I sportsed all over Prague

On Sunday the 3rd of May, 2015 (two weeks before I officially turn old), I finally achieved a life-long ambition of running a marathon. I ran in the Prague Marathon organised by RunCzech. My official race time was 4:08:02, but since it took me over five minutes to cross the start line, my actual time was 4:02:24.

My training was not particularly rigorous — the longest I had run beforehand was 27km (about 16.5 miles) — and I was really only aiming to finish, so to finish so close to four hours is incredibly gratifying. I spent the vast majority of the race ahead of the 4-hour pace setters, but hit my own version of the wall in the 38th kilometre. These two charts summarise my experience. The first chart lists my times for each kilometre, with the red line being the rate needed to achieve four hours (the peak in the 21st km is a pee break). The second gives my time relative to that 4-hour target (in seconds). At the 34km mark, I was 244 seconds (4 minutes, 4 seconds) ahead of the 4-hour pace, meaning that I lost roughly six and a half minutes in the last 8.2 km.

PragueMarathon

The biggest thing I learned from the experience is that there is no such thing as “the” wall — there are at least three walls!

The first wall is simple glycogen depletion, possibly combined with dehydration. I’m pretty sure this was not an issue for me, although I am starting to wonder (see below). I had stuffed my face with pasta (and protein) for days beforehand, I downed a Clif Bar immediately prior to the race and I was munching on a Clif Shot Blok every 5km. I was also drinking water regularly, to the point of needing to stop to pee at the half-way mark. Having said that, I now realise that I was only consuming about 20g of carbs per hour, which is considerably less than the commonly recommended 40-60g. I never experienced any of the usual glycogen depletion symptoms, like a brain fade, though. I always felt like I had energy.

The second wall is psychological. Since my longest ever run beforehand was only 27 km, I was acutely aware of the distance once I headed north of 25km and had to talk my way through it in the 28-30 km range. Certainly once I’d gotten to 32 km and was able to tell myself “10 km to go”, this issue seemed to pass completely.

The third wall, which I had not considered at all beforehand, was a dramatic emergence of muscle pain in my quads from about 35km onwards. At first, it just felt like muscle burn from doing hill sprints, but it got worse and just after the 37km mark it became so bad that I had to stop and walk. I tried stretching, but that somehow only made it worse, into a blinding pain that shut out almost all other sensory experience.

I walked and occasionally shuffle-jogged for the next 2km before the pain started to ease and I was able, with a grit-the-teeth-and-focus-like-a-goddamn-laser sort of effort, to keep myself jogging constantly for the final 3 km. Watching the 4-hour pace setters run past me while I was walking was not a pleasant experience.

It was not a pulled muscle (a muscle strain) — it was in both legs and it eased over the next couple of days as I recovered in ways that a strain would not. I also do not think it was glycogen depletion, as I (believe that I) remained lucid and had energy throughout. Instead, I think it was “dead quads”, of the sort described here and here. If I’m correct, then it amounted to insufficient training and, in particular, insufficient strength training. Weirdly enough, it also suggests that if I had stopped and stretched my hamstrings halfway through the event, it might not have been so bad.

You can see how poor my form was at the end here (notice how robotic the leg movements are, and how I’m just lifting my feet and then dropping them like bricks):

If that makes it seem like I’m disappointed, I promise that I’m not! It was an incredible experience that I enjoyed immensely and would encourage anybody to try. I’m already scoping out my second …

Running (March 2012)

Generally a good month when I ran, although it had almost two weeks (11 days) off in the middle.

Count:  10 runs (February was 16; January was 10)

Distance:  73km (February was 95km; January was 57km)

Av. Pace:  5:12/km (February was 5:27/km; January was 5:48/km)

I’m now at 68 runs, covering 397km, in my current block of running (started on 10 Oct 2011) and it’s definitely showing results.  My run on 31 March (6.3km @ 4:27/km) was my fastest run over 5+ km since 1994 and possibly since late 1992.  In addition to my existing goals, I’ve now added a broader one of managing 800km (500 miles) in 2012.  That’s 67km/month.  Since I’ve averaged 75km/month for the last five, it should be entirely achievable if I stick with it.

All exercise is publicly visible here (on runkeeper.com).

Running (February 2012)

Okay, so I’ve actually been running again, however slowly, for a few months now.  Full details on my Running page.  February was pretty good; although the distances weren’t as great, I’d say better than last year.

Count:  16 runs (January was 10)

Distance:  95km (January was 57km)

Av. Pace:  5:27/km (January was 5:48/km)

My current block of running is far and away my best in so long it doesn’t matter.  338km over 60 runs, spanning almost five months.  If I keep this up for another few months I might just be able to start describing myself as a runner again. 🙂

All exercise is publicly visible here (on runkeeper.com).

Running (February 2011)

My resumption of running continues.  February managed to nail January in both distance and pace.

Count:  14 runs (January was 16)

Distance:  100km (January was 94km)

Av. Pace:  5:39/km (January was 5:59/km)

I’ve now managed over 200km in total, which was #5 of my running goals, and which also makes this the best block of running I’ve had in terms of total distance for over 13 years:

All exercise is publicly visible here (on runkeeper.com).

Running (January 2011)

I resumed my stop-start relationship with running on Christmas Day.  January has been my best month for running in over 12 years (I’ve lost all records prior to 1998).

Count:  16 runs (previous best was 13 in Feb 1998, Jul 1998 and Aug 2008).

Distance:  94km (previous best was 74km in Feb 1998, followed by 69km in Aug 2008).

Av. Pace:  5:59/km (Feb 1998 was 5:05/km, but we’ll ignore that for now).

I’ve now hit 100km in total, too, which brings up #2 on my running goals.

All exercise is publicly visible here (on runkeeper.com).  I’m finding the chatter with a mate and one of my brothers (the other being a lazy git) in Australia to be a real help.

Restarting running: 100 days in

Running_30Oct2009

Between 1999 and 2008 inclusive, the best I ever managed in a single block was a pathetic 17 runs over 41 days.  In 1998 I did manage 37 runs in a “block” but it was haphazard, with several two-week breaks and a couple of spurts of 5 runs per week that were, frankly, dangerous.  It took me 128 days (18 and a half weeks) to get through those 37.  I should reach 37 this time after 103 days (14 and a half weeks).  I attribute my sticking with it this time to:

  1. Running shorter distances than I have in the past
  2. Resisting the urge to increase my speed too quickly
  3. Never running more than three times per week
  4. This

Forever starting

I am a chronic starter.  It seems that every week or two I start something new.  This would be great, if only I then kept doing whatever it is that I start.

One of the things that I start doing on a regular basis is running.  Just about every year, usually about half-way through summer, I start running again.  Every year I keep a careful log of what I do, every year I try not to build up too quickly, every year I become tremendously enthusiastic, every year I dream of completing the London Marathon and every year, without fail, I stop running after a month and a half.

Forever starting running

(Click on the image for a bigger version.  Distances are in kilometres; rates are min/km)

I used to be a runner.  Back in 1992, my final year of high school, I ran four times a week on top of two weekly sessions of soccer training in the winter and cricket in the summer.  In the middle of that year I ran the Gold Coast Half-Marathon in 1:38:37 (4 min 40 sec per kilometre).  Later that year I ran a cross-country 8km in 32 minutes flat.  I was in the Queensland junior orienteering team.

I’ve always thought of myself as a runner (well, okay, a lapsed runner).  I’ve blamed everything I could imagine for my repeated failure to get into a habit again.  Diet.  Running too far.  Running too quickly.  Not enough time to rest between runs.  Too much time between runs.  Not running on the same days of the week.  Insufficient variety in my routes.  Not running with music.  Not running enough with other people.

I generally hold that with exercise (hell, with anything), what propels you forward is novelty in the short term, discipline in the medium term and habit in the long term.  The trick, then, is to find a way to deal with a chronic lack of self-discipline in the medium term when you’ve ruled out options like joining the military to have discipline imposed upon you.

Here’s an email I sent to some of my friends last year (21 Aug 2008):

It’s not that I get bored with the runs when I’m on them – I tend to vary my courses and occasionally run with a club. As far as I can tell, I just get to a point where I can’t be arsed going today, tell myself I’ll go tomorrow, end up only going in three or four days and then repeat the process with the lags becoming longer until I just forget about it altogether. I have tended to get quite tired after the first couple of weeks, which suggests that an inappropriate diet might be the cause, but I’m hesitant to use that as the explanation when the phrase “I’m a lazy bastard” is swimming gently across my forebrain. There’s also the possibility that I rapidly envisage absurdly ambitious goals when I first start and manage to discourage myself before I’ve even built the habit of running.

So. I’m looking for suggestions on how to keep it going this time. I’ve managed nine runs so far and all pretty evenly spaced (see attached). The 5km runs are on the Heath, the 7km runs are with a running club of 80+ people around Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens. Runs on the Heath are infinitely variable. I don’t start back at uni for six weeks and have no work planned, so it’s a perfect opportunity to build up a weekly ritual.

My friend Chris replied (22 Aug 2008) with:

My most successful tactic: grinding down the barriers of participation.

The thing that makes it hard to run is NOT the running. It’s the transition from comfort and inertia to physical discomfort and effort (usually in the dark and cold in England).  You have to look at what you need to achieve: in the first few months you are trying to achieve a HABIT. Nothing else. You’re not trying to achieve physical fitness, training, distance or anything else.

So looking at it as habit training, the best thing you can do is work on the habit above all else. It doesn’t matter a toad’s cloaca whether you go out and run 12k or 400 metres, if you stop a fortnight later. And as you know, stopping is never a decision to stop running. It’s a decision to take tonight off and go tomorrow instead. Then tomorrow. Then tomorrow…

The only way to succeed is to form the habit above all else, and the only workable way to form the habit is to make the habit easy.  So, change your goal. It’s not to go for a run, it’s to put your tights on and step outside the door. Make THAT what you do 3 times/week (or better, every Tues, Thurs and Sunday, since “3/week” gives you wiggle room).

So 3 times a week you will put your shoes and silver bodysuit on, and walk to the gate. What happens then is purely a matter of how you’re feeling at the time. Until you are standing at the gate, you are not planning anything else.

Pound down the delta between what you are doing now (vegging in a warm lounge room) and what you will be doing in 10 minutes (standing outside your door). Smash the crap out of that delta, because that’s your only enemy.

Which is eminently sensible advice, but as you’ll see above in the image, I stopped running two weeks later.  There was something missing.

Another friend, Anthony, also suggested last year that I

drop down a lot of cash on an event, such as Noosa Tri, which gives [you] some financial and pride incentives not to look like a fat unfit bastard on the day.

Again, excellent advice, but unless I have a basic belief that even with no training at all I can still cough and wheeze my way around the course, there’s a fair chance that if it’s all seeming a bit too hard I’ll just give up and call the cash gone.  However, it does lead into the classic economist’s way of solving any problem:  financial incentives.  In January 2008, Ian Ayres, Jordan Goldberg and Dean Karlan (two of them economists) lauched stickK.com.  It’s a site that will let you set up a contract on yourself (e.g. to lose weight).  If you don’t meet the terms of the contract, you forfeit money.

I think it’s a neat idea, but it’s never really sat well with me.  If your money is potentially going to a charity that you hate, then that’s just stupid.  If it’s going to a charity that you like, then your incentives are all screwed up.  So instead, I’ve decided on a different idea:

As soon as I finish writing this post, I’m going to go to the bank and withdraw £520.  I will then divide it across eight envelopes and give them all to a good friend, Dimitri, with strict instructions to return the money back to me piecemeal as he is satisfied that I have gone for a run.  The amounts returned will be increasing over time, so the first run will get me £30 back, the second £40 and so on up to the eighth run being worth £100.  There will be a time limit of three weeks on my claiming the money back and a limit of no more than four runs being claimed per week. Here are the benefits, as I see them:

  • Dimitri is a good friend and I trust him not to run off with my money.
  • If I don’t meet the requirements, I also trust Dimitri to not turn Good Bloke and give me the money back anyway.
  • He is pretty fit at the moment, having just competed in the London Triathlon, and is training regularly himself.
  • It’ll be up to Dimitri to judge whether he believes me when I say I went for a run.
  • The total amount of money is large enough that I will really want to get it back.
  • The incentive is increasing over time, so I won’t be tempted to just go for a couple of runs and call it quits.
  • The overall time limit combined with the restriction of no more than four runs per week will make sure that I don’t put it off and that I don’t end up hurting myself.
  • Possibly most importantly of all, it extends the period of novelty well into the period that would otherwise be solely governed by (a lack of) discipline.

Eight more runs will take me to 20 in total.  If it goes well and Dimitri is willing, I might then repeat the process.  After that, I should hopefully have been running for long enough that I can get myself out the door without the financial incentive.