Bridging to the Elite

If you only ever watch sport on TV, it is easy to forget that Football is very much the exception rather than the rule. If you compare sports at the most elite level, there are lots of similarities. The leading lights in the sport will be globally known, very rich, be incredibly driven and focused and whilst their physical attributes may vary due to the demands of their sport, in their own way they will all be at the peak of physical fitness. The way these sports are presented on TV is also very similar, in terms of how the pre and post event coverage is structured, the on-screen graphics and commentary style.

Football however is one of the few sports which receives lots of media coverage in the UK below elite level. When Coventry City dropped into League Two a few years ago, it was no more difficult for me to follow than it is now that they are back in the Championship. Whilst there is a clear drop in standards from the Championship to League Two, that drop isn’t huge. Coventry City still averaged more than 9,000 spectators at home games during their season in League Two, and were good enough to beat Premier League Stoke City in the FA Cup.

Cricket is one of the most popular sports in the UK, but it highlights what other sports have to deal with that Football does not. In the Men’s game, the whilst limited overs competitions can attract big crowds, the County Championship is regularly played out in front of sparse crowds, and if you venture beyond the County game to Minor Counties or club Cricket, you might get some coverage in a local newspaper or specialist Cricket press, maybe.

In the Women’s game, the drop-off is even sharper. Today I went to watch the Central Sparks against the South East Stars in the Charlotte Edwards Cup, which is the T20 competition. Most of the players on show featured throughout The Hundred, but whilst those games were broadcast on Sky Sports and the BBC and played in Test match venues in front of thousands of spectators, this was a much more modest affair. Rather than the main Edgbaston stadium, it was played at the Edgbaston Foundation ground, a very pretty but also very small ground. I’m not sure what the official capacity would be as there was space for spectators to bring their own seating if they wished, but there were probably only about 150 people watching today and I’d guess the majority of them were related or friends of the players. Very few people were like me and turned up purely to watch a Cricket match.

In many ways that is a shame, because the standard of the match was very good. There were a couple of excellent catches, the bowling was generally accurate and most of the wickets came as a result of the pressure of the match situation. The South East Stars came away victorious largely thanks to a bit more aggression during the power play and harder running between the wickets, but there were players on both sides who will have realistic ambitions of playing for England. It wasn’t quite up to the standards set during The Hundred, lacking both the imports and the current England international players who start a series against New Zealand on Wednesday, but it really wasn’t that far off.

So why was the crowd so much smaller? Well, for a start, how many people were actually aware this match was on? I almost wasn’t, and if it wasn’t for the fact I followed a few of the Birmingham Phoenix squad on Instagram during The Hundred, I would have probably been in Worcester watching the County Championship today instead. Live coverage, post match reports and highlights were so easy to find for The Hundred, and whilst it would have been possible for me to sit at home and live stream today’s game, you really need to know where to look (I think it was a Facebook Live stream).

How to get the Charlotte Edwards Cup and other domestic Women’s Cricket competitions closer to The Hundred isn’t easy. Putting on a show like that costs a lot of money, and you could certainly see why the ECB or individual teams would be reluctant to take a gamble like that. But there are little things that could be done. The schedule for a start leaves a lot to be desired. Today was the final day of group matches, but the competition actually started back in June, before pausing for about 6 weeks to make room for The Hundred. That doesn’t help when you’re trying to build a narrative around a competition, and surely a better solution would have been to start this competition earlier in June and play it through to it’s conclusion before The Hundred? The Men’s T20 Blast suffered from the same issue this season, and moving forwards there is a lot of room for improvement on this front.

Individual teams could do more too. If you go to Lord’s for a County Championship match, there will be no glitz or glamour, but you will hear an announcer at regular intervals, such as when a new batter comes to the crease or there is a 50 partnership. I expect a tannoy system would probably be quite expense to install, but surely a basic microphone and speaker or even a megaphone would be better than no announcements? I was instead left to try to read some very small names on backs of shirts to work out who was batting and who was bowling.

This might seem a very small and trivial thing within the bigger picture of growing the sport, but it all comes back to the idea of making it as easy to follow for the spectators as possible. Because pretty much every sport is in the same position, fighting for attention, and often in a crowded market place, it is those that focus on the detail who end up succeeding.

Low Iron Man

Taking full control of your diet for the first time feels very liberating. For me, that moment came when I went to University, and I remember the first time I ever ate two ice creams in the same day. When I was at home, I had only been allowed my share of the pack, or at least for the most part, as I was quite good at negotiating for someone else’s share too, but I was definitely only allowed to eat ice cream once per day. But when I got to University and all the ice creams were mine, what was wrong with having ice cream at lunch and tea? Nothing I told myself, and indeed, had it been a one off, that would have been true, but when it becomes a regular thing, on top of plenty of alcohol, plenty of takeaways and limited culinary skills, the weight I gained during that first year was considerable.

As I readjust to living on my own, there are some similarities to that first year of University. Having complete control over what I buy and when I eat/drink it feels liberating, and some of the changes I’ve made have been positive. Whilst living with my parents, I ate pasta on Wednesdays, but I’ve moved that to Saturdays now. That allows me to do a mini carb-load before a Sunday long run (which can be easily incorporated into a full carb-load if I’m doing a race), and by cooking a double portion, I have a good meal pretty much ready to go when I get back from that long run or race.

Yet once again I find myself putting on weight, though the circumstances are slightly different. Firstly, this weight gain started late last year and though it has continued since I moved into my flat, it hasn’t accelerated. Secondly, unlike at University, I needed to put on weight, or more specifically, build my muscle strength to increase my power, which will often result in putting on weight. Though my stamina was probably as high as it has ever been through this Winter, my top end speed was still way off my peak, but by placing more of an emphasis on interval and other high intensity sessions, I’ve been able to make solid improvements with my speed in recent months.

Though the weight gain itself isn’t a worry, I certainly don’t want to increase much beyond my current weight, and I’d also spotted some worrying habits creeping in, such as snacking more frequently. The harder you train, the more you want to eat after you train, and whilst much of that food has been fairly healthy, there have been days when I’ve felt like I’ve eaten more than I need to. So, I’ve looked back to another period where I was in control of my diet, but managed to simultaneously improve my power and stamina whilst losing and latterly maintaining my weight – the period when I was training for my first Marathon, through to when I ran my second Marathon.

During that period I was drinking a protein shake every day, but then when money became a bit tighter, I decided that was an unnecessary expense. But it seemed to work for me, and with money less of an issue now than it was then, I’ve decided to try it again. I’m not sure whether I will have a shake every day, but certainly after a long run or high intensity session, I’m hoping that by having a shake to refuel soon after the run, I can be a bit more disciplined with my food for the rest of the day.

The one challenge I’m facing now that I’ve never faced before is the news that my iron levels are quite low. Not massively low, and I don’t really suffer from any of the symptoms associated with low iron levels, but low enough to pay attention to and try to remedy through my diet. When I was initially told my iron levels were low, it was a surprise only until I researched which foods are high in iron. As soon as I looked at that list, everything made sense.

I think for much of my life, I’ve considered healthy meals and a healthy diet largely the same thing. If you look at my diet on a meal by meal basis, most of those meals could be termed healthy. But what my diet often lacks is variety. One of the consequences of living on your own is that you find yourself repeating meals to avoid having to throw short-life food out, but there are other ways around that. I now have an ample freezer which largely sits empty, but if I freeze ingredients or even whole meals, I can increase the variety in my diet without wasting food, and perhaps even save myself some time further down the line.

I also need to eat more vegetables. Again, I had convinced myself that my diet was healthy because I normally do eat five fruit and veg per day, but four of those are the same four fruits every day. I don’t eat many vegetables because frankly they are boring, but I know that’s not a good enough reason. Even if it means shoehorning veg into meals they don’t really belong in, if that path leads me to a healthier diet then I need to do that. Yesterday I went against my long held belief that carrots have no place in a spaghetti bolognese because without them, my only veg for the day would have been the tomato in the sauce. Did it improve the taste of the meal? No. But did it greatly increase the cost of the meal? Also no. So, for a bit more variety, it was a worthwhile addition, and if I can do the same with other meals, I hopefully will be able to get my iron levels up to where they should be. And if all else fails, I just eat to tell myself that more iron will make me a better runner and get on with it.

The Winds of Change

Is Warwick Racecourse a fast parkrun course? I ran the course in a parkrun for the 12th time today, and have probably done the course at least as many times on solo runs, but I’m still struggling to answer it. In terms of the constants, it’s certainly on the faster side of things. 90% of the course is on firm, consistent ground, the paths are wide enough that other runners or park users rarely slow you down, there’s only one hill of note which isn’t too difficult and the only turn you need to slow down for is the U-turn around the cone at half way.

However, the constants are only part of the equation, and weather can make a big difference when it comes to running fast. Wind in particular can be a major obstacle, and whilst any course can be windy on a given day, Warwick Racecourse is so open that it seems to be windier than most. Two weeks ago when I finally got back below 20 minutes was a rare day when the winds were light, but today it was a lot more blustery.

The challenge of the wind is that every time you run, the speed and direction of the wind is slightly or significantly different, meaning that you can’t fully prepare for it. It’s not like a hill which you can run multiple times until you know every inch of it. Previous experience can help but you need to be adaptable and make good, quick decisions in terms of your pacing to get the best time. Today I was running into the headwind down the back straight on the out section of the course, which meant also having a headwind for the finishing straight of the back section. My game plan was to work just about hard enough to keep in touch with my out section two weeks ago, knowing that I should be able to make up time coming back along the back straight with a tailwind to aid me.

And as game plans go, this one worked out pretty well. I ran the first 2.5k in almost exactly the same time as two weeks ago, by 4k I was a few seconds ahead and though I had to battle the headwind across the final kilometre, I knew that with enough determination I could overcome that. And I did, improving my time by 5 seconds and moving up from 14th finisher to 10th.

I felt like I’d gone a lot deeper today, so to only improve by 5 seconds initially felt a little disappointing. However, any improvement should be welcomed, especially since the conditions were undoubtedly tougher today. Had the winds been as calm as two weeks ago, that improvement may well have been closer to 10 seconds, perhaps even more.

Going deep with my efforts is part and parcel of racing, and if you’ve followed my blog since I started running, you’ll know my relationship with racing has evolved over time. Initially I raced every event I entered, then I didn’t race any of my events, and now I feel like I’ve reached a nice balance where I can race some of the time, but just enjoy the event on other occasions.

Generally speaking the shorter the distance, the more inclined I’ll be to race. Today I felt pretty ropey immediately after I crossed the line, but a few minutes later I felt fine again and able to support the other volunteers by barcode scanning. Where as if I race a Marathon, or even just run it relatively hard, I know I’ll feel rough for at least the rest of that day and probably a few days afterwards too.

I’m certainly not saying that I’ll never race a Marathon again. If I get myself into PB shape, something I’m really not that far away from right now, the temptation to race will be high, particularly if I’m on a fast course with favourable conditions. But on the whole, I feel like I’d rather settle into an easy pace, enjoy the sights and the atmosphere when I’m doing a Marathon. If I’m doing a 5k or 10k however, there’s less to see, often less of an atmosphere to enjoy (or at least, less time to enjoy the atmosphere for), so I might as well enjoy the competition of racing instead.

All of which brings me onto the conundrum of my next event, the Kenilworth Half Marathon in two weeks time. With Racetober fast approaching, the sensible part of me is saying that I should use it as an easy training run ahead of those challenges. However, it’s been so long since I tried to race a Half Marathon, so racing reasonably hard would certainly give me a better idea of where to set my expectations ahead of the Cov Half in October and the Alton Towers Half in November. And if I don’t race, what will I get out of the event, given that I’ve seen almost all of these roads before, and have run most of them in training very recently?

Whilst I’m certainly leaning towards racing right now, I’ll hold back on making a decision until a few days before the race. Like today, it could be windy, or like the Compton Verney Half, it could be very hot. Ultimately it will come down to the question of which approach will be most beneficial to me going into Racetober. Right now I can’t answer that, but hopefully by the day of the event, the answer should be obvious.

Cross-training part 2

I’ve been living in Kenilworth for almost two months now, and what I’ve been enjoying most about it most is the conveniences I have locally. It takes me 4 minutes to walk to Waitrose, 5 minutes to get to Sainsburys/Argos, and there are stores like Boots, Wilko and Robert Dyas within a stone’s throw of both of those supermarkets. There are several coffee shops and lots of pubs and restaurants within a half a mile of my flat, and the railway station is quite literally on my doorstep. Yet it doesn’t feel like living in a city centre, because, well, it’s not a city. A 10 minute run in almost any direction would lead me to footpaths through fields or woodland, and there are two fairly big parks along with several smaller ones dotted around the town too.

That convenience extends to the leisure facilities too. Last week I swam for the first time since early 2015, and tonight I went to the gym for the first time since 2016 (I did go to a networking event in a gym the following year, but that involved no exercise). Both facilities are managed by Everyone Active, and I like the fact that they offer the same pay as you go option you’d expect at a swimming pool in the gym too. At £6 for the gym session I’d have to look at membership options if I wanted to go regularly, but I’m certainly more likely to consider a membership having had the chance to try the facilities on a pay as you go than I would had that option not existed. Many gyms offer free trials, but I’ve always felt an expectation to sign up for a membership after those sessions, and it was pleasant not having that tonight.

The gym reminded me quite a bit of the gym at Lord’s, which was the last gym I used regularly. Whilst it was fairly small, it had pretty much everything you’d need, or at least everything I’d need. I’ve been in gyms with 20 treadmills and 30 exercise bikes, where as this gym was 2 or 3 of each cardio machine and then one of each weight machine. But then there were never more than a handful of people in the gym at any given time, so that wasn’t an issue, and the current booking situation should in theory help prevent overcrowding and waiting for ages to use the specific piece of equipment you want to use.

I went to the gym to add some variety to my cross-training, though that plan was complicated by the fact that I’m running parkrun tomorrow, and given I won’t be able to attend either of the following two Saturdays, I intend to run flat out tomorrow. That meant I didn’t really trust myself to try any of the weights or weight machines, because I know from previous experience that even with very light weights, it’s all too easy to strain muscles if your technique is poor.

So, I stuck to the cardio instead, but again, I was mindful of the parkrun tomorrow. I didn’t want to expend too much energy, and whilst a gentle pace felt very natural during last week’s swim, on the bike in particular I felt like I was really holding myself back with my pacing. The result was I left the gym still feeling fresh, yet also questioning whether it was worth having a shower when I got home, even with a jog home, because I’d barely broken into a sweat.

Moving forwards, I think there is a place for a gym session in my training schedule, just not this place. I feel like I’d need to work much harder to get something truly worthwhile out of the session, but to do that I’d need to move it further away from the weekend. A midweek slot could work well, and if I want to do cross-training on a Friday, then I can still go for a swim instead. That being said, my cross-training experiments haven’t finished just yet, because there are various classes available at the gym I went to tonight, and some of those look worth investigating too.

Every Inch Covered?

A few years ago I made the decision to stop engaging in any online debates with people I don’t know. It’s something I encourage you all to do, because it can waste so much of your time, and ultimately serves no purpose. Best case scenario (and this scenario is literally one in a million) you manage to change their opinion, but even then, you don’t know that person so how do you benefit from it? What usually happens is that you find yourself increasingly irritated by their views, which is why I try not to engage.

Last weekend though I was watching a video on The Running Channel where one of the presenters was documenting her training for her first Marathon. I might have commented on the video in any case, but there was a prize draw available for those who commented, and given I am always in need of more running kit, the only question was what to write. So when the presenter mentioned that long runs were the least fun runs, that was my cue to explain why they are my favourite runs, especially when you take the opportunity to explore new places and see new sights.

I was expecting nothing more than a like from The Running Channel, so was surprised when someone commented on my post, though why he chose to do that is something I still can’t explain, because it wasn’t really related to my comment at all. Rather than discuss whether he enjoyed long runs or enjoyed exploration, he simply stated that in his opinion an 80 minute run wasn’t a long run. This annoyed me because the fact that runners rarely belittle other runners is something I really cherish about the running community. Yet whilst an 80 minute run might not have been a tall order for him, for many runners it would be a very long run indeed. Because no one starts out running for 80 minutes at a time. That is a duration that you have to build up to, and might even be a landmark run if it coincides with your first time running a certain distance  – my first 10 mile run probably took me about 80 minutes, and that certainly felt like a big deal at the time. So, I felt compelled to pull him up on his comment, for the sake of anyone who may have felt like their own achievements were being belittled, and explained that these things are all relative.

The strange part of it all was that I was talking about an aspect of long runs I hadn’t truly experienced for a while. I had done a couple of long runs in new places, but they had been either during the events where you’re not fully taking in the sites, or a long run the day after my friend’s wedding where I simply retraced my drive the previous day. The last time I truly explored somewhere new on a long run was my first long run in Kenilworth, which have have been 6 weeks previously at the time. I had been planning to do the next stage of the Grand Union Canal Adventure the following day, but noisy neighbours meant I got to sleep late that night and given I had a few other things I needed to get done that Sunday, I decided to stay local and explore whether there had been any progress on the Kenilworth Greenway HS2 diversion. Which, as it turned out, there hadn’t.

The past week has been particularly busy, and faced with the prospect of a two hour round trip for the Grand Union Canal route, I once again decided to stay local, but would not make the same mistake I made last week. There were a few footpaths I wanted to explore, and most of them delivered everything I’d hoped for – good variety, technically challenging in places, a variety of surfaces and gradients and on the whole not too overgrown. They also linked up quite nicely with a few other footpaths I’ve used before, meaning that I now have lots more options should I decide I want to extend or shorten my route if I find myself in that area.

There is more to explore too, though the question now becomes when to do that. There are times when knowing a route well is really beneficial, whether that’s to compare your fitness levels with where your were in previous training blocks, or just knowing how far a route is or how long it will take you. I ended up taking my gel far too early today, because I had no real plan for the rest of the run at the time and the path I ended up taking left me further from home than expected. For today, that was fine, but there are also days when you really want to focus on things like taking your gels at the optimal time.

There’s also a side of me that wants to leave a few places undiscovered. When the opportunity arises to explore further afield I intend to take it, but I still want to have places locally that I can still explore in the future and don’t want to burn through them too quickly. It’s a bit of a bizarre mindset, keen to explore yet consciously holding myself back, but there are times when I will really feel the urge to explore and want at least a few options when I do.

How to Improve The Hundred

For all the romantic narrative that often surrounds sporting competitions, the true test of a competition is whether people are interested enough to watch, and whether they are interested enough to pay to watch. My interest levels in The Hundred were pretty high when the competitions were announced, dipped significantly during the pandemic, but then rose sharply once the Cricket started. Yet I was still surprised by how disappointed I felt to see both Birmingham Phoenix teams fall short during the final two days of the competition, firstly the Women in the Eliminator and then the Men in the Final.

I was, to use a phrase one of my old managers used to love, low hanging fruit. A keen Cricket fan open to the concept of The Hundred, I was also born and grew up in Coventry and currently live in Warwickshire, so making a connection with the Birmingham Phoenix felt quite natural. Whether those who support Counties like Somerset, Durham, Northants or Sussex were able to make a connection with one of the teams would be a question I can’t answer, and arguably isn’t a particularly relevant one. The purpose of The Hundred is to attract new fans into the sport, and whether those fans make a connection based on geographic factors, a specific player or even seemingly trivial factors like the kit, all that matters is that the connection was made. And judging purely by the demographics of the crowds, that seems to have been pretty successful.

That is especially true of the Women’s competition. Though I had watched a bit of Women’s International Cricket over the last 15 years, I had never watched a domestic game at any level, and couldn’t have named a single non-international player. But I watched almost as much of the Women’s competition as the Men’s, and it was only the fact that the weekday matches started whilst I was at work that prevented me from watching more. It would have been nice to see BBC showing a few more of the Women’s games, even through the iPlayer if necessary, but the fact Sky Sports made all the games available for free in their YouTube channel was a great decision.

Indeed, I don’t think there is a huge amount to do on the Women’s competition. This year’s edition might have lacked the very best Australian players, but those who stepped in generally had a positive impact on their teams. Provided the global situation allows all of the best players in the Women’s games to travel for future editions, the quality will only increase, and that in turn will naturally improve the English players too.

The focus for improvement with the Women’s game should instead be on the other forms of Cricket played during the English Summer, both domestically and internationally. Women’s Test Cricket is a bit of a mess at the moment, and the profile of the other domestic competitions are a long way away from the mainstream. Four weeks of playing in front of thousands in Test stadiums and many more watching at home will have been a truly memorable experience for the players, but the goal needs to be to get to a point where that doesn’t feel like a novel experience.

Men’s Cricket is obviously in a different position. The County Championship might not attract huge crowds, but other competitions, particularly the T20 Blast do, whilst for those good enough to represent England in all three formats, the challenge is when to take a break given how full the schedule is. It is still debatable whether the Men’s game needed The Hundred, but it seems here to stay, so the question becomes how to make it the best it can be without damaging other competitions.

As with the Women’s competition, this year’s edition was slightly lacking in terms of international stars. The Australians will probably be over when they can, the Indians probably won’t unless the BCCI drastically shifts their policy, but the ECB should probably be focusing on what to do with their own players first.

In contrast to the Women’s competition where the England players were involved throughout, England’s Men’s Test squad were unavailable after the first two games. Having them there at the outset at least helped get eyes on the competition, but having them depart so early was disappointing, not only because they were the highest profile players in the tournament, but arguably amongst the very best players too.

Working a window where every England player would be available for the whole tournament seems like a difficult task, particularly if the tournament remains in the middle of the Summer, which is pretty essential to hopefully get the best weather. But ensuring they are all available for two weeks seems feasible, and if that was possible, then they should be available for the final two weeks of the competition. That after all is the business end of the competition, and if you were going into a must-win game, you’d want your best players available.

Overall though, it has been a positive first edition of The Hundred. There’s still work to be done, but it feels like they will be building from a pretty strong base.

Reversing The Inevitable

It has been a long, long wait. The last time I attended a live sporting event was September 2019, my last time in a stadium was July 2019 and if we’re talking Football, you need to go back to the League Two Playoff Final in 2018. My last Coventry City home match was even longer ago, and given we haven’t actually played at home for the past two seasons, there was a sense of anticipation making my way to the Coventry Building Society Arena that contrasted sharply with the majority of my visits here.

For a bit of context, during the last season I was able to attend fairly regularly, I went to 8 games and didn’t see us win. Despite a promising start to the season, the first half felt like I was heading towards a familiar feeling. For almost 40 minutes, Reading not only failed to record a shot, the barely mustered an attack. Coventry looked comfortable, albeit not especially dangerous, but then a fairly inoculous passage of play led to a soft Reading penalty and somehow Coventry found themselves behind at halftime.

What I like about live Football is an opportunity to get a full perspective on a match. It’s something you really can’t appreciated through highlights and it’s difficult to appreciate even watching live on TV, because the camera follows the ball. But in a stadium, you can see how individuals are moving off the ball, see how the team is moving as a whole, and if something is going wrong, it should be quite easy to identify why.

That is unless you listen to the opinions of some fans at a Football match. I’ll be honest, I find it frustrating hearing any conversation during a match I actually care about, especially from those who set expectations unrealistically high. Yes, it’s frustrating seeing a player misplace a pass, or misread the flight of the ball, but flawless Footballers don’t exist, and if they did, they wouldn’t be playing for Coventry City. Screaming abuse at the players every time they make even a minor mistake gets very tedious very quickly, but that’s what I had to put up with from the man directly behind me today.

Mark Robins by contrast has a great understanding of the game. Indeed, it’s bizarre to me that he is still at Coventry, given the quality of the job he has done over the past few seasons. The team started sluggishly in the second half, but a double substitution immediately brought the equaliser and restored our ascendancy in the game.

A neutral would have said there was only one winner, but given my experiences over the years, I was bracing myself for that to be Reading, despite their complete lack of quality across the pitch. When they got a corner in injury time, I thought ‘Here we go’, but it came to nothing and a couple of minutes later, I was celebrating a dramatic winner with all of those who were still in the stadium.

It was an unusual feeling, even if the same thing happened on the first day of the season, and a feeling I could certainly get used to. Indeed, having feared that survival would be a tough ask prior to the season, I’m somewhat optimistic that we can enjoy relative comfort this year.

What Can Swimming Teach Me About Running?

Booking a swim almost one week in advance might not seem particularly impulsive, yet somehow I achieved that last weekend. After moving to Kenilworth, I now have a pool less than one kilometre from home, so I’d been thinking about it for a little while, but after a few too many similar runs, watching a video about cross-training on The Running Channel was enough to prompt me to make a booking. Even though I was less than 6 feet away from my bedroom drawers at the time, I didn’t bother to check whether my trunks and goggles still fit, but thankfully they did so I was spared a frantic post-work dash to Decathlon, and was able to spend that time in the pub instead. Soft drinks only of course, partly because drinking and swimming would be a bad idea, but more importantly I still had to drive home.

I used to swim at Abbey Fields quite regularly as a child, though mostly in the sadly now closed outdoor pool. I think I might have been in the indoor pool once which must have been at least 25 years ago, yet for some reason that memory is still incredibly clear in my mind, meaning that the pool felt very familiar.

As did being in the water. Other than a couple of very brief paddles in the sea, I haven’t been for a swim for about 6 years, when I was recovering from a heal injury. Even though that worked a treat, the pool, which was actually the Olympic pool in London, was just too far away to justify regular trips, so I stopped going, yet being in the water last night felt entirely familiar.

One thing which didn’t feel familiar was the feedback from my joints. Many non-runners think that running is bad for your joints, particularly your knees, but whilst this is largely a myth unless you have certain existing joint issues, you still feel a run in your joints. Indeed, my previous run had been one wearing one of my older pairs of shoes, and the feedback my joints were giving me was enough to convince me that those shoes are no longer fit for purpose. Yet 20 minutes into my swim, my joints barely seemed to be registering the fact that I was exercising.

This forced me into making a decision about how long I should be swimming for. I had booked for an hour, and whilst I was confident that aerobically I was fit enough to swim for the full hour, was that a good idea? This was after all supposed to be a cross-training session to replace an easy run, which would normally last around 30 minutes. I decided to end my session after about 40-45 minutes, which seemed like a solid balance between investing in cross-training whilst not taking too much out of me ahead of my weekend runs.

What struck me most during the swim was how slow I was. I was in the slow lane, mostly surrounded by people twice my age, yet I was only going slightly faster than them. My preferred stroke is backstroke, and after a bit of practice I can go relatively quickly, but it was too busy for backstroke, and since I’ve never been able to do front crawl, that left me doing breaststroke. Even though being in the water felt familiar, the stroke did not. I felt incredibly uncoordinated, as if I was fighting against myself, and using up a lot more energy than I needed to.

To be honest, I wasn’t expecting anything different. Six years is a long time and being a bit rusty is inevitable. But what the experience did hammer home was how important efficiency is during endurance activities. On a solo run, you don’t always get the opportunity to gauge whether you are running efficiently or not, but when you are exercising with others and are going no faster than they are despite clearly being fitter, the only explanation can be that they are more efficient than you are. It’s one of the things I noticed when I was part of Run Knutsford – I didn’t necessarily get much faster, but running did begin to feel easier over time.

There is a running club in Kenilworth, and I’ve been mulling over whether to join for a few weeks. My race schedule over the next few months means that for the time being I might be better off with a more bespoke approach, but beyond that there are certainly benefits of joining.

The other thing I can perhaps learn from swimming is how to take it easy. Swimming quickly requires a lot of coordination and a honed technique, but if you have no aspirations to go quickly it can be quite a relaxing pursuit. That seemed to carry over into today’s run, where I managed to spend almost all of the run in heart rate zone 3 or below despite a few challenging hills. I’ve made a lot of improvements with my recovery runs over the past 18 months, but perhaps adopting a swimming mindset can help me improve yet further.

Overall I found the swim rather enjoyable. There is huge room for improvement, but it was a nice change of pace and long-term it should boost my running in many ways if I swim regularly.

Racetober: 8 Weeks Out

Though analysing my 6 week training plan to improve my 5k time is made difficult by the fact that I missed the majority of the 5th week through injury, running a relatively comfortable 19:42 at the Warwick Racecourse parkrun yesterday confirmed that general training plans can work for me. Indeed, depending on which Marathon I choose to do next year (or should I say, the first Marathon I choose to do as I’m unlikely to do just one), I might try to follow one of the numerous Marathon training plans which are available.

However, when it comes to my next challenge, off-the-shelf plans aren’t an option. You won’t find a training plan to race a 10k (or mostly likely, two 10k’s), a 10 miler and a Half Marathon over the course of four weekends, which leaves either finding a coach to put together a plan, or doing it myself. Given it’s rather too late to find myself a coach with my first race of ‘Racetober’ now just 8 weeks away, it looks like I’m doing it myself.

The biggest challenge of Racetober will be the fact that I won’t really be able to fit in any specific training for the particular distance I’m running that weekend between the events. Recovering from the exertions of the event will take up much of the first half of the week, and I’ll want a relatively light end of the week to arrive at the next event feeling as fresh as possible. If I’m lucky, I might be able to push during one midweek session, but ultimately I need to arrive at the start of Racetober with a good level of all-round fitness to be able to attack all of the events.

I’ll certainly be drawing from some of the sessions I did during my 5k training plan, even if I won’t actually be racing a 5k during the month (I could fit in a parkrun on 2nd October, but given I’m working the following day I’d rather use that day for my long run that week). But a faster 5k can benefit you greatly across longer distances. Yesterday I felt comfortable at 3:56 min/km pace for almost 20 minutes and probably could have maintained that for a while longer, and if I could improve to the point where, for example, 3:45 min/km felt comfortable for a 5k, then the prospect of running at 4 min/km for 10 miles or 4:05 min/km for a Half Marathon isn’t as daunting, because those paces should feel comfortable for the first section of each race at the very least. So, I’ll still try to fit in one interval session of multiple short efforts at or around 5k pace each week.

I’ll also be doing a longer session each week which will include longer efforts at lower intensity. These sessions should hopefully help me when it comes to the longer events, as they build endurance along with speed. Tempo sessions were never part of my training plan previously, at least not intentionally, though occasionally I would end up doing a session which perfectly matched what a tempo session is, but I enjoyed the challenge of them during the 5k plan and see great potential for them during this training block too.

Long runs will of course be an ever present too, not only because they are my favourite run of the week but because 10 miles or a Half Marathon is a long run, so speed alone won’t cut it. That said, approaching my long runs in the same way I would when training for a Marathon might leave my legs a little heavy for the faster sessions the following week, or tempt me into becoming a little too comfortable at a slower pace. Many training plans will include some moderate efforts during some of the long runs, and whilst again that’s not normally what I do, I feel like it could be the way to go this time.

There will of course be easy paced, shorter runs too, though the biggest question with that is how many of them to do each week. Prior to the 5k training block, I was running 6 times per week, and having a proper rest day each week is essential. In the 5k training block, I had a rest day each week, but there was also a day set aside for cross-training, when I generally tried to do yoga and some strength and conditioning at home.

If I’m honest, although I like yoga I didn’t enjoy those sessions, though at the same time when I was running 6 times per week, I felt like I was doing the same few easy runs a lot. Recently moving to Kenilworth has helped a bit in the sense that there are still plenty of short routes I can explore, but two of these runs each week has felt like plenty recently and adding back another feels demotivating.

So, I’m going to stick with the structure of five run days, one rest day and one cross-training day, but what I’m going to change is how and where I cross-training. One of the other benefits to moving recently is that I have more sports and fitness facilities available locally. I’ve booked in for a swim next week, and the organisation that run that pool also run another site within walking distance that features a gym. Both are available as pay-as-you-go, so I don’t need to commit to a gym contract, but instead can experiment a bit and see what works for me in terms of cross-training. I’ve swam regularly before and gone to the gym regularly before but never really approached either with the mindset of cross-training, so whether that’s a help or a hindrance remains to be seen. But I’m excited to find out, certainly more excited than I would be to do an extra easy run, and who knows, if I can sort my swimming out I might finally get round to doing a triathlon next year!

My parkrun return

My parkrun return has been something I’ve been looking forward to for a long time. Speed hasn’t always been my main priority over the past 18 months, though when I have looked to test myself, a 5k Time Trial has generally been my go to option. Having run my last parkrun in a time of 23:42, I have been slowly but surely chipping away at my time. My first 5k this year took me 21:11 before clocking five times starting between 20:10 and 20:46. Would today finally be the day when I got below 20 minutes again?

That goal was certainly not a private ambition. I try to volunteer for parkrun as often as I can, and there are some roles which you can do alongside running. Barcode scanning is one of them provided you are quick enough, and with many of the regular volunteers unavailable this week, I reassured this week’s Run Director that I was confident of finishing inside 20 minutes. I tried to follow what I had witnessed whilst volunteering two weeks ago by focusing on my warm up just as much as I would focus on the run itself, and knew roughly how close to the front I needed to start to be around sub 20 runners.

The first kilometre of a 5k is probably the trickiest to judge. You’ll hopefully be feeling fresh enough that most paces will feel comfortable, though that certainly doesn’t mean that the pace is sustainable over 5k. Normally I don’t pay any attention to the instantaneous pace on my watch as it isn’t always the most accurate reading, but within the first 500m I checked it twice. The first time indicated I was going at a pace I didn’t think I would be able to sustain, so I eased back slightly and was much happier with my pace the second time I checked.

After those initial checks, I avoided looking at my watch other than for the kilometre splits and at the halfway turn. A split time is useful information to work out when to lift your efforts, but ultimately it is more beneficial to spend your time listening to your body and focusing on holding good form. My first split was a little fast at 3:46, though it was mostly downhill, and across the slightly uphill second kilometre my split was 3:55. I turned for halfway in around 9:46, which was a nice psychological boost. I had given myself a decent buffer to get inside 20 minutes, and wasn’t feeling particularly close to my limit.

Running with others is generally faster than running solo, though there can be times when it is slower, particularly if you find yourself on a narrow path. Whilst the Warwick Racecourse parkrun course offers pretty wide paths, as an out-and-back route there are sections where runners are passing in both directions, halving the space available. I reached this on the steepest part of the hill today, and found myself stuck behind someone who was faster than me on the downhills but slower on the uphills. There can be a temptation to try to force yourself through a gap which isn’t there in such circumstances, though that runs the risk of colliding with other runners, so it’s an option best avoided. Instead I took the opportunity to run slightly within myself for a few seconds, work out how I was feeling and plan where to push over the remainder of the run.

Although those of us familiar with the Warwick Racecourse parkrun course tend to talk about the one hill just before and after halfway, the last kilometre also features a drag up the only off-road section of the course which can feel particularly challenging if you kick too soon. Yet at the same time, it is so close to the finish that waiting until that section to start your kick for home is arguably waiting too late.

My aim for today was to slowly wind the pace up across the fourth kilometre, which is mostly down the back straight, to continue to up the pace until the off-road section, push hard across that and then sprint once back on the proper path for the final hundred metres or so. It was pretty tricky to gauge how well I was doing in terms of execution of that plan though, as I was running into a headwind down the back straight, making it difficult to work out exactly how much I had left in the tank. I found myself closing on the two runners in front of me across the final kilometre and was able to break into a proper sprint. That’s normally a sign that you haven’t quite emptied the tank, so had I done enough to go sub 20?

Yes, yes I had. My time was 19:46, exactly 4 minutes faster than my most recent parkrun, 24 seconds faster than my Time Trial on the same course two weeks ago and meant that I was the 14th finisher today. It was also a parkrun PB, beating the 20:07 I set at Beckenham back in 2018, and since the only 5k events I’ve ever done are parkruns, I guess it is officially my best 5k time.

I have however run faster 5k splits, my fastest being 18:55 across the first half of the Hyde Park 10k, which given it was two identical 5k laps means that I’ve always considered that to be my 5k PB. I need to find 52 seconds to better that mark, and today provided me with great encouragement that I can do so.

Firstly, I controlled my cadence much better today than I usually do. On many of my 5k Time Trials I found my cadence getting up to and sometimes beyond 200 steps per minute. Perhaps running with others and gauging my efforts partly off them helped today, as I averaged almost exactly 180 steps per minute today, which is often quoted as the most efficient cadence for runners. And though it certainly wasn’t easy, I never felt too close to my limit today. Though my first kilometre split was inside PB pace, I just wanted to get under 20 minutes and never chased the PB. I had come close to 20 minutes too many times to miss out today by being too ambitious/greedy with my expectations, and I’d also stated that I’d finish inside 20 minutes and the barcode scan, so I didn’t want to break my word with that by blowing up chasing a PB. But would I have actually blown up had I tried to maintain that initial pace? I really think it would have been a 50:50 call, and if I can get a couple of weeks of really good training in before my next attempt, hopefully I can tilt those odds slightly in my favour and have a proper crack at my PB.