So, that's an ultra marathon then?

Well, first of all, to put you out of your suspense.  I made it. :o)

I'm not sure what odds I would have given myself 8 weeks ago when i started this of completing the run but i'm pretty sure they were no better than 50 / 50.  And the optimism i did feel was based on ignorance.

But sometimes ignorance works.  I've been on a recovery week since Saturday and that obviously has included blogging as well as running but let me fill you in a little now.

Sean and I had a bit of a debate in the run up to the day as to what time we should start our journey.  I felt that his 0515 start time was earlier than strictly necessary and had more than my share of grumbles about it. For the record, he was right.  Not only did we not have loads of time to spare up there but also i couldn't sleep anyway and was up from about 0330.  From his point of view he was only half right though because apparently he was having a lovely dream about getting everything ready right up to the point where he sprung out of bed just before five and had to rush like mad.  He, he. ;o)

So, we got there in the dark, with some rather large ominous shadows of mountains accompanying our journey.  The weather forecast was pretty bad.  Bad in that it was forecast to be pretty hot, 25 degrees centigrade when all my training had been in the sub 20's.

At the briefing my first thought was that everybody looked fitter than me, bugger.  Slowly though i found around half a dozen people who could accompany me at the back.  Because of my dodgy knee my plan was to start slowly and walk the majority of the initial mile and a half of asphalt so i was pretty sure i'd be attacking the race from the rear.

I think i look scared. :oS

And so it proved.  I'm pretty sure that for a few seconds half a mile in I was actually dead last.  Ahem.

Things got better though.  I'm normally pretty good at executing my race plan and to the most part that saw me through.  My strategy was not to go too far into the red at any point on the basis that 30 miles is a pretty long way and i managed to stick to that.  I also managed to not get fazed by the fact that the hills were a little more brutal than i'd expected.  Even having grown up in the mountains I was still surprised that the race course was quite as steep as it was in both directions.  I didn't let it get to me though and this helped a lot because some people around were really struggling mentally.

I was pretty strong from about 8 miles to mile 20, passing probably a dozen people and eating and drinking well.  At mile 20 things started to get a bit harder, i'd drunk well all race but had obviously been overdoing it as i had to stop to pee around every 45 minutes for the rest of the race.  It was really frustrating to keep having to pass the same people over and again because of pee stops.  In my defence it was hot and it's better to be safe than sorry.

I also at this point mistimed my painkillers.  I'd planned all along to drop 2 paracetamol and 2 ibuprofen at this point but just clean forgot it.  It was only whilst moaning to a fellow runner about my sore feet that he asked did i have ibuprofen?  Bugger, of course i did, the strategy has served me well in all my other endurance events yet here i'd forgotten all about it.  Thanks Neil. :o)

It just got harder and harder from on though, the painkillers were behind the pain curve in the soles of my feet and were fighting a losing battle.  A short brutal uphill at 28 miles was a tentative battle against cramp the whole way up and the few miles road drag down the valley were a frustrating battle between feeling relatively good overall and really sore feet.

In the end i finished in 8 hours 40, which was an hour and 10 minutes slower than i'd have liked.  Mitigating this though was the fact that the course was 33 miles long not 30 and the weather really was unusual.  The hottest UK October day on record even! 

In the end i finished 65th out of 86 starters which means I was relatively comfortably out of the bottom 20%.  The winning time was just over 5 hours, so again i'm happy with my performance in that perspective and it's given me the urge to carry on with some targetted training.  

But not until i've really enjoyed this week of doing nothing first.

The big day.

So, it's four thirty in the morning and today's the day. Need to be up at this ungodly hour to leave at 5.

8 weeks of running and the preparation has gone as well as I could have hoped for. Reckon I've given myself a decent chance of pulling this off without hurting myself.

Weather has turned properly bad though. It's been a rubbish summer here in Wales so all my running up to the taper was in mild damp weather. Today however is going to be plus 25 degrees centigrade, the hottest October day in many years. Bugger.

Sorry about the lack of posts during the taper, not much interesting to say and loads and loads to do. I mistakenly though that running would be much more affordable endeavour than biking but that's not how it's working out so far.

So, wish me luck, I may need it.

Big practise run :o)

Time has been playing games with me this week.  Being a horribly busy week between the babies being back in school, my Mum back in hospital and needing to do a last big run before my taper.  As such, updating the blog had to take a back foot, sorry.

Anyway, Thursday was the day for the big run.  I'd done a couple of leg openers in the evenings as well but Thursday was the tester that was to decide whether the 30 miler is feasible.

I'd decided on a testing 20 mile run off road between Pontypridd and Treherbert figuring there was no point making it too easy and set to sorting my feeding strategy.  Leaving things late didn't allow me to buy things online so there was a Wednesday trip around the local pharmacies trying to secure salt tablets and isotonic drinks.  It does however seem that Ponty is more suited to providing supplements for steroid boys than more useful aids for endurance sports. :oS

So my kit list was

Nike 3/4 running tights (oh so unflattering).
Endura base layer.
Windproof shell jacket.
Captains cap.
Salomon Speedcross.
1000 mile socks.
Camelback mule with stabilising strap removed. (more later).
Isotonic drink tablets.
Glucose Tablets.
Dioralyte sachets.
Cereal bars.

I'd taken a day off to make the long run possible and had hoped for reasonable weather at least.  The run was all on tracks that i'd ridden in the past on a MTB but despite knowing what i was in for i still didn't fancy what the weather could threaten at nearly 600 metres.  On the day, the weather certainly looked reasonable, hence the decision to go with a windproof shell that offered no rain protection.

The plan for the day was to start off with Arch, nice half mile walk to warm up then over a 250 metre climb and a a 100 metre climb to some spectacular clifftop singletrack before descending to meet Lis' and drop off Arch after 9 miles.  Oh yes, the stop was also going to involve curry and chips.  :o)

View of Porth at top of first climb

Top of clifftops over Williamstown

Now i know this doesn't sound like the most traditional energy food but i figured salt and carbohydrates, got to work right.  The 9 mile stop also allowed me to refuel at what is the best chip shop in Wales, and we have a lot of chip shops. :o)

Lis' walked with me for half a mile while i ate and then it was time for the big climb of the day, a 450 metre climb at which point i'd top out at around 580 metres.  Almost inevitably the weather closed in me and to the amusement of an old guy walking his dog there hung over me the very real chance of a good soaking.  Bugger!

Fortunately though it didn't come to pass.  The drizzle intensified to heavy rain which lasted for a grand total of about twenty seconds.  I was relieved, the coat really wasn't even water repellant and i'd not brought any sort of protection for the phone.  My iPhone may have survived a trip to the bottom of a full bath but i knew it didn't have the stomach to survive another soaking.

Now i'd ridden these tracks a number of times before on my MTB though not for a couple of years now, nevertheless i was confident in my routefinding.  This confidence was misplaced.  It seems like one of the fire roads has been diverted to accommodate an upcoming round of the World Rally Championship, unfortunately i only realized this when i found myself coming down into completely the wrong village.  Doh.  In a sign of things to come and a decision that probably wasn't the brightest due to fatigue and slight dehydration i decided to use the GPS to hack across open ground to the right road.  Like i said, fatigue is my excuse but i was lucky to get away with just losing ten minutes stuck in a swamp before back tracking.  I went down a number of potholes and could easily have turned over an ankle and screwed things up.  Hopefully a lesson to learn.  If you're in a hole stop digging.

Classic Rhondda view from the top of the Bwlch Mtn

Back on track i approached my favourite part of the route.  The descent into Blaencwn is fantastic.  The track is steep and technical in a few places and the views are about as spectacular as you can get in South Wales.  To say i enjoyed this section is an understatement.  If i ever need reminding why trail running is so cool, this is the place i'll come.

Blaencwm in the distance, literally the land of my father

The descent into Blaencwm was a little wet

I know it doesn't look it but this is soooooo steep and tricky.

Off the mountain and down the road to my parents house and the original plan was complete.  21 Miles done and I still felt ok.  I had however been cooking up a back up plan of adding a couple of miles as the valley is in the fortunate situation of having a train station every two miles all the way back to Ponty.  It'd be silly to not cover a Marathon distance now i was this far in and feeling relatively good.

This is when i realised how quickly things change 330 minutes into an effort like this.  I went short of salt again and despite realising it still managed to bypass two shops in a stupor because i didn't want to spend 5 minutes stopped.  Another lesson.  Massive moodswing then with salt and calories has me singing aloud to Bruce Springsteen as i ran through the village where i grew up before hitting another wall and hanging out my ass for the last mile before i finally stopped at a train station.

So, 26.8 miles it was.  More than a marathon. :o)
20 miles of it offroad including 2 technical singletracks, one large technical climb and a large technical descent.  I got what i needed out of the run but it has left me with a healthy respect for the effort needed next weekend to cover 30 miles in hillier terrain.  Time to taper and eat now. :o)

Counting down

As they say, shit's starting to get real now.

With 2 weeks to go it's time to do some last minute preparations.  Plan was for a nice long 3 hour run yesterday, with 2 more to go.  A 2 hour run Tuesday evening and a 5 hour on Thursday.

Had some disappointment after my long rambling post about shoes.  The green ones i wanted just weren't going to come in time to get broken in so i've had to suck it up and get a black pair instead. :o(
Saved £16 in doing so but i'm ashamed to say i'm shallow enough to regret it.

So, yesterdays run.  Was aiming for just a solid 4mph average for 3 hours to see how the shoes went and to try out some fuelling.  Apparently fuelling is going to be vital and i'm a little late in getting strategies in place.  No, scratch that, i'm very bloody late.

Weather was pretty poor, alternating between heavy rain and clear with reasonably warm temperatures.  My coat was been done up and being undone just about every five minutes.  Took a photo of a pretty grim bit on a northwestern facing ridge to illustrate but it looks like a lovely day, HDR on the phone does that though.

Run was good, 13.3 miles in just over 3 hours including a chatting stop and getting lost a couple of times.  In good news, the shoes and 1000 mile socks were great, no issues at all and a bit of wear might make the black shoes look a little less crappy.

Real artists ship

http://www.ghostinthepixel.com/?p=24

Fascinating insight into what makes some people successful.

Meniscal Tear

So the Doc says that the cause of my knee problems is a minor :o) meniscal tear on the inside of my left knee.  She went on to say that running on it a bit is fine but that 30 miles would be pretty silly.  Reckons they'll do some keyhole just to shave the loose bits off, nothing else needed.

The good news is there's nothing loose in there and it's certainly not a bad injury.  I reckon that i'll carry on as I am for the next couple of weeks and decide at the last minute.  Gut instinct says i'll do it but as carefully as I can.

Good news. :o)  (I think)

Doctors

Showing my stupidity in a much less rambling way than my last post.

Doctors tonight for MRI results on my knee.
9 miles last night, 1150 ft of climbing.
4 runs left before the 30 miler.

Not sure, those three sentences make sense together. :-S

Shoes

Trail Shoes

Coming from a long background in biking there's no denying I have a tendency to be a bit of a gear geek. Both mountain and road biking are steeped in a culture where equipment is of pretty major importance so the initial culture shock of not really having much to buy has been a bit strange to say the least. As such, trying to decide which running shoes to buy has been a bit of a minefield. Allied to general lack of gear geekery in the running world is an aversion I seem to have to spending big money on a pair of trainers, I'm very aware of the hypocrisy of having bikes that cost thousands of pounds and spending large amounts on technical bike clothing but being unwilling to drop a hundred pounds on a pair of running shoes, which, after all are pretty essential to the running process.

Running being a simple thing you'd at least think that once i'd accepted the necessity of a purchase, making my choice wouldn't be that difficult. Wrong! To me at least, there's a bewildering amount of choice and contradictory advice to be had from all directions. Surely, the massive international shoe companies must know what they're doing and there must surely be a tangible benefit to all the research they carry out. Not so simple it seems, Firstly good objective reviews are not easy to find (and perhaps not easy to do) and secondly there's loads of stuff flying round the internet and the running world warning of the dangers of overdeveloped footwear and the injuries it can unwittingly cause. Arghhh!!

Because I am a bit of a sad hippy the whole barefoot running thing does really appeal to me but i'm sensible enough to see that switching to barefoot just prior to a 30 miler would be a stupid idea. I do still like the idea though and will come back to it at some point in the next couple of months. So that left me with a few options.

* Stick with what's working ok now and keep using my cheapo New Balance trail hybrid shoes.
* Cough up for a significantly better pair of New Balance's on the basis that I know i like the ones i already have.
* Make the switch to another mainstream brand. Seeing what i could find that looks like a bargain.
* Buy specific use trail shoes from a company I know nothing about, using decision criteria I don't properly understand.

Of these options, 2 were quickly discounted. My current shoes are on their last legs and trying to last them beyond the 30 miler is just not sensible. They've probably not done more than 200 miles at the moment but the soles have started to feel noticeably soft lately when running over rocks.

Buying a bargain from a mainstream brand was also quickly discarded. If i'm spending a reasonable amount of money I want at least some sort of purchase excitement and the idea just wasn't doing it for me.

2 options to go then. So I dragged Archie, Lis' and her kids to try some on at a local large outdoors store which to be fair they took in good grace. Archie was more help than i'd have liked, he was obviously a little anxious so devided that the place he'd most like to be was on my lap. Well, apart from when he gave himself a seizure trying to jump up on the artifical grass that wasn't stuck down. Anyway, that's off track, sorry.

A better New Balance seemed pretty sensible. They felt pretty good, were reduced by £15 and seemed to do what i need. I couldn't deny to myself though that they justweren't getting me excited. Also, i convinced myself (and probably correctly) that there's no guarantee that New Balance use the same foot cast throughout their range and just because my current shoes work for me doesn't mean another set will.

So, on to the more exciting options, the Inov8's looked good. Again though, the choice was too wide and i didn't know which ones suited me best. The pair i could instantly discount were the lightweight ones that Sean has, there's no fun in buying something after somebody else already has it, sad but true. The rest seemed a little heavy and again, weren't really doing it for me.

It then dawned on me that I'd probably already decided what to buy. I'd seen a development blog post for Salomon Speedcross and realised my heart was already set on them. I tried on two sets, a 10 and a 10.5 but was obviously too much of an idiot to tell the difference in size. There seemed to be a small amount of heel lift on my bigger foot but logic was out of the window now and i wanted a pair. But they didn't have the right colour! I'd be damned if i was spending £90 on shoes that were the wrong colour. Logic said that the colour made no difference and that having the chance to wear them in adequately was much more important but by now i was full on in stupid mode. So after two and a half hours out of the house I left empty handed. :o(

Now you'd probably have thought my stupidity would end there? Nah, fraid not. Turns out that i could get last years Speed Cross for 75% of the price of this years. Bargain...Not. Nope, they needed to be this years because the blog I'd read gave some vague reasons why this years were better and besides they had to be like the menatl image i now had. I.AM.SO.GULLIBLE.

So the moral of all this rambling is, if you're a shoe company your development blog could be more important than all of the actual worthwhile development and marketing effort you involove yourself in. Well it would be if the world was full of more idiots like me anyway.

Hopefully, I'll tell you how awesome they are over the next few weeks and then won't feel quite such a doofus.

^^ The offending blog. ^^

Steve Jobs

Not running or biking related so feel free to skip or tell me I'm a saddo. But I wrote most of this the other week when Steve Jobs announced his resignation so thought I may as well post it.

Steve Jobs resigned, nothing to do with this blog really then but couldn't let it pass without saying something. It says a lot about Jobs' vision and about Apples virtually unique appeal that his resignation is such big news worldwide. How many of the other 50 biggest companies in the world have a similar figure? I reckon you could count on one hand those with any sort of such claim and probably none of those have a genuinely arguable case. Whether this is good or bad depends an awful lot on your point of view.

Apple haters would argue that the fanboys have no sense of proportion and that the Jobs cult of personality is overblown. I'm not going to argue that popularity alone is a sign of quality but as someone who hooked into Apple products just before their explosion in popularity I do like to think that this phenomenon is quality based. In my opinion Apple have based their success on making consistently good products 'that just work', it's not their fault that this makes them stand out from other companies so much.

What this desire for quality always meant was that unavoidably the prices for Apple stuff was a little steep, consumers got to choose whether price or the quality of the experience was their priority. The problem now for Apple's competitors is that this dynamic is changing. Huge economies of scale have put the IPad in the position where it's on a level playing field with it's competitors. Use the devices and the decision is a no brainer, the iPad having 90% of the market speaks for itself. All the guff about flash and openness shows itself for what it is, the excuse to go Android for cost reasons. There's nothing wrong with that but people hate admitting it.

Anyway, back to Jobs. I'd like to thank him for showing that being popular does not require being cheap, and that people will buy quality if you make the case compelling. Strange as it is to admit, I think my life is just nicer thanks to the things this guy has had a part in introducing and that makes him cool in my book. I hope that this transition has been planned for some time and does not mean he's had a big downturn in his condition and that he gets to enjoy easing back a little. Have a good one man.

Beacons :o)

That's a Motley crew (Me, Nige, Khalid, Sean)

Wow! That best sums up today. Well, maybe ouch needs to be in there too.  18k in the Beacons in a gale, 1000m of climbing (ish) and a pretty large sprawling fall.  


Sean floated the idea earlier in the week of a longer run in the Beacons for this weekend.  The Brecon Beacons are what passes for a mountain range in South Wales, and whilst they top out at 890m so they're only small in the scale of things they're still pretty beautiful.


So it was that Sean, Khalid, Nige and I found ourselves there this morning in some rather horrible weather. I figured that I needed to get a reality check on myself if I'm to have any chance of doing the 30 miler in 3 weeks time.  I'm running off road a lot at the minute but not in conditions that are particularly harsh. 


And a reality check was got I got pretty much straight off, a 350m climb in 2 miles right from the get go.  Ouch! Sean, Khalid and Nige set off at a run but I know from experience now that I need to walk for a little just to ease into things if I want my knee to survive. Turns out that wasn't such a bad plan today,  Nige saw the error of his ways soon enough and in reality walking wasn't all that slower than running.


At the top the weather really closed in and visibility was down to about 20 metre.  What didn't close in was Sean and Khalid as they absolutely roasted us along traversing ridge line. Admittedly it wasn't helped by me going arse over tit as we like to say around here. Ouch again, and a nice bleeding knee and banged up hand for the rest of the run, bugger. The rest of the ridge line was absolutely fantastic and must be spectacular on a good day, not today though.  Precarious and scary was the order of the day.

It certainly was next, straight down an escarpment, losing 200 odd metres in about quarter of a mile.  Again, Nige and I struggled and may (just may) have been a little out of our depth.


The gap pass was next, a famous old road (as in a thousand years old) linking the towns of Merthyr and Brecon.  This is a famous Mountain Bike climb which I must have done over a dozen times, it was pure relief to be honest after the technical challenges of the last three miles and it was also nice not to have my butt beaten by the saddle like normally happens on the rough track.


At this point, Khalid pulled his disappearing trick on us.  Khalid is super fit but I'd had it in my head up until now that his endurance is not always fantastic and I may yet get a chance at a small measure of revenge.  No such luck now though as he made off skirting the lower flanks of the hills, in his defence this was probably because he hadn't budgeted time for me and Nige's pace.


So over the three big peaks it was.  The wind was absolutely howling, to the point where I got a headache from the noise and perhaps a little bit of dehydration.  On a few occasions the wind caused proper stumbles which was a little hairy with a few hundred meter drop on our right.  Nige was suffering by now and is face was a picture when he foud out at the top of Cribyn that the big climb was still to come.  Worse though was mother nature playing tricks with us coming off Cribyn when it blew all the clouds and mist away for ten seconds and allowed the path straight up Pen y Fan to show itself.  I wasn't happy and I thought Nige was going to cry.


I was going to cry coming down the other side though, my knee was grumbling quite a bit and I was slooooow.  Nothing I could do seemed to make much difference and it was really frustrating.  Certainly gave me a lot to think about with the thirty miler so close.  Finally though we were out of the clouds for the last time, to our North the flatlands towards Hereford opened up and it was just a really enjoyable couple of miles of peaty bog back to the Storey Arms.

All in all it was a fantastic way to spend a morning and as I often think, i'm really lucky to have such landscapes so close to home.  More thoughts on the the thirty miler tomorrow I think.

New blogger app.

Yay. So a new blogger app allows me to upload photos from my phone now so this is a bit of a test to see how that goes. Also, a quick update on runs. Good week so far, a solid hilly 9 miler and a fast (for me) hilly 7.
Here's that photo of Lis' going beyond the call of duty on Monday. (if it works)

Quick update

Just a quick update, I'll write more later I think. Good start to the week, about 23 miles in 3 evenings. Some good mental bravery stuff going on too with a 5 mile fartlek session in some pretty shite weather.

Talking of which, thanks to Lis' for the company. :o)
Not the best experience watching someone sprint away from you an jog back for an hour... In bucketing down rain and howling wind. Above and beyond I reckon.

I'll post a photo from the brief calm between downpours later 'cos my phone doesn't want to play now.

Ho hum... :o(

Ho hum. Funny week this week, been really difficult to fit in enough exercise and suffered the grumpy ass knock back that inevitably follows. Started with a great 8 miler with Nige on Tuesday, some idyllic hacking through tunnels of foliage at the side of the river and meeting some of our more prosperous near neighbours in their farmyards. The rest of the week though has been really difficult, with Folk club and Lids' birthday not allowing anything more. I'm not grumbling obviously, both were fantastic as it turned out but just like any addict, my body is demanding it's share of chemicals and is rebelling badly in their absence.

So tomorrow, come what may I'll be out. Need to get a few miles in and kick start a proper week. Need to reign it back a little though as the temptation this week will be to overdo it. Repeat aloud... Don't get injured

12 Miles - 600 metres climbing :-)

Yesterday went better than i hoped so am on a high today.  12 miles doesn't sound like enough when 30 miles is 5 weeks away but it's a real step forward.  Think i've discovered a few things that i really must try to remember.

• Start slow, i've not got the discipline to do proper static stretching so starting off at a walking pace and gradually pick it up.
• Off road really is the way to go.  Hard man made surfaces really do hurt, so maximising the amount of off road really helps mimimise the pain.
• Antisocial is the way to go at the moment.  Having the freedom to go at my own pace makes a massive difference to managing my grumbly knee.

So yesterdays outing.  I felt good in the morning so figured it was a good day to push it a little.  It was easy enough to work out a route, head out the door, hit the hills and start walking.  I'd stayed at Lisa's in a town called Pontypridd just outside Cardiff, Wales.  Travel through town on a Friday night and there's not much to enjoy about Ponty but in it's defence it has some fantastic hills right on it's doorstep.

So, Northward bound into the Rhondda Valley it was.  Once, in the age of coal, the Rhondda valley was once at the centre of the industrialised world, it's safe to say it's not now.  Just like old industrialised areas throughout the world it's struggled to adjust to the changing world of the last forty years, certainly growing up there was not much fun when i was a kid and i don't think it's much better now.  Lack of jobs and prospects aside though it has some nice hills and as an adult i've found myself going back there more and more, often to enjoy the things i ignored when i was an adolescent.

Six miles in Archie and i found ourselves above Porth, with the sun out and feeling good it was a good place to be.

Oh, and yes, today my companion was Archie the wonder dog.  Fair play to him he's always up for an outing despite being a complete scaredy dog is a fantasticly loyal companion.  Amusing moment of the day was when after 8 miles he decided to literally just walk off the bank and into an algae covered pond, over his head he went and calmly as you like just swam back out.  Guess he was a bit hot and tired by then.  Anyway, here's Archie.

So, that's it for yesterday.  Really, really good day and hoping to move things forward this next week.  Will also try to take more photo's and make even try to get some of them in focus. :o)

Good, good weekend

Bleep test went well.  :o)  Got to level 10 which was much better than the shambles last time.  Sean got 11.4 which was also pretty fantastic.

Todays run went even better.  Managed 12 miles in 3 hours 9.5 running alone in 2 hours and 2.5 walking with Lis'.
Good couple of days.  Later on i'll write up some bits on today and even have some photo's.   :o)

Just deciding what movie to watch with the babies.  Good weekend so far.

Weekend plans

Had a couple of days feeling good so time to make some weekend plans. Have a couple of 3 day stints with the babies coming up and its Libs' birthday and folk club this week so need to fit stuff in where I can.

So, tonight another go at the dreaded bleep test, hoping to make it a lot less shambolic this time. And then, hopefully a long one tomorrow with Sean and Nige, I'll even try and take some photo's because this has been a bit short of them so far.

Sean knows better

It turns out Sean may have been right. It may be the case that a 30 mile trail run in 8 weeks was pushing my luck. Don't give up on me yet though. Just because he was right doesn't necessarily mean I'm going to listen.

My doubts stem from a trail run I attempted with Sean and Nige on Sunday. Running with others didn't allow my usual really slow start and I ended up suffering bad about 4 miles in. Real debilitating pain kicked in and I ended up barely able to walk down some of the hills. :o(
So I cut it short and ended up with 7 miles in 90 mins and pretty severe doubts. These werent helped when I had to walk down hills backwards the same night whilst walking Archie with Lisa. :oS

Monday morning was a world of pain but surprisingly it eased loads during the day, to the extent that I was able to do an easy 3 mile trail run Monday night. I've followed this up with a nice 6 mile trail run on Wednesday morning with little pain. Including walks that makes mileage of about 22 miles in 4 days, no reason for loads of confidence but a start at least. :o)

I mentioned the other day how podcast geekery is helping me get through the runs. I find it helps loads more than music and is making solo runs a real pleasure. It does however mark me down as a sad geek and has cost me a tenner in new apps so far.

Preferred pod cast list.

The talk show. (Apple geekery)
Appslappy. (App recommendations and reviews)
The engadget show. (General tech geekery)

Feel free to recommend others, my taste is pretty transparent.

Beep test

Sean (who I think I'll be building up as the villain of this story) decided that doing a beep test may be a fun idea.  For those that don’t know a beep test is a series of shuttle runs over a marked 20 metre course completed in an prescribed and accelerated time.  The basic idea is that you star off almost walking and then over 10 / 15 mins your pace increases until your going as fast as you can whilst simultaneously reaching your state of exhaustion.  It’s not fun.

What is funny however is three fully grown guys who absolutely should know better haring back and forth in a residential cul de sac whilst trying to hear Sean’s phone telling us when to turn and what level we’d reached.  We must have looked like freaks.  Not that I'm bitter because I was rubbish you understand, no, not at all.  It turns out that there was no need for me to spend any time googling professional athletes results, oh no.  Anyway, the upshot of it was that Sean’s about as fit as the fat one who bowls spin for the Sri Lanka cricket team, and if that sounds as though I'm on my high horse, please don’t think that, I'm only as good as a Russian female shot putter who’s just coming back from an injury.  And Nigel ?  He doesn’t count because he misunderstood the concept of having to stop if you miss two beeps, so he just showed he had the morals of a premiership footballer.

Other people

Just a quick post to link to a couple of cool things.

My friend Sean did the coolest run yesterday, 10 and a half miles over and around Pen y Fan, the highest mountain in South Wales, it's not big in the scheme of things but offers some pretty cool sights in between the Welsh weather.

Garmin linky

And i see Fatty's in the form of his life. :o)  Go Fatty!  Gives hope to us old guy's everywhere. ;o)

Leadville Fatty

Building it up

So, a solid week.  Last weekends 9 and a half miler left me with a bit of knee pain but not so much that it i needed to take a week off.  Managed a few bigish days with over 7 miles in and a run/walk yesterday of 8 and a half.

The plan was to try and be ready for a 16 miler in early september on route to the 30 miler in October.  AM not sure how much i'm feeling that plan now as looking at the route profile over half of the 16 miler is on asphalt and while i'm pretty sure i can tough that out if needs be, am not sure what it'll do to me joints afterwards.

All my miles this week were in the hills around Pontypridd, there were some pretty good views on offer.

Also got  to see some strange sites.  Fair play to Archie ( he's a collie / German shepherd cross ) he's not fazed my much.  He showed no interest in dropping his stick and playing with the 2 dead moles on yesterdays run, and as for the little fella below, Archie just wanted to make friends.  And yes, that horse really is less than 3 three feet tall. :o)

Have a busy week ahead of me this week, so will again be looking to fit in a couple of evening outings, hopefully of a decent length and then a big one next Sunday evening.

Ouch

So, the best laid plans and all that.  No time for the full 6 mile walk, 6 mile run plan, so ditched the walk and pushed the run out to 9 and a half miles.  Ouch!

Only the last mile was on road, so thats 8.5 miles off road, 1500 ft climbing.  Took 2 hours 10 minutes and the last mile really hurt.

On the plus side, felt really good until then, and general fitness felt fine even at that point, just started having joint pain.  Next time i do it i'll take some photos as the scenery is truly fantastic, weather didn't allow that this time.

One thing i've discovered about myself already is that i run far better with the power of geeky podcasts than i do with music.  Lisa finds this hilarious and i'd better be careful she doesn't have second thoughts about getting involved with such a geek.

Geeky podcast listening list coming soon.  :o)

Big Sunday

Oh joy.  Woke up this morning to a pretty bloody wet scene.  Supposed to be doing big mileage today, lovely.  Better just man up about it though i suppose.  There may be some bitching and moaning later.

Background boring bits...

So, a little bit of back-story.  And don’t worry this isn’t going to be the sort of blog where personal issues are raked over, lets get this out of the way and move on.

I’m Simon Pritchard, a keen mountain biker from South Wales in the UK.  I’ve three children, a 20yr old son, a 6yr old son and a 5yr old daughter.  About 10 months ago I went through a painful break up from the Mum of the 2 youngest.  The only redeeming feature of this break-up was the loss of about 14 kilo's and the subsequent increase in fitness.  This year has been pretty hard, i'd never been hurt before really and keeping it together hasn't always been easy.  The kids are fantastic though and i've met somebody special with two great kids of her own and slowly, in a complicated and messy way, things are getting better.

Exercise wise it's been a good year, the bike has helped keep me sane and the two big events I did went as well as i could have hoped.  In between the biking, a close friend decided to enter an ironman and sparked a little interest in swimming and running.  Swimming was fantastic, but not the easiest to fit into what is a busy routine, but for the first time in my adult life, running was easy and fun.  The only problem though was it was a little too much fun and I hurt myself with some badly thought out rookie runs.

So now, three months later my knee seems a lot better just as i've has a MRI scan for the original injury so the plan is to ramp up the mileage and have some fun.  I know 30 miles in 8 weeks seems a bit stupid but the plan is for the increase to be much more gradual than last time and the mileage to be nearly all off road to avoid bashing the hell out of my knee on asphalt.

This week has been an easy start, have only managed a couple of runs (4 and 2 miles) and a very tame MTB ride.  Well, the exercise element was tame, the technical side scared the life out of me, but scared is good. :o)

Weekend plannage involves a couple of nice nights with the little creatures and then a walk and run on Sunday.  Am feeling something between 10 and 14 miles would be fun so i'll see how brave i feel.

This will get better i promise. :o)

First Post

So, inauspicious start.  Where to start on something like this?

Firstly, Hi. :o)
I'm Simon, and this blog will be mainly concerned about a pretty stupid challenge i've set for myself.  The plan is that i'm going to run a trail 30 miler in 8 weeks time when i'm only just coming back from an injury and have no real experience of running.

Sounds stupid i know and my mate Sean has wasted no time in telling me so.  He's right of course, it makes little sense but really how much of our everyday lives make sense anyway?  In my defence, whilst i am just (hopefully) finished being hurt and have no real running experience, i am at least moderately fit and have some experience of long bike events to fall back on when times get hard.

Sean also tells me that a sensible approach to increasing running mileage is to add 10% a week.  Taking into account a 4 mile starting base that puts me at, lets see... about 8.5 miles in 8 weeks time. :oS
Not so good...

But, i was always good at maths and with a bit of dodgy counting let's see what we can do.  Firstly, 4 miles is a low start, i managed a 7 mile trail run last weekend so that seems a more reasonable place to start.  Secondly, i am reasonably bike fit at the moment so i reckon i push out that 10% wekly improvement to say 12%?  Also, do i really need to get to the 30 before the event?  Adrenaline on the day will add a few miles i reckon.  So, let's have another go.

7x12% (compounded) = 17.3 miles

hmmm, maybe this will hurt then...