Off-season Week#4
First Aid Training
I come bearing more news on the driving situation. I scored a 100% on multiple practise theory tests but cannot attempt the exam until I pass a first aid training course. I feel like the approach towards issuing someone a driving license in Switzerland shows that it is a country which values lives. (and pays people well, the same however can’t be said about my current employer *cough cough*). They think about every risk and mitigate it before giving you the permission to get behind the wheel. I will outline the process for getting a license to drive in Switzerland (so, in case someone else is interested, they know what they’re in for):
Step 1: You need attend a 10-hour course on First Aid. (It is called “Le cours premier secours” in french.). Cost is 150 CHF in Canton Vaud.
Step 2: You need to pass the road theory exam. With the knowledge of first-aid and theory, you become eligible for the learner’s permit. You also need to do an eye-test. The cost of the exam is 40 CHF, eye test around the same. The provisional license costs around 80 CHF.
Step 3: You also have to attend an 8-hour traffic skills awareness course on driving. (It is called “cours de sensibilisation” in French.) Costs around 250 CHF. This can be done either before or after Step 4, but definitely before Step 5.
Step 4: Only after all of this are you allowed to go with the driving instructor. You need a minimum of 10, 1-hour classes with the instructor to become eligible for the driving exam. In case you need more instruction, either you pay out of pocket (it costs 100 bucks per class of 1 hour, welcome to Switzerland) or find someone kind enough to teach you further. So at the very minimum, you pay 1000 bucks for this.
Step 5: Finally when you feel ready, you book an exam. If you pass it, you get a probationary license for a period of 3 years. If you fail the driving exam more than 3 times, you are allowed to retake it only after undergoing a psychiatric evaluation. The exam costs 140 bucks and then if you get the license you pay 60 bucks.
During the 3-year period, if you perform a traffic offense and are disqualified from driving, your probation is increased by 1 year. Apparently, you also need to do a refresher course (Which is nearly 500 bucks) within 1 year of getting the probationary license.
And after 3 years, you are done with your probation. Roughly speaking, you pay 2200 CHF. I found a super-saver pack which covers the First aid, Awareness course and 10 lessons for 1250 CHF. So, that’s expensive but not bad. But if you compare it to what I had to do to get my license in India, I did nearly nothing. I didn’t learn any road rules except that you are no supposed to overtake when there’s a solid white line. I learnt to drive with my father and I remember, within 1 month I had hit a rickshaw which came out of nowhere and being a learner, I panicked. Over time, I just learnt by driving more and more and like I’ve said before, I am a pretty safe driver. I am no longer hitting rickshaws and I’m pretty sure that in Switzerland, we will not have a rickshaw coming down the wrong direction of the street. If it does, now I know where the brake is. I don’t know exactly but I must have driven over 10,000 kilometers in India (most of them without my parents knowing, of course). Most of these kilometers were incident free. Once my Uber driver feel asleep while driving and we crashed into a bollard at 60 kmph. Both of us survived and I am grateful for that. I love the fact that in Switzerland they value human life much more. I am guessing if this process was followed in New Delhi, conservatively speaking, more than half the population would lose their license. (which would be a blessing.)
But it’s funny, now that I have passed the theory and know the rules, I’ve begun to notice the mistakes people make on a day-to-day basis. It’s like I’ve unlocked a new way to judge people. For example, you are not allowed to park on the footpath or on main roads and if you do it on a side street, you are supposed to leave 1.5 meters of space for the pedestrians to pass through. Every day, I am running up this hill where the postal truck (of all vehicles) is parked on the footpath and there’s barely space for 1 person to pass. I can tell by sight that the gap is less than 1 meter wide. If you are in my neck of the woods, people just completely block the footpath. Not even millimeters of space. And just this morning I saw a woman blocking the bike lane and then flashing her lights to the car in front to let her pass, while being on her phone. 3 violations in 1 go. Fantastic. And she was an Audi driver. (Audi drivers are as the British would put it: Bellends). People on their phone while driving is my pet peeve. What is so important that it can’t be checked by stopping on the side of the road? Why do people need to text while driving? When I lived in a flatshare in 2017, we once took a roadtrip with our landlady, who was checking her fucking Facebook while on the highway. How empty is your life that you need to check social media while driving at 120 kilometers/hour? Car accidents can often be lethal and the fact that Switzerland takes so much care to train the drivers is a crucial step in securing not only the driver’s life but also the life of the other road users. (My landlady wasn’t Swiss FYI.) Please don’t text and drive. Pay attention to the road. Respect the lives of others as well as yours.
Anyways, so this weekend I will be spending time with some teenagers learning first-aid. Maybe there will other people my age and not just humans without fully formed prefrontal cortexes. (I am already a grumpy old man.)
If I remember correctly we did a full first-aid course during the medicine module of my Masters. But we didn’t receive a certification. (Also, I think we did just 6 hours, not the full 10.) I remember that you need to pump to the rhythm of staying alive when you are giving CPR(which is 100 bpm). More than that, my memory draws a blank. I think I was too lost thinking about the first-aid training scene from “The Office”. (S5E14 and S5E15, called Stress Relief).
Not that anyone gives a fuck but just today (14/05/2024), I received a call telling me that the course is delayed by 1 week. So, this is not first-aid week. But a tad annoying because this delays me by 1 week. I’ll survive.
Ok, let’s talk running.
Next weekend, I will do a race! On the last day of the off-season, I will partake in a 20k through the vineyards of Lavaux, climbing 800 meters or so and descending the same, called the X-Trail Lavaux. Most of the vineyards are paved, so it is a mostly road race and most of the vineyards are very steep (some slopes in gradients upwards of 40%), so it will be a nice wake-up for the legs.
Going into the race, I will literally have done 0 specific preparation. In the last 3 weeks, I ran less than 5 times a week and did no run exceeding 18k or 240 meters of elevation. This week too, I will run 5 times and for sure will not anything crazy and next week either. This is basically a leg-loosener. This race is just something I’ve wanted to do because area near the vineyards always fascinates me and basically according to my training plan, I am supposed to run 14 miles that weekend. Why not do 12 of them on a route when someone is handing you water and food? Plus races like this are great. You can find out where you stand fitness-wise at this moment and what you need to focus on to get better in the direction of your goals.
Speaking of which, yesterday I ate at my desk and then took a 15' break to walk outside. There are 2 hills on either side of my current office building leading to the same “peak”, one which is around 6–11% average gradient and the other which is 13–15% average gradient. As you might have guessed if you are good in trigonometry, the 6–11% side is longer. These two are connected by 2 flat stretches of road(well, 1 flat, the other is faux plat). This gave me an idea for a very Morat-Fribourg specific training run. The loop is 0.79 miles with 121 feet of elevation gain on the side of the gentler slope, but for posterity, let’s take it to be 1200 meters. I was thinking of designing a workout starting with 4 reps of the loop, done at threshold effort alternating between the 6% hill and 13% hill. After the 1200 meters, we do an easy jog for 30" to 60" and then run a 400m flat at threshold. Following the 1600 meters of effort, we give it 2 minutes of easy jog and then repeat, this time starting on the steeper hill. I think the idea would be run around 5:55–6:00 min/mile (3:40–3:45/km) for the 1200 and then 3:20 for the 400m float. I find that it is an excellent session because not only does it test the uphill running, but also forces you to work hard on the downhill. Last year, all my stomach stitch issues appeared when I ran hard downhills. This simulation can help me identify if the issue is still happening or if it happens, to work through it.
It is definitely not going to be a weekly session but the idea would be add 1 extra rep per month until October. So 4 miles in May, 5 in June, 6 in July, 7 in August and 8 miles in October. Yeah, it is definitely not easy. But hey, I am the one with the Sub 1 hour obsession for Morat-Fribourg. If it came easy, everyone would be doing it. The loop and it’s elevation map are below (I already made a Strava segment out of it):
Of course, in the middle of these “specific” threshold sessions, there will be workouts focussing on hill strength. Those are usually the worst sort of workouts you can ever do. I don’t know which hurts more, 3' uphill threshold or 30" all out uphill sprint.
PS: I think the answer depends on number of reps. But the 30" sprint hurts like hell whether you do it once or 10 times.
Plus then there are the usual hilly runs in the forest and some races here and there to test the legs. And I’m sure Vo2 max sessions on the track and threshold runs by the lake don’t put me at a disadvantage either. But being better at hills = being a better runner.
Tom & I were joking while running up another one of Lausanne’s city hills last weekend. I was saying that this stretch of road is so good for doing long hill reps and he replied “Yeah, for me the only memory of this hill is suffering”. He had done a workout on the hill with his training group and apparently he was out of shape at that time (Not so much now because he ran 8:36 for 3k last weekend, as a season opener). Nothing hurts more when you are in a group trying to stay with people you know you can stick with, but you just don’t find the legs. I was telling Jake the idea of this “Pipe” loop and then joked with him, “I am very motivated now. 3 minutes into the first rep, I will regret my decision”.
A runner’s relationship with pain is one of the most beautiful relationships you can find. Especially if you run fast, you are used to dealing with a certain level of pain because running fast hurts and continuing that pace requires you to somehow accept the pain and drive through despite it. I have always said that the people who run 800 meters are absolutely insane because the amount of pain you have to endure in the 2nd lap is mind boggling. A fast 800 meters usually entails going out on the first lap ridiculously fast and then somehow enduring a jackhammering heart, veins pumping lactic acid and jelly legs to conquer another lap. In running his world record in 2012, the prince among Kenya’s best distance runners, David Rudisha went out in 49.28 (splitting 23.5 and 25.8 for the intermediate 200m splits) and then continued with a 25.0(splitting 1:14.6 for 600) and 26.6 (making it 51.63 for lap 2) covering 800 meters in 1:40.91.
To put in terms of pure speed, Rudisha’s 1st 200 meters were at 31.3 km/h, he then continued to run at 27 km/h for the next 200 meters, averaging 29.4 kilometers per hour for 400 meters. Then somehow, he ran another 200 meters, inexplicably faster than his previous 200 meters and then despite slowing down in the last 200, he still was running at 26.6 km/h. He averaged a little over 28 kilometers per hour for 2 laps of the track. First of all, how is that even humanly possible? Have you tried to run at 28 kilometers per hour? It equates to 13 seconds per 100 meters. I once closed a 8*100 stride set with a 13 second 100 but I was done after that. I cannot imagine going at that speed 7 times more, without stopping. And ok, I’m not a paragon of running but people who can run 50 seconds for 400 are fairly good runners. To do it twice? Unheard of. The 2012 race video is below:
And then not everyone is Rudisha but these maniacs who are running 800 are incredible. But the tolerance of pain is a requirement in every distance from 100 meters to 3100 miles. And usually the ones who become good at any distance are the ones who can deal with this pain better than others. I know it is a tad masochistic but when you embrace pain, you find something new about yourself. It’s like Tyler Durden’s quote from Fight Club “How much can you know about yourself if you never been in a fight?” Comfort betrays you. Gloating in happiness can make you complacent. I’m not saying you should shun happiness, but life usually waits for you to be too comfortable and then punches you right in the face. If at that point all you have known is comfort, you’ll fall apart. As a runner, I actively seek discomfort and find reasons to push myself beyond my limit. Then I have my brain whining and alarms bells going off. Sometimes I succeed in controlling in. Sometimes my brain wins. But either way, I become a better person because despite the outcome, I still choose to have a good attitude and treat others with respect. I still become a better person because I showed up and tried to find something about myself. I feel blessed about my life’s struggles because I would’ve turned out a wuss if my life had been all vanilla. And I am in no way claiming that running is the noblest of pursuits but it is my way to looking inside me and finding strength, every single day.
I genuinely have no idea if the blog so far has made any sense. Let’s see: I started with talking about driving in Switzerland. Then mentioned I have a first aid training course which is delayed to next week. Then I talked about a 20k race in Lavaux, followed by a workout I want to do specific to Morat-Fribourg. I began talking about the relationship between runners and pain, then I went on a tangent about David Rudisha and I finished by mentioning how dealing with pain as runners makes us better people. Indeed, these sound like the ramblings of a lunatic.
Some interesting content from the week:
I am a fan of podcasts because there are so many smart people in the world and it is always better to shut up and listen to people when they are talking. You can try to talk back to people in podcasts but if you do that you deserve a psychiatric evaluation too. Or maybe you just need more friends.
Recently, my favourite tennis player before Rafael Nadal, Andy Roddick launched the “Served” podcast. Andy is extremely eloquent and very funny, while being quite insightful. Given that Nadal is about to retire, I have all but stopped watching tennis but listening to this podcast gives me a great insight into the world of tennis.
It is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and YouTube. Their episode from the previous week began with a roundup of the tennis tournaments from the week including Madrid open and finished with a discussion with Dr. Joshua Dines on the impact of a more hectic tennis calendar and early specialization on the health of tennis players. Really interesting.
Then there’s one podcast I discovered from Paul Bloom’s book Sweet Spot and now I eagerly await a new episode every week. This one is called “The Happiness Lab”
Dr. Laurie Santos, the host of the podcast has some amazing discussions with some very smart people about how to enhance the happiness in your life be it at work or digitally or in your personal life. This podcast has resulted in my buying several books, none of which have disappointed. Last week’s episode was about five tips to be happier at work and was really insightful.
Talking of books, I am reading this absolutely amazing book(not coming from Laurie Santos but infact from an episode of Roll-On from the Rich Roll Podcast) by Dr. Carl Safina called “Becoming Wild”, which talks about how animal cultures raise families, create beauty and achieve peace. He talks about families via Whales, beauty via Macaws and peace via Chimpanzees. My first insight from the book reaffirms my belief that human beings are assholes. I really feel as a species, homo sapiens are insecure, selfish and ignorant. Worse still, we have made our problems the source of problems for other species. Quoting anthropologist Louis Leakey here “We are the only animal that makes choices that are bad for our species”. And Albert Einstein said that humans are “endowed with just enough intelligence to be able to see clearly how utterly inadequate that intelligence is”. Despite our species’ destructive behaviour, some humans have displayed acts of altruism which beggars belief. Be it during COVID 19 or any act of environmental or animal conservation, humans have defied the “selfish gene” and done amazing deeds to help others. We can choose who we want to be. It’s better to choose to be good. Trust me, there is no heaven. Or hell. You create them through your choices. Anyways. The rest of the book is filled with interesting factoids about whales, macaws and chimpanzees. For example, there are only 2 species of animals where someone who you might have known for a long time might murder you: Humans and Chimpanzees. Every other species protects it’s tribe. Whales choose to die protecting one of them than trying to save themselves. But male chimps and humans live a life chasing societal hierarchy and reading about the chimps reminded me of so many toxic males I have encountered in my life.
And of course, how can I not mention the Pogacar show at the Giro D’Italia 2024. I am writing this post on Day 10 of the Giro. Out of the 9 stages last week, Pogi won 3 stages including an individual time trial where he comfortably beat the world individual time trial champion, Filippo Ganna. He already leads the race by 2:48 over 2nd placed Dani Martinez. On Lance Armstrong’s The Move podcast, Lance and Johan cautioned Pogi to not be greedy and try to win everything, which I believe comes from a lot of their experience of having acted like assholes in their hayday. I think that’s good advice. He would make more enemies than friends if he continues to beat people into submission in every stage. For example, Filippo Ganna’s face when Pogacar crossed the line after the ITT was priceless. If he was an actor, he could’ve won an academy award for expressing the words “Fuck you” with his eyes. Lance and Johan made an interesting point that Pogacar should just continue to ride the Giro as a training ride, do some specific work and be prepped for the Tour De France in July. Let’s see how the Giro evolves. Despite me quitting the sports industry, I still quite enjoy watching sports.
PS: Yesterday (18/05), Pogacar won yet another stage though this week he was rather well behaved.
In terms of running in general and my own running, this weekend was full of events: On Friday and Saturday, there was the LA Grand prix where Selemon Barega won the 5k in 12:51 as all but 1 runner ran Sub 13. Impressively enough American Cooper Teare went 12:54, while his Oregon teammate and 1500m indoor silver medalist, Cole Hocker went 12:58. (Meanwhile, i still hope of one day breaking 15). On Saturday, it was the Night of 10k PBs in the UK, where in the 2nd final of the day my boy Thibault ran a track 10,000 PB and frankly ran a very smart race to finish 3rd in 30:33.33. There was a lot of cheering on our group for Thibault. Always such pure joy when someone you care for succeeds. This event is something I would love to do 1 day, maybe even next year instead of the London marathon. In the final finals of the day, Mohammed Ismail (27:22) and Megan Keith (31:04) took the honors as no-one hit the Olympic standards of 27:00 and 30:40. Some impressive Indian performances too. And then tonight, there’s the Marrakesh Diamond League with Mr. Steeple, Soufiane El Bakkali opening his season and the queen of the 200, Shericka Jackson opening her season. And for some bloody reason, Lamecha Girma, the world record holder in the 3000m steeplechase is running the 1500. Maybe he is tired of losing to El Bakkali? Maybe he wants to beat Jakob Ingebrigtsen and Josh Kerr? Who knows?
I’ll finish this blog by mentioning that I went for a rather nice run with Jake this morning in Chalet-à-Gobet and before going, I just put the dough for my baguettes in a tray because I knew it would spill over. I was so grateful that my poolish smelled so good (like the smell of honey or if you know roohafza with milk). And a good poolish usually means amazing fermentation. On the way back, we stopped at the street food festival to check it out and when I came back home, I let out a huge laugh. This is why:
And finally, this is what this mess transformed into:
So, if you’re in a mess, keep going! Beauty awaits. Thanks for reading.
