Fortunately my injury experience has been minimal, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t had some niggles from time to time with the main injury that I have suffered from being Iliotibial Band Syndrome early in my training. I bout of RICE and Yoga was what sorted it out, that and changing my running shoes.
Courtesy of dailyinfographic.com
Posting has been a bit sporadic recently, but with the Snowdonia Marathon fast approaching my training is somewhat different to what I was doing in the run up to the NDW50. This is mainly due to the commute on the bike every day causing me to have limited time for running, as well as tired legs.
So what have I been up to over the last couple of weeks, well week commencing 01/10/2012 I managed to incorporate my running into my commute and ran the 10 miles to work on the Tuesday and Friday, getting a lift home on the Tuesday and Taxi (following a night out) on the Friday, with cycling to and from work the other days. While my running strategy is still using the run/walk method that I adopted on the Ultra, my average min per mile was under 10 mins both days so I am pretty pleased with how I am pacing.
The running was on the roads, opposed to my usual trails, which I am guessing added to the increase in pace, however this was counteracted my the weight of the OMM 25 litre pack containing my suit etc. for work.
This week the only day I managed to get a run in was 6 miles today and despite the lack of running in between I don’t feel as if I have lost much in the way of running fitness, it’s almost the opposite in fact as the run today felt pretty good and for a trail run that consisted of practically 3 miles up and then 3 miles down my pacing was on the quicker side, averaging at 09:12/mi which if I can maintain on the Snowdonia Marathon I would be laughing.
I think that incorporating the cycling has had the benefit of strengthening my leg muscles to enable me to maintain a harder effort for longer, while giving me some added power on the up hills. The only downside (other than not having the time to run as much, and the fact that I had cycling on roads!) is that I seem to be overcooking myself on the effort, going at a fast pace which I cannot maintain and having to slow down to a walk, before recovering and going at a too quick pace. Given that the run today did have walking in it at points gives an idea of what the average pace was when I wasn’t walking, which is just too quick for me to maintain at the moment.
With 12 days until Snowdonia I have little time to rein in my pace and get it to something more manageable in time for the marathon. I think I will be able to adjust in time, I have a week off work before so no cycling for that week and some short runs will help.
I have seen this post on a couple of other blogs, namely Fit for a Year and Gareth Davies PT, the questions originally started on another mother runner blog. I figured I might as well add my responses to the questions.
It all started with garethdaviespt.com and another guy, Simon, doing a Duathalon and then deciding that they wanted to do the Grim Original and asking if I wanted to join in, this was about September 2010.
Surprisingly it isn’t the North Downs Way 50, it isn’t even a race. The most memorable run I have done was a training run, the first time I every hit the Marathon Distance. This run was a milestone that cemented my path to the Ultra, and gave me the belief that I could achieve it with training and willpower.
A title of a book that should be read by all wannabe Ultrarunners “Relentless Forward Progress”
Several different ones, I own New Balance Minimus MT10 and MT00 as well as New Balance MT110, I am looking to get some MT1010 in the near future as well as some Minimus Road.
My left foot tends to stick out when I run, I sometimes look like a paddle boat going along.
Mornings, although I am having to rethink my training plan with the daily commute on the bike.
Sometimes, I really dislike running in the rain. I will do it, but some days I will have a bonus rest day!
I had an IT Band injury for a while, switched to barefoot shoes and this improved and eventually resolved itself. Currently dealing with intermittent forefoot pain on the left, but again treatment does seem to be working (RICE)
Finish line at the North Downs Way 50
Snowdonia Marathon
So its been a while since my last post and I would like to say I have been doing lots of running but unfortunately that’s not the case. The last post before my break, I mentioned that I had a niggle on the left foot and to date it is still causing some issues, it has improved a great deal but is not what I would call ‘healed’.
That said I think I am now in a position to start running properly again and begin to build the mileage back up, which is lucky as I have a marathon to run in just under 5 weeks. I have been lucky to an extent as, following a recent move I now cycle a round trip of 22 miles a day to and from work, which has helped keep my fitness up while keeping the impact low on my legs. With all the cycling though, I have realised how much I enjoy running and the freedom it brings, cycling along busy main roads brings me now pleasure and I have been itching to get back out the trails, which I managed to do this weekend.
With my move I am now a stones through away from the North Downs Way,which I could have done with a year ago! As the running has been limited this weekend was the first exploration of the local trails and how I could factor the NDW into my training regime. Obviously with a 100mile+ commute I am focusing on the weekends to get my running in and moving forward this will be a regular thing, building up the distance again as I am planning on doing the NDW50 again next year, with some other marathons and shorter ultra’s in-between.
Saturdays run then, starting out about midday the weather was lovely and it felt a perfect day for a run. I had an idea of the route I would be taking, map in hand I headed off:
So a pretty scenic run throughout, one thing that happened requires special mention. Following the map I had gone onto what appeared to be a fairly unused public footpath, enjoying myself and not paying too much attention I approached the next style, when I looked up I was presented with the below and practically jumped out my skin.
So a total distance of about 7 miles, the longest run in 3 weeks. I did manage another run the week before, my brother recently got married in Warsaw, Poland, so as we were over there I took my running kit and went for a 4mile run to see some of the sights, a great way to see the city.
Lastly:
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.
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)
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
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.
UltraPlodder.com 