Tom Roper's Running Training

Roaming in the gloaming

There’s something special about the first late afternoon run after the clocks go back. I went out into fierce winds blowing foam over the Seaford Head golf course, and down to the seafront. It reminds me of the winter Sunday afternoons of childhood, in the back of my father’s Austin Cambridge, driving homewards from Ely across the darkening fens, where we would go for tea with my great-aunt Ada and her companion, Marjorie. There were a few walkers on the promenade, watching the spectacular waves.

This week also included my return to WNS (code for Wednesday Night Striders, one of my running club’s running nights), which I managed, although the distance involved was more than I’ve done for a few weeks.  Braver and fitter souls went to Ashdown Forest, for the first event in the East Sussex Cross-Country championship; I’m not ready for these, though I hope to be for some of the six events.

It's been quiet, Carruthers, too damned quiet

I haven't written anything here for a ridiculously long time, but today I completed the Couch to 5k programme, and this is worthy of comment. I have turned to this to recover from injury several times in recent years; this latest version, started at the beginning of September after a flare-up of knee trouble, and before that I resorted to it in the autumn of 2020, after some over-ambitious running, and in the spring of that year. I've also led some of the ever-popular Seaford Striders C25K groups 

So the question now is, what next? I will try to learn the lessons of previous flare-ups and not try too much too soon. But it would be nice to enter a 10k before long, and a half-marathon perhaps after that. 

Annual running totals: distance and elevation, 2005 to 2019

I went on to look at annual totals from 2005 onwards, to put this year in perspective. In particular, I found that 2019 was not the lowest distance I’ve ever managed: both 2013 and 2014 were worse. This is heartening.  

2019 in running: worse things happen at sea

The year started well: I fell from a wall while giving the Seaford Striders a pre-run briefing for their New Year’s Day run, breaking my arm.

Before

After

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then at Easter I fell during the Seaford beach parkrun, while discussing the Forest Red-tailed Black cockatoo (Calyptorhynchus banksii naso), with Moyleman Race Director Emertius, Duncan. This time nothing of importance was damaged, just my head and knee.

And then in July, coming to the end of the St Mary’s Bridport parkrun, my knee became exquisitely painful. While this is due to nothing more sinister than osteoarthritis, I have not run seriously since.

On the credit side, i completed my fiftieth Twitten run (the eccentric Lewes event run for the 200th time on the last weekend of 2019) and my one hundredth park run. I completed the mid-Sussex marathon weekend, comprising the East Grinstead ten mile, the Haywards Heath ten mile and the Burgess Hill 10k on the three consecutive days of the May Day bank holiday weekend. A week later I ran the Seaford half-marathon, and also managed the Heathfield Midsummer 10k and the Brighton Phoenix 10k. I ran parkruns at the new Seaford Beach event, on my doorstep, as well as the aforementioned Bridport one, and Hove Prom, Peacehaven and Bevendean Down. And I helped lead another successful Seaford Striders Couch to 5k Group.

I marshalled at the Moyleman, where I’m Chief Marshal, the Jog Shop Jog, the Mince Pie Ten, the Brighton 10k, and any number of parkruns. I also started Pilates, in a class led by Michelle, a runner and fellow Seaford Strider, and, while running has been curtailed, I certainly feel better for it. 

It was clear, looking at my running in the first part of the year, that I was over-ambitious. I had not done nearly enough training for the races I did, especially the marathon weekend, and then I followed it a week later with a hard half-marathon. I believe this caused my knee flare-up about eight weeks later. 

I returned to running slowly, using the Couch to 5k programme on my own, and, though I reached week 9, the final week, my knee flared up again and I had to go back to the beginning again. All being well, I should complete it at the end of January, 

So for 2020 I shall build more slowly and carefully, not increasing training mileage by no more than 10% per week, and allowing a rest day between runs. I reserve judgement on what races to enter. It is hard to see that another marathon might be possible, but a half might not be an unreasonable target,  

Progress: weeks 5, 6 and 7, including a Cambridge run

Week 7 concluded this week, with a run in Lewes, through the Priory as members of Southover Bonfire Society prepared their fire site, then up Juggs Road. It was a beautiful sunny day after yesterday’s storms. When I’m doing greater distances I might follow this route to Kingston and up onto the hills above. 

Week 6 went well, but with nothing special to report. But at the end of week 5 I found myself in Cambridge, whither I had gone to see the 2019 Cambridge Greek Play, Oedipus at Colonus, and to attend a symposium about the play on Sunday. I spent the night in Westminster College, a Presbyterian institution which offers very reasonably priced rooms for the night.

I rose at 7 on Sunday, just before dawn. It was cold and misty. For my run I decided to run along Grange Road, and, if I could in the allotted time, see if I could reach my late parents’ retirement home in Newnham.

The programme insisted on a 5 minute brisk walking warm-up, which took me from the college gates, up Madingley Road, and into Grange Road itself. I started running outside St John’s prep school, where I had spent a miserable term and a bit at the age of seven. It has now expanded to take over more or less all of that end of the road. There is no limit to the appetite of Cambridge parents to pay to have their small boys educated at the hands of sadists in holy orders, it seems.

Enough of that. On I went, past roads such as Adams Road and Herschel Road where the better class of don used to live. These days even Regius professors are not paid enough to live here. I expect they’re owned by foreign bankers. In one of these lived Dr Alice Roughton, a wealthy and eccentric medical colleague of my father’s. Alice Roughton stories are many, and I was delighted to find that the Lost Cambridge blog has a Roughton entry.

On the other side of the road was the University Library, which my father used frequently for its flute music, and once brought me with him so that I could consult books on heraldry, a childhood hobby. In later years, back home from Kent University in the holidays, I was allowed to use the collections, though I don’t think the SCONUL scheme had yet been devised. I had to present a letter from my tutor, and was then allowed reference access, and the chance to consult the bewildering catalogues, offered in bound volumes and card catalogues. 

I then passed the Cambridge University RUFC ground. When at school, we would be granted a half-holiday when the Steele-Bodgers XV came to play the University as a warm-up for the Varsity match. Micky Steele-Bodger was a veterinary surgeon who played for England. I later met his brother Alasdair, also a veterinary surgeon, when I worked for the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, and was able to ask him to thank his brother for these escapes.  Time ran out and I did not cross Barton Road to reach my parents’ old house, but turned to run back. 

Out of action

There’s been no running since I injured my knee at St Mary’s park run in Bridport in mid-July. i took too long to consult a doctor, and now, after a second consultation, have a referral for an x-ray and physio.

I don’t know what the x-ray findings will be, but I strongly suspect a worsening of the osteoarthritis that was diagnosed after an MRI scan in 2012. So, what to do? I have missed a number of races I had places in, and it’s clear that some of my favourite races, like the Lewes Downland Ten, will not be possible. I think it best to ignore races until I’m fit again, and so, having led several Couch to 5k groups with Seaford Striders, I intend to take a dose of my own medicine and work through the programme myself, over nine weeks starting, I hope, on 16th September.

Photo: Tony Humphreys

This fits neatly; on Sunday last I was timekeeper at a 10k we laid on for survivors, or graduates if you prefer, of our last Couch to 5k group, which we then followed with a 5k to 10k programme. I only led a few of the training sessions for the 5k to 10k group, as the injury intervened, but I was very pleased to see nearly 30 take on a tough course around the seafront and Tidemills on a warm day. 

The Twiathlon, 2019

What, pray, I hear you ask, is a Twiathlon? It is an annual event comprising two athletic disciplines, Twitten running and outdoor pool swimming. The first requires, as I may have explained before, runners to meet at 9 am on a Sunday outside the All Saints Centre in Lewes, whence they go to run twelve twittens, a Sussex dialect word for an alley or passage, from Broomans Lane in the east to Keere Street in the west.The runners run up a twitten, regroup at the top, walk to the next, and then jog down. At Keere Street they pause for a photograph, and then do it all again, this time running up those they jogged down on the way out, and jogging down those they ran up. 

The swimming element consists of twelve lengths of the Pells Pool. We accomplish the tricky changeover by going to Ground Coffee in Lewes, and taking an espresso, flat white, macchiato or cappuccino, according to taste, and then ambling down to the pool, justly celebrated in a new book, the Lido Guide (in which the Twitten runs archivist, Rob Read, is deservedly acknowledged).  

This time there were seven of us who completed both legs. In the running, I found myself at the back of the pack for each twitten, my usual place these days. Perhaps I need to persuade some slower and even more decrepit runners to join in, to make my performance look better. 

Twiathletes' choices of costume are free from the constraints of bourgeois convention

We were lucky with the weather, at least for the swimming part, for the sun shone and the water was, allegedly,warm. But I haven’t swum for a long time, and I found it very hard so I found I had to alternate lengths of crawl with breaststroke. I should swim more often.

 

Seaford Half Marathon: the original, beware imitations

With my fellow Striders at the start

The 2019 Seaford Half Marathon took place in the best conditions, if you like something to look at while running. It was bright, clear, but still cool in a breeze from the north-east. We assembled on the Salts by the rugby club, which functions as race HQ, and then went down to Bonningstedt Parade. As we walked down, I was astonished to see my fellow Strider Zingy get out of a car. wearing a number. The previous day she and other Striders had taken on a 105 lap track marathon in Eastbourne. The others were resting but she had come to tackle a hard half 24 hours later. 

The start took many of us by surprise. From the start to the sailing club, now home of the Seaford Beach half-marathon, then we ran across the A259, assisted by marshals from Seaford Striders, then along the lane to Bishopstone. Here begins the first hill, a sharp ascent opposite Bishopstone church, which then moderates to a steady climb up towards Five Ways. At Five Ways, rather than head out on the path to Bo Peep, the route dives sharply down to `Greenway Bottom, before a long long climb again, to the crest of the ridge adjacent to Bostal Hill. Then it’s the Beachy Head marathon route in reverse, down the hills towards Alfriston, which is more or less half way. 

At this stage I knew I was towards the back of the race, but I had run every step. The next section follows the Cuckmere, and saps the will. It was sheltered from the wind which had cooled us on the hills, and includes stiles, and narrow chalk paths that bruise the ankles. It’s not without its charms, though, and there are swans, geese and egrets to admire. I declined Latin nouns in my head to keep me going. After an age came the A259 road crossing by the Golden Galleon, and then the final stretch, over Seaford Head. Here there are some sharp ascents, but I kept running, after a fashion. The longest climb is the slog up the road to South Hill Barn. This section is very familiar, but hard. When I reached the top of Seaford Head, I was passed by my fellow Strider Zingy.

There’s still some way to go after the route reaches the foot of Seaford Head; there was no chance of a sprint finish, though I did speed up a little, and it was encouraging to hear some cheers from bystanders, though I was in no state to acknowledge them as graciously as I should have done. The camera captures well how shattered I felt

Finishing, next to the crêpe stall

I was 199th out of 202 finishers in 03:11:04. It’s s shocking time for a half, but I had run a marathon distance over the previous weekend, and I never walked. I see from the records that I ran the Seaford Half every year from 2004 to 2010, missed 2011, then ran it in 2012, for the last time until this year. It’s a hard course, to the extent that only once, even when I was young and in my salad days, did I complete it in under two hours. 

A few years ago the organisers moved it to May.  A rival event sprang up on its old June date, which I ran twice, the snappily named Seaford Martello Tower Rotary Triple Challenge Half Marathon, but it was not as nice a course, and the weather, the two times I ran it, was wet and foggy. There is even another event over the half-marathon distance, taking place entirely on the sea-front, which has never seemed attractive to me. Besides, the organisers are based hundreds of miles away. I have a period of grace before the Bewl 15, another punishing race, in early July. 

Mid-Sussex Marathon Weekend

We are into the fifth month of the year, and I have just completed my first races of 2019, the Mid-Sussex Marathon Weekend. Made up of three races at the May Day Bank Holiday weekend, the East Grinstead Ten Mile, the Haywards Heath Ten Mile and the Burgess Hill 10k on Saturday, Sunday and Monday respectively. 

I and two fellow Seaford Striders, the speedy Josh and Amanda, entered, and finished these. I’d run Haywards Heath in 2015, but the other races were new to me. So, in order:

East Grinstead Ten Mile: beginning and finishing at the East Grinstead Rugby Club, it was perishing cold in a northerly wind when I arrived, and a strenuous warm-up led by a man in a dog suit attracted more runners than usual, desperate to keep warm. After a tour of the perimeter of the rugby pitch, we headed off past Standen House, once the home of the Beale family, now owned by the National Trust, filled with treasures from the Arts and Crafts movement. We had no opportunity to admire the Morris wallpaper, though, for we were directed down a steep slope towards Weir Wood reservoir. Old hands warned me of mud, and I wondered if I should have worn trail shoes, but it has been such a dry spring there was only one tiny patch of stickiness on the whole course. After tracking the reservoir for a while, we turned away from the water, and there was a sharp uphill, and some welcome water in a farmyard. We then ran a rather tedious section through East Grinstead’s suburbs, before a long stretch along the Forest Way, once the Three Bridges to Tunbridge Wells railway line, but closed by Beeching, a local resident. This took us down to a water station and turning point, and then an uphill, but turning off the Forest Way, down a lane and across a field to rejoin the route out. At nine miles came a steep climb, and then the paths past Standen House and a circuit of the rugby pitch to finish. I achieved a time of 2:07:40, which I considered respectable, and was grateful to my fellow Striders who stayed to cheer me in. The race was won by Patrick Brown, of East London Runners, in a blistering 59:36. Remember that name, I may mention it again. The first lady was Susan McDonald of South London Harriers, in 1:11:59

Haywards Heath Ten Mile: this being an event in our Seaford Striders club Grand Prix, it attracted more of our runners. It was, alas, no warmer, but we had more protection from the wind. The route had been changed since I last ran it, very much for the better, so although there were some tedious sections though housing estates, the long downhill along the A272 where runners had to play chicken with the traffic had been removed. So there were many pleasant sections through parks and along woodland paths. It’s a two lap course, and as I completed my first lap, I was passed by none other than Patrick Brown, on his way to his second victory of the weekend. As I plodded round Victoria Park I heard him interviewed over the tannoy; he said he was camping, and hoped for a better night’s sleep before Monday’s event. My second circuit was hard, as my splits showed, and the last mile, which emerges from a wood, and takes the runner along some tedious back streets before debouching into the park and to the finish. My time was 2:04:39, Patrick Brown’s winning time was 1:00:00 dead, and the first lady was Emma Navesey of the home side, Haywards Heath Harriers, in 01:07:56.

By the time bank holiday Monday came, I had covered twenty miles, and the last 10k, I thought, would present no problems. The wind had died down, so it was a little warmer as we assembled in the grounds of Burgess Hill Academy. There were more Striders, as well as Amanda and Josh, as well as a fellow-toiler of mine, there with her children to cheer on her husband. This was the biggest event of the three, with 490 finishers, The start was delayed to allow those in the long queues for the loos to join us - in my view this merely encouraged more to join the queues. Off we went, out of the school grounds, through roads and onto open fields, the Batchelors Farm nature reserve, and Nightingale Meadows. The two lap course follows the perimeters of these, including a tough climb to a water tower. My splits show some slackening of effort in the middle third of the race, but I managed a strong finish in 01:12:47, well over an hour, but not the slowest 10k I’ve ever run. Patrick Brown, running in bare feet, finished third in 37:42, but I believe the two who beat him were not competing in the whole weekend. First man was Timmy Geddin of Arena 80 in 35:55, and first lady Linda Schofield, unaffiliated, in 42:51.

Moreover, we have aggregated results for the weekend, and I’m delighted to say that my fellow Strider Josh Nisbett was 9th overall with an aggregated chip time of 03:04:54. The male winner was of course Patrick Brown, and the female Susan McDonald. Amanda Feast, the other Strider to compete in all three events was 114th in 04:15:02, while I was 211th (out of 233 who finished all three) in 05:25:06.

Next,, the Seaford half marathon.  

A set-back

I was pleased with myself; I had a plan to get the much-needed long runs in. On Brighton Marathon weekend, I was to go to the Marathon Medical Conference this afternoon, helping with some of the administration, exhibiting on behalf of Brighton and Sussex NHS Library and Knowledge Service - I provide information support to the Marathon Research Group, and enjoying and learning from the presentations, Then, on marathon day, I was to be on duty helping with logging injured runners as they present to the medical tent at the finish. I had cunningly booked the Friday before and the Monday after as leave, and the plan was to fit a long run in on one of those days.

I’d run with a group of Striders on Wednesday, on a lovely if chilly evening. A Friday run didn’t happen, but that didn’t matter. Saturday’s plan was to run to Seaford Beach parkrun, do the parkrun, and then run back, which makes a nice seven mile total, and then on Monday I’d go for a ten miler. 

I volunteered for one of those coveted parkrun roles which allows one to volunteer and run, the pre-course check. All this required was that I leave home, and run along the seafront the way I would anyway, looking for any hazards that the event team should know about. At Seaford, this usually means shingle washed up onto the course, but it was clear, apart from a van collecting rubbish from the bins along the sea-front. I reported this to the event director, and was joined on the start line by Ash, Duncan, and the lovely Mabel, Ash’s cockapoo. Off we went, and Duncan and I ran together. Ash, with his companion, tailed us on the way out, though on the way back Mabel increased the pace, and overtook us. We chatted merrily, and were discussing my Australian niece Erika, and her work on the forest red-tailed black-cockatoo (Calyptorhynchus banksii naso), with about 400 metres to go to the finish. Here I fell.

There seemed to be a lot of blood. I hit my head, knee and shoulder. Various runners gathered round to help, and raised me to my feet. I walked the remaining distance to the finish, collected my token, and then received first-aid at the hands of the Run Director herself and an A&E doctor who happened to be running that  morning, Ash and Duncan fed me with coffee, sausage sandwiches, and drove me to Lewes to the Minor Injuries Unit there, where a very professional nurse glued the cut on my head and bandaged my leg. I’m very grateful to everyone involved.

Two days later, I have something of a shiner, and no ten mile run will happen today. Is the Mid-Sussex Marathon weekend still possible? I think so, provided I manage to stay upright,