Running Stateside

The American, whilst he has many excellent achievements to his name, has not yet mastered what the lads of the Wirral Endurance Program might refer to as ‘looking fresh’. This phrase is used almost exclusively for clothing – and clothing is of the utmost importance to any self-respecting runner. One cannot simply turn up to training wearing any old rubbish: it is a well-known fact that the better you look, the faster you run. Matching colours and bright shoes are scientifically proven to make you run quicker. Promise. The Americans are yet to catch on to this piece of science and as a result they are embarrassing to go on runs with. Whilst all of them own running kit, none of them seem that eager to wear it. The lads are particularly guilty of this, and will often turn up to practice wearing three quarter length shorts and animal print T- shirts. I have a theory that they wear all of this on purpose as a form of resistance training, since all the excess material billows around them like a parachute. However, this theory is contradicted by the other extreme of the spectrum – those runners who turn up to training in near undress. I can’t refer to what they wear as ‘running kit’, since this stuff could just as easily be found in the undergarments section in Next. Some of the men’s shorts are so incredibly small that I’m pretty sure they violate some kind of public obscenity law. Either way, running round with lads dressed in far too little or far too much, one can’t help but feel a little conspicuous. Thankfully you’re usually too tired to care. This will either be because you’re running in the middle of the night, or because you’re running in the middle of the afternoon. In a typical training day, I very often end up doing both. Coach likes us to run long and easy in the morning, so that we can save our legs for the sessions in the afternoon. However, classes can start as early as 8am (though mercifully my first is at 9) so running in the morning means getting up at the crack of dawn. This is not actually an exaggeration – today for example (Monday) coach wanted us to only have one run, as we’ve got a mile time trial tomorrow, so he set us 16 kilometres to do. We met at 6am, which meant getting up at 5.30. This meant that we actually set off just as the sun was beginning to rise. It was so harrowing that I’m actually looking forward to when coach shifts our meeting time back to 6.30 on Wednesday – it’ll be a lie in.

I got a new flavour - there's about a hundred different ones. 

The sessions in the afternoon can get pretty rough. They’re scheduled for 4pm, which is just about the hottest part of the day (It’s meant to be between 35 – 40 degrees centigrade for most of this week). We’re starting to work in some strength endurance sessions on the track now – I’ve done two so far. The first was 12x400s, which is more then I’d normally do, but I got two minutes of rest in between. Coach’s methods aren’t all that different to anyone else’s; apparently most Americans coaches will prefer to give you more rest and have you do more reps, unless they want to focus on your track speed in particular. Speed is not what we’re focusing on, since our cross-country races are eight kilometres long. With this in mind Coach also introduced me to another new type of session: the extended Fartlek. This session involved four kilometre reps on the track, at between 3.10 – 3.20 pace, with a mile long run in between. It doesn’t sound so bad, until you finish the second effort. Transitioning from a quick pace on the track to 7.30-mile pace without being allowed to stop and catch your breath was harder than I thought it would be. Towards the end of the session maintaining the pace of the recovery became nearly as difficult as maintaining the pace of the effort. And that’s exactly what Coach intended, the devious man.

Post - Saturday Workout = Bad Hair. 

Thankfully Coach is more forgiving with the easy runs – he sets you a distance and then he tells you too get on with it. This is the part that reminds me the most of running at home – particularly the Sunday runs. We just sort of set off without really knowing where we’re going. The actual results of this are different in Kansas then they might be on the Wirral though. In England if I set off without first thinking of a route, I’d usually end up climbing over some barbed wire to escape a farmer’s field, whilst five lads mutter mutinously behind me about how my shenanigans have ruined their pace averages. There’s less opportunity for getting lost in Kansas, since everything is very flat and all the roads run in straight lines, but exploring new routes is still very fun - it’s just a different kind of fun.

Finally got a picture of one of those giant bugs! I've circled a spider for reference.