Mixed fortunes

Good omen?

As I left my house at 5:00am in the pre-dawn gloom to start my 37km long run, I found a $50 note on the footpath.  I hoped that was a good omen, because I really wasn't looking forward to the next three plus hours.  I felt a bit tired and sore all over from yesterday's hard 10km, and had even brought along my iPod and headphones, so that I could listen to music as a distraction (something I rarely do these days).

Once I started running, I didn't feel as bad as I expected, and after the usual four to five kilometres of warming/loosening up, I settled into a reasonable pace.  The iPod took my mind off the time ahead as many of my playlist tunes are evocative of times and people I have known - a trip down memory lane.

Lake Tuggerah

After the undulating first 12km, the next 10km to The Entrance is flat, much of it along the bike path bordering Tuggerah Lake and my pace picked up to comfortably average sub-5:00/km on a superb early morning.  Even when I started hitting some more undulations after 22km, I was maintaining my pace well.  But as I climbed a gradual hill with 9km to go, I became conscious of my chronically-injured right heel becoming very tender and painful.  Within a kilometre my pace had dropped back to 5:30/km, I was favouring my right heel significantly, and I had lost the good running form I had maintained to that point.  I plodded on to the end, not enjoying it at all and hoping that my heel problem wasn't returning to dog my life as it had done up until six months ago.

The Entrance

It's now eight hours later, and the heel is still painful to walk on, though has improved somewhat.  I just have a 5km walk scheduled for tomorrow and a shorter run on Tuesday, so I'm hoping that gives it time to recover sufficiently for the 20-25km run I had planned for Wednesday.  If not, I'll have to re-evaluate my training and racing plans for the next three weeks.  Not happy!

Finding the boundaries

Coast Road in North Avoca tested my limits this morning.

The Holter Monitor involves having five electrodes, connected by wires to a battery-powered recording unit a bit larger than a smartphone, stuck to various parts of my chest for 24 hours.  The device will record my heart activity and I'm supposed to note the time of any periods when I feel breathless or notice heart palpitations.  I was worried the electrodes would become detached while I slept, but the technician did a good job of taping them down, and they were still there this morning.

Wamberal Beach from my walk this morning.

The Respiratory Specialist yesterday, while not encouraging me to run, implied that it wasn't necessarily dangerous, just that it would be difficult and uncomfortable.  I didn't want to confirm his prediction, but did want to get my heart-rate high enough today to provide good evidence of the occasional problems I have experienced in the last month.

Thursday, as usual, started with supervision of the 6:00am track session at Terrigal Haven on what was a beautiful sunny, and a little humid, morning.  I watched the twenty or so runners go through their paces (seven times 800m with a minute recovery between each) in the 45 minute session before they headed off to their breakfast coffees, or work, or to get their children ready for school, or all three.  I always feel a bit lazy, being retired, that they have to rush off while my day continues at a more leisurely pace.

Terrigal Beach this morning.

I returned to my car, donned my radio and headphones, and set out on a 7km walk that would include several hills I thought steep enough to test my impaired cardio-vascular system.  Rather than my usual stroll, I walked a little more briskly to encourage the symptoms.  The first significant hill climbs up the Scenic Highway out of Terrigal and I fully expected to succumb to breathlessness as I maintained a good pace, but I was surprised to reach the top without a problem.  It was good that I was feeling better than expected, but bad that there was no discernible heart arrhythmia for the Holter Monitor to record.  A little nonplussed, I continued on down Tramway into North Avoca, circled through the beachside streets and tackled the second steep hill, Coast Road.  This hill is steep enough to always be a serious challenge when running, and I couldn't envisage walking briskly up it without testing my current limits.

Terrigal Haven this morning.

Sure enough, after about 100 metres of serious climbing, I felt my heart racing and my blood pressure dropping.  I had to stop for fear of passing out, and just stood quietly for a minute, ready to sink gracefully to the side of the road if necessary.  After a minute or so, my equilibrium was restored and I continued on.  However, a few hundred metres later, at another short sharp little pinch, the same feeling enveloped me and I had to stop and stand still for a short period, again ready to cushion my fall to the road if I fainted.

It was encouraging, though, that once equilibrium was restored, I felt fine and could continue on at a good pace so long as the grade wasn't too steep.  I walked another couple of kilometres down into Terrigal before returning along the beach promenade to The Haven and my car, where I noted the times I felt unwell for the doctor to compare to the heart monitor.  I'm sure he will have something to look at now.

In search of information

Despite not planning to run, or even walk very much, I rose very early and joined the throng building on the Terrigal waterfront at 5:30am for the 6:00am Trotters' run.  It was cold and I was wearing jeans and multiple layers, making it obvious to everybody that I wasn't going to be running.  As usual, there was lots of animated conversation, and people were sympathetic to my plight.  At 6am, the place cleared and I plugged in my earphones and wandered off for a gentle stroll along the waterfront and through the shopping precinct listening to the latest audio version of The Economist (published Friday nights), while the sun gradually coloured the eastern sky and silhouetted the fishing boats heading out to sea.  I really really wanted to go for a run, but there's just enough sensitivity in my right arch to convince me that there still may be a problem and running could potentially set me back.



Comparison of planned and actual marathon training outcomes

Later in the day, as I despaired of my chances of running strongly again within a few months, I devoted some time to analysing how much training I had done compared to plan, and how my marathon preparations had gone in a previous era.

Most of my working life was spent managing and analysing data and information, and I have a passion for numbers.  So, it's not surprising that I have diaries for fifteen of my prime running years in which I planned and analysed my training from many aspects.  One of my base measures was the seven-day running mileage total and I took a look at the twenty weeks leading up to my best marathon time in 1979, and compared it to the twenty weeks leading up to this year's Melbourne Marathon.

Not surprisingly, when in full training, I was averaging more than twice the mileage.  However, perhaps the most valuable information was that in the lead-up to that race in 1979 I lost significant training time to a quadriceps tear and a serious bout of tonsillitis, and had a few very poor race performances along the way.

The lesson for me is not to lose faith in my ability as I encounter obstacles, lose training time, or perform badly.  I have often said that potential is defined by your best performances (and training), not your worst.

Some runs are no fun

Wednesday, 5 June 2013

I could tell by the top of the hill out of Copa this morning that my 29km was going to be hard work.  My legs felt leaden and I was breathing hard.  This wasn’t supposed to be happening.  I expected to be fresher after two easy running days, and wondered whether I was coming down with something.  I considered cutting the run short, but if I wasn’t actually ill, I couldn’t think of a good excuse.



I used to be pretty quick up hills, even aged 38.

I resigned myself to a miserable run and tried to tune out from the fatigue I was feeling.  Fortunately, I had brought along my radio and headphones, so I had some current affairs and talkback to listen to as I plodded along.  The issue with comebacks, whether from injury or a lay-off, is that the muscles that you had fine-tuned before the layoff have lost their strength and their fine-tuning.  During the comeback phase, it’s hard to maintain the most efficient posture, your running style suffers, your stride length shortens, and it takes more effort to cover the ground.  At my age I know it will take about three weeks to get this strength back.  Long slow runs help the rebuilding process, but can be very hard work.



Runners near the finish of a recent edition of the
Mount Washington Road Race (7.6 miles and 4560 ft)

Today, the hills seemed to be especially hard work, which was frustrating because I have always prided myself on my hill-running strength.  I continued on, trying not to think about how far I had to go, and eventually finished in a slow 2:41.  The whole run was worse than I had expected, but that added to the sense of satisfaction I felt when I finished and it was out of the way.  I have faith that I will feel the benefits in two or three days and have taken another step towards my goal.