Larry’s 20,000 miles
By Larry Poole.
***SCROLL DOWN TO THE BOTTOM FOR THE LATEST UPDATES***
Most of you will know that when it comes to maintaining a log of my runs, I have been something of an anorak about it. In fact, my wife thinks it’s worse than that and is considering having me sectioned!
My computerised records started on 1 January 1988, though
of course I had been running for many years before that. I am
now the proud owner of a full electronic record of every
training run and race I have done since then, though it has
moved across a variety of platforms in that time, including
an early CPM database, a Lotus 123 spreadsheet, a Palm
handheld sports database, Open Office spreadsheet and now
Microsoft Excel.
In that time I have clocked up just over 19000 miles, and the graph showing my annual totals is shown below.
You will see that 2010 has been a completely lousy year, the lowest total since 1994, due to a knee injury.
I would like to reach 20,000 recorded miles during the ERR 25th anniversary year, 2011. On the form of the last few years, it should have been fairly easy, but given the 2010 outcome, it is going to be a bit more of a challenge.
On 1 January 2011, I needed 978 miles, but I still suffer to some extent from the bad knee so I have to treat it gently. I have drawn up a training schedule which builds up to 20 miles per week, and allows for reduced mileage during distracting activities like holidays, etc.
I am building back up to 4 runs per week, ranging from 3 to 7 miles a time. If anyone has regular times for doing their training and would be prepared to drag me round with them, please get in touch, either by email or phone, 01865 375130.
Thanks, in anticipation of your enthusiastic support!
----------- UPDATE ------------
22 March 2011
After a good start in January, when I ended ahead of target, February was well below par (51 miles) and March a disaster, with only 25 miles, against a monthly target of 80. At the time of writing this update in early April, I have not been on the road for over three weeks. To a running junkie like me, it is very frustrating.
The problem started with a cold which turned into a chest infection that then apparently triggered a major asthma session. Although I have suffered minor asthmatic annoyance for about five years now, I have never previously experienced the real thing, and it was quite alarming. At one stage I couldn’t even walk up two flights of stairs at home without having to sit down and administer a couple of puffs on the Ventolin. I’m “under the doctor” at the moment, taking so many steroid and antibiotic pills that I rattle.
Anyway, the graph is there for you to see, and I have had to do some number-crunching to recalculate the possibility of reaching 20,000 miles by the end of this year. I’ll need to average 23 miles a week from now on, and with the inevitable misses due to holidays, travel, injury etc, that means upping my weekly target to 25 - still do-able, but not easy from a standing start.
I’ll bring you more news in early May.
----------- UPDATE ------------
2 May 2011
At last, the injuries and asthma bout of February and March began to fade and I was able to start running again in early April. While Spring was springing and the flowers were blooming in Britain, the weather was freezing and snow still falling in Canada. Within 4 days of starting to run again, I had to trade in the warm English Spring for the dull, brown, frozen wastes of Toronto and Quebec. In spite of the unfavourable weather, I managed to get out in the cold and windy streets and re-introduce two or three runs a week into my regime during our fortnight’s stay out there.
As you’ll see from the revised graph, the line has now started to turn upwards again as I chase the target, although I am still 66 miles behind where I ought to be at the end of April.
As the weather improves, so should my morale and general enthusiasm for running and I hope to catch up on those elusive miles before the end of the year.
My thanks to Julie, Kate and Denise who have all encouraged me to get out running with them. This has really helped me to push the mileage along a bit. Here’s hoping I will see you all at the club on a regular basis from now on.
----------- UPDATE ------------
1 June 2011
A while ago, Denise B remarked in jest that I must be ‘solar powered’ on account of my predilection for running in hotter weather. Well the warmer weather in May (including a couple of runs in Marrakech) has certainly brought results and the old legs are going again! I’ve had a good month, injury free, and showing a steady improvement in both distance and speed. My average run length has increased to 5.5 miles from just under 5 last month, and my average pace has now come down substantially to around 8mins 15secs per mile. My maximum distance has extended to 8 miles, and I am aiming to exceed 10 miles by the end of June. I also competed in my first race this year, the Charndon 5K.
The graph has been updated and it shows I am now 51 miles behind my target compared to 66 last month. The two lines are starting to converge and I am beginning to feel more confident again about reaching the magic 20,000 before the end of 2011.
My thanks to Kate and Denise once again for encouraging me to get out with them early on Friday mornings!
----------- UPDATE ------------
4 July 2011
So it’s the half way point of 2011, and thus a significant moment to review what I have achieved so far, and what remains to be done. The first chart, in the usual format, shows that I did a good deal of catching up in May and June, but I remain behind target, with a bit of a lapse at the very end of the month.
What doesn't show in the graph is that I have hardened up my target to try to achieve the 20,000 miles by the end of November, rather than risk scraping in at the end of December. I have revised the profile of weekly targets, to reflect the fact that I normally run more miles in summer, and the enthusiasm wanes somewhat as the colder weather returns. The next chart shows weekly achievements against targets. The reason that some weeks have lower targets than others is when I know there will be restrictions on my time (holidays, travel, etc). The black vertical line shows when I should reach the magic number.
After some eight weeks of consistently doing better than my weekly target, I was disappointed to suffer a recurrence of a painful backache in the last week of June. This has probably been caused by making homespun adjustments to my orthotic arrangements. Even small changes to a runner’s gait can produced unintended side effects, especially when trying to manage an existing injury or pain.
Anyway, the raw statistics for the end of June are as follows:
| Achieved so far in 2011 | 448 |
| Miles to go | 530 |
| Behind target for the year | 33 |
| Average MPW needed for year end | 20.4 |
| Average MPW needed for end November | 24.1 |
I believe it’s still do-able, but I’ll have to nurse my various injuries carefully to ensure I don’t have to stop running altogether, even for a short period.
----------- UPDATE ------------
1 August 2011
19,500 up – another milestone en route! This month, my statistics look further ahead and the target line is in now sight, graphically.
The injury problems from the end of June went on rather depressingly a further two weeks into July, but I spent a few quid on repair work at the Manor Hospital and it seems to have been successful. For the first time ever, I underwent a session of acupuncture (not the oriental convention) and it has been a magic bullet. What seemed to have been a backache was found by the physio to be a tightly knotted bit of muscle in my gluteus maximus (bum!) which transmitted pain to other areas not in the immediate vicinity of the origin of the pain. If you want to know more about the subject of trigger points which create referred pain, talk to Denise Bridges who has a wonderful book about it.
Anyway, enough technical talk – I’m back to regular pain-free running, 46 miles behind a target paced to the end of November at 25 miles a week. If I can remain injury-free now, (and that is a big ‘if’), I could be completing 20,000 miles in the course of the ERR’s 10K race on 27 November. Failing that, I have a month in hand to make it before the end of the Roadrunners’ 25th year comes to an end.
----------- UPDATE ------------
9 September 2011
By the time you read this, I will have less than 300 miles to go to that 20K target. The graph for the last month shows the results line continuing to close on the target track. I have now enjoyed six solid weeks of doing better than target. There are times when I feel I could do a lot more miles, but I don’t want to push things too far.
I am aiming to stick to more than 25 and less than 30 per week. This seems to be safest for avoiding further injury to the ageing legs. Everything in moderation!
September has started well with a couple of very hilly runs from the Pilgrim Hotel while on the ERR Cycling Holiday (holiday??????????), and as I write this, I have 301 miles left. With 6 planned for tomorrow, and the Witney 10 mile race on Sunday, I will soon be well inside that.
----------- UPDATE ------------
4 October 2011
Well – as Summer turned to Autumn, and then back to Summer again, my progress towards the magic number has benefitted from this spell of fantastic weather. I’ve now had nine weeks in a row of hitting or exceeding the target mileage. Although the graph shows I am well short in the final week of September, this was just a slippage of one day’s running into the following week. With the Henley Half Marathon imminent, I will account for more than half next week’s total in one day and should be comfortably back on track.
At the time of this update (2 October) I have just 211 miles to go and I still hope to complete this during the ERR Annual 10K race on 27 November.
Ben has kindly arranged for a ‘miles to go’ update on the home page of the ERR website. This will be more–or-less live as I complete each training run or race.
----------- UPDATE ------------
30 October 2011
What a mixed month! At the start of October, I was confidently predicting that I was on track to complete the magic total at the club’s 10K race at the end of November, but after a serious collapse of my left knee at the end of the Henley Half Marathon, it’s now looking very marginal that I will achieve it by the end of the year.
I thought I had trained enough for the 13.1 miles, having done up to 11.6 in training, and run two tough 10 milers on successive weekends (Witney Cotswold Classic and the Medmenham hilly cross country event) in quite respectable times. I was up for 11 weeks in a row of achieving the required 25 miles per week when the injury stopped me in my tracks. The weekly chart shows zero mileage in the following week, 5 in the next and 10 in the last week in October. I am now having to run very slowly and carefully, avoiding hills and rough ground.
The maths for these numbers require me to do 18.3 miles a week to hit the target in the very last week of the year. I am currently running 3.5 miles per run, so even if I ran this distance 5 times week, I wouldn’t quite make it! I don’t think that is a do-able strategy, so I’m going to have to up the distance to nearer 5 miles and aim to do this 4 times a week. This would allow me at least one day of rest between every pair of runs, so hopefully avoid aggravating the injury. Here are the same statistics in weekly form of achievement versus target.
Meanwhile, I am enjoying the professional attention of Pete Quartly who is regularly ‘cooking’ the tendons around the knee with ultra-sound, and Denise Bridges who is practicing her newly-acquired skills as a Sports Therapist by massaging my over-tense quads. Denise has succeeded in changing my view of sports massage, as she gives a running commentary of what each stroke is seeking to achieve, and explain which particular muscle she is targeting. As a beginner, she actively seeks feedback on the effect each move is having, and I have to keep my brain active the entire session to monitor the pain level to help Denise exert the right amount of pressure. The person who is also getting benefit from this arrangement is husband Graham who is no longer the sole target of her practice pummelling! Thanks for using me as a guinea pig, Denise. If anyone else would like to help her in this crucial phase of her professional development, Denise needs 90 hours of work on volunteers, so please talk to her about whether you can join in too!
So – 164 miles to go, with 9 weeks left in 2011. Wish me luck!
----------- UPDATE ------------
November – and cooler weather at last
Under normal circumstances, I don’t do rain or cold and damp. Graham usually refers to this practice as my hibernation period, as I shut down the mileage very considerably in the winter months. The dreaded 20,000 target however, is requiring me to review this thinking. I need to run whenever I have the time and the health of my knees allows. This has meant wrapping up warm and/or waterproof on occasions and trying not to be too much of a wimp about it. It doesn’t come naturally. In the event, the weather has been relatively kind to us and I haven’t had to live dangerously many times so far.
As I write this, I have 90 miles left to complete and almost six weeks to do it. This is a more relaxed average weekly mileage than at any time so far – about 16. You’ll see from the graph below that I’ve built back up again to the necessary levels, though my knees are still proving unreliable – good on most days but very painful on others. There doesn’t seem to be rhyme or reason for the variation.
As in October, Pete Quartly of PhysioLab and Denise Bridges (of Mainly Cake) continue to work away at my quads, and seem to be stabilising the situation for the most part. To avoid Denise becoming bored with kneading my thighs, I would urge anyone else who has an injury problem to talk to her about the benefits of sports massage. She is still less than halfway to her compulsory target of 90 hours voluntary therapy, and would appreciate a few more cases to get to grips with.
Having missed the opportunity of our own 10K race to mark the passing of this target, I am now planning on an end of year club run, doing a slow jog together, and teetering over the line adjacent to something alcoholic. We have 16 members taking part so far, and I’d be only too pleased to be providing booze for more.
The press have started to take an interest. There is a report in the free paper the Oxfordshire Guardian (no – I’d never heard of them either....). The link is http://www.oxfordshireguardian.co.uk/2011/11/eynsham-athlete-closes-on-2000-mile-landmark but what a pity they couldn’t get the headline number right. I’m sure are final run will get the paparazzi out in force as we cross the line together.
I’m really looking forward to it, then I can really go into hibernation.
----------- UPDATE ------------
23 December 2011
25 MILES TO GO!
It may not seem much at this stage – less than a marathon, I keep telling myself. And still 8 days to do it in.
The challenge is that I’m falling apart. I don’t relish winter running at the best of times, and desperately try to avoid wet, and particularly cold and wet. (“What a wimp” says June, looking over my shoulder as I type this, but a feature of being a 65 year-old, nine-and-half stone weakling is that I don’t have much natural insulation!). The main problem is that the tendons around my knees are hardening up as a result of my quads being too tight for too long. Coupled with fighting a cold, I’m really struggling at the moment.
However, it’s just got to be done so I need to go out there and plod around those last few miles.
I really am grateful to the large number of club members who are giving encouragement and practical support. My special thanks to Denise who has been working on my quads for about 6 weeks now as part of her training regime for her Sports Therapist qualification.
I just can’t wait to get to 31 December and get it over with. I hope to see as many of you as possible there at the Pavilion at 11.30. There will be something to celebrate with afterwards...
----------- UPDATE ------------
THE FINAL MILE!
Well, it’s over at last. On a surprisingly mild 31st December, over 50 runners, and five young cyclists met at the pavilion to run with me for the remaining 4.2 miles. It was a truly heart-warming moment to realise just how much support the Roadrunners provide. We had a comfortable run out through Fishponds and around Chilbridge, stopping a couple of times to allow the back runners to catch up with the group. The phalanx of photographers lined up at the finish had been briefed to catch us as we came round the corner of the field as a mass of blue in our Eynsham vests, BUT.... in the last half mile someone decided that we should run through the village, so we came straight down Acre End Street and sneaked back to the pavilion by the back route. So no big photo finish then!
Fortunately, Joan Stonham from Eynsham Online had had the prescience to photograph all of us before we left, so we captured the real ERR nature of the occasion anyway, resplendent in club colours. She has a lot of other lovely individual photos on the Eynsham Parish Council website. Do take a look.
Now that I’ve completed this challenge, I have found time to reflect on it. It didn’t start as a running venture, but as a computer project in 1987, to try to learn something about how a database worked. In the ensuing 23 years, the technical nature of record-keeping has always been just as interesting to me as the running itself, ever trying to find smarter ways of developing user interest from the records, by better presentation, more accurate measuring and easier data entry. The records are a hotchpotch of variable quality data, recorded in several different formats, constant only in a few aspects - when I ran, and how far. This measurement has always been important to me. In the early days, an OS map and the edge of a piece of paper, then a carefully calibrated pedometer, next ‘Map-My-Run’, and finally, (Nirvana!), the GPS watch. It was not until I did my first grand totalling at the start of 2011 that I realised there was a potential magic number ahead, and it became first and foremost a year-long running project. For the first time, the data I entered had to depend on what I was actually achieving on the roads and footpaths.
As the graph above shows, 2011 has been a roller coaster of a journey. In theory, I just had to do 20 miles a week, every week. However, we all have good weeks and bad weeks, and when holidays, injuries and illnesses take you out of the production line for a week or two, it adds significantly to the required future production rate. I was knocked back in early March by a surprise acute asthma attack, and by April I was 78 miles behind target. I raised the weekly mileage to 30 and was recovering the backlog comfortably when I resurrected an old injury to my right knee in June. The deficit slipped back to 68 miles, so I adopted a strategy of creeping up quietly on the target, trying to keep up about 25 miles a week without telling the knees. This was really going well until in mid July, my running style, adapted to protect the right knee, started causing aches and pains in other parts – back, hips, left knee...... I felt I was falling apart!
Then the serious medical treatments had to begin. For the last half of the year, I have been increasingly into physio treatment, acupuncture and sports massage, and relying heavily on ibuprofen, ventolin, support stockings and various foot remedies.
Don’t knock it – the sellotape and string system has held me together, as well a huge amount of interest and encouragement from fellow Eynsham Roadrunners, for which I thank you all, especially Denise Bridges, who seems to have been more determined to get me to the target than I was.
So what next? I certainly don’t want to stop running. It’s an activity I really love, and the friendship and socialising we do in ERR makes it even more enjoyable. I will ease back for a while, to try to rest the tendons around my knees, but I hope to feature in the Club Championships again in 2012, (look out, Paul). It’s a fact of old age that it takes a lot longer to recover fitness, so I don’t want to take a long break, but just keep things ticking over, otherwise it could be a much harder battle to get back into it. I look forward to our regular Wednesday evening running, followed by the rehydration exercises in the pub.
Larry Poole.
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