The Tale of a Mountain Goat

Sarah Mac (not to be confused with retired Javelin thrower Sarah Snack) became a household name on Saturday after winning the Bedford BMC Grand Prix on a windy and wet night, in which I ate her post-race dinner while she slogged it out over 12 ½ laps.

Making her August debut at her favourite distance, the student of soil who plys her trade north of the Scottish border executed the perfect race against Birmingham University’s fun-sized BUCS XC winner Hannah Walker to take not only the victory, but complete more than a 90 second PBimprovement from two years ago.

Imrpovement of a champion.

If Walker harboured any real ambitions of winning this race, then she had clearly not done her research of readily availableinformation.  With 200m to go, Mac destroyed her like a tsunami charging down a family picnic on the beach, and was first to the interview with Athletics Weekly and what was left of the organiser-provided water after spectator Simon Millhouse earlier filled up his bag when no one was looking.

Founding members of the Sarah Mac fan club.

Sarah put gender equality the right way up as she recorded a time faster than any of her former Sheffield Uni training partners ever have, renewing our desire for immediate improvements to avoid possible humiliation.  "I simply can not [sic] have her faster than me," text women’s U17 long jump and 1,350 metre specialist Millhouse.  "It’s not an option, and could prove the motivation I need."  He is already said to be considering discontinuing his range of rice-based cereals to work on this beer belly.

Indeed Mac’s fitness, stamina and disgestive abilities showcased her rapid improvement as she took and ate a pair of jam sandwichs on the following morning’s long run, as she gave 16min+ runners Millhouse and Carthorse a solid workout on her recovery jog.

The mountain-goat shaped runner, who is currently preparing for this weekend’s uphill-only race to the moon, and more importantly a November showdown with her former rival (myself), described the key elements of her training to be "receiving motivational texts from my friend Tim" (also me) and keeping her railcard photo hidden from prying eyes.

We are keenly hoping that this latest high profile victory will be enough to bagsy some free kit (all contributions should be a men’s ‘medium’ and footwear size 11), and boost sales of her upcoming paperback which will be released in all good retailers this autumn.

Mac's new bestseller, released this Autumn.

A Pentalogy of Proven Folktales

About a year ago, a very reliable training partner of mine wrote a post-London marathon blog about the top five things he’d learnt from his recent experiences.  In the same vain, I’ve actually written a serious piece for once!  This post discusses the top five things that worked for me in a season where overall I smashed my PBs at every distance I raced.

1) Don’t undeRESTimate the power of nothing:

I know lots of runners, and I used to be one, who underestimated rest.  I don’t mean rest days, and I don’t mean tapering for races.  We all do that.  I mean perpetual training because you want to keep improving, are worried about falling behind, and are not looking at the big picture.  Just because you don’t feel tired, doesn’t mean you aren’t. 

Rest was the foundation for last season.  After averaging probably 60 miles per week for the previous 18 months, last summer my ankle revolted, and caused me have three unplanned months out, emerging from the other side of that dark tunnel with precious little fitness (mostly because I couldn’t be arsed to even try and maintain it).  But it enabled me to build my whole season around the idea of regaining fitness and to run a big PB at BUCS.  I don’t think that I would have done this so easily without the downtime which completely refreshed me.

2) Periodisation:

I’ve never done this consciously before, but having a goal which was sixth months away was the key, as it was ample time to build up each element of fitness.  I broke my time down in to three, two-month blocks, and a further one after BUCS.  Each element prioritied a different training component: endurance, strength, thresholds or speed endurance.  Looking back, it took only three weeks of hard training to regain 90 percent of my fitness, but this method meant that in total, it took just four months to go from no fitness, into PB territory.    The proof is in the pudding, and in May-July I demolished my best times for everything from 1500m to 10k (the longest I raced).

3) Big performances are possible, but belief is the key:

To be fair, Sammy Rashid has always said this to me, but I proved his theory!  Doubling up at the Olympic Stadium was never the plan, but I’ll be honest and say that I was slightly disappointed with my 16:14 in the 5000m heats.  Logic and common sense said that tired and sore legs couldn’t do any better the next day; after all, it had taken two years of trying just to break 34 minutes for 10k, a feat achieved just two months prior.  But, with only a pizza and 6 hours sleep preparation, I lined up on the startline of the 10,000m less than 18 hours later, believing that I could take something from the track that cold morning.  An 18 second PB proved to me that if the training is in the bank and you believe in it, last min preparation isn’t that important at all. 

4) Cadence, not stride length:

Increasing your cadence (ideally to 180 steps/minute) is the way forward.  To run at a given pace, the energy needed to take more, smaller steps is less than fewer longer ones, and ideally, this will eventually lead to quick long strides.  But in practice it is really difficult to change a habit.  I’ve been trying for a year, and whenever I do it, it really works.  But I wouldn’t say that I’m anywhere near mastering this yet, although I had some success.

5) Know your strengths:

We all know I’m not a sprinter, but this year has clarified that: My body responds far better to high-volume endurance training than high-recovery speed endurance.  Based on this summer, I require around two months to train my legs to diversify their endurance, to bring my shorter race times in-line with my longer ones.  But middle distance training will not improve my overall ability.  Only endurance will do this, and knowing this will enable me to consolidate how I train this coming year.

For me, I've called it a year on the 2011-12 season, which has been my best yet.  Training will begin soon in earnest for what will hopefully be a full-body-mud-bath-free XC season, and some other targets that I need to work out! Watch this space...