Slowly, slowly catchee monkee.....

       I don't normally shop at LIDL but about ten years ago they happened to be selling items of running gear,

On trial   my new coach

so I had to poke my nose in. Even though I didn't really want one, I found temptation hard to resist at sight of a Runtec Heart Rate Monitor for only £15.95. It seemed like a bargain to me, and it might have been if ever I'd figured out how to use it. I wore it maybe half a dozen times before hanging it over the back of a chair and virtually forgetting about it - until a couple of weeks ago when Dr Maffetone's book inspired me to take another look at it. Not surprisingly, after a decade of inactivity, the watch required a new battery. I kid you not, two CR2032 batteries through Amazon cost 0.59p - postage paid!  The chest strap still functions OK, but even if it had died I now have a spare battery for it.
 

Saturday's slowly, slowly route....

     The only thing I ever learnt from this HRM in that dim distant past was that my maximum heart rate, taken after three back to back miles, flat out with 10 minutes jog recovery, was 161. I never did get around to figuring out how to set working or recovery heart rates. I seemed to be running quite well without such knowledge - listening to my body, as they say. After all, not many other M70's at that time were running sub 44 minute 10K's or winning National Fell race championships with or without HRM's, so why should I alter anything?  Now, climbing into my eighties, things are different. I'm sliding down the Rankings, currently No.12 on the Park Run 5K list, and that's no good to me. There are names above me that never used to be. The animal is not happy.
      So, for a short trial I've appointed Dr Maffetone as my coach - though he doesn't know it! Sometime this

Approaching the hidden village of Thorpe....

week I'll do a stress test to assess my current maximum heart rate. The popular calculation of 220 minus age seems way out for me given it was above 139 for the whole of an eight mile tempo run last week. It reached 152 in the first mile, probably par for the course every time I run that particular bit of route which is near enough every week. Once a working heart rate has been established I suspect the majority of my running is going to be a lot slower - initially at least - and with that in mind I've been practicing a bit over the weekend.
 

Yellow landscape by the river -  kingfisher country.

     Using neither watch nor HRM we loped easily along 2½ miles of riverbank to Linton Falls before climbing towards the picturesque little village of Thorpe. From there it was mainly downhill through sunlit fields into Burnsall and back along the river to Hebden. A few winter thrushes were chacking away in the treetops beneath which we ran through a yellow landscape of fallen leaves. There was a joyous shout as a kingfisher flashed past and alighted briefly on a bare branch above the water before disappearing up the shallow valley towards Seven Sisters. It proved a delightful seven miles on a beautiful frosty day, so enjoyable in fact that I repeated it after Church on Sunday while my wonderful partner was attending a neighbour's 80th birthday party.
      Whether doing the majority of running at a slower pace in training will eventually produce faster race times remains to be seen, but that's the theory. There'll still be speedwork to do, of course, but maybe I'll feel fresher and enjoy that all the more. I'll give it a try, anything to get some of those names currently above me in the rankings back into their proper places...

Call it play, or call it a day....

Fun and frolic......Munro-bagging in Glencoe

      I had to laugh on Sunday. After a week when I'd really felt the weight of my 81 years and struggled to maintain any momentum in my running, our Circuit Superintendent, Rev'd Richard Atkinson, based his message on an amusing text from Malachi that had me snorting an audible "Huh".  'You will go out and frolic like well-fed calves' he repeated several times, as preachers and public speakers do to emphasise a salient point. Oh yeah, me? At my time of life? And I bet I wasn't the only one thinking that. All but one of the congregation was over 60 and three of us are in our eighties. 
      Admittedly, when it comes to running, I've always tried to look upon it as fun and frolic, disregarding most of that serious scientific stuff that's become part and parcel of the modern movement, where every step is timed and every run fed into the computer for analysis. Regrettably, I've been drawn into much of that stuff too and quite a few running days end with me sat by a computer recording the bare bones of what I've done, then fleshing it up for a half decent blog posting.
      In early years I'd a simple Seiko stopwatch; no metronome, no apps to tell me when to walk and when

on this year's Eiger Trail run.....

to run, no beeps to warn me if I was a fraction off pace, no virtual partner, no horrible music jangling in my lug 'oles, nor even a computer to store all the data. Each run was roughly recorded in one line of an A6 notebook - the first of which lasted for seven years. The majority of entries were simply logged as 'X-Country' because that's always where I preferred to run, communing with nature in wide open spaces, over moors and mountains - far from the madding crowd. 
      I wasn't exactly 'frolicking like a well-fed calf' in those early days, but running became the most exciting thing I'd ever done and dearly wished I'd discovered it long before my mid fifties. Ticking off Scottish Munros, jogging long, high level routes in the Cairngorms, testing our studs over the Great Lochaber Traverse, hurtling down the snow fields from Ben Nevis or running the heathery hills of home was never anything else but play. It was also excellent training for races of all lengths and types I chose to run. New PB's, course records, championship wins, creeping into national and world rankings were all complementary by-products of the wonderful game I was playing.  It really was all play. And I didn't need a Garmin to gauge how much I was enjoying it.

     

beach running from a wild camp in the Hebrides....

     Things have got more serious in my dotage, I've become more self critical and running times have suffered because of it. Hours before Rev Richard released us from his 20 minute diatribe and sent us out rejoicing, I'd been in Skipton squelching my way round Aireville Park in one of those nationwide 5k Park Runs. Far from frolicking like a well-fed calf I lumbered round like a knackered old bull put out to grass in a very squidgy field. For the life in me, I couldn't get out of 2nd gear. Each of four circuits began with an 85ft climb, three of them on a narrow, muddy woodland path that sapped so much strength from my old legs that I couldn't get going on the down bits. There weren't any flat bits. I reckon the soles of my shoes were an inch thicker when I crossed the Finish line due to all the mud caked on them. I finished 55th (of 83) in the lamentable time of 30.59. Even more sickening was my age grading of 69.55%, perhaps the lowest I've recorded over any distance in the last 20 years.
      So what to do now?  Maybe another visit to my favourite Isle of Iona to bathe

....to high tops in the Canary islands. It was all play.

in its wonderful 'Well of Eternal Youth' again? A Super Vitamin? Or the latest go-faster drug to add to all the other medication I swallow to keep me alive and kicking. One thing's for sure, I'm not done yet and Aireville Park will soon be receiving another visit from Old Runningfox to hopefully erase the nasty memories of that first one. Well-fed frolicking calves indeed. I'll do my best Richard. Honest. But if ever it comes to that story of Abraham getting his wife pregnant when he was 99 years old, just go and preach it somewhere else!

Running up that hill....

Intervals on top Thursday, Tempo run round it Sunday...

    Every now and again, though admittedly not as often nowadays, I feel the need for some speed. Sometimes it just feels good to be floating along in sun and wind at a faster than usual pace. Not flat out and not for very far, but at a speed one can comfortably maintain for 12 - 16 reps over 200m or so, and ideally maintaining the same pace throughout.  If you're struggling towards the end it means you've started off too fast. Better to start off a little conservatively and be accelerating slightly for the final few. And that's what I set out to do for an interval session last week. 

  16 x 200m @ 45 secs is what I'd planned (6

So true....

min/mile pace) but as I ascended 300ft or so to my normally sheltered training area on Castle Hill the wind got stronger and the air got colder - particularly so as the sun disappeared behind gathering clouds. I wouldn't normally complain about 40° but when it's blowing full frontal at 20mph, and me in shorts and Helly Hansen Lifa, I felt I hadn't really warmed up as I set off on the first test run into the wind. 49 seconds the watch said, so decided to run the rest in 48's and cut the reps down to 12. They felt comfortable enough except for a penultimate 50 when a playful dog decided to dodge between my legs, so finished with a 46 to compensate. Back down off the hill I turned into the local cricket field for a few shorter but faster reps before jogging home after a fairly satisfactory 7 miles.

Wonderful running country, in the Yorkshire Dales near Austwick....

   Tempo runs are my least favourite discipline, especially those that involve 660ft of climbing, but that's what I decided to do on Sunday. Don't ask why! It was a cold crisp morning with glorious sunshine and a cloudless sky as I locked the door and padded off down the road. Note that word 'down' - the one redeeming feature - but only for the first ¾ mile, then it rose relentlessly for the next 1¼ miles to the village of Farnley Tyas. With the exception of one brief stop to take a photograph (top) all went well and I completed the five miles in 48.58. I was happy with that. Then, as I stopped my watch, it came up with another of those funny messages saying 'New Record'. It seems to think that somewhere along the way a new 5K record of 30.14 was established which isn't bad, I suppose, for a decrepit old octogenarian.That run brought up 18 miles for the week, which is hardly enough if I want to start racing again. Come to think of it, I'm not sure I do...

Old man winter....

Falling leaves unveil our Church again.........

   I'm not sure when winter officially begins but over the past week or so I reckon it whispered an audible 'Hello'. Umpteen mile an hour winds cleared most of the leaves from the trees. Bird feeders have re-emerged from the laburnum's thinning foliage, which means it's time to start filling them up again. The first Scandinavian thrushes arrived, chakking across the morning sky on their way to whitebeam berry breakfasts in the wood below. Pretty soon, they'll be attacking the holly bush where my winter robin shelters, waiting for the remains of my toast!  Cars parked in the street a couple of mornings ago all shared the same colour, a frosty white, as temperatures sank below zero. A ragged skein of geese were heading south. Today, as clammy clouds brushed the roof-tops and a nasty north easterly blew icy horizontal rain across the waterlogged landscape, winter's whisper became more of a shout. Back home, I donned a thicker thermal, turned up the central heating and hunted in the cupboard for some Vitamin D3 capsules I suddenly remembered. Sad, I know!
     After parting with nearly half an armful of blood for all sorts of tests prior to my annual MOT last Thursday, I was

After the jab, a cold day on Castle Hill last Thusday....

happy to learn I'd passed them all with flying colours. Even my rampant blood pressure was down to an acceptable 134 over 76, much to the amazement of cuddly Nurse Jenny who usually sends it sky high. Maybe I'm getting old!  Prescribed statins appear to be doing their job too, winning the war over frequent fry-ups, nightly chocolate and lashings of full cream (much nicer than yogurt). Isn't science wonderful? The only mistake I made was in consenting to have a flu jab before leaving the surgery. I could almost hear the nurse thinking "This'll slow you down, you old b----r".  Well, it sure did.
     

Bare branches along a flooded River Wharfe....

My last couple of runs felt as if I was running in treacle. Jeff Galloway and Joe Henderson, who've long been proponents of the run/walk system, would have regarded me as another convert. In truth, it was difficult to run even half a mile without slowing to a weary walk. I felt absolutely knackered! An awful lot of it was uphill - 755ft in the second 6 mile run - which obviously slowed me down a bit, but on the flatter parts I forced myself to keep running a little longer, on principal.. So imagine my amusement when, on stopping my recently acquired Garmin, the words 'New Record' appeared on its tiny face. Apparently I'd run one of the six miles in 7:44 - which might be a new record for my Garmin but pretty pathetic for me - and a far cry from that 6:36 pace throughout the London marathon.  Without walking, I hasten to add.
     As my previous blog headline intimated, the ancient marathoner is slowing down fast. Ripe autumn with all its dazzling colours and luscious fruits is slipping away as winter advances inexorably from misty horizons. I can bear its soft whisperings, I hate it when it shouts.......