Run x5, and which is further, a lap run clockwise or anticlockwise?

The training plan had Monday as a rest day. After the weekend’s 6 and 12 mile runs I embraced that warmly, devoting the day to bike mechanics and planting a bank in the garden with wild flowers.

The week’s training programme (in miles) requires 6, 5, 6 (Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday) and 6 and 14 (Saturday and Sunday) for 37 miles in total. In Km that’s about 10, 8, 10, 10 and 22.5), total 60km.

On Tuesday I ran up the village with my wife and then did 10 laps of the old hill fort at Badbury Clump. It was glorious weather – my first run for months with no base layer or gloves. In keeping with my running shoe rotation policy, I ran in my minimalist shoes (shoes No6) and the whole thing was lovely. In all, it was 10.8km (6.7 miles).

For months I’ve whinged about how the lap of the old hill fort seems to be under-recorded on my Garmin – I may not run fast but I know that I’m running laps faster than the 7min/km which is sometimes what it’s been recording. This time, suddenly, I was running over a minute a km faster. As a creature of habit, I run the circuit clockwise. For some reason on Tuesday I ran it anticlockwise. What on earth is going on?

We all ran on Wednesday morning and I added a bit to make it 9.1km (5.65 miles). That made it something like 220km (136 miles) for the month and 577km (358 miles) running for the first three months of the year – nearly half of my total for the whole of 2020.

On a colder Thursday I went back to Badbury Clump and ran 9 circuits – 3 clockwise and 6 anticlockwise. I’ve checked again and the Strava segment for the circuit run clockwise is 0.59km but the segment for running it anticlockwise is 0.65km. Perhaps whoever set up the segments had better satellite reception for one than the other so that one segment is a bit approximate? Whichever way it was measured, I ran a total of 10.7km (6.6 miles) and will now carry on running anticlockwise.

Now I want all those miles back that I’ve been cheated out of over the years ….

End of ‘cluckdown‘

Since mid-December an outbreak of avian flu led to the lockdown of poultry in the country. That has now been lifted so the chickens are released from their much reduced wild-bird-secure run. They are very pleased – but to be honest they were never very grateful for my efforts on behalf of their safety.

Friday was a rest day – we took advantage of the removal of the ‘stay at home’ requirement and drove to see our older son for only the second time since November (we helped him and his girlfriend move in February but that was hard work). We were outside and socially distanced but seeing him was a real treat, with the added bonus of a walk in the lovely (and huge – 2500 acres) Richmond Park.

The plan required runs on Saturday and Sunday – 6 and 14 miles respectively (10 and 22.5km). Since I am incapable of anything but blind adherence to the plan, that’s what I did. Saturday’s run was less enjoyable than usual with tired legs and a cold north-easterly breeze but we managed 10.14km (6.3 miles).

Sunday was brighter but still fairly cold, although the wind had turned to come from the west. The bonfire we lit on Thursday was still producing wisps of smoke but nothing to be a problem for the rest of the village. I ran the required 23km (14.4 miles) along farm some roads but found it very hard indeed at just under 6:30/km. Rarely has an Easter egg been more earned.

	Target	Actual
Week 3: Miles (Km)	37 (60)	40 (64)
‘Running’ Totals	101 (163)	109 (175)

Week 3, Ultra Marathon training (with rounding)

White Horse Challenge

The White Horse Challenge sportive has been confirmed for 25 April. I can’t now get into any sort of cycling shape, especially with the demands of the ultra training, but I’ll ride it anyway, just for the pleasure of a long ride (it’s 90 miles – 144km). I’m not quite sure what to do about that week’s runs but I’ll think about it nearer the time.

Interesting stuff this week

1. African wise words: When you befriend a chief remember that he sits on a rope

2. BBC News website: Endangered bird ‘has forgotten its song’

The ‘regent honeyeater’, is listed as critically endangered; just 300 individuals remain in the world. The Austrian songbird has become so threatened that it has started to lose its song, as “They don’t get the chance to hang around with other honeyeaters and learn what they’re supposed to sound like.” Scientists are now using recordings of wild birds to teach captive honeyeaters their own song.

3. BBC News website: France seeks Unesco heritage status for the baguette

The UN intangible cultural heritage register aims to protect traditions, knowledge and skills, so they are not lost over time. Altogether it contains more than 350 traditions and crafts, ranging from better known practices such as Spanish flamenco dancing and Indonesian batik fabric making to (even) more obscure items such as a Turkish oil wrestling festival and a Mongolian camel coaxing ritual.

France has now nominated its staple bread stick for inclusion. Some 10 billion baguettes are consumed in France each year, but about 20,000 bakeries have closed since 1970. French bakers say listing would safeguard an art that has been passed down through generations and protect the baguette from global plagiarists.

‘Global baguette plagiarists’?

4. BBC News website: Earth “safe” from asteroid for the next 100 years at least.

Apophis (named for the ancient Egyptian god of chaos and darkness) is Earth’s most threatening asteroid. Close calls in 2029 and 2036 were predicted and later ruled out. A slight threat still remained for 2068 but now, based on new analysis, Nasa has dismissed that threat.

We can now sleep at night

5. BBC News website: Spongy Roads – Slough’s new claim to fame

Slough (just to the west of London) is one of those places that has a bad, slightly comic, reputation. It was the setting for Ricky Gervais’ The Office and poet John Betjeman famously wrote ‘ Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough it isn’t fit for humans now’.

It now looks set to gain a new claim to fame as it will get the Chinese “sponge city” treatment. The flood defence system will see selected roads transformed with permeable surfaces that soak up surface water.

Goodbye old friends ….. confessions of a supinator

Left shoe with the tread worn away from the black pads to the outside of the heel and the ball of the foot and hardly touched everywhere else

Getting in from my run on Thursday I realised it was time to face up to facts. Time to take a tough decision. Time to say goodbye to old friends. Time to retire my favourite pair of running shoes.

There were three things that brought me to this conclusion.

Distance

First, they have clocked through 800 km (500 miles) and conventional wisdom says that running shoes generally have an expected lifespan of between 300 and 500 miles (500 and 800km). As I mostly run on roads and, at 146 pounds (66kg), am not a heavyweight, it’s probably right that I get a good mileage out of them – but they can”t go on forever.

Running form

Secondly, although they appear to be in pretty good shape, I looked at the soles and they tell a pretty clear tale of wear. The wear is almost entirely along the outside edge of each shoe, confirming what I have thought for some time – I am a supinator.

My foot lands with most of my weight on the outside edge but instead of rolling inwards (‘pronating’) or rolling too far inwards (‘over-pronating’), it stays on the outside edge (‘under-pronating’ or ‘supinating’).

All runners know the risks they take on whenever they leave the house. From the lower back to the tips of our toes, even the most technically perfect of runners is putting every joint, bone, muscle, ligament and tendon in between at grave risk of injury (or so it would seem from so much of the internet).

For us over-pronators or under-pronators, the risks are magnified – it appears that for me the risks include devil worship, eternal damnation and the end of civilisation as we know it.

OK, that last bit might have been exaggerated a little – but it is a bit of a surprise that I can still walk given the risks I seem to be taking every time I run.

What’s worse is that the wear on the soles of the shoes show that I run heavier on my left foot than my right. While I may have a mental picture of me running like a gazelle, it appears that I probably look more like a three legged wildebeest.

The fact that I am in a 5% minority of runners who supinate comes as little compensation.

Replacement

These were the oldest of two pairs of these particular shoes – the ‘Puma Ignite 500 Speed’. I ran the Rotterdam Marathon in them in April 2019 and the second pair are only a bit behind in mileage. I like them because they are comfortable, fairly lightweight, low at the back of the heel (good for my dodgy Achilles tendons) and reasonably priced.

I’ve been looking for new ones for months but with no luck – I guess they have been discontinued as all I could find were the occasional random pair in extreme sizes. However, I recently stumbled on a seller who must have some old stock and have bought two more pairs of identical shoes (unadventurous, me?).

It seems that we supinators need more cushioning in our running shoes to make up for the loss of natural cushioning from the usual pronation of the foot. We might also need arch supports to help spread the impact from the foot landing across more of the foot.

How that ties in with the fact that I can run in my minimalist shoes, which have no cushioning or arch support, is beyond me, but at least moving on to one of the new pairs of shoes should restore some extra cushioning. I’ll carry on with the minimalist shoes on a regular basis in the hope that they help to train and strengthen my feet which must be a good thing.

It will be interesting to see if I can tell the difference between new and old shoes. If there is no discernible difference, the old shoes might be reprieved and live on for muddier or wetter runs.

Interesting stuff this week (just wise words as it’s midweek)

African wise words: A man who believes that he can do everything, let him dig a grave and bury himself.

Minimalist/barefoot running, thoughts so far: really good, but …

After using the Merrell minimalist shoes for several runs over the course of a few weeks, and reading and thinking about ‘barefoot’ running, I’ve reached some tentative conclusions.

Of course, they are only really relevant for me because running shoes are a very individual thing, but I thought I’d record them anyway.

I run mainly because I enjoy it and it helps keep me fit. Beyond that, it’s motivational to run fast (by my own low standards of ‘fast’), I enjoy running with others and it’s another source of challenges – and I’m a bit addicted to challenges

The minimalist shoes certainly fit with my reasons to run – other than them not the best way of running faster. Their lightness is a bonus but I doubt they are the fastest shoes out there by a long way.

Of course, there is a huge range of ‘normal’ running shoes and my barefoot ones are probably better than many of the bad ‘normal’ ones – but they are certainly not likely to be as ‘good’ (ie fast) as the top-end shoes which have technology for ‘energy return’ from the layers of foam making up the sole (or the carbon in the sole). I must ask Mr Kipchoge what he thinks.

I think the minimalist shoes do bring really useful things to the party in terms of improving running form, strengthening the feet and lower legs and helping to avoid heel-striking.

Originally, my concerns were more about wear and tear on my ageing body – I guess the lack of cushioning must put more stresses on my hips, calves, Achilles’, knees, feet etc. Presumably, there’s a delicate balance between strengthening all those and putting too much stress on them. Starting the minimalist experiment at nearly 65 might not have been the best timing in the world in terms of my body’s ability to adapt to something so different – but I’m pleased I did.

I expect those concerns are probably valid to some degree – but the biggest drawback I’ve found with the shoes is that they are not at all good on stoney tracks. My one run with them down the farm track beyond Puddleduck Lane was very painful indeed and the soles of my feet were (literally) and I was (metaphorically) bruised by the experience. I suppose there will be minimalist shoes with thicker or more rigid soles – but that would seem to miss at least part of the whole reason for running in shoes like this.

I’m sure there are many people who run on minimalist shoes all the time and I applaud them – but at the same time I don’t think I will be one of them.

I think the minimalist shoes will become part of my regular running programme with ‘the minimalist shoe run’ taking its regular place alongside the hills session, the long slow run and the intervals. That should keep keep reinforcing the learning from them in order to constantly take it back to running in more ‘normal’ shoes.

I’ve been trying to work out how to think of the minimalist shoes – I keep coming back to a skiing analogy.

My ‘proper’ skis are Black Crows Vertis 170.3cm – but I have a pair of Salomon 90cm snow blades. The blades are tremendous fun – quick to turn but not as fast or as stable as ‘proper’ skis and mainly suitable for a day’s pure entertainment on the slopes – partly as a break from ‘real’ skiing.

Beyond the entertainment factor, there is certainly some benefit from the blades in that they do remind you to keep your weight forward, which is also a key aspect to skiing on full length skis.

For me, the minimalist or barefoot shoes come into the same category. They are really good fun to run in (I don’t know why but perhaps it’s the sense of foot-liberation) and I believe that they will help in tuning my running posture, avoiding heel striking, and in strengthening my foot and lower leg – all of which will be useful for when running in normal shoes.

However, just as I don’t use my snow blades all the time, I don’t think I’ll be using the minimal shoes for every run – and certainly not the runs on the sharp, rough stuff.

African proverb: A monkey walking behind another laughs at the other’s tail.

Run, run, walling, Bournemouth, run, London

After Monday and Tuesday’s ‘barefoot’ runs, I rested on Wednesday in case I was putting tendons and muscles under new or increased stresses that might cause problems.

My younger son and I checked the dry stone walls and decided that they had to be ‘glued together’ with mortar so we set about some pointing. I know that mortar needs to be applied by trowel (and have two perfectly useable ones) but within minutes I was using bare hands – simply because my trowel skills leave so much to be desired.

Our first morning session of exposure to the cement left me with nothing worse than fingers wrinkled like I’d had a 3 hour bath. Sadly, the second mortar session in the afternoon saw me with three cut fingertips – and getting cement into cuts is an altogether different proposition.

On Thursday we drove down to Bournemouth for some more gardening ahead of our older son and his girlfriend going down there at the weekend. It is the first time since the lockdown started that they will be allowed to spend a night away from the London flat they share – and have both also been working in. I really hope they enjoy the space (inside and outside) and being outside London.

I resisted taking my running kit. I love running along the seafront but the promenade is a bit narrow for social distancing and it was a flying visit. We got back to the walling on Friday, I was unable to do any more mortar sessions (because of the damage done to my hands on Wednesday) but our younger son and I managed a bit more wall building.

I ran with my son in ‘normal’ shoes on Saturday – 7km (just over 4.3miles) at a little better than 6min/km, which seems to be my standard pace at the moment.

We had a friendly sprint to the finish where the Garmin recorded 4.04min/km for a few fleeting moments. With nothing specific to train for, that’s plenty good enough for me. It felt good after three days off running and the legs were fine but I think I’d benefit from a stretching regime.

What is sobering is the realisation that my finishing sprint was over a minute slower than Kipchoge’s average for the marathon. Intellectually, I know the sub 2 hour marathon was a spectacular achievement but that just underlines how wonderful it was.

In the afternoon we drove up to London so our son could check his flat and I could do some work in ours, fitting a dishwasher (unexpected complications – only part 1 of the job was achieved). It is said that the ‘R’ number in London might have crept back over 1 – country folk like us are a bit nervous about that so it, and a sore knee, meant I didn’t run. A good trip but happy to get back to Oxfordshire.

Big(gish) news – next week will involve some cycling!

Interesting stuff this week

1. Boris Johnson’s newt-counting claim questioned

Investigative journalism at its best, fact-checking the Prime Minister’s claim that wildlife investigations hold up planning applications

2. Peas are a big hit with tadpoles

A wildlife photographer turn his lens to the garden during lockdown to address yet more key issues of the day

3. Coronavirus: PM urges people to be sensible as England lockdown eased

Fingers crossed that people listen – but I fear, with some, he might as well be urging the grass not to be green

4. Outrage as Indian judge calls alleged rape victim ‘unbecoming’

The judge said “The explanation offered by her that after the perpetration of the act she was tired and fell asleep is unbecoming of an Indian woman,” the judge said, adding that it was “not the way our women react when they are ravished”.

What?

‘Barefoot’ in the park – first experiences of minimalist/ barefoot running

Minimalist v normal running shoe. Less is more … or perhaps less is less? They have a sort of camouflage colour scheme – but so far I’ve been able to find them OK.

I have to admit that buying the minimalist running shoes was, quite possibly, a bit of badly-judged nonsense. I’m not sure I can explain it – but it felt something of a necessary rite of passage.

My achilles tendons hurt every day for more than four months training for the Rotterdam Marathon last year and one of the things that is prescribed in such a case is a running shoe with a bigger drop from the heel to the toe, to reduce stress on the tendons.

The minimalist shoes have pretty much zero drop (perhaps 1mm?) so they do not appear to be very Achilles-friendly and do not seem to be a wise choice. However, when was I likely to be sensible when it come to this sort of stuff?

Beyond that, they are against almost everything we know about running shoes … no gel inserts to cushion the shock, no multi-layer, multi-density foams to maximise energy return, no need for gait analysis to decide whether you under or over pronate so you can buy the necessary corrective shoes or supportive arches …

Well, perhaps it’s wrong to say minimalist/barefoot shoes are against what we know about running shoes – perhaps it would be more accurate to say they are against everything the running industry tells us is important in running shoes. The industry wants to differentiate and sell products so can we always take the claims on face value?

On the other hand, if the products don’t work as they should, we will find out so the manufacturers should be kept honest by that. If the gels and foams (and, dare I say it, carbon-infused launchpads) were just Emperor’s new clothes, wouldn’t we know it?

It’s all very confusing – and if you like interesting questions, could Kipchoge have run his sub 2 hour marathon without his Nike Vaporflys?

Anyway, back to the minimal. It might sound weird but when you put them on they make your feet feel a bit over-exposed and vulnerable – the biggest reservation I had was how the seemingly thin sole and the absence of any cushioning will protect my feet when landing on a sharp stone. I think the issue would be pain and bruising rather than penetration through the sole (but I’d not want to walk on a nail in them).

The shoes I have are supposed to be trail shoes (I take the fact that they are called ‘Merrell Vapor Glove 4 Trail Running Shoes’ as a clue) but that just emphasises the stone point.

Being from the east of the Atlantic, I would prefer ‘vapor’ to be spelt correctly – but I may be able to forgive Merrell the missing ‘u’ if the shoes are good.

Monday saw the start of the minimalist experiment. The morning’s physical stocktake revealed a slightly tender left calf and Achilles (addressed by heel drops) and the usual cranky left knee. I wore the shoes for a fairly short run on the road – just under 7km (about 4.2 miles). They felt great – light and comfortable and the run felt easy and pretty fast (for me).

I may just be deluding myself by feeling that the run was easy – I could just be thinking that to justify my purchase of the shoes but I guessed the proof of the pudding would be when I woke up the following day and saw how the legs were. The rest of Monday was spent out in the garden tackling an overgrown hedge (and removing nettles, brambles and ivy – again). It was very windy and we had a power cut in the afternoon which lasted until about 10.30pm.

On Tuesday the physical stocktake was just the same as Monday’s – no new aches or pains and nothing worse than usual. I’ll take that as a victory.

Accordingly, I ran in them again on Tuesday – tame trail running doing laps of Badbury Clump (about 7.7km – 4.75miles). Yes, you can feel stones and sticks through the sole of the shoe but no problems so far and they were a joy to run in.

On Wednesday morning both calf/achilles combos were a little tight and the knee was as cranky as usual. It could just be two consecutive days of running, it could be the shoes or it could be nothing much at all – but it will be a day without a run.

I think I’ll go back to the old shoes for the rest of the week – I doubt the new ones need ‘running-in’ but if they put extra (or different) strains on my muscles/joints/tendons/ligaments/psyche I guess that it’s me that might need to be a bit cautious in attuning to them.

So far so good – I like them a lot but it remains to be seen if they like me …