Easy Like Sunday Morning

An easy Sunday is all about the lie in, late breakfast, reading the paper or watching TV, maybe recovering from Saturday night. I’ve discovered the easy bit about a marathon runner’s Sunday morning is the pace as you head out to crank out double figure mileage. It's all about time on your feet rather than how long it takes you to get there.

This morning saw a fifteen miler, my longest run since I began the London training. From here on, as the distances continue to increase, I’ll be entering unfamiliar ground as I’ve never run more than fifteen miles in one go before.

Today’s route was one which I’ve done before, and rather like. Beginning in Bushy Park, we left at Hampton Court, following the river all the way to Richmond, then back to Twickenham on the other side of the Thames, before my least favourite part, roads through Twickenham back home.

With the musical posts on this blog in mind, it’s worth telling those who don’t know, that this run passes Eel Pie Island. The Eel Pie Hotel played host to a jazz club in the 1950s, the likes of Acker Bilk and Chris Barber among those to appear. Like numerous other venues, not least
the legendary 100 Club, the Eel Pie Hotel’s musical policy moved with the times, ditching jazz in favour of rock. The Stones, The Who and The Yardbirds just some of the household names to have played there during the mid 60s.

The venue was frequented by art school types and those associated with that scene. Ronnie Wood later join the Stones having been a regular at Eel Pie, and members of the Faces would also meet here. Rod Stewart opting for a career as a rock megastar over the possibility presented to him as an apprentice at Brentford FC,, what was he thinking?

The Eel Pie Hotel closed in 1967 when the owner couldn’t meet a £200,000 repair bill the police insisted was essential. It reopened for a short time in 1969 as Colonel Barefoot’s Rock Garden (what a wonderful name that is by the way), with Black Sabbath a notable booking. It was demolished after a fire in 1971.

Teddington lock, upstream of Eel Pie Island, is the largest on the Thames. It’s also the first, or last, depending on which direction you’re travelling in, since downstream of Teddington the Thames is tidal. According to
a website set up by one of the lock keepers, were a person to run up and down the main (barge) lock 115 times, they’d have run a marathon – maybe I’ll do that instead – or maybe not.

The lock is also the location for the filming of
Monty Python’s fish slapping dance, where Michael Palin ends up in the drink after John Cleese wacks him with a fish.

In addition to the
previously advertised cricket discussion, this morning was a chance to pick the brains of Andrew, one of the Stragglers more experienced marathon runners.

The one issue I’ve still not given much thought to, which may come as a surprise to some, is food. Or to be more accurate, energy and hydration: no burger or beer on the day until after the race is run sadly. This thought reminds me of a time I often recall, when doing a 400 metre race at Alexander Stadium in Birmingham once; I could have done without the smell of onions coming from the burger van positioned right by the finish line as I came down the home straight, not what the nose needed. Naturally it was soon forgiven and a visit was duly paid.

Having used sports drinks when a sprinter, since I’ve been doing the longer stuff I’ve become a strictly water only man. The wisdom from those who know more about this than me seems to suggest I’ll need more than that, so I’m going to use the Sunday runs to experiment with gels – I’m not entirely sure what they are either. This is the time for trying new things, it’s much better to vomit into the Thames when no one’s looking than at 20 miles of the London Marathon.

Breakfast is the other thing I struggle with. My morning runs are always done on yesterday’s dinner, but that ain’t going to do on the big day. All runners have their own cut off for when is the last point before training to eat, for me its three hours. At some stage I’m just going to have to bite the bullet and get myself out of bed early on a Sunday. Not sure how nutricious bullets are though, I might just be boring and have toast instead.

As well as the fifteen I did this morning, I ran ten on Thursday night. Added to the interval session on Tuesday which included four 1K reps – not flat out but still a test and the first time I’d done four instead of three, which went with 2K worth of warm up and warm down, this week has been close to thirty miles.

For one reason or another I didn’t get a bike session in this week, or a Saturday run, but both are planned for next week, which should see the tally start to increase.