The Walker With Heart

No, this is not a new direction for the blog - Virginia Woolf is not high on my reading list.... So the hour... It's another arbitrary target, another random point in time that is utterly meaningless... and means everything... And I'm very conscious this is a running thing... and probably a me running thing. Ten kilometres... 6.2 miles... in an hour.  Ten sub-6 minute kilometres, one after the other.  No let up, no easy kilometres in the middle, no real time to warm up - at least not for me. And the hour has sat there, its something that's been discussed with my running mates, the fast ones giving hints and tips, the others commiserate and wonder if they'll ever get near too. I'd all but given up, that elusive hour seemed to be slipping away... And I'm marathon training, so the mid-week runs are meant to be looseners, gentle plods that help the legs recover.... Apart from something didn't quite go to plan on Thursday, the first couple of k's ...

It's been a funny old week (insert old cultural reference here); the mental push to get an OU essay in, the fear gnawing that my run of good runs was over, bad news and good news in almost equal measure, irritations from work (yes I know that's my fault for turning the blackberry on) and then the run itself. The guts settled down about Wednesday, but I felt drained and was conscious that I'd not eaten a lot for more than a  few days.  A night out with old friends; a decent steak and a share of a decent bottle of red seemed to cure that, if not leave me in much position to tag a training run in on Friday morning. For those not used to marathon training plans, they have two main components - the LSR, the long slow runs that systematically break your body down a little bit more than the last one, just enough to build the muscle during the recovery week.  And the recovery runs, for me two are planned each week, and in a good week I do the two... Most weeks I concentrate o...

There will be three things... 1) the cold 2) the injury scare 3) the bug... Until Sunday my training had been subject to 1) for a week of a head cold and then immaculate, perfection personified.  It was too good to last, and this Sunday my stomach decided it didn't want to play - yes I may have had a bad week at work and with other stuff, and then a busy day on Saturday but it was a very good day.  Yes I had a drink, but I've run further on more... Eighteen miles was the plan, and it didn't happen. Ten grumpy miles did, however ten that included the two hills from hell on my training route and on the run itself, and was the sixth fastest 10 miles I've run. It's easy to overanalyse and get yourself into analysis paralysis (trust me, I'm an analyst I can put myself in spirals over data at any time and if I'm being mean can sucessfully argue that night is day and day is night with other analysts), however it was 3) the bug... I know it was a bug becau...

Ok, as with the MDT blog I wrote a little while ago, this is not a patient information leaflet – but as I’ve never been sent one it might help some people. So, the dreaded exercise test, the test that some of those in the congenital heart defect community hate more than any other. The letter comes, in my case without a patient leaflet, and suggests you dress for exercise… Not the most helpful statement in the world – for those who don’t do a lot of exercise, or for me, who has a range of “outfits” for exercise, ranging from skimpy shorts through to full on winter walking gear (complete with crampons & ice axe) – think of me as a cheap rate Action Man figure… So, based on having done these tests twice – shorts, or not too baggy leggings, and trainers.  If you’re male don’t worry too much about the top half, ladies a comfy bra – they’ll be attaching a 12-lead ECG to you.  In my case they shave the bits they want to attach the electrodes to, and just for fun abrade it f...

This is one of those messy blogs that will dart around; part of it is a conversation I need to have with someone, so if they (and I doubt they will) read this they should know that this is the Willgoss-lite version... Part of it is the first part of a new adventure and the other bits are the running and climbing, and hopefully something will pop out of the wittering that makes sense. So in my traditional way - I'll start in the middle, I've recently become one of a fairly small group - a member of a small cohort of around 300 people on the Civil Service's Levelling the Playing Field Positive Action Pathway - a year long development scheme, that is intended to give me, and the others, the skills and confidence to progress to the next level in the civil service. The only way to get the best out of these things is to challenge yourself, to get external challenge and to add to that with information, details about yourself you may not like or want to know, but that you need ...

Two sporty things are reaching the point of me needing to move to the next stage... The marathon training is easiest to explain, and what I'm most comfortable with... Tomorrow is when it gets real, I know I can blag a half marathon, I did it at least twice last year... Just go out and run-walk a half marathon on minimal training, injured, full of cold... been there, done that. Now it's real - 14 miles, 23 km, beyond the half, into the known unknowns.  I've been on belting form, three PBs in 5 weeks all on long slow runs, all on a course much hillier than the routes the last PBs were run on. The course tomorrow throws me another hill, being my home marathon has a great advantage I can run the course - which is why St Domingo Road is becoming a Sunday fixed point in space and time - the first absolute sod of a hill of the marathon course, followed by a too steep for fun run down to the town centre. Then, comes my personal hell - Upper Parliament Street - the steep r...

I posted my second PB in three weeks up on Facebook this morning, which means I also ran a PB this morning. At which point I was asked what my secret is... Three minutes off my 10 mile run is not insignificant, 12s a kilometre may not sound a lot to non-runners it is.  For me, it was the first time I've averaged under 7min a KM for 10 miles, its faster than I ran in that glorious period of running up to the London Marathon two years ago. Hell, it's only the fourth time I've gone under two hours. It was also the morning after an almost five mile run, in the dark, where I didn't do bad - 57min. So, in the grand tradition its time to split the infinitive and boldly go into that odd mode I'm surprisingly good at... Analysis Mr Spock Three minutes is not insignificant, which suggests that something significant is different. 1) Route - my training for London was flat, one hill to go down at the end, and one to come back at the end.  Short sharp hills (for th...