Insignificance is important

Gandhi once said that "Everything you do in life will be insignificant ... but it's very important that you do it." And so it proved to be with me this past week... The whole picture may not have been visible, but each training session or effort that I made was part of the main goal; or, as Aristotle put it, "The whole is greater than the sum of its parts."

Monday was a rest day. I needed a lie-in and thankfully I got a good one courtesy of the cache of flexi-leave that I'd built up at work. Also my feet hurt. Literally. The soles of my feet and the underside of my toes hurt from the previous days off-road race in Naunton and I was more than happy to give them a rest. A good rest. The kind of rest that you only get from surfacing a few hours later than usual, making a cup of coffee and a pile of Marmite on toast, and going back to bed, plugging your headphones in and listening to a DW audio double-bill (8th Doctor: Blood of the Daleks Pts 1&2). Well, okay, maybe the last bit was just me... A light & easy swim at lunchtime, followed by a spot of lunch, then a trip to the Cinema to watch 'Les Miserables' (who on Earth told Russell Crowe that he could sing?) made it a thoroughly enjoyable day off... Shame it was only the one day though.

After the luxury of a lie-in on Monday, 'Triple Tuesday' kicked me hard in the bum to make me get up and on with my training regime. As ever, the early morning pre-work 5.5 mile run was more of a trudge than anything else. My lunchtime swim was a little weird as I kept 'switching off', slipping into auto-pilot mode, and just going through the motions. (Not in the way described in my last blog I hasten to add) Before I really knew where I was or what I was supposed to be doing I'd ploughed my way through most of the coaching session and was fifty lengths to the good... Once again, at the evening session at the Whitehall Athletics Track, I was not really concentrating on the task in hand and in a little world of my own. The session, which was freezing cold, was 6x 800m with a 2:30 minute rest between each rep; affectionately known as 'Yasso 800s'. (Basically, the way it works is that if you can consistently run your 800m reps in a certain time then they co-relate to your projected marathon finish time. Therefore 6x 800m run at 3:00 per 800m equates to a 3 hour marathon. 6x 800m run at 2:50 per 800m equates to a 2 hours 50 min marathon time.) Even though I was struggling with the cold air rasping through my lungs when I ran, I was running my reps at approximately 2:45-2:250 per 800m, although I clocked the last rep at 2:38... Not bad for somebody who wasn't focused on the session.

Wednesday started out as a cold day and didn't really warm up, therefore filling me with dread for the evenings planned 14 mile run... As it turned out, that dread was well founded. It was bitterly cold when I set out and although I was wearing two pairs of gloves and socks, my fingers and toes started to go numb. Painfully numb. So painful in fact that after just 5.5 miles I called it quits. I just couldn't function in such low temperatures... I could have cried. (But my tears would only have frozen and welded my eyes shut)

So, 8 miles were now missing from my schedule. What was a guy to do? Obviously the sensible answer would be to just forget about it and move on. My answer, however, was to ditch Thursdays lunchtime swim in favour of a hilly 8 mile run around Compton. To tell the truth, I'm glad I chose this option. Compared to the previous day, this was a lovely run. Eight dry miles, completed in 58 minutes, with a weak winter sun poking out from behind grey clouds and, for once, temperatures at just above freezing. In contrast, the evening 5.5 mile run still felt like a bit of a slog as the temperatures took another dive and the country began to prepare for snow...

My sole preparation for snow was to ensure that my off-road shoes were serviceable and packed. Unfortunately things didn't go my way. Friday was snow day and the entire region ground to a halt. I had to get from Kingswood to work in Clutton as early in the morning as possible. A journey of roughly 10 miles. It took me two hours to get out of Bristol and then only another twenty minutes to reach my destination! I spent the rest of the day working with the Councils gritters trying to clear as many roads as possible. But this meant that I didn't get a lunch break, nor the planned run therein. I also got nowhere near a swimming pool... As soon as I got home I changed into my running gear, donned my cross-country shoes, and put in a rather treacherous 5K loop. Small fry compared with what I had really wanted to run but it was better than nothing.

Saturday morning saw me attempt a rather dangerous walk/run/jog/slip/slide/stumble around a 5.5 mile loop that had nothing to do with time or pace, just the fact that I got out to put some miles in. The problem was that the snow on the footpaths was so compacted that it was too dangerous to run on them. Clear sections of road, verges, un-trodden snow, and the slush in the gutters were the safest parts to run on. When I got home I was just relieved that I had managed not to fall over at all during the run. Although I'm sure that, at times, it must have looked more like Disney on Ice...

Sunday, unfortunately, fell victim to the weather. My schedule informed me that I should have run 18 miles with 10 of them at marathon pace. Obviously, with all the snow and ice around, that was going to be out of the question. But what to do? Well, the simple answer was just to get in the equivalent time on my feet. I knew that the eighteen mile run would have taken me approximately 2:10:00 on the road, so I decided to run as far as I could for an hour, then turn around and run back again. So, last weeks off-road running kit and shoes went back on and I decided to run one of my favourite off-road trails, from Netham Lock, and through the Conham valley to the Lock Keeper pub at Keynsham, and back again; a total distance of 15 miles. Getting to and from Netham Lock was a bit dicey underfoot but worth the effort. The path alongside the river was full of deep, wet, muddy puddles, cunningly concealed beneath a layer of ice and snow in order to lull you into a false sense of security. The crunchy noise that I made ensured that all wildlife was absent from view, save for a low flying bird of prey that swooped down from a pylon where a cormorant was also perched. (Bill Oddie would have wet his pants. Then had to suffer a frozen crotch...) At the Lock Keeper I stopped, had a Torq gel, courtesy of Kurt at Cotswold Running, then turned around and headed back whence I came. Another 7 miles slip-sliding through the mud followed before my aching legs delivered me back home in just over two hours. As far as time on my legs is concerned, it ticked all the boxes and delivered an exhausting workout over quite difficult terrain.
A small, easy, swim in the evening, followed by a game of badminton, rounded the week off.

So, a frustratingly fragmented week where the winner was most definitely the weather. However, by altering my training I was able to get something back, snatching a minor victory from the jaws of defeat, whilst aiming for a higher goal... Aristotle & Gandhi would both nod their heads in agreement.

Weekly totals:

Run miles: 54.54
Swim lengths/metres: 95/2375m
Sit-ups: 512
Press-ups: 256