Berlin Buildup week 5 of 11. Blackberry pie

My 2nd week off work, I want to increase my mileage abit, somewhere in the range of 110-120. Root canal surgery on Monday morning and I decide against it. After a 3hr round trip stuck behind holiday traffic, along with 2hrs on the dentist chair, 4 roots at 22mm deep (that is deep), I spend the rest of the day on the sofa. No run at all.

The thing I like doing best in all the world is sleeping, followed closely by napping. With snoozing a, not-so-distant, third.

Nina has been incredible this week in giving me the time and space to nap pretty much every day. Coming up to 500 miles of training for Berlin marathon, there is a residual effect. Running on tired legs all the time. Every single run. Never giving yourself the opportunity to recover. The body is an organism, it is forced to adapt to the added load. Either that, or it breaks down.

There is a difference between being tired and being fatigued. One is OK, the other isn’t.  On Friday morning I am feeling so tired and I don’t know why. I go to the gym intending to do my 10 mile run on the treadmill. I sit down in the gym cafe for a minute. I wake up an hour later. I’m worried I have drifted into the fatigue zone. But after nap I feel fine. I cut the run short to 6 miles and I am back on the right side of the line.

You cannot expect any results through this process. Every run is compromised by the weeks before. You have to learn to enjoy the process for what it is. The discipline, the routine, the strive, the drive. But on Sunday morning I get a little inkling that things are finally beginning to click. 2 weeks ago I tried to run 20 miles in 2 hours, and failed. I dug deep, and came up short. This Sunday I try again and it feels easy, I throw in an extra mile for the fun of it. Then I have another nap. Back to work on Monday.

---

Non-running related highlight of the week

We spend 3 nights staying in off-grid house, Gelli.

We go exploring, bouldering, scrambling, tree climbing. The mountain is teeming with life; falcons, buzzards, baby frogs, grass-hoppers, lizards, bats. We pick Blackberries and make a blackberry pie (when I say ‘we’, I mean Nina and the kids. I wake up conveniently to the sound of the table being laid). We have showers in the waterfall (when I say ‘we’…) and read books by the fire. It feels a million miles away from the tourist season in full swing all over Snowdonia.

Best thing on the internet this week:

This photo from the Sir Walter Miler track meet, an evening of mile races in North Carolina. This is the A-Race, with 13 finishers, all of whom broke 4 minutes.

Also this little clip I saw on Twitter

Fuck this kid.

Fuck that kid.

Fuck you too. pic.twitter.com/BfKxJhEEtw

— Jay Kirell 🐠🐈🐌🐇🐸 (@JasonKirell) August 5, 2018

link here

Thing I’m digging this week:

Quick question…

In the last 20 years, the proportion of the world living in extreme poverty has

1. Almost doubled
2. Stayed roughly the same
3. Almost halved

Factfulness by Hans Rosling. Borrowed this off my dad. Recommend to everyone!

Oh, and the answer is ‘3’ by the way. If you got it wrong, don’t worry, of the thousands of people polled from around the world, over 90% got it wrong too.

---

30/7/2018	AM	PM
Monday	REST	REST
root canal surgery = no run
Tuesday	7 @ 7.30min miling, 3 @ 5.50min miling. 10 miles total	10tm @ 7min miling
pm watch Netflix on laptop balanced on my treadmill, love it!
Wednesday	10 @ 5.50min miling	8 @ 7min miling
feeling pretty good
Thursday	10tm @ 7min miling	10
Go to stay 3 nights in Gelli
Friday	6tm @ 6.30min miling	REST
Very tired. Cut run short
Saturday	Penryhn parkrun – 17.05 (30min rest) 5xmile (30 sec rest) in 5.10. 13 miles total	REST
perfect weather, with Owen, goes well. Achilles stiff
Sunday	21 @ 5.56min miling	3 @ 7.30min miling
Feels smooth, could’ve kept going. Maybe things are clicking
TOTAL:	101 miles	tm = treadmill