Joe Grant

In the last month I've stepped my mileage back up again in preparation for the heart of the racing season. I've felt much more relaxed about my own running coming in to 2012, because of the way my 2011 season panned out with injury blighting me seemingly at every turn. I decided to take a much more laid back approach through December and try to tune up enough to have fun at the standard opening 2 races of my running season: Country To Capital 45 and Rocky Raccoon 100. 

For December and much of January before a low level taper for the 100, I just ran for runnings sake, enjoying being out on my feet and not having to worry about an injury flaring up. Running in the English winter has it's low moments, particularly when the mud becomes thicker than soup in the fields, but it's also incredibly beautiful. Each mile run up until Rocky was at a super slow speed and almost every mile of the 400 I ran as prep was on trail. 

Both races went well up until the final quarter of Rocky, but that was ok and I had a great time out in the US with Ian and we'll both be back to race in 2013. It proved to me that I can get moving at a decent clip off of largely base mileage and I've certainly noticed this year that having a much longer and bigger base from cumulative distance running is starting to pay dividends. 

The miles are building back up again at the moment but the major difference is that I'm running to a plan set by a new coach - Joe Grant. Joe is an Englishman living in exile in the US and has an extremely low key and intuitive approach to running. I've really enjoyed the consistency of running 6/ 7 days a week on average this year but more than anything I've enjoyed running without the pressure of a garmin, schedule or a distance pre-arranged before I've even left the house. 

Reading Joe's blog I started to feel that he could bring a bit more structure to my miles but allow me the freedom to continue to run as I pleased. I knew he would also be encouraging with a pretty crazy racing schedule. Most importantly though, I wanted his input into building in longer distance self supported efforts which fit neither a training or racing moniker. I made it clear to Joe that sometime in 2012 I wanted to have a crack at both the South Downs Way in it's entirity as well as longer self supported efforts on both the Beacons Way and South Upland Way. 

More recently I've taken to running more without a watch and with as little kit as possible. I think it's easy to end up carrying more than you need and certainly at C2C with just a rainjacket, handheld bottle and 20 gels I went super light and had a great day. I used the same plan at RR100 to good effect. 

The opportunity to run the SDW as an unsupported effort has come around a lot quicker than expected. Neil Bryant and I both had 'holes' (read 2 weeks free either side) in our schedules for mid-May and so 4 weeks today we'll be setting out from Eastbourne in the hopes of reaching Winchester in one push. I am finding myself more excited about this one run than I am about any race I have coming up. Maybe a sign of where things are headed...

I think racing is important and certainly I enjoy it almost every time I toe a start line but longer self supported efforts and actually appreciating the environment/ terrain a little more are becoming much much more important factors in my outlook on the sport.