Rehabilitation

I had a great week this week, lacking nothing but my beloved running. I took the opportunity to rest as much as I could, catch up with people and stay off of my feet and knee as much as possible. I saw the physio twice in the week and heeded the advice I was given, don't run but the overall prognosis was way WAY more positive than I was even optimistically hoping for.

On the massage table yesterday my shin splints felt better, my feet, whilst still sore when I apply pressure, are causing no problems when I walk around but my knees were both pretty sore. I have iced, stretched elevated all week long and this evening I felt strong enough to spend 30 minutes on my feet, about 20 minutes running and 10 walking.

This week I will ease back in slowly with cross training, swimming and some very light experimental running. I know I won't be able to get over the disaster that was Rocky Raccoon until I cross the finish line at Umstead 100 in 7 weeks time so I have decided just to get on with it and dive back into focusing on that from now until then. As mentioned in a previous post I do need to tell myself that out of 6 more goal races this year, this one is the 6th most important but it is essential I have a good race there to get my year back on track before the big races kick in beginning with Comrades in late May. As such if my training goes to plan in the next week or so of gradual build up then I will drop back in to a couple of longer runs the week after and finish off running the majority of the course/ planning the second 100 miler in the Centurion series which I'll be putting on in March 2012. After that I have some pretty cool weekends planned with races on some of my favourite trails and some shorter local ones which will give me a chance to push up my leg speed. All in all if things go to plan I am aiming to fit in a few 50ks and a couple of marathons in the 6 weeks leading up to April 2nd. If I stay positive and sensible the physio believes that it should be possible.

I haven't really said much to anyone up to this point about my DNF at RR100 other than reflecting on it in the race report on this blog. The fact is my opinions on DNFs are a little controversial and hence probably better kept to myself. I received a lot of good wishes from friends, family and particularly runners after Rocky, but the underlying fact is I failed to finish a race and in my book that's not really acceptable unless you literally have to be dragged off of the course. Undoubtedly my decision to drop was the right one but given that hypothetically, although traveling excruciatingly slowly, I 'could' have finished with 15 hours left on the clock, I'm very far from delighted with the outcome. Of course I went to run a PB/ to see how fast I could run 100 miles and not just to finish at any cost given that I'd done that there once before but that doesn't make the decision any less 'right'. It's an area I don't really want to get in to as I say as frankly it's done and dusted and it affects no-one but myself. If you're interested in the debate over DNF-ing have a look at this post from AJW which kicked up a bit of a storm (if you're a real geek read through the comments which is where this subject gets interesting) http://ajwsblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/dnfs.html

The Day After/ Wasatch Lottery

My leg feels significantly less swollen today. Decided to see the physio tomorrow to give the general swelling an extra 24 hours to reduce enough for him to be able to give me a steer on the level of damage I've caused. I am hoping for a prognosis of under 4 weeks before I can commence build up again but that may be a little hopeful.

What I do know is that my hunger to get stuck in to Umstead in 8 weeks time is pretty huge. I cannot abide DNFs. This wasn't my first, in fact I have DNFd two other ultras before, both due to debilitating injury, but that was a first for 100 miles and my first since August 2007. Mentally rather than rock my confidence it's just made me more resolute about my strategy and goals for Umstead. Of course I have to get healthy again first and it will be about  being patient to allow a full recovery before I get into it.

I see I wasn't lucky enough to be drawn in the Wasatch 100 lottery but am guaranteed a place as a Grand Slam runner should I complete Western States, Vermont and Leadville. Some big names did get drawn including Tony Krupicka and Karl Meltzer who both also toed the line at RR100 last weekend. I think both those guys are also doing UTMB which is a mere 13 days prior to Wasatch so they will have 7 days less than me to recover from an even more mountainous 100. Fair play to them for throwing their names in for both. Also running are two Brits, Nicole and Ryan Brown and it will be great to share some British company at another one of the major US 100s this year.

Congratulations to everyone who finished Thames Trot, Pilgrims or Rocky Raccoon this weekend, there were some stellar performances out there although I have to say I don't think anything will come close to Ians somehow!

Rocky Raccoon 100: DNF

Arrived back from Houston this morning and sadly I had no internet access from my Hunstville Motel Room hence the delay in posting any kind of news on here.

The journey out to Houston was as uneventful as I could have hoped for. The 10 hour flight went like a dream with no interruptions and I managed to get some good rest spread out across three seats in the very back row of the plane. The new airline formed out of the merger between Continental and United has left behind probably the best carrier service I've flown with for a very long time. We were told on taking off that the weather in Houston was horrendous with mixed freezing snow and rain icing up the runway. About an hour before landing the pilot let us know that the storm was sufficiently far south for us to land without issue and that hiatus was actually enough time for me to collect the hire car and make the hour drive up I45 to Huntsville where the race is held. I hit the sack straight away not wanting to change my body clock as per the last time I was there for the race. The idea of that being that given the 6 hour time difference if I got to bed at 6pm and woke up at 3am, I would time things perfectly for race morning when we would start at 6am.

I got up at 3am on Friday and went outside to make the drive over the I45 to Wal Mart and stock up on supplies. Unfortunately the entire car was engulfed in a quarter of an inch of ice. It had been blown on by freezing cold winds and was rock hard so it took me literally half an hour to get moving. The roads hadn't been gritted so were extremely slippery. When I turned up at Wal Mart obviously there wasn't  a soul in sight but this is America and it was a 24 hour store. I went inside and spent an hour cruising around buying tortillas, turkey, cheese, chips, fruit, bagels, water etc etc most of which were for the race. I spent the rest of the day watching tv in the room waiting for Ian to arrive and for the pre race meeting to start. Ian got in around 2pm and we hit the streets of Huntsville for a 3 mile - ish slow run just to loosen up before the morning.

We got to registration and the race briefing was in full flow, so we snuck around the side and checked in to collect our race numbers and swag bags. At this point Ian met up with his crew for the race, Paul and Meredith Terranova and we spent some time out in the hall with Meredith chatting about different races and his plan of action for the morning. Ian has been running at the top level for a while now. In the lead up to the race we spoke a lot about the speed the other guys in the field had vs his own success on road in particular and how this course might suit him better. Knowing what happened now makes this post from a few weeks ago a little more pertinent!!!! http://runthroughtime.blogspot.com/2011/01/11-days-to-go.html

Meredith and Paul were obviously extremely accomplished runners, Paul recently finishing 2nd just behind Ian in TNF50km in December. They had also had success in pacing runners to success on this course helping 4 previous runners to wins with some breaking CR's in the process. After a massive pasta dinner I left my drop bag with supplies for the Dam Road aid station at mile 6.5/ 12.5 and head back to the hotel for the night.

I got up at 3am for the race with a good nights sleep under my belt. Having run this one before and having done a number of races significantly more challenging since I didn't have pre match nerves. I knew I was capable of running the time that I wanted as long as things went to plan and I really didn't have any other pressures on me than that. If it all worked out then great and I would have the pleasure of watching some of the greats in the sport battle it out up the front of the field due to the lapped format.

I got to the start at 4:45am and it was 23 degrees F outside or minus 5 centigrade in English money. I jumped out of the car and checked my name off of the list and after 5 minutes outside I was freezing cold and shivering. Not a nice start to the morning. I stayed in the warm until 5:54am and then jogged over to the start, switched on my headlamp and joined the Ian a row back from the front. I looked at the line of runners in front of us and left to right picked out Tony Krupicka, Scott Jurek, Hal Koerner, Karl Meltzer a couple of unknown guys and Zach Gingerich on the right. Ian looked ready with his camelbak on and we wished each other good luck before Joe the RD set us on our way at exactly 6am.

The pace at the beginning was slower than I'd expected. I say that with the exception of Zach who sprinted away down the 100 yard straight and wide trail from the start/ finish line. He was out of sight within 30 seconds and that was kind of a shock to see as I imagine it was for all of the other guys. As we got into the first little section of narrower trail the lead guys began to pull away and I was running in maybe 20th spot with a group of 4 guys running together. As we spread out even a few yards it became apparent that my head torch was pitifully weak. I'd changed down from my heavy duty Petzl to a smaller model as I knew I'd only need it for about 45 minutes but it did nothing to cut through the pitch black of the woods. I tripped a few times on the prominent roots and nearly crashed into a tree by one of the many boardwalks in the first 2 miles or so. Neverthless I made good time to the nature centre at mile 3.1 in about 25 minutes and as we got on to the trail to the Dam Road Station at mile 6.5 the sun began to come up and reveal a beautiful day on the trails. The rest of the first 20 mile loop just disappeared in a flash and I was back to the 2 mile out and back section to the start in about 2:45 or so. At that point I knew I would see the front runners coming back past me and sure enough there was Zach running at mile 21.7/ 18.3 for me which put him on roughly 3:05 marathon pace. A couple of minutes later, Ian came past and I gave him some words of encouragement. Directly behind him were Scott, Hal, Anton, Karl, Mike Wolfe and a couple of other guys all running together. Scott was the only one to exchange words as we went past and I kind of guessed that figured as they were all working so hard. I hit 20 miles in 3:02 in 30th spot.

My pacing strategy was simple and was to go 20 hours split down as Loop 1: 3 hours. Loop 2: 3:30. Loop 3: 3:30. Loop 4: 4:30. Loop 5: 5 hours. At 4 mph for the last loop I knew I'd have plenty of fat in there to push towards my best case target of 18 hours. I knew that would be enough for top 20 even with the strength of the field in question and I felt it was achievable before hand.

For loop 2 I grabbed a handheld bottle and some more gels and made good speed out of the gate. I'd run the whole of the first loop including all of the 'bumps' (not really long enough to call them hills). It would be wrong to describe this course as flat as there are some minor undulations which amount to about 5500 feet over 100 miles but you just wouldn't find a trail flatter than this unless you look at canal towpaths which clearly offer the fastest possible terrain, short of road, on which to run. Loop 2 I began to speed hike some of the slightly longer shallow inclines to conserve energy. The heat came up a bit and I hit the marathon point in about 4:05 which was spot on. As I made it out to the 50km point I could feel the ITB in my right leg, ever present in all of my training, tighten up particularly on the downhill sections and it certainly put the fear in to me a little. I tried to protect it where I could but with shin splints in my left leg in the run up to the race also, it was really about balancing the whole situation so that neither became my undoing. I felt a little like I was running on a knife edge and that either could cause a big issue at any time. Still I made decent progress on lap 2 and came back in to the start finish in 6:32, 2 minutes off of target pace and still in exactly 30th place.

Loop 3 I intended to continue running as much of as possible. My legs felt a little weary but as is natural after 40 miles of running and everything else was running as smooth as I could have possibly hoped. I allowed myself to start to think about how many problems with injury and illness I'd suffered in the 12 week build up to this race and how I had always hoped that things would just come together on race day and that the big guy upstairs would allow me to travel the course without any single problem coming to a head. I power hiked the inclines, made it through the 50 mile point in 8:09, stayed sensible with my nutrition and hydration, taking on lots of enduralytes as the heat came up a little towards the low 60s and made good progress back to the 100km mark in 10:27 about 3 minutes up on my plan. By this point, Ian had already come past me on his 4th lap and looked fantastic, flowing freely and easily in a bouncing fashion right down the track. He had a lead now and clearly was out to push that lead rather than sit back and try and hold it.

Loop 4 began in daylight but quickly descended into darkness so I had my torch and a second layer ready. I started to hike a lot more of the trail and knowing that I had 4 hours 30 for this loop I could afford to conserve a lot of energy and have a faster last lap as a result. As I went through 65 miles or so, Ian came barrelling back down the trail past me with Meredith and we had a shouted conversation whereby he informed me he was running a half an hour under CR pace for a 12:45 projected finishing time. I was pretty much speechless. He was obviously going to stamp his name into the record books and put his name on the map of world ultra running. I tried not to get too distracted in his success as I was aware I had a big job left to do myself. I pressed on through Dam Road and on the long lonely ATV trail up to the 70 mile Far Point timing mat which I reached almost bang on 12:30 still pacing perfectly. As I head up the single track from mile 70 to 72 I could feel my leg tightening but nothing worse than I'd had all day. The temperature had dropped massively, around 20 degrees in the space of only an hour and a half and I could feel the cold starting to get in to me so I pushed the pace a little out on the dam and into the aid station at mile 73. I grabbed a large cup of mashed potato which I'd been eating all day and was frankly a revelation and made my way out of there without stopping. At that point I had spent a maximum of 30 seconds at any one aid station all day so hadn't wasted any extra time. As I got on to a section of slightly steeper descent at around mile 74 my right knee pretty much gave way. Anyone who has had ITB issues in the past will know that feeling, when you're running along with no issue and all of a sudden it feels like someone has jammed their thumb right into the side of your kneecap and it almost makes it feel like the leg will collapse. I gathered myself quickly and tried to walk through it but it pretty much seized up and the flex I'd had in it to that stage went entirely to the point where it was locked pretty much straight. I knew I had 2 miles to the aid station so figured I would walk it in and try and shake it off over that time.

This section of trail is a jeep road which undulates down the far side of the park on really easy and very runnable packed sand. I was, however, reduced to an absolutely crippling hobble, striding with my left leg and swinging my right around like a club foot, placing as little pressure on the knee as possible and taking all my weight back on to my left as soon as I physically could. I carried on for maybe half an hour in that fashion with my head down just plugging away. As the knee became tighter and tighter I could feel the ITB stretching across the knee and literally creaking as i held it in place. The temperature was back down to single figures and I knew that wasn't helping the situation. That jeep road became an absolute bastard and I was reduced to going tree to tree for the 2 miles. I managed to make it in to the aid station at mile 76.2 in just over 15 hours. When I worked back I realised it had taken me over 2 hours to cover 3 miles and that had been with a pretty good pace for the first mile of that. I knew my race was out of the window at that point and that I couldn't shake this problem off. I had two choices, continute on and with 15 hours left in the race, hope that my leg eased up a bit to allow me to continue at the previous pace of just over a mile an hour and finish the last 24 in time, or call it a day.

I went back to Rocky Raccoon this year for one reason, to see how fast I could run 100 miles. That would seem to be a little pointless to some people but in the 3 previous attempts at the distance, all of which ended in success but ultimately included long stretches of walking and struggling, I felt I hadn't really had the race I was capable of. In 2009 in my first 100 miler I'd run the course in a very respectable 22:54. When I worked out the average pace I'd need to complete the remaining 24 miles in, I knew it was impossible for me to better that time albeit I was, even with the 2 hours of crawling along, way way ahead of my 2009 splits. I actually left the 76.2 mile point and made my way down the trail back to the start finish. Around 5 minutes in I'd only made a couple of hundred yards at the most and could still see the lights behind me. I stood still felt my knee which was severely inflamed and thought screw this. It wasn't even that difficult a decision. I knew I would hate myself for DNFing a race but I came to the realisation that 1. I have another opportunity to run a decent 100 mile time at Umstead in under 2 months time and that having managed to get into Western States this year and the Grand Slam, this race paled into insignificance versus those things. If I did lasting damage by battling out the rest of the course I would be inconsolable. I turned around and made my way back to the aid station and that was that. 76 miles of very hard work and 12 weeks of training undone in under 3 hours.

That for me exemplifies the massive gulf between 50 miles/ 100km races and 100 miles. That last 40 miles of a 100 is a totally different level to any other running. Of course the longer you are on your feet, the greater the opportunity there is for something to go wrong. The last 40 miles of a 100 will, for most people, involve a huge amount of walking. Given that, you end up being on your feet for the same time again as the initial 60 miles might have taken. When it gets dark and cold and you're whole body is depleted and in pain it is easy to make mistakes like forgetting to eat and drink or take on salt, or, in my case here, get injured by being sloppy with your gait/ tripping over etc etc.

I hitched a lift back to the start line with one of the volunteers and dragged my leg the 20 yards or so into the start finish tent where I found Ian sitting in a chair surrounded by ultra running legends and admirers alike. He had finished in a time of 12:44 and in the process set the fastest ever time for trail 100 miles on US soil. Tony Krupicka and Hal Koerner had come in shortly after him in 13:18 and 13:24 respectively, both also astonishingly quick times. Ian was humble but obviously elated and after about an hour of sitting around everyone dispersed and head back to their respective hotels.

When I got up the next morning my leg felt dreadful. Negotiating stairs was almost impossible, but we jumped in the car and went back to the start finish to watch some of the last runners come home. There is something really special about watching people who have been out battling their inner demons for 28/29/30 hours finally cross that finishing line. It's a moment you don't forget in a hurry and obviously from my perspective I had huge pangs of regret for not struggling on round to finish. At the same time I also felt what I can only describe was almost pride in myself for not being as stubborn as usual and going on to cause long term damage to prove a point I had proved many times before.

Having spent a little time there we head over to the post race breakfast where Ian recieved many contgratulations for his stellar performance. Watching him sign autographs was kind of surreal and I know he felt the same way, but this is a big and growing community and all of a sudden he had gone from a recognised name albeit on a kind of unknown level, to stardom, overnight. I felt delighted for him that he'd achieved something truly special and that he was about to start getting the kind of support and respect he had probably deserved for some time. It's going to be seriously exciting to watch him race in the future.

For me the question is how long will be off my feet. On top of the knee I have some serious plantar fasciis going on in my right foot and an exacerbated shin split problem in my left leg. I have 8 weeks to umstead so whilst it was no bad bad thing to have got in a 76 mile training run, if I'm out of action fo 6 - 8 weeks it will make Umstead a race too soon. I will travel there irrespective as I have pre paid for flights and entry but as to what capacity I'll be in, racing 100, running 50 or pacing pete for a lap or two who knows. As for Rocky Raccoon you can never say never but I doubt I'll be back. Finishing it once ticks the box and this years DNF doesn't detract from that at all. I still had an awesome time and am pretty sure that if my knee had lasted the course I would have been able to pocket a time somewhere between 18:30 and 19:30 which would have made it a successful start to the year. Still you roll with the punches and in ultra running you will get KO'd occasionally. Hey after all Scott Jurek dropped at 60 miles so I feel my decision was kind of validated by his ;)

Until next time....

3 Days to Go

Fly tomorrow 11:40am to Houston with Continental Airlines. The last time I got on a plane I was off the back of a 3 day drinking session and had a major panic attack. I will try not to do the same tomorrow but I am anxious to say the least.

Have spent a lot of today visualising the race. I think it's fair to say having run this in 2009 that I know what to expect, but the reality is 100 miles is such a long way that at some point something will inevitably go wrong, it's just about how you cope with it. I want to run the first 60 miles the way I ran the first 42 at Badwater. Just in a nice comfortable zone where I don't push the pace but keep it moderate and steady and the time just flies by. I have a pacing plan but I'm not going to put it on here because I don't want to jinx an already finely balanced situation. Last time I ran 22:54 and that was with a significant delay at the 80 mile aid station and a massive amount of walking on lap 5 from mile 80 in to the finish. It won't take much of an improvement this year to annihilate that time.

Hope to update tomorrow from Motel 6 off the side of the interstate running from Houston up to Huntsville, Texas. It is forecast to snow there tomorrow so I've had to pack all of my cold weather gear. A slightly interesting turn of events to say the least!!!!

4 Days to Go

pm: 4 miles.

I fly on Thursday morning so I will fit one more short run in tomorrow and then get my stuff together for the journey. Heathrow to Houston. Houston to Huntsville and Huntsville to the State Park where it will all go down on Saturday morning.

I've enjoyed watching this a couple of times in the past. Look foward to running the course in August.

5 Days to Go

pm: 5 miles easy.

Can feel I have a shin splint in my left leg so will get a sports massage tomorrow to iron that out. Don't need THAT getting any worse right now!!!!

Battersea Park tonight

6 Days to Go: 5 Step Plan

Last night I got 10 hours sleep, ate two good sized meals and did what I needed to do, rest after a long working week. This afternoon my plan was to split up a slightly longer run into two parts, a shorter faster 4 mile effort and a slower more relaxing 6 mile easy run. I pushed the 4 miles in at 6:30 pace just to get a gauge on how my fitness stands going into next weekend. That is significantly slower than I'd usually do tempo runs because at this stage I don't need to be doing all out efforts, but it didn't feel as relaxed as I'd hoped it would. When I'm back from RR100 I'm going to commit to doing a few shorter local races to try and maintain some speedwork. I do actually enjoy racing and I guess if I get a little smarter about how I train rather than just bashing out miles I might do ok at a few of them.

That would be quite a departure from my current ethos. In my running career I have run 5km once, 10km twice, one half marathon, one 16 miler and 53 races of marathon or longer. My last less than marathon distance race was in May 2008 and consequently I set all my PBs, 5km (19:30), 10km (39:24), half (1:26:04) and full marathon (2:58:07) at the same marathon in Washington last year. 

My goal pretty much since I started  running has been to enter long, hard races for three reasons: 1. they give me an opportunity to go to incredible places and meet incredible people 2. to find out which races truly blow me away and which don't, so I'll know what I am missing when I can't race as much as I do now and go back year after year to my one or two favourite events and 3. to see if I had the stones to get through anything that's put in front of me. I guess I'm about half of the way down that path now in terms of number of races but more like two thirds in terms of timeframe. The plan has taken on five pretty distinct separate stages. 

Step 1 was simply to finish the Marathon Des Sables. Once Jim and I had finished that and the Gobi March, Step 2 was finishing the 4Deserts series. With that done I felt like I'd done enough desert/ multi day races (that and that they cost me every penny I could save) and started to focus on the major single stage events. Step 3 was initiating myself to 100 milers in order to qualify for Badwater (I needed 2 to qualify but you now need 3). I finished RR100 and OD100 and got selected for Badwater which was always my dream race. When a few other things went awry last year I got a chance to run and finish CC100 in October which was a bonus. So I guess with 3 x 100s and Badwater out of the way and with no DNFs I can move on to Step 4: Mountain 100s. RR100 and Umstead are in every way warm up races for this summer, being relatively flat. Western States is the jewel in the crown, my A race for this year, but I will have to have one eye on Vermont, Leadville and Wasatch at all times during it because the whole lot could unravel with one mistake. Step 4 is really a year long goal for 2011, run and finish the Grand Slam plus get a couple of other 100s under my belt and Comrades which I am really excited about also. That really just leaves Step 5 and that is tackle 5 races which are arguably all harder than anything I will have done yet (Badwater aside): HURT, Hardrock, Spartathlon, UTMB (strike 3) and Arrowhead/ Yukon Arctic. 

(Step 6 is Barkley. I'll show up on the startline for that if 1. I'm unlucky enough to get picked and 2. I've run everything else and can face up to the utter misery of it).

I read an interview today, with an old school ultra runner out in the States who still enters multi day lapped events and runs 40 miles every other day. His comment was that while you're young, you should stick to shorter distances and get into ultra's only as you get older and inevitably, slower. As much as I love long hard stuff he is right and I do want to do a little more shorter distance racing while my legs still go round pretty fast.... 

Tonight my run was out and back along the Thames Path from Battersea Park in a loop up and over Wandsworth Bridge and back. Considering we are 3 miles from the geographical centre of London we're pretty lucky to have a run like this so close. I get out down there 3 - 4 times per week but it's unbeatable at night. I'll post some photos that I took later on.

7 Days to Go

For the first time in a long time, no single part of me legs hurts when I go up and down the stairs. It's a nice feeling not to have to walk in a specific way to accommodate an issue. Both my knees feel stronger as a result of a massive reduction in training volume. I will carry on running every day until race day but low mileage. It's been a rocky road of injury and illness to rocky raccoon but inevitably it just depends on how I'm feeling on the day itself as to how it turns out. At least when it has come down to the final run in I've managed to shake off the issues that have plagued the last few weeks. 

We are in the process of redesigning the Centurion Running Website at the moment. It seems a little early in the day to give it a complete overhaul, however I really want to have a function on there that allows friends and family to track runners progress during the race and see photos and video as it happens. We used Wordpress to create the current site and it is awesome as a start up, I mean I think what we created for a total cost of about £150 is pretty good actually (bearing in mind it took a hell of a lot of time from myself but more importantly the designer, my good friend Al, to get right) but creating it from scratch will give us the ability to change the framework exactly as we want it. So far we have had 35 runners sign up across all 3 distances and I know of a lot more out there looking to sign up in the near future. So pleased at the support we are receiving the first year and a lot of that is undoubtedly down to the good word being put out there by people like James Adams amongst many others. It's nice to feel part of a real community and bar one or two people on the runners world forum (one in particular who really got my goat), the feedback we've had has been tremendous. There is no way, of course, that we can please everybody but I did and do still feel that there is a vast body of runners out there who will benefit from this race and others like it being brought into existence in the UK. We have British runners right at the top of the ultra running scene at the moment racing all over the world and if more races like the NDW100/ 50 take shape, marked courses with full support ie race conditions, there will be a lot more behind them. 

10 Days to Go

pm: 5 miles.

Starting to get some real energy back now and my legs feel stronger. Had to suppress running longer again today. Trying to be as sensible as I physically can be and remind myself it's not actually going to help at this stage putting in long runs. The old adage states it is far better to get to to the start line over rested than over trained. I try to stick to that principal. Everything is in place for the trip now and I'm starting to get pretty excited. It's going to be a game of two halves. Run steady and smooth for the first 3 laps (100km), eat, drink and prevent chaffing. Then run steady and smooth for 2 more. If I smash into a brick wall again for any reason I'll just have to suffer it out in muted frustration. I hope the ultra gods are with me.

11 Days to Go

pm: 5 miles. Still getting my strength back. It's hard to know what the best prep is from here on in but traditionally I've done almost nothing in the last 2 weeks before big races and invariably it has worked a treat. I'm not going to pull nothing out but literally just keep things ticking over. My legs are still pretty tight and as they loosen up I'll hit the track a couple of times and get some nice easy miles in. 

The entry list for RR100 went from a big field with a couple of really fast guys to a who's who of US 100 mile champs. Hal Koerner (2 x WS100, AC100, Bear100, CDR winner), Anton Krupicka and Scott Jurek two household names in the ultra running world all dropped in at the same time last night. Along with Zach Gingerich and Karl Meltzer you have arguably got 5 of the top 10 US ultrarunners lining up in one race extremely early in the season. What's more it's 'flat' (5500 ft of gain over 100 miles) and fast. Personally I think the Course Record of 13:16 could go down if they each push each other hard but not too far. Out of the 5, I would say it is between Zach and Anton. Hal has a great record in the mountains but maybe can't hold such a fast pace. Karl is very much a mountain guy. Scott has been on a long path back to success after a year or two in the doldrums but recently ran 165miles+ to break the American 24 hour record. With that he cannot be dismissed but undoubtedly he is not at his previous best yet. Anton has a 13:32 on this course already and has only improved since then. Zach ran a 13:20 at Umstead on a track with 8000ft of gain so technically 'should' go faster at RR. And then there is Ian.

This is his time to shine. I think this is where people will sit up and take notice of him. If it goes to plan, he has the leg speed and endurance to beat this field if he can race his own race and hold it steady and injury free....

Given that the course is 20 mile laps, tt will be fascinating for me to watch the race unravel. I am going out to try and just do my best. For the first time in a 100 I'm not just there to finish, I've already done that on this course, I am there to push it and see if I can turn in the kind of 100 mile time I know I am capable of. If I can avoid getting lapped it'll mean I am on course for roughly a 18 hour finish. Without giving too much away, I am hoping I won't get lapped.... 

12 Days to Go

Much more energy today, working on building that up as quickly as possible over the next week and a half. Todays major success was plotting the NDW100 and NDW50 courses on Google Earth. Looks pretty good although a little under what I'd expected in total elevation change. Climb on the 100 is 10,400 feet and on the 50, 5,700 feet. Could make for some faster times than I had considered....

13 Days to Go

pm 3 miles. Big day....

Man I'm tired today. It was all I could do to drag myself out of bed this morning and make it once round the park with Lisa this evening. I feel pretty beaten. I guess that's the point of a period of more intensive training, to push your body as close to breaking point as possible without tipping it over the edge and then back off just in time to be able to peak for a race. My mileage has been average to poor in the lead up to this and the quality of those miles has been mixed to say the least. At the same time as putting in 11 weeks of training, exactly as I did pre Badwater, I have been sick, injured and had a very busy finish to 2010 and start to this year at work. Putting in big mileage weeks around my day job is pretty strength sapping and I think after yesterday when I psychologically reached the start of my taper period exactly 2 weeks from race day, I kind of unravelled a little bit. I'm just going to try and keep my legs ticking over, strengthen my knees back up and gain a serious amount of energy in the next 13 days. I am getting geared up for it now, I am relaxed about the distance and get my nutrition right this time around. Regular readers of this blog will know what my one true fear is going into this race.... the only question is which shorts provide the lowest possible risk of damage....

14 Days to Go

am: 17 miles. pm: 2 miles.

This morning I met Webbo down at Merstham at mile 34 on our NDW 100/ 50 route to run the last 16 miles of the course in to the 50 mile finish/ 100 mile turn around at Knockholt Pound. Running in the opposite direction to meet us was Paul Bennett, a friend of ours from previous races both home and abroad. He had parked up at the finish before 7am and armed with a headtorch and some decent trail shoes. As we left the station and hit the trail the temperature was about 3 degrees C and hovered there all morning. The ground was absolutely horrendous underfoot and made all the worse for me by the fact that I'd decided to wear road shoes. My decision was based on the fact that there are some short sections of road in amongst the trail and with mild pain still from both knees I would rather not risk any more impact through them than absolutely necessary. It was a massive error, I'm not really sure how I avoided crashing but I slid all over the place for a little over 3 hours. Paul met us at mile 2 on our run and turned around with us to head all the way back to his car.

Every time I go back to the NDW I'm amazed at how well way marked it is. Even without a map it's pretty hard to go wrong. Today gave me the chance to properly map out the last 8 miles of the track and in fact we moved the final aid station around 1.25 miles down the track to a much better spot. We also scoped out the exact finishing point in Knockholt Pound. Once again my Garmin packed up in the wet weather and gave me some crazy read outs, plus the strap has torn so it is pretty much a waste of space right now. Luckily Paul had his so I will be able to add the final piece to the puzzle and publish a full route profile of all three events early next week. 

This afternoon I jogged a couple of miles but I had pain in my right knee so I went down to get a sports massage. It was an hour of agony, my back and legs were really tight. I am still in quite a lot of pain a couple of hours later and feel pretty sick. That's what you get for leaving it 8 months between sessions. 

15 Days to Go

5 miles easy tonight. That was it. Already from just one day off and a short run tonight, my legs felt 30% better and I had way more gas in the tank.

Today I learned that the Lakeland 100/ 50 mile races (UTLD) have sold out the full quota of 700 places in 2011. That is phenomenal. They have only been going, from what I can tell, since 2008 and have quickly grown the event into a monster. The most intriguing thing for me, is that they do not mark the course. Needless to say the area is absolutely out of this world, the photrography I've seen make it look like a truly stunning race course.

We have had 3 x 100 milers enter in the last 48 hours. To be honest, even if we only get 50 runners total, I will still be proud and delighted that people think there is enough to warrant spending a lot of time and money giving the inaugural race a crack. I will endeavour to send every one of them home having had the best possible experience. The amount of correspondance and number of entrants is growing daily. All in all I'm getting pretty excited already and we're 7 months away....

On another note I got drawn in the lottery for UTMB this week. I was hoping I wouldn't get in as I have a wedding that weekend (plus Leadville the weekend before) so I could defer until 2012 for automatic entry. I can't so I'll have to give up my place. Having been lucky enough to tick a few of my 'dream race' boxes in the last couple of years, the list of things I still want to have a go at ultra wise have reduced and I'm pretty clear already about what I want to have a crack at in 2012. At the moment I have my eye on either HURT or Arrowhead in January, Hardrock in July, UTMB in August and Spartathlon in September. All of those assuming I finish the 7 big events I have this year....

16 Days to Go

As promised to myself yesterday, no training today. It's amazing how during one day off my desire to consume fatty foods goes through the roof. I had a massive urge today to gorge on junk food but managed largely to resist the temptation.

I'll set back off again tomorrow and see if the rest day has made any difference. Saturday will be my last 'long run' before RR100. I guess we'll cover somewhere between 23 and 25 miles most of which will be on the NDW and eventually form mile 30 - 50/ 70 of the 50 & 100 mile course. I aim to post a full route profile once we're done as I should be able to link accurate Garmin read outs for the full 50 miles/ 100 miles.

17 Days to Go

Simple day today. 8 miles, no significant pain but it's starting to feel like I'm just running junk miles, not really improving my fitness and generally lethargic.

I'm going to take a day off tomorrow, rest, run Friday and get ready for a good 20+ mile trail run on Saturday, covering the last half of the NDW50 course with Webbo early on Saturday morning. Then it's taper time. Game on.

Around 30% of the runners entered for the UTMB and CCC this morning were unlucky in the lottery so I'm expecting a few of them to drop into the NDW100 instead which would be great for our numbers.

18 Days to Go: RR splits 2009

am: 5 miles 40 minutes. pm: 9 miles 1 hour 13 minutes.

This morning felt good, this evening did not. Ran with Webbo up into and around Hyde Park and even just trying to hold 8 minute miles felt difficult. We managed it for 6 - 7 miles and then I cruised back home.  General fatigue is building slowly which isn't wonderful news but is to be expected. I will push hard until Sunday and then taper massively for 10 days.

Just looked over my splits from RR100 in 2009. You can tell it was my first 100 by the spiralling disastrous split times. I pretty much walked from 80 miles I will post nearer the time what I hope to run this year. It's a ways quicker.

20 miles: 3:26
40 miles: 7:23 (3:57)
50 miles: 9:24
60 miles: 11:36 (4:13)
80 miles: 16:48 (5:12)
100 miles: 22:54 (6:06)

19 Days to Go: Ironman vs Ultra

11 miles today. 4 this morning, 7 this evening in just under an hour. Felt a little tight everywhere but otherwise good. I will try and shake a lot of that fatigue out tonight and run longer tomorrow evening. Starting to feel a little more consistent again after a rocky patch. 

Had a lot of enquiries today about the NDW100/50/26.2 races in August. It feels like interest is picking up a lot despite having a good number of entries already in. We need a lot more to make it a sustainable entity in the first year but I think the UTMB lottery in the morning will leave a few people looking for a challenge around the same time. I hope some of those people pick the NDW as the place to race.

I had a guy e mail me today with the CV of a champ, Ironmans, a Double Ironman and going for Quintuple Ironman at the Enduro races in June. He asked if he was fit to race 100 miles yet? This is a question I get asked a lot, how does an Ironman stack up against an ultra. Well to this point I've only ever raced 1 triathlon and it was only a half Ironman so I am not really fit to judge. I would put that half on a par with running a 50km - 35 miles both time wise and overall fatigue wise. I have read plenty of articles and blogs in the past who have likened an Ironman to a 50 mile run in terms of equivalent difficulty. Most fall on the side of 50 miles being a little easier but not significantly so. On average I would say an Ironman would take the same person around 20% to 30% longer to finish than a 50 mile so that is a deciding factor. Relatively, therefore a 100km or 60 mile run would sit on par with an Ironman. There are a whole myriad of factors that make this a very sketchy estimation including weather, terrain, amount of climb/ descent, elevation, temperature etc etc. But if I was asked that is what I would say. Perhaps a small affirmation of that estimate is the interview Runners world ran with David Goggins. Goggins response to where Ironman Hawaii ranked in terms of races he had completed was that he 'tabbed every 100 mile plus ultra he has run as 1 through 15, all ahead of Ironman Hawaii and all ahead of the Ultraman Triathlon (Double Ironman)'. 

A couple of years ago, ultrarunning magazine published a very interesting article listing out the relative difficulty of ultras across North America vs Iron distance events. I cannot for the life of me find the list but the outline in principal was to take a group of runners, all of whom had completed one of 9 of the biggest 100 mile races held that year, and ask them to benchmark other ultra races they had done against them. The results were normalized against Western States ie. WS = 1.00. I've sketched out some of the key ones below. The sample size was 667 people:

Badwater 135 miles: 1.57

Hardrock 100 miles: 1.55

HURT 100 miles: 1.31

Wasatch Front 100 miles: 1.17

Angeles Crest 100 miles: 1.08

Leadville 100 miles: 1.03

Western States 100 miles: 1.00

Javelina Jundred 100 miles: 0.89

Old Dominion 100 miles: 0.88

Vermont 100 miles: 0.84

HURT 100km: 0.81

Rocky Raccoon 100 miles: 0.81

Umstead 100 miles: 0.81

Zane Grey 50 miles: 0.48

Miwok 100km: 0.46

White River 50 miles: 0.37

American River 50 miles: 0.33

Avalon 50 miles: 0.32

So in summary Badwater is 57% harder than Western States and was elected the toughest race in the US, pipping Hardrock by 2%. The hardest 100km race, HURT, was ranked as difficult as both Rocky Raccoon and Umstead 100 milers, the voted the least difficult of the 100s. The hardest 50 miler, Zane Grey was voted as  48% as difficult as Western States 100. 

I have tried to explain in the past just how much harder a 100 mile race is than a 50 mile or even a 100km race. Something happens in that last 30 - 40 miles to stretch even the best prepared to breaking point. 

In summary I would say to any Ironman, yes you are in a great position to have a crack at a 100 mile run, but expect it to be much longer and much harder, probably up to around twice as hard depending on the terrain. Having raced a number of those in the list above, I would put the NDW100 somwhere around 0.82 to 0.84 given the elevation change of around 12000 feet and the probable temperatures of an August day in England. 

More tomorrow....

20 Days to Go

Some mild pain in my knee this morning but nothing major. MASSIVE success. Nevertheless I decided to take today off completely in an attempt to be sensible after yesterday. I figure there's no way fitness gained from an hour or so running today stacks up against that the chances of doing more long lasting damage by doing so.  I'm still sitting here now at 9pm thinking should I just go out and do it anyway.... but prudence will prevail I think.

I ran through my mileages tonight to see how volume is stacking up. Obviously quantity is not everything and actually a lot of the miles I've put in for RR have been at a much better pace than those I laid down before Badwater but:

During a period 11 - 3 weeks prior to Badwater I cleared 517 miles running plus an additional 380 miles bike.

During a period 11 - 3 weeks prior to RR100 I have cleared 415 miles running and 0 miles bike. 7 days off with flu before Christmas and 5 days off with ITB problems last week have been major hiccups.

From here on in pre Badwater, 3 full weeks, injury forced me down to a total of an additional 51 miles. I should be able to get one more full week of training in before RR100. I'm fascinated to see the difference come race day as long as I stay healthy from here on in.

The results just came out and a runner, Craig Stewart, ran a 4:54 over the '45 miles' to win yesterday. Now the course is short by 2 miles as I mentioned yesterday and the last 22 miles are absolutely pan flat BUT I can't help wondering whether the winner is someone we should be keeping an eye out for as a world class athlete in the ultra world. To put that time in perspective, Mike Wardian, probably the best known current ultra runner to regularly compete/ win over road marathons and yet have also laid down a number of 'flat' 50 mile times, has PBs of 2:21 in the marathon and 5:50 over 50 miles. That works out at 5:01 for 43 miles. Ian Sharman has a 2:32 marathon PB and a 6:01 Comrades PB. 4:47 for 43 miles. Comrades isn't flat, neither is JFK where Wardian set his 50 mile best and both are significantly longer than 43 miles, but yesterdays course has 22.5 miles of relative undulations and some very sticky ground. On balance either the course is significantly shorter than even the 43 miles I had down, or Craig Stewart achieved something pretty special yesterday. I would guess there is a bit of both in there but i'll look out for his name in future.

Country To Capital Race Report

7:27 train this morning from Marylebone out to Wendover from where we would run the 45 mile Country to Capital Trail race back to Little Venice just outside of Paddington Station. This is a well thought out event replacing the original Tring To Town 45 which was my first ultra. In 2006 Jim and I, clueless and inexperienced, ran but mostly walked for 10 and a half hours with very heavy packs simulating 'Marathon Des Sables conditions', Making it to the end in the pitch dark 89th and 90th out of 94 runners respectively.

Go Beyond replaced Tring to Town with the C2C and last year I introduced a friend of mine, Pete, to the world of ultra running on a very wet and windy day. This year, mercifully, the Gods allowed us to cover the distance without once opening the heavens on us. We kicked off at 8:30am and made good time through the first aid station at 7.8 miles and again through the second at 17.5. The ground was thick with mud in places but bearable and didn't slow us down too much. Following on from previous posts, obviously my knee was my primary concern and to be honest f it had taken us 10 hours to get to the finish without knee trouble I would have taken it. We ran a lot of the first two sections with a guy called Ian Holdcroft and Claire Shelley who has signed for the NDW100 in August already. Ian is off to do the Atacama Crossing in March so it was nice to talk about my great experiences of that race through with him and the time went quickly. As a result when we hit the canal at mile 22.5 signaling the end of map reading duties it felt like we'd been out much less than the 3:45 or so on the clock. This was assisted greatly also by the strength I had in my knee.

Time can either drag down the canal or go pretty quick and for me today, it went quick. Pretty soon we were through the marathon point in around 4:20 and to the left turn indicating 13 miles to Paddington at the end, actually only 30 miles in to the race (its been short by 2 miles both times we've run it). Pete came a little unstuck at this point but then we were at least 45 minutes up on the 2010 effort by that stage and the sticky mud through the first 20 miles had undoubtedly created additional fatigue in the legs. We slowed to a walk periodically but I wasn't overly fussed given that all I wanted from today was to get 43 pain free miles in my legs. We went through aid station 4 at 33 miles and 5 at 37, where we hooked up with Hadley, an American runner who placed 2nd woman and 6th overall at last years Sahara Race, obviously a pretty impressive athlete. 6 miles from the end we were back to walking and I admit my heart sank a bit at the thought of another hour and a half on our feet to get to the finish, but as usual Pete came back strong and with 5 miles to go we ran it in finishing in a little over 7 hours. About an hour better off than last year. We capped the day off by meeting up with Drew Sheffield and Tim Adams, both of whom are heading out to Leadville in August with me and by finally meeting Mark Cockbain properly albeit briefly. It seems amazing the number of races we've both been at over the years, not to have met previously.

My nutrition today was horrible. I had a piece of bread for breakfast and followed that with 13 gels and 10 ibuprofen. I challenge anyone to put that lot in the system and feel good. I kept a handle on my hydration and regular gel inhalation because we were moving slower than I usually would have but I still have concerns about my ability to 'get it right' at RR100 and not get too behind in eating/ drinking in the first 50 which I tend to do through laziness. Slowly but surely I seem to be learning my lesson.

My legs tonight are good. No issues either in terms of muscle soreness or ligament pain. Tomorrow morning will be the acid test as to whether I've done any additional damage which 10 ibuprofens probably helped to mask. I do wish I could have a crack at Thames Trot this year as I'm pretty sure at a push I could have put an 1hr to an 1hr10 into todays 43 mile time and potentially take my 50 mile PB to sub 7 hours. The question is whether I can string that together and more to go sub 7:30 at Comrades and get myself into the silver medal bracket. Either way we had a good day out and I am delighted that my knee held up.

So back to it tomorrow, we'll see how it goes but one more decent training week and I'll start to allow my confidence to build a little in anticipation of RR100....

22 Days to Go

4 miles this morning in the altitude room, increasing tempo each km. Knee clearly still not 100% but sustainable. Spent the afternoon at the Outdoor Show down at the excel centre where I spent some time at the RacingThePlanet stall with Mary, Alasdair and Dave Annadale. Great to catch up with them. Sounds like the 2012 roving event is going to take place in Jordan. I'll be putting my name down for it almost certainly.

Big day tomorrow. Big test for the strength of my left leg. 45 mile Country to Capital. It will be very wet to begin with and possibly all day so we'll see how it works out. Purely a training run for RR100 so will be trying my best to enjoy it.

23 Days to Go

am: 4 miles 30 minutes, no pain. pm: 7 miles, 58 minutes, no pain. Felt good. Confidence better, stride better although I felt like I needed to adjust my left foot strike slightly which isn't a great sign. 

Heading up to the Outdoor Retailers Show tomorrow to see Ranulph Fiennes give a lecture. Pretty excited to see him speak. Will take it easy and stick to a morning run. 

Its still immensely difficult to not go out and run longer but I'm pretty sure I made the right decision to stop short again tonight. 

24 Days to Go

No running this morning. Depressing. Spent all day icing my leg, stretching etc it's so boring. I literally spent all day gettin psyched up about trying to run 4 miles home without my leg collapsing from under me. I was supposed to be running 15 - 17 each day this week. Oh dear.

Anyway I made it home, totally pain free. More importantly my leg felt strong, not 100% but some of my confidence came back within the first few minutes. It was unbelievably difficult to just reign it in and call it quits after half an hour but common sense sort of prevailed.... I couldn't resist going out and doing another half an hour after dinner just to see. It's fine. So fingers crossed I can get a couple of sessions in tomorrow again, a short on on Friday and then C2C 45 miles on Saturday. One day at a time.

Back to the subject of Rocky Raccoon, I saw this evening that Zach Gingerich has put his name down against the 100. Zach won Badwater in 2010 beating me by a paltry 15 hours, coming in 24:44 and change. He had a great year in 2010, winning pretty much everything he entered and with his course record at Arrowhead 135 mile, pretty much the coldest race out there, he gets the title of Fire and Ice Champion for '10. It's still not clear whether Anton Krupicka is racing. Reading his blog, Karl Meltzer seems to think so (karl is also running) but who knows. If those two both turn up then it's quite possible that Eric Cliftons CR of 13:16 could go down. I exchanged a couple of messages with Ian Sharman tonight. For those that don't know him, Ian has begun to establish himself as one of the best, if not the best, British Ultra Runner. Whilst performances like Jez Braggs at the UTMB-lite in 2010 put him right up there, Ian managed a 6:01 at the 89km Comrades Marathon in May 2010 and strung together a top 10 finish at Western States on his first attempt, only his second at 100 miles. With his leg speed proven in his marathon PB but more so in Comrades and his ability to hold it together over longer distances (WS) I can't wait to see if he can cause a stir at RR. I don't want to put him under too much pressure as he had and maybe still has no intention of racing for a win but personally I hope he does. Look out for the final standings come midnight on February 6th.

25 Days to go

Massive set back this morning. Got up early and put my gear on. Almost immediately my knee felt tight. I got through Battersea Park ok but as soon as I got north of the Thames over Chelsea Bridge I was reduced to alternating running and walking again. Weirdly the pain didn't become too much to force me to stop running but way more than mild discomfort which was the limit the physio gave me to stick within.

I got so hacked off towards the end that I just put the pace down and ran it in. The only positive is that I was able to run albeit my stride was all over the place. The problem is getting to critical so I spent the entire day alternating ice with elevating it and stretching and tonight the pain i had even going down the stairs earlier on, has subsided. I will rest tomorrow morning again and run home tentatively tomorrow night. In fact I'll probably just take it to the track as I'll get more natural cushioning there.

So with a bit under 4 weeks to go, I can't run 3 miles without stopping. Doubt I can walk 97 miles of RR in under 29 hours 30. Probably still worth a go though....

26 Days to go

I'm going to try something new which might be quite boring but might help me keep focused a little bit during a difficult period in my training. Rocky Raccoon is 26 days away so I am going to try and diarise the run in on here each evening. 

After no running Thursday - Sunday with ITB issues I got back to it tonight. I've seen Mark my physio at Third Space Medicine in Soho 3 times in the past 6 days. He helped me back to strength after wrecking my achilles and acquiring shin splints in the run up to UTMB 2009 and again before Badwater in 2010. Each time he has got me back on my feet quicker than I thought really possible, helping me to help myself so that I don't need extended and expensive weeks of needless treatment. 

Last Wednesday I attempted to run the 4 miles to work and literally had to walk it 4/5ths of the way there. My ITB was swollen, rubbing hard on the outside of my knee. The well known condition 'runners knee'. When Mark started applying pressure to it on Wednesday night I was in agony, the kind which makes you sweat profusely right there on the table as you grit your teeth. He advised me against running Winter Tanners this weekend which I duly did and to stay off my feet as much as possible, ice, stretch repeat. 

Tonight I went back for round 3 and the pain had all but subsided. He advised me to run in tomorrow and to get back to longer runs tomorrow night, but I am impatient and as much as I tolerated stepping away from training for 4 days, pain free meant I felt like giving it a go. 

I managed 10 miles in a little over 1hr20. For 6 miles I was fine but on the back straight of Hyde Park down the hill on the trail I started to get niggling pain so each mile I stopped and stretched it out before continuing on gingerly. I am going to have to be really careful not to do myself lasting damage, whilst getting in enough training. What is supposed to be a 100 mile week culminating in the Country To Capital 45 miler on Saturday will have to be taken each day as it comes. I still plan on toeing the line on Saturday morning albeit it is purely a training exercise for RR100. 

The biggest problem with being injured is that you lose confidence. Last weekend I was running with total control and a good amount of pace. Tonight I led the whole way with my right leg, trying to protect the bad knee. I need to balance out my stride and spread the load otherwise I'll damage something on the right hand side and risk making the left too weak to sustain the pace. 

Anyway I'll try again tomorrow morning and again tomorrow night and see how it goes. 

Injury?

Well I guess I've been pushing it harder recently with the training but just towards the end of 20 miles yesterday I could feel my left knee starting to go. When I got up this morning to run in it was cold and my ITB felt like it was drawn tight as a rubber band over the outside of my knee. I have had 'runners knee' regularly in the past. The fact is I have ended up putting most of my longer runs together on concrete this past 6-8 weeks rather than sticking to trails. I guess that's part of the problem living in a city.

This past 7 days I've put in around 80 miles and the week before that 75. That was a alight increase from late November - mid December where I averaged around 65 miles per week (lowest 58, highest 84). I don't feel overly tired and the average pace of my long runs has increased significantly as I start to cope with longer sessions better with increased fitness. In the past I would happily run 20 - 25 milers in 4 hours plus whereas this past week I ran 23 miles in 3:02 and 20 miles in 2:32 a few days later, averaging 7:30 miles. It's nothing spectacular but i'll take the improvement and consistency in running longer. That is way more important to me in training for a 100 rather than speedwork.

Having a great base on which I was planning to build will count for nothing if my knee blows up. I will see the physio tomorrow and keep applying ice to the inflamed ITB. Boring story I guess but useful for me to look back on as another hard earned lesson not to train on the roads as much as I have been.

An old classic but always worth a view to remind where your limit really lies.

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New Years Day

Went up to the South Downs Way at 10pm tonight to get a bit of night time trail running in. I left it all day as frankly I was pretty hung over this morning and didn't get out of bed till gone 11. I parked up by Jack and Jill, the windmills that sit on top of the downs above the village of Clayton and ran west over Ditchling Beacon before turning around and coming back again. For the first time in a couple of weeks the clouds had cleared a little and the stars were out, but there was light snowfall the whole time. Apart from that the only other light was my headtorch, reflected back at me by hundreds of pairs of eyes belonging to the herds of sheep that wander the hills up there. I'll take it relatively easy tomorrow before commencing back to back big weeks as the last big push before Rocky Raccoon. Next weekend I'll be at Winter Tanners 30 mile and the weekend after at Country to Capital 45 mile. My left achilles and calf are tight so I'll need to tread carefully....

Big run coming soon in training also as I'm going to run the full 50 mile Centurion North Downs Way course. I will get a GPS read out for the whole gig to give entrants and potential entrants a totally accurate picture of what they will face in August. Timewise I'm expecting it to take me around 8 hours but again we'll see about that...

Happy New Year to anyone reading this. 

2010. The good and the bad....

I have been somewhat reluctant to do a summary of the year as it just feels a bit cliche. I do however, have a pretty serious compulsive disorder which requires me to box things off in order to feel like I can properly move on.

January

I started the year as I meant to go on, running 3 ultras and a marathon in the first 6 weeks. Stansted Stagger was a cold sunny day with loads of snow still on the ground. Two weeks later I lined up at Country to Capital with Pete for his first ultra and my fears that we would be out for 10+hours in the icy cold were soon put to bed as Pete went from strength to strength running pretty much every step of the 8 hours and 45 miles. I felt great at Winter Tanners the weekend after that and went into the London 50k with confidence. I annihilated the first half and then got lost so many times that I literally threw the map away.

February

My first major goal of the year was to break 7 hours for 50 miles at the Thames Trot. Well I got sick and missed out which sucked a fat one.

March

Awesome time at Steyning Stinger, 'running' with Bucket who had flown over from Singapore. We spent all day in the sunshine, albeit freezing cold sunshine, and had an epic day of almost 6 hours on our feet but truly the Stinger is such a great event.

My second major goal of the year was to break 3 hours in a marathon. The training for it sucked beyond belief. I spent a few hours each week down the track and in the altitude room at the gym churning out 'intervals' which with no coach and no idea meant really just running pretty fast for 40 minutes to 80 minutes and seeing if I could stick the pace. Well I could so I lined up at the Washington Suntrust National Marathon with Frank and ran for my life. I stuck to the watch all the way, hated most of it but felt like I'd really earned it when I crossed the line in 2:58:07.

For some stupid reason I thought that flying to Washington Friday night after work, running a marathon as soon as I got there and then flying back Sunday night on the red eye in to work Monday morning wouldn't be too much of an issue. I dragged Pete into entering the votwo JCC the weekend after and I had the worst weekend of the year by a country mile. It pissed it down for 3 days, I had no energy, the event involves map reading and to top if off we had to stay in a caravan. I can't bring myself to talk about it any more than that. The scenery was great and we both finished. Moving on.

April

Didn't get into London, again, so ran the Shakespeare marathon around Stratford instead. I was having a shit when the gun went off so I was late starting but still managed 3:12 pretty easily. This was a good sign as I started to build up training mileage for Badwater.

May

I can't really work out what happened to my running on the first weekend of May. I lined up at Three Forts Marathon for the second year running knowing the course and having run most of it over and over again in training over the years. I guess it felt a bit like a home course. I had through a mixture of reluctance to ruin the trip and family issues dropped out of Lands End to John O'G bike ride and I seriously seriously regretted that. Three Forts was my way of making it a little easier to bear. It was raining hard and I was acutely aware I had road shoes on and the whole thing is off road. Anyway the gun went and I led out of the school playing field. I started up the first long climb and kept looking behind me to let whoever was on my tail, past me. There was nobody right there pressing and I started to pull away without really trying that hard. When I hit the first downhill I opened up and I was 100 metres ahead by mile 2. I just went with it, taking the encouragement of people at the aid stations and enjoying how strong i felt on the climbs and descents. I mean I didn't put myself over the edge, I walked up one section the really steep climb just over the road up to the Youth Hostel but I guess I knew I was in good shape at Devils Dyke turnaround mile 7, as you go back past the rest of the field and I had 90 seconds on 2nd/ 3rd. The run down to the road again was like free flow I couldn't have run any faster, 5 minute mile pace. The rest of the race I was never able to see anyone behind but that didn't stop me pushing as hard as I could. In the end I finished the race in 3:13. For a 27 mile off road race in road shoes in torrential rain and with 5500ft of climbing, that run made Washington pale into insignificance. I don't know what I would say an equivalent flat road marathon time would have been but way way under 3 hours. It was almost like someone else took over my body for the day. Anyway I was grateful. This was the best run I had ever strung together. I won a the race of 160 people by 22 minutes, leading from wire to wire. I'm not sure how that's possible. I ran the Orpington Marafun the following weekend. Great event for charity but I was sick of running down dual carriageways in south london by the end of the day.

June

All about running maximum mileage and getting myself as ready as I could be for Badwater, sitting in the sauna at every available moment to get used to the heat. Ran the South Downs Marathon again and had a great time, then did back to back 35 mile days on the South Downs with Votwo. Now this one I would definitely do again. Webbo and I took it pretty easy but I knew i was in good shape when at the finish in beachy head after 70 miles I felt like I could have turned around and run back. Tapered massively after this because of slight twinges in my achilles and shin splints which I needed to shake off before Badwater.

July

Badwater. It's all in the report. The greatest race I have run. The most epic. I learnt what true suffering was. Lost so much weight, got my nutrition beyond badly wrong. An unbelievable experience and so good to share it with 5 of my closest friends. I will go back one day because I didn't do myself justice. In the end obviously finishing was the whole point but being a competitive bastard I knew i was capable of 30 hours and running 39 and change was a small disappointment. Would love to go back and see this race as crew and help someone else get to the finish line. I had no idea what being tired was until I got home from this one. It wiped me out for 2 months.

August

DNS at Ironman UK. No energy, managed 2 bikes and 1 run between Badwater and IMUK start date. Waste of money and a let down for Webbo who raced alone but finished well.

Back to Chamonix for UTMB. Massive disappointment with the race being abandoned because of landslides in the 5 hours we were running. I was ill for days in the lead up and I was still fucked from Badwater. I felt absolutely horrendous just a mile into it, which, with 102 miles and 30000ft of climbing wasn't a good sign. Probably a huge blessing that it was cancelled although part of me was intrigued just how far I would go on zero energy with the shits. Strike 2 at UTMB after my DNS in 2009.

September

Pulled out of Furnace Creek. How I was going to ride 508 miles non-stop through the desert when my longest ride in 2010 to date was 103 miles I really don't know. Idiot.

October

Ran the Caesars Camp 100 miler after my DNF at the 50 mile in 2007 due to injury. Again this one is all in the report. If you'd told me I'd run 27 hours 11 at the start I would have been annoyed. By the end I was delighted. Chaffing so horrific I fell asleep with the air con pointed at my balls in the car for almost 2 hours at mile 80. One of my proudest moments of the year was having the stones to get out of the car 22 hours in to the race and get through the last 20 miles. A few years ago I'd have just turned the engine on and driven away. I think....

November

Started ramping the training back out towards the middle of the month. Launched the website which has gone down well with most people so I'm proud of that. Ran Gatliff 50km in perfect conditions. Thoroughly enjoyable.

December

Luton cancelled. Again. What a shame, oh wait no that race fucking SUCKS.

Highlights:
1. Winning at Three Forts I put this above the others because I'm not sure I will ever run as well as that again in my lifetime.
2. Finishing Badwater. Fulfilment of a 5 year dream
3. Breaking 3 hours at Washington. Just nice when someone asks me my best marathon time (the most common question from runners and non-runners alike) that I can say something that starts with a 2.
4. Finishing Caesars Camp. Any other year this would have been top. Still not sure I could get out of the car and start up again if put back in that position.
5. Running the south downs way 5 different times in races. I love that track.

Lowlights:
1. The road to Lone Pine mile 100 to 122 at Badwater. Absolute physical and mental agony for hour after hour after hour.
2. Having to pull out of Lejog. Blowing out a once in a lifetime trip for fear that I was causing them to rush the cycling. Massive error. They finished in the 8 days without me anyway.
3. Having to pull out of Furnace Creek and thus the Death valley Cup which I would have been the first Brit to complete.
4. Not being able to bust my 50 mile PR at Thames Trot
5. Having to pull out of Ironman UK. Who likes triathlon anyway.

All in all the highs far outweight the lows so I'm happy and I'm lucky, I've had such a great time this year.

Goals for 2011?

Break 20 hours for 100 miles.
Run under 7:30 at Comrades
Break 24 hours at Western States
Break 25 hours at Leadville
Finish the Grand Slam
Do less pointless racing and enjoy longer training runs in places I don't usually get too.
Put on the best possible event that I can on the NDW on August 13th.

Merry Christmas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Grand Slam

I guess over the next 8 months I'll end up writing about this particular subject over and over again. For a long time now I've considered 100 mile trail runs as the thing I see myself doing more of than any other type of racing in the future. Switching off from the world for a whole day and getting in to the rhythm of running until you drop. The sense of achievement on finishing. The camaraderie between the racers. The atmosphere before during and after an event. The appeal of traveling to far flung places to race. All reasons why I want to run more trail 100's. The downside is the amount of time you spend out of running the other side of a 100 whilst you recover, but if you're not quick enough to be up the front that kind of matters a lot less. There is also a significant cost implication but you can't take it with you so i'll just spend the few grand i've saved on this now instead.

So for a few years now I've wanted to run Western States 100. Western States is the oldest 100 in the world. I could write for about 5000 words on the subject because it is more widely written and talked about than probably any other 100 in the world. This side of the Atlantic, clearly the UTMB is the main trail event over ultra distance with 2500 runners and plenty more wannabe's turned away each year. In North America the honour belongs to Western States, the original 100 mile run and the race with consistently the largest number of applicants.

The WS100 course

I never really considered having a real chance of getting in because it is so hard to get a slot. Every year the management board of WS100 select just 400 runners to toe the start line. This year those people included:

Top 10 Men from 2010
Top 10 Women from 2010
36 slots for winners of some of the bigger trail races in the US
30 Sponsor Slots
The management board
9 time finishers going for a 10th finish
70 Two Time Losers (people who didn't get in through the lottery in either 08 or 09)

This left a total of 219 slots to be drawn in a lottery. Still seems like a lot but there were over 1800 applicants for those 219 slots which gave applicants around a 12% chance of getting in.

Last night they ran the lottery and my name was the 60th one out of the digital hat. I literally couldn't believe it. After sitting through the painful experience of watching 220 people get drawn out last year and not being one of them I didn't imagine I had a hope. It was with a heavy heart that I saw the remainder of the names get drawn without Franks name coming out of the hat. Frank has wanted to run this race for some time also having done just about everything else and it would have added massively to the whole experience to have him there.

So the last weekend of June next year I'll be going to Squaw Valley California to run 100 miles to the finish at the Placer School Athletics Track in Auburn. 100 miles with over 15,500 feet of elevation gain and 23,000 feet of descent, in temperatures ranging from freezing at the start to 100 degrees in the canyons, over mountains, through valleys and up and out of the other side into civilisation again all within a 30 hour time limit.

Course Profile of WS100 c/o www.ws100.com

Having already entered Leadville which takes place in late August, I have decided to have a go at the Grand Slam.

To quote Stan Jensen: 'The Grand Slam of Ultra running award is recognition for those who complete four of the oldest 100 mile trail runs in the U.S. The "Slam" consists of officially finishing the Western States, Vermont, Wasatch Front and Leadville 100 mile Endurance Runs all in the same year.' The races are spread out over a period of just 11 weeks so recovery between the races is going to be difficult especially with the flying back and forth between the US and the UK. I learnt some big lessons this year about recovery after my exploits at Badwater. 3 Brits have completed the Grand Slam before, one of those being Mark Hartell holder of the Lake District 24 hour fell record and a whole heap of trail and fell race wins.

With the Centurion North Downs Way races taking place the weekend before Leadville it's going to be a busy summer but I really can't wait for those 11 weeks. Plus in the short term I have the small matter of running 100s in Texas & North Carolina before heading to South Africa for Comrades in May. I'll probably leave it there for 2011....

Rest Recover Run

Slept well last night after yesterdays little work out, got up and ran in. It was freezing this morning and I felt crappy all the way in to town.   Ran home this evening and felt a million times better. I wasn't particularly up for heading back out into near freezing temperatures tonight but I popped a Gu caffeine gel and rocketed home. Have been looking at a lot of Leadville 100 videos recently. This one is my favourite. Not particularly great footage in the run up but from exactly 4:00 minutes in it's gold. Leadville's cut off is 30 hours and when they say cut off they do mean cut off. You'll see what I mean if you stick it out to the 6:00 marker. I love that about these kind of races. Some people would say that's unfair but I think it's great. Although if that guy turns out to be me in 9 months time I'll probably grab that shotgun off the Finish Line Marshall and shoot myself instead.

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Gatliff 50km

Ran the Gatliff 50km today and had a great day out. The sun shone from 9am through to the finish just after 2pm and made the freezing conditions more than bearable. My legs felt pretty good, I didn't push the pace but I was still feeling pretty flat energy wise from getting tanked at a stag do on Friday night. Finished it off with a Burger King on the way home. Thats pretty typical style for me. 85 mile week with some good sessions, speed, hills and a long run and probably all about totally undone with plenty of fast food and a massive boozing session which wrote Saturday off. Balance. It's all about balance.

Ryan Adams blows my mind. Not a day goes by that I don't listen to something this guy has written. This is up there in my top 5 of his stuff. His songwriting is beyond brilliant.


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Rocky Raccoon 100

Had a few good work outs already this week, I feel like slowly there is some form coming back. I have the Gatliff 50km this weekend and Luton Marathon the following so an opportunity to get a couple of longer work outs in. Gatliff will be very slow as an LDWA style event with no marked course and probably some snow on the ground. Luton I will take as it comes. Attempting 2 back to back 100 mile weeks so a good base before some more specific training for Rocky Raccoon 100. I just entered this again for 5th Feb 2011 and I'm pretty excited about finally getting it right at the 100 mile distance. This will be number 4 and I hope I can finally execute the last 40 miles like I've run the first 60 in each of the 3 preceeding this.

Becoming a Race Director Part 3

After 5 weeks of intensive work on the website, Al made some of the final touches last night and we launched it today. I'm still not 100% on a couple of the images and I need to go back in and add maps and fly-throughs of the course but all in all its pretty close to the finished article.

Its easy to underestimate just how much work it is building a page and making sure you've covered all areas. I've learned a lot in a month, especially about how complicated compiling pages can be.

I think it will be a while before we get people signing up officially but there's still plenty to do while thats all going on.

Great run tonight, loads of energy and ready to put in a couple of longer runs at the Gatliff 50km in a weeks time and at the Luton Marathon the week after. Early build up to Rocky Raccoon 100 miler again in Texas in early February.

Western States 2011

Lottery entry went in this morning for Western States next June. They are expecting over 2000 applicants for 300 places this year. The odds just keep getting worse and worse, the live draw for the race is in 4 weeks time. Had a scare when I opened the qualification page in that you needed to have, in the last calender year from now or October 2009 onwards either:

1. Run 50 miles in 11 hours or less. Haven't run a 50 this year.
2. Finished 100km in under 14 hours. Haven't run 100km this year.
3. Finished a 100 miler. ok but this I only actually did a few weeks ago!!!!

They might have taken Badwater but not for sure. As Frank e mailed me afterwards, you have to keep this ultra game up these days otherwise pretty quickly you'd find you can't enter the bigger races ie. UTMB, Hardrock, Western States etc etc.

Afterwards I went for a round of golf with the old man which was awesome and then ran the 9 miles back to the house down pitch black country lanes with a broken headtorch.

The website is almost finished now. All the info is present and correct, the background and layout is done, my good friend Al Black is working on the logos tomorrow and then we're off and ready to take registrations. Fingers crossed we get a good turn out for the marathon and 50 mile but the main interest for me is getting numbers in for the 100. Im expecting anywhere from 10 - 100 people based on different peoples opinions. I hope its the latter although the work involved with staging the race will go up exponentially with an increase in numbers. I hope what we end up putting on blows people away.

Leadville 2011

Got around to booking my place at the Leadville 100 for August 2011 this morning. 

Can't wait to have a go at a course I have read so much about. The rockies in the summer should be awesome. 

Becoming A Race Director Part 2

Well the down time has ended. I'm back in to training again now. The last few weeks have involved a few short week night runs and a longer one at the weekend, most of which have been on hangovers and pretty painful. I'm going to head to either Rocky Raccoon 100 in Texas (again) or Susitna 100 in Alaska during February to kick the year off in proper style. I wanted to go back to RR100 this year to avenge my poor finish. It turns out that 22:54 at my first 100 miler (and by a massive margin the easiest) remains my PB. I know I can quite easily knock 3 hours off of this and potentially more like 5 but I'd like to prove it. Three things need to go right for that to happen, race day nutrition, remaining injury free and keeping the 60 mile+ chaffing at bay. Susitna would be a very different type of race. 100 miles on marked frozen trails, you are required to pull a sled with a minimum of 15lbs of equipment at all times. Food, Fuel, Stove, Sleeping Bag, Bivvy Bag, Down Clothing and a lot of water are all necessities. From experience in Antarctica running on snow ain't that easy either. I'll decide over the weekend which one to go for. I'll also be chucking my name in the hat, once again, for the Western States 100 on Saturday. I hold out no hope. Over 2000 applicants for 360 slots in a straight lottery shoot out. You do the math.

I'm now about 95% of the way there to launching the website and taking applications for our first race. August 13th 2010. North Downs Way 100 mile, 50 mile and marathon. Take your pick. Basically I am striving to put on my perfect race to run, except I won't have the joy of running on the day which is sad. I've taken what I think works the best from Badwater, Western States, UTMB, Racing The Planet, the Marathon Des Sables, Old Dominion 100, Rocky Raccoon 100 etc etc. Based on but not limited too:

-  A decent start location with plenty of space and an uncrowded relaxed feel to the start of the day. 

-  Not ripping people off for entry fees. The cost of putting something like this on is WAY more than I expected and there is no way we will even get near break even in the first year but Im prepared to take that hit to build what I hope will become the best British Ultramarathon on the circuit and the first of many races across the country (all 100 miles of course). 

-  Responding to everything and everybody personally, on e mail and within hours of receiving correspondence, not leaving it 3 weeks to get back to someone. 

-  Marking the course because I hate map reading and frankly, getting lost during, let alone at the end of a 100 mile race, is probably the most depressing thing in the entire world.

-  Offering people the ability to use drop bags so that they can be self sufficient but not have to carry everything they need for 30 hours. 

-  Putting on proper aid stations with a decent spread of gels, salt, proper food etc.

-  Getting something for finishing that you want to keep forever (a buckle, a very nice piece of metal of some description, a medal and of course a t shirt that says I RAN 100 MILES IN ONE GO SO THERE

-  Allowing crews and pacers

-  Leniant cut offs but within reason. I nearly cried for the girl who DNFd at 90 miles a few weeks ago because of the cut off. 

There will be other races in this series that provide all of the above, on easier courses so that the challenge is purely running 100 miles. There will also be races that forbid pacers, crew and are frankly really really hard so that people and hopefully myself included can test themselves against fast, beautiful, brutal, horrifically hilly, mountainous, flat and stunning courses in the incredible corners of this country that deserve 100 mile races and don't have them. 

I've invested around 3 hours a day to it over the past 4 weeks alone and its starting to take its toll but of my tick list I've so far covered everything but actually posting the registration forms to the UK Athletics Association and making a half a dozen tweaks to the website. Im hoping we'll be there by Friday so watch this space. 

Becoming A Race Director

Its been kind of quiet for me since Caesars Camp. It was the end of my racing year to all intents and purposes and I always intended to have some down time and properly recover after it. I have to say though having laid off for a long period after Badwater and not training particularly consistently for Caesar's, I feel like I've got a renewed energy for running again which I didn't expect to have right now. The last two years I've come into November off of the back of Antarctica & the Sahara Race with months and months of racing and training before hand, which has meant that I've been ready for a proper break by the time winter sets in. But not, it appears, this year. I'm already thinking about getting stuck in to early 2011 with some late season training starting again maybe really soon indeed....

My efforts are 100% focused in a different way at the moment. After years and years of scouring the resources of the best races in the world, deciding which ones to do, longing for the 100 mile scene in the UK to grow a bit so I had to a little bit less of a journey to get to more start lines, I finally decided to take the initiative and put on some of my own races instead. About 3 weeks ago I had a kind of epiphany where I realised I knew quite simply what would really work in terms of a new race/ race series and where there is a gaping hole in UK running. That is 100 milers. So I am 90% there. A company has been set up, a website built and a race series divised. The first race course has been recce'd, a date set and all of the legals and permits arranged. It's down to a few finishing touches including nailing down a startline and we will have a brand new 100 mile race on August 13th 2011 over potentially the best marked and most underused trail this country has to offer. We will be putting on 100, 50 and 26.2 mile races all kicking off at the same point albeit at different times and I will finally get to see what being the other side of the fence is really like. I'm looking forward to it immensely. Keep the date free.