Mud Glorious Mud!

My running shoes are filthy. Not just splashed with brown splodges or a bit worn-looking, but absolutely, soil-sodden, grime-caked, mud-encrusted, filthy. Chunks of earth as big as golf balls are clinging to the outside. Normally I quite like the just-ran-through-a-cow-field look, but it's been causing me a bit of a problem lately as I am spending a lot of time travelling, and hence having to cart around these crusty clodhoppers without contaminating the rest of my clothes or scaring my relatives/hosts when I leave them in their porch.

I have found the only solution is to carry a good supply of plastic bags to wipe stuff off with and to wrap everything in (and hey, it's re-using those bags). When I was staying in a posh (ish) hotel once I carried my muddy running shoes out to the front entrance in a plastic bag, put them on outside and hid the bag in a convenient bush before my run, then when I got back put my shoes in the bag again and walked through the lobby into the lift in my socks to avoid tracking mud across the hotel. This was probably unnecessarily cautious behaviour for a hotel guest (I am also the type of guest who tidies their own bed and always hangs towels on the rail), but it demonstrates the usefulness of packing plastic bags in your suitcase!

For actually cleaning shoes whilst on the move I have found cheap face wipes to work brilliantly for making runners more presentable, as well as for wiping legs, arms and clothing. In fact, don't tell anyone, but I have also used these to clean someone's bath after I took a shower in it following a muddy run; in short these are a true essential for any girlie runners!

Running etiquette

Had a slightly odd conversation with a running friend today (let's call her R). We were agonising over whether to still do a group run we'd planned on friday or cancel it as another of our friends can't do it. R was worried that she would feel left out, especially since we were all going out together straight afterwards, which got me thinking- can training with someone else mean you are cheating on your running buddy?

I've known someone else (lets call her M) who became used to a running with one person and they always did the same route because M thought the other person liked their routine and didn't want to try running further, or faster, or anywhere different. One day M saw her running buddy with another woman, jogging in another part of town on a weekday morning when M thought she was busy doing something else. She felt like her buddy had gone behind her back, though they had never said they were 'exclusive'!

Running relationships can be quite complicated. When I used to run regularly with someone I would sometimes feel miffed if they went without me, even though they were faster and it was obvious they would need to train alone sometimes. People are usually going to have different training needs and different goals, so why do we find it upsetting sometimes to be left behind? Is it our natural competitiveness, that makes us think our buddy is trying to be better than us if they go running without us? Or is it possibly because it makes us feel like we've missed a training session, which makes us feel guilty, even if it wasn't in our schedule? Perhaps it's only women runners who experience this- I wonder if men do too? It's interesting that not even running is immune from our social complexities!

Excuses, excuses...

Curse this cold weather! This morning was, again, so icy that our car resembled an iceburg looming out of the mist. I took three steps outside before almost sliding off the pavement and into the road and hopping back inside to rethink my training plans for today. I ended up going for a swim instead of running which means I haven't done a proper run for a whole week. I like to think that swimming is a good substitute, but I know it's hardly the same as putting in the miles on your feet. The pool is certainly a lot more inviting in this weather than the hard ground and frosty parks though, and swimming is better than doing nothing.

I love swimming, and would do it much more if it didn't leave me with huge deep rings around my eyes afterwards. I know this sounds like a ridiculous excuse, but it is quite a serious problem! I have tried many different styles of goggle, and even masks or half-face jobbies, but every design leaves me with purple lines on my face that last for a couple of hours. This means I can't really swim before work or any event where I might meet other people, and definitely not before a night out. The other problem I used to have with swimming is that I get a severe case of lane-rage when there are other swimmers blocking the fast lane. Really the pool is just not a good place for my neurotic tendencies.

I said I 'used' to have this problem, and I think living here in North Devon may have helped combat this condition, as we have a great leisure centre here with a huge pool and a very well-behaved population of swimmers. It is a joy to see people obeying the lane signs! Of course, it probably helps that the pool is big enough to always have several lanes on the go, and it's never been that busy when I've been so there is no real need for people to crowd the lanes. In fact, I would go so far as to say the leisure centre here is one of my favourite things about living here (controversial!). It's not a very attractive building, but compared to my former gyms in London, it's clean, quiet, well-equipped, spacious, and it's star attraction is the pool. Now, if I can just solve the eye-ring problem, I might make use of it more!

Becoming a running bore

Oh dear, it's happened; I fear I have become a bore, over-thinking about my sport and over-talking about it to my suffering family. Reading this blog it may seem obvious that I already was one, but until last night I was fairly confident (perhaps delusional) that I was still on the right side of the fine line between hobby and obsession, now I think I am a 5m negative-split over it. I was telling my husband all about the minutiae of the different marathon training plans I had been studying when his attention for my running stories reached it's limit and he exploded, crying out "Argh! Why does it matter? Just pick one!"

Suddenly, my recent social life seemed to flash before my eyes and I realised how much I have been thinking about or talking about running. Running has been hovering in the background at parties and family events and entering into conversations with friends, parents, and complete strangers. My best friend and I have even arranged a run as part of a big Christmas get-together we've been looking forward to for ages, and planning since October!

What is most worrying about this is that I'm not even running very much at the moment. What will I be like when I reach the peak of marathon training again and have to plan eating, sleeping and even TV-watching around running? My poor husband!

Marathon training take 2

This time of year goes so quickly, and I can't believe it's already time to start getting real about my training for London 2009. I've been trawling through free marathon schedules online, and I'm amazed at the variation between them. I sort of assumed there were only a few ways you could prepare your body for covering 26 miles, but there are plans based around 6/7 runs a week, ones with 4-5, ones with cross-training, and the mileage increase varies hugely from a mile a week to 4 or 5 (which seems to me to be asking for trouble). Some plans seem to suggest running only 18 miles prior to the race, others to incorporate a full 26 mile practice run!

For Athens I followed a plan from the 'Smartcoach' tool on the Runner's World website, and the strange thing was that it instructed you to do only 3 runs a week, plus cross training. I chose this because I had suffered a knee injury earlier in the year and didn't want to re-injure it, and I found the 3 runs idea to work well in terms of preventing recurrance, but it sort of made me feel like I wasn't taking my marathon training very seriously. Now I feel ready for something a bit more intense, a bit more 'marathon runner-ish'.

At the moment my ideal schedule would be 4/5 times a week, with cross training instead of the other runs, as I don't want to push my luck (and my knee ligaments) after 6 months of only thrice weekly runs, but I haven't found the perfect one yet. The idea of starting a new schedule is appealing though: I can't wait to start ticking off the miles again and watching the distance climb! I just hope I can keep that enthusiasm going over long, dark runs in the dreariest months of the year....

Cold Weather Hints

The day after my extra-icy run (which I wrote about in my last post) I opened this months copy of Runner's World magazine and saw a feature on running in cold weather. Besides all the obvious suggestions (5 of the 10 tips listed were about dressing appropriately and adding extra layers, well duh!) there was a real gem of an idea, which would have helped me last week. The suggestion was planning early morning or frosty runs along bus routes, as these are usually well gritted and the grit often spills on to the pavement.

This is a very practical point, and may even lead you to discover new routes as buses may wind around town in ways you haven't considered and maps of bus routes are available from the council or online.

Brrrr!

I had a very unsatisfying run this evening. It was freezing outside and the pavements were glistening with ice so I had to try and run mostly in the middle of the road where the cars were keeping the tarmac warm. This wasn't ideal as it was rush hour and it was dark, so I had to keep hoping back onto the pavement. I couple of times I nearly slipped and I found myself running really slowly and delicately, picking up my feet in an exaggerated way. If it is possible to run gingerly, that's what I was doing. It made the run very unsatisfying as I never built up enough speed to feel I was working my lungs and getting my legs moving properly, and I ended up cutting short the last loop as I was bored of worrying about skidding across the road on my butt. A short, unsatisfying run today is definitely better than broken bones for Christmas!

What do runners do who live in really icy countries like Finland and er, Iceland? I guess they must run on treadmills a lot during the winter, or maybe they wear trail shoes all the time, if their grip works better on slippery frozen surfaces. Perhaps they have special ice-proof trainers, or attachments for their regular shoes, like snow chains for their car tyres. Either way, I hope it warms up here soon, although with snow forecast across much of England for this week that doesn't seem likely.

Running through life in my hometown

I grew up in a village near Winchester, and for the past few years my parents and siblings have lived in the city itself so I regularly return to this lovely part of Hampshire. When I go for a run here I'm reminded of University holidays and how I would always notice the difference in the air from chilly Edinburgh where every icy breath would burn your lungs. I also feel nostalgic for the paths around my old village where I first began running, and where if I close my eyes I could still trace every step of every road in my mind.

I remember I used to run a loop that was just one mile and went through a cow field. If there were cows in the middle of the field I would walk across so as not to scare the animals, and then I'd climb to the top of the gate at the other side to pause for a while and look at the view across the fields and where I could almost see into the house of a boy I knew. I remember another route that I was running once when I stumbled on a rickety bridge and gouged my hand on a rusty nail. I was 3 or 4 miles from home, feeling woozy from being winded and covered in blood. That is probably still my most dramatic run!

Being at home is making me look back at my life as a runner, and I realise with surprise that I've been doing some form of casual jogging/running for almost ten years, starting in my mid-teens (though I'm not including school cross-country as I didn't do that for enjoyment!). But what I don't remember is what made me go out for a run the very first time. I've always enjoyed exercise and occasionally did running or beep tests with my swimming club, but I can't for the life of me remember the first time I decided to lace up my PE shoes and go for a jog at home, without anyone telling me what to do.

I can however, pinpoint the moment when running became less of a casual thing and I began to think of myself as a runner, as this happened during my fourth year at Uni when I was training for the Great North Run. This event coincided with a period of life where I was feeling more 'grown-up' (i.e. drinking less!) and was also helping to run the cheerleading squad at Edinburgh, so was having a lot of fun but also working really hard and running seemed to help hold everything together. At this time I loved going for a run when I was visiting home and could run for miles on silent muddy footpaths thinking about my revision, or just lazily practising dance routines in my head whilst jogging along.

Now when I'm running at home the things I used to do when running sometimes come back to me, like a smell can conjure memories of a particular person. I suppose the same would happen walking around or sitting in an old friend's house, but it is often only when running that I get time to just daydream and let the memories flow, and feeling nostalgic for old runs really makes me feel like a proper runner!