Grin 'n Bear It

Distance: 17 miles

Ascent: 1831 ft

Rucksack weight: 5kg
Calories burnt: 2212

Time: 4h24m

Yesterday was supposed to have been a 23 mile jaunt across the Peak District.

The website for the "Grin 'n Bear It" event said (and still does!) runners start at 10am so I was surprised when I turned up to be told all the runners had started with the walkers at 8am. Apparently the "running" event was the 16 miler, starting at 10am, although I'd checked in advance to confirm I could run the 23 miler starting at 10am. The overall time limit for the event, per the website, was 11 hours (more than enough).

As an entrant on the day this mix-up wasn't helpful! I can only assume advance entrants received different information in the post. Anyway, the chap running it kindly agreed to let me start on the 23 miler a couple of hours later than everybody else. Unfortunately I was then dropped off along with everyone else at the 16 miler start, so back in the minibus I went to be taken to the 23 miler start.

Already stressed I started off far too quickly with a heavier than usual rucksack weight. I apologised to the first checkpoint marshalls (who looked a little miffed, understandably, but were very good about it), and the second, etc. etc, pointing out the website confusion.

Onwards I went along the course, including 4.5 miles of ascent on an increasingly warm day. At the highest point and another checkpoint ("Sorry, sorry . . . website . . . 10am!") I saw out before me as far as the eye could see a slightly undulating plateau of peat bog. The checkpoint marshalls suggested a relatively dry route and pointed into the distance at a rocky outcrop I was aiming for.

This gave a small inkling of what it might be like crossing one of the endless salt flats or set of small sand dunes in the Sahara.

This felt endless, and was tough on the legs. Trudge, trudge, trudge, sinking, sinking, up, down, up, up, down, fall over . . .

Almost my entire right leg fell into a peat bog and as I pulled myself out I lost my Asics Gel Trail Sensor 5 (the off-road trainer I was testing, new on this morning!).

Clearly I couldn't finish the remaining 10 or so miles without a trainer on my right foot so had to crouch down onto my stomach and spread myself out to distribute my weight across the bog and just catch the opening of the hole I'd left as it was fast closing back in on itself. It took some doing to push my right arm in, almost to the shoulder, to ferret around the peaty mess to find my shoe, and took a good deal of effort to pull my shoe back out.

Shoe recovered, onwards I hopped, skipped and jumped across the moor for what seemed an eternity, following a line of yellow sight flags that never seemed to end. Finally off the moor, just after the next checkpoint and some 2.5 hours after I started I caught and passed the backmarker walker who'd started at 8am: this caused some excitement at the immediately prior checkpoint as they weren't expecting to see that pain-in-the-backside runner for hours yet!

It was here though that a couple of officious types were really trying to put the pressure on for me to jack it in: "It's really hot . . . people are burning up out there, we're hearing on the radio . . . come in to our Land Rover . . . just a short ride to HQ and it'll all be over! Are you sure you're OK? You look a little unwell?" I didn't appreciate this really; the other volunteers were the absolute gold stars you come to expect on these events but these two really did annoy me which only served to boost my energy for the next couple of miles.

By then I was getting a tad cream-crackered and shortly after I stopped for a few minutes to take off a far heavier rucksack: some dastardly types seem to have put rocks in it without me realising. After stretching off and getting some fuel down me I continued on to Winscar Reservoir . . . to see my first apparition shimmering in the distance, an ice cream van!!

You've never seen me move so fast. My mind became full of images of a smiling, chuckling grand-fatherly type, with a soft beard, holding out before me a large '99 with two flakes and hundreds of thousands and an ice-cold can of Coke.

Unfortunately my rucksack could only produce a couple of quid which only went as far as a cola-lolly which didn't taste very nice (but didn't stop me demolishing it in a few seconds) and a cool can of Coke. The bloke in the ice-cream van wasn't chuckling and didn't have a soft beard, though he was smiling.

Still, the sugars gave me a boost to the next road junction (by which time I'd passed another couple of walkers) . . . where the two officious types I'd seen at the earlier checkpoint pulled up in their Land Rover: "Are you sure you don't want a ride back to HQ? You've done really well, no shame in stopping now, you've done fantastic to have run all that way starting late. Up ahead it's a valley and is similar to the fiery depths of Hell, it's so hot, so you are bound to expire."

Or words to that effect.

When I replied that suits me fine because I'm aiming to run in up to 50C in the Sahara next April the officious driver looked a little put out. Unbelievably he didn't attempt to say quietly to a chap in the back: "Do you want to walk with him up this hill and try and convince him to turn in?"

I couldn't believe it! I've never heard of this treatment at any event anytime ever!

So his minion (that's how it looked) jumped out and started walking with me up the steep hill. Being a bit pee'd off by now and feeling absolutely fine the competitive gene in me came out and I thought instead I'd play a little game, the well-known Who Get's Knackered First?

I then put on a fast uphill walk and really pushed it. The poor guy struggled to keep up and started going puce and sweating within a couple of minutes. I thought he was going to keel over. Half way up the hill he looked at me with a quizzical look: "You're fine, there's actually nothing wrong with you is there?"

"Nope!"

I won.

Just before the top of the hill I could see the two officious types stood at the back of their Land Rover. I wondered what they were going to try next. I had visions of them smiling and opening up the back of their Land Rover and in a sweeping arm gesture showing the pile of chocolate-covered Jaffa Cakes before me, stacked to the roof of the Land Rover and falling out of the windows: "All this could be yours . . . if only you'd just ride with us back to HQ!"

Once at the top of the hill there were no Jaffa Cakes but it was just more of the same from the officious two: ". . . really hot down there, still got 6 miles to go, running out of time, dangerous, "elf and safetee" . . . you really need to make a decision, it's up to you of course . . ."

By now it was around 2.30pm so I asked why their website said the time limit was 11 hours, so even had I started as a walker at 8am I still had hours to go and would be finished within 1.5 hours max. There was more of the same from the officious two.

By now I'd had enough. The subtext seemed to be that these two wanted to get home early to enjoy the remainder of the sunshine, though presumably they'd volunteered for this event so it seemed odd.

So I called it a day on the basis of promising myself I'd do a back-to-back and go out tomorrow for 5 miles or so.

I sat waiting in the Land Rover for half an hour while they tried to convince the other walkers behind me to jack it in, during which time I could have just walked 2 of the remaining 6 miles so I became even more annoyed.

Once back at HQ (a few others around me were mumbling about not coming back to do this event again) I grabbed a quick bite to eat and got in the car home for a cold bath.

Still, the positives are having had a hard terrain run with a slightly heavier rucksack and brushing up on navigation skills, so not entirely a waste of time.

Today I did as I'd promised myself and went out for a 5 mile run with about 3kg in the rucksack. This is my first back-to-back run following a hard day. These are an imperative part of MdS training as that is essentially the core of the MdS and I'll have to get used to these, albeit I'll save the heavier days for January and February.

A good sign is that the legs felt perfectly fine during the 5 mile run: that's the magic of the freezing cold bath after yesterday's effort!

September review

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.

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).

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.

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?"

I smelt as bad as I look.

"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!

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: 3kg
Calories 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))

My legs weren't really used to these serious hills but luckily the ground underfoot was largely solid. I started out with 10 minute run/1 minute walk but towards the end I was introducing chunks of 5 minute walks. I also stuck to the ultra-runner's tip of walking the hills and running the down-hills and straights.

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!

Eventually I came to the bottom of the 1 mile steep hill back up to the finish. I was so shattered by now I walked as fast as I could, which was probably snail's pace, in my dehydrated state to finish with a smile on my face!

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.

Onwards through August

August has been another good month building on July's efforts. The 10 minute run/1 minute walk strategy is working well, though towards the end this becomes more like 5 and 5 or 8 and 2.

The week's mileages have been:

- 27.25 miles (including a 17.25 mile run (3h42m));
- 25.5 miles (including a 18.5 mile run (3h32m));
- 32 miles (including a 20 mile run (3h49m));
- 7.5 miles.

Each long run has included the rucksack with a couple of kilos. Some tightness and pain between the shoulder blades that I've had the last couple of months has gradually eased off. Running with the rucksack with 2-3kgs doesn't affect me as much now (though keeping the speed up proves a challenge).

Increasing long runs through July and August show I'm going to have to make some changes to kit and food.

On each of my long runs I've been trying different types of energy gels, about 2 per hour. After a couple of hours though I start feeling nauseous from energy gel overload and I feel the need for something more solid. On a more practical level I'll be out on each stage of the Marathon des Sables for anywhere between 3 and 5, 6 or more hours and it's not realistic to carry 2 packs of energy gels per hour for each of the 6 stages! I will need to find a product which packs a lot of the right combination of calories into a low weight.

On the kit front there have been some MdS-specific purchases this month.

I've been finding that after a couple of hours I start suffering from (how do I put this?!) chaffing in one's undercarriage! While I can put up with it for those couple of hours and not too much damage is done clearly I need a solution for longer outings.

What I've found are Nike Dri-Fit lycra shorts with flatlock seams (to remove the chaffing from standard seams) which are tight enough to prevent loose fabric chaffing. These didn't give me any problems at all on the 20-miler I did this month and seemed to help in scaring the farm animals away as I approached them (or maybe they were running away laughing).

I didn't much like the Foreign Legionnaires-style hat I bought (the Mammut Nubian cap): on a couple of runs in Portugal on holiday in the low-30Cs I found the cap didn't give enough head ventilation while running; the neck and shoulder flap also simply flew around in the breeze; and the neoprene beak isn't long enough to keep the sun out of the eyes without also wearing sunglasses. So back to the drawing board there.

For the rucksack, and thanks to the forums on this extremely useful MdS website, I've gone for shoulder-mounted Raidlight bottle holders to thread onto the shoulder straps of the OMM32 rucksack. The rucksack does have bottle holding mesh on the sides but I've found them too awkward to get to them easily while out on the trails, and stopping to take the rucksack off to get to them is just a time-wasting faff.

The pure difficulty of this challenge is also coming home as time ploughs on: 20-odd miles or more day after day for a week in 30C to 50C temperatures! The last couple of months I've usually been running in a maximum of the mid-20Cs yet dripping with sweat so how I'll cope in the Sahara is anyone's guess (training through a British winter is why the British contingent traditionally fares the worst on the MdS!).

This emphasises the need to get used to taking on water while training together with a suitable electrolyte replacement.

After a couple of months of trying them Nuun electrolyte tablets aren't agreeing with me. The effervescence they cause in a water bottle has an unfortunate side effect: when pulling up the tab on my water bottle, having shaken the contents for several miles, the bottle explodes berry-flavoured Nuun over my face! I've started trialling instead Elete Tablytes, simply dissolving them in water: tasteless and no fizziness.

There's an awful lot more planning and testing to do.

The plan for September is to see how I get on in a marathon, my first since the Ironman I did in 2005.

Orthotics working!

We're on a family holiday in Portugal. I went out for a hilly run for about 4 miles in the high 20Cs, my second trip in the new orthotics.

No pain or any tightness at all in my Achilles tendons throughout the run (a couple of twinges in the heel as my feet get used to them).

This is a significant improvement and hopefully will allow me now to keep building the frequency of the long runs without causing problems.

New orthotics

I've bitten the bullet and seen a podiatrist today to see whether I need orthotics. The sports massage and heel drop exercises have helped get me mobile but there is some Achilles soreness after a short while, almost as if the Achilles tendons are twisting as a I run.

The assessment is that while I'm walking there's no adverse Achilles reaction. It's when I start running my Achilles start twisting.

In next to no time the podiatrist had knocked up a pair of orthotics for me to wear in my running shoes. He asked me to run up and down outside and I was amazed: no twisting action equalled no pain!

I went out for a 4 mile easy run this evening and felt nothing at all in my Achilles until half hour or so had passed. I'll obviously need to allow some time for these to bed in but this looks promising and gives me some confidence that I might get to the Marathon des Sables start line injury-free.