Previously on How (not) to Train for a Marathon: We learned about all the very yummy things you're not really supposed to put in your mouth whilst training, but will anyway because you feel like you deserve it. There was probably some actual sensible advice there too, if you looked very hard for it...
In the Long Run...
Way back in the mists of time, we talked about the marathon training plan and I glossed over what is arguably the most critical part (likely because the memories were still all too raw). Sufficient time has elapsed now since the last time I found curious red stains on the chest of my T-shirt, or hobbled into a Sainsbury's Local trussed up in lycra to look for something, anything, to make the sky stop spinning - so let's go back to:
A. Long Runs
These are the most important parts of your training programme because, without them, you will never understand just what you're letting yourself in for, meaning you're probably on a one-way trip to the back of an ambulance on race day. Many people who get into a marathon through the ballot get to the post-10k stage in long-run training and find that they just don't like it, they actually can't do it without getting injured, or that, you know what, it's cold and it's wet and Saturday Kitchen is on, and they really love that James Martin, and yeah never mind...
This is where it comes in VERY handy to have a charity counting on you, and people who've paid good money to watch you humiliate yourself in a stripy singlet and lycra meggings. As soon as you realise what's going to happen if you don't actually make yourself lace up those trainers and get out there and do it, it suddenly ceases to be optional. Another top tip is to post on Social Media when you're just about to go out for the long run - if you've professed your intention to run all the way to Abu Dhabi before lunch, it's kind of humiliating when your well-meaning friend posts a few hours later to ask "How did u get on hun?" and you're still sitting in your pants playing Candy Crush.
Of course, it's also a good way to get your Facebook friends/Twitter followers who find the whole idea of running unbelievably smug to hide you from their newsfeed/ unfollow you, and that's ok. You're only going to annoy them more and more up to race day anyway, and you can easily spot who they are, because they're the ones who don't answer "Yeah, I saw" to everything you tell them next time you meet up with them in person - meaning that you can easily remind them to unhide you after the event.
Similarly, a nice bragtweet or automated Endomondo Facebook post after your run is a good way to a) Shove your athletic prowess in everyone's face and tell them to suck it and b) get lots of admiring responses from the few people who do care, and if you're even 10% as narcissistic as me, that's actually a huge motivator.
So, these long runs then? What are they about, and how do you do them? Well, short of the obvious answer of "running the distance it says in your training plan by means of putting on shoes, leaving the house and placing one foot in front of the other for the necessary length of time", I'd say they're about:
- Getting used to pounding the pavement for literally hours on end, hopefully without losing the will to live
- Practising how much water and food you need for differing run lengths
- Getting used to getting up nice and early one day at the weekend and heading off to do something shit-scary for a few hours before coming home and watching Formula 1 whilst eating a fry-up (great practice for the big day itself.)
They're also good for finding new ways to distract your mind during these seemingly interminable hours with only your own thoughts for company - it can be very lonely out there, especially when most fellow runners (in London anyway) won't even deign to so much as tut patronisingly at you as they go past.
The best one I found was to mix up the routes as much as possible. From 0-10k, and on my short recovery runs, I found it easiest to just stick to various sections of a 10k loop that I'd been doing for years - from Surbiton down to Kingston along the river, carrying on towards Richmond when necessary, and upon the final glorious day when I realised I could do a full 10k again, turning left in Kingston, over the river and back down the other side to Hampton Court. Once you've started on this final part of the loop, though, there's no turning back, and it's flipping quiet and lonely over there, so you'd better be sure you mean it.
After a while though, I craved variety, and so I started inventing ever more elaborate routes, as you will learn from:
Selected highlights from my Long Run Diary (no, wait, come back... it's not as dull as it sounds)
Top Tip for winter training - plan how long your route ought to take you, and make sure you go out at least that amount of time before sunset plus another half hour to 45 minutes. If you're anything like me, you will fanny and fart about getting all your gear on to go out, do a leisurely warm up walk before you get going, stop to buy some water, adjust every gadget you've brought with you so they're all synchronised - and before you know it, you end up doing this...
December 30th
What I am supposed to do: 8k
What I actually do: 10k
How does it go? I decide to do my usual loop in reverse this time to mix it up a little, which means running down the brightly lit main road from Surbiton to Hampton Court first, while the light is still fine. Seems like a plan. On reaching Hampton Court Palace itself, the light is really starting to go, and there's a choice to be made - I can either turn back and run back the way I just came (sensible), or I can plough on regardless down the completely unlit, positively rural tow path from Hampton Court to Kingston and hope that I can cover the 3 miles in the 5 minutes of daylight that remain (less sensible.)
Needless to say, I plump for option 2. As I start down the path everything looks ok, the regal glow of Hampton Court's floodlighting guiding my way, but very quickly, I realise I can't actually see anything apart from the houses on the other side of the river. This is a bit of a problem but I figure that the faster I run, the quicker I can just get it over with, so off I go. When I plonk my foot into a giant pothole in the towpath filled with dirty water and god knows what else, I decide that I have to do something about this, so I get out my phone and use the pathetic built in torch to light up the ground for 5 feet in front of me as I go.
This sort of works, but I also discover that however much you want to make your body run fast in the pitch black, your brain has a kind of built-in "don't be a twat" feature which prevents you from really giving it your all. Which is probably just as well when part of the path is flooded, there are several fallen tree trunks blocking your way, and there's enough mud to keep the spa at Centerparcs stocked for months.
But, wait, there's an upside! Because I've been held back by my own, deeply hidden "sensible filter", when I finally make it back to civilisation and sight, I feel I have more to give, so off I go back across Kingston Bridge and home to Surbiton along the road, pounding that pavement and striding like a running colossus (albeit one who is still a little bit scared of the teenagers hanging out in the dark doing who knows what), and as a result I hit the 10k mark. I'm a runner again!
Final Stats: 6.23 miles in 1:08:13
January 26th
What I am supposed to do: 10 miles
What I actually do: 10 miles!
How does it go?
The first of many milestones -at this point in the training plan we go from "60 minutes" or "80 minutes" to an actual distance. And because I've been running so slowly so far, this represents quite a leap up in distance - from 6.5 miles on Monday 20th to a nice round 10.
I'm crapping my pants on the day. In fact I'm crapping them all week, telling everyone I meet that I'm going to have to run 10 miles at the weekend, asking them for tips about where I should go and perform this epic feat, asking if anyone wants to come with me (they don't). To make matters worse, when I get up in the morning, I look out of the window to see that the apocalypse is apparently about to begin, which is nice of it.
So of course I do what any sensible person would do, and go out anyway, dressed in my usual cold-weather warm running gear, but with the addition of a standard, ultra-sweaty waterproof jacket. Off I head towards Hampton Court again, but this time carrying on past the palace in the other direction down the tow path, Westward (ho!) towards Molesey, Walton and Weybridge. The variety in the route is key, as your brain really needs stimulation when you keep on running these long slogs - and I'm almost pathetically excited to finally carry on beyond the A309 and see what's there, a bit like that time I stayed on the tube after Hammersmith to see what happened and I ended up in Rayners Lane.
It's a good job that the scenery is nice and that my mind is grateful for the change, because it takes my mind off the fact that it's been steadily drizzling the whole time I've been running, and that the path is not only full of puddles, but in some places I wave to hippos as I splash past, nearly losing my shoes in the process. But after the first few miles, I settle into a nice rhythm and gradually speed up as I head towards my goal and the path becomes a little firmer, flying along feeling invincible (must be the roast and apple crumble from last night.)
I finally arrive at Weybridge train station, exactly 10 miles and cool-down walk distance away from my flat in Surbiton, buy my ticket home, text my mate Mark to brag a bit (he still hasn't replied), head down to the platform and do ostentatious stretching for a few minutes, hoping someone will come and ask me what I've been doing, then buy a cup of tea from the lady at the kiosk just to have someone to talk to.
"Cold out there, isn't it, love?", she says.
"Yes, it is, although I'm more wet than anything, I JUST RAN HERE FROM SURBITON YOU KNOW..."
"£1.50 please, " she replies, disappointingly.
Final Stats: 10.01 miles in 1:49:02
February 9th
What I am supposed to do: 12 miles
What I actually do: 12 bloody miles!
How does it go?
Badly. Horribly. I start out going in the other direction, towards Kingston, and I'm aiming for Hammersmith, which I've worked out is almost 12 miles along the river, past Richmond and Kew.
But there's a problem, those leg muscles which propelled me to such success last time out are feeling empty, drained, in that way your arms do when you try to carry too much shopping home from Tesco - and my motivation, so high after my apple crumble fuelled success, has completely gone. I trudge, slowly and completely ungracefully down to Kingston and out the other side, doing 11:30+ miles. Am I sick? Shall I stop?
Suddenly, I turn a corner at the 4 mile mark, and I'm into uncharted territory. Ham House comes up on my right, the legendary Eel Pie Island (former home to The Who's studio) is on my left, and then there's Syon House across the river. Before I know it, I'm putting in miles at 10:15, flying along and enjoying being out there and alive. Things start to get a bit tough after 10 miles, but then I think "ahh, two miles, that's nothing", and blot everything else out as I force my legs to keep on going.
I come to a halt, lungs burning and legs on auto-pilot by now, as my Endomondo tells me over the sounds of Royksopp's "49 Percent" that I have reached my goal. 12 whole miles. I have a stretch against a pretty tree, look around to see if anyone is impressed by me, spot only a man in an anorak taking pictures of birds, and then start sauntering off to the tube station, which unfortunately is a further mile away from where I've stopped. At least it's a nice day and a pleasant walk.
When I get home, I have a read on the internet (they have everything, you know) about finding the first few miles of a long run very difficult, and discover that it's a well-known phenomenon, and that I can expect to have this every time from here on out. Jolly good.
Final Stats: 12.03 miles in 2:11:49
February 14th
What I am supposed to do: 14 miles
What I actually do: 14 miles, but God knows how
How does it go?
It goes, just about. I decide that it's not a good idea to have any part of this run be on the boring, unmotivating paths I've trodden a hundred times before, so I spend hours using a website to devise a cunning route that I'll enjoy running all of - taking the train to Putney Bridge, starting off in Wandsworth and then heading over the bridge of the same name, before turning left and coming back along the other side, through Fulham (past the almighty Craven Cottage), and down to Hammersmith. Then I add on a massive loop all the way down to Chiswick, where a man in a woolen waistcoat is walking a cat on a lead, over Kew Bridge and back again down the other other side through Mortlake and Barnes, before ending up back in Hammersmith (Apparently I really do love that place.)
It's mostly ok, but I slow down a whole minute per mile over the last four miles, and really start to feel it around 12 miles, as I slog through Barnes, for the first time in this whole process thinking that I might have to give up. But I don't give up - there are people out there with Parkinson's counting on me to raise them some money, and not only that, but at a critical point, "Fighting Fit" by Gene comes on shuffle and the lyrics start speaking to me in ways that they probably weren't intended to:
I can't take it
Too much time's been wasted
So come and get my plateful
I am fighting fit and able
...
I've tasted life and I'm ready
Suddenly feeling inspired, I push myself to finish, dragging myself over Hammersmith Bridge towards the point where I can finally say I made the imaginary finish line and end this ordeal.
"Are you alright?", says a guy coming the other way across the bridge, as I push myself beyond the point that I ever thought possible - and I suddenly realise, as the latest song fades out on my iPod, that the sound like a distressed sealion protecting its young, which I've been ignoring for the last 15 minutes, is me breathing. It's a tad worrying, but not as much as when I finally stop and end up slumped against the wall of the nearest church, trying to stretch out a bit in the graveyard, but basically unable to stand up. I'm dizzy, I think I'm going to vomit, and bending my right leg makes my knee excruciatingly painful, which proves to be even more of an issue when it turns out that getting up and down steps is nigh on impossible.
Which makes it a bit difficult to get back on the tube and go home.
Final Stats: 14.02 miles in 2:35:32. And a lovely dose of Illotibial Band Syndrome.
Next time: Practice races, and really, really, really, long runs.
In the Long Run...
Way back in the mists of time, we talked about the marathon training plan and I glossed over what is arguably the most critical part (likely because the memories were still all too raw). Sufficient time has elapsed now since the last time I found curious red stains on the chest of my T-shirt, or hobbled into a Sainsbury's Local trussed up in lycra to look for something, anything, to make the sky stop spinning - so let's go back to:
A. Long Runs
These are the most important parts of your training programme because, without them, you will never understand just what you're letting yourself in for, meaning you're probably on a one-way trip to the back of an ambulance on race day. Many people who get into a marathon through the ballot get to the post-10k stage in long-run training and find that they just don't like it, they actually can't do it without getting injured, or that, you know what, it's cold and it's wet and Saturday Kitchen is on, and they really love that James Martin, and yeah never mind...
 |
| "Look, I made you Yorkies and everything!" |
This is where it comes in VERY handy to have a charity counting on you, and people who've paid good money to watch you humiliate yourself in a stripy singlet and lycra meggings. As soon as you realise what's going to happen if you don't actually make yourself lace up those trainers and get out there and do it, it suddenly ceases to be optional. Another top tip is to post on Social Media when you're just about to go out for the long run - if you've professed your intention to run all the way to Abu Dhabi before lunch, it's kind of humiliating when your well-meaning friend posts a few hours later to ask "How did u get on hun?" and you're still sitting in your pants playing Candy Crush.
Of course, it's also a good way to get your Facebook friends/Twitter followers who find the whole idea of running unbelievably smug to hide you from their newsfeed/ unfollow you, and that's ok. You're only going to annoy them more and more up to race day anyway, and you can easily spot who they are, because they're the ones who don't answer "Yeah, I saw" to everything you tell them next time you meet up with them in person - meaning that you can easily remind them to unhide you after the event.
Similarly, a nice bragtweet or automated Endomondo Facebook post after your run is a good way to a) Shove your athletic prowess in everyone's face and tell them to suck it and b) get lots of admiring responses from the few people who do care, and if you're even 10% as narcissistic as me, that's actually a huge motivator.
So, these long runs then? What are they about, and how do you do them? Well, short of the obvious answer of "running the distance it says in your training plan by means of putting on shoes, leaving the house and placing one foot in front of the other for the necessary length of time", I'd say they're about:
- Getting used to pounding the pavement for literally hours on end, hopefully without losing the will to live
- Practising how much water and food you need for differing run lengths
- Getting used to getting up nice and early one day at the weekend and heading off to do something shit-scary for a few hours before coming home and watching Formula 1 whilst eating a fry-up (great practice for the big day itself.)
They're also good for finding new ways to distract your mind during these seemingly interminable hours with only your own thoughts for company - it can be very lonely out there, especially when most fellow runners (in London anyway) won't even deign to so much as tut patronisingly at you as they go past.
The best one I found was to mix up the routes as much as possible. From 0-10k, and on my short recovery runs, I found it easiest to just stick to various sections of a 10k loop that I'd been doing for years - from Surbiton down to Kingston along the river, carrying on towards Richmond when necessary, and upon the final glorious day when I realised I could do a full 10k again, turning left in Kingston, over the river and back down the other side to Hampton Court. Once you've started on this final part of the loop, though, there's no turning back, and it's flipping quiet and lonely over there, so you'd better be sure you mean it.
 |
| Bloody gorgeous, mind you. Which does help. |
After a while though, I craved variety, and so I started inventing ever more elaborate routes, as you will learn from:
Selected highlights from my Long Run Diary (no, wait, come back... it's not as dull as it sounds)
Top Tip for winter training - plan how long your route ought to take you, and make sure you go out at least that amount of time before sunset plus another half hour to 45 minutes. If you're anything like me, you will fanny and fart about getting all your gear on to go out, do a leisurely warm up walk before you get going, stop to buy some water, adjust every gadget you've brought with you so they're all synchronised - and before you know it, you end up doing this...
December 30th
What I am supposed to do: 8k
What I actually do: 10k
How does it go? I decide to do my usual loop in reverse this time to mix it up a little, which means running down the brightly lit main road from Surbiton to Hampton Court first, while the light is still fine. Seems like a plan. On reaching Hampton Court Palace itself, the light is really starting to go, and there's a choice to be made - I can either turn back and run back the way I just came (sensible), or I can plough on regardless down the completely unlit, positively rural tow path from Hampton Court to Kingston and hope that I can cover the 3 miles in the 5 minutes of daylight that remain (less sensible.)
Needless to say, I plump for option 2. As I start down the path everything looks ok, the regal glow of Hampton Court's floodlighting guiding my way, but very quickly, I realise I can't actually see anything apart from the houses on the other side of the river. This is a bit of a problem but I figure that the faster I run, the quicker I can just get it over with, so off I go. When I plonk my foot into a giant pothole in the towpath filled with dirty water and god knows what else, I decide that I have to do something about this, so I get out my phone and use the pathetic built in torch to light up the ground for 5 feet in front of me as I go.
This sort of works, but I also discover that however much you want to make your body run fast in the pitch black, your brain has a kind of built-in "don't be a twat" feature which prevents you from really giving it your all. Which is probably just as well when part of the path is flooded, there are several fallen tree trunks blocking your way, and there's enough mud to keep the spa at Centerparcs stocked for months.
But, wait, there's an upside! Because I've been held back by my own, deeply hidden "sensible filter", when I finally make it back to civilisation and sight, I feel I have more to give, so off I go back across Kingston Bridge and home to Surbiton along the road, pounding that pavement and striding like a running colossus (albeit one who is still a little bit scared of the teenagers hanging out in the dark doing who knows what), and as a result I hit the 10k mark. I'm a runner again!
Final Stats: 6.23 miles in 1:08:13
January 26th
What I am supposed to do: 10 miles
What I actually do: 10 miles!
How does it go?
The first of many milestones -at this point in the training plan we go from "60 minutes" or "80 minutes" to an actual distance. And because I've been running so slowly so far, this represents quite a leap up in distance - from 6.5 miles on Monday 20th to a nice round 10.
I'm crapping my pants on the day. In fact I'm crapping them all week, telling everyone I meet that I'm going to have to run 10 miles at the weekend, asking them for tips about where I should go and perform this epic feat, asking if anyone wants to come with me (they don't). To make matters worse, when I get up in the morning, I look out of the window to see that the apocalypse is apparently about to begin, which is nice of it.
 |
| Brand new trainers. Cheers. |
So of course I do what any sensible person would do, and go out anyway, dressed in my usual cold-weather warm running gear, but with the addition of a standard, ultra-sweaty waterproof jacket. Off I head towards Hampton Court again, but this time carrying on past the palace in the other direction down the tow path, Westward (ho!) towards Molesey, Walton and Weybridge. The variety in the route is key, as your brain really needs stimulation when you keep on running these long slogs - and I'm almost pathetically excited to finally carry on beyond the A309 and see what's there, a bit like that time I stayed on the tube after Hammersmith to see what happened and I ended up in Rayners Lane.
It's a good job that the scenery is nice and that my mind is grateful for the change, because it takes my mind off the fact that it's been steadily drizzling the whole time I've been running, and that the path is not only full of puddles, but in some places I wave to hippos as I splash past, nearly losing my shoes in the process. But after the first few miles, I settle into a nice rhythm and gradually speed up as I head towards my goal and the path becomes a little firmer, flying along feeling invincible (must be the roast and apple crumble from last night.)
I finally arrive at Weybridge train station, exactly 10 miles and cool-down walk distance away from my flat in Surbiton, buy my ticket home, text my mate Mark to brag a bit (he still hasn't replied), head down to the platform and do ostentatious stretching for a few minutes, hoping someone will come and ask me what I've been doing, then buy a cup of tea from the lady at the kiosk just to have someone to talk to.
"Cold out there, isn't it, love?", she says.
"Yes, it is, although I'm more wet than anything, I JUST RAN HERE FROM SURBITON YOU KNOW..."
"£1.50 please, " she replies, disappointingly.
Final Stats: 10.01 miles in 1:49:02
February 9th
What I am supposed to do: 12 miles
What I actually do: 12 bloody miles!
How does it go?
 |
| We should probably take a moment to enjoy my outfit before we go into it too deeply... |
Badly. Horribly. I start out going in the other direction, towards Kingston, and I'm aiming for Hammersmith, which I've worked out is almost 12 miles along the river, past Richmond and Kew.
But there's a problem, those leg muscles which propelled me to such success last time out are feeling empty, drained, in that way your arms do when you try to carry too much shopping home from Tesco - and my motivation, so high after my apple crumble fuelled success, has completely gone. I trudge, slowly and completely ungracefully down to Kingston and out the other side, doing 11:30+ miles. Am I sick? Shall I stop?
Suddenly, I turn a corner at the 4 mile mark, and I'm into uncharted territory. Ham House comes up on my right, the legendary Eel Pie Island (former home to The Who's studio) is on my left, and then there's Syon House across the river. Before I know it, I'm putting in miles at 10:15, flying along and enjoying being out there and alive. Things start to get a bit tough after 10 miles, but then I think "ahh, two miles, that's nothing", and blot everything else out as I force my legs to keep on going.
I come to a halt, lungs burning and legs on auto-pilot by now, as my Endomondo tells me over the sounds of Royksopp's "49 Percent" that I have reached my goal. 12 whole miles. I have a stretch against a pretty tree, look around to see if anyone is impressed by me, spot only a man in an anorak taking pictures of birds, and then start sauntering off to the tube station, which unfortunately is a further mile away from where I've stopped. At least it's a nice day and a pleasant walk.
When I get home, I have a read on the internet (they have everything, you know) about finding the first few miles of a long run very difficult, and discover that it's a well-known phenomenon, and that I can expect to have this every time from here on out. Jolly good.
Final Stats: 12.03 miles in 2:11:49
February 14th
What I am supposed to do: 14 miles
What I actually do: 14 miles, but God knows how
How does it go?
It goes, just about. I decide that it's not a good idea to have any part of this run be on the boring, unmotivating paths I've trodden a hundred times before, so I spend hours using a website to devise a cunning route that I'll enjoy running all of - taking the train to Putney Bridge, starting off in Wandsworth and then heading over the bridge of the same name, before turning left and coming back along the other side, through Fulham (past the almighty Craven Cottage), and down to Hammersmith. Then I add on a massive loop all the way down to Chiswick, where a man in a woolen waistcoat is walking a cat on a lead, over Kew Bridge and back again down the other other side through Mortlake and Barnes, before ending up back in Hammersmith (Apparently I really do love that place.)
 |
| If there's one thing I've reminded myself by writing this blog, it's that London is a wonderful place. |
It's mostly ok, but I slow down a whole minute per mile over the last four miles, and really start to feel it around 12 miles, as I slog through Barnes, for the first time in this whole process thinking that I might have to give up. But I don't give up - there are people out there with Parkinson's counting on me to raise them some money, and not only that, but at a critical point, "Fighting Fit" by Gene comes on shuffle and the lyrics start speaking to me in ways that they probably weren't intended to:
I can't take it
Too much time's been wasted
So come and get my plateful
I am fighting fit and able
...
I've tasted life and I'm ready
Suddenly feeling inspired, I push myself to finish, dragging myself over Hammersmith Bridge towards the point where I can finally say I made the imaginary finish line and end this ordeal.
"Are you alright?", says a guy coming the other way across the bridge, as I push myself beyond the point that I ever thought possible - and I suddenly realise, as the latest song fades out on my iPod, that the sound like a distressed sealion protecting its young, which I've been ignoring for the last 15 minutes, is me breathing. It's a tad worrying, but not as much as when I finally stop and end up slumped against the wall of the nearest church, trying to stretch out a bit in the graveyard, but basically unable to stand up. I'm dizzy, I think I'm going to vomit, and bending my right leg makes my knee excruciatingly painful, which proves to be even more of an issue when it turns out that getting up and down steps is nigh on impossible.
Which makes it a bit difficult to get back on the tube and go home.
 |
| Still, at least there's another lovely tree to check out. |
Final Stats: 14.02 miles in 2:35:32. And a lovely dose of Illotibial Band Syndrome.
Next time: Practice races, and really, really, really, long runs.
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