Club Chat
Thoughts on the Basics
The W is the wish or the will to start taking regular exercise and becoming involved in running as a solo, collective or even competitive activity. Without the W you don't even start, of course. On the other hand how often do you hear of ambitions like "I'd like to learn the piano/guitar/. . . ", which always remain as an ambition for the future. Some lucky people don't even have to think about it; they were introduced to the idea seamlessly, possibly as a result of friends or colleagues inviting them along to a run. Others, like me, graduated from mountaineering with a big pack and boots to higher-speed, light-weight mountaineering with fell shoes and bum bag. But there must be lots of folks who are self-starters from zero, whom I greatly admire. So there you are, you have the W.
Now what? That's the O, the Opportunity. Running must be about the easiest and cheapest sport to make a start with. Shorts, vest, a pair of shoes and off you go through the front door and run. In these days of the www it should be much easier to find running clubs than it used to be. We hope that those who visit our web site will be inspired to come along on a Thursday night and give it a try. Once started, of course, the opportunities begin to open up and the choices begin. How did you start? How did you find your first fell race or road race? The catalyst for me was the Fell Runners Association, with its calendar of events and races all over the country. Nearly perished on the first one but, having survived, the rest is history, as they say.
Very quickly it becomes apparent that you need to acquire the Ability. It was a very hard lesson, I remember, discovering I was not a natural winning talent. In fact it was an awful long time before I discovered that going for a run a few times a week just wasn't doing the business at all. It may be the hardest subject to explain to the beginner that to get results, you have to train! Either that, or decide to do the training, in-the-week running or whatever at the level you choose and accept the results. However, I guess most of us have "the rivals" we would love to give a good run for their money. Which leads me to hill reps . . . There was an article in the Fell Runners Magazine by one of those legendary characters who just win everything. He claimed he didn't have time to do big fell-training runs in the week, so he concentrated on hill reps, so I deduced that if it was good enough for him, it was good enough for me! Making hill reps the basis of your training I have found is very efficient and takes me to all sorts of interesting places to find variety.
What do you think, then? Is my WOA philosophy a load of old cobblers, or have I struck a chord somewhere? Is it all just "get out there and do it"? I hesitate to ask for response/comment/criticism because it doesn't often produce a flood of response. Nevertheless, I do ask and hope all you folks training away every day will write down your thoughts about it all and send them to me. It needn't be long or erudite, just the things going on in your head about, and when you are, running.
Alex M, 03/08/2010
