A Marathon Not A Sprint
April has seen me build up my running volume as I think about the startline in New York for the marathon, now six months away. I know many of you are thinking I have more than enough time, and it should be a matter of routine the to get there in shape. That’s the logic, but my body doesn’t subscribe to that thesis. As my sixty-eighth birthday creeps up on me, I find my body to be a complex matrix of slightly dysfunctional and mostly aching parts. So my mantra is slow down for the long run.
And my recovery is not what it used to be; a hard running or lifting session can take anything up to three days to recover from. Clearly, if I have to recover for three days, I will never do the training volume needed to attain my desired fitness level. (The desired level being to simply get around the course, whether running or walking or crawling.) That being the case I find myself more often than not training while still hurting from the last session.
I’m not doing it mindlessly. I monitor my heart rate variability regularly and that lets me know if I am recovered enough to train or not. It’s very rare that my HRV tells me not to train, and so I put up with the physical discomfort and crack on. I’m a fan of my Kubios HRV, as it converts all my data into a physiological age, and currently it tells me I’m 31 years old, or less than half my biological age. I have no idea if that’s close to being a meaningful reading, but I tell myself, “Not many men of my age are this fit” and I push on.
Slow Down, Run Long
I had a great exchange with my coach at Coach Parry, as I have for some time struggled to keep up with the training volume and pace. It’s hard for my ageing chassis to run three times and lift twice in a week. I used to be okay with this, but as the length of sessions has increased, I have struggled and this saw me missing more sessions than I would like. The photo on the left shows the struggle.
My coaches told me to slow down and focus on the time spent on my feet. They told me to run in the 7:30 minute per kilometre to 8:00 minute per kilometre pace. The macho side of me was resistant to this at first, complaining it was no better than a fast walk. But then I did a few runs at this pace, and all of a sudden I was logging longer runs, with 10 kilometres being a breeze, and more recently me clocking 15 and 16 kilometres. I’m acutely conscious I need to run 42 milometres in November, and therefore I need to triple the distance. But I now feel that with time and consistency, I can build the training distances up. Slow down for the long run.
Is Slow Realistic?
The pace I am training at equates to a 5 hour 16 minute to 5 hour 38 minute marathon finish time. The Marathon Handbook states that 5 hours 44 minutes is a benchmark for a marathon beginner in the 65-69 age group, with 5 hours 6 minutes being the average finish time for all 65-69 year old marathon runners.
So yes, slow is realistic. I would be more than happy to finish the marathon at all. But my real target is 5 hours and 44 minutes. Yes, I aspire to be an average marathon beginner. It’s misogi stuff for me. Can a 68-year-old, 6’5″ and 103 kilogram novice, who has recovered from two stays in intensive care with 27 fractures and head and lung injuries finish a marathon. There is nothing average about that.
Yes, slow is realistic. I understand that increasing the distance will make even this slow pace a challenge, and I have to add in race day crowds, bathroom and nutrition breaks, and the like. But if I can build up my distances at this pace patiently over coming months, then I am being realistic.
Holding It All Together
Slow down for the long run requires my body being able to complete the work. Virtually all runners I speak to accept that injury is inevitable. Remember that running places 2.5 to 3 times bodyweight of stress on feet and knees and hips. During a marathon I will take around 55,000 steps, therefore I create between 14,000 to 16,000 tonnes during a marathon. Before you kindly note that I am not running this distance, I can offer that I am now running the equivalent of a marathon a week. Therefore my joints are absorbing this tonnage.
I am feeling it in my moderately arthiritic knees, and my osteopath tells me that oseteoarthiritis may be slowly creeping into my left hip. My knees and hips feel it acutely, and when distance goes above a dozen kilometres, I start to feel a touch of lower back pain as well.
I am being treated by the outstanding osteopath Guy Gold, and he has improved matters immensely for me. I can see myself being in Guy’s treatment room a lot between now and November. As well as reducing pain and increasing mobility for me, he is also directing various mobility and foam rolling techniques to be done before and after runs. Again, this is proving to be helpful.
55,000 Steps
55,000 impacts with the pavement per week is a lot, and therefore the quality of my running shoes is important. I tried a number of brands, and eventually settled on my old favourite, the ASICS Kayano. I have worn these for many years, but I thought it wise to try some of the newer brands on the market. None give me the stability and shock absorption of the ASICS. For example, I found the HOKA shoes to great on shock absorption, but they were almost over the top with the thick layers of sole, and this led to my foot rolling slightly.
I alternate two pairs of ASICS, and track the kilometres logged on each. I hear this myth that running is a cheap sport, but I know that the recommended maximum distance on a pair of running shoes and the £180 cost of a pair of Kayano 31 shoes means it costs me 60p per mile in shoe wear. Slow down for the long run, and be prepared to invest a tidy sum on the shoes that will take tens of thousands of impacts on the road.
Interestingly, as my volume has increased, my feet have spread and become a full size bigger. I now take a UK 15 in ASICS! I’m hoping my feet don’t continue their growth spurt, as size 15 in the outer limit of the size range for virtually all running shoes.
Hit The Gym
I know that strength training is a critical part of my regime. As an old guy, muscle loss is a daily issue that need addressing. If I don’t hold off the muscle loss, then my joints become more prone to injury, without the support of key muscle tissue around the injury-prone joints. There is no doubt that when thinking, “Slow down for the long run” that it isn’t about the mental image of a skinny runner, it’s about a more rounded athlete with the resilience to get the work done.
Two decent sessions in the gym a week do the trick for me. I have to confess that I don’t experience the fabled ‘runner’s high’ – sacrilege to confess to, but I just don’t get it. I am more from the Haruki Murakami school of, “Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional.” Running is painful. But I could sit in the gym all day, every day and beat my body up. I get a lifter’s high, but hope to one day experience the running version of it.
As well as lifting the weight, I pay attention to getting enough protein in my diet. On a good day I will get 150 grams or even more of protein into my diet. At the very least, I consume 100 grams. I also supplement with 5-6 grams of creatine, to aid with muscle synthesis.
Slow Down For The Long Run
That’s where I am today. On one hand I am under no illusion that this is true misogi stuff for me, with months of uncomfortable training to come. But on the other, I am driven by the scale of the challenge, the prize of achieving the highly improbable. And, in my customary style, no stone is left unturned when in comes to the breadth of my preparation. I have always gone deep into nerd territory with anything I have wanted to explore in my life, and running is no exception. Hence the coach, the osteopath, the shoes, the nutrition, the lifting, and finally the running.
This is truly a marathon and not a sprint. So I will focus on it a week at a time, a day at a time, and a training session at a time. Slow down for the long run. Be thorough, be well informed, and most of all, work hard.
Great read! Such an inspiration seeing you train for the marathon!