More Speed, Less Haste

Anybody keeping up with this blog (that’ll be all six of my fans then) will recall from my previous posts that I was soon to run the Roding Valley Half-Marathon. As the event has now happened, I would imagine that this post would be a useful opportunity to explain how I feel the half-marathon went.

I was not sure if I would actually have the strength to start the race, let alone complete it, because I had been suffering from a cold for the last few days. It could have been more of a mild flu than a mere cold though. I had almost convinced myself it was the ebola virus. Whatever it was, it resulted in copious amounts of yellow and green fluid being expelled from my nostrils (along with a bit of red for good measure). Thankfully, I was feeling much better by this morning when I woke up at 6.45am, and I did indeed start the race. In fact, I completed it with a time of 01:47:57 which I think is fairly respectable!

The results can be found at: http://uk.katana3.com/online/event.ctrl?cmd=result&event=1227090910

- for best viewing, set the page to show all entries.
If you cannot be bothered to click on the link, or you are one of those slightly paranoid people who assume that it will direct you to pornographic websites and endless and irritating pop-up adverts (don't worry, it doesn't), then it shows my finishing time, which places me, Martin Pampel, bib number 586, in 363rd place, out of 888 runners (although the last twenty or so did not finish the race).

Weather and temperature-wise, it was rather cold leading up to the start of the race, but it warmed up a fair bit shortly afterwards. Not too warm that I was in any danger of dehydrating. As a matter of opinion, I think these were ideal marathon weather conditions. Not too cold, not too hot. Just fine.

The idea of running a half-marathon wasn’t too daunting since I have already run at least thirteen miles in training with apparent ease. In fact, last weekend I ran twenty miles, as I did the week before. It does get harder after about the 15^th mile or so, but to get to 20 miles is great progress for me, and it’s further than I had hoped to get by this point. 

My reasoning was that if I can run as many as twenty miles, then thirteen miles shouldn’t have been too difficult. It was more the fact the route of the half-marathon was hilly in parts, but I had adequately prepared for this by running up a hill in Roding Lane North during my training. It is rather a steep hill. Not hugely steep, but a challenge to run up it, certainly. Indeed, I ran up that hill three times during the course of my twenty-mile training sessions. This training undeniably paid off because I found the hilly areas of the half-marathon to be no more or less problematic than in my training, so I got through it all relatively easily.

I was perhaps a little too modest in my last post as I was nowhere close to struggling up the hills or bringing up the rear. In fact, I'm relatively pleased with myself. For once I'm not moping around or wallowing in self-pity. I think I shall now relax in front of the telly with a nice well-earned glass of Tropicana, watch a few DVDs and admire the medal I won for this morning's efforts. And then I'm going out to a quiz this evening. Having put my legs and my body through the wringer this morning, I'll soon be doing the same with my brain.

Doing It By Halves

This coming Sunday I shall be taking part in the Roding Valley Half-Marathon. It is pretty self-explanatory. You may have guessed that it’s in Roding Valley and it covers 13 miles, which by astonishing coincidence is half the distance of a marathon. The idea of my participation in this is to familiarise myself with race conditions and grow accustomed to the idea of running alongside other people. This, I feel, will stand me in good stead for the marathon to come.

It will not be the first race that I have taken part in. On Sunday 3^rd October 2010, I ran the Southend 10km (that’s about 6.2 miles, or a quarter of the London Marathon) race on the advice of my uncle Mark. I remember that day quite well. It was a cold October morn. I had been out ‘clubbing’ the night before with some people that I had met on holiday back in July and August. I was careful to leave the party quite early and limit my alcohol intake that evening, though, the sensible course of action would have been not to drink at all. I would have liked to have got more sleep that night but I had to be up early in the morning to get to Southend.

We got there nice and early. In fact, probably too early, but common sense suggests that it is better to be early than late if you’re supposed to be participating in a race.  I remember the excitement building up as more and more people came along and we made our way to the start. I was standing somewhere near the back, so when the starting pistol was fired (or maybe it was a whistle – whatever it was, I didn’t hear it! I just followed everybody in front of me) I was sandwiched between so many people. Flanked by people to the right of me. Flanked by people to the left of me. Masses of people in front of me. Masses of people behind me. It was hard to build up my speed straightaway because I was surrounded by all these people on all sides. After about half a mile, everybody spread out a bit and people started running at their own pace, and I was able to build up some speed and run at a comfortable rate. The view was quite lovely, overlooking the seafront. I wish I had had more opportunity to appreciate the view but I was wholly focused on the race and watching where I was going. Perhaps when I run the London marathon, I will at least be able to take in some of the sights as I run.

Unfortunately I got a stitch in my side so I had to slow down and walk a couple of times, but I was able to resume running after about a minute, and despite having to slow down twice, I finished the race with a very respectable time of 51 minutes and 5 seconds. That put me in 580^th place out of 1460 finishers, so I was very pleased with that performance, being my first proper race. Who would have thought it? Martin Pampel, bib number 1716, running ten kilometres in 51 minutes?

So my thoughts turn now to the upcoming half marathon in Roding Valley. It won’t be the same race. Aside from the fact that Roding Valley is more local to me than Southend, at 13 miles, it is twice the distance of the 10km race (again, roughly 6.2 miles) and while the Southend 10km was completely flat, the Roding Valley half-marathon will be on some hilly terrain, so I expect it to be a much tougher race. At the very least, running up those hills should certainly help me build up my stamina, my strength, and whatnot. It will hopefully prove to be an excellent warm-up for the London Marathon. In fact, the route of the London Marathon is largely flat. It’s just much longer overall.

So, to summarise: The Roding Valley Half-Marathon is this Sunday, 27th February at 9am. The course starts and finishes at the Ashton Playing Fields, comprising a small lap of one mile and then two larger 6-mile laps, running down Chigwell Road, up Chigwell Rise, up Buckhurst Hill (this, I fear, will be the hardest part), and back into Woodford Green again. So if you live locally, see if you can spot me. I’ll be the one bringing up the rear, struggling up that enormous hill. Spare a thought for me, undergoing this torture in the name of charity.

Much Ado About Running

As I type this, it is exactly two months until Marathon Day.

Getting slightly nerve-wracking now. All these months and months and miles and miles of training that I've done add up to a heart attack-inducing 413 miles clocked since August. However, one can train and train and train and train and train and run incredible distances in record-breaking times, but the only performance that really matters is that on the day itself, Sunday 17^th April. Hardly seems fair, does it?

As regards the marathon itself, I have not really got a specific finishing time that I'm aiming for. My mission is simply to complete the 26.2 miles. I believe this in itself is an incredible achievement, considering that I am (or rather, was) a complete beginner at running and that this is my first marathon. 

I don't have a target time, and I'm not aiming to beat Paula Radcliffe or any of the Kenyan or Ethiopian runners who look extremely malnourished but somehow seem to win it every single year. I might perhaps have bitten off more than I can chew but I'm absolutely going to give it my best shot. 

If anything, I'm doing it not only for charity but also for myself. Looking back on my life, I've done quite well academically but on the physical side of things, sports, and so on, I've always been rather lacklustre, or to put it more bluntly, completely and utterly awful. I can't play football, tennis, cricket, rugby (union or league), snooker or even darts to save my life. I was fairly good at rounders at school, but that was only because I was a left-handed batter and I would therefore always hit the ball in the opposite direction to all the other batters. For some reason, the opposing teams never seemed to cotton on to this, so I would usually score lots of easy rounders.

Anyway, I digress. Where was I? Oh yes, I was bad at sports when I was a young boy, and this makes me all the more determined to complete the London Marathon. It’s arguably one of the toughest and most gruelling sporting activities, so to me, it’s all about showing everybody exactly what I can do. It is about pushing the boundaries of physical endurance and ultimately proving my worth to the human race.

Or something like that.

Endorphins and Endorsin'

Jumping forward to the present day now. It's practically mid-February. I've been training since mid-August; that's six months so far, and the marathon is roughly two months away. I am still going from strength to strength. I feel fitter than I have done in years, and for the most part, I enjoy my training. All the cardiovascular exercise is strengthening my heart, presumably pushing all the cholesterol and fatty stuff into my brain instead. My lungs feel better and I've been coughing far less these days. Running itself simply makes me feel good. It's therapeutic. It's cathartic. I'd list some more synonyms if only my vocabulary weren't so limited. (EDIT: It's also salubrious and analeptic; thank you, thesaurus)

Running undoubtedly makes me feel positive in a psychological sense because endorphins are released by the pituitary gland, and these give a huge sense of well-being, apparently comparable to experiencing orgasm or taking morphine. A bit of a shame that my pituitary gland couldn't have released a few more growth hormones in my younger years as a few extra inches of height would have been useful, but at least it's working on the endorphin-releasing front. So even after finishing a twenty-mile run, and I'm in intense physical pain, and am stiff in all the wrong places, the "runner's high" from the endorphins mean that emotionally and psychologically I feel great.

Part of what's motivating me on these long runs and giving me a reason to feel good is knowing that I'm doing all this for charity, and knowing that I have the support of my family and friends. So far, of my target of £2000, I have managed to raise £523.01 (believe me, that extra penny makes all the difference). This means that I am a quarter of the way to achieving that target. Ideally, I would like to raise as much as possible, so if we can go beyond £2000, that would be amazing, marvellous, stupendous, colossal, tremendous, astounding, unbelievable, spectacular, phenomenal (and good, too).

If you have already sponsored me, then I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your generous donation, whatever the amount. Knowing that you are behind me is what's keeping me going. If you haven't already sponsored me, there is still plenty of time before the marathon itself (and there is even a period after the marathon in which you can choose to sponsor me, for those who doubt I have the will or fitness to go the distance).

You can visit my fundraising page here: http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/martinpampel

By the way, all this money is going to charity, and I don't get a single penny of it, so even if you believe I am the most annoying, immature, pretentious, bigoted, selfish, inconsiderate idiot ever to enter your life and are thinking "why should I give that moron my money?" don't let that prevent you from sponsoring me, because it's the charity that benefits from the money, and not me. You would be doing this for charity, not to increase my bank balance or make me look like some sort of latter-day saint.

Terrier Stricken

In my last post, I briefly mentioned my foot injuries that I sustained early on in my training, but these weren’t the only problems I faced.

In January, I was attacked by a vicious, savage beast. I say ‘savage beast.’ It was in fact a dog. I’m not sure what breed it was, as it all happened so fast and the brutal err...brute just ran at me. Also, I can't tell one type of dog from another. They all look virtually the same to me. It was a dog of some kind, I know that much. I believe it was attracted to the water bottle I was holding in my hand, as though it might be a bone or some sort of doggy toy, or something else that the archetypal dog might want. I could see the dog running towards me from a distance, but I kept on running in the direction that I was running, naively thinking that if I just ignored the dog and carried on regardless, it would ignore me back and just get on with the business of being a dog, doing those things that typical dogs do, like bury bones or urinate against a nearby tree. The dog wasn’t fooled. It kept running at me. I think it was running even faster than it was before. Having already run about five miles at this point and getting tired already, I wasn't sure I had the energy to sprint away.

I haven't the faintest idea what happened to the dog's owner. I could vaguely see a man in the distance, and if he was the dog's owner, he didn't seem to be doing much to restrain the dog.

I threw the water bottle in order to distract the dog, but to no avail. The dog still went straight for me. In the end I thought it was going to maul me to death and then feast away at my festering bloody carcass, gnawing at what remained of my tibia bones, but ultimately, all it did was scratch me on the knee as I managed to get away – and fast.

Which leads me to ask the question: Why don’t dog owners keep their dogs on leashes when in a public place? Surely, unless I'm not mistaken, there must be a rule or a bylaw that says a dog should be on a lead in public. It seems to me that every month, you hear a story in the news that some poor child (and even adult) has been brutally mauled to death by an out-of-control canine, usually a pit-bull terrier which was then “destroyed.”

How the authorities go about destroying a dog, I’m not sure. Do they dynamite it? I’m picturing the scene now. The dog police have rigged several sticks of TNT to the dog. They clear everything within a two-mile radius, and push the plunger down on the detonator. A deafening explosion is heard. BOOM! An eerie, ominous silence follows. Then, people in the street look up as small, pink bits of dog fall at them from the sky. After that, all the pieces are collected and burned in a large kiln.

And another thing I hate about dogs: fouling on grass and public pavements. It's something I’ve complained about relentlessly for years. It's bad enough that dogs crap on the grass because unlike other animal faeces which make good fertilisers, dog poo isn't even healthy for the grass. Dog shit on pavements is something else altogether. It is the bane of my existence. My bête noire. My pet peeve. I'd be pretty peeved to receive a dog as a pet. Man's best friend, my anus. If I ever went on that game show Room 101, I think dog shit would be the first thing that would be consigned to Room 101. Not only does it smell, it's dirty, it's unpleasant and it poses a number of serious health risks. Among other things, toxocariasis (never thought I'd end up using that word on a blog, but there we go) and salmonella and other bacteria. Toxocariasis is particularly nasty and it involves eggs and larvae and parasitic worms that can cause blindness. You definitely don't want that.

 

I accept that it’s not really the dog's fault – it's the irresponsibility of the owners who fail to scoop up and dispose of their pets' excrement. I can't work out if they're lazy or inconsiderate. But still, it's an issue that gets me worked up. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve accidentally trodden in dog shit as I’m running – on the bleeding pavement, I ask you! I shudder to think what the world is coming to.

So, yeah, I guess I'm not really a huge fan of dogs.

Sole and Inspiration

Marathon runners with poor footwear suffer the agony of defeat.

Defeat – de-feet, get it? 

Ooh, tough crowd.

Anyway, pathetic joke aside, there’s a serious point to be made. When going for a run, particularly a long run, your feet are hitting the ground hundreds, if not thousands of times. Running such a long distance puts a great deal of stress on the entire body, but it is your lower body, especially your feet that feel the full force of your body weight. The average runner will experience three to four times their body weight in stress load on the lower body while running. Thus, the importance of wearing appropriate footwear cannot be overemphasised.

I’ll try to explain in straightforward terms that anybody can understand, for the simple reason that even I don’t quite understand it myself. There is this movement of the foot called pronation. This is defined as “the inward roll of the foot and in particular the heel and arch which occurs naturally at the heel strike as a cushioning mechanism.” In the Queen’s English, this basically means that this is the normal movement and positioning of the foot as it hits the ground. With normal pronation, the foot rolls about 15 degrees inward as it comes in contact with the ground. This distributes the forces of impact, supporting the body weight, somewhat like a shock absorber.

However, overpronation is where the foot rolls more than 15 degrees inward as it hits the ground. The shock isn’t absorbed as well and the foot and ankle can’t stabilise the body properly. This is common in runners with low arches or flat feet, and puts a strain on the big toe and second toe as well as the heel.

Underpronation (or supination) is where the foot rolls less than 15 degrees inward as it hits the ground. It is typical in runners with high arches and this puts a strain on the smaller toes and on the legs.

The level of pronation can be controlled by wearing the right shoes that support the feet properly and have the appropriate amount of cushioning, so as I said, footwear is essential to prevent injury (or if not prevent it altogether, then minimise it certainly).

Having begun my training using a bog-standard pair of trainers, I decided to invest in more suitable footwear. In late August I went to a specialist running shop in Chadwell Heath, RM6, and purchased a nice pair of Mizuno trainers for the princely sum of £95.

 

Now, I’m no Imelda Marcos and I don’t have a large shoe collection and I certainly don’t believe in paying over the odds for footwear. Who wants to pay a fortune for a few strips of leather and plastic cobbled together (literally)? In this case I was prepared to make an exception, because if I was going to train for this marathon, I was going to do it properly. No half-measures. No cutting corners. Professional runners tend to frown on popular brands like Nike and Reebok and their ilk when it comes to running shoes, as they’re seen as more of a fashion statement rather than a serious choice of footwear. I’m not quite as snobbish myself, but I see their point. Buying a cheap pair of trainers that merely look ‘cool’ is all very well and good, but they won’t last very long and you run the risk of injuring yourself. You want running shoes that are durable and won’t leave you requiring an amputation.

I speak from bitter experience because I injured my feet in late September and it was sheer agony. First the right foot, only for my left foot to get injured once the right one had recovered. It was entirely self-inflicted because I overtrained. It was made worse by continuing to run through the pain (albeit doing shorter distances), rather than resting my feet, but for some inexplicable reason, it seemed preferable to keep on running and hope that it would automatically sort my feet out, rather than undoing all my hard work by missing several weeks of training. I never really had much common sense, as most people who know me will attest.

I paid the price for this and I’ve learned my lesson, so now I run no more than three times a week. A short run twice during the weekdays, and a nice long one during the weekend when I have more free time.

Fortunately, since then, I have avoided injury, but I am still irrationally paranoid about getting myself injured, especially as the marathon draws ever-closer. I’m more injury-prone than Ledley King and Frank Spencer put together, and that’s saying something.

A Case of the Runs

Okay, this is post number two. I wrote rather a lot in my first post, that I'm doubtful there'll be anything left to write about this time.

So where did we end last time? Oh yes, it's 14th August 2010 and I've just learned that I've been accepted for a place in the marathon by my chosen charity. Up to this point, I had been doing some running, admittedly, not often enough, and not really as part of any fitness plan. Now I realised that it was time to step up my game. It was fair to say that I was an absolute beginner, if not in running, then certainly long-distance running, and definitely marathon running.

I did some research by looking at training plans on the Internet. That was rather complicated as there are so many different training plans, and I did not have the faintest idea which one was right for me. There are literally hundreds to choose from. I'm not misusing the word 'literally' like all the kids do these days (e.g.: "I, like, literally died of embarrassment, I literally jumped out of my skin, I'm literally crapping myself," etc, etc, etc), there literally were so many out there to pick. I just wanted to be told what day to run and how far to run and how long for. Eventually I found a programme that I thought was right for me. I can honestly say that training plans are extremely helpful because they help you progress at a steady and controlled rate. I don't always stick to what the training plan says though. Sometimes if it says "run ten miles," I try to do eleven. Maybe it's because I'm a perfectionist or maybe it's because I'm too bloody stubborn to do what I'm told. Also, in my defence, most training plans are usually only about 12 to 16 weeks long because runners tend to begin their training after Christmas or at the beginning of January. I started my training in August. I was a complete novice after all, and quite frankly, with eight months to go until the marathon, I needed all the training I could get.

I also kept a log of my running, making a note of how far I had run each time.
Looking at the log now, attempting to decypher the illegible scrawls on the paper, the first time I trained "properly," I apparently ran for exactly one mile on Saturday 14th August. When I first started out, I could barely run for more than three minutes without having to slow down or stop for breath. As the months went on, I was able to run for longer durations and cover longer distances as my stamina steadily improved. By the end of September, I was able to run for over half an hour without needing to stop. By December, I was able to run for an hour and a half continuously, which just goes to show that if you work hard at something and keep working at it, you will eventually make progress and get results. So many people take part in exercise, whether to get fit or lose weight, and expect instant results and gratification, little realising that it takes time before you see any signs of improvement, and as a result, they give up at the first hurdle.

At the time of writing this, the furthest I have managed to run in a single training session is 18 miles (16 of them continuously; I had to slow down and walk a couple of times over the last two miles). I think I've come a long way since August. I don't mean to blow my own trumpet, trombone or any other brass instrument, but I definitely think I've done exceptionally well to get this far. I am not going to rest on my laurels just yet as there is still room for improvement.

The Wordiness of the Long-Distance Runner

Hello and welcome to my marathon-related blog. This is my first of hopefully many posts highlighting my progress in the run-up to the marathon, plus plenty of witty observations, meaningless digression and pithy comments, interminable, acerbic carping and cloying, mawkish drivel.


I'm Martin Pampel, 27 years young, living in Essex, or 'London' when too sheepish to admit coming from Essex, and I am running the Flora Gilette Mars (hold on, who's sponsoring it now?) Virgin London Marathon on Sunday 17th April 2011.
I am hoping to raise as much money as possible for the Royal National Institute for the Deaf, henceforth referred to as the RNID (Look, I'm going to be running 26.2 miles, I can't afford to waste all my limited energy typing in each letter of the charity's name).
The RNID (Okay, fine, the Royal National Institute for the Deaf) is a truly fantastic charity. It is the largest charity in the United Kingdom that deals with hearing loss. They are committed to providing a range of services and information for people who are deaf or hard of hearing. The many things they do include developing technology, carrying out research into deafness and campaigning for change in order to bring about a better future for Britain's deaf. 1 in 7 people in Britain are either deaf or hard of hearing. If my 'B' in GCSE Mathematics hasn't failed me, that is approximately nine million people. Rather a lot. As our population increases in age, so too, will the number of people experiencing problems with their hearing, whether due to the onset of old age, illness, prolonged exposure to loud music/noise, or some other unspecified personal reason (misuse of cotton buds perhaps?)


I have my own reasons for supporting the RNID. I was born with a hearing loss (a bilateral, profound, congential, sensorineural hearing loss if you want to get specific). I was able to get by in my formative years. It wasn't easy at all, but I managed, with special thanks to my parents, family and teachers over the years. Then when I was 17, I suddenly lost the rest of my hearing. Gone. Vanished. Just like that. During this immensely difficult and stressful time when I was at my lowest ebb (quick, get the violins out), the RNID were able to offer me some support. For this, I am eternally grateful and so it is my fervent wish to be able to repay them for their help. Not only that, though. I want to help them to help other people around the country who are afflicted with various hearing problems. OK, it's not exactly cancer, and you can't die of deafness, but it can be a terrible burden to those who suffer from it. Take it from me. Through all that I've endured though, I think I've been quite lucky and there are plenty of other deaf people out there who have been less fortunate than me, so I hope that by running 26.2 miles, I will somehow be able to make a world of difference to these people's lives.




To be honest, it never occured to me to start writing a blog about my marathon training and progress, but I was reliably informed that it would be a useful tool for promoting my cause and could possibly be conducive to getting more sponsorship. Or perhaps not, but at the very least, it might give all six people reading this page something to laugh about.


So you're probably all asking: "You couldn't possibly run a marathon if your life depended on it. Whatever possessed you to decide to run a marathon?"
The reasons are many. I was a bit bored with my life, this torpid, meandering, pitiful existence. I felt it wasn't really going anywhere, completely lacking in momentum. The only thing I seemed to live for was my job, enjoyable as it is, and so I felt it was time for a change. I needed a new challenge and something else to focus on. I must have been going through a mid-life crisis or something (yes, at the tender age of 26).
I said to myself: "Right, I'm going to do something good with my life. I'm going to do something charitable and make a contribution to the lives of others. I'm going to do the decent thing for once."
Around this time, the 2010 London Marathon took place. I travelled into London to watch my uncle and cousin run the marathon and cheer them on. This was the first time that I had seen the event with my own eyes, instead of on the telly, and it genuinely inspired me. I suppose it is like watching Spurs play football. On TV, it can be the most boring, mind-numbing tedium ever, but when you're in the stadium, seeing it all happen live, you get caught up in the atmosphere. You're no longer squirming at the pathetic Keystone Cops-esque defending; you're watching an exhilarating display of world class football by some of the most seasoned and talented players ever to grace the beautiful game.

From my vantage point outside the HSBC Tower in Canary Wharf, roughly at the 18-mile point of the race, I was able to see a veritable plethora of runners passing by. There were serious runners, there were fun runners, there were old runners, young funners, fit runners, fat runners, the whole gamut. Seeing people older and clearly less fit than me being able to do all this running made me think that I could probably do that too, given the right amount of training and effort.


So I applied for the next year's marathon (next year now being this calendar year, just to clarify). I filled in the application form half-jokingly, not expecting to get accepted. So, a few months down the line, lo and behold, I receive an email telling me that I have been accepted by my chosen charity. Mixed feelings here. At first, I'm excited. My heart skips a beat. Then shocked. My jaw drops to the floor and my eyes burst out of their sockets as if this were a Tex Avery cartoon. Then I become nervous. Then uncertain. Then worried. Then fearful. Then apprehensive. I may have bitten off more than I can chew. "What an incredible opportunity," I think to myself. "Don't bugger this up."

Thus begins my training, which I'll discuss in excruciatingly unnecessary detail next time (much as I have done with this post so far actually).


To cut a long story short, thanks for reading and following my progress from sedentary slob to marathon man.