Run 12
I thought I’d tipped 10km in Monday’s run with the additional leg up to the Common. But I was 100m short. So I extended the end of tonight’s run by a trivial amount to ensure that I could interpolate my time—and to claim that I’d run 10km in training. The distance was 10.09km; time: 47m 5s. That interpolates to a 10km of 46m 40s.
So I achieved my recently-set personal target of 10km in under 47m, which I’m happy about. I didn’t expect it, expecting the time to be significantly slower than Monday’s. It’s pleasing to notice the times coming down while the effort seems to stay pretty much constant.
I’ll head out for a light 5km jog on Friday morning and take the weekend off in preparation for the run Monday morning.
In terms of time of day, I think I prefer running in the evening than in the morning, although the glorious smells of food that waft from the restaurants and houses of Clapham on the balmy evenings certainly makes me want to stop running in favour of eating.
Run 11
Last night’s run felt like a proper run. Partly because it was a decent distance; partly because I felt pretty good in myself while doing it, even deciding at around 7km (on exiting Battersea Park) to extend the loop a little beyond the 9km of the previous outing to take me close to the 10km, if not beyond.
The distance ended up being 9.89km, rounded off with a haul up Cedars Road (quite a hill) before the gentle downhill round the side of the Common and all the way home.
The day hadn’t started well. After my 1.37am mid-night bathroom stop (they seem to become more prevalent the older I get), I decided to can my 5.35am alarm call in favour of an extra hour in bed. The evening, however, offered ideal running conditions: cooler than of late, with a little wind, perhaps a little too breezy if anything.
The time was 47m 30s, a tiny bit of extrapolation taking this to a 48m 2s 10km. And despite this relatively quick run, I experienced a first for this training preparation: an overtaker. Some guy lumbered past me on the north side of Battersea Park wearing a Pray I’m Not Your Doctor Number 5 rugby shirt. The awkwardness of his running suggested I should be outpacing him, but his taller stature (it’s not that hard after all) meant his legs were working about half as much as mine. Nevertheless, he provided a target to hunt down before he turned out of the park and I headed for the river.
Lastly, apologies to the guy crossing Albert Bridge carrying what I think might have been a biscuit tin in a bag. I thought he was being an awkward bastard by standing stock still next to his partner. In retrospect (and after a sarcastic thank you from me), he may have been creating a diagonal gap between the two of them—not the most intelligent move on such a narrow path, but my bad nonetheless. Fortunately, the biscuit tin seemed to be empty, as my leg clattered into it while passing him.
Oh, and lastly (really this time), for some reason when I stop running, my knees start itching. Very strange.
Conditional superlatives
I read a digg post recently entitled Britain’s Tallest 6ft 5in Shire Horse. Just to trump that: I’m Britain’s tallest 5′ 6″ human, measuring a staggering 5′ 6″.
It is time for you to stop all of your sobbing
I just learnt by accident (or indeed happenstance) that chopping refrigerated onions prevents any associated crying. Just thought I’d share, particularly with my Argentinian fan-base.
Increasing the distance, reducing the time
The longest training run to date this evening. 9.02km in 43m 5s. That extrapolates to 47m 45s for the 10km. I have to say I’m surprised. All in all, it was OK, but there were a few moments when I just wanted it to stop. Eventually, it did, when I heaved myself up our front steps and staggered through our front door, and I fully expected a rubbish time. But the longest distance to date brought about my quickest extrapolated 10km to date. (By the way, I don’t take any form of timepiece with me. Instead I look at the analogue clock in the lounge before my run and again after it. In my sorry medical state, I then take an age to calculate the difference between the two.)
So the profile of extrapolated times to date are:
- 5 November: 51m 0s
- 18 November: 50m 6s
- 10 February: 50m 32s
- 9 April: 51m 25s
- 27 April: 48m 27s
- 10 May: 51m 6s
- 12 May: 48m 48s
- 14 May: 48m 54s
- 16 May: 47m 46s
Shit. That’s only nine training runs so far. Three more before the race will make twelve. Making the race run 13. Hm. Double figures at least.
Today was the first run over 9km, and the first under 48m for the extrapolation. Today’s best run was 7% faster than my worst. It would be good to get another 2% to bring it under 47m as part of my training.
As for the race itself, let’s see. Whether adrenaline will kick in sufficiently to get me closer to my predicted time of 45m is doubtful.
Away goals count as 1 + epsilon
Last night I inquired of my brother whether away goals counted, during Leeds’ crucial tie away at Carlisle. (The scores were poised at 2-2 on aggregate; Leeds had lost the home leg 2-1.)
His trite response was that away goals did count, my not having asked my question correctly. I wanted to know whether they carried any extra weight.
The concept of increasing the value of goals scored away is usually referred to as ‘away goals count double’. In reality, this is wrong, as if taken literally, a team losing 4-3 on aggregate with all seven goals having been scored at the winners’ home ground would be deemed victors, having won ’6-4′ because of the away goals’ double value. In reality, away goals count for 1 + epsilon, where epsilon is a tiny number any multiple of which is never greater than 1 in the context of the game. Maybe epsilon could be set as 1/(total goals scored + 1) to avoid any possibility of this adversely affecting the outcome of the game.
(For completeness, Leeds went on to win 3-2 (or 5-4 if you’d prefer.)
Status: could be better
I sent a fax today, something I rarely do. Whenever I send one and see the confirmation sheet, I’m always slightly disappointed that the status is OK. While I understand that this means the fax has been sent successfully (its opposite being "Failed", I believe), it’s hardly emphatic is it?
I remember being confused when first sending faxes back in the ’80s, not knowing whether OK was a mark of success. If I asked a teacher at school how I did in a test and (s)he responded OK, I imagine I’d be a little deflated. Surely a more inspired name–value pair would be Sent?/You betcha!
As an aside, my late uncle was adamant that one day, everyone would have a fax machine in their house. He was very wrong on this front, although inspiring in so many ways. His buy-in to instant electronic communication from home has proven accurate, as evidenced by this very post. I always looked up to him, and have a particularly fondly memory of walking down the moor with him to a glorious, deep orange sunrise ludicrously early one morning having dropped his son off at Manchester Airport to go skiing. (Manchester Airport is famed for skiing, you know.) I have no idea what we talked about as we killed time waiting for the rest of the house to wake, but I remember feeling enormously proud to be treated to his company.
(As another aside, I’ve just updated Wikipedia’s attribute–value article to use the en dash instead of the hyphen. Unfortunately, I’m not allowed to change its title. Humph.)
Stop the clock!
Yesterday marked a major milestone: I finished all three The London Paper sudokus on the 87 bus journey home.
For those not familiar, each edition brings with it a simple, medium and difficult puzzle alongside one another. If I pick up a copy, I often set myself a personal challenge of finishing all three before hitting my bus stop, solving them in that order.
To gauge progress, I set myself mile stones (of the traditional roadside variety) by which I feel I have to solve each one. I try to get the easy one completed by the time I pass Brian Haw in Parliament Square (0.6km), the medium one before Vauxhall Station (a further 1.9km) and the difficult one before the end of my road (another 2.3km).
If it’s touch-and-go on Wandsworth Road, it can get as exciting as Anneka Rice or Annabel Croft running from their helicopter towards a small castle watched by bewildered, aged onlookers to shouts of encouragement from Wincey Willis and words of ambivolence from Kenneth Kendall, all while a clock ticks down in the corner of the screen. Quite literally.
8.35km
This morning’s run was good. I extended it a little, with a minor inroad back into Battersea Park, plus a return route up Queenstown Road instead of Silverthorne, forcing me back down Wandsworth Road home. All in all, an extra 1.16km, taking me up to 8.35km in total. Time: 40m 50s, extrapolating to a 48m 54s 10km.
Friday, I intend to do the Queenstown Road route there and back, which should take me up to 9km. Then 9km runs on Monday and Wednesday followed by an easy jog Friday ready for the big race the following Monday. Training has been slap-dash, but I now know I’m able to run the distance, and should get a semi-respectable time.
Minnie, Beyonce AND Reese?
I had an open and frank discussion on Sunday evening with my wife. In a nutshell, I told her that my life was not panning out in the way I’d expected. She took the news well, considering.
The conversation followed her sharing news that Minnie Driver was pregnant. (I can safely vouch that I was not involved.) This, so soon after Beyonce’s marriage to Jay-Z, was a little too much to take. Does Minnie not remember me following her into a deli on Broadway a few years back? Did it mean nothing to her? And I would have hoped Beyonce would have at least mentioned Jay-Z. Not a bloody word!
I said that all I needed now was to hear that Reese Witherspoon had met someone following her separation from her husband. My wife filled me in on this front, with the news that she had, and that apparently he was very good looking.
All in all, not a good day on the ladies front.