Yeehaa... Every Day's a Sunday...

... Well for the next three and a half weeks anyway!

I'm off to Nicaragua tomorrow for the 100k, checked the local weather it's in the mid 80's at the moment so will be a shock to the system. I'm also missing the Round Rotherham 50... but I'm trying not to think about that.

I've had a stinker of a cold all week so haven't managed much running apart from a 20 miler on the roads last night and a 10 miler in the hills tonight so I'm feeling a bit under-trained! But this one is more for the adventure than the competitive side of things so I'm not going worry too much.

So... I'm off, if you don't hear from me I'm probably jogging up a volcano somewhere... (not Arthurs Seat).

Bog Eating, Cross-Dressing and Christiano Ronaldo

I'm finding it increasingly difficult to call my running training anymore. It's becoming more like maintaining fitness or maybe even surviving! The 24 hour has hit me hard, I could probably have done with an extra weeks rest but too late now there's a 100k to do in less than 4 weeks time!


So, I rested for 8 days after Tooting then got in an easy 40 mile/7000' week (hills again yeehaa!) with no long run. Followed that with a 67 mile 9500' week including a 3 mile time trial (18 mins, exactly the same as the one 3 weeks prior to 24hr!), Tinto Hill race (39:02, 35th) and a 21 mile long run. Then last week ended up at 44 miles 7800' only managing to run on 4 days for one reason or another.

There have been some adventures though.

Tinto was the usual fast and furious, lung bursting quad bursting affair only this year I decided to throw in some bog eating too with a spectacular bog dive on the descent.






Then, this weekend was the Vasque Ultra Series awards in the Lakes. So, Lucy and I headed down to Ambleside for the fun event at the Lakes Runner shop. It was a 90 minute score event in which there was also a prize for the best wig! So running through the town centre complete with my long blond wig was worth it in the end as I picked up the prestigous award for my Dave Lee Roth/Bon Jovi look! Then after meeting all the Kryptons we headed off to the "barn" we had hired for the weekend with an hours tour of Kendal and quite a few dead end streets beforehand (it's amazing the difference one letter of a postcode can make to a sat-nav!!). A freezing/boiling shower, some wine, a toast to all things Krypton then it was off to Wilfs to party! It was a really enjoyable night swapping race tales and discussing next years plans with people I don't normally have time or am too knackered to talk to after races, oh and a few beers were also consumed.



Dancing Krypton style


Next morning the good weather had held out so Andy (our new Krypton recruit!), Lucy and I decided to do the Kentmere Horseshoe route. It took the first climb to get myself in gear but after that the running was excellent, really getting into the descents and stopping occasionally to admire the fantastic views. It was one of those days when it was a privilege to be up there enjoying it. I also got to wear my new shoes unfortunately that is the only colour they come in so I felt like the Christiano Ronaldo of the fells until I could give them a good dook in the nearest bog to cut out the glare.

Always remember the camera... great excuse to stop on the climb and get your breath back!

Maggs Howe camping barn with the Kentmere Horseshoe behind.

Vasque Ultra-running Series Races 2009

You heard it here first! The race series for 2009 is a cracker!


Short


1/3/9 Wye Ultra


22/3 Wuthering Hike


5/8 Dark & White Peak (tbc)


?/9 Pumlumon


Medium


18/4?? Calderdale


16/5??Marlborough


5/7 Osmotherly Pheonix


20/9 High Peak 40


Long


25/4 Highland Fling


9/5 Fellsman


1/8 Lakeland 100 & 50 milers


3/10 Long Mynd

Fuego Y Agua Newspaper Article

Here's a great article on the FYA ( click to enlarge).

Hills, Trails and Typhoid

What a cracker of a weekend it's been! A world away from the stormy weather of the OMM weekend previous.

On Saturday Oscar came up and we headed off for an easy run over Benarty Hill and out to the Lomonds. They've just finished a new path around Loch Leven which means it's possible to run this route without going onto the road. Much better since most drivers would take the opportunity to try and run you into the ditch and on the way back with a load of miles in the legs it used to get a bit hairy. What a difference now! We climbed Benarty and down into Vane Farm nature place (I'm not sure we should run through here, but there was people running here before they turned it into a twitchers place, that's my theory) then along the new path for about 4 miles before coming into Scotlandwell and climbing Bishops Hill. The views were great at the top, you could see loads of snow covered tops in the distance. I sat for a few minutes just enjoying the silence and the views while Oscar disappeared down the hill a bit mumbling something about needing a dump!
We took a slightly different route back making it a bit shorter but a bit rougher going through knee deep heather for a bit. All in all it was about 17.5 miles and 3500 feet which I was happy to have survived only two weeks after the 24 hour.

That made it about 40 miles and 6000 feet for the week, so I'm pretty much back into the regular training routine again and just need to up the miles for a couple of weeks before going to Nicaragua for the 100k.

There was a bit of a spanner thrown in the works yesterday though. I was due at the doctors for some pre- trip vaccinations so cycled the couple of miles to the surgery not realising I was late. When I got there the crabbit nurse wasn't too keen to give me my jags since I was a whopping 5 mins late! Standing there with my (remaining) hair sticking up, red face and windswept look I decided just to stand in silence and hope she would think I was another mental person and best not to mess... it worked! She told me to hurry along to the chemist next door, pick up the bag of diseases and get my butt into her room asap. So now 24 hours or so after having tropical diseases ( hep A + E I kept calling it... and she thought I was a mental person??!) injected into me I'm feeling a bit out of sorts. My arms feel like lead and after an easy 7 miler tonight my legs feel like they've done an OMM in the rain!




Back to hard training....

If I can't get over this wee dose of typhoid and hep A+E soon then the bigger mileage week I've got planned isn't going to happen.

A week on from Tooting

It's been a week or so now since the 24 hour and my recovery has been pretty good, no lasting niggles or injuries to report.

I have been going over the race a lot in my head and have got the full splits now, which make interesting reading (if you're an anorak like me!)

My 100 mile time was 17:58:08, 100K 9:45:50 and 200K was 22:41:07.

When I look at the second placed runners splits I was ahead of him until 120K at 12 hours+ then he carried on with his consistent pace while I slowed down so maybe my pacing was a bit out, plenty to think about for next time. Talking of next-time I'm looking for another 24 hour event in the early part of next year not sure what there is but I think I might have to go to Europe to find one.

While plotting and planning various races for next year I've realized my hill races are becoming very few and far between. I plan to do Tinto in a couple of weeks time, then next year the only one I really want to do is Stuc a Chroin because it was my first ever hill race (I think it was my first ever race of any kind in fact) back in 1998, what an introduction to racing! I remember I went home afterwards and had to go straight to bed! I'm sure I'll fit a few others in as well, though.

So the focus is going to be on ultras again next year with the excellent Vasque series making up the bulk of the races and hopefully I can get into the High Peak Marathon again (deceptively named since it's 40 miles and I remember more peat(bogs) than peaks!) another race I said I would NEVER do again, it was pure hell all the way... but if I can just do a bit more of this and a bit less of that I could maybe shave a few minutes off here..... yes, when that "but" leaves my mindset I'll know it's time to hang up the racing shoes and get a good pair off plodding shoes instead! Until then I'll still be weighing my Go Bars and cutting the bottoms off my trousers to save a few grams.... I'm waffling now, time to get back to some running!

P.S Thanks to everyone for the comments and the emails I recieved about the race.

24 Hour Party People

For someone who usually seeks out fresh air and solitude in the hills and mountains, who relishes the challenges of tough terrain, who loves the pre-race course recce and then the challenge of getting around on that knife edge of minimal food, drink and kit, the Sri Chinmoy 24 Hour Race at Tooting Bec athletics track seems a strange choice for an adventure

Photo courtesy of www.srichinmoyraces.org/uk

The challenge is simple, to run as many circuits of the 400 metre track as possible in 24 hours starting 12 noon on Saturday. No climbs, no rough terrain, no navigating, no kit to carry, no coos, support every 400 metres, floodlights at night... easy!? That's what I thought when I ran this race in 2006 after a dream West Highland Way race and boy was I proved wrong. I suffered a lot. My preparations were poor, in terms of race specific training and also nutrition and I really just didn't know what it was all about.

I entered this time because I wanted to see if I could meet the very different challenges of 24 hour running. I felt I was too much in my comfort zone on the hills and trails, I'm by no-means a master but it was becoming a bit routine and my coo whispering skills are now well honed. A 24 hour isn't like a "normal" race, when the going gets tough you can't tell yourself to push harder and get to the finish quicker. There are no hills to climb to change the pace and give you a chance to eat, it is much more of a blank canvas where you have to wrestle with the voice in your head giving you reasons to stop all the time..

The start line of a 24 hour race is a strange place, everyone with their own thoughts of what lies ahead, I just kind of mingled in and then we were off. After about 150 metres I passed my support team for the first of 500 and odd times and gave them the thumbs up, which became my signal for each time I passed unless I needed something then instructions were shouted and I was duly serviced as required. I had originally planned to run unsupported since I felt I had asked so many people to help me out this year that I couldn't ask anyone to give up four days and sit at the side of a track for fun! So when I was asked by Lynne if I would like her, Russell and Lesley to come with me I was delighted. Lynne had ran at Perth 24 hour a few weeks before so she knew exactly what I was going to be feeling and Lesley and Russell were very experienced at race support so I knew I was in good hands.

In preparing for this I had to decide on how I would pace it. My problem was that because all my races previously had involved hills so had my training, so, after UTMB I had two weeks rest then started clocking up miles on the roads and tracks locally trying to run on as flat and consistent terrain as possible. This was much harder than I had thought, give me 2 1/2 hours on the hills every day no problem, but an hour and a half on the roads I was finding really tough. I realized that I didn't have enough time to turn myself into a flat runner churning out the same pace hour upon hour so had to work out another strategy. I decided I would have to replicate my pacing in a race like the WHW where I would go out fast then slow down for a bit when it got to Conic Hill then speed up again till past Rowardennen and then hopefully I would find my natural pace after that.

The first few hours of the race were hard, I felt sore and just couldn't get comfortable but eventually I seemed to settle into it and after twelve hours I had covered I think about 75 miles. This was when it started to get tough. Between about midnight and 6am I got slower and slower, Adrian gave me a pep talk at one point telling me to adjust my posture and basically stand up straight! I was really struggling. Then at about 5.45 am I passed 100 miles. This gave me a huge lift and I had a moment similar to this years WHW race when I just relaxed and started to pick up the pace until I was running 400 metre splits of about 2 mins to 2:10 and hammering around. I was reborn! The more I kept this going the more I started to believe I could do it and I was flying round for a good couple of hours before I inevitably slowed again. This burst had given me belief though, that even when I felt like I was finished with nothing left it was only a temporary feeling and I could overcome it if I willed my mind to will my body to will my legs just a bit further...

Pic courtesy of www.srichinmoyraces.org/uk

The one part of my body I couldn't exercise my will over was my stomach. I had found it difficult to eat solids from about 8 hours and was existing on Complan, soup, coke and the odd biscuit. I had also started to get really bad stomach cramps at times and felt really sick too, this was worrying because I've never been sick before in a race and knew it would be hard to get energy back into me if I puked. What kept me going, though, was the 200k that I needed to achieve as the qualifying standard to run for Scotland at the Commonwealth Championships next year. It was amazing the amount of people who were willing me on from the sidelines to achieve it, I knew I could do it and there was no way I wasn't going to get that 200k!
I think it was about 10:45am when with tears in my eyes I punched the air as I ran through 200k, the marquee full of lap counters giving me a huge cheer as I passed, could I ride on this crest for another 10k or so and get over 130 miles? I kept up the intensity but I was slowing down again and starting to really feel sick. Then at about 11:15am my stomach said no more and I started to wretch and throw up in a big way. All the liquid in my stomach came up until there was nothing left and I felt a little better so carried on around the circuit for about another 3 laps then I slowed to a walk then a stagger then I knew my race was over. I stumbled the 200 metres like a Saturday night drunk back to my support and sat down and hoped I could manage a small piece of food to get me going again but there was no way, I just felt so nausea's that there was no chance I could stomach anything so I sat in my chair on the track and waited for the finish.

Starting to look like an old wifie at the tatties!

Pic courtesy of www.srichinmoyraces.org/uk

127 miles 1119 yards was the total in the end. I'm absolutely delighted with it and have learnt so much from this race.

Thanks to my support Lynne, Russell and Lesley if it wasn't for you guys I couldn't have done it. Also big thanks to Adrian and Alan you guys kept me going with encouragement and banter all the way, also everyone from Sri Chinmoy who put so much effort into organising a fabulous race with a great atmosphere and those lap counters... they think we're mad??!!