Two weeks off

Just as I was getting into a good rhythm of training, which included my first venture into a carbo depletion run, I picked up a right good stinky cold. Like most others, I work on the above/below the neck rule; if the cold is confined to the head only, it's generally OK to continue training (lightly) and I often find it's good to have a blow-out (literally!) on training runs to help get rid of the snot, if the cold ventures anywhere below the neck and into the chest, it's time to stop and take a rest. This time, although my chest felt OK, I was quite achy in my back and my head was pounding most of the time, so I just made the decision to take a couple of weeks off.

This lay-off coincided with the Dark Mountains race which I planned to do, so I reluctantly had to pull the plug on that one. Sounded like a brutal night out on the fells; last team standing basically wins! Definitely on the radar for next year.

I tentatively ran for 30 mins yesterday and did not feel too bad and followed it up with 90 minutes today, taking the Glenderaterra loop as used in the Lakeland 100 route. I seem to have come through the fitness tests without any major problems so I think I will be back in proper training again from next week.

Drinking Cumbria Ale

This two week lay-off has forced a slight change to my plans. I apply my "not-faster-than-8mins/mile" rule during December and January to make sure I ease myself into the year, but I have missed two weeks of this. While I was running today, I thought about whether I was ready to ramp up the tempo a bit now we are in February or do I want another 2 weeks of steady work. I have decided to keep the brakes on for another couple of weeks, the clincher being that I am planning a big week of training in a weeks time, including a long run on the West Highland Way, so it makes sense to keep things steady until that is out of the way.

View towards Great Dodd from above Glenderaterra

I have been doing some more detailed planning for the rest of the year, mainly identifying the weekends when I will do my key sessions; ultra distance long runs, back to back long runs and some more carbo depletion runs. In addition, I wanted to find a race to do in late summer to give me something to aim for after the WHW race. So after a few hours trawling t'interweb, I have found this little beauty; The Ring O Fire. It's a three day ultra race round the Anglesey coastal path, with days of 32, 64 and 35 miles. Sounds like a really good challenge and will give a fresh focus after the WHW and provide a number of trips in the campervan down to Wales to do some recces.

My main theme for this year, with regard to training, is to get more ultra length runs done. In my build up to the WHW race in 2010 I did 5 35ish mile runs during the year, the Lakeland 100 last year saw me do 8 monsters. This year, including December 2012, I hope to complete 13 or 14 before the start of June. I seem so much better at recovering from the long runs than I used be and, as long as I keep the pace nice and steady, I think I could be standing on the start line in Milngavie feeling more confident about my preparation taking some of the mental stress out of the race.

Time will tell!!!

A good time to be snotty

For once, the winter's cold has come at the perfect time. As anyone who works in a school knows; if it's going around, you're going to get it! I usually get a cold at some point over the winter and it often arrives when I'm in full training, just got the whole rhythm sorted, weekends away planned, etc, and everything gets kiboshed as I wollow in the self pity of man-flu. This year, I seem to have done my stint early (over the last week) and will hopefully build up some immunity for the rest of the winter. I actually lost my voice completely on Thursday and Friday last week, which makes being a PE teacher a bit difficult, but we somehow got through despite my voice tone wavering like a pubescent 14 year old.

Things are moving forward again on the training front. Despite having no voice, I didn't feel particularly ill, so on Friday last week I made my most significant foray on the trails post op. Doesn't sound much, but I did 3 miles in the woods below Latrigg fell, walking for 4 minutes, jogging for 1 minute. I had running kit on and used my headtorch for the first time this winter and I can't begin to tell you how good it felt to be out there doing it again. My favorite running is at night, off-road with a headtorch. I love just being out there, total solitude, just the cone of light and the sound of my breathing and footfalls - it's about as close to a Zen thing as I get anyway. During the winter, all my mid-week training is done like this. I walk to work with my kit in a small rucksack, get changes into running kit after work, jog the mile home as a warm-up, dump the rucksack in the hallway, turn straight round without thinking about the sofa and do the training session. (Always off-road, always in the dark)

I saw the physio again this morning. She suggested that I am now at the stage where only I can tell what I should and should't be doing. Don't know whether that is a good or bad thing!? So far I have been told what to do by the experts and now she is expecting me to make rational decisions. Is she mad? Anyway, I thought I would try 3 sessions over the next week where I cover about 3 miles doing 2 mins walk, 2 mins run and see how that feels. The physio said that sounds about right but I must mix that up with some simple plyometrics (that's skipping to you) to increase the power of the calf muscle.

It has been interesting how more and more of each physio session has been about core stability. She got me to do a series of exercises whilst I held my pelvis so I could feel how much it moved about. I thought I had quite good core stability, but this illustrated some deep failings. My abdominal muscles are fine, it's what lies beneath that needs sorting. It's not called CORE stability for nothing!! I had the typical runners attitude, it was all a bit blah blah blah to me, then she said "This will make you a much more economical runner". At this point, I sat up and started listening. I'm really going to try and incorporate this into my training, even once I'm running again.

My next target has to be a proper run, something in the region of 3 miles, without any walking. Once I can do that, I think I will feel that I am then in a position of training rather than recovering. Looking at the blog title; I'll be going into the "beyond" bit! I think I'm looking at round about two weeks from now to try that, but again, there is no need to rush things.

Finally, I have been thinking about next year a lot and have decided the major races I will target. (Even entered some of them) I will reveal all in the next post.