It's been a busy old week since I last posted. In that time I've turned 30, drunk far too much and been on a very brief work trip to Vienna. Hence, I'm only now writing up a run from last Wednesday (as I write this it's the following Tuesday).
As you may have read, I hurt my knee the week before and I was seriously worried that it would affect my ability to run the London Marathon, so I took tentative steps over the week. This was the third run of the week and as I hadn't had any problems on the two previous runs I wanted to test my knee out by running further and for longer.
As with the two previous runs I'm pleased to report that I didn't experience any problems with my left knee. In addition, Run Keeper shows that my average pace was 5.19 mins/km, which is a fairly normal pace for me - so I could feel the confidence which I'd lost in the previous week beginning to return.
The 12 week training guide is over, but I can't go cold turkey just yet so I find myself following the guide for my mid-week runs in Week 13. The first run of the week is "30 mins easy". I complained about this a while back saying that it didn't feel long enough, but after completing 22 miles at the weekend I'm more than happy to do it this time. My thighs were still on fire on Monday (2 days after the long run, lest we forget) so I leave it until Tuesday night before stepping out for half an hour.
A little while back it seemed that I was mentioning the National in just about ever post on this blog. In fact, I was mentioning them so frequently that my wife issued a cease and desist order for a minimum of three posts. By my reckoning I haven't mentioned Brooklyn's finest purveyors of American alternative rock round these here parts since 21st February so I make no apologies whatsoever for welcoming them back to Running on Empty. As I mentioned in previous posts their last album "High Violet" is perfectly suited to an 'easy' pace as all the songs are both wonderful and similar tempos. So, it is with joy in heart that I set out with the sound of album opener "Terrible Love" in my ears. I'm pretty sure I haven't posted this song up before, so it gives me great pleasure to do so now.
At just 5km in length I think that this is the shortest run I've recorded so far on this blog. Usually that would make me feel as if I'd taken my foot off the gas (if you'll excuse an Americanim), but 30 minutes seems appropriate after completing the longest pre-marathon run at the weekend. The only real downside is that because "High Violet" weighs in at 45 minutes plus I wasn't treated to its full majesty. Having anticipated this I was able to skip some songs to ensure I got to listen to the stirring album closer "Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks". If only there were a way for me to plan my actual running playlist so that this song was playing as I cross the finish line on 17th April I think it would feel even more special.
My wife described the bedraggled figure who staggered through the front door after yesterday's long run as a "broken man". She had a point. After sitting down for any amount of time my legs felt incredibly stiff when I got up to do something. Walking down stairs this morning wasn't much fun either. So, heading out on a cold Monday night for a 45 minute long run at 'easy' tempo felt like some kind of achievement.
My legs are still hurting, but it seems to me that it's important to get out and stretch them with an unchallenging run. That means going at a a fairly slow pace and avoiding even the merest suggestion of a hill climb.
As in previous weeks my soundtrack for this slow run is the National, but for a slight change I opt for the album "Alligator" rather than "High Violet". Although it's another great album that I love listening to it's just not right for this kind of run. Where "High Violet" maintains a similar pace across an entire album "Alligator" is much more varied and includes a couple of more up tempo numbers like "Abel" and "Mr November". That said, I've just checked Run Keeper and it turns out that my average pace in this run was considerably slower than in the same run last week when I listened to "High Violet" (6:20 mins/km compared with 6:05 mins/km). I suspect this has more to do with yesterday's 29 kilometres rather than any musical accompaniment.
While on the subject of music I realise that I haven't written about the actual running playlist for some time. At 92 songs and 4.7 hours long it is pretty much as long as I need it to be, but I will consider it a work in progress up until running the London Marathon.
I got to thinking about it while listening to British Sea Power's new album "Valhalla Dancehall" on my way home tonight. The album opens with the anthemic protest song "Who's in control" and as soon as the guitar riff kicked in 10 seconds into the track I knew that this was exactly the kind of thing that I need on the playlist.
So, that's been added along with "White Riot" by the Clash (I can't believe it wasn't already on there) and "The People" by the Music which was suggested by a good friend of mine recently. I'm looking forward to trying these three out on my next run.
These additions mean that I'm able to jettison a couple of tracks which really haven't been working for me recently; "I like you so much better when you're naked" by Ida Maria, "Nobody move, nobody get hurt" by We Are Scientists and "Machinehead" by Bush. I still like all these songs but they haven't had the desired effect of firing me up and I've even found myself skipping to the next song when they've come on during recent runs.
There will no doubt be more additions and deletions in the coming weeks. Thanks to those of you who have suggested songs, if anyone else has a suggestion please feel free to leave a comment.
I'm only going to be able to fit four out of the five specified runs in this week. In theory, I have the choice between either "50 mins 10 mins steady 30 mins tempo 10 mins steady" or "45 mins steady". However, because of the difficulties I had with Wednesday night's run I instead choose to do the "45 mins easy" that I skipped past on Tuesday.
I wouldn't normally go for the easy option, but I think it makes sense in preparation for Sunday's 2.5 hour long run that I have scheduled. Also, it gives me another chance to immerse myself in the National's glorious "High Violet" album. Apologies for mentioning them again, but it would appear that it's something I'm doing on a regular basis as I asked a friend at work recently whether I'd recommended listening to the National and her response was "only about three times a week". Oops.
As I've said before, the album is the perfect pace and length for a run of this nature and you need only compare the distance covered today with that from Monday's run (8.38km) to see that it helped me to run at an 'easy' pace. Somewhat ironically, it's not always that easy to run 'easy', especially when you have a pathetically competitive nature like I do.
While I'm quite happily running round at a deliberately slow pace (6.05 mins/km, if you're interested) there are other joggers out and about and on one occasion one of them absolutely flies past me. Now, part of me (let's call it the 'wounded male pride' part of me) desperately wanted to put my foot down and sprint past just to show him that I'm not some dawdling idiot. Thankfully, I went with the other (logical) part of me when I remembered that this was no race, that the slower tempo was intentional and that it was, in any case, for the greater good of my marathon training.
Anyway, I reckon that this slower run plus a rest day tomorrow should mean I'm absolutely raring to take on the 28km route I've plotted for Sunday's run. I enjoyed last week's London sightseeing tour so much that I've devised a new one for this week. I'm really looking forward to it.
Right, by way of a conclusion to this post I thought I'd leave with another music video from the National. I've posted up a couple of songs from "High Violet" in the past couple of weeks, but it seems to me that this song from their 2007 release "Boxer" is more appropriate for today. I honestly hope you enjoy it, because you can guarantee I'll be talking about this band some more before this marathon training is done.
"It's Monday night, it's 7.00, it's ... another 45 minute run at 'easy' tempo"
Not quite as catchy as the old opening line from Top of the Pops admittedly, but I thought I needed a new way to introduce yet another Monday night run of this length and this tempo.
If that makes it sound like I'm bored of doing this run or of running in general then I should say that that is most definitely not the case. In fact, tonight could well go down as one of those perfect runs. An audit of the run would show that I felt good (no aches or pains after Saturday's long run), I ran at a decent 'easy' tempo (averaging 6:09 mins/km) and I was lucky enough to be running on a very mild night (no sign of those strong winds which we were fighting against on Saturday). Speaking of the weather, this is the first run so far when I haven't gone out with gloves on. I still wore a hat, but that's not to keep my head warm its primary role is to keep my headphones in place.
Regular readers (if I have any) may recall that I piloted the National's "High Violet" album as a ready-made playlist for slower runs last week. It worked so well that I did the same again this week. It really is the perfect album for this sort of run as it helps me to settle into a remarkably constant pace for the whole 45 minutes; the fastest kilometre took 5:57 secs while the slowest took 6:19 secs. The slowest kilometre was also the final kilometre but I don't think it was slower because I was tired, rather it was because that kilometre was run to the sound of "Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks" - my favourite song on the album and the only song I didn't get to hear in last week's slightly shorter run.
I posted up a video of "Vanderlyle ..." last week, so for your listening pleasure this week I'm posting "Runaway" this week. When we saw the National last year this was the opening number. I'm more used to gigs where the opener is an explosive statement of intent (e.g. Rage Against the Machine opening with "Bombtrack" at Reading in 2009), but this was a surprisingly effective opener on the night. The lyric "I won't be no runaway" seems particularly apt given the slow nature of tonight's run.
I wasn't able to get out for my Monday night run as I was working late, so that meant an early morning wake up call was the order of the day today. Like last week I planned to get up and out by 6am. I distinctly remember peering out from under the covers to see the electronic display on my alarm clock at 05:54. The next thing I knew was at 6:30am when the alarm on my phone went off and I realised I'd been dozing whilst listening to the music on XFM which was supposed to wake me up. So, for this run I was out the door by 6:40 - not as early as last week, but still pretty good.
In previous posts when I've talked about going out for 'easy' tempo runs I've bemoaned the lack of slower songs on my running playlist. I've even floated the idea of creating a playlist specifically for these runs to help me run at a slower pace. I never have got round to that, but I now wonder whether I even need to because inspiration struck last night.
My great musical discovery of 2010 - courtesy of my mate Dan - was the National and, in particular, their "High Violet" album which was released last year. The album is damn near perfect, from the opening shimmer of "Terrible Love" on there really isn't a moment in which they falter. It also happens to be fairly slow and, perhaps more importantly, steady. There are no 200mph riffs on this album, and that was why I thought it would make it a suitable soundtrack for a 40 minute run at an easy tempo.
I was right. The aforementioned opener got me started at a nice easy pace of 6:20 secs per kilometre. The analysis provided by the Run Keeper app shows that "High Violet" helped me to maintain a remarkably steady pace for the entire 40 minutes. Overall I averaged 6:15 secs per kilometre, with the fastest km taking 6:04 secs and the slowest taking just 17 seconds more. That all seems pretty consistent to me and, so, I must conclude that as well as producing the stand out album of 2010 the National have also produced a priceless running aid for these slower runs.
Despite this great discovery this wasn't a great run. My legs didn't ache after Sunday's run (which was good), but there was a definite heaviness this morning that I was unable to shake (which was not good). If the scheduled run had been longer than 40 mins I think I would have struggled to manage it all. Hopefully, this run will have helped to loosen my legs up in time for the next run which will be 60 mins long and should include "8 x 1 min hill climbs".
Before I go I'd like to leave you with a video of the National performing a completely acoustic version of "Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks" from their gig at the Brixton Academy last year. When I say 'acoustic' I should explain that I don't just mean they put down their electric guitars, the amps were all turned off, no microphones were used, the band came to the front of the stage and a reverent hush fell over the crowd for the duration of the song. I had the great pleasure of being there and in a show that enthralled from beginning to end and this spine-tingling encore was the moment that made you feel privileged to be in the crowd. Unfortunately, because this is the last song on an album with a running time closer to 48 minutes I didn't experience the joy of running to this heartbreakingly beautiful song.
