Rice and Chips

According to a good friend (who since living in South Wales for a number of years, appears to have caught Welsh), there is a term which means having a little bit of both. It sounds like a phrase borne of the late night butty van: "Rice and Chips".

I wanted a trail run today. I've been missing them. After today's family schedule got pushed back due to a poorly littl'un, it was looking like another midnight ramble, and I promised my wife I'd only be an hour.

So where to run? North Downs or Army Training areas? I was undecided, and running short on time, so I made up a route as I went, and ending up having a bit of both, and loving it all. Having run it on a whim, I feel a bit guilty for overlooking it in the past.

One of the nicest things about it, is that it suits my preference for a training loop with a testing "third quarter". I'll explain, since this may also benefit your training and route choice (even though this one was a fluke):

                                                                                                                                              

Caution - If you prefer your running "improvement free", you should probably look away now

                                                                                                                                              

Pick a route that has a natural effort, between roughly 50-75% of the way round. This could be an uphill drag, or a long straight, or even a wiggly, sandy or muddy section on a trail or forest run. When you reach the start of this section, imagine that this is actually the home straight, and the plan is to get to the end of the section as fast as possible, all out, maximum effort.

If you've ever run with a friend and found the pace ramping up in the last third of the run, this is the same principle, except you're doing it sooner, superimposing the finish line on the 75% mark.

Once you get to that 75% distance, back right off, to a pace you can just manage, without keeling over. You might be puffing, sweating, or wanting to stop, but keep going, at a plod, a shuffle, whatever. Eventually, your breathing gets back to normal, your heart rate lowers, and your running starts to quicken again. All you have to do now is get to the real finish, at a pace that feels good. In many cases, you'll unknowingly start moving again faster than you were going in the first half of your run, despite the sustained effort in between.

It's a natural way to add an extra training element to some of your loops, and hugely effective at developing speed and stamina. Most importantly for me though, is the mental training of feeling like you've used all the gas in the tank, only to find there's more in there than you thought.

I learnt this seven or eight years ago, on some of the runs I used to do with a buddy who's enjoying his first Janathon as Beanoutrunning. He runs phenomenally well, and throws together a great blog. Look him up here.

Tonight: 7.88m, 64:32mins, avg pace 8:12/mile, 1099 cals, slightly more rice than chips.
Janathon Week 1: 59.5miles, 9:50hrs.

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