It seems the body (my body) works best when it is working,
consistently. Getting the blood circulating, getting things moving, being
active, making myself tired. Stagnation is not good. In relative terms, the
last couple of months have been pretty stagnant. I’ve still been training, just
not with much focus.
I went out one night recently to do hill repeats. I’m trying
to bring my running fitness back up again. A few weeks ago I did 6 hill
repeats, then a week or two later I did 8, then 10, and then I was up to 12. It
was a dirty, wet, cold, windy night. The ground was a bit slippery. I had to
layer up. But I went out and forced myself through it. The times weren’t very
fast, but anyway, it was about just getting through it than trying to be fast
on a night like that. Earlier in the year, I did 14 of these hills, averaging
about 68 seconds. I was averaging about 74 seconds on this occasion.
I got through it, jogged back to the house, had dinner, and
went to bed. And the next day, I was sniffly and sneezy. The body didn’t like
the previous night’s training and conditions one bit. And now it was telling me
so. Urgh.
I turned down the flu jab at work. I had it one year a few
years back, and it knocked me for six. I felt terrible for days afterwards. I’m
not convinced about it when they have to ask you if you are allergic to hens,
feathers and eggs before they give it to you. I wonder what is in it… shredded
feathers and blended eggs? So I’ll go without and hope for the best, but as
usual I sit on the train twice a day and hate every sneeze, every sniff, every
cough, every minute in fact. I’ve tried to use my train time well and have
written most of this blog on the train, as well as getting through a good few
books.
Another evening I went out for work drinks. Usually I just
flat turn this type of thing down. But this time I went. A noisy, packed pub. A
nightmare. The sort of place where to communicate you have to stand 6 inches
from whoever you are talking to, and shout in their face, while trying not to
spit in their face. And for them to communicate back, they have to do the same,
shout in your face, spit in your face, and spit in your drink. And of course,
the next day I had a horrible sore throat, sore head and felt terrible. This
ruined the rest of the week. I’d been hoping to run in a cross-country race
that weekend, but I bailed out of this – no point in running round a cold,
windy field in a vest, when feeling under the weather and ending up even worse.
This did however free up some weekend time, so I played a
lot of keyboard. I bought a keyboard after the Ironman season last year, and it
has basically been gathering dust for a year, but I’ve been messing about with
it quite a lot in recent weeks.
Other stuff that has been going on: The Highbury Fields
ParkRun had its fourth birthday. I was a regular there in the early days. So I
went back for the anniversary run, having been asked to be a pacer. The race
director had organised pacers for every minute between 19 and 30 or 35. I was
pacing 19 minutes. I got there early to run a lap or two and try to get a feel
for what 19 minute pace felt like the actual 5K is 5-and-a-bit laps). I ran a
lap in about 17-minute pace. Whoops. I tried again. 18 minute pace. Whoops.
Then I ran out of time and took to the start line, telling myself to run slow.
I tried my best but in the end I ran 18:20. Whoops. I did manage to tow a guy
to a PB though which he was pleased about. After the run we all hit the pub. I
had a couple of pints of Guinness and a fried breakfast. Hmmm.
Appeared from somewhere
Then we went to watch/run in a cross country race at
Hampstead Heath. I watched. Some people ran. Some had already ran at Highbury
earlier in the day and were running again. The day had taken a bad turn weather
wise, so the spectating was freezing. All the time I was there spectating, I
just wanted to be running. Cross country is great. The pictures below illustrate a process of sorts...
I did some ParkRun tourism. One of the ex-Highbury regulars now goes to Beckton Park Run away out in the east of London. So a few of us made the trip there to meet up. This meant a 6am start on Saturday morning. Beckton was a small, friendly run (I guess every Park Run could likely be described as friendly). It was a very different course from Highbury. A lot of it was on grass, and at this time of year it was pretty mucky – spikes wouldn’t have gone amiss but then spikes wouldn’t have gone too well on the tarmac paths. It certainly wasn’t a fast course, with the varying terrain and sharp turns, but it was a fun course. And it was good to catch up with people. I got back to the house by midday, thinking that if I hadn’t bothered getting up at 6am and going, then I’d likely have still been in bed… Some shoe-cleaning followed before the muck hardened.
Among other nights out, I had a night out at the velodrome
at the Olympic Park in London. I really really need to see about actually
getting onto a velodrome and actually riding on it – this would be awesome.
This night out was part of a 6-day series, with all sorts of events. I can’t
pretend to have a clue about the intricacies of the different types of
velodrome racing, but it was fun to have a few beers and enjoy some cycling.
I don’t usually buy triathlon magazines, but I bought one
recently because it had a picture of Jan Frodeno in full cry on the bike at Kona,
and I thought it would have a decent Kona race report. I small article caught
my eye discussing how much weight gain is “acceptable” for the off season.
There was a colour coded scale. A 2% winter increase was “green”, a 3-4% gain
was “amber” and a 5% gain was “red”. I’m now 4-5kg up on my “racing” weight, so
I’m way beyond red. Not that I’m particularly bothered, and I take these
articles with a pinch of salt.
To be honest though, I haven’t had a great winter. I haven’t
had much motivation, mainly due to the lack of certainly with regards to my
work situation for next year. This lack of stability has meant that I’m finding
it difficult to commit to Ironman racing in 2016. I don’t want to commit and
then find out at Easter that I’m out of work. Trying to find a new job in the
middle of Ironman training would not be good. And also, year on year, it has
become more and more difficult to think of putting myself through what I have
to put myself through to get to the level required to be competitive in an Ironman.
I need to have a few serious discussions and thinks.
I’ve also been taking a few more photographs and continuing
to wish I had a better camera:
Swan attack
Harvest moon , wires and streetlight
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