All the leaves are brown, and the sky is grey. (Andy)

It’s a while since I thumped the marathon tub. Let’s do it now.

Taking the baton from the desperate lunge of the previous entry, I did manage to see the doc — eventually. He rang in sick first time round — a self-referential conundrum of the type I enjoy — but I persisted, despite the dial on the knee throbostat clicking back a few notches by the time I got there. He prodded the unco-operative joint, and peered at it like it was an exotic marsupial twitching in a cage.

The eventual verdict was that ‘wear and tear’ is the culprit. In other words, I’m getting old and this is what happens. I had mixed feelings about this. I wasn’t sure I believed it. I wanted a more technical explanation. One minute I was gambolling like a spring lamb; next I was hit with a pain so bad I couldn’t get out of bed. I wanted the cause of knee-death to be more dramatic and more persuasive than ‘natural causes’.

But my rarely-seen more sensible half was relieved that the good doctor hadn’t donned his black cap before delivering the judgement. Even if the explanation was a bit weedy, there appears to be nothing obvious and seriously wrong. And he did mention that until recently he’d worked as an orthopaedic specialist at the hospital — so I’d have thought he’d be well placed to recognise a dicky knee when one arrived in his surgery.

His advice was that a return to the plodding life was likely to do it more good than harm, and that I should spit in the eye of my Boston Marathon anxieties. He didn’t use those exact words, but that’s my translation.

More practically, he said something that did start a train of useful thought. That I should think about running less often, and resting, or cross-training, more. The ‘less is more’ idea was the battle cry of the Mighty Swede of this parish, as he trained for the Two Oceans Marathon earlier this year.

It would be cheeky to take ‘less is more’ too literally, considering that I’ve barely run in the last two or three months. But I take it to mean quality over quantity, and it led me to dig out and rediscover a training schedule I’d read about in Runner’s World magazine a year or two back. It’s a 3-runs-per-week marathon plan, and was devised by the Furman Institute of Running & Scientific Training, an impressive sounding body, but one whose over-complex name was almost certainly chosen for its 22 carat acronymical value.

FIRST is essentially an offshoot of a university department in Greenville, South Carolina. It may well be just a room, or even a desk. Or perhaps it has no furniture whatever to its name. What it does have is this 3-runs-per-week marathon plan, which I’ve decided to try out.

There are two flavours: fast and slow, though needless to say they don’t call them this. The idea isn’t new but it’s good to see it with different wrapping paper. Each of the 16 or 18 week plans has a long run (bit slower than intended marathon pace), a tempo run (bit slower than 10K pace) and a speed session (about 10K pace). In between are a couple of easy cross-training  sessions. It’s about time I got the bike out again.

The Boston Marathon is 20 weeks to the day tomorrow, which gives me a couple of weeks to drop a few pounds and become plodworthy. I’m up for it.

This week hasn’t been bad — the best for a couple of months. I’ve managed three runs. Two gentle 3.5 milers at the start of the week, and a more testing 6 miles today along the muddy towpath of the canal.

It was a windy, rainswept afternoon which explains why I saw no one apart from an invisible fisherman. All his gear was neatly laid out around his temporary home — but angler was there none. Maybe he’d been dragged beneath the choppy waters by an alligator flushed down the toilet years earlier in Whitley Wood.

My training hasn’t officially started, but it was hard not to consider this the first day of the Boston campaign. It was therefore an occasion for momentous thoughts. As I trudged, I forced myself to think the unthinkable. The unthinkable is something I think about quite often. It’s this: that I should give up alcohol for the duration.

Yes I know. But…

It would make a major difference to my chances of success. I’d lose weight much more quickly. The booze itself isn’t as calorific as the Enemy claims, but as I’ve often observed in these pages, it’s all the rubbish food I shovel down my neck at the same time that causes me such grief. I find it almost impossible to enjoy a pint in the pub without a bag of crisps or peanuts. At home, a glass of robust red wine is but a ghost of its true identity without a plate of cheese and biscuits. And once the crap food damn is breached like this, more must inevitably follow.

So abstinence makes some sort of sense, though it would be tough. Christmas isn't a problem as I'm surrounded by teetotallers. I can think of a couple of impending social engagements that might challenge a non-drinker. And of course, there's the little matter of the RC AGM in Almeria at the end of January...

As I plodded and pondered, Jez Lowe’s latest album entertained me. (Don’t worry, no one else has heard of him either.) As my desolate, wintry run reached its closing stages I was wondering which of these lilting shipyard ballads deserved the Track du Jour nomination. However, with the iPod now back on shuffle mode, something popped up that I’d not heard in a long time: a tune that instantly transported me back to my first university term in 1979. More specifically, to an appalling pub called the Phoenix in the Precinct Centre below the hall of residence I lived in for a while. It must have been the convenience of the place, but a few of us seemed to go there far more often than its ambience merited.

One of the few saving graces of the boozer was a cracking jukebox. Through that first, grim winter there was one song that seemed to offer us hope of something better to come. I, or one of the others in the gang, would ensure it was played several times each evening. Whenever those first few insistent bars of accoustic guitar appeared, conversation seemed to cease for a few moments, as though some sort of window on a wider, brighter world was being wrenched open.

On this blustery, nondescript afternoon, how great to hear that intro again, followed by those yearning lyrics.

All the leaves are brown, and the sky is grey
I went for a walk on a winter's day
I'd be safe and warm if I was in L.A.
California dreamin'
On such a winter's day

California Dreamin'. This is now my campaign song, even if I may have to think of it as Massachusetts Dreamin’. Hope and hollowness, pain and spiritual lyricism, all bundled up together.

Sure sounds like a worthy marathon anthem to me.

Comments

[ANTONIO L.R.]

I´m very glad your knee is better and can go for a run again, Andy.

I also read a marathon plan done by a group of Spanish runners in which they just trained three days a week and they were successful.

I´m sure you can be a teetotaller even in Almería. You can always have an alcohol-free beer but you shouldn´t miss tapas. I also want to lose some kilos and reach 79 kg for Almería half. Now my weight is 84 kg.

Best of luck with your training, Andy!

[Seafront]

Great news Andy, although not so good about your forthcoming bout of abstemiousness.

My err..least slowest marathon was done off the back of just 2 runs a week. I just made sure the weekend longee's were done.

Re the knee, have you tried one of those athletic support things, it may help - or at least stop things getting worse when you crank up the mileage.

[sweder]

Good news indeed.

Less is more certainly worked for me. My injuries all but vanished as soon as I ditched the barbaric track work and lightened my mid-week load. I also advocate off-road running as a way to protect vulnerable joints. Not always easy for everyone I know but I'm convinced that, once adjusted to the wobbly terrain, mud and grass offer more give than concrete and tarmac to the old and infirm.

As all before have said the weekly long'un counts for most. Some on the RW sub-3:45 thread (!) have been banging on about the benefits of making your long run as slow as possible. I think in their parlance this means no quicker than nine minute miling . . . There's some science involved about running at the optimum pace to burn fat. It's worth a go.

Quaffing beer (or not) has never affected my running but agree a)it does affect junk food intake and therefore weight loss, and b) this is an entirely individual thing. If you can curb the munchies then a pint or two is medicinal - proven, cast-iron, take-it-to-the-fat-fighters-bank fact.A few strung together on a Friday night have been known to contribute to excellent Sunday long runs.

[Devil's Avocado]

Yes, SP, I have an impressive collection of elasticated knee supports. Or used to have. When the Grim Plodder first beckoned me, back in 2001, I stockpiled them in anticipation. It's not a bad suggestion. At my usual velocity, a knee support seems unlikely to hold me back.

The alcohol jury is still out, though I've had a few dry days and am already feeling better for it. Of course, if you were to make it over to Almeria, I would leave my angelic apparatus behind in the UK for a couple of days.

Any chance of joining us this time?

Andy

[SP]

Well um...not sure really. I've had an impressive array of jaunts abroard in the last few months.

I've just come back from (almost) breaking the bank in Vegas, and that was preceded by a hacking around in Waterford with Sweder and others. Early next year I'm off again to New York staying at the Waldorf Astoria for a few days.

Regrettably all this costs, and unlike others I cannot really claim they are work-related.

I'm not saying no just yet though...

[sweder]

Book it Danno. You know it makes sense . . .

[Devil's Avocado]

Sweder - I hear what you're saying about the booze but you're right -- it's an individual thing. Even a slightly fuzzy head from only 2 or 3 beers affects my enthusiasm for the plod ahead. It seems to erode my motivation, quite apart from the crap food problem. Being honest, it seems very unlikely indeed that I'll really get on the wagon for 4 months, but a decent compromise may be to do without for the month of December so that I can at least lose a few pounds and get fully motivated, then see how I feel in the new year. It's hard to envisage Almeria without a few beers after the race, or a few Riojas in the Bullfighters Bar.

[stillwaddler]

Good news about the knees Andy, consider going to a physio to get a few exercises to build up the muscles supporting them perhaps? I agree about the less is more thing, I usually have a day between runs. When I trained for London last year I did four runs a week, three midweek but with two days off before the long Sunday run backed up with cross training on the Friday - usually a swim.

Wish I could join you in Almeria - I have just had to scratch from the Stockport 10 miler this Sunday because of a dose of the dreaded cold/fluey thing :-(

As for giving up the booze, why not compromise? Don't drink mid-week, have a few on Friday if your long run is to be on Sunday. I usually go tee-total for January just to give my liver a rest after the festive jolies;-)....Mind you, I saw a tee shirt recently whcih said "The Liver is Evil And Must Be Punished"

The pounds will drop off naturally when you increase your mileage anyway - even Mr SW got down to 12 stone before FLM....he's a little more substantial now 'though;-)

Do you remember a link on Running Commetary to Pyjammy.com? Blog from a girl training for New York Mara - I have read it for a while, and guess what? She was delivered of triplets on Tuesday - Crickey, if she though a marathon was hard ....

[Devil's Avocado]

Hi SW

Yeah -- Pam Mather from New Orleans. Or Baton Rouge.

http://www.pyjammy.com/blog/

Ran London the same year as me, 2002, if I remember right. I've read her blog on and off ever since. Crazy gal. Yay! We corresponded for at least a couple of years. She even has a few posts on the RC forum.

I last read her blog a few months ago and was staggered to hear she was expecting triplets. Then forgot all about it until I read your message. On national TV news an' all because shortly after delivering her 3 boys, another mum produced 4 girls. Enjoyed Pam's comment - "I wonder if they'll trade us a boy for a girl. That'd be fun."

Thanks for the encouragement re marathon training. I wanted a referral to a physio when I visited the GP but he seemed to think it unnecessary. Am gulping down the old glucosamine in the meantime, and hoping for the best. The knee felt decidedly fragile today, it has to be said, so decided a couple of beers wouldn't harm. And a Chinese takeaway....

No need to apologise re Almeria. I know it's difficult to fit in if you don't have a lot of holiday flexibility. Funnily enough, someone who finds it particularly hard to manage, timewise, is St. Antonio himself. His family and work commitments block out much of the 3.5 days for him. The rest of us have to rely on an alcoholic stupor to do the same.

There'll be another year, I'm sure.

Andy

[ANTONIO L.R.]

It´s a pity that you can´t come next year either, ST. Maybe in 2009.

Thanks for sanctifying me, andy, although I don´t deserve it. Actually, it is a real pleasure to be the host of you all even if it means to leave other obligations. Anyway, it is a good excuse to go out a little and improve my poor English.

By the way, I saw Reading playing Liverpool this afternoon and I noticed that the athletics track at the Madejki stadium has been covered with stands. Then, Reading half can´t finish in the stadium, can it? By the way, Reading has beaten Liverpool 3-1. Congratulations, Reading supporters! However, I wish that Spanish Liverpool had won. Let´s hope they´re luckier in Marseilles next Tuesday.

Saludos desde Almería

[Devil's Avocado]

Hi Antonio

Yes, the Reading Half will finish in the Madejski Stadium again in 2008. I don't know how they'll do it but it will happen. It doesn't need a full athletics track to bring the runners in. I'm told that the finish goes around two sides of the stadium now, instead of one like last time.

Must admit I dislike Reading football club. I live in a village full of "Reading fans" who'd never seen them play until 18 months ago. In fact, given the population of the local pubs when Reading are on TV, I suspect that most of them still haven't been to see them. When they get relegated again, these fair-weather fans will dig out their old Man Utd and Chelsea shirts, and with a sigh of relief, life will revert to pre-2006 days.

Liverpool were very poor this evening. They'll need to improve for the Champions League, but I'm sure everyone who contributes here shares your desire to see them win in Marseille...

[Karl (aka MLCM)]

Abstinence? Hans, vot mins abstinence?

[Devil's Avocado]

I'm undergoing a midlife crisis.

[Devil's Avocado]

And more to point, a mid-leg one.