Zatopek

Every week we in the "magical Milers" sub-5-minute group get a schedule from our esteemed leader, Bobby McGee. Having written thousands of these things, Bobby has developed a system of abbreviations for specific workouts. He also has a policy of "continual improvements" -- yes, which means he keeps generating new ones. This is sometimes hard for us to follow. It makes it impossible for anyone else to know what the heck we are doing.

On the occasion of his anniversary of 25 years of coaching, I realised that in years to come, Bobby will be one of those coaches whose methods are analysed to death. You’ll find all sorts of runners and triathletes coming out of the woodwork claiming to have trained with him. There’ll be talk of 100-mile weeks and sessions of 40 x 400m in 60secs. So, for the record, I thought I ought to record an actual schedule Bobby gave me -- in this case the one I used when I first started with him. Don’t let anyone tell you different – this is what we really do.

I do know this training is going to make me stronger, but today it just felt like a slog.

I think I hit every pace from 18 minutes a mile backwards to 5:16 forwards. The 18:00 is no exaggeration (althought the backwards bit is). Below freezing, plus wind chill, plus deep snow. My snow chains were doing a good job, but then I saw a runner slogging up a hill towards me on snowshoes. "Showshoes eh?" says I. "Is it deep out there?" "No", he says, lying through his gritted teeth (I found out later), "it's not too bad".

Well it was. By the time I got to the one-hour mark I was too tired, cold, wet and hungry to face the remaining part of the scheduled work out: drills and strides. I was on survival mode and just trying to get home. Part of the problem is that I keep getting up late, missing breakfast and making do with a banana and cups of tea. As I close the front door to start my run I'm feeing hungry. Not a good habit to get into.