Training!

As my good friend and experienced ultra-runner said to me at mile 59, “training, it’s a good idea to do some”

That pretty much sums up the weekend – you can’t fake being fit enough to run 100 miles so Saturday exposed that fact that I was 50 mile or 60 mile fit but not 100 mile fit.

How was that? A combination of factors – the Lake Sonoma 50 mile got cancelled, I had a chest infection that affected my training in the 3 weeks up to Fellsman, withdrew from that race after 12 miles with a torn hamstring and thus did no more than about 25 miles per week over the past 4 weeks. So more rested than trained then!!

On the day there were some schoolboy errors too – I dimly registered that the race would be up at 6000ft but dismissed it. In truth the altitude was not significant although you do just about fee it uphill. More significant is that a semi desert environment at altitude has some important characteristics the runner needs to prepare for – very low humidity, high day-time temperatures, low night-time temperatures and a stronger exposure to the sun. These were the main factors that caused the “drop” as I only covered 65 of the 100 miles.

In essence, I got a little dehydrated early on although I did pull this back and was good by the early evening, I got fried by the sun during the day and should have worn a hat or visor and, once the sun set, I simply could not keep warm. As others powered into the night in vest and shorts I was wearing long sleeved top, windproof, hat, gloves and buff and still shivering whilst climbing uphill. These are the circumstances when it makes sense to avoid becoming a liability and so, around 1 mile after leaving the mile 64 aid station I turned around and headed back down the hill.

You may think that I would be really down about yet another DNF but strangely not. I need to reflect a little longer on the reasons it bugs me less and on what actions I will take as a result but the experience of the weekend was overwhelmingly positive for a number of reasons:

• The course and scenery were amazing and well exceeded my mental picture of what it would be like. Nearly all singletrack, sometimes technical, trail through mature open forest with shallow lakes giving way to rocky sometimes barren open ridges with expansive views down several thousand feet to the Anza Borrego desert
• Wonderful support and crewing from Lynn who kept me going, persuasively countered my whinging and was all set to get up at 3am to pace me the final 13 miles
• The community of Ultra and catching up with some great people who I haven’t seen for a while
• Sustained effort and concentration with a single purpose. Our lives are so fractured, dissected and distracted that its almost a luxury to thing “today I will be mostly running” and nothing else.

The aftermath has been exquisite stiffness but no injuries and, on the journey back from San Diego, the purchase of my US wheels – a VW Passat Estate/Wagon – the 4wheel drive version all ready for the mountains and the ski season.

Enough for now – gotta run!!

Plan B takes shape

Well, today's little 5 mile run out to the local park and along the beach confirmed that the offending Hamstring is now feeling fine. The rest of the body feels wrecked but that's another matter.

So, Plan B will be put into effect - that is to say that this Saturday I will try to run a 100 mile race in San Diego. Those who know me may recall that I officially gave up running 100 mile races about 3 years ago so I fear this may turn into yet another one of those multiple "retirements" from a sport where the comebacks are gradually less memorable!!

Anyway - first thing is that it is actually 100.1 miles (and that's before I add any detours and navigation errors). The second thing is that I don't intend to race this one. Several people have instructions to trip me up or knock me to the ground if I am remotely near the front of the race.

It seems unlikely but I actually want to take this one pretty slow, soak up a course and a part of the world I have never visited before and see if I can finish feeling good. You see, behind the Plan B there is a Plan C lurking in the wings and whilst it would be too early to "open my kimono" about that; suffice to say that finishing a 100 feeling like you could tackle another one is pretty important.

So, Saturday 7am in the Al Bahr campground, Laguna - inland from San Diego - should see me having fun for all of Saturday and a reasonable bit of Sunday.

Heron and Bobcat visit the back yard

Meantime, I am keen to rave about the wildlife we have in our back yard here in Santa Barbara - lizards we like, snakes we don't, Coyotes we have seen but yesterday we were blessed with a double. In the morning a Blue Heron and in the evening twilight a young Bobcat. Check the pictures. More will follow on Monday. 'till then - happy trails!

Disappointment

Disappointment - yes, frustration - yes!! I pulled out of the Fellsman on Saturday at mile 12 with a hamstring tear.

It had been tight coming off Ingleborough but quite suddenly "went" on the steep part of the descent off Whernside. Whilst it is only twinging today it cut my pace in half at the time and was clearly not going to appreciate another 50 miles of use.

There is the obvious disappointment that we all feel when getting injured and having to pull out of a race but there is also the fact that I felt great on the day and was massively looking forward to a right good battle with Jez. Going back a couple of months it looked as though Duncan Harris would be with us too and that would have been epic but he got sidelined with a stress fracture. Now, I am not saying I could have beaten Jez - he is a very classy performer - but I am saying I wanted to really push it and take it to the wire. It's the terrain I would choose for a friendly showdown and having a couple of people pushing each other is the way to get best performances.

It also puts a big question mark on my other plans for the summer.

After a days reflection (and moping around) here's my thinking...Looking positively, it was the Fellsman that motivated my training for the past 3 months. The cancellation of Sonoma 50 and the drop on Saturday mean that the fitness has not really been tested but everything else tells me that it's good and that I am in better shape than for the past few years.

Of course I now need patience, I need to address the root cause of the injury (my posture) rather than the symptoms and I need to retain the focus to do whatever I can whilst it heals so that the damage won't be too bad. Finally, each day that I can't run I need to commit to memory the re-discovered enjoyment I found this spring from being able and motivated to run so that I get right back into it when I can.

I need a few days to see how the recovery is and figure out a Plan B. Meanwhile I must congratulate both Jez Braggs and Nicky Spinks - both ran wonderful, well paced races to set new course records. In Nicky's case she knocked over 40 minutes off her own best time and Jez, without the diversions around Middle Tongue would surely have posted the mythical sub-10 hour time. Well done both!!

A road to the sky and Miwok Indians

OK, so the ride of the Camino Cielo went great. The climb up from the town is about 3500ft in 6 to 7 miles along the Gibraltar Road. For the most part it was well graded and an “in saddle” job rather than standing on the pedals. I didn’t take a time for just the climb but that might be a good thing because I have since discovered that Lance Armstrong and the Discovery team used to train on this climb and also that its part of a century ride in which the leading riders complete the ascent in around 40 minutes. I think I was a little more pedestrian than that!!

The reward – a ride along the rolling ridge for several miles was sweet and the descent of “Painted Cave” road was steep and, in parts, a bit rough but nothing worse than I am used to on Staffordshire lanes so I was surprised to read that the Painted Cave descent is a bit notorious for being dangerous. Maybe that’s true if you have confidence – I just took it all at snail’s pace.

That was at the beginning of the week since when my explorations of the local area have continued a little, my collection of poison oak itches and scratches has grown a little and my cough has slowly improved. I’ll admit to a great degree of frustration – training this spring has gone really well and I was looking forward to really pushing for a good time at Fellsman next Saturday. Of course I will be there but I really feel that the chest infection of the past 2 weeks has scuppered my chances of doing the kind of time I was looking for. Still, it is what it is and I just need to keep the focus and make the most of the fitness I hope I have developed.

5:40am beach start for the 400+ Miwok 100km runners

This weekend was fun – pacing Krissy Moehl at the 100km Miwok race in the Marin Headlands just north of San Francisco. I did this race in 2009 and it was truly, awfully wet and cold. Wasn’t supposed to be, in fact I had been warned it might be really hot but, on the day, mild hypothermia was the result and a finish in just under 10 hours. Almost identical, in fact, to the time Krissy posted yesterday. She had high hopes of a win and maybe a course record but nausea decided to have a say in the matter and it seemed that the course changes had made things harder as neither the men or the women approached record times.

Race leaders still packed together at mile 41

Still, super fun to see the racing, great to spend some time with Krissy and watch the single minded determination that has seen her win UTMB and many other races and good to catch up with Topher, Kim and other running friends over here.

Ian Sharman - fastest 100 miler on US soil (12hrs 44mins!) scores a top 10 spot as Elvis

So, next Saturday is the Fellsman. I was going to suggest some odds for leading men and women but since the start list is not available I will just state the blindingly obvious which is that Jez has to be favourite in the men – part of his build up for Western States in about 6 weeks and Nicky Spinks is looking pretty invincible for the ladies. I believe that Duncan Harris is unfortunately side-lined with injury and yours truly is certainly making excuses about the recent illness but will probably still push for a time that starts with 10 somthing to improve on last year’s 11.30 Let’s see – as I understand it the conditions are pretty dry underfoot so if it’s not too hot, it could be a fast one.

First Steps

The big move - Truckin' USA

So, the big news is that I will be spending some time in Santa Barbara, California. Lynn found work down here and it’s a great place to get fit and pursue my business ideas.

The past 10 days have been a little crazy. We got about 4 days notice of the job start so rushed to find accommodation, rent a truck, pack everything up in the Bay Area and head down here. On top of the all-nighter I regularly pull before going away and an extended flight over here as the original one was cancelled due to the storms in the east of the USA, this was the ideal recipe for getting sick. It’s very frustrating because I have been fine all winter and looking after myself but is seems as though I will never learn. Getting overtired before taking long plane journeys really is a recipe for picking up infections.

The bike ride I wrote about last time really helped the infection set-in and so the past week has been characterised by my spluttering and hacking, useless cough. Doubly frustrating because all the hard training leading to Fellsman seems like it’s going to waste and also because there is a wonderful range of hills/mountains on my doorstep and I can hardly get out there to do them justice.

My new back garden - trailhead 2 miles from house

Things improving, however, and I made my first steps into the Front Country – as it is called. This is a range of hills going up to about 4,000ft from sea level. Plenty of trails, some a little overgrown, mostly well graded, some quite rocky.The terrain is pretty rugged with lots of sandstone outcroppings. Reminiscent of the high chaparral - imagine native american indians behind every bluff with bow and arrow. Much of the area I have run in so far was burned by the big Jesusita fire two years ago - it took out about 300 houses and, believe it or not, we met someone yesterday who managed to take out insurance AFTER the fire started and 8 hours before his house got burned!!

Inspiration point - 1750' up from the coast

Much more exploring to do but today is a bike day (with no bees hopefully) to climb from the sea to the Camino Cielo road that runs along the first ridge inland at about 3,500ft. Given the clear blue sky that greets every day and the midday temps of around 80-85F, I expect a roasting!!

The blog is back!

Well finally, after a huge break, the blog is back.

...and with it comes a new commitment to regular updates from both the UK and the US as well as, just fer giggles, I am going to start running some odds for a few of the UK races and racers just so we can see how wrong I can be.

First though, a very quick update on the past few months. I really wasn’t very fit or motivated in 2010. After scraping a 2nd place in the Fellsman and a win (although we were not the fastest runners) in the Scottish Islands Peaks race my fitness fell away dramatically. Why? – a cold/bug in June, lots of travel to London as part of my contract and soon I was out of the habit of training much.

This culminated in late November with me getting a pretty nasty neck problem – something along the lines of a herniated disc in my neck but that’s not confirmed and not on my medical records so it didn’t happen right! What did happen was that I got massive shoulder and right arm pains, couldn’t sleep more than 1 hour for a week and ended up with some codeine painkillers.

The great news is that less than 6 weeks later I was running again, feeling good and starting to get motivated – all thanks to my talented Physical Therapist (and wife) Lynn.

Well, the thing about fitness and motivation is that its possible to develop a virtuous circle. It’s like the vicious one only friendlier – a bit of training produces positive feelings which encourages a bit more training which produces.... and so it goes on.

An early Feb outing over some of the boggiest bits of the High Peak Marathon route went badly and one of my good friends confidently pronounced me “over the hill” but then, in the actual event, we recorded our fastest time – also the 2nd fastest ever; amazing to think that some 20 years on from my first HPM I would be recording a PB.


The Marin Crew - Topher, Krissy, Nate, Amy, Jason and Kim - Devon resting out of picture!

The good vibe has continued and I am now building up to Fellsman. Looks like this year could be a humdinger with Jez Bragg scheduled to run. I was hoping Duncan (last year’s winner) would also be there but seems he has picked up a stress fracture. Anyway, I am psyched to get the chance to run against Jez and see what the gap is.
Most recently I was slated to run a 50 mile race (actually I thought it was 50km when I entered it) in Northern California but, in contrast to our rather dry winter, they have had some record rains so the course was flooded and the organiser was not prepared to turn it into a run-swim-run duathlon so the event was cancelled. The resulting training weekend was probably tougher than the race with some very high class company as you might recognise from this picture.

OK – off to the hills for a couple of days to get some good miles in then I will update on plans for the next few months and a bit of an announcement! – yes, the old dog is going to attempt something audacious. Check back to find out what soon!!

Today I lost a running friend...

My beloved collie, Islay, reached the end of her race of life today. A few days shy of her 16^th birthday she needed a major operation that there was little chance she would recover from and so, with a little help from modern medicine, the lights went out.

Back in 1994 we selected one of a litter of six from a VHS video and then drove all the way up to Kirkcaldy in Fife to pick-up our little bundle of fur. That bundle of fur grew rapidly into a spindly youth, sustained mostly it seemed by chewing everything around her – thank goodness the furniture was mostly hand me downs or acquired from local newspaper adverts.

With hindsight – she started her running career a little too young and a little too adventurously – but that’s no surprise really considering the passion and training miles I clocked up in those days. As a 5 month old – she struggled in the deep heather and snow one January day around Moel Famau but she gradually developed the economical slightly crabbing gait and prodigious endurance of a true collie.

By the time she was 2 she was comfortable completing races like the Edale Skyline and keeping me company on days out in Wales and the Lakes. At the end of the run I would usually have to endure a 2-3 hour drive in the car and arrive home ready for a lie down and a cup of tea. She would sleep the whole journey through and arrive home ready for more!!

Islay was named from a Scottish Island and on a windswept but beautiful beach in the outer Hebrides she discovered “bunched up running” – unique to Islay and a comical – tail between the legs – back legs ahead of front legs style only used for occasions of extreme joy. On a snowy Coniston Old Man in the Lake District she discovered tobogganing- stick the nose in the snow and plough forwards with the back legs - creating a bow wave of snow.

Mostly Islay was trouble free – the occasional escape to explore the local countryside provided a few worries but visits to the Vet were rare – except , that is, for the 6 month period when she managed to get rolled over under the front of a car (miraculous escape), stung by a bee inside her nose (expensive New Years eve vet visit) knocked out by a horse (bloody nose and a few seconds unconscious but no harm done) and swallowed a Duplo people duvet – worried examination of “output” to ensure it had passed through the system.

Dogs are sensitive to fear and emotions in others and Islay was a silent but knowing companion in tough times. She also knew the meaning of bravado – her furious, yelping, spitting indignation of cats quickly turned into a hasty retreat if they stood their ground.

Collies are also highly intelligent and she learnt to pace herself – me and no pack meant a run of less than 90 minutes, a pack meant it could be a good run out and the presence of Craig usually meant an adventure. She knew these things.

Islay and I shared some great running miles and a few mishaps – once we were running with a small group of Harriers alongside a frozen canal with a sprinkling of snow on. At least I recognised it was a frozen canal but maybe she didn’t – at a recess in the path she confidently jumped down onto the “road” only to disappear through the thin ice for what was probably less than a second but felt like an age. Her eyes were so wide as I hauled her out. Another time, towards the end of a Peris Horseshoe round with my mate Craig it became obvious that her pads, unused to the rigours of scree and rock, had worn down and blistered painfully. She sat down and whimpered so I got to carry her over my shoulders all the way down Snowdon on a busy summer’s afternoon. The fur ruff on a hot day wasn’t too bad but the incessant licks of gratitude made me rather sticky.

Islay – you bought joy to many lives and you will be missed