justification

After another afternoon with legs ankle-deep in mud, I'm wondering what keeps me going. There are days when the same old task is as exciting as it has never been, and there are days when I don't get off the sofa mentally or physically. In my preparation for the marathon in April I was afraid I would hit the wall or get bored or become burned out long before race day.

So far there's no sign of it. I've been going out nearly every weekend day since the snow stopped in the middle of January and clocking up base miles. During the week, it's me this year who nags my coworker to go for a quick one in the park, not the other way around as it used to be. Having run as many kilometers as at the beginning of March last year, I'm way ahead of my old self.

Yet why this is I cannot explain. It's not that I enjoy running. I never have, and I never will. There's too much pounding, too much suffering, and not enough action. One doesn't get too far from the start and consequently ends up on the same loops day in, day out.

It happens that these same loops are pretty nice around here, especially since I moved house in December. I'm now close enough to the Thames to go running by the river. The Thames is bordered on either side by a footpath that never strays far from the water. Frequent bridges allow one to shorten or extend runs al gusto. The only problems are Craven Cottage, the home of Fulham F.C., which spills its supporters onto the path whenever there's a game, and the tide.

The North Sea pushes into the Thames way beyond London with a staggering might. At full and new moon, tidal rise can be up to seven and a half meters (25 feet) and the effect is dramatic. At low tide, the river is a reduced to a trickle and the rowing boats slalom around boulders that stick out from what little liquid there is in the bed of rocks. At high tide, many of the low-lying embankments are flooded. The Putney riverside is regularly engulfed by a murky surge, and the unpaved path just upstream becomes a mire of slowly changing consistency, from liquefied morass to heavy bog.

The power of the moon is astonishing to contemplate, but it can make for a rather aggravating run. Shoes stick to black goo at every strenuous step, legs become caked in mud and increasingly heavy, and deep puddles of cold water stop the heart when not carefully avoided. Every miles extends by a bit in conditions like this, and little bit of sense in me is asking why I am doing it.

I'd much rather ride a road bike up the Col de la Porte or, if getting muddy is the objective, a mountain bike round Lake Placid. No such luck, though. Trapped in the plains of urbanity, I haven't used my bike for any serious riding in years. In fact, the last time I saw it was when I rode it to work before Christmas. Since then I've been walking. And running.

Over the last two years I have discovered, at the price of substantial pain, that I cannot run a marathon to my satisfaction without putting a little bit of effort into the training. Giving my chronic abhorrence of training, this discovery could have been rather dispiriting, but I have somehow managed to channel the discomforting truth into the positive energy of self-delusion. I've set my mind to achieving a good finish and convinced myself that a serious preparation will get me halfway there before the race has even started. If this sounds self-evident to you, it was revolutionary to me.

As I was running this afternoon, skipping the puddles and dodging the bushes, I listened to a podcast produced in the run-up to the 2007 London Marathon, which for years had withered on my iPod in utter neglect. My runs being fairly substantial by now, I went through quite a number of episodes. Most were, not quite unexpectedly, total rubbish. Shoe-picking 101 and how to tell you're dehydrated are not skills I'm lacking.

There were a couple of little gems, though, and I'm going to share them, mostly to not forget them myself. The first was carbo-loading. It was suggested to gobble up as many carbohydrates as possible in the three days leading up to the big day. That's something I've never done. I've always just had a substantial breakfast and thought that would be enough. This lapse might have cost me dearly in the second half of either race.

What has certainly cost me dearly in the second half of either race was my ripping first-half speed. My only half marathon, two years ago, was slower than the first half of either marathon. The knowledge I should start slowly didn't help in the least. Maybe the podcast's second tip will: Try to pass more runners in the second half than pass you. Easier said than done, maybe, but if I make that my primary goal in the race (and drop the three hours), a great time will automatic follow.

A third tip was not given directly but percolated through many episodes expounding on proper preparation: Don't race the race until you're in it. Now it not the time to contemplate goals or conceive of strategies. Now is firmly the time for training. With this in mind, I'll go out again tomorrow, hoping for sun and a low tide, and the strength to carry my legs to the middle of March of last year. I'll need them as good as I can get them.