I read today that the reason it’s almost impossible to swat a fly is that they perceive time very differently than we do. One of our seconds seems to last 4 to a fly, so our world seems to them to be in slow motion. That would be a really useful skill and I wonder if this is how some of my friends manage a long run at a pace at which I would consider a good sprint.
Time is a funny old thing and does seem to pass at different rates depending on circumstances; I’m sat on a train to London at the moment and simply blogging will mean that the journey will seem to be over very quickly. When I entered the Yorkshire Marathon last year I was sure I would have plenty of time to train really well and prepare myself to, as the expression goes, “absolutely smash it” and beat my Marathon PB. However, as I have well documented, this year has been a real struggle to get fit and then sustain it long enough to train. I had resigned myself to the fact that there was no way to get “Marathon fit” in the time left, so I decided not to even try. My physiotherapist’s favourite expression is “Less is more” and so I trained “sensibly”, not trying to ramp up my mileage too soon and building in plenty of rest time in the week. If you are a runner you will know the sort of thing I’m talking about.
A few days ago I had convinced myself that there was just two weeks to go before the Marathon. I figured that since it wasn’t going to be a personal record performance anyway, that I would break all the rules and do a last long run to try and eek-out a few last drops of stamina from my training.
Well as I have explained previously, time is a relative thing but in this case I had simply got it wrong and the main event is not 2 weeks away but 3. “So what?” you may ask but here’s the ting: doing a last long run 3 weeks away from a Marathon isn’t that stupid (in the way that doing it 2 weeks away IS) because that time does give your body a chance to recover and “bank” that last training run. So it suddenly dawned on me that actually, I wasn’t really in a bad place at all with regards this Marathon after all. By letting go on the unrealistic and given up on what I thought was a good plan, I had sleepwalked into executing what is probably a very sensible Marathon training plan.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to achieve a PB on this occasion. My goal is to get round in under 10 minute miles and if I achieve that I’ll be over the moon. The lesson I shall take away is that this “less is more” philosophy really works and that I’m not stupid for paying for a good physio.
“But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: with the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.”
2 Peter 3:8 NIVUK
http://bible.com/113/2pe.3.8.nivuk
