Mystique of the marathon

There is a mystique around marathon running that is difficult to explain. After all what is special about running for 26.2 miles?

* it is a long way
* most people struggle to run for the bus
* how can you run that far without going for a whiz?
(Actually there are usually restrooms/portable toilets available, or if not you can go behind a bush. In fact Paula Radcliffe made a very public toilet stop one year in the London marathon.)

But, the popularity of marathon running is a very recent phenomenon. It has only been in the last 30 years that thousands upon thousands of people have felt the need to run for 3 to 6 hours. Of course the world record is now 2 hours 3 mins and so many seconds, but going sub 3 hours for most runners is a huge challenge.

In the 1960s when Ron Hill was taking on the world at long distance running people didn't jump into running marathons straightaway. They honed their speed over shorter distances first, and only stepped up to the full marathon distance at a later date. (As an aside I remember when I was at university people thought I was mad because I wanted to run marathons, and many runners said that I would become slow by running marathons! Perhaps i should have concentrated more on developing my speed at that point, but just because you run 26.2 miles or 50 miles one time in a race does not mean you will become slow. If you want to speed up just change your training routine.)

This is the way more people should approach marathon running -- get as fast as you can over 10ks then take that fitness into a marathon. Of course you can run marathons at the same time -- ie you don't need to wait years to run your first marathon, but give yourself a proper build up to the race, and do your 10k training throughout the rest of the year. By this I mean you should use the periodisation techniques of top runners - so you have easy weeks factored into your training, as well as mileage build up weeks for example.

Clowne Half Marathon Results

Well, I had a good run in the Clowne half marathon yesterday. I started very near to the front thinking I wouldn't have any problems running into anyone. Well, we went round the corner, a bloke tried to undertake me, I was crowded in from the other side as well so nowhere to go & then I couldn't avoid running into this woman & treading on her heel. At least no one fell over, and I don't think anyone was hurt either (she didnt limp or anything, just caught the back of her shoe).

I remembered this run as being quite hard with a lot of hills, but this year it felt easy and the time passed very quickly as though I hadn't being running for 90 minutes, which is the best way to run. I kept an eye on my heart rate in particular and held back a little when I thought it was going too high ( this might not be entirely accurate because it is an estimation based on 220 minus my age to give me my maximum HR, then the pace to aim for in a half marathon will be 80 to 85 % of my maximum HR).

Over the last few miles there were a few hills which slowed my progress a little. Also the last couple of miles are done mainly on a busy road, so you have lorries passing very close to you as the road isn't closed to traffic. The last 800 metres is also slowed slightly by a hill in the middle, but you soon pass that and are down to the 400 metres to go sign, then the 200 metres to go - had to put in a spurt here to hold off another runner, so finished very quick.

It is a well organised race - they have bottles of water at the drinks stations instead of plastic cups, and at the finish we got a homemade biscuit and a bottle of water. Not as big a field as Worksop, but I would say I enjoyed this run more.

My finishing time is on my other blog on the right hand menu.
Clowne Half Marathon Results

Distance Running

I have often posted on my other blogs about long distance running, so i thought it would make more sense to create a new blog on this. Any time i want to write about running i can come here rather than just posting random entries elsewhere.

Here are some of the topics I want to cover on this Distance Running blog:-

* stretching exercises for distance runners
* how to train more effectively
* my races and personal results
* any stories related to running
* anything else of interest to distance runners.....