My final event for my MdS build up was the ULTRArace Grantham, a double ultra-marathon: 29.3 miles on the Saturday and the same canal route in reverse on the Sunday for another 29.3 miles. Only a few weeks ago I was seriously contemplating pulling out of day 2 and I'm glad I didn't.
Aside from being a great event it was also the first time I've run with other people since the New Hangover Hike on New Year's Day so it made a real difference being able to chat and run with others after so long running and walking alone in the Yorkshire wilderness!
Saturday's 29.3 miles
An early rise to travel to the start after my pre-prepared MdS breakfast: Jordan's Crunchy Oat Cereal with skimmed milk powder and a couple of tablespoons of sugar (just add water).
At the last minute I ditched most of the contents of my rucksack: I had intended to be running with 5.5-7kg but thought better of it, particularly after last week's 11.8kg 23 mile effort. Instead I ended up starting with about 4.5kg in the rucksack.
It was great to be travelling over a completely flat and dry course for a change. My strategy from the off was to run 5 minutes and walk 10 minutes. This meant that within a mile I was all alone and very last! The route and way-markers were very easy to follow though and over the coming hours I passed 9 people to finish 63rd of the 73 starters (I'm never going to set the world alight in this game . . .).
I kept the run/walk strategy going for about 4.5 hours when I then mixed it up while ensuring I still ran for 5 minutes in every 15. I also stuck to the plan of eating something every 45 minutes/1 hour and ensuring I reached each of the three checkpoints and the finish having got through the majority of my fluids: one 710ml bottle with electrolyte tablets and the other 710ml bottle with plain water.
I finished the 29.3 miles in 5h45m, so quite pleased with that, and collected my medal. Conveniently the finish line was the door of the hotel!
A quick check-in and the first thing I did was have my ForGoodnessShakes recovery drink, followed by sitting in freezing cold bath water for 15 minutes (this water must have been pumped directly from the Arctic). Once my hands were going blue, which weren't in the water, I figured it was time to get out.
My legs feeling incredibly recovered I then wallowed in a hot bath for an hour or so then made up my Expedition Foods freeze-dried Chicken Korma with Rice: delicious.
ECG and medical certificate
It's a compulsory MdS requirement to turn up on Administration Day (the day before Stage 1 starts) to hand in a medical certificate signed off by a doctor along with a satisfactory ECG test print-out. This ECG can't be dated more than 30 days before the start of the race. As part of this race weekend a doctor was on site to do the necessary.
The ECG, taken a couple of hours after I finished today's effort, confirmed I'm still alive and all the squiggly lines are in the right places. I also now have squiggly lines over my hairy chest too where it had to be shaved in the right parts before the test.
Ultra-running/MdS evening talk
The majority of runners will have heard of Rory Coleman, the ultra-running legend. In a different lifetime in the 1990s Rory had got used to being an overweight alcoholic smoking 40 a day until realising there was no fun in it. After a breathless 100 metre jog in 1994 Rory was appalled at the state of his body and decided to change things.
Rory has since completed 714 marathons, has 9 Guinness World Records to his name and has completed 180 ultra-marathons (i.e., races that exceed the standard marathon distance of 26.2 miles), including running from London to Lisbon . . . just the small matter of 1,275 miles. And 2012 should see Rory complete his 9th MdS . . .
So what Rory has to say about ultra-running is worth listening to.
Rory and his partner Jen Salter are the team behind ULTRArace which organises the Grantham Ultra and other similar events as well as providing coaching and personal training. I picked up lots of useful tips from Rory's talk, some of which challenge the plans and thinking I'd already decided upon for the MdS . . . so back to the drawing board on one or two points.
It was great meeting a few other MdS 2012 entrants and other ultra-runners with other plans, including one guy being trained by Rory for next year's MdS who's so far lost 20 kilos (over 3 stone) . . . in 1 year.
Sunday's 29.3 miles
I woke early for a freeze-dried breakfast (Expedition Foods Fruity Muesli with Milk Powder) and then back to bed for another hour or so before getting up and thoroughly stretching off. I just don't think my body likes hot breakfasts so maybe I'll stick to Jordan's Crunchy Oat cereal during the MdS!
I cleared out some more of my rucksack and went with 4kg.
Emerging from my darkened hotel room into the hotel reception the weather was a surprise: barely a breeze, not a cloud in sight and full sunshine before 9am. A quick change meant I ditched my running longs to just run in shorts but I kept two layers on my top half. I was as unprepared for unseasonably warm weather as most of the field with no hat, sunglasses or sunscreen. I just had one Buff with me to wear as a headband to stop the sweat dripping in my eyes which also meant everything else was exposed to the sun.
I found out today that the race finish in Cotgrave was about 10 miles away from the officially recorded hottest place in the United Kingdom (Watnall, Nottinghamshire: 18.6C). Last week I was running around in temperatures barely reaching 4C.
It was certainly a humid day. I started out more aggressively than the previous day with a 5 minute run/5 minute walk strategy but after about 3 hours this was getting too tiring: in the humid heat and after yesterday's effort my heart rate was spiking too much. I really wished I could dump my rucksack as even with just 4kg I knew that wouldn't help.
So after 3 hours passed I ran what I could, which was little, and mostly walked fast instead. I could tell from the dried salt marks on my clothing that I was sweating out a lot of salts. I had no reason to think I'd need to bring salt tablets with me and the electrolytes I was taking on board weren't helping as much as I needed in the sodium department.
With a couple of hours to the finish I found I couldn't run more than a minute or so without wanting to be sick, my appetite had switched off, my upper leg muscles were cramping up and my hands had swollen a little: all classic signs of low salt! To top it off I found I couldn't turn my head much to the left without a locking back muscle and pain: I've no idea why that started.
With the finish markers in sight I ran the last half mile and finally finished the second day's 29.3 miles just 31 minutes slower than the previous day's in 6h16m, with a combined time of 12h1m27s for the 58.6 miles. A good result and a real confidence booster for the MdS.
I sat down and struggled to get up again without my wife's assistance as my legs were cramping. I still didn't feel like eating though so didn't (a mistake) and instead went straight for a shower.
After a quick chat with Ray McCurdy (who's completed over 160 marathons and will complete his 100th ultra-marathon in the next few weeks) we began the journey home. I knew I badly needed salt so stopped at a service station for some Burger King salty fries: I really didn't feel well standing in a queue in a warm building!
Armed with a Whopper and salty fries I got out of the building sharpish and sat down in the cold shade feeling quite hot, dizzy and sick before I got the hot and cold sweats. The chap emptying the bins looked quite alarmed at the sweating mess sat in front of him and asked if I needed sugar. My long-suffering wife wasn't quite so alarmed: she got used to this on one of our first dates years ago (i.e., me repeatedly throwing up on the hard shoulder of the M1 after carrying on through some pain through a 6 hour track race).
That first salty chip was absolute heaven and I finished off the rest and half the Whopper in double-quick time and felt 100% better! Another bag of salty chips on the way home and I was ready to run again . . . well, sort of . . .
A quick check-in and the first thing I did was have my ForGoodnessShakes recovery drink, followed by sitting in freezing cold bath water for 15 minutes (this water must have been pumped directly from the Arctic). Once my hands were going blue, which weren't in the water, I figured it was time to get out.
My legs feeling incredibly recovered I then wallowed in a hot bath for an hour or so then made up my Expedition Foods freeze-dried Chicken Korma with Rice: delicious.
ECG and medical certificate
It's a compulsory MdS requirement to turn up on Administration Day (the day before Stage 1 starts) to hand in a medical certificate signed off by a doctor along with a satisfactory ECG test print-out. This ECG can't be dated more than 30 days before the start of the race. As part of this race weekend a doctor was on site to do the necessary.
The ECG, taken a couple of hours after I finished today's effort, confirmed I'm still alive and all the squiggly lines are in the right places. I also now have squiggly lines over my hairy chest too where it had to be shaved in the right parts before the test.
Ultra-running/MdS evening talk
The majority of runners will have heard of Rory Coleman, the ultra-running legend. In a different lifetime in the 1990s Rory had got used to being an overweight alcoholic smoking 40 a day until realising there was no fun in it. After a breathless 100 metre jog in 1994 Rory was appalled at the state of his body and decided to change things.
Rory has since completed 714 marathons, has 9 Guinness World Records to his name and has completed 180 ultra-marathons (i.e., races that exceed the standard marathon distance of 26.2 miles), including running from London to Lisbon . . . just the small matter of 1,275 miles. And 2012 should see Rory complete his 9th MdS . . .
So what Rory has to say about ultra-running is worth listening to.
Rory and his partner Jen Salter are the team behind ULTRArace which organises the Grantham Ultra and other similar events as well as providing coaching and personal training. I picked up lots of useful tips from Rory's talk, some of which challenge the plans and thinking I'd already decided upon for the MdS . . . so back to the drawing board on one or two points.
It was great meeting a few other MdS 2012 entrants and other ultra-runners with other plans, including one guy being trained by Rory for next year's MdS who's so far lost 20 kilos (over 3 stone) . . . in 1 year.
Sunday's 29.3 miles
I woke early for a freeze-dried breakfast (Expedition Foods Fruity Muesli with Milk Powder) and then back to bed for another hour or so before getting up and thoroughly stretching off. I just don't think my body likes hot breakfasts so maybe I'll stick to Jordan's Crunchy Oat cereal during the MdS!
I cleared out some more of my rucksack and went with 4kg.
Emerging from my darkened hotel room into the hotel reception the weather was a surprise: barely a breeze, not a cloud in sight and full sunshine before 9am. A quick change meant I ditched my running longs to just run in shorts but I kept two layers on my top half. I was as unprepared for unseasonably warm weather as most of the field with no hat, sunglasses or sunscreen. I just had one Buff with me to wear as a headband to stop the sweat dripping in my eyes which also meant everything else was exposed to the sun.
I found out today that the race finish in Cotgrave was about 10 miles away from the officially recorded hottest place in the United Kingdom (Watnall, Nottinghamshire: 18.6C). Last week I was running around in temperatures barely reaching 4C.
It was certainly a humid day. I started out more aggressively than the previous day with a 5 minute run/5 minute walk strategy but after about 3 hours this was getting too tiring: in the humid heat and after yesterday's effort my heart rate was spiking too much. I really wished I could dump my rucksack as even with just 4kg I knew that wouldn't help.
So after 3 hours passed I ran what I could, which was little, and mostly walked fast instead. I could tell from the dried salt marks on my clothing that I was sweating out a lot of salts. I had no reason to think I'd need to bring salt tablets with me and the electrolytes I was taking on board weren't helping as much as I needed in the sodium department.
With a couple of hours to the finish I found I couldn't run more than a minute or so without wanting to be sick, my appetite had switched off, my upper leg muscles were cramping up and my hands had swollen a little: all classic signs of low salt! To top it off I found I couldn't turn my head much to the left without a locking back muscle and pain: I've no idea why that started.
 |
| Where's that Whopper and salty fries?!? |
I sat down and struggled to get up again without my wife's assistance as my legs were cramping. I still didn't feel like eating though so didn't (a mistake) and instead went straight for a shower.
After a quick chat with Ray McCurdy (who's completed over 160 marathons and will complete his 100th ultra-marathon in the next few weeks) we began the journey home. I knew I badly needed salt so stopped at a service station for some Burger King salty fries: I really didn't feel well standing in a queue in a warm building!
Armed with a Whopper and salty fries I got out of the building sharpish and sat down in the cold shade feeling quite hot, dizzy and sick before I got the hot and cold sweats. The chap emptying the bins looked quite alarmed at the sweating mess sat in front of him and asked if I needed sugar. My long-suffering wife wasn't quite so alarmed: she got used to this on one of our first dates years ago (i.e., me repeatedly throwing up on the hard shoulder of the M1 after carrying on through some pain through a 6 hour track race).
That first salty chip was absolute heaven and I finished off the rest and half the Whopper in double-quick time and felt 100% better! Another bag of salty chips on the way home and I was ready to run again . . . well, sort of . . .
