On Thursday, I ran 50km around the athletics track at Thornes Park. You’re all thinking it, so let me try and answer the question: why?
Well firstly, I was due a long run. My four-weekly training plan for the winter months is run focused, so the “long run” each week follows this pattern
· Week 1: run a long way (three hours).
· Week 2: run a bit further (four hours).
· Week 3: run a stupidly long way (five hours plus).
· Week 4: recovery run (ninety-ish minutes)
This was week 3, so a stupid long run was on the cards anyway. 50km ticks that box
Secondly, I wanted to work on consistent pacing. My “endurance pace” is just below 6 minutes per km. That’s 10km just under an hour, and therefore the 21.1km of a half marathon bang on two hours.
I can certainly run a half marathon faster than that if I have to, but that’s not the objective here. The idea is to be able to run that half marathon, then shrug your shoulders and do it again. And again… more or less indefinitely.
Thirdly, running round and around a small course is perfect mental preparation for the Quin and its 110 lap run around Allerthorpe lake. It’s not as simple as coping with boredom, it’s about forcing your brain to come to terms with the fact that you are running now, and you will be running forever, and this is your life now.
I had done very little specific preparation for this session – I had mentioned to some friends that I was running, and asked for a bit of company, but I was doing this on a Thursday morning so wasn’t expecting a big tribe. I had packed a rucksack with some nutrition, a spare set of clothes, and a big pot of Vaseline. And then I just turned up at Thornes Park, went in and paid my £4quid, and just unceremoniously started running.
In the end, I had company for more than half of the run. I did just over an hour on my own before Rachel joined me. Then she left me to do another 45 minutes or so before Peter came along, and then first Lou and finally Sarah all overlapped to mean I had someone to talk to for most of the morning. Even when alone, I was listening to podcasts on my earphones, and that is a realistic recreation of the Quin.
When you are running more than 120 laps of a track, variety and interest will come wherever you can find it, so I spent a long time working out what every tiny marking on the track meant – the start lines for the 2000m and 3000m Steeplechase, the 400m Hurdle placemarks, the sprint relay handover boxes. I went through a phase of running a lap in each lane, moving out one on the home straight each time. I even followed the dotted lines that mark out the steeplechase course, although I resisted the temptation to leap the water jump.
So how was the pacing? Generally good, with a consistent pace between 5:40 and 5:55 for the vast majority of the run. I accelerated slightly while running with Peter, and that’s a good warning to be careful when people join me on the Quin. Peter and I were chatting away, and I certainly didn’t FEEL I was going any faster. It was very comfortable in the moment, but it’s not about that moment. It’s about being able to keep doing this for two days. Don’t get carried away.
Certainly at the end, the pace was still comfortably under 6 minutes per km. Although I was happy to see the 50km tick over on my watch, I felt I could have continued without difficulty, so that is a session objective achieved.
One slight negative is that I didn’t eat enough, and I almost paid for that near the end. There’s an element of complacency here: nutrition couldn’t be easier when you are passing a big bag of food every two minutes, but that means there wasn’t a “now or never” feed station, so I just kept going, thinking I would stop and eat soon…
I had to stop after about half an hour for the loo. Then, after that, I never stopped for more than thirty seconds for a drink and a little stretch. At one point I picked up a cocoa and nut bar and put it in my pocket. Then I would take a bite every so often before stopping a lap later to drink.
When I say “every so often,” that is necessarily vague because I really wasn’t keeping an eye on it. Every so often was not often enough.
Really close to the end – with only six laps to go – I got a very sudden light headed feeling. It literally came on in the time it took to cover a single lap. Fortunately, the feed station at the finish line was not far away, and so I sucked down a couple of gels, which got me to the end. Nevertheless, this whole element was a bit of a failure, and reinforced the idea that I benefit from someone reminding me to eat regularly.
What about the mental side of the session? This is harder to quantify and is something of a “state of mind” rather than an empirical observable measurement. What I want is not just to be physically capable of producing that consistent pace, but to train my brain to accept it as a default state. To accept that stopping for the loo, to eat – even to sleep – are mere interruptions to the new normal of 6 minutes per km.
Most people spend their life Not Running, and sometimes they run. That is not how I complete the Quin. I am training my brain to understand that life is spent running at 6 minutes per km. There are times when I will do other things, of course, but when I am not doing something else, I am running.
I honestly think it’s this element that will make the difference next July. Of course I have to be physically fit, but if my body is in the right condition, then I will also need my brain to back it up.
I felt like I achieved that mental state on Thursday, just chatting to my friends, thinking about work, listening to a fascinating podcast about The Crimean War… just living my life… at 6 minutes per km…