Today, I beat my best time for a mile. Well, when I say that, it’s best recorded time by that tracker I got just over a year and a half ago. There is no chance it was my best mile ever (that would have been about twenty years ago), but very probably it is my best mile over the last 10 (at least) or 15 years. Obviously, I would never look at a ‘mile’ if the watch didn’t automatically do it. The thing is, having been made aware of the previous record (that dated back from January apparently, but I’m still surprised about that, as I felt I really put more effort today), I purposedly targeted that mile record today, having beaten the 1km less than two weeks ago (similarly), and also the 5km (but I don’t often run 5k, only started doing slightly longer runs again this year). So I achieved what I set out to do, which is the pleasant thing about that. In fact, as a mirror to a lot of things in my life, when I have targets and motivation, I do OK and can push myself. All I have always lacked was coaching and aims. But yeah, I can probably still improve a bit (weirdly, I didn’t beat that best 1k on the way to best mile, showing I did actually better than the other day over the last 600m), also taking into account that while targetting the mile record, I intended to do more so actually ran nearly 7k (but took the rest easier). I’ve had a bad back since my return on the bus from London less than a week ago (and running 13.5km on Monday, a record in length, my third over 10k in a month, distance I hadn’t run for over 16 years, since I ran a half-marathon in 2006 in fact! – I think I can probably just about run one now, but not at anything faster than 10km/h), but it doesn’t affect performance apparently! But how did I start running? Was I always a fit person? Am I competitive? I’m not sure, as I said, depends on motivation, circumstances, and I didn’t always know I had athleticism. Sure 20 years ago I ran the Paris Versailles race (with its monumental hill in the middle) in 1h14 and I will never come close to that. But I feel more aware of fitness now, of course it takes training and effort, but relative to my age, you could argue I’m probably fitter. Hell, that silly tracker, whatever it based itself on (VO2 max mostly? I managed to improve that again) today had me at having a ‘fitness age’ of 21. Down from 24 only a few weeks ago. Yeah, it’s fair to say I have been working on it over the last two months, especially as less football meant more time and opportunities for running, especially with the holidays. So I set out to beat that 1k (that was also from January), thought I’d do the mile at the same time but didn’t (hence the new attempt today) and beat the 5k when I beat the 1k (another one from January). It’s funny how that tracker had changed my way of checking and assessing performance.
That reference point in January was odd: I was just restarting after a short break, I was fit from a lot of sports in December fair enough, but I really don’t see how I had that km and mile records. Maybe the measurement was wrong. Or maybe, as January felt a great hope, I was just flying on a high, as I was full of hope energy and belief. Natural high rather than the hard work I put since July, yeah the hope of something better that didn’t happen. Also the high HR measured then was once over 180 whereas now it seems always about 178 max (OK I know I’m supposed to be 170 max, more on my heart later). But I’m blathering on (and sure I realise all these posts constitute an autobiography after all and the current ones – are purely that with no philosophical approach).
Where do I start? I only really ever had two sports: football and running (others? Table tennis I always enjoyed, and I used to occasionally play tennis – even took some lessons – but I have always lacked strength in my arms to be good enough at it, so I mostly used touch and effects, most to the annoyance of my sister….). And mostly football. In fact, a lot of my running efforts even recently, even though I did move towards measuring running performance too, has been done to get fitness for football.
I always used to play football at school (from age 8? Don’t remember playing football in Bordeaux, only remember Panini sticker albums…), didn’t particularly have a position (full back?) it was always with fellow pupils in the forêt de St Germain at the start, and in later years just on the very hard and dangerous handball pitches at collège and Lycéee, both in St Germain and later in Versailles. Then during studies, five a sides indoors a lot and the occasional 11-a-side. Always enjoyed, it, I was kind of OK but never been particularly skilful. I am actually enjoying my best football technically now at 50, and for the last few years as I feel freer and confident again. Oh yes, and I played on holidays in the Pyrénées as a teenager, there was a tournament there and we played with a lot of different people, and I had one game I remember when helped by some tricky winger I scored goal after goal after goal as I was making the right runs. When I got back to France after my studies, once mixing with the crowds at the Floozy & Firkin, I was invited by Simon to play for the team when I mentioned I played football. Took me a while to take the step of actually turning up in Vincennes one Sunday, but that definitely had a huge influence on my life in terms of people I met, great times I had, etc. In fact it’s amazing, but there are a fair few people I still go out with or meet who date back from the football team. In fact, in the holidays just finishing, I went to see Simon in Normandy, and a week Later Manus in Bordeaux, both from the initial F&F football team. Sure as hell, I realise there is no structure to this article, and I’m just being lazy and random.
But yes, from one pub to the other, I carried on playing football on Sundays until about 2007. But ever since I started working and until now, I also played at work, middays. And that has never stopped for over 25 years now. Amazingly, though he is now mostly injured and hasn’t been able to play for a while (but not officially retired), there is still one person who was with me in 1998 playing football and still is now*. So a couple of years ago when I set up a goal for him,, it felt just amazing after all this time. Most of the rest have either moved jobs, been too injured, retired from playing. But yes, people come and go, the location has changed a few times, but while we are struggling a bit more to get numbers (we used to have up to 30 people once), we are still trying to play twice a week and it is enjoyable.
*small edit on 15/10/2023 as I’m at last trying to re-read some of the posts to correcty typos (rather than rationally re-structure the mess I am reading now), Karim came back to play the other week at last, scored two and set one up for me to finish, so that magic connection is still happening.
I briefly tried to play in the corporate team, but that was evenings, and could involve playing away. I played one or two games, but didn’t really enjoy the atmosphere (not a problem with the team or players, more the context and opposition). And that’s the thing. I have never played in a club, so I have never done proper training. The biggest compliment I have had a few times was other people saying/assuming that I (had) played in a club. But I am totally lacking the discipline, never had the coaching etc. Which is probably why I didn’t improve any technique for a long time, and my positioning is all over the place, and I feel more than ever unable to nail down a position. I like to be everywhere. In the pub league, I used to play mostly up front, and yes it is natural to drop back more as you age, but I was mostly known for running a lot and being super dynamic. And now I am getting this back to some extent with fitness having returned.
Another aspect was indoor football. Again with work, once a week, I played for a few years, until I stopped. Not entirely sure why I stopped, lack of fitness at some point, lack of confidence (a few people seemed tough to play with), but yes, for a long long long time, I didn’t play indoors. And one day (less than two years ago) I bumped into an ex-colleague I used to play with and he asked me whether I wanted to play indoors the next day as they were a bit short of people. I said OK. And I enjoyed it, was starting to feel fit again, and I played fairly well all things told, the atmosphere was great. As they were still a bit short for the end of the season, I played a few times, and it was really cool, like I’d never stopped, and so I got in full time again for the next season.
So where does the running fit in with all this. Well, as I said, lately it was both an aim and very much a tool to get back to ‘fitness’ and get all the energy ready for football, both in terms of endurance and dynamism.
But it wasn’t always thus. Obviously we did sports at school. All sorts of sports (I even did a few months of rugby as it was one of the sports on offer for the baccalauréat, I was kind of a speedy winger, obviously wouldn’t be in the scrum, but my last memory of playing was when I was about to score one last try having escaped with the ball, but the teacher had been so intent on blowing his whistle to signal the end of the match, he didn’t watch the happenings on the pitch, so that try never counted….not that it was a significant try)), football (too rarely, we played more during the breaks, but PE teachers made it like we had to beg to be allowed to play football), handball (I enjoyed being in goal, again not enough arms strength on the field, but I had great reflexes and intuition/anticipation, it only became too much when people became stronger and so the shots were a little too hard to be enjoyable to deal with…), a little bit of basketball (of course I’m too short for this), jumps (I had a decent jump in me, long jump so so, but high jump particularly for my size), and of course running. It was mostly sprints (I was fairly fast again for my size, sure most of the time there were maybe a handful people faster than me, but not too many) or relatively short distances (400m? I remember being sick at the end of one of these ‘resistance’ runs). Not so much longer distance. Not sure if it was every year, if it was optional or not, but I remember the school had a run at some point, no idea what the distance was. 3k? 5k? And I only remembered two of them, and not if I was 12 or 15 or anything. But it was significant because of this: first year I remember doing it, I was like 105th out of 120 or something. Not great. I didn’t feel bad or good, I thought running just wasn’t my thing. But the next year, without particularly training or anything I was in the top 30. Looking back, I think I was always a ‘moody’ runner, I mean, I had no idea about performance, training, ability, so if I caught the right wind, I could probably run fast and long, but if not, I wouldn’t be bothered. Again, I think I had a lot of ability but nobody to coach it, nobody to get the best out of it (apart from myself but I had no idea). It’s maybe I regret I have, my education, environment, meant things were geared towards academical sucess (I guess) with no attention or emphasis to sports (or creativity, but that’s a different topic). Mind you, I’m not sure there was to anything, and sure I was playing the piano, but I wasn’t encouraged into any external or social activity. It’s a real shame, but I suppose I have to live with it, though it goes a long way to explain my general indiscipline. I mean, I was an excellent pupil, but as I said in the work chapter, I was not particularly your typical ‘premier de la classe’, I was happy to be at the back of the classroom, and mingle with the ‘cool’ people. There’s enough on these pages elsewhere to give you an idea or two, but clearly, the conventional stuff wasn’t for me, maybe I was kind of a ‘rebel without a cause’, outside of it all, not easily accepting of conventions or idées reçues but after all full (I hope) of human or humanist values. Did I receive a strict catholic education? Hell, I’m not even sure. In essence yes, but for a reason or another, I never felt forced, just without the strength to express myself. But I digress. Again.
I didn’t particularly take to running until much later though. Again, it was work. We had this little forest within the site at work where you could run. So I used to go running sometimes with a few colleagues (hell I don’t know how this started, though I was only playing football, but looking back, I had started running also with Laëtitia, Plamena and Hubert mostly, I think). And again, I found myself in their rhythm, until one day I felt ‘you know, I think I’m under-running now, it’s pleasant for the social side, but I’m not really pushing myself’, and accelerated away. Many runs after that, I would do the start with them (well only L&P by then, think Hubert wasn’t much around as he’d changed jobs, I remember he was motivating me at the start, but I can’t remember running faster than him), and then go a lot faster. The circuit in the forest was great as it had uphills and downhills, and I liked to push myself when running uphill.
But the big meeting was once I moved over the road to the other Alcatel site and started working with Bernard, who was big big big into his running. So we got chatting, he motivated me to go for that Paris-Versailles race, buy new shoes, and gave me a training plan. The funny thing is he was the one thanks to whom I did my first work trip ever (to Bergamo, that made it my favourite city in Italy, so beautiful and near the amazing Lake Como), and so in his plan was ‘the Bergamo hill or equivalent’ – that is the climb from Citta Bassa to Citta Alta. In the end, I never got to run in Bergamo, but as I was on holidays in the Pyrénées in May, I did some serious uphill and altitude training. Anyway, while the heartrate indicated in his plan were incredibly low (I have a heart that beats very slow at rest, but during effort I go very quickly near the maximum – well at the time I didn’t have the tracker like now but I didn buy some HR wrist watch you used with abdominal belt), I kind of transposed and did my best to combine two runs a week with one, two or three football sessions most weeks. Although nearing the competition I only focused on the running.
Now, to add a little more context, this was just after (or a year after, the timeline may be a bit confused) my mental and physical fall of winter 2001-2002. I had a massive ankle sprain, but I did find my abilities in great part hiking the mountains in the Pyrénées in May 2002 before restarting indoor football, etc, and the more intensive runs. It was also a time when I didn’t have a drink in over a year. So fitness really was a big aim to keep me sane and healthy. So Paris-Versailles came, felt I started very fast, and when the ‘côte des Gardes’ arrived, it was a struggle, that long uphill, I thought I was fading and failing, but near the end, I got the encouragements from the crowds (one good thing about this race is the people and bands on the course), so mustered all I got to get to the top of the hill, and after that…..I was just flying again. Realised later I ran past someone who sadly died running that day (no he wasn’t on the floor, so I didn’t see him, but there was an ambulance and I read the news later). I’d been warned about a minor other uphill and the ‘faux plat montant’ at the end, but honestly, I didn’t feel them at all, it was an amazing feeling. Came results times, I was amazed to find I had done 1h14 (not sure what my aim was, probably no more than 1h25 at best). Although I had a briefly incredulous moment when I saw 1h09 (but I knew this wasn’t right due to having checked my watch), but that was because there was another guy with the exact same name who had done that performance!
Anyway, this was not my last race, as I did the half marathon of Paris a couple of years later. But while I was still training well, it was a different experience. My lifestyle was slightly less healthy by then, but also the format was different. Paris-Versailles had been waves of starters, in small quantities, and I started early-ish enough so that people on the course were no problem. For the half-marathon, I didn’t know exactly what to aim for, but because of a colleague I decided to start a little further back that what I should have aimed for. Also it was huge enclosures of people rather than small waves. So at the start, I found myselt trying to run through people, doing short burtst of acceleration to find gaps. Good for cardio maybe but I was practically out of energy after 10km so the second half of the course was a long agony. In the end I did 1h55 when I probably should have aimed for 1h35-1h40 at worst. But I wasn’t motivated enough to rectify that for another time, so that was the end of my ‘running career’.
After that, I toned it down for running for a long long time. I still ran in Parc de Sceaux for a bit (or was it during the same sequence), but I think essentially I didn’t do too much running between 2006 and late 2017 or so. N gave me the taste back for it somehow with her speedwalks. I tried to do that with her, and she pushed me to at times run, and that made me realise that I could still be quite fit, but had room for improvement. But then it’s funny the way I time thing and she was worried I was getting competitive and suggested I should stop measuring my performance….I think she just wanted to tell me ‘don’t be like me’. But I am so much like her and so much different from her. It’s odd sometimes, because I can be super competitive, demanding with myself and push myself…..but I am not ‘ill’ about it to the point she is. But yes I can now and sometimes see how or why she could see in me things she saw in herself. Anyway, again I digress, but bottom line is I tried to measure myself against a routine course in the Park from December 2017 on. So I could compare and improve. There’s been ups and downs and sometimes it just constrained me to do the same run over and over again, even as I felt I was good enough to run longer as I got fitter. I am finally a few years later feeling freeer to do different and longer runs (in no small part due to the tracker in fact!). Also the situation at work with less people playing football meant sometimes I choose to run at work, meaning a differnt course and the ability to run longer, something I’ve pushed a bit more this year (2023). But again, this was mostly to be fit for football, particularly indoors. And I can see again and reap the benefits now. I can go up and down the pitch longer, more often, and faster. Recently-ish I started to work more on cardio too, so alternate faster and slower bits of running. Again, the course at work enabled me to do that. For park runs I mostly do the same still but occasionally add something different, and just this month, as I beat my best times of 2021 (themselves bettering after some not so good times the ones from 2017), I felt doing different types of runs would be not only beneficial but less constraining, as quite frankly, in terms of pure performance on my little run, I’m probably near the limit. For the first time I went under 18 minutes, I can probably gain a few more second (though I did beat the record by starting very fast whereas the last time I finished very fast, but it wasn’t deliberate, as I said, the change now is I realise that rather than run on feeling, I can actually do a targeted effort and perform. — again, imagine if I had been coached, I probably could have been a better athlete in terms of performances), but really considering the only ‘target’ until recently was to keep under 20 minutes for this course (and the files with the data show, I occasionally come close to breaking that barrier negatively), I only went to beat the record when I realised I could truly deliberately push it. But sure it’s summer, I’ve been reasonable, it’s outside the going to football season, outside the going to concerts season, so it’s kind of optimal and it’s no surprise my previous best in 2021 was also in August (weirdly, 2017 was in May but I wasn’t going out much at the time…I only started to feel alive again later, my social life has only been back to normal only recently to be honest…).
So yes, here I am, and happy and fit again, though at some point I’ll have to accept I’ll be over the peak. But right now, I have still a small margin for improvement (and then we’ll see until next summer I guess.).
Couple more points: competitivity. I mentioned it briefly, but again it’s about motivation. In life like in sports. I’m not competitive in the sense that I want to beat other people. No, I only want to better myself, improve and beat….objectives. Which is why I am not ‘killer’ enough sometimes when it comes to beating an opponent. I take no joy in seeing someone beaten, so sometimes I kind of stop at the last hurdle, knowing I have what it takes to win being enough for me (though others wouldn’t see it). At the same time, when I fail, I don’t necessarily revise my objectives down. I’m more the kind of person who sees what he’s done wrong, and so hopes and judges next time, with correcting this and that, he can aim….higher! Of course there are limits, but that’s essentially my mental mechanism. So yes, there are big setbacks or times when I rue myself for missed chances, etc and it’s a weakness I must work on (that’s back to two ‘points’ above, not the immediate one). But yes, I did enjoy wining trophies. Individually not so much (fair play medals at the arseblog 5s were fine and unexpected, but the first one I appreciated in particular as it came out of the blue, and I was just me on the pitch — but again, don’t get fooled, an opponent (one I enjoyed playing with at indoor footie too) did berate me once in a semi-final in a tournament as I’d clearly (and deliberately) impeded him without admitting it to the ref, and he was right, but this just shows I can be quite competitive also in big games), but football trophies, I remember one on holidays in the Pyrénées, but also notably wining the last football tournament at Marcoussis (the old Alcatel site), while leaving the final with a big gash in my leg due to a very bad tackle from an opponent, and also winning the last summer trophy in Nozay (the other work site, but that tournament won’t happen again, so funnily enough I was probably the only player in the wining team of both ‘final’ tournaments at work there), and believe me I was quite competitive in these games.
So yeah, I do enjoy winning in a team, even if I can always assess my personal performance differently (see ‘individualism’, I’d still put the team first).
As for general fitness, I think I’ve generally been lucky. I’ve had sprains on both my ankles, but no fracture yet, and no major muscular issue either (and I don’t particularly do a lot of stretching), which I think is just luck by nature. The biggest problem is the one I have now: nascent osteoarthritis on my big toe on the right foot. I thought it might have been something else, but exams (MRI and X-ray) have diagnosed that, and there doesn’t seem to be much more to do than manage. And it’s not gone too bad. Oh yes, I’ve had some serious achilles pain at times (but no rupture) and had some tendonitis on the big toe too many years ago which meant I used custom insoles for a while (something I am back to using since the arthritis diagnosis in the middle of this year). So don’t know how the arthritis started, it’s a bit bizarre. I remember a stubbed toe playing football in the Camiers (Pas-de-Calais) as a teenager, and that hurt, and the pain is kind of similar now, but no particular problems since. Just maybe three years ago, I got stamped on by someone wearing studs and it hurt a lot there and I had to stop, and at times the pain came back, but overall it didn’t seem too bad. Until I had a very very bad fall early summer of 2021 (quite an odd, one, contesting a ball and falling awkwardly on my toe, with the whole of the body weight on it, it’s a bizarre and improbable position, but it hurt like hell). And after that it was never the same. I had to stop sports and even walking for a bit. Tried to strap it (my GP only recommended soles, I felt this wasn’t enough but didn’t want to push), restarted slowly by running before playing again, and by December it all seemed rather OK again. But then during an indoor session I had two very bad contacts and it suddenly hurt an enormous lot again. Thought I’d just stop for a bit again, but when I restarted playing, by March 2023 it just got worse and worse, and I thought I had to do something. Still thought it might be badly sprained (fractured seemed very unlikely), eventually went to a sports doctor, had the exams done and here we are. Net result is it doesn’t stop me from doing sports, has practically no impact on running, but football is different. First I am apprehensive about contacts there, so have to adapt my play (and engage a lot less with my right foot when contesting balls, which is annoying as it removes some of my natural competitive edge), and hope for no bad contact. Sometimes there’s a little setback but so far it’s not gone to the point I’ve had to stop for a length of time. My shooting is affected a bit, and at times, it’s led me to use my left foot a bit more, but that’s no bad thing (see the ambidextrous article), as I’m fairly able with it (can’t shoot hard though and for some reason find myself incapable of using the outside of that one). So fingers crossed I can play for a few more years.
As for my heart, it is also very healthy it seems. I think my dad had a little history but nothing major, possibly some tachycardia but could have been misdiagnosed. He certainly never had a heart attack, I’m not aware of any history that way in the family either side. The thing is, when I had my first operation (partial removal of thyroid, a weird false alert actually, triggered by work doctor, in a better safe than sorry way), and so had a general anaesthetic was the first time I was made aware that my heart was slow-beating at rest. I think just 48 at the time. Sometimes I wonder if it was all after the shock from what happened the winter 2001-2002, but I don’t think so, as I was fit enough before, Either way, while I only started recording HR with new equipment etc, and while in January this year it seemed I was around 60 at rest (stress, hope, whatever), this summer I once found myself checking my tracker and it said my average Rest heart rate for the last week was about 45. Sure enough I’ve paid closer attention since, some people were worried it was too slow, I even bought yet another gadget that does ECG, but seems really there is nothing wrong, I’ve just always had a sportsman’s heart, and now that I am fairly well trained, when not stressed (and so also, not after a night on the tiles, that has bad effect), it seems like my normal heart rate is more sub 45 in fact. Hell, I know the device measure at night and is not always accurate, but if at peace and in slee, I can go down to 40 sometimes, and that’s (apparently) an average measurement over 30 min. But yeah, I’d say 45 even when awake is not so unusual.
So….who knows how long I’ll stay fit and healthy, and these pages are more of an analytical autobiography than ever (though I have a few more ‘thinking’ pages in mind), so maybe I die at the end of it, maybe even of a heart attack, but right now, today, I do enjoy being fit, and this month I have enjoyed breaking the records I wanted to break, both in terms of speed, and lengths of runs. But mostly, I want to be fit to play football, with the indoor season restarting soon, and with a special match in November, though who knows how much I’ll be able to play for that one, and also it might be after a big night out with most of the people from the pub team over all the years. Either way, this should be a great and fun event I’m looking forward to! (oh yes I end up with a digression…..but hey these stream of consciousness pages are mine….if only I bothered re-reading them as I know I left a lot of typos around, only corrected a few when I saw them ‘live).
Update: 3/09/2023. Well, after a couple of days’ rest (well I did a couple of walks, one slow-ish, one very fast) to ease my back, I went for the records again, which I felt I had in me, and so this morning, I did beat them all at once: 1km, 1 mile (by not much, but unlike the previous attempt, it had an extra uphill as it is part of my normal course), regular course, and also 5k, just about. I thought I’d carry on running at the end of the normal course if time was good to see if I could beat the 5k, but really I slowed down significantly so that was a close call.. So while I think I’m very much at or near the limit with a fast start, I think I have a certain margin for impromvement (maybe up to 10/15s or more?) for the 5k by starting slower, and also maybe not incorporating the extra uphill, mind. My previous best 5k was done when focussing on records while running longer in the end so… yeah. Anyway, well happy with that. Again showing the pleasure of setting targets and reaching them. My back may be in agony later, but now I can rest a bit more, I think. I just wish setting targets was also easier in other terms. I need to get with the music. Also. People. Can’t set target because you don’t want control of anyone but yourself, need things to happen………….still think…….I could have handled situations better but I never got the experience. But I’m moving forward and this month of high fitness and at last being able to reach definite targets has done me good. Weird how the tracker has influenced me (also in other ways, see there this week my heart rate at rest on average over a week has been….41, also my top heartbeat during this run reached over 180 again (hmm, actually it says 191, eek), which is not supposed to happen at 50, so I really have a strong heart), and ultimately by showing me I can push, made me learn to run differently rather than see how much mood speed I had. Bit odd though, but could I start slower and still beat the course records? Not sure, that would definitely need a coach.
New Update: 10/09/2023. Yesterday morning, my back was feeling much better. Went for a run with no clear target, well trying to improve my finishing on the normal course by starting faster. Went OK even if I missed on one target by three seconds. But in the evening, standing in front of the Opéra, my back seized up again, bad spasms and possibly even worse than the week before. Yet, based on the previous experience, I decided that no matter what, I’d go for my intended run on Sunday morning with the aim to beat my 5k time (and knowing I was likely to beat the 10k in the process even with a slower second 5), unless I really couldn’t move. I mean, running with a bad back the weeks before didn’t seem to impact on performance. I didn’t sleep tooo badly so I went. I could feel a little pain and uncomfort during the run, but again nothing affected my pace. And so I DID beat my 5k time, by nearly one minute. And sure, I’d (kind of, I’ve got no coach, but I suppose I can pace myself more lucidly now) taylored the effort accordingly, so no aim to start too quick or beat 1K or 1 mile, just tried to accelerate a bit near the target. As the pain was not unbearable, I decided to run the 10k as intended (during the night I thought maybe I’d be ‘reasonable’ and stop at 5k whether I reached my target or not), even though I deliberately slowed down after the 5 (obviously I could NOT sustain the same level of effort over 10k anyway). But I tried to not go too slow, even push a little bit again at times, so while the second 5k was some 4 min slower, I still beat the previous 10k by more than 5 min. But then, it was only the fourth time I ran more than 10km, so it’s not very surprising, as the previous one had no target, not over 5k or anything. Conclusion? I can still progress, can probably improve that 10k time (it still was 11.8km/h over 10k which seemed impossible to me not long ago, now I think I might be able to do 12km/h over 10k maybe?) again with an ad hoc starting pace, but I’ve really not got many references there, so difficult to aim for a particular value without studying the data a bit more. Not many realistic targets left though, so at some point I’ve got to stop pursuing performance, and also give my back a little rest (football restarting now, I’ll need a strong back especially for indoors). Maybe I could aim to run a half-marathon next (with no target? Or sub 2h if I can), but I was thinking of it, and thought ‘well if I run it in practice in the Park, is there really any point in running a ‘competitive’ one? I’m only competing against myself and the clock anyway, and apart from getting a T-shirt and a medal – oh yes and hydrating points along the course, because if I do it here, I’ll do it without drinking so I fear I may tail off as badly as in 2006 in the real one), so I may see if I can, and then decide whether doing an official one make sense. Sure, in a small corner of my mind, I’d love to beat my 1h55 from 2006 (at the time it was a bad time, very badly managed race, because I really should have been a 1h35 1h40 runner at worst), because that would be completely incredible for me at 50. But anything sub 2h10 would already be great (sure I’d be possibly disappointed). Anyway, time to close this page again, but even today reinforced that target-based runs have changed my ways lately, and I can actually achieve things when I set goals. If only I really knew what goals to set, if only I had a coach. And if only life was fulfilling this way, but the targets that depend on you are the ones that are too easy to achieve, and for the others, I hate to influence people so it’s, not so easy. Life still has its frustrations. (On re-reading I realise there are a lot of repeats from things mentioned in the main article above…thought sometimes run around in circles).
Update 30/09/2023. Well I have been trying to ease the load a bit over the last two weeks due to the back issues, compounded for a week with extra groin issue (still of undetermined origin, annoying, not too painful, and only slightly handicapping). Yet after a week without sports, another indoor footie session yesterday (and two gigs in the week) seemed to suggest that after a session with the osteopath and some specific exercises, my back was a bit better. The groin thing really started to hit when playing football twice the previous week, but it’s just an incomfort really. Yesterday was a big test, but it didn’t seem to go worse, so I decided that if I didn’t have too bad a night, I would maybe try to run 10k and possibly (though I didn’t really believe) beat the 10k from last time (so essentially aim for those 12km/h). I had a so-so night but felt I should try. On starting, I could really feel the groin so didn’t want to force so thought ‘we’ll see’. Rightly as it turned out, I had set a lap time per km so that I could monitor the progress see if it was worth it. The first 1k would always be likely to be slightly faster as it starts with a downhill, but I was pleased that it was a good pace. Of course I had to keep reminding myself than a fast-ish first 1 or 2k didn’t mean much over 10k. As it is, while the next two were slightly slower, they weren’t too bad, sensations were OK and the groin didn’t feel like it was worsening. So I managed to keep the rhythm, even re-improve it a bit to remain mostly around 5min/km sometimes slightly over, sometimes slightly under. Breathing became a bit more laboured (very noisy), but I manage to hold on, and the last three kilometers were all under 5min. I had a scare as just early in the last one there was a huge group of people blocking my road twice (bloody group runners) so had to find a gap and give a couple of small bursts of accelerations, and feared it would cost me mental and physical energy too much (now I see how much I fucked up the half-marathon in 2006, it really was that), but I managed to push myself so don’t think I lost much time. And so….the target was achieved, about 49 min 40s for the 10km so very pleased. Again, without a coach I am lucky that I managed to handle that well pretty much as I had planned after the previous record 5km/10km, by being steady over the distance this time. I don’t really have any other timed objectives now, maybe the half-marathon, but no idea if I can or what I should target. I shouldn’t aim for more than 10km/h over that distance I’d think. Maybe 11km at a push would be thrilled. Minor objective would be to also reach 50 of VO2 max (been pushing to 49 since August), but I don’t know if it’s realistic. As the thing say, my fitness age is good, it probably doesn’t matter that it’s 20, 21 or ‘only’ 22). I also have a visit to the cardiologist on Thursday which should tell me a bit more about that heart of mine. Anyway, yes, I’m happy again, because despite the various pains, I have now with this latest run achieved all the targets I meant to achieve. What now? Just enjoy my football maybe and keep fit without pushing for records? Guess that half-marathon (oh yes I did register for the official Paris one after all) will get in the way, but maybe after March I will truly be able to take it a little easier, at 51 rather than 50. Been a strange 51st year on the planet so far, with a lot of frustrations and some decent successes.
Another (last for a while?) update 21/10/2023. Well, nearly a month later I have to revise a few things. Had a setback on the back after indoor footie once, but another session at the osteopath and exercise made it come back quickly OK and while I stopped for a few days, I went for a (7k) run OK, the next indoor was fine especialy after twice going down in goals, felt no extra pain, so definitely on the mend now. There is some residual pain at times but nothing handicapping. The groin doesn’t feel 100% but also improving and barely felt now so no hindrance. I had two weeks of bad cold, slightly higher heart rate so not super fit (the worst was actually when I went to see the cardio), but I’ve restarted a little more seriously. Even if VO2 went down to 48 for a bit. So today, I thought, initially, I’ll do 15k and maybe attempt a half marathon distance in the next two weeks to see if I can, if not at a good pace. But then yesterday, I thought, if I can do 15, maybe I can do 21 if I’m OK. And while I didn’t have completely the best of nights, I’ve felt a lot better mentally since the Sisters and especially Metric gigs, so I’m definitely feeling a mental upturn, so this morning, while the stated aim was 15k, I was pretty much firmly going with the idea of running the half-marathon distance. I had no idea about pace I could hold really and also if over that distance I could hold on wihout hydration. The 2006 half-marathon wasn’t really a reference in terms of management, so the only recent experience were the 10k record run a few weeks ago, and the longest from nearly two months earlier, that was 13.5km. And I’d only run 10k twice since, the last time being three weeks ago! SO 21.1, I guess it’s a signifiicant difference I couldn’t be sure how to handle. In the end, that went a lot better than I expected. I started with the idea that maybe I shouldn’t aim for more than 10km/h (see previous update),but I went on feeling, just starting slowly enough at a pace that I felt was not stretching me at all. I set my lap distance to 2.5km (1km felt too annoying for this long run, didn’t want to be managing at that micro-level), so the basic idea was just to stay below 15min for each 2.5km. The first one was 13’52 so I thought OK. The second was under 13’30 so fine, but then, while I just went with natural rhythm, the next was 13’16 and the following three were each around 13’05 so picking up and keeping pace over 15km, I was very happy. And I didn’t feel I was getting signficantly worse or straining harder. So 21km is about 7 laps, but I focused on every lap, thinking ‘hang on, I’m nowhere near the end so let’s focus on this lap’. So reaching 5 which was about 15km, I wasn’t sure if the last 2 laps would be much harder, but they turned out to be yeah, at least a little harder. I started to breathe a little more heavily, but muscles etc didn’t feel like they were struggling too much so not bad. In the end the next 5k saw a degradation but both the 2.5km were equal in time both at 13’27. So not that bad really. Consider also that I didn’t hydrate at any time (on top of my shit management in 2006, I always wondered if not drinking at all had cost me), so the decrease in performance at the end was not shocking. Especially when you consider that I did the last few km in fact overall faster than the first 5. Sure the last extra bit was even slower, but that’s because it finished with an uphill. I did consider options at the end, one would have entailed a slightly less severe uphill and a little more distance, but my estimation was that by using the regular end of my normal circuit, I’d finish just beyond the half-marathon distance, rather than 500m or 1km extra. In the end, the display said 21.27. And the time? Amazingly just under 1h54min. Now I’m still annoyed because my watch says the distance, and put my half-marathon time at the total, same it did for my 10k record despite the little extra distance of 150m or so. So it’s still an indication rather than a precise time (various runs have shown that the distance is never completely accurate either). But the incredible thing was that it was just a little less time than when I ran my Paris half-marathon in 2006. Sure, at the time, I should have run in 1h35min or 1h40 at worst if I’d run correctly and managed my race cleverly. But, and that’s the important thing. It gives me belief that after all, I can still improve on my official time when race time comes in March. I know race day will be different and there are a lot of factors which mean I might not perform better (mostly people density, weather, and health). But randomly, I was secretly hoping I could improve but realistically targetting 2h5min, thinking if I do just under 2h, I’d be chuffed. But now I guess I should aim for under 1h50min really. Also the run I did today…I did not at all take a specific half-marathon training, I randomly ran on feeling, improved records lately, played football, and decided at the last minute to run the distance rather than ‘just 15k’, having only done a few over 10k runs in the last few months as stated above and never over 13.5km. So yeah, I’m very very pleased today as you can see from this writing. And now I should try and train properly. Which is a funny thing to say when I’ve just achieved the performance I did today. And yes, the peaceful state of mind on Friday following the Metric gig helped despite the imperfect night’s sleep. All things considered, I didn’t expect to be that fit at this moment in time. Especially considering that just 8 days ago, I was back wondering if I should completely stop for a week or two to sort out all the niggles first. So positive takes: I can run the distance already and at a decent pace, higher than I thought. Wearing a football shirt was nice, not even the old nipple burn/bleed, don’t know what runners normally use, but I remember with T-shirts all those years ago it could be painful. Also body didn’t hurt much. Question mark over how my body recovers over the next few days, but should be ok-ish. Slight negative, blistering under the arch of the right foot, probably due to in-soles. But it’s not too severe. I have two pair of running shoes (one pure asphalt, the other trail, which I’ve used for all the park runs), but I don’t think there’s much difference in feeling, would need to try the others on a longer run though I’ve done a 12k with, and not sure I want to do another full half-marathon before March now.