* An ultra-marathon is any race longer than a marathon, typically anything from 35 to 100 miles in a single go.
† Anaerobic exercise is the type where you get out of breath very quickly, like sprinting. Aerobic exercise still raises the heart rate, but you can continue doing it for much longer.
‡ There are four recognised training, or heart rate zones. You can estimate your maximum heart rate by subtracting your age from 220. Then, wearing a heart-rate monitor, you can know which training zone you’re working in:
Zone 1: 65–75% of maximum heart rate. Low-end aerobic training. A gentle jog.
Zone 2: 75–85% of maximum heart rate. Higher-end aerobic training. You’d find it hard to have a chat whilst working in this zone.
Zone 3: 85–90% of maximum heart rate. This is the zone in which you’d probably run a 5k or 10k race, though advanced runners will spend a whole marathon here.
Zone 4: 90–95% of maximum heart rate. Anaerobic training. Flat out sprinting.
§ Frank Horwill MBE (1927–2012) was most famous for founding the British Milers’ Club (BMC) with the aim of ‘raising British middle distance running to world supremacy’. Before long, British runners held every single male middle-distance world record.
11
Iron Maiden, Running Free
‘Outlaw’ Ironman Triathlon, Mile 11
There’s no getting away from the pain, and I’m genuinely trying everything. I attempt to let my mind wander, and look at the calm waters of the River Trent all peaceful and inviting. But then I remember I’ve already swum plenty today, 2.4 miles to be exact, so that’s not working for me. I start again, practically forcing myself to daydream to take my mind off things.
Just then, as I pass Forest’s City Ground, I spy Notts County’s stadium across the water and try to remember its name. The answer would usually come automatically, as it would for every club in the English and Scottish Leagues. I’m a little sad like that. But today my mind, like my legs, is sluggish. Eventually the synapses spark and I get there, Meadow Lane. I struggle to remember if I’ve ever been. I rack my brains, it does look familiar...
My subsequent attempt to while away a painful minute or two sees me making a mental count of every football ground I’ve ever been to. Turns out 60 is the magic number. But every time I remember Wembley, the Euro96 theme tune ‘It’s Coming Home’ pops into my head. I can’t seem to get rid of it or think about anything else. It’s coming home, it’s coming home, it’s coming. Football’s coming home...
And then it occurs to me, this would all be so much easier if we were allowed to listen to music whilst running. You can’t have failed to notice by now that each chapter begins with a running themed song, because music has been very important to me whilst running. Not always, mind you, but more often than not. And on a hard run like a marathon, it can be vital.
However, back in the transition tent, back when I was realising to my horror that my superfood cake had disappeared on me, I also discovered that this particular marathon would have to be music-free. And not because I’d forgotten to bring my iPod – miraculously, that had made the trip north with me. But as I clipped it onto my shorts and began plugging in my earphones, my sandwich-munching mate, through a mouthful of tuna mayo, warned me that I risked being disqualified if I was caught running with headphones. No warning, no second chances apparently, just instant disqualification. Which having come this far would represent something of a pity. Note to self: read the briefing notes in future. I was on a yellow card anyway for forgetting to put on a helmet before touching the bike in first transition, so decided not to risk it.
But I’ll tell you what, with 16 relentless miles still in front of me and a faint refrain of Baddiel & Skinner & The Lightning Seeds on permanent repeat inside my head, some music to lose myself in right now would be nothing short of bliss.
A sunny Sunday afternoon, running on a towpath and looking across the river at a football ground. But this is more than a year earlier, the river is the Thames and it’s the famous white Riverside Stand of Fulham’s Craven Cottage dominating my eye-line. I’m not trying to remember the name of the ground, but who’s playing next Saturday. And as for trying to think whether I’ve ever been before, no need: my son and I have had season tickets for years. We cycle this very route together every other Saturday, always convinced we’re going to witness a win, and more often than not return the same way disappointed. Still, we always enjoy spending an afternoon together, as well as the enormous Craven Cottage hot dogs.
Unlike in Nottingham, this Sunday sees me enjoying a jog with the dog (not a slog), and I’m gaily listening to my music. One song ends and another begins, ‘Sexy and I Know It’ by LMFAO. I had no idea that was on here, must have been added by my wife. But it’s fast, it’s silly, the beat fits neatly into my stride pattern and as the lyrics kick in, I even find myself starting to smile. Perfect! I’m running fast and easy, grinning a little, generally delighted with life. The chorus kicks in. Hello, I think to myself, I know this bit.
Girl look at that body,
Girl look at that body.
I’ve got passion in my pants
And I’m not afraid to show it, show it, show it...
PAUSE...
As the song pauses for a moment, let’s do the same and leave me enjoying LMFAO on the Thames towpath. I’ve often marvelled at how a decent tune can help you bounce along more merrily. And when I’m running to a beat and relishing the fact, like I was that Sunday by the Thames, when there’s a new song on the playlist which is happy and upbeat and easy to run to, I wonder how I ever manage to cope without the iPod. It’s a small red clip-on Shuffle engraved with ‘The Best Dad in the World’, a Christmas present from my children. I love that iPod more than almost any other possession.
But sometimes I’ll be away from home having forgotten to bring it with me, or it will be out of juice, and I’ll be out running and realise how pleasant it is not to have music and lyrics crowding the eardrums. And in those moments, I’ll believe strongly that music and running shouldn’t mix, almost like I’m sullying the purity of the experience when I pound along to a playlist.
I once interviewed Steve Cram about this very subject. He never runs with music, and thinks it’s an unwelcome distraction from the real business of concentrating on form, speed, technique, breathing... from proper running basically. And listening to Steve talk, you instinctively know that he’s right. (And he’s generally quite persuasive anyway.) But lower down the athletic food chain, can music actually be a good distraction?
Andy Lane, a decent runner in his own right, is Professor of Sport and Exercise Psychology at the University of Wolverhampton. He’s researched this very subject and believes that music can help.
‘Take your typical marathon runner,’ says Andy. ‘He or she will do a long slow run, usually on a Sunday morning. If they’re doing that on their own, which most are, then quite frankly it can get a bit boring.’
I know what he means here. I tend to do my long run on a Wednesday between the breakfast show and picking up the kids from school. But I often spend the entire morning dreading the tedium. I’ll arrive at work with running shorts under my jeans and the plan is always to make a quick getaway and embark on the long run just as Ken Bruce takes over the airwaves. In reality, I spend at least half an hour replying to emails that barely need reading, send out some spurious new messages of my own, get up to date with my accounting, do some light invoicing, research possible future family holidays, and use Roger Federer’s US Open tennis ball (which I deftly caught at Flushing Meadows whilst watching him practise) as a trigger point massage. Eventually Alan Dedicoat, legendary newsreader, voice of the National Lottery and Strictly Come Dancing and with whom I share an office, will get tired of my tennis ball contortions and insist I leave for a run immediately.
And so to Regent’s Park, which is lovely but once you know it as well as I do, a little dull; thence into Primrose Hill whose hill isn’t quite high enough or stee
p enough to keep you interested; and that just leaves the canals, the seemingly endless, slightly smelly waterways stretching from Paddington past Kensal Green to Harlesden and beyond. Somewhere along the way I simply turn around and do the whole thing in reverse. Only I don’t finish at work, I continue onwards to home – and trust me, central London to Barnes, despite Hyde Park and Holland Park and however many exhaust-avoiding side streets you go down, is dull, stodgy, dreary.
Professor Lane tells me:
‘Music can help in several ways. Firstly it can be a distraction from what you’re doing. So if you’re going for, say, a two-hour run and it’s at a slow pace (so you’re not exhausting yourself and don’t have to concentrate too much on what you’re doing), then simply pick a two-hour piece of music you actually want to listen to, and put that on.
‘Don’t spend Saturday afternoon dreading the following morning’s long run. Instead of feeling sorry for yourself, download a new album – or even better, go through your iPod and put together a two-hour playlist of songs you really want to listen to. Then you’ve got something to look forward to, you’ll relish the prospect of a long run and not shudder at the thought of it.’
Good advice, but can this whole distraction thing go too far? I remember an unfortunate incident in the gym when I became so absorbed in a football match I was watching, I forgot to keep my legs turning over and almost fell off the back of the treadmill.
Prof Lane has an answer for that too:
‘You simply have to teach yourself to become skilled. People often run at the gym whilst watching sport and if something exciting happens like a goal or a penalty, they’ll frequently end up in an unseemly heap on the floor. But once you learn to run non-consciously, you can then safely focus on something else like the game.
‘And that’s actually quite a good trick to cover two hours of exercise: if you can do it without any consciousness whatsoever, your legs manage the distance and your heart gains the fitness while all your mind has done is watch a game of football. Also, if your gym has screens hanging from the ceiling, rather than as part of the running machine, then that also keeps your head up and your posture correct. Distraction, more often than not in the form of music, definitely helps.’
What about that vague feeling that music can in some way contaminate the purity of a run? A long run somewhere new and beautiful is an entirely different proposition to the canals of central London. Whenever I’m away from home, I can’t wait to get out on an early morning run. I’ll creep outside and lace up my trainers, desperate to discover where that footpath we drove past leads to, where this run will take me. And I largely prefer to go music-free, allowing my senses to take it all in.
The good professor agrees entirely, do run without music on holiday he says. Emboldened, I then tell him I assume speed sessions should be silent as well, and describe how I try to keep a Cram-like focus during interval sessions* and the like. But I’m surprised to learn I’m getting that wrong. Apparently mid-paced running can benefit from banging in some beats.
I’m chatting to Andy on a mobile phone’s loudspeaker with noises off (on my side of the line) from my rambunctious baby daughter. I sense that this is where Prof Lane really starts to get enthused by his subject matter, and his zeal even seems to infect a seven-month-old, because Mary stops what she’s doing (trying to eat the TV remote) and stares at the phone, apparently rapt.
‘I’m not talking eyeballs-out running here but the reasonably hard stuff. Music can definitely help with that, and really get your cadence up. For example, if you want to go faster by having a faster turnover, you just synch your feet to a fast beat, and like a metronome get yourself in the rhythm with an even stride rate – absolutely fabulous!
‘And for a classic 6 × 3 session (six three-minute sprints with three-minute jogging recoveries), you can look through your playlist and choose six fast songs, and six slow.
‘For instance, Running Free by Iron Maiden, that’s your classic upbeat, running-in-the-lyrics-type song. Perfect for a fast interval. Then pick a slow song, like Golden Brown by the Stranglers – bung that on for your recovery interval, and that will send the message to your brain to slow down, take it easy, relax.
‘The fast song with inspirational lyrics raises arousal, which is the emotional state that helps you push through the pain. The trigger then comes to slow down when the brain hears something relaxing, and you’re no longer trying to smash things out, you’re going as easy as possible. And one of the best bits of advice for runners is not to go too fast on the recovery intervals. Do the quick ones quicker, but then recover. Slow songs can help you do that. They condition the mindset to switch the priority from being high-end to low-end.
‘And as an added bonus, music can even time the intervals for you – a three-minute upbeat song equals three minutes of high intensity, and a three-minute ballad means three minutes of rest. Bleepers don’t give the same emotional response as songs, and you don’t want to be looking at a stopwatch as that’s distracting.’
As my daughter finally loses interest in running reps – and I can’t honestly blame her as she hasn’t even learned to walk yet – and resumes her quest to eat the remote, Prof Lane concludes:
‘Music conditions an emotional state that pushes the effort exactly where you want it to be. Perfect.’
Perfect?
I’ve got passion in my pants
And I’m not afraid to show it, show it, show it...
PAUSE...
Let’s re-join the Thames towpath opposite Fulham Football Club. In winter I’ll frequently have this stretch of river to myself, but today the weather is gorgeous and there are plenty of other people about. As the song pauses, I’m about to overtake an elderly couple out for a leisurely stroll in the spring sunshine. In the spirit of the enormous wellbeing I’m currently feeling, I turn to smile at them as I draw alongside. But that’s exactly when the chorus kicks in and I suddenly, unexpectedly, accidentally join in. If you know the song, you’ll know that the next line is said, rather than sung.
‘I’m sexy and I know it!’ I blurt out, loudly and enthusiastically.
Oh no! What have I said? These poor people definitely won’t know the song in my earphones. And the way I came out with the chorus line, more a statement than a tune, and did so just as I turned towards them – it will have seemed to them like this was something I really wanted to let them know, something I needed to get off my chest. That I wanted two elderly amblers, two perfect strangers, to know that I sincerely believed myself to be alluring.
I pause, dither, wonder whether there’s any way of getting out of this. But they’re now starting to look at me a little apprehensively, doubtless fearful that there might be more where that came from. I realise my hesitation is only serving to reinforce the impression that I genuinely wanted to get across the message that, perhaps because of my running and certainly to the best of my knowledge, I am sexy.
I run on, inwardly cringing. And I still wince whenever I hear that song. Damn you, music and running!
Liz Yelling
Twice represented Team GB in an Olympic marathon, and a medallist at the 2006 Commonwealth Games. Now a widely respected coach married to Martin Yelling from the next chapter.
I remember doing sprints at primary school and always feeling really frustrated that I never won. There was always this one girl who beat me. I still know her name to this day, Kristen Patterson!
But when we moved up to middle school we were introduced to cross country. I did my first cross country at the age of nine. We were running around a heath next to the school. I was a bit nervous when I stood on the start line because I’d never done it before. We all hared off and we were jostling for places and elbowing each other out of the way. But then about 300 metres further on I looked behind me and there wasn’t anyone in sight; it was just me on my own. I thought, ‘Oh! Where’s everyone gone?!’ I kept running. It must have only been around a mile and I had beaten everyone by minutes. That was when I re
alised that this was something I was good at.
I had a deep passion for it as well. I just loved testing myself and pushing myself. Sometimes I did have a kind of a love–hate relationship with running when it wasn’t going to plan. There were always reasons it wasn’t turning out the way I wanted but I always had this inner passion. Something that just kept driving me on to see how far I could take it and to see how far I could push. I could always see that there was more to come. I think that’s where my motivation came from as well.
I’m competitive, both with others and also with myself. Obviously I wanted to beat my competitors but at the same time I was definitely always trying to improve and setting myself different targets.
My ideal fantasy run would be really rugged terrain off-road through forests and over mountains; somewhere to explore and see stunning scenery. Just this last week I ran over on the Purbecks near where we live in Dorset. I did a beach run I’ve never done before with mates, 12 miles, along some ridges with sea views, up and down rolling hills. Yeah, it’s beautiful. I loved it. You just want to see what’s around the corner.
For my kids, my primary objective is for them to enjoy sport or some sort of physical activity. I don’t really mind what guise that comes in. I think to be fit and healthy for life is my main, my first goal. I just want to expose them to as many different sports as possible and see where it takes them. Having said that, I do look at them to see if there’s a talent for running and I think Beau, one of the twin boys, he’s kind of light framed and he’s already fast. I’ve kind of earmarked him as the runner already!
* Interval sessions involve alternating high-intensity workouts with rest periods.
12
Carly Simon, Let the River Run
‘Outlaw’ Ironman Triathlon, Mile 12
I’m dimly aware that this is only the first of two riverside running laps, but I’m trying not to think about it. I’m not sure I could cope with the alarming reality that I’ve got to do this all over again.
Don't Stop Me Now Page 10