Simon's job log: 9

The story so far... Simon works for a small IT firm in North Yorkshire, and runs marathons to raise cash for Alzheimer's research.

The loneliness of the winter runner

The past few weeks have seen the weather steadily improving and getting milder. This is one thing that makes me happy, because there is nothing tougher or which saps my enthusiasm for running more than winter training. Unfortunately, when you’re training for a spring marathon, like I am, it’s unavoidable.

That marathon which I am training for is in Paris on April 5th. There’s less than a month to go now, which means I’m in the closing phases of my marathon training. However, I started several months ago back in November 2008.

The thought of training through winter has never appealed to me. It’s always cold and dark and usually windy as well. To cap all that, if the rain doesn’t soak you through, the snow will.

Back in November, I started out during autumn. Autumn is much better for training, because you have the slightly cooler weather with the remainder of the summer sunshine. This makes it much more comfortable for running.

These autumnal conditions continued until December. Then winter came on with a vengeance. Temperatures plummeted and the icy wind picked up. If I was lucky, there might even be some rain thrown in as well. None of this really persuades me to get up at 5:00am.

You might think that getting up at 5:00am is a little excessive, or perhaps you think I’m just torturing myself because training for a marathon really isn’t difficult enough. In fact it’s a time I’ve arrived at through a year of trial and error. Using this process I’ve now refined my morning routine so I can fit everything in - from getting up to getting breakfast, then getting dressed and doing my warm-up routine.

The world is slightly different at 5:00am - probably because everyone is still asleep. In the depths of winter, it’s also pitch black. The sun won’t be rising for another two hours at the earliest. Regular programming on television hasn’t even started yet either. I usually find myself watching World Business Report on the BBC News 24 channel. I now follow the ups and downs of global stock markets and track the pound against the euro and dollar on a daily basis.

Outside

Once I make it out of the door, I walk down to my starting point in the dark. It’s so quiet, even when crossing a main road, there’s no traffic in either direction. It may as well be two o’clock in the morning for all the activity there is. You definitely get the feeling that you’re the only one awake for miles around.

All of which is another reason why I train so early in a morning. On Sundays I do a long run, but I set off a bit later than on a weekday (it is the weekend after all). Day-trippers and tourists taking a stroll get in your way; dog-walkers inevitably cause the same problem. Even if they aren’t blocking my path, they look at me like I’m crazy for doing physical exercise, which isn’t pleasant.

One of the problems that can often befoul my training plan is the weather. Unless it’s totally bucketing down or snowing, it can be difficult to tell what the conditions are going to be like. My number one enemy is ice. It’s probably the thing which most annoys me about training during winter.

About a week or two ago the weather started to turn mild, but overnight a frost formed which was as bad as any before it. I went out for my run at my usual time, before the sun has had a chance to melt it, and didn’t realise how much black ice there was. I nearly fell flat on my arse whilst crossing the road outside my house. I was a little more careful after that.

The wind, as I have said, can be bitterly cold. It blows right through you and can chill you to the bone. That’s why I decided to invest in some proper winter training gear this winter. My windproof coat has really made a difference.

With the early starts, the cold weather and the icy conditions, you might be thinking 'Why bother'? Well, all of this is forgiven, when the going is good. Sometimes, everything just clicks into place and you ignore all the downsides and just get on with it.

The overwhelming motivation which gets me out of the door is that each session, successfully completed, brings me one step closer to my aim. All of that before 9:00 o’clock in the morning.

My earlier job logs   

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