Lesson 3 from the Tarahumara

There is the occasion in Born to Run when Caballo Blanco (who had trekked into the Copper Canyons to live among the Tarahumara) goes one morning for a short hike to a natural thermal pool in the woods. He spots a faint trail through the trees he’s not seen before so he takes off running down it and hours later he is still running (page 49).

Sometimes it can be good to be spontaneous, ditch the schedule, ditch the watch, just run and go with the flow.

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Lesson 2 from the Tarahumara: Keep smiling and enjoy

Enjoy running! Well into the 100 miles arduous (understatement!) ultra Leadville race, observer Ken Chlouber was struck by something as he saw two of the Tarahumara at the Twin Lakes aid station.

“As Ken watched Juan and Martimano exit the fire house, he was struck by something else: when they hit the dirt ramp, they hit it laughing. Everybody else walks up that hill Chlouber thought as Juan and Martimano churned up the slope like kids playing in a leaf pile. Everybody. And they sure as hell ain’t laughin’ about it“. (Page 90 Born To Run)

You can be highly competitive and still smile!

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I’ve just finished “Born to Run” by Christopher McDougall, a read I would highly recommend to anyone who hasn’t already read it. In a nutshell its about his ultra adventure when he goes seeking the Mexican Tarahumara Indians, the world’s greatest distance runners. Here is just the first of some thoughts I had when reading it.

Lesson 1 from the Tarahumara: Live lean and build your soul. 

Our lives have a habit of becoming “cluttered” and in the process we get “cluttered” inside of ourselves too. No coincidence that in psychological terms we talk about “getting rid of baggage”.  Deena Castor understood perfectly the holistic ethos of the Tarahumara when she sought to train under Coach Joe Vigil.  Pg 119 “If Deena even wanted to think about training under Vigil, she had better be ready to train like the Tarahumara. That meant living lean and building her soul as much as her strength.” Vigil believed you had to be a strong person before you could become a strong runner.

In the day to day routine when it’s often natural to compartmentalise our lives, lets not forget running is an integral part of who we are and how we define ourselves. It is interconnected to all parts of our existence and each part affects another. We need to work out for ourselves what it means to live lean and how we can become stronger people and runners.

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Last weekend we enjoyed a long weekend over on the west coast of Scotland. It is a most wonderful and beautiful part of the world although the downside can be the infamous midges and variable weather (i.e. it can rain alot!!). For us the sun shone for most of the time and the midges had not yet ventured out.

We had lovely walks taking in the landscape and coastal views and spent two days in the Kilmartin valley pandering to my obsession with all things neolithic and prehistoric in various forms (cairns, standing stones, rock art). The weekend was a feast for the eyes and the senses: an early morning run before breakfast on the morning of the wedding (the main reason for us being there) with a view across to the Paps of Jura; wild primroses growing by the road side; the sound of a lone piper playing Highland Cathedral; a glimpse of a pine martin; a buzzard swooping overhead; rocks carved by a hand over 5000 years ago.

Whether running or walking, we miss out on something special if we do it simply as a means to an end in itself – it offers us the opportunity to explore new places and experiences, and connect with our landscape, environment and history.

(click on images to enlarge)

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Yes – it’s London marathon time again on Sunday and just in case you get a bit bored watching 26.2 miles of running when you’d rather be actually doing it, then why not play TechnoTrotter’s Marathon Bingo. Just click on the image to download a pdf version which you can print out.

Click on image to download TechnoTrotter's marathon bingo

If you need some more inspiration here are some of the running related books I have read and enjoyed. Some are serious, some are hilarious – all are inspiring. Simply hover over the image for further info.

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Having a long weekend I’ve had a bit more time to ponder where my running is at at the moment. I know I can sometimes spend too much time thinking and not enough time doing, however it is useful to take stock every so often. Other times it is a matter of JFDI!!

I have been meandering (allbeit consistently) a bit with my running since my last marathon (October 2009 in Dublin). What with my dodgy knees and a complete lack of flexibility mileage has been lower. Knees however are improving and now is the time to re-focus things a bit as it can be all too easy to fall into a comfort zone which becomes increasingly difficult to drag oneself out of.

While it is tempting to go for an autumn marathon I’m going to concentrate on half marathon training (Aviemore and Jedburgh in October and maybe Elgin in Sept) and then aim for some intelligent marathon training throughout the winter in preparation for Lochaber next April where I have some demons to kick into touch from last year.

That’s the plan…. watch this space……

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Some of you may remember way back in January I vowed to “dump the turkey“. Unfortunately it still appears to be following me around everywhere I go so I need to get serious.

A few thoughts:

• be scientific – work out calorie requirements using www.runningforfitness.org and count calories / monitor nutrition using Crosstrainer software (further info on Crosstrainer)
• food is fuel – I am a runner after all
• enjoy what I do eat
• eat healthily but remember no food is banned/bad - only too much of anything is not a good thing
• adopt strategies for times I want to eat for wrong reasons

…and just get on with it…..today….not tomorrow……

 ..and remember WHY I want to succeed…  running the roads and especially the hills will be much more enjoyable without being accompanied by the turkey !!!

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Pondering on the bus home tonight, for some reason I suddenly remembered an occasion when I was about 11 visiting friends of my parents. Their older daughter arrived in having been for a run in the nearby forest and I remember as clear as crystal thinking how wonderful it would be able to run, the feeling of longing to experience the freedom of running. But I wasn’t sporty and I never ever at that point dreamt that one day I would run a marathon. You just never know what one day you might achieve. My English teacher once said “happy are those who dream dreams and are willing to pay the price to make them come true”.

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After having moaned this morning on Twitter about the dreich and wet morning, this evening’s run was magical. It was like running in a parallel universe where the familiar suddenly became unfamiliar. Visibility was down to a few feet, and the familiar landscape and fields took on an eerie presence resembling something out of a Wallander film, swathed in fog. Everyday sounds become magnified and distorted – the buzzing of the overhead pylons, the caucophony of shrieks from the crows in the trees as the daylight faded, the rumbling like an earthquake which was in fact a plane taking off in the distance. A most enjoyable experience.

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I’ve had an inspiring day. 

Went down to the canal this afternoon to watch some of the runners come through a checkpoint just outside Edinburgh on the Glasgow to Edinburgh double marathon. Some were still looking in pretty good shape while for others the pain was a bit more obvious. While I can’t really get my head round running 57 miles I am inspired and motivated to keep on plodding.

checkpoint on Glasgow to Edinburgh race

Equally inspiring then was my evening’s viewing on i-player of the first part of the Eddie Izzard documentary – he certainly takes the concept of mental toughness and stubbornness to quite new extremes.

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