It’s exactly a month since the Paris Marathon, which (you may recall) I conquered with great rockhardness, modesty and flair.
The recovery period is well over now – I started running again the weekend after the marathon. Apart from the passing of one toenail, I have no ill-effects to report. All parts are working well, and the legs are full of energy again.
Since the start of May I’ve kept a schedule of running 20 miles a week. This works out as two four-mile runs during the week, an eight-miler on Saturday morning and another four-miler on Sunday evening. I find the four-mile run is just right for getting me back into the rhythm of regular running – substantial enough for a good workout but short enough for me to run at a strong pace and hopefully build up some base speed. And as my usual weeknight training run is six miles, the four-miler almost feels like a guilty pleasure.
I’ve also changed my route, so that I can add mental freshness to the spring in my step. Training last winter for the Paris Marathon, I ran toward the city and to a running track a couple of miles away. These days, though, I’m going in the opposite direction. I live near the foot of a steep hill which is on the course of the annual Paris-Versailles race, and while training last summer for the Dublin Marathon I would leave my building and tear straight up this hill.
However, now I prefer to get in a bit of a warm-up before I hit the slopes. So, first I run for a mile around to the far side of the hill. There, I find a slighter but longer uphill road which I think gives me a better workout that a short, sharp shock of steepness.
At the top of the hill, two miles done, I rejoin my old summer route – a quiet stretch of road along a train line, back the other side and down that steep hill. Then I throw in a hard half-mile sprint around the block to finish.
The Saturday morning eight-miler follows the same route as the four-miler but at halfway, at the top of the hill, I throw in a four-mile loop up and down a wide tree-lined avenue to a nearby park, before rejoining my original route and heading home.
So that’s my running this month. I’ve no races planned, so the objective is to keep ticking over and build a strong base for summer running. Come June I’ll throw in an extra four or five miles a week. Before I know it, it’ll be July – time for serious training again, ahead of the Dublin Marathon at the end of October. And that’ll be the year almost finished!
What’s your running schedule like this May? Short races, long races, or just ticking over too?
Why we might have to change this blog’s name to ‘Run and Walk and Jump’.
Congratulations to Colin Griffin, who has qualified for the Olympic 50km walk. Clocking 3:52:55 to finish 15th at today’s IAAF World Cup of Race Walking in Saransk, Russia, the Leitrim man had 6 minutes to spare on the Olympic A-standard for his event.
Griffin is now eligible for selection for his second Games, having represented Ireland in Beijing in 2008. Unfortunately, there was no such luck for three-time Olympian Jamie Costin and fellow Irishman Michael Doyle – neither finished today’s race, which was held in hot conditions.
In the women’s 20km event, former World Championship silver medallist Olive Loughnane – already qualified for London this summer – showed that she is hitting form again at the right time, finishing 8th in 1:31:32. Laura Reynolds finished 35th in 1:37:06.
Ireland’s other qualifiers for this year’s Olympic 50km race, Robert Heffernan and Brendan Boyce, competed in the 20km event in Saransk, finishing 12th and 65th respectively. Having finished 8th in Beijing and an agonising fourth in both 20km and 50km walks at the 2010 European Championships in Barcelona, Heffernan will look to challenge seriously for a medal in London.
Race walking is enjoying increased interest in Ireland these times, thanks in great part to the major championship exploits of Loughnane, Heffernan and Gillian O’Sullivan, also a World silver medallist. (You can listen here to a radio interview with O’Sullivan shortly after her 2003 World Championship medal performance.) Young Irish talent following in their footsteps include Olympic qualifier Boyce and World Youth champion Kate Veale, who also competed in Saransk this weekend.
It’s not as simple as your Sunday afternoon stroll or Saturday night stagger home, of course. Walking is a gruelling event – the 50km race is longer than a marathon, remember. Also, the sport is highly technical, with competitors monitored by judges looking for breaches of the rules. Disqualification, after three ‘red card’ warnings, is a regular occurence in race walking even at Olympic level.
Here are the two basic rules for each walker. First, the toe of the walker’s back foot cannot leave the ground until the heel of the front foot has touched the ground. In effect, this means that a race walker always has one foot in contact with the ground, unlike a runner. Loss of contact, if seen by a judge, earns a red card warning. Second, the front leg must remain straight from the moment of contact with the ground until the walker’s body is directly above it.
Try that for a few steps at home. Feels strange, doesn’t it? Now try doing – and remembering – that for 50 kilometres. As I said, walking is a gruelling event, and it demands great technical and mental strength.
Where most top long-distance runners use spinal motion and a forward centre of gravity to create momentum, race walkers propel themselves with a twist of the pelvis and a vigorous motion of the arms. This can look bizarre and unnatural to a general public more accustomed to watching pump-action sprinters or graceful milers. To the walking aficionado, though, the physical challenge is all part of the appeal. Besides, how natural is it to jump backwards over a 2-metre-high bar or lever yourself with a pole over the height of a bungalow?
As in all things, success breeds interest and then acceptance: should our race walkers perform well or even bring home a medal from London this summer, the straight leg and pumping arms will become a common sight on the roads and streets of Ireland. Who knows, we might even become the Kenya of race walking.
To continue your understanding and training, here are highlights of the women’s 20km walk from last year’s World Athletics Championships in Daegu:
(L-R) The Aquatics Centre, the Orbit viewing tower, the Olympic Stadium and, in the foreground, the Water Polo Arena for London 2012, as seen from the John Lewis viewing gallery in Stratford.
The young lad sitting near me had sketched what looked like a basic three-storey apartment building that was three windows wide. Unfortunately, he was supposed to be drawing the view of the new London Olympic Park across the street, as his classmates were doing. And while the structures certainly looked quite distinctive and daring from our vantage point at a third-floor department store window (see photo above), none of them resembled the Birds Eye Potato Waffle this budding artist had produced. He looked worried.
Fortunately, his teacher was reassuring. “Well,”, she mused kindly, “it could be a building that was there before the stadium.” This lady was obviously a believer in the Olympic ideal of how it’s not about the winning but the taking part.
It’s not easy to have such an innocent and untainted view of the Olympics today. After all, to get to the Olympic Park from Stratford train station, you must pass through a large shopping plaza – depressingly appropriate for such a sponsor-shackled event, you might say. The Olympic Park is not open to the public and is still surrounded by construction-site metal fencing, so sightseers are advised to follow signs to a viewing gallery in John Lewis – not a person but the Official Department Store of the London Olympics. (The viewing gallery includes a shop selling Official Products.)
If London’s Olympic Park was designed with visual impact in mind, then it has certainly succeeded. The Aquatics Centre looks bizarre, like an open book with a flying saucer for a page-marker. The main stadium, home to the athletics, appears mundane by comparison. But most eye-catching of all is a red metallic viewing tower called the Orbit (whose official title contains the name of its corporate sponsor), resembling a rollercoaster tangled on a lighthouse. This is a clear pitch for posterity and tourist landmark status – after all, no events will be hosted on the Orbit, unless the diving competitions get particularly weird.
Get used to the look of it all, because for three weeks this summer it’ll be the centre of the world.
Around London there are other Olympic locations. For instance, the marathon will take place on an 8-mile loop around the city centre stretch of the Thames, finishing in front of Buckingham Palace on The Mall. The cycling road races will also finish there. Hyde Park will host the triathlon, and beach volleyball finds itself in a temporary open-air arena in Horse Guards Parade.
Strolling around the centre of London this week, I didn’t see as much Olympic paraphernalia as I had expected. Londoners seem to be quite cool about the Games - and maybe even a bit weary of the whole thing already. Posters in the Underground stations and carriages advise commuters not to take the Tube during the Olympic and Paralympic period – a rare example of an organisation actively discouraging its customers. Heathrow Airport is already struggling to cope with queues at its immigration controls. The media features stories of missiles based on top of apartment buildings and fighter planes roaring over residential areas, all to the inconvenience of the locals. Perhaps the best place to experience the London Olympics is anywhere except London.
Still, there was a good atmosphere around the Olympic Park when I was there. (I’m comparing it to Paris, where I live, so perhaps that’s faint praise.) Outside Stratford train station, sightseers seeking the Olympic Park were guided by a trail of people wearing large pink foam fingers to point the way, happy to pose for photos. The woman working in the merchandise shop had time to chat with customers as they bought branded T-shirts and plastic beakers. And those artistic schoolkids seemed genuinely enthralled by the Olympic vista before them, unconcerned that the merchandise shop only accepts one brand of credit card, that of the Official Partner.
If all goes to plan, sightseers will continue to make the short Tube trip from central London for years to come. Discussions about ‘legacy’ have surrounded the Olympic Park almost since its conception – the stadium, for instance, has been at the centre of competing bids and legal challenges by local football clubs looking to move in after the Games. Kites were flown by bidders about taking up the running track. But as the stadium is due to host the 2015 World Athletics Championships, track and field will still have a home in this corner of London long after the five-ring circus and its Official Partners have left town.
You can find out more about the Olympic Park and other venues at the official London 2012 website: www.london2012.com. To get a glimpse inside the stadium, here’s a short news report from the opening night:
Ladies, think of the time and effort you could save with one or two nails less.
Warning: If you’re of a sensitive disposition, approach this post with caution. But if you like a bit of grossness, read on!
At last, after eight years and five marathons, I feel I’ve finally become a real runner. All those doubts I had from not wearing running tights or an MP3 player – forget them. I’m the real deal, baby! And what did it take to convince me of this?
I’ve lost my first toenail.
Well, it’s not true to say that I’ve ‘lost’ the toenail, in the strictest sense of the word – I can find it whenever I want, because it’s sitting on the counter beside my bathroom sink. But the nail is no longer attached to its toe of origin, you see.
Now, I hasten to add that this wasn’t at all the painful gorefest you might imagine, and I only noticed it after the event. Here’s what happened.
I was pattering around the apartment in my bare feet a few nights ago, showered and fed after a good four-mile run, when I felt a slight breeze at the top of my right foot, as through the leaves of a tree on a summer day.
Looking down at the limb in question, I noticed that the nail of the second (and longest) toe was sticking out a little further that usual. On closer inspection, I found the toenail to be flapping away from one side and barely clinging to its position. One gentle poke later, and the nail was off.
If you had told me in advance that I’d be taking off one of my toenails, I’d have winced at the thought of it. Cutting your nails too short is a little painful, right? Surely the skin underneath would be raw with nerve endings and pain receptors. And hadn’t we seen the torture scene in ‘The Wind That Shakes The Barley’?
But no, the toe left behind was not giving pain. Of course, it’s possible to explain this away by my general marathon-running rock-hardness. But it seems that the nail was probably dead for a while, and this was merely the moment of its passage.
That toe had been bruised for a few months because of incessant heel-striking when I was training last year. My Chi Running class in January sorted that out, and soon the bruising had cleared. But after the Paris Marathon a couple of weeks ago, the same toe was badly beaten up again. Despite it healing up soon after, perhaps the nail had been irretrievably weakened and, as it were, cleared for lift-off.
So what happens now? Well, I presume a new one will take its place. I had assumed that the nail would gradually grow again from the root. However, at the moment it seems as if the replacement is slowly appearing whole, like a ghost manifesting itself – the vacant area now has a thin nail-like layer covering it. You’ll appreciate that I’m reluctant to poke too much, but that’s how down there is looking from up here.
In true marathon-runner mental-attitude style, can we learn anything from this? I’m sure we can – lots of stuff about the frailty of the body, the regenerative powers of nature, and what have you. But at the moment I’m too busy enjoying the toenail-losing experience. And consider this: with the previous office-holder still on my bathroom counter, very soon I’ll have 11 toenails! One more than ordinary people! Yeah!
Have you any runner’s toenail stories to share? Still packing the full set, or are you down one or two?
It’s 9pm in Barcelona: time for the Olympic 3,000m final. (Ireland’s Sonia O’Sullivan is in the white top and green shorts.)
I’m just back from a few days’ break in Barcelona, where the sports-loving locals have been feeling down ever since their favourite football team lost a title decider against their bitter rivals, then a Champions League semi-final and finally their manager, all in the space of a week. No wonder there were dark clouds hanging over the Nou Camp stadium when we visited it. Fortunately, things were a lot brighter at the other sports venue we visited.
Apart from football, Barcelona’s other sporting legacy is its staging of the 1992 Olympic Games, which revitalised both the city and the Olympics. Following a series of Games marred by bloodshed, boycotts and drug scandals, thankfully the 1992 edition was as vibrant and enjoyable as its host. And the city’s current Port Olimpic area, formerly a post-industrial wasteland, was regenerated thanks to the sailing facility and athletes’ village built there.
Barcelona’s Olympic stadium, now officially named the Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys after a Catalan politician executed in 1940 by the Franco regime, stands on the picturesque hill of Montjuic to the south of the city centre. To get there, you can take a tour bus from the city centre or even a cable car up from the seafront, but perhaps the best way is to walk from Plaça d’Espanya and use the series of escalators to climb the hill – the Olympic complex is around the back of the Museum of Catalan Art.
Nearby are other venues from the same Olympics – for instance, the Palau Sant Jordi arena just next door was home to the gymnastic events, while just down the hill are the diving pools, with their spectacular backdrop of the Barcelona city centre. (Pop trivia: They also feature in the video for Kylie Minogue’s ‘Slow’.) The futuristic needle-like communications tower by Santiago Calatrava is another nearby landmark that dates from the Olympic period. Trees and green fields cover the rest of the hill, lending a tranquil air to the area.
A middle-tier section of the Olympic stadium is open to the public, with no entry charge – you can simply stroll in from the street outside. (By contrast, entry to the Nou Camp stadium and its museum costs a whopping 24 euros per person.)
It’s quite a thrill to be in an Olympic stadium – especially one as distinctive as Barcelona’s, with its clock and arch at one end. The Olympic cauldron is still there; you’ll remember how it was lit with a flaming arrow fired by Paralympic archer Antonio Rebollo. Famously, the arrow was deliberately shot over the cauldron and out of the stadium, but there’s no ceremonial scorchmark outside to commemorate where the arrow landed, or in whom.
In the stadium there’s a tourist giftshop, and a café where you can sit by the window and survey the scene. The running track is now blue, laid down for the 2010 European Athletic Championships – and since then the stadium hasn’t been used much. Superstar concert tours by the likes of U2 and Bruce Springsteen roll in every so often. For a decade after the Games, the stadium was used by Barcelona’s other football team, Espanyol, until they moved to a new ground a couple of years ago. It’s sad to think that the Olympic stadium’s open-door policy may be a necessary expedient to attract visitors and stave off neglect. However, the World Junior Athletic Championships will be held there in July, so that should clear away the cobwebs for a while yet.
Near the stadium is Barcelona’s own Olympic and sporting museum, named after former International Olympic Committee chief Juan Antonio Samaranch, which I highly recommend you visit. At only €4.50 per person, entry is great value – you can see signed memorabilia from famous sportspeople, informative and entertaining displays (including a searchable database with videos of Olympic highlights) and even an interactive game to test your reflexes. (If you’re competitive, try to beat my score of 35.) And if that’s too hectic for you, then simply browse Samaranch’s collection of conkers.
Strangely, there is no souvenir shop in the museum, nor is there Olympic-related merchandise on sale in the stadium shop. (Again, let’s compare that to the Nou Camp’s enormous store, through which all tour visitors are obliged to pass before they leave.) Could this be another instance of the dreaded Olympic commercial rights imposing themselves? Visitors would surely have liked to pick up a Barcelona ’92 memento or two – a poster, a DVD of highlights, perhaps even a Linford Christie lunchbox.
Both 10,000 metres finals were dramatic. Derartu Tulu of Ethiopia won the women’s race ahead of Elana Meyer, the first South African to win a medal in her country’s return to the Olympics. The two Africans’ joint celebration provided a neat moment of post-apartheid symbolism. Meanwhile, in the men’s event Morocco’s Khalid Skah controversially defeated Kenya’s Richard Chelimo with the help of his lapped compatriot Hammou Boutayeb, raising suspicions of deliberate unsporting tactics. At one stage an official even ran onto the track to try to stop Boutayeb, but to no avail – Skah sprinted past Chelimo to take the gold. Skah was jeered by the crowd during his lap of honour and disqualified immediately afterwards, but after deliberations he was later reinstated as winner. (The bad feeling continued during the medal ceremony next day, when Skah was jeered again and Chelimo received a hero’s ovation from the crowd.)
My favourite races from Barcelona ’92 are the two 1,500 metres finals. Defying religious fundamentalism in her homeland just by the fact of being an athlete, Hassida Boulmerka of Algeria was an impressive winner of the women’s event. The race also defied the Olympic tradition for slow, cagey middle-distance finals – the first lap was a scorching 60 seconds. Despite this fast opening act, Boulmerka still had enough stamina to kick for home from 200 metres out without losing her fluid running posture, racing right through the finish line and celebrating with some emotionally-charged fist-pumping.
The men’s race an hour later provided one of the most surprising and popular winners of the entire Games. Nourredine Morcelli of Algeria was the hot favourite to emulate his compatriot Boulmerka and add Olympic gold to his World Championship title from the previous year. Yet in a slow, tactical race he ran poorly, was badly positioned in the pack and eventually finished a disappointing seventh.
Down the back straight on the final lap, with Morcelli out of contention, Spain’s Fermin Cacho found himself perfectly placed for an attack, and so around the final bend he shot out like a ferret from a hole. A memorable image of the Barcelona Olympics is Cacho’s run up the home straight – eyes bulging with exhilaration and panic, then looking back over his shoulder every few strides, and finally celebrating well before the line. Naturally, the home crowd went wild.
Here’s that men’s 1,500 metres final from the 1992 Olympics. (The video at this link is of better quality but, alas, can’t be embedded here.) Be sure to visit the Olympic stadium and museum next time you’re in Barcelona:
Music-wearing runners do look cool, I'll grant you that.
Sometimes I ask myself: am I even a runner at all?
Unlike many of my marathon-training brothers and sisters, I don’t do the running tights. And now, on top of that, I must admit to another sign of my possible non-runner-ness: I don’t listen to music while I run.
If I want a tune, let it pop into my head – but I won’t be packing any gadgets.
The main reason is safety – I run along the streets and so I’d very much like to be able to hear oncoming vehicles, falling pianos and other common obstacles. I find I live longer that way.
Also, be it traffic rumbling on the roads or birds chirping in the woods, the sounds around me help create the atmosphere of my run. This is especially true for races – how could anyone wear earphones during a marathon? You’d miss the buzz of the starting area, the cheering crowds and the bands playing along the route – what motivational tunes could possibly beat that?
And there’s the possibility of safety announcements or emergency vehicles during the race – I note that the Dublin Marathon organisers strongly discourage competitors from listening to music, for this reason.
Still, I suspect that MP3-enhanced running is becoming seen as the norm. Wearing a new fleece running top for the first time during the winter, I noticed that it had a little hip-level pocket to hold a small music-machine – there was even a ‘play’ button on the outside. (No sign of a vinyl record-player version of this garment yet.)
But there’s hope for me yet. The UK edition of Runner’s World magazine has just announced the result of a survey: 53% of respondents run while listening to music on a gadget. That leaves me in a healthy minority of 47% – and as we’ll have less accidents while running, soon we’ll outnumber you MP3-heads.
So, do you listen to music while you run? If so, is it for motivation or entertainment? And what do you listen to?
Dr Pat O'Callaghan, Ireland's greatest Olympic athlete.
I mentioned before how Ireland has only won two Olympic athletics medals in my lifetime, both silver. Once upon a time, though, Ireland won two Olympic track and field gold medals within one hour. And one of the winners was claiming his second Olympic victory.
In the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles, Dr Pat O’Callaghan retained the Olympic hammer title he had won four years previously in Amsterdam (and which was the first Olympic medal won by the newly-independent Ireland). Earlier that day, Bob Tisdall won the 400 metres hurdles in a world-fastest time of 51.7 seconds. However, Tisdall was not credited with a world record because he had knocked over the final hurdle – such were the rules in those days.
Here are two very short videos of interviews with each man. The interviewer is Brendan O’Reilly, RTE sports broadcaster who was a noted high-jumper in his time, once holding the long-standing Irish record at the event. (He also starred in the cult 1970s children’s film Flight of the Doves, where he played an Irish policeman looking for two English kids who ran off to Ireland.)
First up, Pat O’Callaghan looks genuinely modest about his achievement – the only Irish Olympian to win more than one medal, apart from Michelle Smith:
Next, Bob Tisdall talks about his win – and points out how the first four home in the 1932 400 metres hurdles final would all finish their careers as gold medallists in that same event:
All praise is due to YouTube user packieenright for filming them off his television, pulling across the curtains to block out the sunlight, and then posting them online.
