Birthday Blah

OK, so I haven't exactly been posting like a maniac since my marathon update, but at the same time it hasn't been two years since June. At least I hope not, or I am now moving into a new mental arena that I should perhaps investigate more thoroughly.

But regardless, today I'm posting because it's my birthday. I'm actually in a very good mood today even though I have three good reasons not to be...

1. I live in the tropics, but for some reason it is pissing down with rain, which happens every year at this time. Not just drizzling or raining heavily, but pissing down. The kind of pissing down that makes you stop in the street, half chewed chocolate bar in your mouth, wondering who just threw that bucket of water at you. I see people run when it rains like this, and I wonder why. I mean, it's not cold and you're already as wet as you can be so what's the point in running? And don't even get me started on the Thai populations belief that a 7-11 carrier bag on the head is likely to keep one dry during a monsoon. 

2. It's Monday. Birthdays on a Monday are shit. For starters you will probably have to work, or at least attend a lecture or course of some kind. But this is not the worst part. The worst part is that if you're lucky you've been spoiled by three previous years of weekend birthdays. Three years when you can completely cut loose on your birthday without fear that you just might have to vomit into a drawer at your desk, or wonder whether colleagues/clients/students can smell the poisonous and slightly toxic blend of fumes drifting from your every pore. Three years without worrying that the fart that is about to eek out of you, despite the tightest of clenchings, will immediately announce itself as something akin to Agent Orange that creates in the people around you various faces of horror, disgust, and in cases unconsciousness. It's quite depressing that this year you have either already celebrated, or will have to wait a few days to celebrate. Unless the above mentioned scenarios carry no fear for you, which quite frankly probably means you should be out i the general populous.

3. I am now 39.

I'm only around halfway through my first day of being 39 and already seven people have used the "oooh, it's the big one next year". Seven people, three of whom I have never actually met face to face before, have already written off this coming year of my life as some period of time that I simply have to get through in order to reach forty. Not one of these people asked my age, they simply jumped straight in there as though they have the psychic ability to sniff out that in 365 days I will be another year older. And why have they done this, aside from the fact that they are lacking in basic social skills? Because of Skype, that's why.

Now, I'm a man who knows how to use a computer in the modern world. I have a Facebook account that has privacy setting tweaked to my satisfaction, I Tweet through my days on a relatively regular basis without fear of attack. I'm even tinkering with Google+. But I lowered my guard to a little bit of software that generally does nothing but pass on my titbits of conversation to friends and co-workers. Software that does very little besides pass messages backwards and forwards. Perhaps this is why it is so malicious? Small software syndrome. Regardless, today anyone who has me as a contact on Skype received the following message :

"Mik Jennings turns 39 today"

Why? What's wrong with Facebook's "Mik Jennings has a birthday today"? Why the need to gleefully inform people of my age? It's not that I'm really concerned about being 39. Quite frankly most of my friends, and probably more than one of my close family relatives will tell you that I still behave like a man who has yet to leave his teens (which ,while not always said in such a way, I always receive as a complement). It just seems so rude to just throw it out there. It has irked me. And I just wanted you to know.

Marathon-tastic!!

So it's two years since my last post. In fact, it's a little more but I'll try to skim over as though nothing has happened. I've decided the best way to do this is to basically ignore the last two years worth of information and start again. My simple reasoning is that if it's another 23 years before I post then it will seem to slide seamlessly from one even to the next. Just presume that everything is the same.

OK, so one event at a time. It's now 1 week to the day that I completed the Phuket marathon and having just removed another (my third) toe nail I figured I'd share some of the pain with you. Anyone who knows me but hasn't seen me for a while will probably be quite stunned that I've done this because quite frankly I hate exercise, particularly running. I've wasted hundreds of pounds at gyms and started programs countless times and got nowhere. So what's changed?

Well, about a year and a half ago I noticed that I was starting to expand due to the fact that most of my time was spent at a desk. Justifying my decision as a money saver (i.e. I didn't have to join a gym) I downloaded a "couch to 5km" program and off I went. This went relatively smoothly aside from a minor knee issue that needed a few weeks rest and then I got caught up in someone else's idea. I'd been gently moving o from 5km towards the 10km barrier sporadically for a few months when the missis, in partnership with an instructor at the shop she manages decided on signing up for the Phuket marathon. Not wanting to appear feeble I decided that I'd be up for it too, afterall I was doing 8 or 9 km each run and it's only 5 times that, right?

The Training

So the training started with 4 runs a week of varying distances and I hated it. Really hated it. Plus I was doing lots of diving at the time so I was missing large lumps of training and really starting to feel that there was no way I was going to get the trining done. In fact, 10 weeks before the race I was convinced I would not get the required training done and had all but decided to drop out. But things were about to improve.

We changed training plans about 9 weeks out and I managed to stick religiously to it all the way to race day. Basically it was the following...

Monday - Relax
Tuesday - Run short but fast intervals with short recovery periods in between. The intervals got progressively longer as training went along.
Wednesday - Strength session. These involved focussing only on muscles used for running and in my opinion helped enormously!!
Thursday - high tempo run. Running beyond expected race pace but not at the high interval pace. Again, these sessions got longer.
Friday - Strength session
Saturday - Rest and stretching.
Sunday - Long run. anything up to 3 hours, which involved a lot of getting up at stupid o'clock in the morning

The above combined with a strict self imposed stretching regime got me to the start line feeling remarkably confident of a finish.

Race Day

A 3am wake up in our fancy dan hotel room at Laguna Beach Resort was very upsetting, but when the race starts at 4:30 there really is no option. Preparation was key and so 4 toes that had been troublesome in training were taped up. Water packs filled with 2 litres of water and 6 gel packs in the pockets. Several spoonfuls of peanut butter and honey were eaten. And the the things that nobody tells you about before you embark on the training. Tape over my nipples, which was to protect them from the horribly painful chafing they'd received on several training runs. Heaps of vaseline on the inside thighs, inner arms, and gentlemens vegetables. The less said the better here, but trust me. No vaseline = lots of pain.

The race started on time and I spent the first 3 miles concentrating very hard on not getting caught up in setting off too fast. My training had taught me that if I felt comfortable in the first few miles I was more than likely actually running too fast and wouldn't make it. So the slow pace was kept. There was a good feeling on the run and as it started to get light the scenery was wonderful and other runners generally cheery. Having my own electrolyte in a back pack enabled me to miss out on the scrums at the early water stages and I felt this was a big advantage. On the half way point I was feeling good and it was around this time that I first hit the fruit and the water form the stops as they were now quieter.

13 Miles Plus

Not long after the half way point (2 hours and 23 minutes) I started to worry about the fact that I hadn't trained over 3 hours during my program. The blurb had told me not to worry about this, as had every website I'd read on the subject but my psyche disagreed. I went through a 45 minute or so patch of worry during which I felt every twinge and muscle stiffness imaginable. This was the first battle of the marathon and I was hoping, my last.

At about 18 miles I was starting to loosen up again and though I was tired I still felt pretty confident and it stayed that way until around the 21 mile marker. I was convinced at this point that the last 6 miles or so would be relatively easy as it was the home stretch. How wrong I was!! I started to really feel the pain at about 5 miles out and it just got worse and worse from there on.

The Last 5 Miles

To try to explain this small section of the race I think is virtually impossible to anyone who has not gone through it. I've talked with friends on both sides of the fence, and though I've had lots of "I can imagine" and "Oooh, it must have been hard", everyone was laid back as they said it. Anyone who had done it pulled pained faces and/or laughed at the memory of the trauma.

It's not really correct for me to describe what I went through as painful because it's not, at least not in the traditional sense of wanting to shout 'ouch' very loudly. It's just that the energy is spent, there's nothing left, it's all about winning a battle of the mind and keeping the legs moving. I ran the last 3 miles very much feeling like I was towing a fully laden Ford Transit van, and the distance from the 500m marker to finish line felt more like a mile. The feeling on crossing the line was not the elation I had been expecting for the previous month, but more a feeling of complete and utter relief that it was over.

Recovery

The week of recovery has been quite surprising. First of all, as soon as I crossed the line I stopped. Then I hugged the missis (who finished 40 minutes ahead of me). The I leaned on a fence. Then I had a small medal hung round my neck which I though was going to over balance me. At that point I was lead gingerly to the medical tent where about 7 lovely muslim ladies laid me down and covered me in ice cold towels. I stayed there for about 15 minutes and enjoyed every sencond. As I stood to leave I had a big dizzy spell so sat down for another 10 minutes. And then walked very slowly back to the hotel.

The day was very stiff and painful but after four or five hours of laying down we had a Sunday Roast and about 3 hours after that a pizza. The following morning I was as stiff as a board, particularly in the knees, and was also on the road to losing toe nails. A few things have surprised me though, and these are :

1 - I have loosened up remarkably quicky. One week on and I have only a stiff heel/achiles to worry about, and even that is only the first 5 minutes after an extended priod off my feet.

2 - I am now down 3 toe nails. It hasn't been painful, but it has been a surprise.

3 - I'm missing the training. Not the long runs, but the other stuff. Afterall, I lost about 4kg and several inches off my waistline and it seems my body likes it that way. I am already looking at the trainers and wondering

4 - I want another goal. And I really mean mean I WANT ONE!!

I honestly thought that after the run I would hang up the Adidas and drink beer and watch TV feeling satisfied. But it's not that simple. I want to exercise, and more surprisingly I want to run. It's only a matter of days away, I'm sure of it. But the most surprising thing of all? This time next year is the Bali triathlon......I may have found my goal...