Saturday 12 November 2011

Marathon Training Tip no. 7.

Sorry Blog for not being in touch … I have been busy. Last week the family was involved in three separate races on three different days … because I couldn’t remember the start time of one of them, I had to refer to one of those running magazine things for that particular piece of information. As I flicked through the mag, an article caught my eye about training. Impressed was I Blog? Obviously the writer had an armful of badges and must have been very knowledgeable as he had an impressive bibliography to reinforce the validity of his arguments. But I ask you … Have any of these experts actually broken sweat? Has their pristine tracksuit ever got a tinsy winsy bit mucky? The gist of this particular article was to question the reasons for training twice a day. One nugget seemed to be that the athlete should not start the second session tired. I thought that the idea of training twice a day WAS to start the second session tired. I could be wrong? But then, my arms are noticeably lacking in badges telling the world that I am a clever a******e. The point of the athlete’s personal ambitions seems to not have been mentioned. I would have thought that the whole point of running/ training is to fulfil an athletic aim, viz to satisfy an ambition which burns so fiercely that an athlete’s whole life is geared towards success. Or has the sport gone so far down the social jogging path that such desires are regarded as mundane and are the prerogative of only running eccentrics?? I thought that the world class marathoners which this country used to produce spent their entire waking hours being tired? Their sleeping hours were pretty tiring too?? I am probably wrong about this as well. No bibliography for me Blog. Motivation seems to be damaged if an athlete embarks of double dosing the article suggested. Well let me tell you Mr Expert, motivation is no problem if the athlete’s ambition burns so fiercely that the athlete’s whole life is geared towards success. Oh don’t do it suggests Mr Qualifiedman, because you may get sore or tired muscles. I could be in error when I say this, but I am lead to believe that an athlete gets sore and tired muscles in a race if he tries to run fast. Give me a social trudge any day …what do you say Blog?? And best of all is saved until last. Read on Blog. Be surprised. Training twice a day may take up more time than training once. Bugger me, that’s a bit of a stunner. It may interfere with the rest of your life, spending all that time getting change into and out of kit, travelling to and from training. I might have misunderstood, but I took it that if an athlete wanted to train twice a day, it was implicit that athletics was the rest of the athlete’s life? No sacrifice there matey. The blindingly obvious solution to minimise time spent training / changing / travelling was cracked years ago ….run to and from work, train in the lunch hour. It’s not rocket science, it has been tried before, I am reliably informed. By 6.60 pm three sessions complete and the rest of the evening is free to do whatever takes your fancy…. Well actually it isn’t. You are so knackered that all you want to do is nothing, with a capital ‘N’. I am sure there must be a learned paper about it somewhere. One thing is for sure; I want a bit more of this clever stuff Blog. So if you don’t hear from me for a couple of hours, I will deep into the archives of one of those institutions that knows all about this technical stuff, reading their running magazines. [I can’t afford to buy them on my pension. Have you seen the price Blog? They cost an arm and a leg. But that’s OK as I still would have one left to stitch the badges to.]  ‘Kirkham, we are pleased to announce that you have been awarded Third Class Honours with Bar for partly for your thesis on ‘Ceaseless Trudging Here and There’ but mostly for boring the pants off Blob’. Here, here.
                                 Colin
P.S. When I have a few spare moments, I think I will write to this knowledgeable expert with an armful of badges to ask for his advice about training three times a day.
P.P.S. I wonder if the expert has heard of that London Marathon Organiser fella, Dave somebody or other. I think he sometimes used to run more than once a day. But I could be wrong?

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