Diary - Daily Run 1

Time: January 27, 2021

Duration: 36 min

Distance: 4,9 km

Terrain: flat, paved roads covered in snow slush

Weather: dry, -2 degrees C, no wind

A little evening exercise.

The Equipment - Minor Update 1

 The Equipment - Minor Update on Shoes

I was looking around for a new pair of running shoes to start wearing in for the Run, since my current Nike Flex Running shoes will not last until summer. Read and watched some reviews and it seems like Nike Flex is still the shoe that best fits what I'm looking for - as light and flexible as possible, minimalist approach, textile top, running toe-first, not heel-first. 

I've just ordered a pair of Nike Flex Run 2019 RN shoes that were on sale. One number bigger than my actual size, just like the last pair. In fact, several reviewers recommended ordering one size above actual size. The thinking goes, that if they feel anything as comfortable as my current pair, then these will be the shoes for the Run. If not, I will use the new shoes for training runs and keep the current, well worn and trusty pair for the Run. I'll receive the new shoes, do Test Run 2 and then report back to the blog.

* actual picture of the shoe I ordered

Diary - Test Run 2

Primary objective: test the new running shoes

Secondary objective: test various mental approaches, monitor post-run physical condition

Time: February 6

Duration: 1 hour 35 minutes

Distance: 12,4 km

Terrain: flat, paved roads, covered in a few cm of snow

Weather: dry, -12 degrees C, north wind 6(10) m/s

Primary results:

Fail. New running shoes are unsuitable for the Run, do not match my feet. There's a longer description of the problems with the shoe here. 

Secondary results:

It was a really good run, otherwise. I normally perspire easily during physical exertion, but due to the cold temperature, there was no perspiration. Also, there were not many other people outside at 9 am. The sun was rising, the forests and villages were gorgeous in their snow cover. I got up in a good mood, made a protein smoothie and got on the way. 

I was originally thinking I would do a 27 km run aronud the peninsula. However, this being a test of the new shoes and having experienced some uncomfortable insole issues the first time I wore them, I decided on two 12,5 km circles instead. I only did one, because my right foot was starting to feel painful.

Everything else was fenomenal, I could easily have gone for circle #2, if not for the shoe problem.

Mentally, I tried reciting mantras and keeping all cognitive activity silenced. Neither worked as well as the approaches I tried alst time - giving the mind some problems to solve or bringing complete focus to within the moment. It's either of those, that I will try on the next test for the entire duration of the run. But I need to give a few days for my right foot to heal now :(

Diary - Test Run 1

Primary objective: test the speed and rhythm of running

Secondary objective: test various mental approaches, monitor post-run physical condition

Time: January 23, 2021

Duration: 1 hour 37 minutes (ca 4 min for warmup and cooldown walking)

Distance: 12,3 km

Terrain: flat, paved roads covered in snow slush

Weather: dry, 0 degrees C, light wind

Primary results: 

I've had the same steady running rhythm for a long time and it's still there. I can totally defocus my mind from running, the body intuitively picks up a rhythm and keeps to it. The speed line on the smartwatch chart is nice and even. The speed was a steady 8 km/h, just what I had calculated for. All primary objectives achieved.

Secondary results:

I tried stopping all cognitive activity. I tried very active cognitive problem-solving. I tried placing my attention in my physical body, various locations. I tried placing attention outside of the physical body. During this distance, active cognitive problem solving seemed to be the best approach, followed by stopping all mental activity with the attention focused on the soles of the feet hitting the pavement. Will continue experimenting with this.

During the run, I felt a bit of tension in what I think are the adductor muscles, just below the hip and towards the front of the body.

One day after the run, there's some slight soreness in calf muscles, but nothing beyond that.

The Medical Opinion

Yesterday I had a longer chat with a good friend, who is an anesthesiologist. Let's call him the Medic, since he is hopefully going to be in that capacity in my small support team. My very primitive question to the Medic was, that if I go ahead with the Run, am I going to kill or permanently damage myself. I would hope to do neither and if he had told me, that this is highly likely, I would have given up on the idea. He didn't tell me that.

What he did tell me, was the following:

• Get an EKG done. I've never had one done. We found a clinic close to where I live, so I'll schedule a time at some point in spring. It comes with a host of other tests and is not cheap, but getting some measurable idea of my bodily condition for the first time in my life won't hurt. If the EKG results will not show any problems, then according to the Medic, the Run will not pose any risk to my heart.
• Kidneys, though, are another ballpark entirely. Worst case scenario is something I can't pronounce https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhabdomyolysis, but that can be lethal. The way I understand it is, that feet muscles are some of the largest in the whole body and if I damage them a great deal during the Run, then the breakdown products will enter the bloodstream, overburden the kidneys and send me to ER or worse. Need to make sure that doesn't happen. The Medic told me he has never seen or heard this being caused by sports.
  
• Good news is, the body has a lot of natural fail-safes. In other words, it is much more likely, that unendurable pain or vomiting will stop me long before any permanent or lethal damage occurs.
• Dehydration is a real danger, he says they occasionally get people in ER due to severe dehydration caused by physical activity. This, however, is easily averted with sufficient liquid intake.
• Spraining an ankle or similar joint / muscle damage can easily occur and the Run would have to be cancelled, but the damage would not be permanent.
• Hallucinations, especially in the dark, due to sleep deprivation are quite possible but nothing a good nights sleep afterward won't cure.
  

 

That's about it. Oh, and I probably won't be walking for a few days after finishing, but I kind of expected that.

He also, very usefully, pointed me to a TV clip about the endurance walk around Lake Mälaren near the Swedish capital Stockholm. https://etv.err.ee/944457/pealtnagija-eestlannast-ultrakaija-on-jarjest-kondinud-ligi-88-tundi. Got a number of useful details from watching, but mostly got the confirmation, that if they can walk for 80+ hours, my 48 hour run is certainly within the limits of the human physique.

The Medic also proposed two ideas, which, technology permitting, we'll probably go for. 

1. If it's possible to publish real-time heart rate data from my smart watch, he will be monitoring this throughout the Run. Like telemetrics in F1, he quipped, where you can spot the overheating of the right front break, for instance, before the driver feels it.
   
2. During the run he might take a quick fingertip blood sample during a toilet break and have a look at the main indicators using a portable quick analysis kit to make sure nothing is too far off the healthy limits.

I thought the medical prediction might be scarier. Good to go, for now, it seems.

The Equipment

I prefer the kind of sports, that don't come with a lot of equipment. Simpler is better. Running fits the bill - you need very little. Doesn't mean, of course, that sports equipment companies don't try to sell you a load of things they want you to need.

Footwear and Clothing

I'd actually prefer to run barefeet, but for practical purposes that is probably not going to happen. First, even though most of the route is going to be forest trails, some parts are still going to be either paved roads or gravel, both of which make barefeet running difficult. Second, since I will run throughout the night, even forest trails can have sharp stones or branches, so footwear will be needed. I have a pair of Nike Flex Running shoes that are super light and have only a single layer of textile on top with almost no hard nose part. I enjoy them a lot but they might not last until summer, so I can hopefully track down another pair or something similar (I bought these a while back). 

I've no idea about socks as of yet - is a single pair going to last the whole Run? I will aim to keep a tempo, where perspiration will be minimal, but my feet generally do perspire no matter how easy I go, so I might need to carry an extra pair of socks.

The Run has to take place in summer due to light conditions. Estonia has only 6 hours of daylight in winter, but in the middle of summer we get a few weeks of white nights, when the sun almost does not set. Summers are warmish, but we never get the kind of hot nights here up north that you have closer to the equator. An average summer daily temperature might be 23 degrees C, dropping to around 16 degrees C in the night. Clothing has to account for that, so even though I'd love to do the Run in shorts and a T-shirt, I'm probably going to need something long-sleeved to pull over the T-shirt for the nighttime.

Accessories

 I have to have some way of getting in touch with people that will be on stand by for support, should I need it. Also, it would be cool to have some kind of track record of the Run. I'm guessing my 4G Samsung smartwatch can do both things - act as a phone for emergencies and do the GPS tracking. Phone coverage will not be an issue, but under the foliage GPS connection will probably be quite sketchy. I'm less sure, that battery will last the whole 48 hours with GPS tracking constantly switched on. I'll have to test this.

What's more, I don't know the route. I've only plotted it on the map. I will be running through some of it in spring to familiarise myself, but it's only going to be some segments. So I'll need something to find my way. It will have to paper maps or a dedicated GPS-tracker. Problem with paper is, I need to stop to consult the map. Problem with GPS-tracker is, it's heavy and I don't want to carry anything I don't specifically have to. An unsolved problem for now.

As for light conditions, the white nights will help, but it also means, that I will have a two week time window for the Run. Juggling jobs, kids and the climate, that's not a very big window. If I fall outside of the window, the Run is still possible, but I will have to carry some type of headlight to see, where I'm stepping. I'll have to find out about the head-mounted LEDs and I'll need someplace to store the headgear during the day. Meeting someone at a pre-agreed point to give it to me when it gets dark and handing it back when it gets light again is a better option, perhaps.

What if it rains? Everything that gets wet, will get back dry again. I won't carry anything waterproof. I will try to time the Run so that I will not be running in constant rain. If a rain shower comes along, so be it.

There will be a separate post about food and drink, those areas are still very shady for me at this time.

 

 

The Runner

 I'm not actually a runner. This blog is going to be semi-anonymous. It will contain enough details to identify me, if someone really wants to. And some people will know anyway. But I will not be posting my identity directly into this blog, because at the end of the day the identity of the Runner doesn't matter. Just the Run itself.

Of course, I will not be doing it completely alone. I will run alone, but there will be people giving me some advice beforehand, other people supplying water and food during the run and meeting me at the finish and perhaps someone on standby in a car somewhere along the route in case I need to be picked up for a medical emergency. I will write a longer post about the team at a later date, but it will mostly be family members and perhaps a few friends who actually know something about running. Because I don't.

The extent of my knowledge about running is reading two books - Christopher McDougall's "Born to Run" and Haruki Murakami's "What I Talk About When I Talk About Running". Both are fiction. However, I am in touch with my body. To borrow a quote from "Ford vs Ferrari": 

"If you're going to push a piece of machinery to the limit, and expect it to hold together, you have to have some sense of where that limit is."

The human body is a biomechanic piece of machinery and I feel like what I'm planning is within the limits of my current body's capabilities. What I mean by this is, that I don't expect to run and die or to permanently damage myself. I feel like it should be possible for my body to manage this. Just a feeling, no proof.

So, who is the Runner? Male. Born in 1980. Height 183 cm. Weight 75 kg. No known health issues. Never smoked. I consume alcohol (Guinness, mostly) socially, but below average amounts. No other notable habits that either promote or demote health. Perhaps the 2-3 large cups of coffee that I enjoy per day should be noted. Omnivore, but organic food for the most part. Previous sports include some years of swimming and volleyball in youth and then just a semi-sporty lifestyle after that. The physique is fit, but not notably so. Never much been to the doctor's office either, so blood group, body fat levels and all the other metrics are unknown. Resting heart rate, according to the smart watch, hovers around 60 (off-caffeine). 

The only slightly weird thing about my current body is the breathing - while resting, I'm comfortably able to keep a 1 breath per minute rate of breathing. I've read, that normal breathing rates are 12-16 breaths per minute, which to me seem absolute panting. Even the 6 breaths per minute which is considered the point where resuscitation becomes necessary, seems a bit fast for me. I've never specifically trained for it (other than the swimming practice at around age 10, I guess).

Finally - no history of serious running. I've never run a marathon, never intend to, either. Don't much enjoy competitive activities. I feel good running, but it has never been a regular practice. Currently, because I feel like I must somehow prepare for the Run, I go running about once a week for short 5 km runs. Never been to a running group or talked to a running coach or a trainer. I run toe-first and have heard, that this is not ideal for a long distance. I actually prefer walking, I can walk fast and far and enjoy myself immensely when I do so.

Mentally, I've tried Buddhist meditation, but it didn't stick. I'm not too stressed out, just average, I suppose. I've tried to not think about anything, while running, I've tried just letting my mind wander from topic to topic, I've tried listening to different kinds of music (didn't enjoy it). So I'm not too sure what my mind should be doing during the Run.

Normally, I don't push myself all that much, when I don't have to. It is said, that when you put pressure on people, some fold and others focus. I'm definitely in the second group - I perform better under pressure. It's just that daily life in modern society does not involve a lot of pressure. Again, just one thing might be different about me - I know when I'm going to die. April 20th, 2100. So I have another 78 years to go. One of those years, the current one, is going to be spent running.

                                                * - not my hand

2. The Run - 374 km non-stop

 I live in Estonia. It's not a big country. The idea is to run from one end of the country to the other. This could mean quite a few things. However, some years ago I heard, that our State Forest Management Centre has opened hiking trails that run all through the country. Somehow, when hearing this, I knew that my run would follow these hiking trails, so that makes is simpler. You can see the map of the country and the trails in the picture below.

I will be starting at the north coast, on the beach, roughly where the red balloon is. I will follow the red trail to the big intersection and then continue along the green trail down to the southern border. Touch the sea at the start and the border post at the end. My potential route will not be a 100% along the hiking trail, but for the most part, they will overlap. I've made adjustments to pass through a few familiar locations, to skip some bog roads and to cut some corners. As summer approaches, I'm sure I will be making some further adjustments as I scout out the route. There's a place, for instance, where I would have to get across the river on a barge operated by a hand winch. I'll need to find out if and when this is operational and adjust the route accordingly.

All told, the run will be 374 km, according to the current route. Mostly forest tracks and small, non-paved roads, like the picture in the background of this blog. By myself, no time goal, no competition, just me and the road. The only goal - to get there. One straight run, no stopping. That's the idea. Considering the speed I expect to be averaging (8 km/h), it's going to be 47 hours.

1. The Idea

I've had a few ideas about physical activities in my life. Four, actually. The first was to ride my mountain bike from the place where I lived (Tallinn) to the place, where our family summer house was located (Tartu). That was back in 2005. The distance was 173,2 km. I did it by myself, no time goal, no competiton, just me and the road. Started in the morning, finished in the afternoon and got quite sunburnt in the process.

The second idea was to swim across lake Saadjärv that my grandfather had swam across in his youth. It was a 2 km swim and I did it in 2009. By myself, no competition, no other swimmers - just me and the lake (and my father and girlfriend following me for safety in a rowboat some tens of meters away).

The third idea was, that at some point in my life I would like to learn to play tennis. I stepped into a tennis hall two years ago, never having held a tennis racket before. Found some great teachers, who taught me to play reasonably well in 6 months. Well enough to win some sets against my cousin, who spent 9 years in her youth going to tennis practice.

Which brings us to the final idea, idea No 4, the one that this blog is about. The idea is to run from one end of my country to the other. I've had this idea, like the previous three, for a long time. No idea, where it came from. At the time of starting this blog, I have only a vague idea about how this should transpire. A big reason for the blog, I suppose, is to work out, whether this is actually possible. And on the off-chance that it is, to leave some notes behind, that someone else somewhere else might benefit from.