TDS training in Chamonix

Having arrived in Chamonix two and a half weeks before the start of the TDS, I have had enough time to get in a couple of training sessions where I could get up to at least 2500m altitude. One of the lessons I learnt from last year and from again checking out the route, is that we spend a lot of time above 2000m and I want to at spend some time training at those kinds of altitude.

View from apartment

The first session took me up to the top of Le Brevant (2525m) and a second outing saw me climb past the half-way staging of the Aiguille du Midi cable car (about 2550m). I power hiked both climbs using my running poles and was pleased with how I felt on both days, especially the second session where I did a bit more running around at altitude. I'm now having a few days away from the altitude, mainly to give my quads a chance to recover from the LONG downhills.

Another important point from last year that I wanted to address was the cumulative dehydration that I suffered during the build up to the race. It is, once again, daft hot (for someone who lives in the wettest place in England) and I am determined to stay on top of my hydration. To help with this, I packed a Camelbak hydration bladder and basically carry it everywhere with me, drip feeding water constantly. So far, this seems to be keeping me hydrated.

I post some more thoughts prior to the race but I've got my head well and truly in the go-out-and-enjoy-it mode and that's exactly what I'm going to try and do.

If you are stuck in a cold/wet/flat place, I'm sorry about this video of some clips from these two high training sessions.

Playing in the hills

For a while, I have been planning to go out for a play in the hills, take the video camera and spend a bit of time setting up some nice shots so I could put together a video just showing off the trails around Keswick.

Last Sunday morning was the perfect day to do this, so I set off round Latrigg and the Glenderaterra Loop, just to see what I could come up with.

The process involves lots of setting up the camera, running back down the path, turning round, running past the camera and picking it up. As you can imagine, there is a lot of editing to be done.

My original intention was to just keep this video for myself as it is basically just me out training; there is no race going on for people to follow, there are no disasters, no happy marshals, no rain, no man-suit moments. I thought I'd play the video back when I'm lacking a bit of mojo in the depths of winter, just to remind me what it's all about. However, the few people who have seen it on YouTube have been very positive, so I thought I'd stick it on here too.

So, apologies to those of you not lucky enough to live in Keswick, but here is my back yard ;-)

The boy needs a race

In my previous incarnations as an orienteer and fell runner, I probably raced 20 or 30 times a year and, if I am truthful, did not really focus on one specific race in any 12 month period. Now, this has advantages and disadvantages. It was never too long over the winter before the first fell/orienteering race so you did not have to maintain motivation for training for very long and once the season started properly, I was basically racing every weekend. If things went wrong in a race, it was "no biggie" as there was another one a few days later. On the flip side, I look back and wonder if I ever really got the best out of myself when I was training and racing over such a long season.

I have a totally different outlook now. Since I started having a stab at ultra running, I have focussed on just a few key races in the year, perhaps as few as 5 and, even then, using some of those as preparation for a bigger fish to fry later. A few weeks ago, I was trying to explain to a sports psychology class full of games players (football, rugby, netball, hockey) how different it is with regard to training motivation - contrasting sports where you compete every week with those (ultra running) where you train for 6 months for one performance.

Ten years ago, I would have raced more often, even if doing ultra races. I know my body could have taken the stresses then, but now I have to listen to what the body is telling me and plan more carefully if I am to get the best out of it. It does, however, mean that the competitive juices have to be kept bottled up for long periods of time which is difficult to do, especially round here when the fell racing season is kicking in.

Thinking along these lines then makes me wonder if doing some fell races might help with my ultra preparation, but for the time being I am going with the "if it aint broke ..... " philosophy.

All this brings me round to the conclusion that I need a race. Since The Tour de Helvellyn in December, I was supposed to have done two races (The Dark Mountains mountain marathon and the Dark Peak Marathon) both of which fell through with injuries to team mates, so I am now into my fourth month without a competitive outing. Boy oh boy, am I looking forward to the Highland Fling Race!

It is said that you don't have to dig up the spuds to see if they are growing, but I at least want to have a look to see if I've got any spuds at all!

The thought that occupies some of my training time is how many of the spuds do I want to dig up during the Fling, knowing that the main focus of the year (the West Highland Way Race) is only eight weeks after. The answer to this seems to vary depending on whether I am running out on the trails or sitting at home, perhaps being more logical. If I am cruising along a lovely trail, I think I will have a good blast in the Fling, when the adrenaline has subsided, I think it is wiser to keep the powder dry for the WHW race.

Psychologically, it's great to run a faster time at the Fling and build some confidence, but I have to wonder how long it will take to recover and is there enough time to get some quality training in before a taper for the big one? I have some real quality training planned for May and think that I will gain more confidence from completing that than I will from a better time in the Fling allied to slightly lower quality training.

I could probably ramble on for pages and still keep changing my mind, and I'm sure that everyone else who is doing this double will be pondering this exact same problem. However, I have the feeling that I will be keeping quite a few spuds buried for the big occasion in June.

Training - Dalemain to Ambleside

Last weekend I originally intended to go up to Scotland and run from Tyndrum to Fort William but things conspired against me with a combination of work commitments and the final throws of building to a house move. So instead of using up a full weekend with travelling, I stayed at home and managed to fit in a long run on the Lakeland 100 route.

John and I did this route last year in lovely weather conditions but this time I woke up to a covering of snow, fog and high winds on the fell tops. Should make for an interesting day out!

I was really pleased with the speed at which I was covering the ground and my ability to maintain this over the full route - a sign that I'm starting to get into shape for the first ultra of the season; the Highland Fling, in only 5 weeks.

This last week has been a wipe out with regard to training, without a single run from Monday to Friday. I always intended this to be an easy week but those same stress factors mentioned earlier meant that I just wasn't able or inclined to get any running done. By pure coincidence, I recently listened to a podcast with a section on overtraining by Marc Laithwaite. In this, he made it clear that overtraining is not just running too much or too fast but is linked to the amount of stress placed on your body. For most of us, this stress usually comes in the form of physical stress from running too much, however, at times, this stress can come in the form of work related issues or other stressful situations (like moving house - tell me about it!!). I am aware that I am running/training well and don't want to jepodise this by pushing myself (over stressing my body in what ever form) and then suffering a major setback.

With all this in mind, I have taken the last five days off from running, not stressed about it, got some major work related issues out of the way, planned a re-wire, planned a new heating system, planned a kitchen (or actually watched Tracey plan a kitchen), planned a bathroom and planned new windows and doors.

What stress?

Enjoy the video trip from Dalemain to Ambleside :-)

Dalemain to Ambleside Training from Recovery Beyond on Vimeo.

Back in the groove

Since getting over my cold, I have slotted back into training mode without too much discomfort.

The first week back, I started fairly steady, including some minimalist running in the park, but by Thursday I felt ready to do some proper work so slotted in one of my "Skiddaw reps". This is a simple concept but can work wonders. For those that know the mountain, you will be aware that it is just one long relentless climb on a good track which makes it ideal in the dark/fog/mist/cloud. The aim of the session is to condition my quadricepts to the eccentric contractions of downhill running, so a Skiddaw rep is simply a run up for a certain length of time, nice and steady, followed by a hammer back down. At the moment, I'm just doing a 40 minute run up, but I will progress this over the months until I'm doing the summit and back in late spring.

On the Friday I broke my 8 min/mile rule about a week early but it was just such a lovely evening that I found myself skipping along at a good tempo pace and just decided to go with it. It was nice to take the shackles off and run with a bit of pace, though I have a long way to go before this type of running is going to be easy!

Tempo run round Derwentwater, looking towards Skiddaw

Rather stupidly, I followed my first tempo session of the year with one of those days when my head was cashing cheques my legs could not honour. Through Twitter, I had arranged to meet Matt Wilson, who was going out on a 30 mile Lakeland 100 recce starting in Keswick, though I only intended to do 40 mins or so with him. Matt was starting mid-morning, so I thought I'd sneak in a run first, meet Matt for a short while and be done and dusted by lunchtime. I set off early on a loop round Glenderaterra - fantastic views (#fail)

17 hours after the previous photo!

It took me just over 1:30 hours to do my first loop, I met Matt and we headed off down towards Borrowdale. Before I knew it, we were at the bottom end of Derwentwater, meaning my only option was to continue round the lake and complete another full circuit. Eventually, 2:40 hours after leaving home, I crawled in the front door and demanded bacon sandwiches, which is all I thought about for the previous 40 minutes.

This week has been built around my first long run on the West Highland Way this year. Over the last few years, during my half term break, I have ran from Balmaha to Tyndrum (33 miles) and used this as a good guide to how well I have wintered. This time I decided to extend the run and continue to Bridge of Orchy (40 miles). To make matters just a little more interesting, the only bus all afternoon back towards Glasgow left Bridge of Orchy at 3pm - so the race was on!

Near Rowardennan

Although I made good time all day, I felt like I was putting more effort in than I wanted to and I feel this was because of the bus factor (not some new reality TV show) just adding a little pressure to the run. Having said that, it is always such a pleasure to run on this route and I was really pleased with how strongly I ran the last section in particular.

On the final section to Bridge of Orchy

If you watched my video from my previous post, you will know that I made the journey with about 40 minutes to spare before the bus, but the real bonus was that I got a lift back to Balloch (where Tracey was meeting me) and so arrived back about 40 minutes before I was expected - that NEVER happens!

What I have decided is that, next time I go out for an ultra length training session, I am not going to put a time pressure on myself - you shouldn't be rushing through scenery like this!!

Tinkering with training

I continue to be amazed by my recovery from the Lakeland 100 and feel that I am now well back into normal training. Having made some kind of commitment to the West Highland Way race next year during a podcast interview, I have been giving my plans some thought already.

Obviously, I am generally very happy with my training routine but that doesn't mean that there is not any room for improvement. What I do not want to do is make wholesale changes during this next winter in case things don't work out, so what I have decided to do is race the Round Rotherham 50 mile race in October and try out some ideas during these next couple of months, then I can evaluate my training during my rest period in November, ready to hit the ground running in December. If things don't work particularly well in the build up to Rotherham, I have not lost out on a major target for the year and I should be in a better position to plan next year's training.

I am confident in my ability to keep plodding for a 100 mile race but if I want to get under 20 hours and set a new pb on the WHW race next year, I need to slightly raise the cruising speed which I can maintain for hour after hour. To this end, I have already started to add a couple of tempo runs to my weekly training. In pure minutes/mile, these are not particularly fast as I am running off road (often on technical terrain) but I am putting in "tempo effort". As ever, I am running smooth and really enjoying turning up the gas a bit. I have reduced the amount of climb that I am doing as I feel comfortable on the hills (up and down) after the Lakeland 100. What I still need to do is decide at what length of run will I draw the line between tempo and long; I do not want to do 3 hour tempo runs (= injury/fatigue/overtraining!!)

During my rehabilitation after the operation, I got into a routine of doing some strength (particularly core conditioning) exercises. Like many runners, as soon as I was able to run again, I got out of the habit and lost interest. Recently, I read a great blog report from Andy Mouncey entitled "You can't fire a cannon from a canoe" stating the importance of core strength so I have put together a 30 minute routine that I hope to complete 3 times a week. I still have the resistance bands my physio gave me, so I am making use of them and also including some other, simple upper body exercises, some calf strengthening work and use of a wobble cushion.

On the subject of calf strengthening, my left calf is still significantly smaller than my right. This has been the case for many years, probably the result of compensation for the injury to my left Achilles. I really want to improve the condition of my calfs, so in addition to my strengthening exercises, I have been doing some minimalist running on the grass in the park. I am naturally a forefoot runner and have really been enjoying the freedom this style of running gives me. I am being really careful with this, limiting myself to about 15 minutes each time and leaving a couple of days between each session. I have got a pair of zero drop shoes from New Balance and love just doing an easy jog (10 minute/mile) around the park as a bit of a recovery on my normal rest days.

I tried something new today. For the first time ever I went for a run with a mp3 player. During the last 5 hours or so of the Lakeland 100 when I was running on my own, I actually wished I had some music with me; something I have never felt before so I thought I would try it out on some of my longer training runs and have it as an option for the long races. (How fast can you go with Town Called Malice blasting in you ears? FAST!!)

As I stated before, I am not necessarily going to adopt all these tweeks, I just thought I would try them out in the build up to Rotherham, see how I feel and I'll report back later in the year.

Last week, Tracey and I stayed in the campervan in St Andrews and had a great time, catching the better weather in the UK. I had a few nice training runs, including a coastal path, some minimalist running and a blast round the Old Course. For the runners guide to The Old Course have a look at the video and enjoy the most famous golf course in the world!

Back in the land of training

It has now been two weeks since the Highland Fling race and I have completed my prescribed recovery period. Even last weekend, I felt that I could have done some more serious training sessions but I have stuck to my original plan of just doing a few very easy jogs over these two weeks and my legs feel better for it.

Today, it was time to get back into training mode and I spent a lovely hour and a half out on the hills, feeling good and running smoothly. The route along Glenderaterra is one of my favourites and part of the Lakeland 100 course so I feel like a frequent flier.

Tomorrow, I hope to get out and include some more substantial hills, particularly working on the conditioning of my quads for the big race (only 11 weeks away.) I have been giving some thought as to how I need to slightly tweek my training over these remaining weeks. On the build up to the Fling, I have done relatively little mountain running, however, this needs to change if my training is to be more Lakeland 100 specific.

The big building blocks are in place; two more long recce runs with John Kynaston and the Saunders Lakeland Mountain Marathon. What I hope to do in the course of normal weekly training is to include a tempo run (60 - 80 minutes), a hill run (one climb/descent, 60 - 80 minutes) and a mountain run (multiple hills, 2 - 4 hours). The fact that I have decades of fell running in my legs means I don't have to go stupid at this but psychologically, knowing I have put in the hill work will help me come the end of July.

"The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary", Vince Lombardi