Holiday Catch-up | Season 7 Episode 1

It’s officially back to school/uni/work time, one of my favourite parts of the year. In a few weeks I’ll be travelling back to Cambridge. This will be my SEVENTH year living there, and my third(!) year as a PhD student.

Before season 7 of the blog gets started, this is what’s happened since last time…

Summer travel (& research)

I visited my parents in Mexico City (CDMX) for over a month. I was lucky enough to visit the national university (UNAM) and give a talk there. It was a great experience, and I really enjoyed interacting with the audience.

My time in Mexico, however, didn’t start off so well. Within a few days of my arrival, I was hospitalised with a fairly bad case of Norovirus. It is an enteric disease, and you don’t need to be a PhD student in epidemiology to guess what are its main symptoms

Luckily I recovered in one night. We could proceed with the family holidays as planned: Costa Rica, Dallas-New Orleans-Houston, and Baja California Sur. (With time in CDMX between those.)

By the end of the month, I was back in Madrid for three days, my only memory of them is being horribly jet-lagged. Monday I flew to Birmingham and headed north to the Lake District, for a conference there. Nice scenery for walks/hikes and we got incredibly lucky with the weather. Thursday morning was the last session, where I gave a talk. Immediately after the conference ended, I headed to Manchester Airport…

My destination was Brussels, my first time in Belgium, for two hot days. In addition to the usual touristy stuff, I watched the Brussels Diamond League (a top-tier athletics competition). It was an epic night, including an insane World Record in the men’s 2000m race.

I was back in Madrid on Saturday afternoon. I’ve got no plans to move more until I go to Cambridge for the start of term. It’s all back to full-time PhDing now 🙂

Summer training

Training-wise, I had taken July very easily after a long (rowing) season. During my off-season, I wanted to build my running mileage without injury. This way, I could safely cross-train (by running) during the weeks I travel (without access to a rowing machine).

Things got spicy in CDMX, because it’s 2300m above sea level. Thanks to a reduced oxygen concentration in the air, it’s ideal for altitude training, which elite endurance athletes often seek. I didn’t do any hard workouts, but, oh boy, I could feel the altitude. (My UT2 splits were up by about 1min/km in running and 15s/500m on the erg.)

When I ran at sea level in the US, I could notice my improvements. In addition to the altitude, I had never run so much mileage consistently as I had been doing since the start of July. So I knew I was in shape for a significant Personal Best, if I could find a good racing opportunity. Things seemed perfect, as there was a 10k race in Madrid the day after my return from Brussels. Most importantly, running a sub-1h 10k in that race would qualify me for the sub-1h wave of this year’s San Silvestre Vallecana (an annual 10k race on the evening of the 31st of December, in which last year I was 17seconds sort of breaking 1h). Of course, I signed up.

I planned to do hard workouts in Baja California (at sea level), and taper the week before the race at the Lake District. It all seemed great…until it wasn’t. I hadn’t increased my mileage for weeks (I had done three weeks at around 36km), but during an easy run in Baja California I felt a niggle in my hip. There was still more than two weeks before my race, so I didn’t panic much. I just cross-trained at the hotel gym with the bike and the elliptical, as well at the swimming pools. Back in CDMX, I did a test run but I could still feel my hip…

Back in Madrid I got x-rays and luckily, nothing was broken, but it was swollen. At this point, I was getting worried about the race, because even if I could run it, I wouldn’t have run much in the two weeks before… But avoiding injury comes first, so I just kept cross-training in Madrid…hoping to at least be able to run during race week, in the Lake District (and Brussels).

As if the universe was trying to tell me it was a bad idea to race injured, by the time I was heading to the Lake District, I also had a cold (and a fair amount of jet-lag). This meant I couldn’t really run (or exercise) during those days (a lesson I learnt the hard way last year)… All things together, I finally let go of racing for a PB on Sunday. This was annoying, but being ill during conference week was even more annoying! Another lesson learnt. Luckily, by Thursday, I was okay, and I gave my talk without much trouble.

By the time Sunday came, I was fully recovered. Moreover, I hadn’t felt anything in my hip despite a lot of walking in the Lake District and Brussels. So I had an idea. I would not race the 10k, but I would run it at an easy pace. For fun (and to test the hip). It was indeed great fun running through the streets of Madrid, and my hip didn’t hurt. I am disappointed that the altitude adaptations will be gone by the next time I race. It’s all back to square one. However, last season I learnt that more than performing on race day, I care the most about the process of training to become my best.