Planning for the Robin Hood Half
2016

Planning your training programme is vital if you are going to run a half marathon. This will be blindingly obvious to anyone who has even considered the rather strange idea of getting up, at God knows what hour on a Sunday morning, having missed both a decent Saturday night out and a decent Saturday night's sleep and going to hang around a field with several thousand similarly inspired fools, for a couple of hours, before embarking on the 13 mile folly that goes by the name of The Robin Hood Half Marathon.
1. you should never drink the night before a big race (Mo Farah and I are in complete agreement on this, as we are on many of the finer points of race running)
2. you just can't sleep, the night before, no matter how early/late you go to bed or which edition of Geoffrey Archer's continuously repeated novel you try to read or the number of cute sheep, jumping over an amusingly drawn cartoon style, you care to count, due to all the excitement and apprehension.

Preparation for a half marathon generally includes a lot of running. I guess you could have seen that one coming. But there is much more to it than that. Resting is just as important in your preparation for a half marathon as the running itself. Or so I read in Runner's World, or was told by someone who read it in Jogger's Realm or did I merely glean it after a particularly intense bout of wishful thinking?

Your well planned, steady training programme should run over several weeks, building to a final run that is at least 3/4 of the target distance, followed by a week of tapering and a final week of complete abstinence from running. Rest allows your muscles time to recover and rebuild, and begin the process becoming stronger. This then, should be the plan for all attempting such madness and plans, so Mo Farah I'm sure would tell you, are the basis of any success and should be stuck to.

Preparation for my first home half did not quite follow the ideal training pattern laid down in all the most reputed training magazines, books, blogs, vlogs, brocures, facebook pages and twittered advice to be found on the subject. It was more like a chapter from 'The Idiots Guide to Life, Chapter 6 How to Jump Queues at Your Local Casualty Dept - the running method'.

That's not to say that it didn't start well. After my last big race, the Round Sheffield Run I rested. It is important to rest after a long race^. Especially after one as punishing as the Round Sheffield. That required at least 2 weeks off to the pure delight of my wife, who welcomed a break from the constant whinging about minor aches, pains, niggles, sore muscles and latest P. B. s on my myriad of training loops from our front gate. I suspect it is similar in the Farah household leading up to the Olympics.

Then it was back to general training leading up to Thunder Run. Training after a bit of a lay off is always a challenge. You start feeling sluggish, over weight and surprisingly unfit. That will be the doughnuts from last Saturday then, or the bag of chips on Thursday not mention the sneaky and, it has to be said, completely unnecessary, sticky bun whilst waiting for the tram on Tuesday.

After a while it all gets to be a bit easier. You start to fit into your clothes again. You find yourself making salads for your lunch, you generally feel better about yourself and the world around you. The sun seems brighter in the mornings, the neighbours a little more friendly and approachable. Even politicians start to appear more human despite still not actually making a great deal of sense. You begin to believe that doing a 24 hour relay race might actually be a good idea and you start looking forward to it. Running is, when all said and done, a powerful, if delusional drug.

Then, a week before the race, when it is of course best to give yourself a break, to let the muscles heal, the wife piped up, "How about a week in the Isle of Wight eating and drinking too much in celebration of my mother's 70th?" What could be finer? So I put on several pounds and lost that racing edge in a thick head or two or three. Then made a fool of myself at Thunder Run running ridiculously slow and falling over in the middle of the night. Actually on the course whilst running I hasten to add. Mo Farah and I have the same philosophy on falling over in a race. We both get up and carry on. I get up with a severely twisted ankle, carry on with quite a bit of a limp, making the whole thing worse, to crawl in last, unnoticed, by the crowd that at that time of night is mostly tucked up in bed. Mo (I like to think that I can be on first name terms, since we have both fallen over at the same distances and all) does it to wow the world, power himself into another Olympic final and write yet another volume in the History of Running, without it seems, breaking to a sweat . Vive la difference.

Resting is just as important in your preparation for a half marathon as the running itself.
Well that's OK because having twisted my ankle and I was forced to take 2 months off. That will have helped get me into tip top condition. Think of all those muscle fibres repairing themselves making my legs stronger. And they needed to be, what with all the extra carbs I just couldn't help eating and weight I just couldn't help piling on. When is it too soon to carb load?

In the middle of my forced lay off I spent 2 weeks in France eating my body weight in cheese, bread and pate. I should make it clear. That should read as 'eating my body weight in cheese, as well as my body weight in bread, as well as my body weight in pate'.

I returned from France and avoided the scales.

The next bit is quite important. In fact it is so important in preparing for a race that it trumps the training and the resting put together. Again this is something that Mo and I see eye to eye on. It is so important that without it your racing career will be, if not short, at least uneventful

Enter the bloody race before it fills up!

10 days to go, ankle still a little swollen and weight having ballooned, I go for a short run. My first in over 2 months.

Does the ankle hold up? OK. Try a 5K the day after.

How was that? Fine.

Rest for a couple of days. Go for another short run. OK? Everything seems to be working.

Now go for a 10k.

RobinHood Half Slideshow
For those of you not OK with basic maths I will point out that 10k is a little under half the distance of a half marathon. There is now less than a week to the main event. If I can't do this comfortably then I am not running it. Take it slowly. Its about getting round and not breaking any records.

It goes OK.

Plan. Wednesday, run a 10 miler. That would still be a park run short of the half marathon distance but it would be close enough. OK the legs might be a bit tired. No time for tapering and forget completely about a week off letting the muscles heal and all that caper. I am now in Mo Farah country. He doesn't take days off. He doesn't lounge around making clever excuses, with pseudo scientific evidence to back it up, as to why he shouldn't put all thoughts of Eccles cake out of his head, get off his arse and do another stint and look what it does for him!

So time for a new plan, and I'd like you to follow the logic on this one. If I were running a marathon and not a half marathon then I'd do my tapering after I'd done a half marathon distance or even longer. Therefore, assume that I am doing a marathon. Run a 10 mile on Wed, a half marathon on the Sunday, remembering to run it rather than race it, and then taper for the none existent marathon a couple of weeks after that. Makes sense? What do you think Mo?

Tuesday. Right foot is swelling up. Cancel Wednesdays run. Best to rest the legs. As I've always said, resting is the most important part of any running training programme.

So the big day dawns. I am about as ready for this as Sam Alidyce is to write a book entitled 'Integrity in High Profile Positions and How to Achieve it in the Eyes of Daily Telegraph reporters'.

I Don my old running shoes because I can't find my newer ones. They are probably still in the caravan after Thunder Run. Squeeze into an ill fitting running top. My general shape has changed as a direct result of my intensive training regime. France has really taken its toll. Route around for the Vaseline* Can't find the damn stuff it has been so long since I ran far enough to need it.

Check the time.

Swear!

Get myself into a flap. Grab anything that I can remember that I might need over the course of the day and head off for the tram in double quick time.

Return 30 seconds later for all the things I have forgotten.

Get myself into another flap!

Leave the house again.

Head off for the tram again.

Make it just in time.

Relax.

Well that's the warm up sorted.

Then turn up at the start line full of misplaced optimism, wearing a hopeful smile and Bob is, as it were, my distant cousin, who has just sent me a snidy text that shows just how far he has crawled up his own arse and how much he still manages to get under my skin. "Fail to plan and plan to fail."

^ 'A day off for every mile of the race', is the official advice for post race recovery. Now this supposes that you run a lot harder during the race than you would during training. The key here is how you interpret the word "race". To me "race" means a jog with lots of people all getting in the way, trying to trip you up (largely because they don't carry indicator and break lights rather than through any malicious intent) and of course a medal at the end of it. For Mo Farah it is something similar just a little faster.

*For 'runners nipple' prevention. For those who don't run or have the benefit of a well fitted sports bra, I should point out that this can be very painful and really spoil your morning shower for the next week.

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