Psychology of a Long Run

There’s something incredibly satisfying about running really, really long distances. This is going to sound stupid, but I think the reason is that once you’ve run a really long distance, you only have to run a really short distance to make your really long distance even longer. This is the kind of madness that descends after more than two hours' non-stop running.

Stupid, I know.

I noticed the phenomenon when I was out on my long run at the weekend. The psychology of the long run is a fascinating thing, it goes something like this:

• 1^st mile – I’m just warming up! Still warming up and already a mile’s in the bag! I never have to do that mile again! This will be easy!
• 3^rd mile – settling in now. Golly, three miles isn’t far at all. 5k runners are such wimps.
• 6^th mile – feeling the strain a little. And I’m only a third of the way there. [inconsolable misery]
• 8^th mile – [miscount the mileage, think you’re at 9 miles, realise mistake and descend into deep, irretrievable depression.]
• 9^th mile – WOOAAH we’re halfway THE-ERE! WOOAOOAAH livin’ on a PRA-AYER!!
• 10^th mile – time for an energy gel. Rely on mysterious magic goo. Buoyed by caffeine and glycogen/possible placebo effect.
• 12^th mile – two-thirds of the way there. Less than an hour to go. Yes yes yes.
• 13^th mile – OMG I have to do this *twice*!?
• 14^th mile – only one more mile and I’ll have run FIFTEEN MILES. That’s totally far.
• 15^th mile – am I too young for a double hip replacement?
• 16^th mile – just another 16 minutes and I’ll be home not drinking a cold frosty beer. Emotional rollercoaster.
• 17^th mile – ZOMG only one more mile and I’ll have run 18 miles!
• 18^th mile – wait, is that the wall? SOFA TIME!

This is the magic of reeling in the miles – the miles you’ve covered are yours and no-one can take them away. Once you’re over halfway, the next few miles are piled on top of your conquered miles, making each single mile conquered somehow worth more than itself. So when you reach mile 16, you may only have covered one additional mile, but in so doing  you turned a 15 mile run into a 16 mile run. That last mile is more or less worth 16! Magic!

By this infallible logic I reckon a marathon is actually more or less the same as conquering 351 miles. Which is a really long way.

In more grounded news, I covered the aforementioned 18(.17) miles on Saturday morning in a rather hasty 2:28, averaging 8:10 m/m, which projects a slightly terrifying 3:33 marathon finish. Check out the RunKeeper record. I then tested out my new theory that muscle pain the day after long runs are due to me seizing up in the afternoons rather than the impact of the run itself, so I went out for a bike ride in the early evening  and covered six slow miles in the pouring rain. I'm delighted to report that this appears to have worked and I’ve got very little residual muscle ache – either that or I’m actually fit and able to recover much quicker than I used to...

Megan's ridiculously strong finish.

On Sunday I was privileged to witness *the* Megan Crawford PB at the Dunfermline half marathon, finishing in an amazing 1:20 as 3^rd Scot and 5^th woman. Ridiculously proud and basking in reflected glory. On top of that I had a genuinely excellent time supporting the race rather than running it, which bodes well for the day my knees finally do give in... Here are my tweets from my ‘live coverage’ of the event.

  

And finally, to round it all off, a leisurely 2.5 mile jog around Inverleith park in the Vibrams to rack up 20.75 miles of running and 5.95 of cycling over the weekend.  Good times.

4 weeks, 6 days to the San Francisco Marathon.

Happy running

Dave

P.S. If donating online's not your thing, you can now contribute to my Barefoot Great North Run adventure by text! Why not text DAVE86 £5 to 70070 to donate £5 to the Alzheimer's Society? Or more? Or less? Go ooon...

2011 to date - miles: 648.34, parkruns: 6, races: 3, miles biked: 53.38, metres swum: 925

Do you love your commute?

For six months last year I commuted every day from deepest darkest Kent to north London, a good hour and a half each way, twice a day, five days a week, on packed trains. It was miserable.

Now I live and work in Edinburgh, where my flat is two miles from my office. As often as I can, I run my commute, a fast two miles if I'm in a hurry, or a more random and circuitous route if I've got time to kill and need to put some miles on my trainers. Last night was one of my best commuting runs, well, ever.

I spent the afternoon drinking far too much coffee, jittery and restless. I really enjoy my job, but when I know I'm going out for a run afterwards, I sometimes just can't wait to get out and hit the roads. At 5pm on the dot I changed into my kit, and headed out into a cool Scottish evening. I listen to my body when I run, and with a couple of pints of thick black coffee in my veins my body was in a hurry.

You can see the route I took on my RunKeeper profile - the website that links into a clever (and free) iPhone app that uses GPS to track your runs. The only downsides of this app are that it's pretty unforgiving to the time you spend waiting at traffic lights, and accordingly my average pace is always recorded as being quite a lot slower than I actually ran. Oh well. My main goal is always to run a lot of miles, not necessarily to run them very quickly.

Commuting runs are brilliant - I love running with a purpose, as a mode of transport. It's like a tiny little rebellion against the drudgery of buses and trains. There are a few issues, though. I'm lucky in that I can run to work and shower when I get there, but that does mean that I need to run with a rucksack, containing the day's smart(ish) work clothes, shoes, a towel, shower gel, deodorant, lunch, wallet, phone, keys etc etc. That slows me down.  Or I can leave some of these things at the office the day before, though that requires a bit more foresight than I'm usually blessed with first thing. Much better is taking running kit to work in the morning, then changing after work and running home - though this does mean that I end up with a large pile of spare clothes under my desk, and eventually have to drive in to work to clear out my collection of dirty washing...

So why was last night so brilliant? I don't really know. I ran around Arthur's Seat, a tough and very hilly route, in failing light on a cold evening, through crowds of commuters and tourists. I ran fast and worked hard, blew out the cobwebs of a day behind a computer screen, and more or less sprinted the last half a mile. Doesn't get much better than that.

Happy running.

Dave