Wednesday 6th June 2012
We did mile reps yesterday; 5 reps with a lap jog in between. I was really happy with how the session went, both in terms of how I managed to control the pace and the times I was clocking. I averaged 5:02 with the last couple under 5. A satisfying session all round, and an indicator that I’m starting to get in good shape after my post-marathon down time. I was helped greatly by Rob, whom I was training with on this occasion, and who paced me to at least 800 metres on most of them. The effect of this was that the first two laps were pretty much ‘free’ – I still had to do the work but it helped having someone set the pace. The thought of doing the session on my own was a daunting one so I was relieved when Rob’s name popped up on my phone yesterday morning asking what the session was. There are definite training benefits to training on your own, but on a cold and windy day I didn’t want to know about them. I wanted someone to follow.
This got me thinking about a few weeks ago when I went down to my local parkrun on Saturday morning. I was tired and had no intention of racing the 5k distance but wanted to get my legs moving, so I ran the first lap of approximately one mile with my friend Martin, who was leading the race. I then stopped and jogged until another friend, Dan caught up with me and we ran the rest of the 5k together as a tempo run. It never occured to us that we were doing anything wrong or unethical until the runner just behind us said “pacing is cheating,” referring of course to me having paced Martin around the first mile. Dan and I dismissed him as politely (I think) as we could and carried on. The debate continued after the run, and the other runner, who strangely didn’t seem to have any moral objection to tucking in behind us and running at our pace, wouldn’t let it drop. His argument was that it is a race rather than a time trial and that no one else gets someone to set the tempo for them. He was right, to an extent, but Martin couldn’t help it that no one turned up who was good enough to challenge him. Would he have objected so much, had someone hammered the first mile and then pulled up injured, in the process setting a quick pace for others to follow? I’ve written about this before, when debate raged about the validity of Paula Radcliffe’s marathon world record, set with the assistance of male pacemakers. It wasn’t her fault that none of her competitors were good enough to challenge her on the day, so why deny her the chance to run a faster time?
I heard an interesting statistic recently; that 4 of the 5 men ranked below Hicham El Guerrouj in the all-time list for 1500m ran their personal bests whilst coming second to the great Moroccan. Everyone, it seems, benefits from a bit of pacing. Even El Guerrouj didn’t run those fast races as solo efforts; he had two or three guys capable of taking him to 1200 at world record pace. He then just had to hang on. Say what you like about the prevalence of EPO in the nineties and the fact that all the best times seem to come from the turn of the century, but the depth in middle distance running at that time was remarkable. Several guys were pushing each other and getting great times as a result. It is no co-incidence, then, that in this era where anything under 3:30 is considered outstanding, that the quality of pacemaking seems to have dropped too. The splits were all over the place at the Pre mile at the weekend, and the pacemakers rarely get it right for races over 800 metres. Anyone capable of doing it is in the race themself.
Of course, there is no right or wrong answer to all of this. I like the purity of championship races, where the pace is dictated by the athletes who are racing, and where the event is a genuine race and not a time trial. I also love watching people run super-fast times. In just the same way I love trying to run as fast as I can, but sometimes there’s nothing better than ditching the watch and getting in a good old-fashioned race.
Sunday 3rd June 2012
Took a day off for my birthday. Happy with the Thursday and Saturday sessions.
Monday: 12 easy (12)
Tuesday: 11 easy (11)
Wednesday: Rest (0)
Thursday: 3x4x350 off 50 jog / 800 between sets plus 4×200 off 200: 60, 59, 61,58-58,59,60,60-59,60,58,60-32,29,29,29 (11)
Friday: 9 easy. Very slow and sore (9)
Saturday: AM easy jog round town, PM mile hard in 4:45, 800 jog then 5 mile tempo in 27:19 (14)
Sunday: 18 easy. Cold and wet. (18)
Week total: 75 miles
2012 total: 1544 miles
Sunday 27th May 2012
A good week. Two track sessions and a race. Starting to get my fitness back.
Monday: 12 easy (12)
Tuesday: 4x2x1k off 1min/3min – 3:08/07/06/10/08/14/10/15. Hot and tough. Warm down further than planned. (15)
Wednesday: 9 easy – very slow (9)
Thursday: Track session 4×400 off 100 jog, 4×400 off 200 jog, 4×200 off 200 jog – 67/68/68/69-64/65/66/66-30/30/29/29 (10)
Friday: 2 hours (16)
Saturday: 9 easy (9)
Sunday: AM 3 easy PM Midland League 3000m, 4th (3rd A) in 9:07. (9)
Week total: 80 miles
2012 total: 1469 miles
Sunday 13th May 2012
See the ground from far away
And it’s progress, progress if it’s made
– Balance and Composure: Progress, Progress
It’s been a great weekend. On Saturday afternoon we went out for a bike ride from Birmingham to Stratford-Upon-Avon along the canal towpath; 50km of nothing but beautiful scenery and my wife’s company. Perfect. Sunday was just as much fun but for different reasons. I attended my former university’s reunion race in the morning, a trail race of approximately 5 miles where former and present students compete for bragging rights, and of course have a good catch up. In full sunshine, we got started and everyone went bombing off down the first hill. I ran along side another runner who was at university around the same time as me and by a couple of miles in we were away at the front, moving along at as even a pace as we could manage over rough terrain and churned up fields. I began to pull away in the final mile and ended up finishing first, which was a pleasant and unexpected bonus on a day that was only really meant to be about having fun and seeing old faces.
But that’s not to say I’m not competitive. In fact, I take training and racing very seriously, which sometimes causes me to lose perspective. All runners know that if you train hard and train sensibly you will usually get better. If we didn’t believe this we just wouldn’t bother, would we? We all believe that you reap what you sow; this is why any signs of a lack of progress can cause huge frustration in runners. I can think of several examples just in my own experience. Three weeks ago I ran a 5 minute personal best in the London Marathon and was annoyed with myself for not breaking 2:35. I won my hometown half marathon and after the initial joy of victory, reminded myself that I didn’t even come within a minute of my time from the previous year. Personally I think this attitude, this inability to be 100% satisfied with a performance, is what drives us and motivates us to get better. If you think you’ve achieved all your goals there is no incentive to improve, but a positive attitude can be very important too. Athletes need to look for positives rather than just seeing the negatives in a race or a session. For me today, this was reminding myself that I had just finished ahead of several guys by whom I would regularly have my arse handed to me in my university days. Granted, this is no absolute measure of progress; some of them might not be as fit as they once were, but there’s no harm in reminding yourself how far you’ve come.
I might not be as good a runner as I was 5 weeks ago, but I’m certainly better than I was 5 years ago and as long as the overall trend is an upwards one I’ll be happy. Please remind me of this next time I moan about having a bad race.
Lots of easy running. One more week before I start hitting the sessions again. Won my university’s reunion race.
Monday: 14 easy (14)
Tuesday: 5 easy (5)
Wednesday: 8 steady (8)
Thursday: 10 easy (10)
Friday: 11 easy (11)
Saturday: 11 with 5 steady (31 mins) around the park (11)
Sunday: Warwick University reunion race, 5ish mile trail race, 1st place. (11)
Week total: 70 miles
2012 total: 1324 miles