Half term

Last week was half term for everyone in my family except me. To be fair, I chose not to go skiing and instead stayed at home (when I wasn't working, of course), watched more movies, played more video games and did a bit more training than I would usually do.

As I was meeting up with the family in Granada at the weekend and taking my bike there was out of the question, I decided to take the Thursday and Friday off work and get my 2 hour brick session in during the morning. It was quite a hectic day in the end, as shortly after my 50 km bike + 8 km run I had to shower, pop in to work for an unmissable meeting, catch a train into town to meet up with a friend visiting from the UK and then catch another (4 and a half hour) train down to Granada. I had to run (literally) from one appointment to the next but it was one of those days I enjoy, having a chance to do a bit of everything and feeling busy.

http://alhambraviajes.grupoairmet.com/

I went for a couple of runs around Granada. It was quite a challenge to avoid those "annoying hills" but I managed to invent a 50 minute flat course on the fly by following the river (slow moving rivers tend not to go up or down hill). It was drizzling slightly on the Saturday morning and the pavements were slick and slippery: it was a challenge in itself trying to keep upright while not running in to people. With a bit more planning I could have designed a much more picturesque (albeit hilly) route around the Alhambra. Instead, we explored the area with the kids (who are adverse to walking) on Segways which was a lot of fun and surprisingly challenging to navigate the twisty and narrow paths that were laid many years before Man came up with the idea of the Segway.

Hello again

In the past I have tended to at least mention the fact I was going on holiday on this blog, if not to actually keep on posting, albeit slightly less frequently. Much the same can be said about my "training" which I have let slip to unfamiliar levels of slackdom. We've been in Malaysia, Singapore and Borneo where doing any kind of sport was quite inconvenient - partly due to the humidity and partly due to lack of opportunity (for example, we spent several days on an island which only permitted a circuit of about 500m!). I did some swimming (with sharks) and a few runs on a treadmill but it was probably about time anyway that I took a real break from training. Previously I had an unwritten rule that I would not take more than 1 consecutive day off training, something I have managed to stick to with the exception of the odd Marathon or sickness and, even then, never more than 2. This belies a fear that I will get used to the luxury of not training and just fall back into my old ways. Well, I don't think that is going to be an issue - I actually enjoyed running yesterday for the first time in months, back on my home treadmill and back in my favourite shoes, the Vibram Seeyas. I've decided to go back to the Vibrams as long as I don't get that pain from the Morton's Neuroma again - hopefully, I can build back to a reasonable level in time for the Behobia race in San Sebastian.

Just before going on holiday, I went for another long ride with Dani - this time, the same route but in reverse. And this time, with enough cereal bars and gels to get me up the hills. I was more conservative going up the first puerto to avoid the embarrassment I suffered the week before when I ran out of steam going up the second one. The extra fuel seemed to do the trick as well as perhaps being a bit more used to the bike. I was also a bit more conservative going down and, even so, managed to lose my water bottle going over a bump. You can see from the video I took that the road is some state of disrepair...

For those of you who can read in Spanish (or, for that matter, know how to work Google Translate) Dani did an excellent write up on his blog which you can read here.

Oxford blues

This weekend I spent in Oxford, at my 21 years since graduation reunion (or "gaudy" as they insist on calling it there). I shouldn't really have been surprised to have found myself the only person not wearing black-tie (I was wearing a suit and tie, mind) but I couldn't find that naff clip on bow tie I used to use and I refused to buy a new one (and my Oxford education didn't extend so far as showing me how to tie one). I sent a photo to my kids (not reproduced here out to protect the reputations of my fellow colleagues) as I knew they would appreciate just how Harry Potter the whole thing was. It was pretty freaky staying in my old room and seeing all these familiar but strangely different faces. As you can imagine, it was a fairly alcohol fueled evening (I even smoked a cigarette!) that went on late by my recent standards. To really emulate a weekend of my youth, I had arranged for a friend to pick me up at 7 am, slightly hungover and only 4 hours sleep the better, to take me down to the river for an "outing" (in a rowing boat).

I don't think I have seen Mike since he kindly brought my records from Oxford to my parents' house in Cambridge, where I was recovering from glandular fever, almost exactly 22 years ago to the day. I had been rowing in a boat with him the day I discovered I was ill - it was the day after the intercollegiate Summer Eights rowing race, and we were training for Henley in a City of Oxford crew (Henley Royal Regatta is taking place as I write). I felt so weak that I couldn't even row "light pressure" and the others had to row me back to the boathouse. Mike was also in the crew I had rowed in the previous year, which I had joined just after having been dropped from the Oxford University squad.

Just as well I had a lot less records in those days

I may not have found my clip on bow-tie, but I was able to find my old City of Oxford lycra one-piece as well as some OUBC (Oxford University Boat Club) attire, complete with the then ubiquitous Beefeater Gin sponsorship. We drove down to Wallingford, to the very same stretch of water I had splashed incessantly up and down with the university squad all those years ago, but had not been back to since. We were very lucky to have a window of beautiful weather which only just lasted longer than the outing itself. We were quite a motley crew: Mike had assembled a couple of other friends - one of whom was an "ex-blue" (that is to say, had rowed in the Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race) and past Henley champion, in incredible shape considering that he was 70(!) years old. I assumed the "stroke" position (the one at the front, setting the rhythm), while Mike steered - if he remembered to - using a rudder which was attached to his foot via cables. I was pleased to see that not much had changed since I had last been in a boat (I think I have rowed about 3 times in the last 20 years). We used the "hatchet blades" which have an asymmetric spoon and were introduced around the time I was rowing seriously. In fact, on the last day of that Summer Eights competition in 1992, we switched to them for the first time in a desperate attempt to get our "blades" (oars awarded to those who finish first or "Head of the River"). Otherwise, it was just like riding a bike: I didn't have to think about what I was doing (although the others were probably just being polite in not criticizing my technique).

One thing that I had forgotten as it was the sort of thing that only "novices" suffered from, was that you tend to get terrible blisters - more precisely, open wounds - from the wooden handles of the oar, and the twisting motion ("feathering"). It's actually pretty disgusting to think of all that human blood and sweat which has soaked into the handle and starts to seep out in a kind of greasy gunk as you row.

A picture of my hand: makes a change from pictures of my feet

Apart from the soreness of my hands which only became an issue towards the end, I thoroughly enjoyed it, especially the amusing running commentary from Mike a couple of seats behind me. We did a round trip of about 14 kilometers and we weren't too shabby. I mean, I wouldn't describe ourselves as spritely, but the boat was stable enough (presumably because the experienced guys behind me were able to compensate for me) to be able to row without worrying about "catching a crab" (when your oar suddenly gets stuck in the water, with the possible consequence of the handle jumping up and hitting you in the chest). I have to admit that it was tiring, though and I didn't feel as though I could wimp out. I'd forgotten what it was like to have that pressure of not letting your fellow crew members down: a crew is more than just a team - if you stop, you get whacked in the back by the oar of the guy behind you. Since I fell off my bike and tore the ligaments in my shoulder, I have had surprisingly little trouble (so far) - I was able to complete an Ironman soon after - but my shoulder did feel worse for wear the next few days.

After the outing, we had a shower in the boat club and had some breakfast in a local cafe. I felt slightly jealous of Mike living in a quaint village, where he seemed to know everyone we passed, all of whom seemed to be rowers. I made a resolution to get back into cycling in a group when I got back to Madrid. When I am preparing for a specific competition I like to train on my own and I tend to be very focused end self-motivated, but these days I am suffering from a bit of a lack of direction and motivation, especially with the problems I am having with my foot. I got the MRI scan back today, and the conclusion is indeed that I have a Morton's Neuroma (if not two of them in the same foot). I'm seeing the podiatrist next week so I await slightly nervously the prognosis and recommended course of action. In the meantime, I have been cycling a lot more and running a lot less; also, finally, my feet have recovered from my rather unwise sockless run some weeks ago, so I can again run in my slightly more than minimalist Merrill Trail Gloves.

Miami vices

In an almost repeat of last year, I ran as a pacesetter in the Proniño race before jumping on a plane to America, only this time I left a few days in between, rather than a few hours. I was again holding the sub 40' balloon (the first of which, as last year, came un-tethered and floated skyward!). This year, however, I didn't manage to nail the pace quite as well. In fact, if I had been following me trying to break 40 minutes for the first time, I would have been quite upset with me. My fellow pace setter decided against my advice to follow his Garmin watch which, as is customary, cheerfully beeped about 10 seconds before we reached the kilometer markers. On the other hand, I remembered from last year that the markers weren't reliably placed either, so I thought I would go by feel. By halfway I was bang on time, while Antonio was a few seconds ahead of me (in spite of Garmin's optimism). I tend to struggle more going up hills than most but I also tend to fly down them a lot faster. This meant that those following me were tricked into a sluggish pace going up a hill just after the halfway mark, only to be dropped as I went careering off. I found myself running completely alone for the last few kilometers which, for a pacesetter, I think can be classified as a fail. As I caught up with Antonio just after the 9 kilometer mark, he reckoned we were ahead of pace, but I remembered that the 9 kilometer marker was badly placed from last year so I said that I thought we needed to make up time. We soon realized that we were running behind time and so we started to sprint for the line alongside the first female finisher. So as not to spoil her victory, we dropped back and to the side before she broke the tape. In the end we were about 20 seconds slow but there was no-one around to complain and those who had a chance of breaking 40 minutes had done so by staying ahead of us so they didn't care.

This year, my conference was in Miami and my flight left on Tuesday afternoon. To be honest I really didn't feel like going because my youngest son was actually in hospital with a tummy ache that has refused to go away. I hope its nothing serious, but he has been in and out of hospital for the last two weeks and they still haven't come up with an explanation. I'm guessing that its related to the food intolerance he suffered from a few years ago when we put him on a 5 food exclusion diet and then gradually reintroduced gluten, soy, egg, milk and fish, one by one.

I had been desperately trying to pass level 305 in Candy Crush because, as it was the last of an "episode", if I succeeded on the plane, I would have to wait at least until I landed before being able to unlock the next levels. I needn't have worried: not only did I not manage to pass the level on the plane, neither did I during my whole stay nor the flight back, for that matter. (Rest assured, I have since managed though.)

By the time I arrived at my hotel, it was dark and it had started to rain - hopefully that would release some of the pent up humidity in the air. With the time difference, I woke up at around 4 am and watched the finale of the Fargo series while waiting for the sun to rise. As soon as it was light enough, I headed out of the door for a run around the area. My feet were still sore from the sockless run I did wearing my Merrill Trail Gloves ten days before, so I ran (against the podiatrist's better wishes) in my trusty Vibram Five Fingers. I took my GoPro (which solicited a few comments such as "Why does he need a camera for running?") and shot the following video:

At around the 4 minute mark, you see me overtake a girl: after half an hour, I stopped for a rest and she caught me up and turned back at the same point as I did. With the humidity and a quick stop to pee, sip some water and dunk my head in a cold shower, we kept on overtaking each other to the point I was worried she would think I was stalking her. I'm going to have to get used to this weather when we go to Malaysia for our summer holidays. Just as I rarely need to drink any more, I'm convinced there is a large psychological component to my lacklustre performances in hot and humid conditions. Along the route you can see some impressive cars and equally impressive triathlon bikes: not only does Miami host a 70.3 Ironman event, but people have plenty of cash to splash out.

I was surprised that for a relatively pedestrian unfriendly city (without a car, you are nobody) bikes were quite welcome. I was recommended a bike (I should say bicycle) hire shop near the hotel where, looking through the window, I could see I would be able to hire a road bike. Unfortunately, in the same window was a sign saying that it was "currently closed under new ownership". So I walked / ran to Little Havana hoping to see something with a bit of character.

Just as things started to get interesting, I happened upon this bike shop.

I asked if I could rent a bike and was told that, for $30, I could rent one for the day. I said I only needed it for a few hours so he said $25, which I said wasn't much less than $30, so he said, OK, $20 and I said the bike looked a little small for me so we agreed on $15. Then he said he'd need to hang on to my credit card as a guarantee and I said I couldn't really leave it, so he said he'd swipe it for a deposit of $100 which he'd either credit me back or give me back in cash, but it turned out that he didn't have credit card swiping facilities so he just said "you're a tourist, I trust you". The bike he picked out for me turned out to have a D-lock on it for which they didn't have the keys... It proved resistant to the drill...

...but not to the circular saw. I set off on a 32 km ride, taking in Coconut Grove and Crandon Park on Key Biscayne - basically, the continuation of the run I did on the first day.

The bike was very cool but, being a single speed a bit on the heavy side, it was quite a lot of work to get over the bridge of Ridgebaker Causeway.

Complete with shiny new D-lock

There was a point along the route at which the bike path departed from the main road and ducked into a forest. From this point on I didn't see a single soul, which was quite a striking contrast to the hustle and bustle of the city I was leaving behind. It was also much cooler under the canopy of the trees. As if to underline the contrast, a couple of Iguanas about half a meter in length ran out in front of me, followed by a raccoon, some squirrels and the like.

Eventually I came to a beach which was all but deserted. It certainly wasn't the kind of beach I was expecting to find in Miami. I went for a quick swim but was surprised to find that the water was about as warm as I would run a bath.

At this point it started to rain so I headed back to the bike shop. After all the haggling over price, Tony was very relaxed about how long I was out for. When I returned the bike he handed me his business card - handy if I should ever need any plumbing done in the Miami area.

I'm sure Miami must be a lot of fun if either (a) you have a car, (b) you go with friends, (c) you are single or (d) all of the above apply. As I didn't fit into any of these categories, I found it quite a dull city right up to the point I hired the bike.

I had thought that it was a shame to be in America when the World Fooball of the Non-American Kind Cup was going on but with so many latinos around, the atmosphere was electric. You could hear the roars coming from bars at slightly different times, depending on the lag of their network. But, while I was in Miami, not only was Spain knocked out, but so was England, literally in the minute before I was called to my flight back. I'm not sure who to support now: probably Brazil and definitely not Portugal. Maybe Holland winning would somehow vindicate the Spanish being knocked out so convincingly.

ABN Amro CPC Loop Den Haag Half Marathon 2014 Photos

You can probably tell from the even more extreme than usual foaming around the mouth, that I had a bit of a head cold coming on. Well, the exertions of Sunday were enough to bring it on and I am practically speechless today, but not in a good way. I'm supposed to give a two hour talk tomorrow at one of the local universities but I could just as easily lose my voice completely as be right as rain by then. This is something that happens to me once every year or two - I don't ever remember it happening before I moved to Spain. Anyway, between the cold, my stiff legs and my aching back, I'm really not in my best shape today. We've still got gorgeous weather so, if I'm feeling up to it, I may take my mountain bike out for a gentle ride at lunchtime.

I'm not sure how much fighting off this cold might have affected my performance on Sunday but it's better to focus on the things that I can control, such as not setting off too aggressively. On the other hand, maybe I would have been able to keep up a similar pace had I been feeling tip-top - one never knows... I realized that I was worried that I was coming to an age related plateau in performance! If I think how I have been able to train recently, that is hard to believe. Not yet, anyway!

ABN Amro CPC Loop Den Haag Half Marathon 2014 Race Report

Executive summary: On the one hand, I did my slowest Half Marathon time in 2 and a half years, on the other hand, it was only a minute slower than my best time.

Let's get the excuses out of the way, because they serve no purpose: it was hot and windy, I had a cold coming on, my back was painful, I trained for the wrong distance up until a month before, the race was in the afternoon and I was tired from travelling. Now that's off my chest, perhaps instead I can learn from something I did wrong because that is the point of all this, to advance in performance or experience or both.

My flight to Amsterdam (there are no direct flights to the Hague from Madrid) was leaving at 5pm on the Saturday, just long enough for me to pass the "baton" of our kids over to my wife, who was returning from Mali. We met up in a Japanese restaurant in the area which had literally opened the night before - Kabuki Aravaca. The best sushi I had ever tasted had been in Sao Paolo, Brazil, and not in Japan, where I have to say I was slightly disappointed. All that changed when we asked the waiters to bring out the chef's selections. Strictly speaking it wasn't all sushi so I didn't really get the carbohydrates I had been hoping for but when the food is that good, who cares? Thanks to my flight I had to leave for the airport before the bill came...

A room with a view

I booked a hotel that turned out to be in the middle of nowhere but I had chosen it to be near the station, so that it would be easy to get to and from the Hague. It would also have been cheap (€4.50) to get to from the airport but I felt so tired after the flight I decided to get a taxi - after all, how much more expensive could it be? 10 times, is what! Oh well, lesson learned.

Staying in Amsterdam presented me with somewhat of a dilemma. One of my favourite deejays was playing on the Saturday evening and the race was starting at 2:30 the following afternoon but it seemed silly to go so far to try for a personal best in the Half Marathon, only to be knackered from partying the night before. After all, I was only looking to shave 4 seconds off my time. If there is an intersection between my previous life of a deejay and my current life as a runner, it is this: drum 'n' bass music, which is the perfect rhythm to run to.

The weather was absolutely beautiful and you could tell that it was unusual for this time of year as everybody was talking about it and the Dutch were out in force on their bikes. I had a light breakfast on Sunday (perhaps I should have had a heavier one, who knows?) and got chatting to the barman, who turned out to be an ex-professional footballer who was also quite a fast runner. Getting to the Hague couldn't have been much easier - there was a train leaving just as I got to the station and bought my tickets. I traveled very light, just carrying what I needed for the race itself with a change of clothes on top. So light, in fact, that I forgot to take the map of the race area or any kind of ID.

This didn't turn out to be a problem. I hadn't realized what a huge spectacle the race would be: there was a huge throng of people making their way to the nearby park which had been converted into a massive staging area for the races taking place. I was handed my race number without any questions asked, so much for me fretting about it. In fact the atmosphere, if anything, was a little too relaxed. The event was very much aimed at two distinct groups: fun runners and the elite, so that "competitive runners" like myself fell between two stools. For example, the only food available was junk food (although I did manage to find a cheese sandwich) and it was pretty much impossible to warm up as there was no area set aside for the runners away from the meandering crowds. It was also strange not to see the usual stalls selling gadgets, gear and energy bars to runners all too happy to part with their cash. Having said that, it was perfect for hooking in people new to the sport. I think my Vibram SeeYas attracted even more attention than usual with such a casual crowd (although not quite as much as my Pulpo Paul costume) - I was even asked to pose for several photos with them.

The start was a very Dutch affair with the compere even singing some karaoke song that everyone else seemed to know. Sandwiched between the fastest corral (sub 1:30) and the elite were a bunch of Dutch runners competing for some national title. Unfortunately, some of them were very slow so that, when the gun went off, it was a bit chaotic. It took me a while to find my space and get my rhythm. A rhythm, as it would turn out to be, a bit overheated.

I'd thought that "Loop" meant loopy as it was a very twisty and turny course but in fact "loop" means course in Dutch and "lopen" means run. Also, because Holland is very bike friendly, the roads are relatively narrow with wide pavements and bike lanes. This meant that people cut some of the corners although it wasn't very clear whether the measured course was counting on this or not. Certainly there was one occasion when a policeman suddenly decided to stop us from mounting the pavement just after a whole slew of other runners had done so.

As it was quite windy and it seemed like the wind would be in our faces on the way back, I decided to try and bank some time. By my calculations, I should aim for 3:42 per kilometer and 18:30 every 5km. I got to the 5k mark in 18:09 (which, by the way, more or less equals my personal best time of 18:05 for 5k from this time last year, since beaten by 30 seconds) which would have been in line for a 1:16:36 Half Marathon time! In retrospect, I think this is where I made my error - I simply started off to fast and then faded gradually during the race. 

I enjoyed the first half of the race: I was still on target by 10k (37:04) but, of course, the pace I was running at was now as much slower than my target as first 5k had been too fast. The crowds were a bit "soso" as we say in Spanish (wet, I guess). A few times I called out for them to cheer and a brief round of applause ensued. Occasionally I heard my name being shouted but, as they had also put my middle name on the bib, very few had time to read it. I did wonder whether my childhood friends and the friends of my parents were out there, as well as whether they would recognize me - not very likely,  as I hadn't warned them I was coming.

The only part of the Hague that I recognized was Scheveningen beach but by that time I was beginning to realize that it was going to be very difficult to meet my goal of breaking 1:19. The splits were coming in in the 3 fifties and I knew I would have to at least run 3:45 per kilometer. As was to be expected, we were more spread out by now and it was harder to find shelter from the wind which was now in our faces. For a brief moment I thought that I would make it but, in hindsight, I must have done my sums wrong because the time that I was on the borderline of breaking was 1:20, not 1:19. It's a silly thing but, if I regret one thing, it's that I didn't make that extra effort to break 1:20. I didn't exactly take it easy but, having seen my goal evaporate, I didn't have the fight in me to be able to clock in another sub 1:20 time. My initial reaction when crossing the line was to feel angry at myself and even to feel guilty, having spent all that money just to get the opportunity to run a fast flat course at sea level and to have "squandered" it. Maybe the heat and the wind cancelled out the advantage afforded by the profile - it's often the way that a flat land has higher winds, not to mention sea breezes if it is literally at sea level. Now I realize that the error was in running the first 5k far too fast: a Half Marathon may not be a Marathon but it doesn't mean you can muck around with it. In spite of this tactical error, I did manage not to fade too much and I certainly didn't have that horrible feeling of people passing me by. For this, at least, I think I can feel proud.

A lesson in pacing

It was nice to get a medal, especially from ABN Amro where I used to work for 6 years. It's not often you get a medal from your employer, even if it is 13 years late. After the finish line I lay down for a bit but this seemed to worry the officials as it wasn't long before someone came to ask if I was alright and told me it was better to keep moving. I like lying down - it's what I had spent the last 30 minutes looking forward to doing!

In conclusion, it was a nice weekend but it would have been cheaper and easier to stay at home and to have gone for my personal best time in Getafe Half Marathon (which, they tell me, had an even faster course this year). Now I am going to take a week off running completely to see whether my back can recover completely and then I'll take another week to ramp back up before starting another 9 week plan for the Bupa London 10,000m for real this time!

Happy New Year!

I've been on holiday in Asturias where we spent Christmas. It was so windy that there was a cyclone warning with gusts of up to 150 kph predicted: in the end, it wasn't so extreme and the weather was actually especially nice for Asturias in winter. Santa Claus (a.k.a. my wife) very kindly gave me a GoPro Hero3 (Silver Edition) camera. My idea is to use it to record some of the runs and cycle rides I do so that I can play them back when I am running on the treadmill or riding on the turbo trainer. Here is an excerpt form my first recording, done without any special support for the camera (i.e., handheld).

It will be a welcome edition now that I am running out of TV series to watch while training. I associate each major race I have trained for with a particular series: for example, Seville 2012 was watching The Wire, New York 2013 was Game of Thrones and, more recently, Aranjuez was Homeland.

I've enjoyed a real break both from work, from training and from watching what I eat (and drink). Although I have been out running a few times, it has only been if I have felt like it and it hasn't interfered with the family's plans. Also I went very much off the beaten track and found some trails I had never run before (although they became so fraught with brambles and mud that I could only go so far).

Tonight is not only New Year's Eve but it is also the occasion of the San Silvestre Vallecana 10K race that runs through the streets of Madrid. It may not have the glamour of the New York City Marathon but it isn't too far behind: 40,000 runners (versus 50,000 in New York) and a great party atmosphere. It is also a point to point course with the difference being that the finish (as opposed to the start) is out of town. I'll be running with my wife (she is already making excuses not to run) dressed as.... well, you'll have to tune in tomorrow to see what my costume is this year. It's worth it, I promise!

This is also a time for reflection and, as this is ostensibly a blog about endurance racing and training, I'll limit my musings to that sphere. For 2013 I continued as a "self-trained athlete" applying ideas from my previous coach, from books I'd read and from personal experience. And, to be honest, apart from a disappointing Half Ironman in which the dreaded cramps came back from their grave to haunt me, I am very pleased with my progress. I shaved more than 30 seconds off my Half Marathon time, almost a minute off my 10K time and 8 minutes(!) off my Marathon time. My training went pretty much exactly to plan with no injuries (touch wood!) and no illness (although, as luck would have it, I got my first cold the whole year in the last few days of the year). Even in "failure" (the Half Ironman in Lisbon) I was pleased with the way I was able to take it in my stride and see it as an experience from which I could learn. I don't see myself doing any triathlons in 2014 but I would like to get back on the bike in the summer and perhaps I can find a way to do a Time Trial even if it means taking my bike to the UK (as there are no TT races that I know of in Spain for amateurs). Instead, my goals for 2014 will be to break 1:19 in the Half Marathon (I just need to find three seconds) and to get a best time for 10K in London (a flat course at sea level in hopefully cool conditions).

So, until 2014, I wish you all a very HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Aranjuez 10K Week 1 / 6

Monday: 2 x 3 x 1,600 @ 3:25
Tuesday: 40' easy
Wednesday: 20 x (30" @ 3:00, 30" @ 6:00)
Thursday: 45' @ 4:27
Friday: -
Saturday: 6 x (400m @ 3:15, 200m @ 2:50) + 400m w/ 2-3' rest
Sunday: 45' @ 4:21
Total kilometers: 46

The interesting half of this week I was in Moscow. I had been asked to present at a conference but then that conference was cancelled and I decided to go anyway, with my wife and no kids (4th time in 11 years for a "DINKy" - Double Income No Kids - weekend). As a bit of holiday reading, I bought a Russian text ("Supertraining", translated into Spanish) on strength training for my Kindle by one of the forefathers of "plyometrics", Yuri Verkhoshansky.

I found a gym which I planned to do my quality workout on Saturday morning but a day pass turned out to cost about 75 euros and the running machines were so slow to increase speed that running such short intervals would have been absurd. Instead, I braved the cold and ran the stretch between two bridges on the opposite side of the river from Red Square while my wife jogged past. With my generous rests in between sets, we ended up running about the same distance in the same time. The uneven pavement made the 200m intervals at over 21 kph quite hair-raising; I would start the 400m at what was quite an aggressive pace to find that I was literally wheezing and slowing down to a trot for the last 100m. Probably not the optimal execution but a good workout nonetheless and one from which I am still recovering today as I write this.

It's not the first time this year that I've seen that green bike somewhere unexpected

Just as I stayed on Madrid time when I went to New York a couple of weeks ago, it was also convenient to stay on Madrid time in Russia. As a result we would get up around 10:30 am (no kids!), have breakfast around 12:00 pm, lunch around 4 pm and dinner at 11 pm. I was suprised to find that not only were there many reasonable and good quality restaurants open 24 hours but we were not the only people eating at such strange times. So on the Sunday, just before checking out of the apartment, I went for a run around the river. I think I saw one other runner the whole time during the 3 days we spent there. Considering that Moscow supposedly had introduced a bike share scheme this year, I was expecting to see at least some bikes if not people riding them: nothing. I know it is cold, wet and windy but no more so in November than London! That, and the fact that people still smoke so much and in restaurants, were the only things which made the city seem a bit of a throwback; otherwise it was very clean, modern and impressive.

Back to work in more ways than one

I've been extremely lazy lately and haven't even been updating this blog. But I think a holiday in the 21st century has to include not only a break from telephones and emails but also a complete unplugging from the internet.

The rest of my holidays in Asturias was very enjoyable. I finally caved in and bought a longer (and garishly red) seatpost for my bike:

I now have my seat about 2 cm higher than before - what a difference!

which made an enormous difference, especially on the hills. I found I could climb the usual hill to the house in 3rd gear instead of 1st gear, and with a higher cadence. Bolstered by this new source of power, I decided to cycle to Gijón the next day, assuming that the route would be no more difficult than following the N-632 in the other direction to Llanes (along which it's actually possible to go from Pis to Poo)

From Pis to Poo

I was wrong.



It also turned out to be a very rainy day, or rather one of those typical Asturian days which exibit a selection of all the types of weather you are likely to experience in one day. My idea had been to cycle back after a lunch with the family but I was too tired and fed up (and I had used up most of my wife's patience too) so I put the bike in the back of the car instead. I later discovered that there was another route which practically avoided that second puerto (mountain pass) at the cost of only a few kilometres more. I often find that the actual difficulty of a route has little to do with how it looks on paper but, suffice to say, next time I will try this one.

The second part of the holiday was another trip to Morroco, this time to Marrakesh and Essouira - a place I hadn't been to in 23 years and one which had obviously changed quite a lot in that time.

Marrakech was bastard-hot, reaching 49 degrees in some parts, but the mornings were fairly cool and, surprisingly, not so full of people bumbling about as I expected (and at least it was a dry heat!). Essouira benefitted from being by the sea, so it was much much cooler, but it was also extremely windy: running back along its infinitely long beach I struggled to even simply move forward. The other problem was that it was high tourist season - not only foreigners but in fact mainly nationals - this meant that there was a shortage of water which no doubt contributed to the chances of diarrhea, something from which almost all of us suffered at some point or other. I took this week very easy and only ran every other day: the important thing was to be fresh both mentally and physically to start...

My training plan for New York City Marathon

So it's time to start training "properly" again and that means I need a plan. I thought I would do something along the same lines as my plan for Seville Marathon although I cannot ignore the fact that I had prepared another Marathon only a few months before that one and so I had a more appropriate base on which to build. This time I hope that some of my speed from the shorter races before the summer carries over, as well as a general freshness (which, I have to say, I don't feel particularly today, on my first day back to work and with a dodgy tummy). The tweaks I have made are to add a few extra ingredients into the mix as well as to converge more on the idea of inverse periodization.

- Hill sprints. My intention has been to incorporate these into my training plan for Seville but I ended up skipping them for one reason or another.
- Plyometrics. I believe that these jumping / bounding exercises are very effective both for development of speed as well as helping prevent injury (provided they are done properly, which is far from trivial).
- Achilles. My left Achilles tendon has been nagging me for the last few months, in spite of a significant reduction in volume (but perhaps aggravated by an increase in speed work). I had hoped that the holidays would give me a chance for it to clear up completely but I still notice it slightly sore after running (if I pinch it hard). My idea is to start doing eccentric heel lowering exercises.
- Core. Here I refer not to doing abdominal crunches which supposedly help you develop an impressive "six pack" (supposing you can eliminate that subcutaneous fat) but rather to "plank" type isometric exercises which help develop stability in the core muscles.
- Powerbreathe. I started religiously doing breathing exercises every day and did indeed notice an impressive improvement in my ability to do those exercises but little else. It's not to say that it has no effect on anything else and, as it is fairly time effecient, I thought I would give this another go.

In fact, all of these "extras" are relatively time effecient but need a bit of discpline to make sure that they don't just get put off indefinitely. Just as it is often your friends who live closest who you see less often because you can "always" see them, I find that the easiest exercises often get put off until late in the evening becaue you can "always" do them watching TV etc, by which time you can't be bothered to do them any more.

As before, rather than working back from the Marathon itself, I started from the peak week (9) with the training load I would like to be challening but acheivable. The rest of the plan is really just building up to this moment. I've also included a 10K "tune up" race (Mapoma "Corre por Madrid" on the 22nd of September) as well as a Half Marathon (Alcázar de San Juan on the 6th of October) which I will run at race pace (that's to say, not at Marathon Pace as I have done in the past). I've also added a few 7K "aerobic tests" which have been a useful benchmark to gauge my fitness (20 laps of the 350m track at work at a heart rate of 172 bpm): based on these I may have to revise up or down my training paces.

Lastly, I'm going to try a little experiment based on Matt Fitzgerald's latest book "The New Rules of Marathon and Half Marathon Nutrition" namely a "Fat loading" stage prior to the classic "Carbohydrate loading" (which, seen another way is a kind of carbohydrate depletion) as well as a "Caffeine fast" which, according to the author, will make caffeine that much more effective during the race. I'm also going to cut my alchohol consumption down to virtually zero, more than anything else, to keep my weight down (which has inevitably crept up over the last few weeks).

This first week of training is just to ease back into following a plan. Next week is when it all starts good and proper.

New York Citi

On the flight over to New York from Boston, I overheard a conversation the guy sitting next to me was having on his phone. He was describing his brother, who was in his sixties and cycling 40 miles a day, as someone who suffered from that "disease, you know, that thing that some kids get which make it hard for them to relate to other people - ah, what was it called again?". I actually got chatting to him and was very surprised that, as a University lecturer as he turned out to be, he couldn't remember the word "autism" and thought that it was a disease. The reason I mention this is because, the next morning I met up with a friend who had gone to the trouble of picking up my New York City 2012 Marathon "non-finisher's" medal and, by a strange coincidence, she was now working for a charity promoting awareness for autism.

One day this will be worth a fortune on ebay ;-)

While I was waiting for her, I had a Red Bull but I was surprised to find a new, completely calorie free version (the sugar free can has about 10 calories). The flavour was a little different and I actually preferred it, so I look forward to that coming to Europe. (Red Bull is a Austrian company based on an original Thai drink.)

As I would have to spend most of the day in the office and I was meeting friends for dinner in the evening, I squeezed in a brisk 40 minute run around Central Park before meeting up with Elizabeth. The combination of the drum 'n' bass music at 180 bpm and the game of overtaking other runners meant that I found myself running at a pace of 4:10 per kilometre, even though I had told myself to take it easy. I arrived back to the hotel drenched in sweat, in spite of it being relatively cool still at that time in the morning.

I decided to try out one of the new Citi bikes, New York's answer to London's bike scheme (which, in spite of being sponsored by Barclays, are commonly referred to as "Boris bikes" after the Mayor of London who is a keen cyclist). Perhaps Michael Bloomberg was secretly hoping that the New York equivalent would become known as "Bloomberg bikes" but that sounds equally corporate as Citi Bank. Anyway, after much faffing around with the slightly clunky bike checkout system with its pages of disclaimers and rules, I took a bike down 30 blocks to a shop which stocked Minecraft memorabilia as my kids are currently hooked on the video game craze.

I didn't get too far though, on my first attempt. Unbelievably, one of the pedals came off the bike and I had to walk it back to the nearest bike rack. Bear in mind that these bikes are very solid and brand new! A couple of workmen who I asked for directions to the bike rack stood there shaking their heads in disbelief.

By now it was dinnertime so I headed to Brooklyn in a cab. I had seen on a map that the bike scheme only covered the south part of Manhattan island but had I known that there were also bike stations in Brooklyn already, I would have made the journey by bike (and have got there much sooner and with 20 dollars more still in my pocket).

As usual, I woke up very early. It's partly due to jet lag but the sun rises much earlier - in fact, by that token the time difference is exaggerated. It's certainly the case that Madrid is out of line with Morocco and Portugal which are in the same time band (I have heard that this was a pact between Franco and Hitler) but the sun seems to rise very early in New York and people also eat dinner very early. I didn't feel too much like running after my night out but I dragged myself out of the hotel. This time I deliberately left my music behind so that I would run at a more leisurely pace (around 4:30-4:40) and, rather than running round and round Central Park again, I decided to head up to Spanish Harlem and back. In an hour I made up as high as 120th street before having to turn back. It always fascinates me how the houses, the shops, the people and their cars change as you go from one end of the avenues to the other.

I caught my flight later that afternoon and I am now writing this on Sunday morning, waiting for my family to wake up. The kids must have gone to bed quite late (there are signs that my wife had a party) because it is very unusual for them to still be sleeping at 9:30 on any day of the week. It looks like it will be a lovely if not a little too hot day. Perhaps I can convince the family to go out on a bike ride: I find exercise the best antidote to jet lag.

Boston strong

I suppose technically it was the same day, although 6 hours more than the clock was showing had past since I ran the 10K race in the morning, so I decided to go for another run as soon as I got to the hotel. I thought it would be a good way to keep myself awake a few hours longer as well as making me feel tired enough to sleep well once it was (finally) time to sleep.

I decided I would try to get to the famous Heartbreak Hill which is in fact not called that at all except for one day in the year when the Boston Marathon is run. It is famous not so much for its climb or steepness but more for its location, just at the point in the race when your glycogen stores are running out. I had downloaded the Marathon course onto my Garmin GPS watch but, with all the tall buildings around, not to mention the cloudy skies, it took forever to get a good GPS signal. The temperature was perfect for running and a welcome change from the heat back home in Madrid but I was soon to discover how humid it was.

I was surprised how few runners there were and how many of them were women (in fact, nearly all – and it wasn’t because I was only looking at the female runners). The course in reverse takes you along the Back Bay area, which is like a slice of England. I was reminded of a short story I once read by Ray Bradbury, in which a couple of guys travel back in time and one of them accidently steps on a butterfly and finds, on return back to his time, that everything has subtlety changed (in fact, this was the origin of the “Butterfly Effect” later coined by Lorenz). The houses looked so familiar but the street numbers in the 1,000s gave them away, as did the cars parked outside that were bloated as if someone had inflated them by pumping up their exhaust pipes.

The Marathon route was actually quite boring apart from a nice lake that I stumbled upon but which was otherwise not visible from the road. I was starting to get quite tired after 10 kilometers, so I asked a fellow runner if they knew how much further it was to Heartbreak Hill and they told me that it was still about 3 miles so I decided to turn back. It was only later, when I uploaded the route to my Garmin, that I saw that I had got within 1,000 meters of my goal… In the end I ran a total of 30 kilometers that day, so I felt as though I had done a good day’s work and enough to justify a day off the next day.

On the Tuesday, I found a chance to run down to the Vibram USA store to pick up a pair of Vibram Five Fingers Seeyas to replace the pair that was now wearing out, as well as a pair of Spyridons which are less in need of repairing but somewhat cheaper in the States nonetheless and some Injinji "toe socks". With the humidity, I arrived at the shop totally soaking but I suppose that running shops are amongst the few shops for which it is relatively acceptable to turn up like this. I was given some paper towels to dry off with while I made my purchases. I ran back along the River Charles and realized that this was where all the runners run.

Later that evening I did a short interval session on the hotel treadmill, of 4 lots of 1,600 meters at 10 mph (approximately 16 kph). The gym, although small, was one of the best-equipped ones I have seen in a hotel.

I couldn’t really go to Boston without having seen Havard University, so this was my objective for the run I did the next day. It was a very picturesque run alongside the River Charles and there were a lot of other people doing the same thing. Every so often my watch would pick up the heart rate strap of some random person I happened to pass by. After three days of rain storms in the afternoon (to which I attribute the fact that I have now got a head cold) the weather was now sunny but noticeably less humid. I felt as though I was running downhill most of the way there and most of the way back and checked of most of my kilometer splits easily between 3:55 and 4:15. Every so often I had to stop for traffic lights, of course, but at one set a policeman actually held the traffic and waved me across.

Towards the end of my 20 km run, I stopped for some water and to cool down and watched the other runners pass by. I always find it interesting in a nerdy kind of way to critique other people’s running styles. Of course, almost everybody was heel striking and – if not actually braking – at least losing the natural spring of the foot. One guy was running on the ball of his foot but in such a deliberate way that I felt sorry for his calf muscles. There were a couple of runners who seemed to be light on their feet – it so happened they were both girls and both running in minimalist footwear. Minimalist running shoes don’t guarantee good running style and are probably more dangerous to run badly in, but I do think it is easier to learn to run well in them.

Now, off to New York…

The end of the holidays is nigh

I haven't been posting lately which is a good sign in that I have been enjoying my holidays but not so good from a training point of view. But this time I decided to take a real holiday and allow myself to fatten up a little bit for when things pick up after the summer.

It's hard for even me - I feel more Spanish than English in many ways, having had some of my most important life experiences in Spain - to not feel extremely patriotic right now. An Englishman has won the Tour de France - and one who likes to say "cunt" a lot, something that particularly pleases me - and, at the time of writing, Great Britain is third in the medal table of the Olympics with 14 gold medals, behind the USA and China. If the medals were per capita then GB would be leagues ahead (although I'd have to check the population of Kazakstan to be sure). I was proudly telling my half English and half Spanish children that this was the result of the lottery funding of the past few years and my eldest remarked that it could have been spent on something more useful. He has a point, of course, but after food, shelter and sanitation, I think that culture (be it music, art or sport) has a fundamental importance in society. At least the money wasn't sent on superfluous airports, backhanders and bank bailouts as has been the case of Spain (currently in 36th place) which, by the way, has been disinvesting similarly in education and research. I have been a bit cut off from the Olympics converge which in the hotels I have been staying in, frustratingly seems to be limited to stills on BBC World News, but every morning I have been checking the results from the day before. I bet that people in the UK have changed their tune from the defeatist "It will be a logistic nightmare" to one of unashamed pride. Even I wish I could be there and it had never even crossed my mind to get tickets let alone a flight to London.

We've been in Mui Ne and Hoi An since I last posted and tonight we are going to Ha Long Bay before heading back home. The only thing I am looking forward to is a respite from the sticky humidity - and to being able to ride my bikes, if I am honest.

In Mui Ne I did some open water swimming in the sea. I'm convinced that the improvements I have made in technique are starting to trickle down into the much more challenging task of swimming in the sea with waves and under currents. I was curious to see how fast I was swimming so I puts Garmin in my iPhone arm band aroun my neck: 4.7 kmph out and 4.5 kph back. That would be a seriously sub 1 hour Ironman time so I think that the fractal noise from the GPS error will have greatly exaggerated the distance covered - something I can smooth out when I get home (POSTSCRIPT: it was exaggerated by a factor of 2!).

I reckon that if I built up running again from scratch, starting with a 20 minute easy run, I could eventually become acclimatized to such humid conditions. But that is not how I have been going about it, so I have continued to suffer. I did however, really enjoy one outing on a reasonably OK mountain bike (a Giant, no less). I was able to go at an average speed of 30 kph which was more like 28 kph taking into account road works and traffic jams. It was a beautiful route through paddy fields and little villages. In many ways I felt safer than in Spain - the roads are generally very good in Vietnam (surely one of the benefits of communism) and, being on two wheels, you are part of the crowd. Safety in numbers. At times I felt as though I was in a Keirin race - those Japanese track bicycle races that are lead off by a motorbike. It would have been great to have been able to tour on bikes - maybe next time.

POSTSCRIPT: How biased of me to think that Great Britain would score highly if the number of medals won were divided by the population of each country: Jamaica with only 2 million inhabitants and several gold medals was top in Beijing and may well be again this time. I realised that this is an example of a phenomenon described at the beginning of Daniel Kannehan's "Thinking Fast and Slow" book. Is the country with the highest number of gold medals by per person likely to be a small or a big country? What about the the country with the lowest number of gold medals per person? The answer, surprisingly, in both cases is that the country is likely to be small because the extreme cases (high medal rate and low medal rate) are more likely in a smaller sample size.

Saigon

There is not much to say about running in Ho Chi Minh (or Saigon as people still insist on calling it) that doesn't involve the traffic. I'd say this is the second least conducive place to running I have ever been in, Delhi being the reigning champion of this league of dubious merit. Having to watch your step in the most literal sense helps the time pass by while you are running but robs you of any opportunity to enjoy the surroundings.

At least in Saigon there are some pretty wide pavements or, at least that is what I thought when I plotted out my route in Garmin Connect. On the plus side there is no one walking and texting on their smart phones to avoid (unlike London) but instead you have to look out for mopeds riding up on the pavement to circumvent red traffic lights (police included). They say that you are nobody if you don't have a moped and people are very used to hearing them and getting out of the way; a runner, on the other hand, is hard to hear approaching.

I've mentioned crossing the road before. If you want to run for an hour you have to budget for an extra half an hour of road crossing. At one point I asked someone where the best place to cross the road was and he responded by escorting me across the road like a little old lady. I studied his technique and came to the conclusion that you first need to become one with the road, flowing with the traffic, and then you simply walk slowly and steadily to the other side. It felt like a Jedi test that could equally have been done with my eyes closed.

At some point I found a park and decided to cut through it. Everyone was out for their evening power walk and everyone (except me) was circling in an anti clockwise direction. Ironically, the only time I had to slow down to a walk was in a park.

Running alongside the river was noticeably cooler although the smell was quite unpleasant. It seems as though they are in the process of laying down a tow path - I say "in the process" because, in parts, I had to scramble up a mud bank. I think I managed to find the place where people go to run or jog. In fact, I was actually overtaken at one point - not that I was going particularly fast but I think the last time I was overtaken on a training run was some time last year! This guy was running in sandals.

After my unfortunate incident with the "red carpet" I decide to bin my shoes - they were on their last legs anyway. I'm now down to running in a pair of very minimalist shoes from Decathlon that only cost 10 euros.

Somehow I managed to get lost on the way back in spite of following the map on my Garmin GPS watch. I decided to get a cycle rickshaw back to the hotel (I was so sweaty I was too embarrassed to take any other form of transport). By the time I got back my family had already finished having dinner.

The red carpet treatment

Just as we were checking out we were told that we would have to pay for the carpet which, after several failed attempts to clean it, would have to be replaced in the end. They told us that it was an expensive imported carpet so I started to get nervous that they would charge us thousands of euros. Last year I got stung by the exorbitant (and unlimited) fees for using data while roaming (I should have known better) and this year, it was looking like I was going to have to pay another fortune for making a silly mistake.

As you can see from the bill, we were charged not thousands, but millions - two million, to be precise. Luckily the exchange rate is around 25,000 Vietnamese Dong to the euro, so this works out to only 80 euros - about the same as the shoes that caused the damage cost in the first place. (OK, the shoes weren't responsible, I was.) Still, if only I had been carrying a little more money while running so that I could have bought some flip flops to traipse back into the hotel in (amazingly, the only flip flops I could find were some ridiculous branded ones that cost the best part of twenty euros!).

I have to say that the hotel - the Sommerset Grand Hanoi - treated us extremely well, never once making me feel any worse for the accident than I already did and the charge was absolutely minimal. I dread to think how it would have been in another hotel in another country.

(If you look closely at the photo you can still see traces of red dye under my fingernail...)

Just as well

I did get rather soaked this morning on my run, but nothing like what would have happened had I been tempted by the cooler weather to go out for an evening run. The rain was up to half a meter deep within minutes of it starting to pour. It was a miracle we managed to get back to the hotel stalling only one taxi.

Good Morning Vietnam

I think I have finally found a scenario for which my Soft Star Run Amocs are not suitable for running in.

It was so incredibly hot and humid when I set of for a run this morning around the West Lake in Hanoi that, apart from it being knackering, my feet (as well as the rest of me) got so sweaty that I was slipping around in my shoes. Ordinarily, this would not be a problem - even running on ice is quite possible as long as you don't have to make sudden changes of direction. In Vietnam the rule (if this is the appropriate word) seems to be that everyone should carry on going in the direction they are going in unless they can see that they are about to hit someone else, in which case they will stop or go around them. In cases when both parties can see each other and it is not clear who should take evasive action, there is a pecking order which appears to be based on the person who would come off worst from any collision making the first move. As a runner, this puts you above a pedestrian but below everyone else.

It became so dangerous to run in my shoes that I decided I would run home barefoot. You can imagine that one of the few ways to attract attention as a foreigner running barefoot around Hanoi is to be a foreigner running barefoot with bright red feet. This is the drawback of using natural dyes to give the shoes their distinctive red colour.

It is always important to study local customs beforehand and I was aware that spitting in public (as runners sometimes do) was considered to be antisocial, so I imagined that peeing in public wouldn't go down too well either. I found a park where, for some strange reason no one was walking and I very discretely let it out. I was just putting things away when I heard a whistle and saw a policemen waving frantically at me so I started running again (don't they say that this is a sure sign of guilt?) but he kept on blowing his whistle. It turned out that there was no one else around because no one was supposed to walk on the lawn in front of Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum. Given that many Vietnamese people queue up to see him (there was already a sizable queue at 7:30 am) and that he is considered something of a national hero having fended off the French and then the Americans, I could have ended up in a serious spot of bother had the policemen seen my indiscretion.

When I got back to the hotel I was faced with the dilemma of entering barefoot - which being a five star hotel, I didn't think would be appreciated - or to don my drenched shoes and hope they didn't make too much of a mess. Unfortunately, they did. If you ever find yourself in a hotel room with red footprints on the carpet, you'll know where they came from.

I just overheard one of the hotel guests saying to a friend, "Man, you should have seen it this morning. I got in the lift around 8 o clock this morning and there was all this blood everywhere. It was like a horror movie." I decided not to spoil his anecdote but he may have spotted my red feet in the swimming pool and put two and two together.

I just hope they manage to get the stains out of the carpet. I already admitted my guilt although it would have been hard to avoid it as I am literally red handed (and footed).