Category Archives: Training Updates

Training Updates

Training this week: 13/08/2012 – 19/08/2012 (and hitting the wall for the first time)

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Not a lot to report as I spent the majority of the week recovering from the North Downs Way 50. I have basically been eating non stop since the race, telling myself that I need to replenish although trying to justify the nutritional quality and recovery benefits of a Dominos Pizza is pushing it.

In terms of running, Saturday saw me returning to the North Downs Way for a run with Gareth from Reigate Hill to Box Hill Stepping Stones and back again, 14.65 miles in total, hindsight says this may have been too much.

A lovely day for a run, or so I thought

Heading out from Reigate Hill at 07:06 we started running at a reasonable pace, we had started early as we knew that the day was set to be warm and didn’t want to get caught in it. I had paced my Salomon with 1.5 litres of Electrolyte and was carrying 3 gels but had only planned to use 2 (the third being a spare)

An epic view from the North Downs Way

Following the NDW I felt good, the section between Reigate and Box is probably the toughest of the Way (or the toughest of the sections I have done), we were not pushing the pace but were speeding up on the flats and downhills and easy running or walking up the hills. Time  passed with not problems and before I knew it we had covered the 6+ miles to get to the Box Hill viewing point

The view from Box Hill, as always lovely

Opting to make sure we had the mileage in we headed down Box Hill path to the stepping stones, a descent where my legs were starting to point out to me that I had run 50 miles a week ago. If they were pointing it out on the way down then they were shouting at me on the way up, I was in a bad way. I seemed to lose all energy in a shot; and still had 7 miles to go to get back.

It had also started to get increasingly warm, more so than we had anticipated and my hydration bladder was down to about 250ml which wouldn’t be enough to get back. Getting to the top of Box Hill I was busted, feeling absolutely drained but walked for a bit on the flat and started running, this however was not going to last.

Misery, that’s what I felt going back. Despite it being a relatively short distance at this point, probably about 9 miles I knew I had hit the wall (Bonked) and hit it hard. Despite all my training up to this point I have never really experienced the ‘Wall’ and it was making up for it now.

By now I was walking more and more so I had said to Gareth to go on, no point in me slowing him down. With 2 miles to go my water had run out, the spare gel had been eaten but I was feeling no better. What I noticed was that I kept have the same thoughts repeat through my head; “just sit down and have a rest” and “when I get back I am going to get a bottle of water and a bottle of coke”, fortunately the latter prevailed and I kept going and got back (and got my drinks)

The only thing I can put this down to is that despite feeling ok to run on the Friday and for the first 7 miles I was no way recovered from last weekend. I will chalk this up to experience for future runs my bit of advice for anyone reading this is, following an Ultra (or even a Marathon) you may be feeling great and ready to run after a week, but it may have taken more out of you than you realise so keep the mileage down, or run a route which is composed of shortish loops so if things start going south you can cut it short without having to suffer a painful return journey.

Today I went for a much more sedate 2 mile run, mainly to test out my new New Balance Minimus zero drop shoes. I will be writing a separate review of these once I have logged some more miles in them.

 

Nutrition, Training Updates

The night before: Last minute preperations

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Well its been a fairly relaxed day, getting my last bits and pieces together for the Ultra tomorrow. I have bagged up all my nutrition into separate bags for each aid station, labelled them so and will be giving these to Gareth tomorrow who is kindly being my crew for the day.

My gear all ready for the early start in the morning
My aid station bags all labelled ready for Gareth to hand to me as needed

It’s not all been smooth sailing though, we did go down to Farnham this afternoon to register and collect my race number (the idea being its one less thing to do in the morning and means I can get some precious more minutes sleep) but upon getting there it seems the numbers haven’t turned up yet so all I could do was hand in my disclaimer, I will have to get my number in the morning (a tweet or email wouldn’t have gone a miss!)

However, in the grand scheme of things, if this is the worst that happens then I can live with it.

I will be tweeting and getting some pictures as and when throughout the race, so if you want to keep up with what is going on then follow @ultraplodder

Right now for some sleep…….A full race review will be out on Sunday or Monday, as well as a recipe for the Chia seed flapjacks that I am using in the race.

Training Updates

5 days to go……

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Today was the last longish run before the Ultra, an easy paced 10 mile run. The only other running I will be doing in the coming week will be a 3-4 mile run on Tuesday and a 2-3 mile run on Wednesday.

As I am only doing the 50 mile run I will not be able to get my hands on the NDW100 24hour belt buckle, but there is always next year….

I was looking at some of the statistics that I have built up since I started running properly in Feb 2011 and thought I would share them with everyone, so here they are:

February 2011 to August 2012

Miles Run: 1280.02, that’s like going from Lands End to John o’Groats (838 miles on the roads) and still having enough to get back to London!!

Total Time: 205:05:24.74, or 8 and half days

Total Calories: 161740, or 330 Big Mac’s

Total Ascent: 71389..341 Meters, or the equivalent of climbing Mount Everest 8 times.

I am feeling ready for the challenge ahead and I think it has helped for my mental focus having the Olympics on, all those amazing people doing amazing things, you just can’t help but be influenced by them.

Training Updates

13 days to go…..

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With less than 2 weeks to go until the North Downs Way 50 the nerves are building and the enormity of the task ahead is becoming more apparent.

It now comes to a point where I am asking myself have I done enough training, the reality is that I could have done more. I feel I have done as much as possible while still maintaining a reasonable life v training balance and not really sure where I could have squeezed in more, but that doesn’t stop the wondering.

It’s not all doom and gloom though, this week was a good one for mileage and the type of training. Monday I mentioned in my last post, a 13 miler which was to work off the excesses of the Stag do. Tuesday I ran a 4.85 mile run, taking Wednesday off and running 8.28 miles on the Thursday. Saturday was the last long run before the Ultra and I ran a section of the North Downs Way, before heading home, for a total of 20.06 miles.

The long run was a pretty sedate pace overall, coming in at 12:27/mi but this was down to A) Navigating the North Downs, B) focusing on managing my energy levels and C) Stopping to take photos here and there.

A shot of the trail heading towards Pilgrims Lane just outside of Merstham

The run started out from Merstham, I was running with Gareth but he was going to do run 6 miles out then another 6 back whereas my plan was to carry on along the North Downs Way to Titsey then follow the roads and trails back to Croydon, with a planned distance of 20 miles (although I hadn’t planned the route from Titsey to Croydon). Heading out from Merstham we started along the trail, the weather wasn’t great but it was a lot cooler so this made running so much easier.

There are some nice views, helps keep the mind occupied

Using the Harvey Map and the sign-posts, as well as the route details Gareth had printed out we plodded along. The ground has dried up significantly, but the mud has dried uneven and this means careful navigation at some points.

The scene from Caterham viewing point
Into the dark!

It was at Caterham that the first navigation error occurred, and looking back on the GPS recording vs the map I can see that we simply missed a road. Below is a screen capture of the recording and where we should have gone according to the map, simple really but we just missed the turning that we should have taken and carried along the road until we found a trail that we thought was the North Downs.

The red line was the route we took, the black the rout we should have taken. We just expected the turning to be further than it was, it didn’t cost us too much time as we found our way back.

This mistake highlighted how important keeping aware of my surroundings will be on the NDW50, as a mistake like that could be very costly.

A photo of the sign posts that keep you on the straight and narrow, and it was at this sign-post that I headed off on my own as Gareth turned back for his run to the car.

Now on my own I was reliant on the sign-posts and the map, so the already slowish pace slowed further as I was stopping every 5 minutes to check that I was taking the right turn and not heading onto some random trail.

A shot of the trail leading off, the ground drier and easier to run on
The fields of Oxted Downs
Nearing the quarry and Titsey plantation
Its not without dangers, luckliy he didn’t appear to be home
The map used, Harvey North Downs Way (West). Great map, all of the route in nice sections and waterproof.

Titsey foundation walk and part of the North Downs Way, this a longish uphill section

Coming out of Titsey I had finished the section of the North Downs Way that I was going to do for the day, I was tempted to carry on to Knockholt Pound as it is the finish of the NDW50 but having not planned my return journey (either running or public transport) from there I opted to head back home, aware that it should work out about 12 miles.

It was shortly into this route back that I got lost, a footpath sign that I was passing I ended up following to see where it ended up. Coming out into a field after about 2 miles I encounter a number of sheep and no real idea which turning to follow.

Lots of sheep but no idea where to go.
What did we do before Smartphones with GPS!! Using my phone and Google Maps I manage to find a direction to head in to get me back to a route I know

Once I had found my way back it was a simple case of following the routes I know home, bringing me in just over the 20 mile mark. After this run I don’t feel too bad, some slight aching but nothing major. The positives from this run is that despite the slow pace it is still quick enough to get me in under the 13:30 cut off of the NDW50, and that is all I am after.

Total Distance for the week: 46.25 miles, Total Time: 8:41:02, Total Calories: 5759

Training Updates

Training Update

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My training update posts have been a bit lax over the last couple of weeks and although I have been running with one thing and another it’s not been the mileage that I was hoping to get in.

09/07/2012 – 15/07/2012

The intention had been that even with the Pen Y Fan race on Saturday 14th I would keep up with the mileage and log some long runs, this didn’t happen.

Tuesday morning I ran 5 miles with the plan to go to the gym in the evening, running another 2 before weights. The evening session didn’t happen. Wednesday morning didn’t happen, after a lack of sleep the night before (although the twins have been sleeping great sometimes they do have their moments) so it was to Thursday morning to get another run in. Despite this run only being 4.34 miles, I did run it at a quick pace (for me) and ended up averaging a 7:42/mi pace which, once I was able to breathe again, I was quite pleased with.

Pen Y Fan run was on the Saturday and the plan had to be to get a long  run in either on the Sunday or Monday, however following Pen Y Fan my legs were busted! The downhill on that race had resulted in my quads sticking two fingers up to me and not playing ball, hence the long run was cancelled.

16/07/2012 – 22/07/2012 + 1 day

By Tuesday my legs had started to function again so I managed an 8 mile run in the morning, followed by a 2 miler at a 7:48/mi pace and a weights session. Thursday then was a 4.73 mile run and again a 2 miler in the evening and weights.

Friday to Sunday I was going on a friends Stag do, so as you can imagine running was not on the cards. Fortunately the Stag leads an active lifestyle (see his blog: Steve’s Gym  Blog) and as such the Best Man had organised a day of activities for the Saturday. With Go-Karting in the morning and Waterskiing in the afternoon I still managed to feel like I had done some exercise, although the beers will have negated that but you can’t have everything!

As I had the Monday off I decided to go for a longish run and got a 13 miler in, but boy was it hot out. I took it at an easy pace, carrying all my hydration (2 litres total) on me, of which I got through. As it was an easy run I stopped to get some photo’s along the way, which are below:

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