Magic Bus - The Who

I don't care how much I pay - Townshend

‘You can’t do your homework on the bus’. It’s one of my stock sayings and if you’ve ever worked with me, you will have probably heard me say it on more than one occasion.

Looking back at my school days and my homework assignments, I did them on the bus or not at all on many occasions. Luckily, I had an elder brother that had already completed the homework brilliantly a few years previously which I could copy to escape the threatened corporal punishment. Funnily enough though, his marks were always higher than mine.

 

Anyway, luckily learning is a far kinder process nowadays and on googling ‘preparation points’, the following bullet points appeared. In my case points one to three were often ignored. I certainly didn’t understand point four and overlooked five, six and seven, putting most of my energy into the eighth praying that everything would turn out right on the day.

 

·          Make a realistic revision schedule

·          Find a revision style that suits you

·          Customise your notes to make them more personal

·          Make sure you understand everything

·          Look at past exam papers

·          Take regular short breaks

·          Reward yourself

·          Do something physical.

 

No wonder I failed miserably - Maths, Science, Languages and Literature became a lost cause to me. Yet forty years on, I use these lessons every day, so my education can’t have been all that bad. I just lacked the right preparation. Trying to blindly achieve when you are battling in the darkness, as I did with my education, is a sure way to fail - especially if the process doesn’t match your ambition, ability or in my case, one’s way of learning. 

 

Come 2023 and I’m in a different situation and have a different understanding of the world gained from varied life-experiences and years of ‘Autodidacticism’. A great word, meaning the process or practice of learning a subject without a teacher or formal education. Autodidacticism – it’s me all over!

 

With this in mind, I’ve converted the revision planning timetable above to fit how I see things today and I’ll explain the reasoning behind each point.

 

·      Make a 12-week training plan 

·      Make sure it suits your ability

·      Make your training very personal 

·      Understand everything 

·      Read some reviews

·      Take regular rest days

·      Get regular massage

·      Find an adventure.

 

Make a 12-week training plan.

 

No plan means no direction – it’s simple. It’s like setting off on a journey without a map, blindly hoping you’ll find the right destination. I like to know what I am doing, and when I’m going to be doing it. I like to know where I am in my 12-week macrocycle and mark my progress. I choose 12-weeks for my macrocycles as I’ve found it provides a suitable period for focus. Keeping my focus and momentum for any longer proves difficult for my attention span, however, signposting and knowing future events are planned into my year means I can plan life around them and give myself a fresh plan, 12-weeks out from the next adventure.

 

ATM I have MDS in April and Grand-to-Grand in September so I’m training hard for Morocco with America in mind for a full training assault for that in June.

 

Make sure it suits your ability

 

I’ve lost count of the times I’ve been asked if I’ve ever done an Ironman. I once considered entering one but my inability to front crawl more than fifteen metres limited any thoughts of swimming the further 3,785 metres to keep me from drowning.

 

Anyway, I found running suited my needs completely, both physically and mentally so I didn’t really need or have the time to swim and bike. Early on I discovered that the more miles of long-slow distance I did, the easier and faster I could complete in races – a real win-win as I loved the feeling of freedom that running gives..

 

Make your training very personal.

 

Seeing the days planned out in advance really helped and if printed out and displayed clearly at home it broadcasts one’s workouts to those we cherish. It negotiates normal life-events such as work, family celebrations and holidays quite nicely. It makes training very personal and acceptable to those around you. 

 

Downloading a universal training plan doesn’t allow for the nuances of life and its everyday hurdles. And writing a plan is actually a very exciting thing to do as you plan your future. I find and as the days click by, being able to adjust and edit really helps, especially if things are going better than expected.

 

Understand everything.

 

This is where I went wrong at school, all those years ago, as I didn’t understand anything, let along everything. Life was a bit of a magic-eye picture where there were only flashes of moments when I could understand what everyone else could clearly see. It became years of head scratching and apathy as I drifted along blagging my way through the educational maze unaided.

 

However, in the early days of my marathon and ultra-marathon career and I worked tirelessly to find out everything I could about the terrain, the distance, and the highlights of any mega-distance challenge I considered. Having a framework really helped me to shape the rest of the race around a series of landmarks that I would tick off as the miles unfolded.

 

Read some reviews

 

I always say it’s best to ask someone else who’s ‘paid the price both physically and mentally for what you are trying to achieve’, rather than view blogs and YouTube as generally I’ve found that there’s a subliminal message behind them that adds a level of drama for effect, that some folk get frightened by.

 

You are not buying a toaster here. Where there are hundreds of online reviews to consider written by people with far too much time, praising or bemoaning the ability of a simple machine to burn bread. This is real life. Life and death in some cases.

 

This is about gathering sensible feedback, knowledge, and insight into the task in hand. I can remember ‘learning’ I all could about the Grand Union Canal before I even ran a step on its 145-mile 706-yard towpath. It made the race unfold perfectly I ran along, reaching highlight after highlight, all the way to the finish line.

 

Take regular rest days

 

At the height of my running, (a weekly 100 miles and never less for many years), I still took one day a week to rest completely. It gave me the opportunity not only to rest my tired-out body but time to catch up on some well-earned sleep.

 

Over the years, and even though my weekly mileage is far more conservative these days, I still have at least one if not two days of complete rest from pounding the streets – it’s possibly why in nearly thirty years I’ve never suffered from any major injuries. And if I’ve ever felt them heading my way, I’ve stopped running completely until I felt totally repaired. A week off now could save a month off later.

 

Get regular massage

 

Finding the right expert to manage your skeletal as well as muscular aches and pains is the same as needing a good mechanic to look after your car. Running blindly on, ignoring injuries on a poor diet in clapped out trainers is like running your car ignoring the oil warning light, with dirty fuel on bald tyres. It’s something you simply wouldn’t do to your car yet do to yourself. 

 

Your own MOT encompasses everything about you. Shopping around to find the right person is the key to success - they are few and far between you’ll find so take your time and enjoy the process of looking after looking after yourself.

 

After all, it’s a reward for all your hard work and much better for you than beer and cake.

 

Find an adventure

 

I’m good on adventure. I’ve had plenty of them too. I found that after running a few big-city marathons and improving my personal bests, that races weren’t enough for me. Firstly, they didn’t last long enough as my time out from the real world became less and less as my times got faster and I found I was limited by other people’s idea of what a race should be.

 

So, I searched for events that would not only last longer but would also test my inner limits of endurance. The Marathon des Sables hit my radar some five years and 158 marathons into my running career. It really ‘floated my boat’ as they say. And of course, I immediately immersed myself in the race and found someone that had actually run the race (rare in those pre-internet days) listened to their experience and preparation and honed my training accordingly. 

 

Nowadays, there are hundreds of adventures to choose from to go and experience and to go achieve. I mean what’s life without adventure? Testing yourself and finding out what you are really made of, there’s nothing better IMHO.

 

So here’s the big question. How’s your life-preparation going? And when is your bus leaving or has it already left?

1,150 Marathons - 270 Ultras - 9 Guinness World Records - 15 Marathon des Sables