I was chatting with a runner this week. They’ve had an up and down year, emphasis on down. Lots of external factors impacting on their ability to train consistently. Races have been DNS’d more than DNF’d and finished. The hardest part is often getting to the start line.
The chat we had moved into the realm of whether you are a victim of circumstance or a creator of circumstances. Such a subtle nuance with seismic implications. And there’s agency and choice in it for us all.
As I work my way back to being in my best shape, the conversation really helped me think about how I create more than receive the impact of circumstance. I could give myriad hypothetical examples, but let’s look at my next couple of months to show how getting ahead of circumstance will increase the chances of success.
I have a bunch of travel coming up where I will be away from home a lot. Being away from home can be a challenge with the impact of travel, the access to junk food and the tiredness and temptation that comes with it. If I want to lose 10-12lb before my race in November, I can’t be allowing myself to have weeks where I lose focus. I need to manage this circumstance.
Here’s the next 6 weeks for me:
1. Work from home (one there and back trip to Newcastle)
2. Week in Dublin
3. Work from home
4. Week in Salt Lake City
5. Work from home
6. Week at an offsite somewhere in the UK (TBC)
All of the even weeks (2, 4 & 6) will be replete with team events, meals, catering, late nights, travel and more. It will be the biggest barrier to upping the quality of both training and conditioning.
Or, they could be great opportunities to do better. And that is what I will have to really focus on. Creating positive circumstances from threats and challenges.
Training this week
It’s been a good week of training. I had an interval session early in the week that went better than expected. Now, in my fully fit and tip top shape best I would be running the intervals in that session 15-20s per mile quicker but the fact I was as close as I was really encouraged me.
The set-piece long run session of the week was to run 40k at 7:00 /mi pace. This is what I would describe as closer to 100k pace for me. I decided to do this on loops at Broadwood loch. I haven’t run a decent paced long run since March and the 50k in Perth. So I knew this would be a challenge.
To help with working on the mind game the loops at Broadwood offer a chance to quit every 1.7 miles, just under 3k. And I did. The eagle-eyed amongst you will notice that the run was under 40k and it was faster than 7:00 /mi.
From about 13 miles I was finding my right side tight. At this stage in the rebuild there is no need to overdo it. After a strong interval session early in week and then a solid 20 miles I decided that being sensible was a good thing. And as you can see from the splits below, my pacing was solid.
If I am being honest, I could have run a comfortable sub-3 marathon and had the ego-boost that would have come on Strava as a result. Not interested. The most frustrating thing for me was that the loch got busy with dogs and walkers, and I have no issue with that. I am usually done before they surface but as I am on holiday from work I was out later (0600 or so). A couple of dogs had chased me and I was going to have to lap them a few more times too.
The discretion as a better part of valour approach paid off with a super strong Saturday run as recovery. A run which was going so well I decided to tag a Tak onto it.
That’s me on 65 Taks for 2024 now. Well on track. With all the travel ahead the average of 2 per week will need to be higher on the home weeks. More circumstances to be managed, more opportunities to create positive circumstances from events ahead.
James Stewart 