Funny things I heard happen to friends during marathon - #1

"If in doubt, keep it out of your mouth."

It was the Dublin marathon and my friend was struggling. His training had been curtailed first by injury, then by frustration and finally by the desire to have the odd pint at the weekend. He was fit though. He had ran a reasonable number of miles in training. But a marathon was just a tad overly-ambitious. So it was no surprise that by the Stillorgan bypass he was in dire straits.

That’s when he saw them, the Order of Malta. Standing beside the road they were offering energy gels held out for labouring runners like my friend. However, for some reason the energy gel was out of the packet and being held out on their gloved hands. To a normal person in normal conditions this would seem very strange indeed. However, while my friend is pretty normal, 19 miles into a marathon is not exactly normal conditions so he thought nothing of it except gratitude as he scooped it first into his palm and then into his mouth.

The first indication that something was wrong was that it wasn’t sweet.

The second indication that something was wrong was when his mouth started to go numb.

The final indication that something was wrong was when he looked back and from 50 metres the Order of Malta volunteer was still staring at him with their arm outstretched.

Of course it wasn’t energy gel at all.

The Order of Malta don’t do energy gels around mile 19.

Energy gel people do energy gels.

The Order of Malta does Vaseline to help prevent chaffing.

Yesterday’s running
Again it was late. Again I was tired from a long day. But again I managed to get the runners on and out the door sometime after 8 pm for an 8 k run. Felt the calf just a little at the beginning but it soon faded away. Fingers continue to cross. Maybe a little longer tomorrow.

Observations on a country-road #2 - To Wave or Not To Wave.

“It’s nice to be nice.”

Tips for waving to passing cars.

Waving to a passing car is not as easy as it might seem for a variety of reasons:

·         Waving can throw off your stride ever so slightly.

·         Throwing up your hand in salute, while not difficult, if done wrong can appear like you are telling them to slow down, much in the same way another driver might ‘flash them the lights’. This will immediately reduce the speed level down as they watch out for a horse and rider, a stray dog or more worryingly a police check-point.

·         And then of course if you wave at every passing car you’ll be waving all day.

Consequently, I would base the times you wave on a strict formula of levels of energy, ease of (wave) execution and where on the scale the oncoming vehicle fits.

Definitely wave

I

It’s your wife/husband

I

You know the person

I

They slow down because of an oncoming car and don’t want to crowd you

I

They indicate from a far

I

It’s Paul O’Connell

I

They are pulling out of a driveway and wait for you to pass

I

It’s the Gardaí

I

It’s your ex

I

It’s your man who sold you the dodgy … (fill in as necessary)

I

They’re on the phone

I

They are speeding

I

They give you no room as they pass

I

Definitely don’t wave

Yesterday’s running
Despite it being late evening, being on the go all day, I managed to just about have the energy for 8 k and unsurprisingly, I felt great afterwards.

Observations on a country road #1 – Speeding drivers

“Keep an ear out for cars”

I live in the country-side with no forest or Phoenix Park nearby so a lot of the miles that I need to cover training are along public roads into oncoming traffic. In choosing what roads I run on - busier main thoroughfares or slower local ones – I always choose the latter. While the main roads are wider and straighter, I much prefer the prospect of oncoming traffic that is going less than 80 km/h to a busier route where many are motoring at a 100+.

Though you might think a country road is more dangerous with the occasional unsighted bend, the small amount of traffic and the speed they tend to go at, not to mention how you generally can hear from a distance a car approaching, means that running on a local road is usually a peaceful pursuit with the only worry being that farmer’s collie that is slightly bananas but which you can’t imagine will ever bite.

However, there are a few drivers who speed, which from my observations fall into two distinct categories that divide roughly on gender:

Fast moving male drivers: This category of fast driver tend to go wide when rounding a bend.

This is better for the runner but obviously not so good for traffic coming the other way. These drivers tend to drive Audis, VW, Opels and cars with silly sized exhaust pipes.

Fast moving female drivers: This category of fast driver tend to go tight when rounding a bend. While better for traffic coming the other way, this is crap for the runner and the most common reason I reach for the hedgerow. I don’t know what these drivers tend to drive as I am too busy jumping up into the ditch.

Yesterday’s running
A short 20 minute run to keep the recovery going..

 

Carlsberg Don't Do Running Related Injuries

“Every setback has a silver lining. You just have to find it.”

"Carlsberg don't do running related injuries but if they did…"

I was at the physio yesterday and the news is good. Touchwood. I can start running again. But before that something about physios.

Physios are like doctors, dentists and mechanics. When you find one you can trust, you tend to stick with them. Throughout my sporting life I think I’ve been to just two physios. I’m sure I’ve been to more than that for singular sessions – it’s not like I’ve lack injuries – but I can only really remember two.

The first was a local physio from Trim called Frank Foley. He taught me to walk tall. Literally. I had gone to him when I was around 19 with a golf-related injury. It was golf-related because it happened while my friend and I were walking to the local golf-course. A farmer’s trailed had fish-tailed on the Kildalkey Road leaving the vehicle and trailer prone on a bend. With a few bags of cattle feed in it and an old farmer who was still a little in shock, my friend and I dragged the trailer out of harm’s way and in the process I damaged nerves around my right shoulder. I only noticed the injury several weeks later and deterioration of muscle tissue when my right arm looked significantly shorter than my left when reaching out for a pint! Frank would give me plenty of exercises to get it back to shape but the first thing he showed my still teenage self was not to slouch when I walked. I was losing two inches. It’s funny trying to change your walk. It’s like trying to change how you talk. But it worked and both the shoulder and my gait got immeasurably better.

I went to Frank on and off over the years with other injuries but around 2008, now living in Maynooth I changed to the Leinster Sports Clinic and into the care of two physios, Mark and Laura. Both were competent sports people; most Irish physios seem to be. Frank had been part of the legendary Meath All-Ireland winning set up at the end of the eighties and early nineties. Laura was a competent tri-athlete and long distance runner while Mark didn’t look too shabby either. I can remember Mark telling me he had never ran a marathon. His distance was more the 10k mark. I told him that it wasn’t that big of a step-up with training. Of course I didn’t realise that Mark, was Mark Kenneally, who would be become the national 10,000 champion a couple of years later and when he did turn his attention to marathons would run sub 2hr 14 in Rotterdam and represent Ireland at the London 2012 Olympics!

He and Laura were as they say in the back country, horrid nice people and looked after me for years. I followed them to Celbridge when they set up their own clinic but last week I finally realised that taking a spin down to Celbridge, was no longer practical, not with a little girl at home. So I asked the club-mates for someone nearer and McEntee Physios in Navan was one of the first that I got back at me.

I must admit my initial impression was a little uncertain. Their treatment studio was a little small and the physio was of the age that, it being Navan where I teach, might have been a former student. But then the treatment started and any concerns ended there.

After a long description of my sporting history with particular attention to running, the physio Mark went through a plethora of short rubs and exercises before outlining the underlying issues that I have. I’m no scientist but one thing I seemed to gather was that in simple terms your calf (bottom back leg muscles) muscles pop you up and your glutes (big arse muscle) push you forward and that’s kind of how you run. My glutes are weak so when I tire my calf and any other muscle still working are called to help move me forward and this is not good. This is particularly not good when you add it all up for the miles and miles of marathon training that have been layered on past marathons and trainings before that.

So having explained what I was lacking and why I needed it, he went through three key exercises to help fix the calf and work on the glutes. He then videoed me doing them correctly and emailed them to me – technology! And after about 45 minutes I left more knowledgeable and confident in my running than I had been in some while. Carlsberg don’t do running related injuries but if they did, they would do those that are not too severe (touchwood) and which in their treatment help you identify and resolve much bigger issues that if not dealt with would have derailed your running further down the line.

I think I’ve just discovered my third physio.

 

Yesterday’s running
So that evening I went out and had one of the most enjoyable slow 8 km I've ran in ages. It was not just because of the great company with Enda and Kieran but because I was so grateful to be back being able to run. It was a fun 40 minutes.

 

 

 

“Are you opened?” – Dublin Marathon 2003 - Part Deux

“Are you opened?”

The shopkeeper loading briquettes into the outside cage on Nutley Lane eyed me with curiosity. I guess despite having a marathon pass his doors every year he rarely had a participating runner enquire about his opening hours. However, stuck between drinks station and my body on melt-down I needed whatever fluids I could get, that was the question I now posed him. Thank goodness for that €5 my mother had given me!

The marathon had started reasonably well. I had no real time in mind as I had never ran a race before to post a time, not a half-marathon, not a 10k, not a 5k. So I just set off at whatever pace came natural. And for a while everything seemed natural. I remember seeing a guy with a headband and a beard (unusual for 2003) with a t-shirt that seemed to be advocating for the legalising of marijuana. As I read his jersey, which was a marked change from all the other club and charity vests we passed the 9-mile marker and I can recall thinking that I was now going into unchartered territory having never ran any further than this before. In my ignorance I think I felt a wave of euphoria. That was the last wave of positivity I felt for days!

Looking back, once I crossed the Liffey things starting to go south, both literally and metaphorically. The leafy south Dublin suburbs that I was not familiar with anyway became a blur or fatigue and pain. Probably around mile 18 my body started a process of negotiation with my brain trying to persuade me to stop, just for a second, maybe a minute. The pain increased metre by metre because that’s how slow it feels when you are suffering. My body implored me, if only it could get a little rest, it would be grand and then we could start again. For an age I held off against its pleading until finally it got hold of my bladder and threatened to piss myself if I didn’t stop running. So just past the Stillorgan bypass I stopped to take a leak and a short little break. And that was it. I was fecked!

I tried to get going but the legs had completely downed tools and were no longer operational. My thighs looked up at me and shrugged their shoulders. My throat felt as my Dad would say like the Russian army had just marched through it while my knees were wobbling worryingly. That’s when I saw the shop. I can’t imagine many marathon runners lining up at the start with €5 in their arse pocket that their mother gave them, “just in case”. In fact, I doubt many marathon runners have an arse pocket full stop! Thankfully I had both and for €2 I had the nicest half bottle of Lucozade something I ever tasted. I told him he could keep the change - it would only weigh me down.

This dose of liquid glucose was enough to keep me alive and got me moving again but it did nothing to lessen the pain. For the final 5 miles I rarely made it into a trot before I was forced to resume walking again so incapable was I of moving at speed. And the worst thing was, the pain I experiencing walking was just as bad as the pain I experienced running.

Finally, I made it to Trinity College where the cheering crowds injected me with a little bit of adrenalin and I began running like a man who’s just been subjected to the most invasive airport security screening ever. With cramps erupting in the centre of all four major limbs, it was more accurate to describe it as a waddle not a run. Then to add to the indignity, an old man who could have been my grandad, if my grandad was still alive, pulled up beside me, patted me on the back, said some words of encouragement I didn’t understand before he took off ahead of me. The indignity!

I did make it home though in 3 hr 49 and 48 seconds, a very respectable time even if the last miles were far from respectable.

I couldn’t walk properly for a week but I learnt two very important things:

1.       I would never ever allow myself to be tricked into walking because it doesn’t feel any better and only extends the pain.

2.       Next time, I would train.

Yesterday’s training

Continued to rest but the physio gave some optimistic news.

Preparing for space - Dublin 2003 - Part One

I was twenty-four when I ran my first marathon. Dublin 2003. It was for charity and the lead-up to it were characterised by how my fund-raising efforts were far more successful than my training regime.

I had lost a college friend to Cystic Fibrosis (CF) some years previous and had raised more than a £1,000 pounds with my friend Podge for CF Ireland by wearing the worst female get-up the streets of Dublin had ever seen and completing the women’s 10k mini marathon. Some four years later I decided to repeat the effort, except in the Dublin Marathon with a few slight tweaks –

·         I wouldn’t wear women’s clothes

·         I would include the charity Aware in my fundraising efforts

·         I would train

I achieved the first two of these tweaks pretty successfully. As for the training, not so much.

The thing was, I wasn’t unfit. I played football with the local soccer team but being match fit and running fit are an entirely different thing. Match fit allows you to shuffle around the place for decent stretches of a football game before you burst into action with a few sprints. It is a long way from marathon running.

To deal with this deficit I tried running around the town of Trim but every time I tried to run more than a few miles my shins started to ache and no amount of sitting in an ice cold bath afterwards seemed to ease the pain. As a result, my entire training regime came to four runs: one 5 miler, two 6 milers and a 9 miler, thus giving me a combined total of 26 miles, .2 short of the actual race distance! So when I lined up for the start at Merrion Square on the Bank Holiday October morning in 2003, while I might have successfully raised about £500 for charity I was about as set for running a marathon as I was for travelling into space.

It was never going to be pretty.

Yesterday's training.

Still resting and now counting down the days to physio.

200 seconds is…

…nine seconds quicker than the Rolling Stones ‘Start Me Up’ and one second more than Beyonce’s ‘Single Ladies’.
…the length of time I used to spend on my French homework.
…a runny egg.
…a commercial break during Coronation Street.
…the average amount of time a man spends in an airport bathroom.
…a good length for a church sermon.
…how long it took me to schedule a physio appointment.
…a quick check-out counter in Lidl.
…foreplay when you’re married.
…the time it took my old kettle to boil.
…a very awkward silence on a first date.

…what I need to find this October to break 3 hours (injury permitting).

Today’s training

Continued to rest and give the leg time to recover.