Elite vs. Endurance runners

Distance: 8.41 miles
Time: 1h20m06s
Mile 1 - 9m49s
Mile 2 - 9m46s
Mile 3 - 9m18s
Mile 4 - 9m12s
Mile 5 - 9m21s
Mile 6 - 9m24s
Mile 7 - 9m24s
Mile 8 - 9m39s
0.41m - 4m08s

Last of the long runs. Well I say long, but 80 minutes is quite short really. Less than a third of what I'll be running next week. Which got me thinking. The Elite runners run The London Marathon in about 125 minutes. Most of us mere mortals will be running it in 240 - 360 minutes, maybe more. Ok, it's pretty impressive to be able to run 26 miles in under 5 minutes each. I'm not denying that. That's what makes an Elite runner a class above the rest. But can they run for 4 hours? Can they run for 5 hours? How about a big cheer for most of us. The Endurance runners who can run for at least twice as long as the fast lot. That makes us pretty special too, doesn't it?

Having run round most of my village 10 days ago, and covered 5½ miles, I decided if I did this again, but ran down all the cul-de-sacs that I'd missed out, I'd be a lot nearer to the 7 miles I had planned for today's slow run. I set off out of my house this morning at 9.50am, about the time I'll be shuffling towards the start line next Sunday. I'd got up shortly after 7am to have my ready brek and banana, a little later than I expect to be up next week. I headed right down my road, and turned right into the first turning I came to. Ran down to the end of the road, round the pavement all the way and back again up the other side. Back into my road and down to the corner where I turned right again, and again followed the pavement all the way down one side and back up the other. I followed this pattern most of the way around the village, occasionally having to cross over to get another bit of road in.

To anyone watching, I guess I must have looked a bit odd. But I'd decided that if I was to run 7 miles, I wouldn't want to run out in the countryside, as my shortest route is just over 8 miles, and also I was happy to run at a slower pace than normal, and assumed that all the to-ing and fro-ing would slow me down (hmm that reminds me of a rhyme¹) However, after a couple of miles of this, I was nicely warmed up and happy to run a little faster. I didn't consciously speed up, and I was still running at a very comfortable pace.

Somewhere along the way I made a miscalculation. I'd got it into my head that the 7 miles I'd planned was supposed to be slower than 10-minute-miles, so thought my training plan must have suggested an 80 minute run. So this is what I decided to to run today. I was trying to judge how to encompass the whole village, and not to double-back on myself too much. The odd section would be inevitable, but I reckoned I'd make it round with only a few very short overlaps. And give the pace I was happily running at in the sunshine, under the blue skies, and being cooled by a pleasant gentle breeze, I worked out I'd need to run at least 8 miles. So I decided to run out to the two edges of the village, South East and North East, both times I ran out to the village sign, and then turned round to head to my next section.

And so I managed to make it round, up and down and back and forth every single road in my village, and even a couple of the footpaths too. And I also cut across the football field at one point, so I didn't have to double back along a road I'd already covered. In the end I made it back to my house in just under 80 minutes, so I ran across the road and round the green once more to bring me up to the 1h20m point. Then when I got in, I stretched, and opened a lucozade hydroactive to rehydrate. I uploaded my data and then logged my run against my training plan that had me down for... a 70 minute run. Oops. I've overdone it slightly today. But in spite of running more than 8 miles and averaging 9½-minute-miles at still felt very easy on the whole.

And this evening I had the luxury of my last sports massage before the BIG DAY. The sports therapist managed to find a few nice knots. My left quad. My right hamstring. Both ankles and calves. All were a bit stiff and crunchy. Plenty of elbow work to iron them out. Oh, and my right ITB too. She complimented me on my ability to make it through the half hour without screaming. I'd winced a lot. But never felt like screaming. Well not out loud anyway. So either I have a higher threshold to withstand pain than most, or my legs are not as bad as all that. Mind you she was concerned a couple of times that I was ok, as she was really digging in quite thoroughly, so maybe it's the former...

Here's my garmin map of my route today. I could have run a bit further down the Horsecroft, but other than that, I think I ran round the entire village:



¹ There was an old bear at the zoo
Who could always find something to do
When it bored him to go
On a walk to and fro
He reversed it and walked fro and to.