…..diary of an also ran – part 8

Once recovered from my treadmill incident, the better quality training showed itself to be paying dividends when I recorded a new p.b. for 10 miles, knocking nearly 2 ½ minutes off my previous mark with a 57’03”.  The next 3 weeks included a race each weekend, with a 3^rd place finish in the low key Mascalls 10 k in a time of 33’56” the next week – a time I would have been more pleased with if I’d trusted that the distance was really accurately measured ! , the Kent A.C 10 in 57’48” the week after that and the Worthing 10 in 58’44” on 1^st April in “foul weather – sleet, hail and windy – and feeling extremely fatigued for the previous couple of days”. By now my attentions were becoming focused on the Maidstone marathon in June, so I was trying to keep to a regime of reasonably high mileage weeks which incorporated a couple of good quality speed sessions and wherever possible, a race at the weekend. A planned attempt at the Finchley 20, was scuppered by a car breakdown on the way to the race. I vented my frustration by eventually getting home and going out for a miserable 17 mile training run. Consolation came over the following fortnight with a new P.B. ½ marathon at Rochester – 78’25” –  on 22^nd April and then what felt like another big step forward the next week when I improved it to 76’34” in the hilly Tunbridge Wells ½ marathon, coming a very pleasing 6^th place out of 430 starters !  Still trying to work on my basic speed, I continued regular track training, and racing in track meetings for Tonbridge as and when needed. The week after the T.W ½ , I scored new p.b’s at both 5000 metres ( 16’53” ) and 1500 metres ( 4’39” ) in the same afternoon, so things were going well.

Having participated in the Powerjog championships, we received an invitation to attend the London Marathon exhibition “pasta party” and take part in a demonstration race. A straightforward “head to head” 2 team race this time, in addition to having high quality opposition as before, we also had an audience to watch us make fools of ourselves ! Fortunately though, our team was supplemented by a couple of useful athletes from Birchfield Harriers, who helped us remain in fairly close contention as the race unfolded, but the key moment occurred when in the closing stages the other team put an unknown on to the treadmill who turned out to be a noted American ultra runner, who could have jogged along steadily all day, but was completely unable to go at any pace. He lost ground so suddenly that by the time they could respond by getting him off the machine and getting back up to speed again, we had raced into the lead, and despite a frantic chase they couldn’t catch us and we won.  Great fun !!! 

To really get myself ready for the Maidstone marathon, on consecutive weekends with 5 weeks and 4 weeks to go I ran 26 mile training runs. The reasoning being that it would make the 26 miles feel routine and remove any fear of the distance. The first run was twice round the T.W ½ marathon course, which is a pretty tough run and was completed in 2 hours 58’, which felt encouraging. The following week though really gave me a confidence boost, when I ran a predominantly flat  26 mile route in 2 hours 44’, covering the last 3 miles in 17’30” – the perfect dress rehearsal for Maidstone !  All that was needed was to keep the momentum going through to 17^th June.  That idea seemed to go out of the window the very next day when I fell badly when out on a cross country run, and turned my ankle very painfully. I limped home in such pain that I briefly thought it may be broken, but after a good sesssion of ice, then hot water then strapping with an ankle bandage it eased. I took a day off, but as the ankle seemed to be recovering extremely quickly, went out the following day trying to keep the weight and pressure off the bad ankle as much as possible. Despite the injury, I still managed to clock up a record week’s mileage of 65 miles.

The slight change in running style I’d adopted to protect the ankle started to cause me  unfamiliar  aches and pains in my knees and hips and I went into my next race that weekend – the East London ½ Marathon without any enthusiasm at all, and after a reasonable first 5 miles in 29’12”  eased back until around the 9 mile point, at which I started working again and finished quite strongly with a time of 77’51” . The following weekend was a rare one with no race, but then a new record week of 69 miles culminated in a hilly 10 K road race on a very hot day in Canterbury in which I recorded a very pleasing time of 34’39”. I felt that my recent form over various distances up to and including 26 miles gave me reason to think that I could improve my p.b. at next week’s Maidstone marathon.

The diet – To try and give myself the very best chance, I decided to have a go for the first time at the “marathon diet”. I’d read up on the principles of it, and its variations and created my own version. The most efficient fuel that powers the body over a strenuous event such as a marathon is glycogen which the body extracts from carbohydrate in food and stores up in the liver, releasing it to provide energy to muscles when needed. Under normal circumstances the body will only be able to store enough for a certain amount of energy expenditure, and this amount , whilst being variable, seems to equate to an athlete running close to ( but not quite at ) their limit for approximately 20 miles. The point at which that store of glycogen becomes depleted has become famously known in marathon running as “hitting the wall”, and without replenishment, the body has to draw on other available resources to keep going. The next resource being fat, which is greatly inferior as an energy provider in this context. To mitigate the onset of this depletion a runner can eat a diet naturally high in carbohydrate, and take high energy drinks during the race, but the carbo-loading diet is a step further, and one which the majority of people don’t use.  In essence, the principle is that if you deplete your body of it’s normal supply of glycogen for a few days by eating a diet devoid of carbohydrates, the liver becomes “tricked” into creating production of it’s own. At this point your diet shifts to very high carbohydrate with the intention being to saturate the liver with an abundance of glycogen. This method is further enhanced by starting the non-carbo phase with a longish run to “bleed out” the existing glycogen immediately before embarking on the change of diet.  In my case, on the Monday prior to the marathon, I ran a steady 10 miles and then only ate foods that I believed to be extremely low in carbs for the rest of that day, Tuesday and Wednesday. A gentle 7 miles on the Wednesday left me tired and leg-weary, which I hoped was the diet having the desired effect since the body’s over production of carbohydrate wouldn’t yet have had an effect.  By the Thursday I was feeling generally weak and tired after a slow 2 mile run, but as I entered the high carbo phase and with a deliberately low mileage plan, by Friday I was already feeling much better and with no run on either Friday or Saturday I arrived at Maidstone feeling good.

More next time…..

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