May 23, 2010

Bit of BGR, bit of Paddy

Monday : 5 miles rough ground, but no major hill with Richard who at his best was running 2.30 marathons. We were not running that fast though.

Tuesday : rest

Wednesday : in London

Thursday : Leg 1 of BGR including the parachute jump decent from Blencathera. Total time of 3.40 in line with my aim of a little faster than BGR pace. Could have done with more water and was the parachute jump took 30 mins to Threkeld on account of holding 2 sheets of A4 and reading from them every minute or 2 to ensure I was on route. Visibility on top was about 10m on account of the mist. I also slightly overshot the place to get over the fence on Skiddaw, but only by about 30m. Back to Keswick via the old railway/cycle path. I would have done a 2nd leg, but it would have been unfair for the folks I was pacing on the Paddy to have turned up wreaked.

Friday : rest and recovery after a evening at the Tan Hill Inn watching Drunk in Public with Mr. C. being so drunk he could not remember the words of "Just the One", despite 3 attempts. Just how it should be.

Saturday : Yak and pacer for a log of the Paddy Buckley attempt for 6 people, 1 of which I knew in passing via some work I had done over the last 3 years at the University of Edinburgh and the rest I had never meet before. I did leg 3 over Snowdon with 1 other pacer. These folks were hardened long distance runners. All had done the BGR, most had done the Ramsey Round, so it was quite hands off as a pacer, no force feeding or setting the pace. My contribution was carrying a load of water and doing the navigation from Snowdon to Moel Enion. 2 of the 6 had dropped out by the start of leg 2 and 1 more dropped out during leg 3 (why you need multiple pacers). I was in shorts and light t-shirt all night from the 9pm start to the finish at 2am. I set of up Crag-Wen a little before them on account of my 20 pounds of water, etc which was a wize move. Learned a lot about doing a round, the fact it was a different course was irrelevant .
  1. Hydration is very important and there is still stuff I need to learn. I put some s2p in my water and I struggled to drink it after about 5 miles. I need to find something I can drink later on in the BGR and diluted mango juice might work.
  2. Have some trial runs for the road change overs
  3. I eat and drank too little(just not enough time), pacers need to look after themselves to look after you.

I was much more tired at the end of the leg than I was on the BGR leg 1 on thursday, most down to extra weight I guess and a little to still recovering from thursday. Also probably a bit of moving with 1 runner to attend to their needs, then catching up the 3 others and then dropping back a few times which takes it out of you. The pace was slower than thursday, but I found it much tougher.

I went home at 2am, but I got a text the next day that 2 finished in 23.25 and the other in 23.42. I am very pleased for them, they worked hard for it on a hot day.

A weekly total of 11,500ft and about 35 miles.

May 17, 2010

Listen to your body

An OK week, but lacking the really big day out I had aimed for at the weekend

Monday : Rest

Tuesday : 1000ft of 4 x 2500ft reps behind the house

Wednesday : 5 miles over undulating ground quite quick.

Thursday : Spent the day working in London and on the way home ran the route of the Long Mynd Valleys race 12 miles and 45ooft. Started at 8pm, got back to the car at 10.40pm, so the last hour was in the dark. Aimed for a reasonable pace to get round in 3 hours, so 2.40 was quite pleasing, only 15 minutes slower than race pace and I really was not caining it.

Friday : rest

Saturday : I had planned a 27 miles and 5500ft over the Plunmon Challenge course. I just felt tired, not my legs, but all of me. Maybe too many early morning and nights sleep being disturbed by small boy. I ended up setting out to do 1000ft and managed 500ft. Probably best to listen to your body when it talks

Sunday : 12 miles and 3500ft over local hills which was quite enjoyable. Had to sandwich between taking the children swimming in the morning and Myra going to the cinema in the late afternoon.

Total of about 30 miles and 9,500ft so a little below target, but next week is going to be a bigger one with a day in the Lakes on thursday and supporting a Paddy attempt on Saturday night. It is going to be fun.

May 9, 2010

Google 3D : makes the BGR route look much easier

Intrigued by talk of the Parachute jump descent from Blencathra, I went to have a look how steep it might be on Google maps which now has a 3D option. I have stood at the top of Blencathra and looked in that direction before heading off Dodick Fell in the snow. With snow cover it was hard to get a true feel of how steep it was. Google 3D really does make the slopes appear much gentler than I remember them. Halls Fell does not seen that steep on Google 3D, but I know it is tricker than tricky in bad weather.

While you will not learn the route and Broad Stand below looks somewhat easier than it is in reality, it is quite good for giving you the big picture and some sense of of relative location.


View Larger Map

This week has been a week of 2 halfs. The 1st half recovering from last weekends efforts and being taken away with work to the flat lands of Berkshire.

Monday : rest

Tuesday : early start and work near Reading. Did manage a few miles walking some woods

Wednesday : Work near Reading. I did intend to do a short run to break up the drive home, but was too late by the time I got back into Wales.

Thursday : That election thing meant the kids were at home and I needed to play catch up in the evening, so only managed some hill sprints ( 50ft * 10)

Friday : 10 * 250ft split in two parts to account for kids coming home. The best session to date on the hill behind the house. A challenge to do more than 10 reps in an hour has been born.

Saturday : Duty manager this weekend for which responsibility was handed over to the US at 4pm, so headed of with dog for 2 reps of Cader Idris which is 2 x 3000ft. Got down at about 9pm. I did think of doing a 3rd rep, but it would have been very late by the time I got home.
I would like to use the excuse that the dog look tired, but I would be talking rubbish.
Felt quite good when I finished, apart from some knee pain. Eating and drinking more while moving would have helped even more.

Sunday : Duty manager again and a physical day splitting fire wood, but really a rest day

Weeks total : 9000ft and about 15 miles.

While packing the weeks climb into 2 days, this was a week lacking in distance, but was OK given the other constraints.

May 2, 2010

in the wake of the Red Kite

and many Red Kites we did see on Saturday afternoon at Nant-Y-Arian, I would guess in excess of 70 at around mid-afternoon.

Monday : Late afternoon/early evening run 8 miles(ish) and 2000ft(ish) over some new hills and some I have not been over for some years around Anglers Retreat. Needless to say we saw no one else.

Tuesday : 2000ft 4 reps of from hill fort to bus stop and back including a sub 13 minute rep which broke new ground in terms of time and probably heart rate

Wednesday : In London

Thursday : In London (did plan a run on the way home, but I did not leave Canary Warf until after 6pm).

Friday : Rest in preparation for weekend

Saturday : 11 miles and 2000ft over very local ground for me in the Red Kite Challange. A bit over a minute faster than 2 years ago which given the amount of puffing up hills I have done in the last 9 months is a bit disappointing, but I got round in just over 9 minute miles. The sections I lost places on were the more gentle hills which in round training you would walk up. You get what you train for, but I did note in contrast to 2 years ago it was my legs rather my cardio-vascular system which was the limiting factor and at the finish I felt I could have continued rather than being a heap at the finish. I did give this race my all, the legs went faster than they had for at least 6 months and just would not go any faster.

Sunday : 18 miles and 2600ft over mainly forestry tracks for the Devil's Race - Ras Y Diafol which starts and finishes at Devils Bridge. Dic, the race organiser, mentioned at the start something about the Devil and a Cow, but I did not get the whole story. I had planned a slower race and my legs were tired. I had not planned to be quite so slow finishing in 3 hours and 15. I did struggle for about 4 miles between 8 and 12 miles, but got back into my stride again for the last 4 miles. 30 miles in 24 hours did make this race feel like an Ultra and despite 6 water stations equipped with Jelly Beens, I probably needed to eat a bit more. I found the steeper hills like a rest(up or down), but would slow down on the gentle hills, something which has been almost 100% absent from my winter training.

As I already know, if you are doing BGR type training, it does not help you much on shorter races with smaller amount of climb (AM, BM, BL), but you do recover much quicker. As a training week it was not ideal for the BGR, a bit faster, too little climb, but I enjoyed both races, over 8k feet of climb and over 40 relatively fast miles. A theme of the last 3 weeks or so has been to get a bit quicker on my feet before going back to slogging up the steepest hills I can find and long slow-ish days out over rough ground.

Pleased to report that I am a little less of a fat bastard than reported here. Still some work to be done in this area.