History by numbers

So, it’s really happening! My number has arrived. Now it is official. Whether I post a time or not I will forever be a statistic in the Abingdon Amblers Running Club marathon record for 2008 – and hopefully not for DNF (did not finish)! It is a special feeling. Running for fitness or pleasure has its own attractions but racing is something entirely different. The camaraderie of your fellow runners, the fear and anxiety before the start, the adrenaline of the race – I am experiencing it now as I type. All your training, all your hopes, find their expression when that gun goes off. 246 is more than just a number: it is a key, a passport, an entry in the records. And in this last sense, runners make history every time they race.

Lessons in Japanese

Dedicated followers of my blog will remember my recent angst at Schipol when I wrestled with the decision to buy Haruki Murakami’s What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, [henceforth referred to as WITAWITAR]. I saw it again in Borders on Saturday, quite by accident and, taking it as a sign, I settled in one of their comfortable club armchairs and read a chapter at random. Which proved fortunate in retrospect. You see, I broke down on my long run that morning after mile 11 of a prospective 18. The last seven miles home were as bad for morale as any I have run. Fatigue swept over me and I slowed to a walk several times. Not surprisingly, I was a little down about this: if I broke down on an 18 mile training run how could I expect to finish a marathon? The answer lay in Murakami’s experiences. Part biography and part training log, the book is very conversational in style. The chapter I read described the fatigue he felt at a particular time prior to a marathon and his experience then very much mirrored my own. The lesson was that what I was feeling was normal and that it was time to start scaling back my weekly mileage now that race day was so close: exactly what my own schedule prescribed but hearing it personally, so to speak, reconfirmed my belief. I bought the book. Was it luck or synchronicity that led me to it? In any event, it was the right message at the right time.

I have one last long run scheduled this Saturday but otherwise my week is light and the miles drop off further as race day approaches. Today's run was 4.26 miles which I clocked in 32:17.

Elementary, my dear Elissa!

I am a great admirer of Arthur Conan Doyle’s super sleuth, the incomparable Sherlock Holmes. And, by all accounts, I am not alone. There are apparently fan clubs devoted to his fictional detective all over the world. I am sure that the principal attraction for most people are his astounding displays of deduction: breaking the alibi of a murderer for example, by measuring the depth to which the parsley sank in the butter on a hot day; or determining the character of a prospective client from the walking stick he left behind. The original Strand stories with Sidney Paget’s dark illustrations, the numerous film and TV adaptations of his adventures, I am mad for them all. Even the pastiches that vary from the original stories: Billy Wilder’s excellent “The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes” complete with German spies disguised as monks and featuring a Loch Ness monster being a good example. I would also mention in that vein, “Murder By Decree” - an intelligent take on the Jack The Ripper legend starring Cristopher Plummer as the super sleuth in a dark story far removed from his usual association with singing nuns! But you get the picture. I was put in mind of Sherlock Holmes this morning when Elissa presumed that I had missed my run this morning. Her deduction was based on the fact that the shower did not contain traces of the mud that usually accompany my runs. Normally my morning runs are on woodland trails so mud is inevitable. On this particular morning however – and now until the spring – my run was all on road. Why? The daylight hours are now so scarce that streetlit roads are now my only recourse. A fact that Holmes would have easily deduced.

Anyway. This mornings run was a medium effort, 4.26 mile, base run which I clocked at 31:55. As Holmes might say: “the game’s afoot”.

That was zen. This is tao.

I have always been attracted to asceticism in one way or another. Movements or religions that place emphasis on denial, discipline and physical hardship have always held a fascination for me and running affords opportunities for them all. Examples might be the eastern orthodox churches with their long traditions of hermitism, the more familiar Christian monastic orders or the now equally familiar Buddhist orders. Their renunciation of material belongings is an essential element of their appeal but there is another element that is even more compelling: the motif of purification through pain or physical suffering. A motif not uncommon I suspect among runners. Suffering, of course, can take many forms: self-denial, fasting, or physical discomfort to name but a few. And in this regard and others, running can bear at least a superficial resemblance to ascetic religions. Consider the case. It has its own rites of worship: private worship is constituted by the runner’s training; public worship by race meets. It has its own practises and rituals: witness the runner stretching before a run and you are witnessing a habitualised ritual that will be repeated perhaps many thousands of times during the course of their life. And they pray! They offer up invocations that they won’t get injured before a race; that they can get their mile splits down; that the finish line is immediately around the next corner; that the cyclist on the pavement will get off the bloody pavement. Not to a deity you understand, but to the spirit of running, the zen of running. A runner will often push through the pain barrier in a race or in training, not because they are masochists, but because of what lies on the other side: the satisfaction of having given their best; the feeling of being tested and not found wanting: and, in my case at least, the feeling of purification by ordeal. It feels redemptive. If life is a series of debit transactions with the soul, running makes a positive contribution to the accounts. So you see, it can very spriritual.

Not that I felt particularly spiritual this morning when I was running long intervals. I ran well outside what I expected to run – 20 seconds a mile slower in fact on average. I ran 3 mile splits with 2 minutes rest between splits and a mile of warm-up and warm-down. I clocked the splits as:

First split: 7:19
Second split: 7:12
Third split: 7:12

Inspiration in unlikely places

"Try not. Do. Or do not." - Master Yoda

Inspiration can come from anywhere and, clearly, the diminutive Jedi master has much to teach us. Star Wars enthusiasts might recognize the quote but I came across it quite by accident last night as Luca and I cuddled up in front of the TV for our Friday night film fix. It occurs in Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back when Yoda, schooling Luke in the ways of the force, chides his pupil for his negativity in a failed exercise to lift his crashed craft from a swamp. Like most great quotes it is wonderfully concise and very profound. I was immediately struck by the words. I always seem to be trying instead of doing. So this morning after another disturbed night when I was awoken by pain I ended my training hiatus with a 7 mile run. I didn’t dwell on reasons why I might not run – I just did run. I clocked 49:51 for the distance. It felt good to be running again for as Yoda also said "Always in motion is the future" – words for a marathoner to live by.

Black dog days

I’m just back from a business sojourn in Amsterdam so it was that on Wednesday I found myself in a bookshop at Schipol looking for some material to occupy the hours before my flight. I saw a hardback copy of Haruki Murakami’s “What I Think About When I Think About Running”. My first impulse was to buy it but then I had doubts. Have you ever done this: anticipated something so much that you are afraid to buy it in case it lets you down? It was 17 euros – not a lot of money if it brings enjoyment but more than enough to rub salt into the wounds of shattered expectations. I held it in my hands and furiously debated with myself whether to buy. In the end I didn’t and I felt curiously depressed as if I had failed a test. A symptom, I suspect, of a greater malady.

Sunday’s half marathon seems a long time ago. I haven’t run since then which has torn up my training schedule. After the high of competition has come the antidote of the working routine. Tomorrow I have to motivate myself to pick up the pieces and clock some miles on the road. My training schedule requires me to run six days out of seven. Since February I have never let more than two consecutive days pass without a run so this hiatus has assumed a massive significance in my mind. In fact, I don’t feel like a runner anymore. Black dog days indeed.

Loneliness of the long distance runner

When I started this blog I swore I would never sully it by using such an obvious pun on Alan Sillitoe’s existentialist masterpiece. Until now that is. Sometimes circumstance drives events in way that are impossible to predict. It saddens me to say that Sunday morning lethargy in the Connor camp meant today's half marathon was a one man operation. As Luca put it, this was only a practise run – he’d be there for the marathon. Elissa, stretched by my toothache induced histrionics didn’t feel inclined to persuade him. And so the stage was set. Drama never became so elevated. Running toward the finish I empathised with our eponymous hero. I was running by myself for myself. That said, their was camaraderie in the packs and associations were made however loosely: shallow connections with my fellow runners based only on their running cadence and their backward appearance. They came and went as the miles ticked by and their efforts encouraged my own. My impressions of the race still haven’t settled yet. I’ll post more fully when they do. In the end I clocked 1:30:33 for the distance. I was disappointed not to break 1:30 but a marker had been set. A first and, by default, a personal best.

Kirsten Watt I was touched by your contribution. To donate your pocket money to the cause instead of buying McFly merchandise clearly reflects your increasing maturity – and taste! On that note of gratitude, I applaud those people who have contributed to the campaign so far who don’t know me personally. Kara McKee, Nancy Allan and Lynda Donnelly a special thanks to you all. Not for you the obligation of association but the purest motive of good-heartedness. Thank you.