28. The One Where I Ran Fast Downhill

9 September 2015

So I went out last night to a lecture on "Are You Addicted To Your Phone" (I think I can safely say a massive YES) at the fabulous House of St Barnabas (a fantastic social enterprise and private member's club in Soho), which I've been a member of pretty much since it opened.   I was lucky enough to be invited for supper after the lecture as well which was great!  It was a lovely night - a little too good, because I forgot to keep an eye on the time and didn't get home until past midnight!  It was definitely worth it, but when my alarm went off at 05:20 after only about four hours sleep, I was a less than impressed ...

I dragged myself out of bed though and back to Battersea  ... and back to the hills.  After chatting with my buddy on Friday who'd done parts of the South West Coast Path (in particular, the last part), I've also been exchanging emails with another friend-of-a-friend whose partner has done the ACC three times.  Both their advice has been to walk up the hills and run down them and run on the flat, because otherwise you simply burn too many matches and run the risk of not completing the event.  Since they're both uber-experienced and have actually done the path, I'm definitely going with their advice!  Therefore, today I really wanted to focus on my downhill running.  I noticed at the weekend that sometimes when the hills were really steep, not only did I have to slow almost to a walk, but also my knees were really sore by the end of the hill.

My favorite resource for all questions about running is Kinetic Revolution.  James Dunne, who runs it, is fabulously knowledgeable about all things related to running (and triathlon as well, which is how I came to know about it).  By coincidence, just a couple of weeks ago he posted a video on how to run downhill pain free, so I checked it out and of course it was brilliant, just like all his other videos.

As I think I mentioned, I've been doing my reps in about 45 seconds (so I get about another 45 seconds rest).  I used James's techniques today though and made sure that my knees were flexed, I was relaxed, I was using my arms for balance, and (most importantly I think for me) I wasn't leaning back and ... I took about four seconds off per rep!  I'm pretty sure that this was not on the uphill, because it felt hard today (four hours sleep anyone ...?!), so that leaves just the downhills as there are no flats on the circuit.  Better yet, my knees didn't protest about it once, which is brilliant news!  I'm so pleased because I was a bit worried that if I'm going to be walking UP all these hills, I don't want to be walking down them as well or I'll never do any running at all and I'll probably still be doing the challenge next April (there's a risk of that anyway, let's be honest).  I'm feeling good again about this although definitely I was not prepared to make today's discovery that I am T MINUS THREE WEEKS AND TWO DAYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Aaaaaaaaaaaaagh!!