We often hear people talking about the decline in the standard of British Distance Running compared to previous decades.  We know for example that there was a huge amount of depth on the British rankings in the 1980s which for whatever reason isn’t there today.  As an illustration I ran 2:21:00 for my debut marathon in 2002 which somehow ranked me 10^th in the UK (and 1^st U23).  Pick out pretty much any year in the 1980s, and I very much doubt that time would put me in the top 30 in the UK. 

I’ve spoken to my Dad about it quite a bit and he said you could go to any race back then, and you’d be guaranteed a high class race.  Everyone raced almost week in, week out.  Nobody was scared of racing, they got used to racing each other and a defeat one week would motivate the runner to come back and have another pop a week later.  He said that 10ks won in 35mins and Half Marathons won in 75mins, as often seen in the 2011 Athletics Weekly results section, were unheard of!  The reason was the depth of runners training seriously within the club system, their regular racing routine, and much fewer races (meaning that the quality of races wasn’t quite so diluted).  There was effectively a brilliant race opportunity every week.

Once you get to a certain standard nowadays, you really have to travel to be guaranteed a good race opportunity.  That’s time consuming, costly, and you have to make the most of your opportunities.

Whatever your ability, it’s especially true in the case of the marathon.  You only have so many decent marathons in your body, and you can’t really do two within a few weeks of each other (not to the best of your ability certainly).  You put in the block of marathon training, and if it goes well, then it’s important to make the most of the opportunity and perform on race day. 

And then there’s those ever so rare occasions when we go to a race where the conditions, course and field have been perfect for a PB, but we aren’t always able to capitalise on these opportunities for whatever reason. 

As regular readers of my training logs and race reports will have been seeing, 2011 has not been a good year for me so far.  The only shining light was an unexpected best ever finish of 12^th in the National Cross Country.  I’ve carried three injuries throughout the year, and struggled to put any meaningful training together since March.

With the help of my physios at Athlete Matters, my Achilles and Hamstring problems have been resolved but most recently, I have been suffering with a sore Plantar Fascia.  Plantar Fasciitis is the injury I have always dreaded after seeing my brother suffer with it for four years.  From seeing Andy’s experience and talking to him and other runners, as well as my physios, it’s an injury that doesn’t necessarily heal with rest and it could last anything from a couple of months to a few years.  It is always sore first thing in a morning, but has been ok for me to run on once I’ve been on my feet for 30mins or so.  It does deteriorate though when I increase my volume of training too quickly, run in road race flats, run down hills or run big volume track sessions.  It has been improving, and only gets worse when I increase the training load too quickly.  This is where I have struggled so far, but I’m now seeing improvement with a more gradual loading.

2011 has certainly been a year of missed opportunities for me.  The London Marathon was my big target over the first part of the year, but a hamstring injury which came on a week before the race forced me to retire.  My preparations were ahead of last year and I had expected to improve, I saw it as a case of opportunity missed.

Then I was offered an England vest for the Half Marathon in May, I don’t get offered many of these and it’s always tempting to accept.  At the time, my hamstring was still a serious problem, and I didn’t feel in shape to do the vest justice, so I reluctantly turned down the offer.  I did later accept an offer to manage the team in Ian’s absence and be a competing reserve but I reluctantly had to reject this great opportunity.

Last Friday evening was the UK Trials and Championships, and I was invited to compete over 10,000m on the Friday evening.  I’ve run a number of sub 30min times in recent years and these have all come towards the front of BMC races, so this type of race was the next step forward.  I knew I had missed tonnes of relevant training but had hoped that my winter background and recent 5k form might carry me through but it was just too much to ask.  It was a brilliant race to be in, conditions were absolutely perfect and if I had been in the shape I had been in for some of my previous 10000s then it may have been the race to make the next step forward.  I expected the race to start quickly even at the back, but didn’t expect to go through 3000m in last place on 29:10 pace.  Once I was dropped, it was a tough lonely slog, which I strangely enjoyed, but once I started getting lapped, I came close once or twice to tripping runners up through fatigue and left the track with six laps to go.  I was starting to feel out of place, out of my depth and the last thing I wanted was a repeat of the Toronto Marathon, where I tripped the leading lady!  I knew by this stage I would not break 31mins (was on 30:57 pace with 6 laps to go) so there was nothing to be gained by continuing, but it still doesn’t feel good to drop out, apart from marathons it’s my first DNF since 2003.

Working in a running shop, I’m naturally asked several times a day what my current targets are.  Simply, to be in one piece again and to be able to make the most of some of the excellent opportunities that are being made available to me.  I’m not sure if I will ever have the opportunity again to run in the AAA, the qualifying standard was sub 30mins in the last 12 months and even so, this could possibly change in coming years. 

I’ve been out of shape a few times in the past through taking time out, putting weight on, etc and have always managed to get fit quickly.  I’ve been doing it long enough to know what I need to do to turn things around.  The problem this time is that it isn’t in my own hands.

My message to anyone reading this is if you are in one piece, don’t waste your opportunities, make the most of them because you never know if you will get those opportunities again! 

Cheers

Dave