Marathon Training Runs

When I first started running with a club, a marathon seemed to be a superhuman attainment, and I entertained a vague notion that I would eventually do one and then retire. When I found out how many people in the club ran marathons regularly and thought nothing of it, that didn't seem like such a heroic notion. But still it has taken me over 11 years to get round to it. The chief reason for that has been the time required for the training. This year I am finally doing it.

So how difficult has it been, grinding out the long runs, increasing the milage I ran per week from ~8 up to 40? Frankly far easier than I ever dared to hope. For that, I must say that my training plan has proved to be very good - all credit for that to Runners World website (http://www.runnersworld.co.uk/) where I got it from. Secondly, what has helped enormously has been that I like, no make that love, the places I have been running in. Also that I have deliberately not put myself under any pressure to try to achieve any particular speed. I just run and enjoy myself. I look around me and look for wildlife, watch for interesting things happening, keeping an eye out for anything unusual. I don't wear headphones when running, despite the fact that I love listening to music, and a long run would be an ideal opportunity to do so. But listening to the sounds of nature is a key part of the experience, and often the first indication that there is something to look at. Finally, I have been exceptionally lucky in having some remarkably good weather for running. Throughout September and October as my milage has crept up from 12 to 20 for my long runs, 2 miles further each week, the weather has held out, being consistently dry and sunny, not too hot (with one exception), but not cold either and with moderate winds. Perfect conditions for me.

Some of my midweek long runs have had to be run at least partially at night. These have been really fun, too. I carry a torch but have found myself rarely needing to use it. When I do, it is frequently to alert other users of the path to my presence (usually cyclists!) Even in the dark it has usually been perfectly easy to make out where the path is. A gravelled path like the cycle routes in Richmond Park is very obvious, but even where the path is only defined by the grass being shorter can still be made out when ones eyes have adjusted.

And at night when there are fewer people around, one can see and hear different wildlife, not just the nocturnal creatures but the shy ones which hide away when there are lots of people and dogs around. I've heard owls hooting, seen bats silhouetted against the sky, darting silently after moths, with their sudden unpredictable changes of direction. I've seen herons flying quite low overhead, with their huge wingspan making them look very dramatic. I've heard the eerie calls of foxes, and once, up on Wimbledon Common, I heard a strange pig-like grunting sound. Was it a badger? Or could it have been a hedgehog? Or perhaps a roe deer? I never did see a deer on the Common on my training runs, but researching on the internet I see that the Wimbledon Parkrun website indicates that there are some. I hope there are. It is ideal habitat for them. Later on that same run I heard a slight rustle in the leaves on the ground as I ran past, and it continued for a little bit so I knew it wasn't my feet disturbing anything which ha caused it. I thought it must be a mouse or a vole and on a whim I stopped and turned and shone my torch where I thought the sound had come from. It was a toad. I quickly turned off my torch and resumed my run, and heard it rustling the leaves again as I left. One dark evening I ran through the middle of Richmond Park during the rutting season, with huge stags bellowing to each other all around me. That was an experience I feel truly privelleged to have had. A couple of weeks later I ran a similar route, but the rut seemed to have ended. I saw and heard nothing for most of the way round until down by Ham Gate, just a mile from the end, I heard a woody clattering sort of noise, and looked round to make out in the faint light two young stags, still practicing their fighting with their antlers interlocked. I could tell they weren't fully grown males fighting in earnest. Other deer stood around silently grazing or watching the fighters. That made my night.

There are fish to be seen in virtually all the water along the route, ponds, streams and even the river Thames. It's not easy to spot anything when you are running of course, but I have sometimes paused by a pond or stream on my way round and been rewarded by the sight of fish.

It's not just the fauna either. The flora is very varied along the route of the run. That's deliberate. there are dense woods, gardens, flat grass, tussocky grass, bushes, bracken and heathland. One bonus of the very warm dry autumn we have had this year is that the autumn colours seem to be that bit more spectacular, with the trees forming more vivid reds and golds than usual. Or is it just my imagination. For a couple of weeks the acorns were falling, and in places when there was a slight breeze, there would be a sound like a hailstorm as they fell in great numbers. I was surprised none of them ever hit me. They certainly startled a couple of ladies walking ahead of me on the path one time.

So all told, I have really enjoyed my training runs. I did some long ones on short holidays, in the Welsh borders, Norfolk farmland and Lancastrian hills, just south of the Lake District. Unknown territory, for which I had to carry maps and consult them at regular intervals. A slightly daunting prospect, running an unknown route in completely unfamiliar territory, with the danger of getting miles off course and hopelessly lost, but I made it back OK each time. And enjoying the runs is really what it's all about.

I have marvelled sometimes, when I found myself without another person in sight, and thought, "This is London. One of the largest cities on the planet. And there's just me and some deer." But of course I've also had a phone with me, and it has also cheered me and maintained my morale enormously when my wife has called, by pre-arrangement, to ask where I am and how I am getting on, and offer her encouragement. Many thanks to her for that.

I want to end this post by sharing with you these photographs I took of the most spectacular rainbow I have ever seen. It was in Lancashire towards the end of my long run, and the sun was sinking low behind me, and dark clouds were starting to pour heavily ahead of me but I was still dry, and these rainbows formed , complete from one side to another (if you look above the main one there is a second fainter one, and a vertical one joining the two in the second picture). Rainbows, like sunsets, rarely come out as spectacularly in photographs as they appear to the naked eye, but these are still very good (in my humble opinion). So imagine they were even more vivid than they appear here.