Espiens, 01-08- 2009

Odile’s home in Espiens sits on a ridge-line that marks one of the highest points within a 20 km radius.  I know.  I have checked on Google Earth. I have also driven on every small road in the area to find high points and still I have to look back up to see Espiens.

The views are spectacular.  Particularly at this time of year when the fields are planted with seas of sunflowers.

If you live in a place with views like this it’s very hard to avoid hill runs.  The furthest I can go without any major hills is about 5km.  Even this ridge run is a rolling affair that is never really flat.  Imagine a healthy swell in an open sea with peaks and troughs that dip 20 or 40 meters and are separated by about one kilometer.  Freeze it.  Put a meter or two of fertile topsoil on it. Drop a few sprawling farmhouses here and there.  That’s as flat as it gets around here.

I have made 3 runs in the past 4 days each of about 10km.  On the first run I found to my surprise a road near our home that I had never seen before.  There are so many things I don’t notice when I am in the car, even one as old and slow as mine.  I thought the road would be relatively flat but after a few hundred meters it started descending into the valley between Espiens and Montagnac. The descent did not stop until I reached the valley floor.  This was nice but it’s hard to fully enjoy the lengthy downhill strides when you know every single one will have to be matched by two or three on the way back uphill.

The only way I can avoid uphill slogs at the end of my runs is to drive somewhere that is flat or time my run to finish somewhere Odile plans or wants to be.  It seems somehow wrong and a bit ridiculous to drive a car only to get out and run for an hour but sometimes it needs to be done.  I can easily overcome the sense of ridiculous when Fartlek’s are on my schedule.  On those days I drive my car to the flat bits without a hint of guilt.

The word Fartlek may sound laughable to those who don’t know what they are but for me the word produces fear and cold sweats.  I’ve known about Fartleks since college when my Lacrosse coach suggested them.  I had always imagined Fartleks were named after some sadistic Swedish running coach who stayed up late drinking Aquavit while he devised new ways to torment his runners.

Fartleks consist of a three to four kilometer warm up then running just about as fast as you can for two, three or four minutes followed by ‘rest’ intervals of one-minute where you are allowed to jog to recovery.  When I repeat this eight or ten times as my schedule requires, the word Fartlek transforms into something truly sinister.  Bathroom humor punch lines just aren’t involved in my thought process anymore.

I cheat sometimes during the Fartleks.  I take one and a half minutes for the recovery jogs or I don’t really give a 100% during the speed intervals.  At these times I can imagine some crusty old Swedish coach riding next to me on a ten-speed Schwinn bicycle.  He is shouting into my ear, “ Fhaaster Pat! Dhish isa pathetic. 10 more I make u doo if not fhaaster!”.  I really don’t need this crap.  I am 45yrs old.  I am not trying to win the NYC Marathon.  I just want to finish it in a time that does not embarrass me.

I still do the Fartleks when they appear on my g-phone calendar.  Each time I think, “On this run I will nail it.  I’ll give that Swedish idiot on his ridiculous bicycle a heart attack if he tries to keep up”.  It never happens.  After the fourth or fifth speed burst, he catches me cheating again.

But old Fartlek does know what he is talking about.  These workouts really do help me maintain a faster pace on subsequent runs.  This morning, the day after the Fartlek, I ran 10km to Nérac.  Odile wanted to go to the Saturday morning market.  We have some old friends arriving for dinner tonight.

I ran my personal best for the 10k. 53 minutes and 28 seconds.  I don’t intend to tell the Swedish coach but I cheated, sort of.  There is a net vertical drop of over 150 meters between here and Nérac with only a few of those rolling waves in the first 5k.  Since I knew I would be getting a ride home I took advantage of the downhill portions saving nothing for an uphill return and enjoyed it.

I did make one mistake today.  I looked old Fartlek up on Wikipedia.  It turns out that there was no person named Fartlek.  Fartlek is a Swedish word that means speed-play.  It was indeed a training program created in the 1920s by a Swedish running coach whose name was Gösta Holmér.

Now instead of some grumpy old guy with a laughable name I will have a real coach named Gösta Holmér screaming in my ear on those runs.  He doesn’t sound like someone I can ignore.  And he probably does not take kindly to making fun of his name.  Just the fact that he used the word ‘play’ in a tortuous program like this tells me that he must have been the sadistic son-of-a-bitch that I always imagined old Fartlek to be.