Howdy, Stranger!
Categories
Options
Turning the clock back
The materials in this website are in no way intended to replace the professional medical care, advice, diagnosis or treatment of a doctor, qualified personal trainer, therapist, dietitian or nutritionist Runners's World, Part of the Hearst UK well-being network © Copyright 2017
Comments
That is excellent. The thing is, I think most of us one-time "runners" always still think in the back of our minds even though we did get some pretty good results, that we could have done better.
I even thought at my basic speed, a 2.37 could have been possible as I did run a 4.37 1500m which is about a 5 min mile and 2.37 is 6 min miles but I can't be unhappy - I got so much from my running and I can still take part.
Tom - you write so well, and set your standards so high, I think I was lucky, after doing my first sub 3 hr I got pregnant with my son, so 1979 was out! My husband was very supportive and wanted me to try to get back to where I had been as quickly as I could.
My son was born in the January 1980 and pride took a back seat. Our xcountry starts in April. It was good as I could start running again with no expectations from me or anyone else. I made the Auckland x-country team and took my son who I was still breast-feeding to the National x-country and finished 10th or 11th I think. There was only one way - up and by the end of the year I was back to 2.55.57 at the Winstone marathon in Auckland. I only got 4th but my biggest prize was the following year at the Rotorua marathon 1981 when I ran 2.56.04. I wrote in my diary - "same old time" but the difference was it was also the NZ marathon Championship. I won a trip to the Honolulu marathon but it was only a few weeks after my best 2.47 marathon and I struggled to do 3.03.
Probably my best running was in 1963 as a twelve year old when I finished 2nd in the unofficial Women's National x-country to Mildred Sampson - a woman far ahead of her time - she was my hero and is in the record books on 21.7.1964 Milly ran 3.19.33 which at that time was a world record.
I stopped running at a tender age of 17 and most of those I competed against did get to represent NZ in xcountry - but you can't have it all can you!
I'm sure you've both read my postings on the subject of my one and only marathon effort. It was a dismal effort, but I've only got myself to blame. I think the thing that gets me is that at just under 2:42, it is tantalising just out of reach for me now. If I'd really made a mess and run say 2:48. I'd probably see it as something that could be put right.
My other regret, is probably that I didn't get back to running in my late 40s. On one hand I would have certainly run faster (subject to the normal frustrations of still not getting near the halcyon years). On the other hand I now be over my second peak. At least I can still fantasize that there's more to come. Probably isn't but it still helps to get me out there every day
Same goes for me - about 3 weeks before that Edinburgh marathon, I ran 4:16 for 1500m and then 9:19 for 3000m about an hour apart on the same night. Oh, and that was after a 10k track race three days before!
Tom
It's alright. I knew you meant me!
Rod Dixon was a sub 4 min miler and ran 2.08.59.
I think also the mind comes a into it a lot. I did my fastest marathon with a lot more speedwork but also a major imput into the way I thought.
I had this coach for a short time, who had also coached Alison Roe to her great runs at Boston and New York who was convinced that it was how you thought about yourself that made all the difference - this is for you Trini - "You have powers you never dreamed of. You can do things you never thought you could do. There are no limitations in what you can do exept the limitations in your mind as to what you cannot do. Don't think you cannot. Think you can." Darwin P. Kingsley
Yeah, I remember that NY marathon that Dixon won. Awesome runner!
I'd like to think that the sentiment in your quote was always true, but I can't quite make myself believe it at the moment.
Well my alter ego hasn’t been around for a while, but I’d like to think that he’s still watching over me. If you recall, we agreed that I’d approach the training his way. To be honest, I didn’t need a lot of persuading as his arguments seemed sound, and the approach had certainly worked for him. I suppose it wasn’t so much “More of the same as more of “a little bit less of the same”, in deference to my age.
By the time I did my first out door run on 1st August 2002, I’d had a couple of months doing two or three short runs a week in the gym, and as I said earlier was starting to feel a bit more connected. So following my mentor’s advice I pushed up the mileage to about 50-60 miles a week and picked up the pace. The outcome was astonishing. Four months later at the end of November I ran 65:50 for 10 miles and a further month after that ran 39:03 for 10k, this at the age of 54, five months after starting back properly from a twenty five year layoff. That wasn’t astonishing, it was miraculous. Boy, did I think I was special………..So much so, that I thought that the normal process of aging in some way didn’t apply to me. Somehow I’d found a way to cheat the laws of nature. It was just like a Faustian pact, and as with such things there had to be a payback time.
Payback time came in January 2003, just after the miracle 10k and lasted until the end of July. I had a lot of silly injuries born of a body insufficiently adapted to take the demands of a continuously hard training load. As soon as an injury cleared, I’d up the training to try to make up for the lost time, only to break down again. The basic problem was that I had done insufficient basic conditioning to prepare myself for the demands of the harder training (My mentor hadn’t chosen to mention that, as he was always a high a level of basic fitness throughout the year). By the time the realization had dawned, the boom and bust cycle had taken me to the end of July 2003 and a 10m time of 65:52 and 10k time of 39:58. So much for miracles and the charmed life.
Seeing as my absent friend wasn’t in evidence I had to work this one out for myself. I’m sure he would have been proud of what I came up with – Lydiard (yes!!). Despite the claims of that upstart Hadd, and his rather quirky ideas on cardiac drift, it seemed Lydiard’s ideas were just what I was looking for. A good dose of high mileage run at sensible aerobic pace topped of with a couple of speed endurance sessions a week took me to March 2004 (via a 60:40 10miles) and a half marathon of 80:40. If that was a miracle, it was a 90 miles a week aerobic paced running miracle!
So not only had I found something that worked, it was still true to the hard training principles of my alter ego. All I had done in his absence was slow it down a bit, and sneak in a few easier days. Despite the hiccup of a freak injury. I applied my favoured adage of “more of the same”. So the mileage crept up to just under 100 miles a week, and some of the sessions got a bit harder. To my delight the upward arc of performance continued and in March 2005 I ran 79:02 for the half marathon and 59:58 for 10 miles 5 days later. So here I was sitting on the cusp of a period of eighteen months unbroken improvement, and all based on an optimum combination of old and new training principles. What’s more I hadn’t compromised our principles of hard training and minimal rest and recovery. Total vindication…………or so I thought.
And this bit too on The Runner's philosophy - "You can take the sport seriously but you should never take yourself too seriously. Dropping out of a race may matter to you, but no one else will give a damn".
I haven't read this book before and it sure makes a lot of sense.
No one approach does work or doesn't work. The experiences of people above seem to show that we're all an experiment of one. Hadd offered ONE approach to distance training, not THE approach. We have to work it out for ourselves, trust our own instincts whilst listening to the wise words of people who have gone before.
I started running when I was 18. A friend suggested we enter the Charterhouse 10. 10 mile race at Charterhouse school in Godalming, Surrey. A brute of a course as an introduction to running! We only entered about 1 month before the start and I did not run. Training started, straight in at 7 days a week. I could not understand at first why I was always out of breath after a couple of hundred metres. I had no idea! Ended up running 75 mins, finished within the top 50%, received a medal. Great! That 1st medal meant so much as I had never received anything for any sporting endeavour I had partook in. I used to play cricket and football ( in goal for school B team ) not very well.
This running lark seemed like good fun, and I started to enter races and in a few months I had improved to 64 mins for 10 miles. Training was not scientific. I thought if you wanted to run fast you had to train fast, so runs were timed and course records carefully noted. I did not have a clue. I used to burn round a 6 mile course, then try and beat the time the next day. I would then have a go a third day in a row, find I was exhausted and my legs ached.
Somehow I ended up at a Southern Counties AAA training day at Crystal Palace a few months after starting running. I felt a real chump when we had to reveal our personal bests, and all these guys were saying things like 3.50 for 1500M, and I came out with 64 mins for 10 miles!
The next few years were a mixture of the odd road race and persistent shin soreness. I was then off to Polytechnic to complete an Accountancy Foundation Course. I was now 21 and still bothered by my shins so did no running between Feb and when I finished my exams mid June. Started back with a good old pair of Brooks Chariot with Kinetic Wedge! In other words a softer bit of EVA. These cured my problems.
Started back very easily – week one – 1 run 0.8 miles (once round the block) I did not want to over do it! After 3 months I had reached the dizzy heights of 10 miles a week. No speedwork, all moderate running. I then ran the Peugeot Talbot Westminster mile. The elite race used to be on the tele. I ran 4.59 in my Brooks Chariots. This surprised me and I thought maybe I have some ability if I can run a sub 5 minute mile off non existent training.
I then started work as a trainee Chartered Accountant. Oh dear, what a great method to kill ones athletic ambitions. Training became a series of peaks and troughs. I never ran much more than 25-30 miles a week, but when studying and exam pressures took over training fell back, often to zero, especially when on the 6 week cramming courses in London before the exams.
Ran reasonably well finishing in 2.47. It was a tough day because there was a strong on shore wind. It was alright running inland but coming back was very hard. Remarkably I wanted to do another, the feeling of concrete posts for legs did not seem to put me off.
All this time I had been running unattached, and I finally decided to join a club and went to Aldershot Farnham & District. I briefly trained with them in the Summer of 1990, during a lull in my accountancy exams. During this period I entered a couple of track races. I was still a bit naive when it came to racing. I had not raced on the track since school and decided to enter an open 5000m at Kingston. I was not sure how fast to run. I reasoned that the guys on the telly ran about 13.30, so I will aim for 15.00mins – 72 secs per lap. Off I went at 72 sec pace on a warm and breezy afternoon. Hmm this is quite brisk. I reached 1500M in about 4.30 exhausted. I struggled home in 16.45. Another lesson learned.
Club athletics took over, cross country in winter – which I enjoyed and track and road races. Mileage crept up to a max of around 100 per week, speedwork got faster and I improved considerably.
By 1999 I had run 52.00 for 10 miles, 69.17 for ½ m, finished 3rd in Surrey cross country champs, 31st in the Southern and 65th in the National. My marathon PB was now 2.30.58.
The marathon PB is frustrating. In 99 I should of run about 2.25 based on my 10 mile PB of 52 run a couple of weeks beforehand, but ended up with 2.31 on a cold windy day in London.
I then got a foot injury which took several months to diagnose correctly, and after a poor London in 2000 I decided on a temporary change of direction. I jacked in my job and decided to cycle across the United States from Seattle to Boston – 4,200 miles in 9 weeks.
Luckily we had a day off the next day, but when we started cycling again on the Monday I felt awful. I should have taken the sag wagon. The day was appalling – 95 miles into drizzly rain and a head wind. I have never felt so bad after a days exercise. My whole body ached. For the rest of the trip my performance suffered and I found it difficult to keep pace with other cyclists I had managed to keep up with earlier in the trip.
After I got back I started running again but it was not easy. I would feel OK for about 5-10 mins then the energy would drain from me. My heart rate was also elevated. Things improved slowly but never got back to where they were before the trip, and over the next couple of years I did a couple of marathons in about 2.40.
Time moved on. I continued to run Surrey league cross country, the Southern and national occasionally. Solid performances but nothing outstanding. In 2004 I managed a 2.37 in Berlin and started to think about a sub 2.30 again, but an injured foot knocked me out of London in 2005.
Life then took a turn Southwards and I moved to Australia. I decided on another marathon and entered Nagano in Japan. I trained hard and in the 11 weeks before the taper I averaged 87 miles a week, with a low of 70 and a high of around 100. I thought I was OK but I had missed a lot of warning signs, I had changed several things and ended up having an awful experience in Japan. A personal worst of 3.19. I remember running 2.49 in 2000 London and thinking it could not get any worse than that! In the words of Bill Rodgers (USA marathoner form 70’s and 80’s for those who do not know) The marathon can always humble you.
Since then I have taken stock, reassessed a few things. Decided to ditch the watch and heart rate monitor for a while and just run. Sometimes you have to stop to move forward. I believe that I have learnt a lot from Nagano.
I still am looking for a sub 2.30 marathon and believe I can do it. With sufficient attention to my body to keep the aches and stiffness at bay I will succeed. I look back and think where has the time gone, especially the last ten years, but you can only influence the hear and now, no point dwelling on the past. I must use my experience to shape the future.
Tom – every time I think you are coming to a conclusion, you open up another chapter. Do you write soap operas in your spare time? Great stuff
NZC – I’m not sure if it is the laid-back Kiwi mentality, but you always seem at peace with yourself. From the above posts, it appears that RB & Tom both still have quite a bit of ‘unfinished business’. I know that I and many of my peers do as well (even if it only manifests itself in complaints about slipping standards!). I’ve always been of the opinion (as you hint at above) that however fast you run, you’ll always end up dissatisfied.
Have you always had your seemingly relaxed attitude, or did it develop once you accepted that absolute PBs were a thing of the past?
Glad to see you posting.
Ouch! Nagano didn’t sound like much fun. Are you staying down-under permanently?
Like you, I have ditched the watch & HRM….getting back to the simple pleasures.
So, the conclusion so far is don’t become an accountant!!
I do miss running in the UK. I got so much pleasure from running along the North Downs etc. It is not the same here in Sydney. Too much concrete!
It's great though that you have the ability to focus on the here and now rather than dwell too much on past performances. I wish you every success with the assault on 2:30. You never know.
At 36, I feel I'm too young to post on here (!) but it's really great to have the benefit of so much collective experience to draw upon. As I have only been running for just over 3 years I don't have the 'halcyon days' of past performances to aspire to, and I've had the odd moment of wondering "what if?" - what if I'd started running in my teens or 20s, what if I had no other commitments, what if I was able to dedicate myself 100% to training? In the three years since I began running (the first 6 months of which I don't really count as training was sporadic and probably reached the dizzy heights of 10-15 miles per week) I've gone from a 4:01 marathon (London 2004) to a 3:23 marathon (London 2006) - off around 35-40 miles per week. It makes me wonder what I could achieve if I could find time for 60+ miles per week. Unfortunately, work and family commitments are currently prohibitive, but I don't want to get to my 40s and think "what if?" again.
I think I have a reasonable amount of natural ability that could lead to really good performances with higher mileage and the right training. I'm torn between wanting to go for it 100%, and risking my marriage by prioritising running over everything else. My husband is not a runner, and is tolerant (rather than enthusiastic) about my "obsession". During marathon training we have had "discussions" about the amount of time training takes up and I have always been very conscious of trying to work my running around the rest of our lives rather than the other way round. I have a very happy marriage (and it took me many years to find the right person) and I would not wish to jeopardise that in any way, but need to be able to find a balance between keeping Life Outside Running as my main priority whilst still feeling I'm doing enough to continue to make big improvements in my running.
Maybe when I find a solution I'll write a book about it and make a lot of money ;-)
This attitude helped our relationship a lot when the kids were young, as it meant the she didn't feel trapped at home with the children, whilst I was out on a "frolic of my own". Ironically, now that the family are grown up, she'll often ask me if I'm going for a run, as she likes to be shot of me for a couple of hours!
I'm not trying to restart the "Hadd wars of 04". At least one of the charactors in the soap opera is a figment of my imagination - I'll leave you to decide which one.
Adding lunchtime runs might be an option as it means I don't then have to try to tack extra mileage on in the evening (my other half generally gets home quite a bit later than me, so I usually have time to get my run in, shower and start preparing dinner before he walks through the door).
And I will definitely try running early in the day at weekends now that the better weather is here, to free up time later in the day. This should work well as hubby is not a morning person so can sleep in while I run!
I've found this one of the most interesting threads we've had on the forums for some time - Hadd argument notwithstanding!
Minks - really feel for you. You are torn - really want to see how good a runner you can be, have a good job with long hours, want a good marriage and a baby...
As you can see there are a few of us over 50 still running so running can be for life.
I once knew a top woman athlete who rather late in life found she was pregnant and was over the moon. Because she knew that other women could still have the best of both worlds and still keep running she thought she could too. I think if she had her time again, she would have gladly swapped her medals for the baby she really wanted.
As I've said, I was a great little runner and maybe could have done all sorts of things but met my husband to be at the grand old age of 17 and he couldn't understand what I got out of running either.
We married young and travelled overland through Africa to England where I got pregnant with our first child.
I started running again for my own self-esteem and believe it or not my husband did too - that first marathon in 1978 was his first marathon too and his best marathon was 1979 when I was pregnant with my second child - he got the running time. For us both to be able to run. I ran early in the morning before he went to work and he either ran in his lunch hour or ran home from work. There was no such thing as child care so I would have never been able to do what I did without the support of family and friends. My Mum was great - if I'd missed that early morning run, she'd come to the park with me and push my littlest one on the swing - that was great until he started to run. My Mum had diabetes and her eyesight was very bad - she died at 57 but I have some great memories of her support - she'd always be there for me, even if she would being saying - "is that her". She didn't care where I finished as long as I was happy.
So Minks - somehow I think you've got to get your man out there running too.
Your last marathon sounded like a nightmare. Sometimes I think we just want something too much. I think that also running in Japan is just so different that running anywhere else. From my experience the Japanese run like their life depends on it. I also think sometimes the body put under extreme pressure just won't let you do it - especially if you've told it so many times, "do it for me this time and you won't have to do it again".
For me, I think I pushed the boat out too many times and now when it gets hard I just can't do it anymore.
Two Ton - no, I'm not what you call "laid-back" I guess I think it is better to run than not run at all. I was having coffee with my mates the other day after a run and this guy walked into the coffee shop and said hello. I had to look deeply into his face to see who it was. This guy had run 2.14 for the marathon in his day. He doesn't run anymore - one of those who wouldn't be able to finish way back in the field. He had not lost his love for running though, he talked for a long time about it all. Think sometimes it is better to be a good runner and not a great runner as it all comes down to expectations and the highs and lows aren't so great.
I've tried, really tried, to get my husband interested in running but unfortunately it just doesn't "do it" for him. He said that if he did run, he'd be doing it for me, and I don't think that's right. In an ideal, rose-tinted world, we'd run together and race together and would probably argue over training methods and race tactics ...
In part, I think I want him to be a runner so I never have to feel guilty about my running taking me away from him, which I think is something that concerns him. We had a good long talk about it last night - I was keen to discover if he felt my running impacted on our life too much and if so, was there some way I could be more accommodating? He feels I'm generally very accommodating and always try to fit my running around other things we might want to do - the only time it becomes mildly frustrating is when I'm marathon training and there's no way round the fact that long runs are, well - long!
He's concerned at the moment that I'll want to keep increasing the mileage and that it might have an impact on my fertility because I'm asking too much of my body. Having had a chat about this with my GP, I tried to reassure him that I didn't think this was an issue and even top athletes get pregnant, but I don't think he'll ever be convinced. He said he would prefer me to run shorter distances but accepts that I probably won't! But mainly he is pretty supportive and accepting that running is now a fundamental part of who I am and he wouldn't want to take that away from me.
So all in all a productive conversation, and made me feel a bit happier about my running vs. my family life, even if I'll probably never convince my husband to become a runner too!
I suppose the bottom line is that I want it all - to see how good a runner I can be, while at the same time sustaining a happy marriage and hopefully having a family. I don't think it's an impossible dream, it's just about finding the right balance and perhaps accepting that some of those dreams might take a little longer than others.
I actually think its good that your husband isn't a runner, as I believe that its important in a marriage to have a little bit of space to yourself, and for both partners to have a range of interests. Shared interests to the exclusion of everything elso can make you a bit insular.
In the grand scheme of things, when the time comes, you will get immeasurable more pleasure from your children than you ever possible could from your runing (or anything else for that matter)
OK, I wasn't really, but in 1983 I answered an ad in Athletics Weekly to be an "athletic double" in a film called "1896 - The First Olympics", starring Jason Connery. Unfortunately, I didn't look enough like any of the main actors to be chosen (and to get the free trip to Athens for filming).
I did, however, get to be an extra in some of the filming of the training/racing that the English runners did in England before the games (I think it was filmed on a school (cinder) running track near Elstree, but can't quite remember). I had to don an old baggy vest and shorts and specially reconstructed old spikes and pretend to be racing towards the finish of a track race. As just an extra, of course, I wasn't allowed to be anywhere near the front of the race, so it wasn't too hard, but the others were all proper middle-distance athletes, not actors so it wasn't a piece of cake either.
What I didn't realise was that everything had to be filmed 3 times, from different angles, so the race had to be run as identically as possible. That was quite hard. Not as hard as it was tho' for one of the athletic doubles who accidentally fell over on the line the first time round. The director liked that, so he then had to do it twice more!
All great fun and, as I recall, the catering at film sets is GREAT!
I think your point about having individual interests in a relationship as well as shared ones is very valid. We do spend a lot of time together outside of work and as well as enjoying my running from the performance perspective, I also value the time it gives me as an individual, to be alone with my thoughts and to unwind from the daily grind. It also gives me an identity outside the relationship as something I do purely for myself.
And I'm sure you're absolutely right about children :-)