3100: Run and Become

This is the second documentary movie about running that I've 'made' my wife watch with me. The first was The Barkley Marathons: The Race That Eats Its Young (a review of which I'll save for another post).  This one is a lot gentler in its own way, though I suspect the average paces maintained by competitors in both races is probably somewhat comparable, given the terrain on the one hand (Barkley Marathons) and the distance on the other (3100).

The movie is structured around a race that takes place within a half city block in New York City (this was also described in Finn's book The Rise of the Ultra Runners, about which I've posted).  The main sections of footage involve various participants in the 3100 mile (5000 km) race that was started by religious leader Sri Chinmoy. Various (if not all) participants are followers of the pacifist movement inspired by Chinmoy, himself an inspirational runner and competitor.

Interspersed with footage from the 3100 race itself, which is a very subdued affair, stretching over days that last from 6am to midnight, kicked off each day with a silent prayer among the twenty or so participants this event attracts. On the surface, these people do not appear competitive, partly because the pace is so slow, but then again, they have to cover a LOT of miles.  The whole idea of pacing yourself goes to a whole new level.

Beneath the surface, there are at least several of the participants who really want to win. This plays out over days, with one racer gaining a few miles over another each day until, several days later, they are in the lead.  Other competitors simply want to finish, and we are given glimpses of at least two of these peoples' lives, through interviews that include key family members giving support throughout the race.

Interleaved with the main 3100 racer sections are three others: 1. Kalahari hunter/gatherers 2. Navajo runners in Arizona and 3. Marathon monks.  Footage from different parts of the world highlight how human beings have linked running to belief, religion, livelihood, and healing. These interlinked issues are given some historical positioning, but we also realise that running goes much deeper than that recorded in written history, back to when knowledge was transmitted orally, and stories about running intersected with stories of the hunt, of connecting with the gods, and of basic freedom.

These other sections break up the main story of 3100 miles in NYC nicely, but we are eager to get back to these stories as well. We see the main character, an incredibly humble man from Finland, going about his daily life back home, and then we see him, in a very similar way, doing very everyday things during the course of the race: eating, sleeping, setting a timer, chatting with people, and come to realise that there really is no distinction between running and not running: it's just a matter of degree.  Slow motion footage of his feet moving alongside the chain-link fence that runs beside much of the course make this point visually: it looks very much like fast walking, and indeed, as in all ultra-running, a lot of it is walked.

To summarise: my wife ended up loving this movie (just as she had with the Barkleys one), and we had a good discussion about it. I would have like to have heard more about the other three threads of information, but the movie is already two hours long, so I'll have to resort to my books about running to pick up that other information at some time.

Wokingham Half 2020

There I am, running as strong as I've ever run in my life, just having turned 50 years old three months previously, and in the middle of a long training block for Brighton Marathon 2020.  Wokingham Half Marathon was one of those races that lets you see what your new pace is, towards the 'big race' for which you are actually training.  As it turns out, and as we know from personal injury, one can never assume that things will happen in the way that we plan for them to. 

That was months ago, pre-lockdown, and once the Coronavirus finally hit in full force, forcing us all indoors with the exception of our 'daily dose' of exercise, my training plans all went out the window.  I went kind of crazy with the running, upping my miles for no good reason other than that my Race to the Stones had not been cancelled.  That took only a couple more weeks, so I put the big pile of ultra-training miles to one side (never minding the ill-advised 15 mile run I did in my Salomon cross-country trainers), bought a pair of Nikes, and started doing hill and speed work to gear up for the Windsor Half.

And then that was cancelled, but because I was running so well (I thought), I told myself to just keep going, and installed a regime of two runs a day, three to four days a week.  Right after a brilliantly-paced fast one around Martins Heron I knew for sure I had the dreaded shin splints some of my mentors have talked about on occasion.  And that, as they say, was that.  My fitness plummeted even as I continued to try to do (truncated) speed sessions, and finally I knew that I needed a rest to recover from whatever it was that I'd done to my body.  That or I'd probably end up with a stress fracture.

As the fitness tanked and I rested, I made sure to do ALL my rehab exercises every day, taking up to an hour or more to get through everything.  I found out through Hobrough's new book that I'd been doing my single leg squats wrong for years now, and I corrected that.  This turned my stretching sessions into mini-strength workouts, and I've been doing these since the 10th of June or so, the day after my last really good run around Martins Heron.  

I keep thinking back to Wokingham Half 2020 to remind myself I'm still a good runner, that that wasn't so long ago (though it feels long ago, being pre-lockdown), that my form holds, and I know how to breathe (3 steps per in-breath, 3 steps out).  I can still go the distance, having put in several 13+ mile long runs in the past few weeks.  Thinking back to Wokingham Half, though (and having never given it a proper write-up), what made it go so well?  Looking back at my previous relatively high fitness level from a point that is relatively low, I can say a bit more objectively, I think, that:

-Learning to run, and running at a higher level, is a fundamentally a social activity, like all learning.  I ran well because I ran with a club. The people I ran with kept it real for me, held me within my own limits, even as they pushed them further.  With the limits expanded, they became real.  Running totally alone as I have the last few months has made for a false sense of the reality of my limits, and this has been a direct result of having the social aspect (the running club) stripped away.

-Socially-learned running infused my body right down to the individual bones in my feet, and the pores of my skin. I had learned by watching others run, and had participated in the 'fast groups' and the speed sessions several times a week. I also did weekly long runs that included trail running in the forest, also in groups, but composed of differently aged individuals (usually older) on the Sunday runs.

-I decided to run fast.  I told myself that the way my feet turned over in a speed session, driving each foot into the ground and keeping up a fast cadence (180 per minute), was the way to approach this race. I had a strategy, and it paid off, because I came within a minute of my goal (1:30 HM).

-I caught up with, and maintained pace with, the 1:30 pacer.  This was hard at first because the pacer was way ahead, meaning I had to do faster than desired start of race pace.  Usually I manage to start slow, but often too slow.  This time it was the other way around, and because I beat my PB by two minutes I can only surmise that it worked.  With that said, the second half of my race was slower as I hit a bit of a wall brought on by taking in no nutrition during the course.

-I ran consistently, and this was tied to having confidence in my ability to maintain sub-7 minute mile paces over the full half marathon.  This was due in turn to speed work, as well as to my previous PB at the Windsor Half Marathon in 2019.

What will I do now that so many training plans have been junked, and now that my fitness has dropped and my right leg has rebelled?  

I'm trying to be patient, and I'm continuing to run.  My pace these days is good if I manage sub-10 minutes per mile.  Which is good, because I'm being forced to take it slow.  My body is telling me not to do what I did when I first got those Nike Pegasus trainers, which was just RUN FAST!  

I'm on a training plan for ultra, meaning that speed is less important, and that distance and endurance are key.  I'm moving relentlessly forward to the end of that training plan, and will run the distance if I feel up to it at that time.  The key thing for now is just to have some structure.