I'm still sticking with the plan: no more than 3 runs a week and trying to keep the weekly mileage increase to not more than 10%. I'm ensuring I mix in walking with the running: flatter routes mean I usually do 10 minute run/1 minute walk and the walking mix naturally increases the more tired I get. If I come across an incline I walk it.
This strategy has so far seen me avoid any injuries, which is crucial to make sure I get to the MdS start line. I also try to ensure my long runs are done off-road: the impact injury from tarmac or pavement running would be too great, and I'm seeing greater strength gains from running across grass, fields and tracks and trails. The LDWA Challenge events (open to both runners and walkers) have been fantastic for this.
What has also definitely helped is the weekly sports massage (as well as getting my Achilles problems sorted early, and finding a podiatrist who knows what he's talking about when it comes to orthotics!). It's only been this month that I've been able to drop from two massages a week (which I started in July) to one a week. It's taken almost three months to undo all the muscle damage from my poor previous running habits (i.e., heel striking and little stretching). I'm no longer swearing during the sports massage sessions, so that's progress!
Mid-foot striking is now second-nature. There was a spell where, once I was getting tired towards the end of a long run my legs would fall back to heel-strike but focussing on form soon addressed that.
September has been a big push in terms of getting over the psychological barrier of distance: it's been many years since I last ran a marathon so to have done so this month is a good start for the next 6 months slog.
Recovery from long runs is also critical. Much as they are uncomfortable I swear by the post-long run ice cold bath, just enough water solely from the cold tap to cover the legs. The effect is immediate and I find myself able to walk around without much stiffness or pain. Obviously this isn't going to be an available option in the Sahara but the point of this is to reduce the recovery time between the long runs in the build-up phase.
The objective for the next couple of months is to build to a weekly long run of more than 20 miles and try and reduce the recovery time to the next run, maybe introducing a short back-to-back run.
Friday, 30 September 2011
Saturday, 24 September 2011
In Pendle's Shadow
Distance: 20 miles
Ascent: 3078 ft
Rucksack weight: 3kg
Calories burnt: 3526
Time: 4h57m (including 40 minutes standing around wondering where I am)
Doing this so soon after a marathon wouldn't usually be a good idea, but training for the MdS doesn't allow any let-up unfortunately. This was a LDWA Challenge event, so open to runners, and guaranteed to be tough on the legs. This event also proved that you really do smell quite bad when you get covered in cow and horse poo.
I was backwards and forwards to the car changing my kit just before the off trying to decide what to take: we were in a warm valley floor but up above in the hills it was dark, murky and wet. So I took pretty much everything.
There was no opportunity to run much of the first 3 miles as it was a stiff uphill climb into the clouds. For LDWA events your route is planned out in detail (usually!) on 2 or 3 sides of A4 paper. Guess what happens when it gets wet? My route instructions were becoming a ball of papier-mache and my hands were covered in ink. Initial panic: I'd only covered 4 miles and those people in front of me were getting further away! This meant I ended up going faster than I wanted to in order to keep up with someone who had dry instructions (I could have waited for someone to catch up with me, of course, but that didn't quite seem the thing to do).
By now we'd reached the top of Pendle's Hill and visibility was very poor. Distant flourescent jackets kept disappearing and there wasn't much of a track that I could see, and who knew whether it was the right track per my (now destroyed) instructions? Faster I went to catch Flourescent Green Jacket Man, until I stopped just short of a precipice and found a track down the other side of the hill to my left into the cloud-free valley!
Of course, after several days of rain in the Pennines it's a bog. This isn't ideal for wearing road running trainers, as I soon found by slipping away all over the place (I resolved to get some trail shoes).
To compound the miserableness my now soaked second shorts also started to slip and drop around my ankles: fortunately I was wearing my new Nike Dri-fit lycra shorts underneath (still chaffing-free!). I tried for quite a while to keep the second shorts on: I tucked everything in (didn't work) and jutted out my stomach to create a beer-belly (didn't work: I don't drink).
Eventually I just decided to put up with the cold and put my second shorts into my rucksack. This must have only taken a matter of seconds but didn't help the rest of my run: at this point the route split, separating those running the 20 miler from those running the shorter 11 mile route. Most of the field seemed to be on the 11 mile route which suddenly left me alone. Where had the other 20 mile runners disappeared to in a few seconds? I guessed that the route forward must be this track over here . . . and sure enough found a line of runners up ahead.
This is where I had my experiment with determining whether cow and horse poo smells. So desparate was I to catch up with anyone who had a dry set of 20 miler instructions I failed to stay upright as I ran along the steep side of a very slippy bank (the cows and horses had sensibly moved over to the opposite, drier, bank). Then I slipped and sailed down the steep bank through numerous cow pats and horse dung piles: the whole of my left side was a slick of animal poo.
I was not happy, because that also put paid to me being able to use one of my water bottles. And I really stank.
At the next checkpoint the Immutable Law of Grannies came to the fore. Seeing me completely covered one of the volunteers, a dear old lady (the others had retreated to the back of their cars looking horrified when they saw me coming), pulled out a tiny tissue from her cardigan sleeve and offered it to me:
"Ooh dear, I don't know if this will help to clear you up? I'm really sorry, I haven't got anything else."
"Don't worry, I'm fine, thank you very much anyway."
It's been many years since my Nan, long since departed, did a similar thing for me when out and about. But, satisfied that grannies the world over will still always pull out a tiny tissue from their cardigans to try and clear up any spillage of any size, I knew that all was right with the world. After cheering myself up with a couple of slices of Swiss roll and some jaffa cake I went on my way.
And got very lost. There was no-one around and I was instruction-less. Not knowing where I needed to get to for the next checkpoint made my Ordnance Survey map almost redundant, though I did know my general direction was north-west! Eventually I saw another couple of runners also struggling with a map and a GPS: they had pristine WATER-PROOF PAPER!! instructions, but the route instructions weren't very clear at this point. We decided on the likely route forward and onwards we ran.
Just before the last checkpoint was a very steep downhill. Covered in mess anyway I threw caution to the wind and flew down . . . and my left leg fell, to halfway up my thigh, into a silted quagmire of a stream. The summer's vegetation had covered it very well! My right calf muscle going into painful spasms I managed to pull my left leg out slowly from the clawing mud with a long sucking sound.
Happy that nothing was broken, I shuffled gingerly to the last checkpoint and then onwards to the event HQ to finish. Covered in mud and animal poo I didn't stay too long chatting with the other runners and instead quickly wolfed down my soup and yet more cake and drove home.
But not before calling my wife:
"Er, yep, had a fantastic day. Could you put down some newspaper in the hallway for when I get back?"
"Wwhhhhyyyyyyyyy?!"
"Well . . . I smell a bit, and . . ."
Once home and clean I ordered the ideal solution to disintegrating route instructions for these events (following a handy tip given by another competitor who had an intact set of instructions at the end, albeit very muddy). Useful lesson learnt!
Ascent: 3078 ft
Rucksack weight: 3kg
Calories burnt: 3526
Time: 4h57m (including 40 minutes standing around wondering where I am)
Doing this so soon after a marathon wouldn't usually be a good idea, but training for the MdS doesn't allow any let-up unfortunately. This was a LDWA Challenge event, so open to runners, and guaranteed to be tough on the legs. This event also proved that you really do smell quite bad when you get covered in cow and horse poo.
I was backwards and forwards to the car changing my kit just before the off trying to decide what to take: we were in a warm valley floor but up above in the hills it was dark, murky and wet. So I took pretty much everything.
There was no opportunity to run much of the first 3 miles as it was a stiff uphill climb into the clouds. For LDWA events your route is planned out in detail (usually!) on 2 or 3 sides of A4 paper. Guess what happens when it gets wet? My route instructions were becoming a ball of papier-mache and my hands were covered in ink. Initial panic: I'd only covered 4 miles and those people in front of me were getting further away! This meant I ended up going faster than I wanted to in order to keep up with someone who had dry instructions (I could have waited for someone to catch up with me, of course, but that didn't quite seem the thing to do).
 |
| Not my photo (or dog!) but the visibility says it all. The dog looks as fed up as I felt at this point on top of Pendle's Hill. |
Of course, after several days of rain in the Pennines it's a bog. This isn't ideal for wearing road running trainers, as I soon found by slipping away all over the place (I resolved to get some trail shoes).
To compound the miserableness my now soaked second shorts also started to slip and drop around my ankles: fortunately I was wearing my new Nike Dri-fit lycra shorts underneath (still chaffing-free!). I tried for quite a while to keep the second shorts on: I tucked everything in (didn't work) and jutted out my stomach to create a beer-belly (didn't work: I don't drink).
Eventually I just decided to put up with the cold and put my second shorts into my rucksack. This must have only taken a matter of seconds but didn't help the rest of my run: at this point the route split, separating those running the 20 miler from those running the shorter 11 mile route. Most of the field seemed to be on the 11 mile route which suddenly left me alone. Where had the other 20 mile runners disappeared to in a few seconds? I guessed that the route forward must be this track over here . . . and sure enough found a line of runners up ahead.
This is where I had my experiment with determining whether cow and horse poo smells. So desparate was I to catch up with anyone who had a dry set of 20 miler instructions I failed to stay upright as I ran along the steep side of a very slippy bank (the cows and horses had sensibly moved over to the opposite, drier, bank). Then I slipped and sailed down the steep bank through numerous cow pats and horse dung piles: the whole of my left side was a slick of animal poo.
I was not happy, because that also put paid to me being able to use one of my water bottles. And I really stank.
At the next checkpoint the Immutable Law of Grannies came to the fore. Seeing me completely covered one of the volunteers, a dear old lady (the others had retreated to the back of their cars looking horrified when they saw me coming), pulled out a tiny tissue from her cardigan sleeve and offered it to me:
"Ooh dear, I don't know if this will help to clear you up? I'm really sorry, I haven't got anything else."
"Don't worry, I'm fine, thank you very much anyway."
It's been many years since my Nan, long since departed, did a similar thing for me when out and about. But, satisfied that grannies the world over will still always pull out a tiny tissue from their cardigans to try and clear up any spillage of any size, I knew that all was right with the world. After cheering myself up with a couple of slices of Swiss roll and some jaffa cake I went on my way.
And got very lost. There was no-one around and I was instruction-less. Not knowing where I needed to get to for the next checkpoint made my Ordnance Survey map almost redundant, though I did know my general direction was north-west! Eventually I saw another couple of runners also struggling with a map and a GPS: they had pristine WATER-PROOF PAPER!! instructions, but the route instructions weren't very clear at this point. We decided on the likely route forward and onwards we ran.
Just before the last checkpoint was a very steep downhill. Covered in mess anyway I threw caution to the wind and flew down . . . and my left leg fell, to halfway up my thigh, into a silted quagmire of a stream. The summer's vegetation had covered it very well! My right calf muscle going into painful spasms I managed to pull my left leg out slowly from the clawing mud with a long sucking sound.
Happy that nothing was broken, I shuffled gingerly to the last checkpoint and then onwards to the event HQ to finish. Covered in mud and animal poo I didn't stay too long chatting with the other runners and instead quickly wolfed down my soup and yet more cake and drove home.
But not before calling my wife:
"Er, yep, had a fantastic day. Could you put down some newspaper in the hallway for when I get back?"
 |
| I smelt as bad as I look. |
"Well . . . I smell a bit, and . . ."
Once home and clean I ordered the ideal solution to disintegrating route instructions for these events (following a handy tip given by another competitor who had an intact set of instructions at the end, albeit very muddy). Useful lesson learnt!
Sunday, 11 September 2011
Yorkshireman Off-Road Marathon
Distance: 28 miles (yes, a marathon is 26.2 miles but I got lost!)
Ascent: officially 3065 ft (my watch said 3940 ft!)
Rucksack weight: 3kgCalories burnt: 5205
Time: 6h29m
This was a tough off-road event up and down and up and down (and repeat until the finish) the Dales around Haworth. This was my slowest ever official marathon time (including those I ran as part of Ironman triathlons years ago). Still, the winner took 3h20m so this isn't your ordinary road marathon!
It started warm and sunny and we remained lucky with the weather throughout the day, apart from strong winds in places. My plan was to enjoy it and take it easy, with the goal of finishing with enough energy left in the tank in the morning for me to get out for another run if I felt like it. I had no intention of doing so, I just wanted to feel like it!
 |
| Yep, doing this with a rucksack is warm and tiring! (©Eileen Woodhead (woodentops.org.uk)) |
A colour map of the area, plus my compass, were the navigation tools. The organisers had also marked out the course but, as you'd expect, some undesirable elements seemed to have interfered with these markers in some places.
At one point I was running with a group for a short while who had done this event last year; they did an about turn when the scenery didn't look familiar and sure enough the organisers at the next checkpoint confirmed the markers had disappeared (apparently some local farmers don't approve of the event either!). So that diversion cost an extra mile or so!
On top of Harden Moor the markers had disappeared again and in my tired state found myself lost, getting cold on what was now a windy afternoon.
I came across another couple of runners who were also lost. On checking the map I thought we should be to the left of the line of pilons I could see about half a mile to my left whereas the other two thought we should be heading further east to another separate line of pilons about a mile away. . . that didn't sound right to me, so I headed further west and sure enough picked up the route from the map after descending and then ascending yet again. I never saw the other two runners after that: they could still be up there now!
 |
| A smile after 28 miles! |
I didn't really notice the rucksack and fortunately had no blisters. I only had a couple of energy gels and fueled myself with an absolutely delicious Maxim chocolate and caramel energy bar which saw me flying up and down the hills at one point with a big grin on my face . . . or was it the cakes in plentiful supply at the checkpoints!?
My legs were very tired though and I'll need to get some more steep hills into my legs to stand a chance on the dreaded Dunes Day on the MdS.
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