Yorkshire MT – Week 7

I’m in a bit of a quandary.

My long running for the past two weeks has not been going well at all but my weekly mileage is still pretty good. For six out of the last seven weeks, it has been between 30 and 34 miles. But I haven’t managed to get my long run over 15 miles, and in fact today’s long run was just a sorry 13 miles.

Obviously, the first thought that might come into one’s head is that the weekly amount is making me too tired for my long run. That might be the case but I haven’t gone around in my daily life feeling exhausted, except for just before and at the beginning of my period. I feel quite fine between my runs and generally my food and sleep have been normal. My plan was to not increase my mileage by too much but to switch around the length of my runs.

So what’s going wrong at the minute?

Let’s look at today’s run. Things got a little complicated this week, in that I had tried out a semi-long run on Tuesday because I had booked on a fell race yesterday. I did a slow 11 miles then, by ‘Jeffing’, using a ratio of 9 minutes running to 1 minute walking. It was comfortable enough and my legs recovered very quickly after, so I thought that that was the way to go. Then the fell race got cancelled and I went to Parkrun instead, and thought I’d try a proper long run today with the same 9:1 ratio.

I noticed that I started getting tired at a similar point with the Jeffing to when I was running all the way, after about 2.5 hours. But this time, I was also getting stomach issues, where I thought I might need to go for a number two if I continued to bob up and down. I didn’t actually need to go, but it felt like I did at times, and that is what seemed to tire me more.

So, probably nothing to do with the Jeffing, and more to do with my nutrition. I’ve tried a variety of ways to handle this, sometimes eating before and during, sometimes not, and I’m still trying to work out what is best for me. I think the furthest I can go with no fuel is about two hours. This time, I ate porridge a couple of hours before setting off, and then took some chew blocs and a Clif biscuit thing to eat on the way, which I started doing an hour in. The chews might have made me feel a bit queasy, it’s hard to say, but something wasn’t right. It was also day 3 of my period I should add, so that may have had something to do with it.

Perhaps I should take some Imodium before a long run; I did that before the Manchester marathon. But whilst I don’t mind doing drugs now and then, I don’t want to take something like this on a regular basis – who knows what kind of havoc it might play with your insides.

The final thing I’ve thought is that I’ve got a weak mind. I’ve read about feeling tired in lots of articles. How your ‘central governor’ as Tim Noakes calls it, tries to send signals that tell you that you need to stop way before you actually do in order to protect the body. I’ve read articles about people feeling tired, pushing through it and coming out the other side, and I know that I should have a go at doing that. But I’m not great at that pushing if the truth be told. My legs start to feel tired and my head begins to bombard me with messages like:

‘Just a take a little extra walk break here.’
‘You just need to stop and take a breath for a minute’
‘See that bench over there? Doesn’t it look so nice.’
‘Why not lie down in this nice comfy ditch?’

I have a recent memory of doing a marathon, in just under five and a half hours, so I know it’s in me, somewhere. But trying to get there again feels like climbing a mountain. And going by how I performed in my one and only fell race so far, that is bloody hard work.

I know that ‘running’ is not a natural fit for me, regardless of what it might say in books like ‘Born to Run’, but despite its difficulty, I’m quite proud of the fact that I’m keeping it up. Because, although there are things that require tinkering with, and although my stamina isn’t all that fab, it’s still an improvement of what it was a year ago. I wouldn’t have been able to run 30+ miles a week for several weeks in a row at the beginning of this year. I’m building up a bit of natural speed for my shorter 5k/10k runs. So, although the Yorkshire marathon may turn out to be yet another enormous hard slog, using it as a focus has, at least, meant that I’ve grown a little bit stronger in myself.

Which is all well and good but I still need a way to get those long run miles under my belt. So what I’m going to do next week, is to run to Birkenhead Park, do a few laps of that and use the café loo as many times as I need to (apologies in advance), so hopefully no wild poos will be necessary. I’m going to buy some gels that I’ve used before, instead of these biscuits and blocs. And it’s going to be a week after my period so hopefully, my energy levels will be higher.

My Week’s Round Up.

Day	What I Did
Mon	Nothing
Tue	A semi-long run   Run: 11.08 miles [17.83 km] Pace: 12.23 mins/mile [7.60 m/km]
Wed	Nothing
Thu	Yoga: 30 mins Strength: 10 mins   Run: 6 miles [9.65 km] Pace: 10.41 mm [6.47 m/km]
Fri	Yoga: 30 mins
Sat	Parkrun Run: 3.14 miles [5.05 km] Pace: 8.58 mm [5.33 m/km] Yoga: 20 mins Strength: 10 mins
Sun	Long Slow Run Went okay with 9:1 run/walk ratio up until about 10 miles, and then there was a lot more walking Run: 13.14 miles [21.14 km] Pace: 13.17 mm [8.18 m/km]