You know, when it takes over five minutes to get a little house key into that tiny back pocket of your leggings, that things aren’t going to turn out as hoped. And given that I had managed to waste another five minutes running back to the house to retrieve my barcode, it was almost inevitable that I’d get to Birkenhead too late to get my filler for a Parkrun sandwich. By ten minutes.
All the manuals tell you to prepare your kit for the long run, ideally the night before. This core session of the week for distance runners requires a bit of focus, so all the variables that are within your control should be managed in a timely fashion. It’s very good advice and I should really heed it, instead of yanking out the last, unused t-shirt and accoutrements out of my ‘sports’ drawer at the very last minute.
However, it is a good sign that this drawer is looking spacious. It could mean that I’m slacking with the washing, but in this case it means that I’m getting out more regularly and beginning to clock some good weekly mileage. As a non-natural born runner, I find that slowly increasing the miles I run each week begins to pay dividends after a couple of months. I can see the difference in my breathing, my stamina and my recovery. Eventually, I will even start seeing some progress in my speed. It seems like I’m following the Lydiard method.
Named after New Zealand born runner and foundational coach, Arthur Lydiard, it’s a method that considers training as a sort of pyramid. The base training is all conditioning, where you increase those weekly miles first, incrementally and slowly, in order to build strength in your ligaments and tendons, to increase the number of those power cells called mitochondria, and to get your heart really efficient at sending blood around the body.
I noticed, on the Tuesday night club handicap, where I was trying to get through seven miles as fast as I could before being caught by the speedsters, that I could push my breathing to the edge of comfort and keep it there for most of that run. All my slow, 13/14-minute mile runs, had been doing their magic on my heart and lungs. All my ten plus mile long runs had been strengthening my legs and giving me that stamina to be able to hold an average of 10-minute miles for the full distance. For me, that’s a great start, and I can improve as the year goes on.
I was back to averaging 13-minute miles today on my non-parkrun sandwich. It was probably a good thing that I missed it because I was able to keep my pace low all the way. When I last talked about trying out the ‘zone 2’ training that everybody seems to be talking about, my super fancy Garmin kept saying that I was constantly in zone 4 (just below a heart attack) however slow I ran. I did get a bit frustrated and chucked out the aim of it for a while. But the concept does help and I’ve fixed the watch now by manually adjusting it so that it uses my resting heart rate, which apparently is just below 60.
It’s all a bit technical, and I don’t think you need a watch to show you that your breathing is laboured or not. Arthur Lydiard advocated the ‘feeling-based training’. Granted, this was before the gadgets were available, but it still holds. I can feel when my breathing is comfortable. If you’re not sure, close your mouth and breathe through your nose for a good ten breaths or so (you might need to blow your nose first if you’re anything like me). If you’re gasping then slow down even more, even if you’re barely going above walking pace to begin with.
My breathing was brilliant today, but my legs were beginning to tire after around ten miles. The final four included a few walking breaks which was fine, because I was still increasing that time on my feet. Just over three hours. It’s still a heck of a long way to the fifty kilometres I’m aiming to cover in July, and I’m trying not to panic about that idea too much yet. These fourteen miles are in the bank today, and for now, that’ll do.
theleadlesspencil 