Entries categorized as ‘2003’
What are the causes of a bad run ? I’m sure there are many.
In general, I’d expect these to result from overtraining or poor rest. But I’m not sure it follows, since I’ve had a couple of bad runs following days off and early nights recently. In each case, I felt fine during the morning, but was sluggish, dead-legged and repeatedly tempted to walk when I ran at lunchtime.
Conversely, sometimes I can run surprisingly well on jet-lag or when I have very disrupted sleep. I can feel ragged and near the edge but run fast.
Can being too well rested result in a lack of adrenaline ? It’s a mystery.
Related articles:
24. Things I have learned… #267
85. A homage to London’s Gherkin
107. Don’t it make a bad run good ?
38. At last, the rewards of strife
82. The strife of Bath
Categories: 2003 · training
Running without a watch can be very helpful for many runners. The once or twice that I have done it, it did feel great, honest….
I’ve been intrigued about the idea of base training, and read up about it recently on Greg McMillan’s running site which, incidentally, also has a fantastic race prediction calculator.
As a dedicatedly one-pace runner, I hardly ever train at slower pace, but perhaps I really should try practising what I’ve preached to others in the past.
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Categories: 2003 · training
It’s a breezy day in Portsmouth, with a stiff breeze whipping up shingle beach. The Isle of Wight ferries are plying to and fro across the marble grey water of the Solent, as I shiver wind-propelled along the promenade towards the pier.
There’s a simple D-Day memorial just by Southsea’s boating pond, and I cross the road to read it. From this very beach, it says, a multi-national force embarked on the 6th June, 1944 on their great adventure to liberate Europe.
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Categories: 2003 · history · racing
Categories: 2003 · Chicago
Dear Liz
Each race always costs me at least 2-3 weeks of recovery. And that’s when I’m fit. The bigger the race, the more mental and physical energy it takes out of me. Double that for hilly races with 46 000 people blocking every inch of the road.
If you’re not enjoying running much in general, I’d wager you’re probably running too fast and getting knackered in the process.
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Categories: 2003 · racing
Categories: 2003 · Chicago · the marathon journey
It’s 7 am and Durham’s massive Cathedral is rising through the mist as I head for the station to join a ragged assembly of runners awaiting the early train.
There’s a wonderful view of the city as we pull away, and I have to quash the spontaneously rising bars of Roger Whittaker’s ‘I’m leaving old Durham town‘ resolutely from my brain. That’s one song I don’t relish reverberating round my mind on the long run later today.
A quick glimpse of the sculpture of the Angel of the North atop a frosty field, and then we’re into the southern outskirts of Newcastle, passing Billy Elliot back-to-back terraces, desolate factories and empty parks, before the view opens up to reveal the fog lifting under sunshine over the lined bridges of the River Tyne. A metro train scurries just below us into Central Station like some cheekily overgrown Lego set.
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Categories: 2003 · music · racing
16 September, 2003 · 2 Comments
After squeezing in a slow ten-miler on Monday in preparation for next week’s Great North Run, I hailed a taxi to Heathrow and spent the remainder of the week in Ghana.
It was a fascinating and thought-provoking visit.
Memorable certainly for the speciality roadside coffin shop in Teshie, where they will make you up a sarcophagus in any shape you order, including lion, fish, eagle, elephant, aeroplane, outboard motor, or even beer bottle. And yes, running shoe can be arranged.
From there to Tema, ‘Planned City at the Centre of the World’, recently celebrating its Golden Jubilee in its setting just north of the Equator and astride the Greenwich Meridian.
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Categories: 2003 · A1 - the best of roads of stone · Africa · life and times
