My hiatus from running only lasted 3 weeks, but it was a long, long time before I regained full confidence in my body to hold up if I really pushed. Indeed, it’s probably only over the past 12 months that I’ve reached that point.

Whether I’m ahead of where I was in Spring 2018 in terms of pace is difficult to say as I haven’t been able to race, but I know that I’m miles ahead in terms of my stamina. To the extent where I feel like I’ve probably reached the goal I set for myself to be fit enough to take on virtually any event.

That word virtually is significant. I’m not ready to take on a 100 mile race, even if I wanted to. That’s more than 3 times longer than I’ve ever run, though I was due to enter a 52 mile event this Summer and certainly wouldn’t be phased by entering another event of that type of length provided I had enough time to prepare.

When it comes to slightly shorter events, I’d be confident of comfortably finishing most events with only a very short window to prepare. One week would probably be the minimum amount of time I’d need to prepare for a road Marathon, albeit I’d need a longer training block if I really wanted to chase a fast time.

So having reached that level, what next? Well, as tempting as it is, I won’t be racing every week, even when we reach a point where there are events every week. There will be times when I want to explore a route not covered in any event, and there will be times when I prioritise preparation for a future event over participation in an event going on that weekend. And of course, there will be weekends when I’m doing other things. But it’s nice to know that if I see an event which looks fun, fits into my schedule and offers decent value for money, then I can register without an hesitation about whether I’m up to the challenge that the event will present.

For now, it’s just a case of sustaining my fitness levels as a minimum, and look for areas where I can still improve. And the great thing about reaching that level is that the hesitation I’ve described about events can also apply to training runs. Today for example, my Mum asked how long I would be. I said I didn’t know, because it was a route I had never done before and as it was almost exclusively off-road, it was difficult to check exactly how far that would be. In reality there was a limit to how far I could have run because I was only carrying enough drink and energy gels to last about 3 hours, but I was confident that if the route did take me 3 hours, my body would be up to the task. In the end the route was a lot shorter than I expected, but that only gave me the opportunity to explore another route before eventually finishing my run.

The Snyder Cut: Worth Watching?

Though my occasional series of film reviews is titled ‘Worth Watching?’, in the case of Zack Snyder’s Justice League, aka the Snyder Cut, the question could easily be changed to ‘Worth making?’ or even ‘Worth releasing?’ For those not familiar with how we reached this point, it’s worth a reminder that the 2017 film Justice League was released with Zack Snyder listed as director, though it was commonly known that Joss Whedon had been brought in to film substantial reshoots and oversee post-production. The film wasn’t well received, with a common complaint being the clash of tones between Snyder’s parts of the film and those shot by Whedon, and a campaign grew and grew online for the ‘true’ version of the film to be released, one which was a pure reflection of Snyder’s vision for the film. An additional $70 million later, and that’s what we have with Zack Snyder’s Justice League.

Or is it? It certainly seems like the version of the film that Snyder wants the world to see, but it is certainly not the version that would have been released in 2017 had Snyder remained on the project through to it’s release. For a start, it is 4 hours long, and there’s not even a 1% chance that Warner Bros would have approved such a long run time. Also, this feels very much a version which benefits from the hindsight of the reaction to the original version of the film.

Of course, those who were calling for the Snyder Cut to be released won’t care about this. All they will care about is whether the film met their expectations, and judging by the response I’ve seen online, the answer generally seems to be that it does. I’m not sure whether it met mine though.

Firstly, the film is too long. Way too long. This film should have been at least 90 minutes shorter, and when you’ve already watched the original version of the film and know pretty much exactly where the plot is going, it drags massively for huge sections of the film. It really does feel like in order to justify the release of this version, every available scene has been included and every scene is included in it’s longest form. As much as anything else, this version serves as a reminder of the value of editing. Removing the fat whilst retaining every essential aspect of the plot is a fine art, and whilst the original version arguably cut too much of the plot, this version retains all of the fat.

Which is a bit of a shame, because a lot of what is put back in really enhances the film. Cyborg in particular really benefits from actually having a character and having a role within the team, whilst a lot of the plot points which felt inexplicable in the original version are now much easier to comprehend. The action is better and the film looks a lot better too, though the score in both versions compares poorly to both Man of Steel and Batman v Superman.

So is it worth watching? That’s a question that can sometimes be a largely redundant question with a big franchise film, and definitely applies here. Those who want to watch almost certainly already have, and if you haven’t made up your mind, the 4 hour run time probably will. There’s enough good here to make a decent film out of it, but even then, would it be different enough to the original version to recommend watching? A question for another day perhaps, because it really feels like the saga of the Snyder Cut still has some twists and turns left.

The Next Block

When planning any training block, it usually helps to know the event or run that lies at the end of that block. That finale can help with motivation during the more difficult sessions, but it can also help answer important questions in terms of what to prioritise. However, following the cancellation of Race to the Tower in June, I head into my next training block later this week with nothing fixed to replace it. So, in order to be able to plan my training block, I have at least managed to make a commitment. Right now, I’m about 80% certain that I’ll run the entire Stratford Canal on the weekend originally put aside for Race to the Tower. If something else comes up which seems like a more exciting challenge, I might change my plans, but only if the alternative is equal to or less than the difficulty of running the Stratford Canal. Switching up to something harder would feel like an unnecessary risk to take after so much good work over the past year.

With most training blocks, I try to keep things simple and focus on just one thing that I’d like to improve. Nine times out of ten, that will either be endurance or speed, but this block is the exception. I’ve essentially been working on my endurance for almost the entirety of the past year, and given my next block is only eight weeks long, that’s not really enough time to make significant improvements in that area. And working specifically on my endurance feels slightly unnecessary at this point, given it is already at a pretty decent level and that my next run, whatever it ends up being, will be shorter and easier than the Five Hour Timed Run Challenge I have just completed. Maintaining my endurance is absolutely fine, I don’t need to see any improvement.

Focussing on speed this training block was a little more tempting. Eight weeks is plenty of time to work on your speed, and given I’ve only been doing one speed session per week so far this year, there is certainly plenty of scope for improvement. However, I already have a long training block over the Summer planned which will be dedicated to speed work ahead of ‘Racetober’, and my worry is that if I bring that forward, the speed sessions might be feeling a little tedious and I might be lacking in the necessary motivation right when I need it most.

So, my focus for this block is to improve my trail running technique, which I intend to do through running as many of my runs off-road as possible. I have a week off work in May which should provide an opportunity to test myself on some more technical trails, whilst my long runs offer the opportunity for plenty of off-road miles, if not necessarily the most technically demanding miles. I’m also planning to switch some of my intervals and hill efforts to off-road alternatives.

In terms of what I’m hoping to achieve from the block, the physical demands of trail running mean that I may be able to improve my speed and/or endurance even without focussing on it. Trail running is also when I have my most fun, and in between training blocks where progress can be defined through numbers, it should make for a pleasant change to de-emphasise the data for a while.

It’s a little more than just an eight week jolly. I intend to push myself hard, and I really want to improve my trail running technique. The timing isn’t perfect in that regard, considering that I don’t currently have any trail running events scheduled and probably won’t be doing any until 2022 (at least not an event that would be both physically and technically demanding), but if I can learn some good habits now, relearning them at a later date shouldn’t be too difficult.

The Five Hour Timed Run Challenge

Heading into the Five Hour Timed Run Challenge, I felt surprisingly relaxed compared to how I normally feel going into a Marathon. With any Marathon, there is always a roll of the dice in regards to your pacing. Aiming for a faster pace might get you to the end faster, but only if you can sustain it. If you blow up, it won’t only hurt, it might actually take you longer to get to the finish than a more conservative pace would have done. But with this challenge, pacing would determine how far I was able to run but fast or slow, five hours is five hours. I knew exactly when my challenge would finish, and there was a reassurance in that.

My main dilemma going into the run was whether to focus on the challenge that lay ahead or just to think of it as a long run. An awareness of the scale of the challenge would hopefully prevent me from doing something stupid early on, but could feel overwhelming too. If I felt tired after two hours and knew that I still had three hours to go, that could have been really demoralising.

This dilemma came to the fore when I found myself at the end of the Kenilworth Greenway diversion less than 48 minutes into the run. The safe option would have been to turn back and stick to the path I knew. But my fuelling strategy was to return to my car about 2 hours 20 minutes into the run, so to avoid returning way ahead of schedule I would have had to add an extra loop somewhere. If it was a long run and I hadn’t reached my planned midpoint, I would always plough on, so that’s what I did.

In a way it was an unnecessary risk, albeit a minor one. I didn’t know what lay ahead, but if it got too bad I could always turn back. As it turned out, it was a relatively nice route. The first section was off-road but dry and easy to run on, albeit my pace slowed a bit due to the number of gates I had to negotiate. I then arrived in Berkswell and stuck to the pavements leading towards Meriden (though I didn’t quite reach Meriden due to running out of pavement). It’s certainly worth further exploration in the future, and ultimately I felt like my gamble paid off as it kept my mind engaged without pushing my body too hard at what was still an early stage of the run.

One of the biggest challenges of any long run is the weather and about 90 minutes later, that became my first problem of the run. Whilst the temperature didn’t actually increase much during the run, the first two hours had been overcast with a relatively brisk NE wind, meaning that it felt pretty cool (and indeed, almost perfect for the challenge I was undertaking). But once the sun came out and the wind dropped, it felt a lot warmer. A baselayer had been essential at the start of the run, and for a few minutes I was hoping I could keep it on until I got back to the car, but my next schedule visit to my car was about 50 minutes away and even if I turned immediately, it would take me almost 30 minutes to get back. So, I found a quiet spot, removed the baselayer, tied it around my waist and immediately felt a lot better for it.

Even though my training has gone very well recently, I knew that I wouldn’t be able to run for five hours without feeling fatigued. The only question was how far through the run I could get before it became an issue. The answer was about 3 hours. I’d covered 33km by that point, and whilst my pace hadn’t dropped particularly, it was getting harder and harder. I was still able to maintain a solid pace, and passed the Marathon distance in around 3:52:40, making it unofficially my 6th fastest Marathon without ever really pushing the pace.

Going into the final hour, my biggest challenge was motivation. I could have walked for the whole hour and still set a new PB for longest run. Reaching my target of 50km would require running, albeit at a very relaxed pace, and my stretch target of 55km, which had been on after three hours, was now out of the question. So, I decided to be as sensible as I could, adopting my normal run/walk strategy of walk for ten deep breaths at the start of each kilometre and then running the remainder of the kilometre (albeit my pace was more of a trot than a run at this point). Normally by the time I adopt a run/walk strategy I’m so tired that the 900 metres or so of running each kilometre feels like several miles, but today they seemed to pass by pretty quickly. I probably could have run for almost the entire five hours, but doing so would have only bought me an extra couple of kilometres at most and didn’t really seem worth the stress on my body. Once I’d reached 50km, I viewed that as job done and used the remaining time as a walk cool down. Eventually the clock reached five hours, by which point I had completed 51.16km or 31.79 miles.

As I write this, my body doesn’t feel too bad. I’ve certainly felt a lot worse after Marathons, though whether I feel quite as good tomorrow remains to be seen. Today’s run leaves my very excited to take on my next Marathon. If I can arrive on the start line with a similar level of fitness, I should hopefully be able to run a sensible yet quick Marathon. Today’s run was originally planned as a training session for an Ultra (which might have focused the mind a little more during that final hour) and the fact that 51km hasn’t broken me is certainly a step in the right direction. Weather could be a challenge, particularly for a Summer Ultra, whilst fuelling will definitely be something I need to work on. Today was okay on that front, though I felt like I’d had my fill of energy products by the end meaning that I’d definitely need to look at some alternatives to do anything longer. But those are considerations for a different day, and indeed, a different year. Right now I’m ready to relax and enjoy the remainder of the Easter weekend.