Surfin' UK

A hard week of surfing has given me plenty to think about, so let's get about it...

1/ Running Shoes

Everybody seems to be unanimous that the single most important piece of kit for a runner is his shoes. Money skimped here will probably rebound on you in the shape of unnecessary foot injuries. Christmas is just around the corner, so I now know what my wife is getting me. So, do I just get the most expensive pair that I can find? Or will that just mean that I get the latest piece of keep-fit fashion? Apparently not, this can (and should be!) done scientifically. You should go into your nearest Specialist Running Shoe shop, get them to run you through a Running Gait Analyser, and then recommend the best shoe for your gait.
Whew, the idea of somebody in our local sports shop being able to even say all of that last sentence (especially if you include a comprehension test!) takes the breath away, let alone trust them to give me good advice on how to spend anywhere up to £100. So, we google...

2/Running Gait

And the nearest Specialist Running Shoe shop appears to be in Birmingham. Long way to go for a pair of shoes! But there is, as ever, a rule of thumb way of doing it. Answer a few simple questions, and this website will tell you how to find true love - okay, I made that up, but it will tell you how to find your ideal running shoe. The problem, it seems, is that 70% of us are over-pronators, and 20% are under-pronators. Some of us have fallen arches and some have high arches. And with both conditions, some of us are neutral. I would have said normal, but in the case of pronation, normality is abnormal! Over-pronation, from what I can understand, basically means that you turn your feet out when you walk. Years ago, our CO in the ATC tried to make me feel stupid by ridiculing the fact that I stood with my feet parallel when I stood to attention. What he couldn't overcome was my opinion that people stood with their feet at 90% angles look stupid too! All in all, I answered the questions to the best of my ability, and then got my ideal shoe...well, more like 50 different ideal shoes! I'll try to remember the maker and just go for it, and hope for the best.

3/Drinking during an endurance event

No, they're not suggesting a swift half in every pub along the way (that's not why they call it a half-marathon!), it is apparently vital to stay hydrated during a run, as dehydration can lead to cramp and to reduced performance. But if you end up drinking too much, that too will slow you down, and can even, in extreme cases, kill you. You also need to take in electrolytes (sodium is the one that I can remember) to replace what you lose in sweat, but you can get that from a sports drink that contains electrolyte. And the body - especially in the full marathon - will use up all the calories that are freely availabe as blood sugar, glycogen, and something else that I can't remember, so you need to pump in some more calories in the shape of carbohydrate. Again, available in a sports drink. So far, sounds simple, until you read a post that suggests that you don't need water, electrolyte and carbohydrate in the exact proportion of a sports drink. They seem to be suggesting that you adjust your carbohydrates by using some form of solid food (there are gels and tablets) that you wash down with water, and then you adjust your electrolyte balance by diluting the sports drink you've just drunk by drinking plain water. Sounds as if you need to carry a Spectral Analyser with you to ensure the correct balance of blood chemistry is maintained!
But wait, it's not as simple as that. It's not unknown for you to react badly (usually by throwing up) to an unaccustomed drink. So there is a recommendation that you sample the exact drink that will be provided at the feeding stations around the route of the race on a training run a few weeks beforehand.
So, what is the exact drink that will be provided on the Ironbridge Half? (Ir'nBru sound favourite!) Haven't yet found out, job for next week, but it doesn't sound as if it's Lucozade, because, on the...

4/ Lucozade Web Site

there's a list of events that they sponsor, and Ironbridge doesn't figure.

There are also a couple of other things that looked as if they might be useful, a Pace Band, and a Predictor.
What is a Pace Band? How does it work? You type in your target time, and it then gives you the time at which you need to hit every mile (or kilometre) as you pass it to meet target. You then print it off, tape it to your wrist (advanced hint - strengthen it with sellotape to stop it falling apart within a couple of miles as your sweat drenches it) and off you go. For my target time of 1:45, I need to be running each mile in 8 minutes, so a piece of paper stuck to my wrist reading 8:00, 16:00, 24:00...isn't going to be much of an improvement over me saying, 'that's the 8 mile mark, let's see, 1x8=8, 2x8=16, 3x8=24...'
And the Predictor is like unto it. It takes a recent actual race performance, and converts it into a predicted time for the big event. Type in time and distance actually achieved, and distance to be run, and out spits the time for it.Well, I'm running a 6 miler in a couple of weeks, let's try the logic backwards, and see what time I need to put in for the 6 miles to come out with a 1:45 half marathon. I tried it both ways, on the basis that if, say, a 4-minute mile is equivalent to a 2-hour marathon, then a 2-hour marathon should be equivalent to a 4-minute mile, assuming the predictor isn't predicting a major change in fitness/performance level, and the times matched up. To run a 1:45 half, I need to run a 48 minute 6 miles. Wait a minute, let's look at my pace band, to run a 1:45, my time at the 6 mile mark needs to be 48 minutes. So on that basis, I'm going to take 22 seconds for the 100 metres! The shorter the distance doesn't enable me to run any faster! Pah!

5/ Target times

As you can see above, I have set myself a target. This is in the face of conflicting views on targets. One view says that a target helps to focus your training effort, the other view is that a first-time runner shouldn't set a target, presumably until they know what sort of target is attainable. My target was based on the sort of time needed for a podium finish in my age group, perhaps an ambitious aim when you consider that, apart from a couple of warm-up races that I'm doing in the next couple of months, this half-marathon will be my first competitive race in very nearly 45 years!
Certainly, when you look at the 8 minute miles that I need to achieve to get this time, and compare it with the 10 minute miles that I'm doing in training now, it doesn't look at all achievable. But, I'm not going to beat myself up over it, I'll train as hard as I reasonably can, run as hard as I can, and finish as high up as I can. The bottom line is that if I can run the downhill at my 10 minute miles, I'll reach the Iron Bridge at about the 8 mile mark in 1:20. I know that I can walk the remaining 5 miles in 1:15. That gives me 2:35, well within the time of the last finisher in 2008. At least having a target time will stretch me a bit.

6/ Stretching

I've never really warmed up before any sporting event in my life. The only time was when a guy at BAT polo was trying to turn us into a mean, lean, winning machine, so got into coaching us rather than letting us just play the game. We had to do some warm-up exercises. It was 6 months before my knee was right after that!
But now, reading the posts, it seems that I have been very lucky not to have suffered injuries through over-exerting cold muscles. Perhaps it isn't too late to start stretching my muscles before and after exercise. I've downloaded some how-to for 4 top muscles to stretch, let's see how they go...Quadriceps (sounds like a dinosaur!) - grab your foot with your hand and pull up to your bum. Damn! Can't reach my foot!

7/ Heart Rate

A coaching manual that I read many years ago worked on the basis that, if you trained over the quarter mile, doing several repetitions, and trained at 60 seconds for each lap, then all you had to do was string together 4 of these 1-minute laps and you had the magic 4-minute mile. Good in theory, but how do you measure whether you are running at 60 second pace, or 62 second pace? Again, something that I saw all those years ago was an athletics stadium (in Japan, I think) where there was a little railway track running around just inside the actual running track, and the train on this track could be programmed to set whatever pace was desired. That will do nicely for getting the right speed, but it's not really a practical option for most professional athletes, let alone Joe Amateur. Besides which, I could be capable of a 55 second lap, and the train is taking me around at 59 seconds. I'm not going to improve much like that.
Enter modern microtechnology. You can now get a heart rate monitor that sits on your wrist, and tells you when your heart rate goes above, or falls below, a set "effort" band. That way, you can decide to do an aerobic run, a recovery run, or whatever, and the monitor keeps you putting in the effort, and thus improving your fitness.
First, you find your maximum heart rate (there are a number of formulas, simplest is 220-age), take away your resting heart rate, and then train at a percentage of the difference. And to find your resting heart rate, you take it first thing in the morning, while still lying in bed. Good move! You've just leapt half-a-mile in the air to switch off the alarm, and that's supposed to be your RESTING heart rate!