Crowthorne (running viral day 32)

As you can see by the above, my map is really beginning to fill in. Having been granted a 3 week extension on my GPS drawing project, and attempt to exhaust the spaces of Bracknell (by which I refer to another 3 weeks of lockdown announced by the UK government yesterday), I have a renewed energy.

I'm happy with today's shape even though, technically, Garmin cut off about a mile of my originally planned route.  But I don't think that original shape would have been as elegant as the one that resulted from the actual performed route, which had some nice about faces, turnarounds, and self-flybys.

Birch HIll (running viral day 31)

Today's run feels a bit cubist. I found Bracknell's Aldi along the way, and it is much closer to South Hill Park than I had realised.  My about-faces and turnings played out quite satisfactorily in the end, with a satisfying 'volumetric' look to some of the shapes, and a fairly good zigzag result in the park itself.

Half Brac (running viral day 30)

Today's run is called Half BRAC (see image below) because I was attempting to fill in 'outline' of Bracknell.  It's more like a 2/3 outline I think, but really it is only distinct in the more easterly parts, and breaks down or gets a bit fuzzy over on the Wokingham side.

I ran fast today, and now feel a bit hypocritical for my critical remarks about 'fast' running a few days ago.  But I am also somewhat vindicated because my surging speeds of late happen to correspond quite closely to a very recent re-affirmation of mine, namely, to run an ultra distance to replace my deferred Race to the Stones on 5 July 2020.

The original RTTS race is 100km over two days, or 31 miles per day. Instead of doing a two day run, I'll only run one, but to keep it interesting, I'm going to do 35 miles:

The route shown above will take in Swinley Forest, Chobham Common, and Windsor Great Park, heading through Bagshot, Windlesham, Sunningdale, and Ascot, as well as parts of Bracknell.

When you're training, you run some days harder than others, usually alternating hard/easy days. Hard can mean a fast pace, or it can mean a long distance. For an ultra, the fast pace is less important, but there will still be days when the run is, relative to other runs, faster.  More important are those challenging runs that run faster than recovery pace, and that go a long way.

I'll be doing a few runs around the 15 to 20 mile distance, mostly on Saturdays or Sundays. These get you ready for being on your feet for a long time. I expect to maintain a 10min/mile pace for the duration, putting me in at around 6 hours. It should be interesting.

Recovery Running (running viral day 29)

With a few exceptions where I dipped down to 9min/mile, sub-9, or even, like yesterday's sub-8 (11.5 mile) effort, the whole of this lockdown has been one big recovery run.  

How else do you explain the fact that in the first week of lockdown I ran my highest mileage week, a week that Strava informed me was 'easy' and that I could push a bit harder?

Actually I'm going to try and introduce a bit more structure to my runs, and alternate easy days with those in which I push just a bit harder.  Yesterday and today are a good start.

Today's recovery run was excellent, and it was an 11 min/mile pace.  I'm really on a learning curve with these recovery runs, because what I've realised is that they should be truly easy. If you are pushing at all, in any way, then it's too hard.  

Today I tried to run down the median of Bagshot Road, and was successful for a while, but it became so unpleasant that I gave up when the opportunity presented itself.  I cut away from Bagshot Road at Rapley Farm, and then used my ever-expanding mental map to navigate my way back home through the forest.

Running fast (running viral day 28)

Yesterday was a recovery day: I walked 7.5 miles during an exploration session to get ideas for today's 'real' run. It panned out well. I found a new entry point into Swinley Forest that leads to a crossing of Bagshot Road for exploration of the more eastern forests south of it.

The walk was good because I took in some of the forest in slow time, and I also realised that if I want to I can run down the median of Bagshot Road in order to fill in that part of my map.

Today was good because it was my first sub-8 pace (over 11.5 miles) since holding fitness steady for over a month now. Fitness is noticeably improving again.  

Actually I had to walk yesterday because I was running the risk of over-reaching, as I was just barely over 50 miles for the week, but my load was reading 'in the red'.  With the recovery day (walking) and a really good night's sleep, I found myself effortlessly pushing fast while running through the forest, which is a magical feeling.  Perceived effort of 5-6 throughout.

I don't seem to be having any problem maintaining 50 mile (minimum) weeks right now, and will continue this average throughout the year.  In fact, I will shoot for an average of 10 miles per day with one rest day, and that should push things closer to 60 miles.  

Forestrunning (running viral day 26)

Today's run was all about quality. It didn't really feel hard, though I pushed a little bit, and Strava informs me that it was my historic seventh best effort. I would not have guessed that because my perceived effort was probably no more than a 3 throughout (easy breathing, easy talking).  Without having looked at my fitness for a couple of weeks, it has maintained dead-level over the last month (0% change over 30 days).

Today's run used my watch in Satnav mode, wherein I followed the directions laid out by the course, which I had programmed into the watch the day before.  The course was in turn guided by the Strava heat map of popular routes through the forest. What I actually did was looked at routes that were somewhat, but not the most, popular.  In other words, passable and legible routes through the forest that allow for navigation of some lesser known copses and groves of trees.  Often, but not always, these are the denser or older areas of growth, parts that haven't been harvested for some time.  A couple of areas look ancient.

When I say 'forestrunning' and leave out the space I am attempting to be dialectical. The act of running and the forest, in this type of run, are inseparable.  That the omission of a single space can achieve such a feat is amazing to me.  There is the running. There is the forest. And then there is the running through the forest. It reminds me of my favourite Le Guin novel, The Word for World is Forest, which featured indigenous forestrunners who carried messages between the different tribes that inhabited the forest, which was under seige by logging colonists and military types.

We have these in Swinley as well, and it somewhat breaks my heart to see how much has been cut down.  I don't see how it is sustainable, really, and I hope the current situation doesn't somehow give the impetus to cut faster.

Performative running (running viral day 25)

There's a heightened sense of self-awareness and reflection to my running these days. In part because I'm being quite constrained as to where I go, which requires planning, but also because I'm sometimes transgressing the established rules of order in the lengths to which I'll go to both complete my drawing and maintain social isolation while out and about. For example, I was running down the median of a major four-lane divided A-road (highway) with traffic rushing past, and one of the vehicles that went past was a police car. I felt like I was doing something wrong and, technically, I probably was. At the same time there was all kinds of foot traffic on the pavements (sidewalks) that because of where I was, was well away from me.

Even just walking around is becoming something of a performance. We perform distance now, some even look away, avert their gazes and, by proxy, their breath-trajectories.  Actually, it's worse to be behind someone in motion because as they breathe, that breath trails back and swirls around mixing into the air that the person behind is inhaling.

But besides this, and like writing itself, running is a performance, and the act of producing a GPS drawing, or of participating in what I like to call a 'distributed participation' running event like a predict-a-time distance run, or a landmark-selfie project, or any other kind of event that can be run not at the same time, but re-synchronised using an app like Strava, is a performance.

Running has always been 'performative', to use the academic word that is not quite equivalent to the idea of performance.  Performative is quite closely related to the bodily (as opposed to the inscribed) aspect of the bundle of physical, cognitive, social, and technological apparatuses that form an assemblage for the production of this thing we call 'running.'  It's not just you and your watch, with the satellites watching you. It is that and much more: it is the unfolding of the event that is called the run, and the historical development that leads towards each and every instantiation of the run; and then the combination thereof across time, culture, and the evolution of the technologies (as activities of cultures situated in particular places) that arise therefrom.

This is what makes my analysis dialectical: the critical spatiotemporal unfolding that makes its way through, and that feeds upon, various contradictions, paradoxes, and their eventual (evental) resolution in the performance of the run itself.  Which, for today, is a 'string of beads' (see the opening figure above).

Chobham Common (running viral day 24)

Today I felt like doing a twenty-miler, which I did, and I roped a big blank space into my running viral survey in the process.  It was a bit overkill, because my intent had been to fill in a blank in the southeast quadrant, in the areas of Swinley Forest separated by Bagshot Road.

But I ran quite far as well, and that was actually the whole point. I wanted to experience a 'mostly forest' run over 20 miles starting and ending at home.  The problem with filling in the southeast quadrant is Bagshot Road itself, and the golf course that lies just to the north of it.

It was a great run, and I went through Windlesham along the way, a quaint village I'd always wanted to see. For future reference, next time I go to the Chomham Common area I want to return to its more southern reaches, along whose perimeter I used visit by bicycle when I used to live in Egham.

Here's the cumulative, 24 day, trace, so far. I'm told it looks like a flower:

Track for trail runners / Caesar's Camp (running viral day 23)

The 'leaf' part of the image above is Caesar's Camp, an archaeological site just south of Bracknell. I call it 'track for trail runners' because it is entirely undulating gravelly trail and tree roots for the entirety, and it is circular and of set length.  My pace increased throughout both the approach to the site, and the repeats of the old camp site itself, to where I was at around 7:30min/mile by the end, and holding steady.

I passed only one other group along the way (a group of two) and so this fits the bill of being a socially isolated run as well.  I'm increasingly wary of being perceived as 'taking the mickey' on my 'attempts to exhaust a space' runs because when my path is erratic, and takes in a lot of territory in town, it would almost seem to increase my likelihood of having to interact with others.

So, like yesterday, and like today, I'm going to continue to seek sites that both run something new, but that also isolate the run in some new way.  These runs have also been productive in the sense that my fitness is at least maintaining, but also increasing at times, along the way.

The other part of the image, the part it the 'eye' is an artefact of an older run, the 10k self-reporting time challenge from a couple of weeks ago.

Is there any need to run fast any more? (running viral day 22)

Day 22 cumulative (detail)

Day 22 running (13x around two roundabouts)

I'm writing this blog post on day 22 of lockdown (according to my own system of counting), and fully in the throes of adjusting both my running and writing expectations based upon the real reality of the lockdown setting.

We are in the middle of an ultra-marathon, as Finn pointed out yesterday in his Way of the Runner blogpost.  That part of the 'ultra' is the sweet spot, because you're well stuck in, and you're not yet bone-weary as you would be nearer the end.

Finn appears to be coping very well.  So do I, for the most part. But to say that I'm doing very well would be to paper over two days of full-on depression of the 'I can't go on like this' variety, which you can easily locate on this blog by noting the days in which I did NOT blog.

Those gaps are telling.  On Strava, you might note that I've basically given up on running fast. What is the point? I'd like to say that part of me loves to run fast, and I do, but without a race I find it tough to locate the motivation to push hard.

In another post by Finn (not his blog), he talks about running with the Kenyans, and how on many of those runs they go at 9min/mile pace, because the biggest fear among the runners is of injury. Always pushing hard is a recipe for the latter.

But I'm still seeing a few who seem to be determined to continue, unchanged, at their training-level mileages and paces and it just makes me wonder why?

Without a race is there any need to run fast?  There is clearly a need to run slow! And yes, your fitness may decline (in VO2 max) terms, but it will probably re-adjust at a new level, ready to go for when a new race presents itself.

Also, there are all kinds of 'distributed participation' events out there, but I find that they don't give even a glimmer of the kind of race day advantage that you get from the real thing.

The only speed work that has even the remotest appeal right now is fartlek, because it is about play, and because it is unstructured, and because it can be a tool for gradual improvement.  Always assuming that a turnaround in this situation may be just over the horizon, that leaves room for hope.

NO TRAINING PLAN (running viral days 20 and 21)

Today I walked, following the river called The Cut a bit farther along from where I made it two days ago (day 19).

The puzzle I'm working on today is what to do when one is not training for anything, but the miles stay high and there is, therefore, a risk of injury. 

I really want to do a long run tomorrow, to fill in a gap in my map, in my ever-increasing knowledge of the area around Bracknell. For that is where a long run will inevitably take me: into the forest and the countryside surrounds.

I want to do a twenty miler, but I know that that is precisely the distance at which niggles begin to appear. If you run it slowly, it just means more time on your feet, which again means niggles.

I'm maintaining fitness now at a somewhat reduced level from when I actually had a race for which to train, and of that I'm proud (despite the 'reduced' level apparent in my now slower average pace). But it also means the long run will be slow.

Fitzgerald's 80/20 running is my current training read (as opposed to just running read, or fiction about running read, or speculative read), and it definitely convinces one of the need for a lot of slow running in one's programme. But remember the 20 part: that's the part where you run fast, and it's also the part I'm currently not doing at all.

Why would I? What is there to run fast for? No races until September after all, so I rack up the running time, the mileage, and fill in the space in my map. I'd like to do a fartlek session soon, but I've never heard of doing one in the middle of a 20 mile run.

A Puzzle About Belief (running viral day 19)

 

In Kripke's original puzzle about belief he posited the statement "London is pretty" for analysis, deconstructing it using the tools of philosophy of language. To what, first, does "London" refer, in the first analysis, and if it successfully refers, what about the ugly parts? What are we to make of the Frenchman who, visiting London, refers to this place as "Londres"? The positivism of Kripke rolled up against the shores of both the French (outsider) view, and the fact that not all of London is pretty.

What about Bracknell? One result of my 'tentative d'epuisement d'un lieu bracknellien' is that I am forced to visit all parts of the town (for it is not a city), even the 'unpretty' parts.  It is also forcing me to challenge boundaries of what we think we know Bracknell is.  

It is not a suburb of London. Bracknell is a 'new town' along the lines of Milton Keynes, meaning that it a more product of utopian design, and less a laissez-faire example of development. This is apparent in the many yellow/green routes and 'subways' (underpasses) that allow for easy movement of foot, bicycle, and motorised vehicular traffic.  

Bracknell has rich and varied architecture, and it has both beautiful farmed and forested countrysides that almost completely surround the town. I would characterise Bracknell more as a market town (for its shopping) as well as a way-station for travellers who might stop at a pub or, indeed, for some shopping or to take in a movie.  

I have yet to survey the centre part of town, but what is certain is that "Bracknell" refers to set of beliefs about a spatial construct that is 'not London' but is a satellite of the latter. It is a companion to its Berkshire-sister, Windsor, and sits in a historical residuum within the royal landscapes and activities thereof. Henry VIII himself was said to partake of recreation in the area.

In all my running around, I encountered today the locals out in their socially isolated glory as I ran up and down Jocks Lane, and navigated footpaths along the banks of a river referred to as 'The Cut'. It is a fairly large (for here) tributary to the Thames. I'm proud of the shape I made, for its suggestive angularity and its closed form.  This took a bit of doing, and I'm finding that I'm running a bit more distance in order to attain the desired shape and aesthetic goals. I can kind of visualise them as I go, but I never actually know what the thing will look like until I'm done.

In other words I'm running without a map, and therefore without the belief that the map would instill in me, that I know what I'm doing, where I'm going, what is my goal. I can instead enjoy the intrinsic value of the run itself, of the unexpected object that will greet me when I open Strava at the end, when I get home.

Puzzles / Amen Corner (running viral day 18)

Puzzles / Amen Corner

Back to the 'tentative d'epuisement d'un lieu bracknellien' survey today, I covered Amen Corner, the part of Bracknell that has the John Nike Centre, Popeswood (neighbourhood), and the 'ski hill'. 

I'm sampling from Perec again today as I try to alternative between running in town itself and those that go significantly out of town limits. We are technically not really in the London suburbs anymore, being more a remnant of the outer edges of Windsor Forest / Great Park, and thus completely surrounded by both forest and that which has been converted to farm land.

The puzzle is, I guess, how all these pieces fit together, and what do they have to do with Coronavirus (if anything)? The shape itself is beginning to resemble the virus, and I want to work on the round exterior shell of Bracknell to firm that impulse up a bit.

Otherwise, the puzzle is how to generate a narrative from this, some kind of meaning in the face of the absurdity that is our present collective existence.  You could do worse I think, in response, and many are.  Quebec has shut its borders to outsiders. Face masks are making a comeback. We are erecting barriers where actually, a lot of handwashing and common sense would do just as well.

I mean, I obviously don't touch anyone when I run. In normal times, I really really don't like touching people. I'm a bit 'Sheldon' (Big Bang Theory in case you've already forgotten) in that regard.  I'm all scratched up and bruised from flinging myself into blackberry brambles as I pass other pedestrians and dog-walkers.

The puzzle is just how to carry on with everyday life in the midst of absurdity, and this is in the nature of the book whose cover image I've reproduced above. We need to be creative in how we deal with the disruptions to everyday life by opening ourselves up, perceptually, to our surroundings, not by closing everything down and erecting barriers. 

Scientifically they don't really work either. From a science perspective, we need massive numbers of surgical strikes using the tools of surveillance and testing. It was good to hear our minister speaking in these terms during last night's Covid19 update. Let's hope they hold the line and make good.

If we can learn anything about holding the line and working out puzzles (and mathematics) it is with Perec, whose creative work inhabits a productive zone at the crossroads of creative and logical thinking, where philosophy of science meets literature and its practical application.  

EPIC (running viral day 17)

What does EPIC mean? I think it means AWESOME!

Lonely Planet's book Epic Runs of the World can only mean something like Awesome because it includes runs from a couple of miles up to hundreds of miles.  So it has nothing to do with length.

The CoronaVirus is EPIC, and it is also truly AWESOME in its ability to shut things down and alter the course of history (except for the fact that this IS the course of history, and that the 'alter' history, that of NO CoronaVirus didn't happen).

EPIC also means The Odyssey and The Iliad, and we can, of course learn from these works because they are AWESOME in the sense of temporally removed (ancient) and yet resonant with present day structures of being.

My run today was what I would characterise as EPIC, and I also think it was one of my top 5 or top 10 runs of all time.  I characterise it thus based solely on beauty. North of Bracknell (similar to South of Bracknell) is really really aesthetically pleasing, in a very English Way.

The Road (running viral day 16)

16 days in I ran to Warfield (Jeallott's Park), and found myself on a number of roads that in busier times would be either very unpleasant or impossible to run on.  These are the roads with no sidewalks, and with only soft shoulders upon which to run when traffic is passing by.

Today I just went straight down the middle of the road, for the most part.  Close to half of today's run was either on Rambler's Routes or trails, but to get there the connecting roads are those narrow country paved lanes.

I will find other ways to get there when the traffic gets heavy again.  What this time is allowing me to do is to explore in a more free way, and to make connections more creatively.  It's quite a time to be alive when you can experience a kind of science fictional outcome in real time.

I'm thinking a bit here of Cormac McCarthy's The Road, but of course things are not nearly that bad.  We have food, and the current lack of armed bandits on the roads is quite nice.  I can relate to a recent story about how wildlife is making a comeback, how animals are poking their heads out again now that things have quietened down.

I feel like I'm poking my own head out of my hole and having a look around. The silence at times is stunning.