A DNS but otherwise good

I can't say that I was too disappointed as the night rolled through and wheezing during various trips to the bathroom proved that the cold had moved to my chest.  The final straw for the decision was 3am while looking at the clock and deciding that unless I bounced out of bed when the alarm sounded without a rasp in the chest, I'd be missing the Ridgeway 40 this year.  And so it was that at 4:15, the alarm was silenced and I settled down to another two hours of sleep while missing the Ridgeway 40 for the second time in three years.

It was almost certainly the correct decision and the day has held other useful activities, including a gentle 10 mile run which felt so much smoother for having returned to speed work only this week and already the reappearance of the flowing form which results.  Of course, this puts everything another marathon behind the plan for the year, but it is early May and little need for panic at this stage.  The long months of summer will be make or break when other interests burn those weekends currently overflowing with plus-26 mile runs.

Since the Daffodil Dawdle things have been good.  The lovely 35 miles of the Pewsey Downsaround went relatively smoothly although I certainly flagged in the second half as the temperature picked up.  Still, I saw nobody pass me from halfway and I take it from that, and a not-so-brief look at Strava, that others suffered in the same way.  Even if next year holds shorter races, I'd still be tempted to return to Pewsey, particularly with Jenaya having taken part in the 10 mile version of the challenge and found her way safely back to base with sun-kissed and a smile across her face.

A weekend away on holiday followed before the next event, the inaugural Breckland Forest Marathon.  Pleasant and very runnable with the only difficulty there being the single-track nature of the trail and the fact the whole event was a single out-and-back.  Many people struggled with navigation and I would have had the same problem if I had been going from signage alone but happily the organisers had provided the route as a GPX file and this gave a good enough guide on my watch for decision making.  I am aware of the capital investment required for such a watch, but with events coming thick and fast, the time to review in route in advance is difficult to find and time spent pondering which of the many paths to follow across open land can be better spent in getting back to the car early.

Finally, there was the Oxon 40.  I had not fully appreciated that the route changed each year and had mentally assumed that I would get around the course in a similar time to 2016.  There were a lot more hills than I recall and the elevation shown on my watch suggested an extra 33% or so.  Most of these could have been run if you were choosing to put in that level of effort, all but a particular sting near the end which I doubt anyone ran from bottom to top.  As with the Pewsey Downsaround a few weeks earlier, I here managed to take a significant chunk from my time of the previous year and other than some slight aches in the knees from poor form during the few long descents, I seemed the no worse for wear and did not feel that I had put in any additional effort but instead benefited from a better base fitness.

So, as the cold slowly clears through my Sunday afternoon, I have time to ponder where another marathon can be slipped into the year's schedule without taking away from life's balance.

Daffodil Dawdle

Another week, another marathon.  It is something that I need to stop thinking most weekends.  I am aware that there is only the one marathon in the next three weeks which is nice.

The Daffodil Dawdle is one of those delightful challenges organised by the equally delightful Long Distance Walkers Association.  And for the first time this year, the weather was delightful to go with it.

My one mistake was one of organisation.  The morning after the clocks go forward is not the ideal time to commit to an early race a couple of hours from home.  A night spent waking, looking at the clock, trying to remember whether it was the actual time or if it should be an hour forward or an hour backward before dropping back into a fitful sleep until finally having the alarm drag me from the deepest sleep, much to my regret.

Between this point and race start everything was as usual.  I was slightly behind the plan leaving the house, the journey was slightly faster than the plan, parking was well signed and organised and I was quickly registered, bathroomed and ready to go.  On arrival I had met Graeme, a fellow ultra runner with a penchant for these types of events and also a member of the same athletics club.  I had known that we both planned to be here, but sometimes these things do not quite work out.  We were informed of a last minute route change due to snakes being found in one of the fields near the end of the course and we were off.

I would love to explain more about the event but here things begin to blur for me.  We moved a little quicker than either of us probably would have alone and having two people working through the route directions in parallel made things smoother in general and meant that the rare mistakes were rectified more swiftly.  Three checkpoints were less that the LDWA usually put on for these events but it was plenty on this occasion.  As ever, they were beautifully well stoked and prove a tempting respite but I had already decided to stick to minimal provisions, it is something that I want to get used to during these low intensity runs.  I stuck to two 25g servings of honeyed cashews, one at the half way point and one at the three quarter point.  It worked well for me.  I did get tempted into taking a little ginger beer at that third checkpoint though; how could I not?

Graeme and I ran together from start to finish.  My expectation was to canter round this in five hours to five and a half hours but with Graeme as wing man we clipped around in a little over four and a half.  With three marathons earlier in the week, the lack of agonising pain and the fact that my engine was still ticking over at the end, I was pretty happy with this.

I would like to say more about the course but other than being flat, picturesque and very runnable, not a lot of specifics stuck with me.  But there were a few lovely churches.

I would make an awful travel agent.

CODRC Triple Day 3

As it was written, so it came to pass.  A third gentle marathon running around in circles before being able to go home with a clear conscience.  No drama experienced and everything flowed by more smoothly that it had on the previous two days.  The pacing was even throughout the run and there were no aches, something of a miracle in my own mind.  I expect the decision to break each of the runs with regular short walk breaks kept the pain at bay and the relative freshness in the legs.

The journey home did not become the two hours of calf cramping that I had feared but instead a troublefree drive along sluggish motorways while grazing on good snacks and cans of ginger beer.  A day later and the legs are still my own and the hammer of tiredness has not fallen.  For a stupid couple of hours I had entertained the idea put forward by my ego to attend the weekly running club speedwork session.  Fortunately I have spent much of the previous three days thinking over some of the common mistakes made in running and general training.  One of my favourites being that training sessions themselves are not what makes you faster (or stronger, or whatever it is that you are training toward), but it is rather your bodies adaptation to that training.  The way that you fuel yourself, the way that you rest, the way that you do not go and beat yourself up flogging a dead horse around a track for an hour.  I am still struggling to balance the probably fact that sitting and watching TV and eating has been the right thing to do this evening.  At least I did not open the giant packet of hobnobs.

CODRC Triple Day 2

And so day two wrapped up as smoothly as I could have hoped for.  Other than managing to get completely lost on the way to the start due to an unusual failure of the Sat Nav that is.

Today's route was simple.  An out and back along a flat trail.  As a bonus, is was in the heart of the Severn valley so the views were good when I was looking around for them.  There was an interesting looking castle or fortified manor that we passed each time which I'll investigate the details of a little when I get home.  Actually, I probably will not do that, but I will add it to the list of interesting things that I have been able to see this year without the time to follow up on which I will feel bad about.

Having managed to arrive late, I set off eight minutes or so after the main group.  It was not likely to be a problem as I was not expecting to spend much time running with anyone else.  I had a game plan in mind, a hundred metre walk followed by nine hundred metres of jogging.  Watch will beep after a kilometre and time to rinse and repeat.  I was not going to look at the paces, just the heart rate, and during the hundred metre walk I would check the distance to keep me honest.  It can be tempting to choose a point a little further away to pick up the pace to a jog, particularly toward the end of a long day.

And my day was not a long day.  Not mentally anyway.  Near to five hours of running for just the distance of a marathon is obviously not exactly chewing up the ground but other than an uncomfortable twenty minutes or so while jogging (and walking) toward the portaloo, it passed.  The good thing about having a tight loop of things do to and the kilometres passed while deciding if there was anything needed during the next walking break.  Hence the beautiful sights passing by unseen, by me, at least.

And evening number three at the bunkhouse.  I am a little tired but those evenings dedicated to just recovery have helped keep it under control to the point where I think I will wake up with my alarm in the morning.  And most happily, my legs are functioning perfectly well.  I know the route tomorrow, being a repeat of Monday, and I am actually looking forward to it.  The loop has two hills which are not too steep and are perfect for recovery and nutrition.  I'm sure the time will fly.

And I very much doubt that there will be an update on these events in the short term.  Having time to burn while recovering in these hills of an evening has provided the ring-fenced time to write.  Having access to the normal pursuits of an evening from tomorrow will almost certainly draw my attention away.  I guess that normal does not apply to people running three marathons in three days, or people running fifty two marathons in a year, but then where on the scale would you put the people who chose to start these three marathons early so that they could do three ultras, or the guy who are currently going to sleep to start their twelfth marathon in twelves days in the morning, another guy who is looking to run a hundred marathons this year and has run twelve in March alone, or the guy who sleeps in his car near each race start and heading off afterward to make his way to the next start line, wherever that might be.

CODRC Triple Day 1

So it turns out that I had not quite put in enough research for these events either.  This was not the flat converted railway line that I was expecting.  Instead, we ran 32 loops of an unadopted road which were marked as trails.  This was something of a bonus for me though as it introduced hills, something that I thought I would not be seeing during these races whilst being surrounded by them each night in the beautiful All Stretton bunkhouse.

The rain driving against the roof this evening reminds me of the first two thirds of today's run.  The incessant downpour which kept the competitors in their rain jackets for most of the race.  The temperature was relatively mild however and this made hydration a little trickier to manage but a minor complication in the grand scheme of things.

A first lap jogging the route to make decisions on where walking breaks would begin, and more importantly where they would end.  And then another thirty one laps sticking to the task.  The puddles and mud growing underfoot with each loop but this soft ground helped to cushion the accumulated impacts.

Eventually time passed.  Runners pushing a little harder passed by me a number of times, those taking it easier were passed in turn.  More than four hours thirty passed during these laps and little of value passed through m mind.  The optical heart rate monitor on my latest piece of shiny equipment proved to be the intermittent trash that I was expecting, but when it started to choose random numbers to report, I had a good feel of where my effort was sitting and could safely ignore it until it returned to reality.  The main reoccurring thought was whether my feet were landing softly beneath me.  Was I maintaining the minimum damage and maximum efficiency that I could whilst sticking to a gentle effort that could be maintained for three days.  The answer was almost always, yes.  The thought occasionally held my attention to the point where I missed my mark to begin running again from a walk break but never by more than two metres.  It was about as disciplined as I could have hoped for.  Lap times were maintained to within a fifteen seconds or so with exceptions made for bathroom'ing.  Food was to be taken while walking the hills to avoid wasting time, or to provide any reason to deviate from the points chosen for walking and running.

The rain eased eventually.  Finally there was even sunshine.  Sweating in layers and a rain jacket because you cannot be bothered with the faff of removing it for the last few kilometres is either a sign of laziness or efficiency.  I'm choosing efficiency for today.

And after sensible food and time off my feet, my thoughts move to tomorrow.  I'm pretty sure that this one really is on the flattened trail of a railway line.

I would quite like the rain to stop for the morning but I will enjoy listening to it tonight.

The Year's Challlenge

Thirteen miles in and absolutely no mojo.  The legs are moving enough to make the ground pass by but every check of the watch suggests that I should consider a different hobby.

In retrospect I had not given the event enough due consideration.  It was local and relatively inexpensive.  Couple this with a lack of competing draws upon my time for the day and it was something of a no-brainer.  Another step towards a nebulous goal which was of no relevance in the real world or to anyone in full possession of their senses.  Only semi-regular checks of the calendar reminded me that this was upcoming and whilst surrounded by similar events with similar names in similar locations it had not registered meaningfully outside of the convenience of its location and thus how late I would be able to set the alarm, and how soon I could be home once the task was complete.  Much to my surprise, somebody had put hills in Leicestershire.  Not unreasonably, the organisers of the Charnwood Marathon thought that we should go over them.

The day had started well.  I was still in bed at six and awoke naturally before the alarm had a chance to get into its repertoire.  A leisurely breakfast of the exact same things I eat before every such event.  Even time to choose running kit and pack those vital bits and bobs that make the first hour post-race a more humane experience.  The fact that these things were not already sitting in their bag and awaiting collection as I moved between the bed and the event was a sure sign of my lackadaisical planning.  Somehow I managed to leave the house later than planned and despite a lack of traffic on the pleasantly short hour journey, I was later that I would have wanted to be on arrival.  Even so, the efficient team had me parked one hundred and fifty metres from the race headquarters quickly and with time to spare I had made use of the of the bathroom, amazingly lacking a queue to do the excellent choice of headquarters, something unheard of pre-race of almost any size, and registered with the organisers whilst asking a few questions about the route and checkpoints.  I had also overheard two people talking about others who had turned up to the event only to find out it was on trails rather than the roads.  How could anyone be so disorganised?  In my mind, I worried that they probably did not have the route instructions and were probably set for a rough day.  It also served to remind me that I should probably use the remaining ten minutes to find my running shoes and dig my own instructions from the car foot well.

 A nine o'clock start by the local crier and we were off jogging down the street of the small town.  There were a number of faces in the crowd to whom this would be old hat.  People you start to recognise after spending your weekends doing enough of these things.  Some you will have spoken to on other days.  Some of whom you are vaguely aware have completed enough of these things to number their marathons in the high hundreds.  A whispered few even more than that.  There were only two who's names were known to me, one due to a period of time running together a fortnight before, and the other being another Northampton runner who I should really spend more time talking to about their plans in this area.  I have noted him at nearly a dozen of these days but spoke to him for the first time at a road marathon seven days earlier and even then it was the exchange of pleasantries toward the end of the many, many laps of an airfield near Stratford.

And it was that road marathon that was on my mind during the early miles.  For all of the trail marathons and ultras undertaken, it is road marathons that can leave my legs feeling jaded for days and weeks afterward.  This year, there simply is not time for that.  My legs seemed to be moving relatively smoothly considering the short recovery time from the pounding of tarmac, but I was looking forward to getting to the trails and with them, the excuse to walk whenever I saw fit.  The name of the game here is to get around without injury and quickly enough to get home and shower and a few hours of relaxation the mind would turn to the next challenge.  Smoothly moving legs was good, but I was a little worried as to how long it would last.

And so it was that I reached the thirteen mile mark.  Stepping off the roads to the mud and grass had been good but it had also begun the start of the hills.  I was happy to walk these as had been the plan, but the volume of uphill had started to move my thoughts of a jog around five hours fifteen, a reasonable time for a self-navigated jaunt off-road, to a slow slog of six hours which could get worse if those legs did not hold up after the abuse of the previous week.  This was not the simple ticking off of another marathon before a more challenging week of running that I had had in mind.

The idea of joining the 100 Marathon Club had been peculating for a couple of years.  I could not honestly say way.  Last year I started to tot up the number of events that I had completed already and begun dropping it into the proforma required of the club.  Those training events booked months in advance would be added each weekend, or not if the draw of sleeping in had become to much.  When all was said and done, 2016 ended with my tally on forty eight.  Two shy of the figure required to join as an associate and woefully short of the hundred required for full membership.  Fifty two short to be precise.  I had no fixed goals for 2017 at that point, but the glaring gap of those fifty two marathons and the convenient fifty two weeks in the upcoming year gnawed at me.  And then the bookings started.  An LDWA event here, a small ultra there.  Occasional weekends of back to back races as commitments were already in place for some weekends of the year and despite the size of the task, I was keen to keep some freedom to attend other shorter running events which brought me pleasure in the past.  Race the Train sharing the top of the list with the Pen-y-Fan fell races (the latter of which will no doubt see me fall down the side of the mountain again as I expect to have even less ability for delicate and nimble footwork).  Only some way through these bookings did I realise that the 100 Marathon Club had a requirement for ten of the qualifying events to be classified as road.  Now I understand the draw of a road marathon for those looking to challenge themselves to a time, but as someone looking to remain relatively fresh and very much uninjured, the thought was sobering.  But through luck rather than judgement, six road marathons were already part of my back catalogue.  Some options for those other four were penciled in and a couple eventually booked.

Early in the planning of the races for 2017, I had it in mind to try and wrap up the hundred events with time to spare.  I have an idea of running in the club cross-country season and an overlap of the two challenges could be enough to flatten me.  It has been the bringing forward of that hundredth marathon that was on my mind during the second half of Charnwood.  With a Sunday to relax and recuperate, the following Monday would be the start of three marathons in three days.  The idea itself is not terrifying, but without taper and the wish to remain fresh to the point of not requiring too much recovery, the worry about injuries through overuse are real.  Mentally, a smooth Charnwood would have been a good sidle into the week.  And despite the soul destroying first half, things evened out as they usually do.  Miles slid by.  The weather moved between cloud and drizzle with enough regularity that you were always cool but never cold enough to reach for the jacket.  Gradually the head lifted enough to observe and enjoy the views from some of the peaks in the second half.  Runners who had not been seen since leaving the first village started to appear in the near distance only to disappear behind after a few miles.  The run was wrapped up in a time that I would have settled for at the start.  Other than the odd bramble scratch, I appeared to be absent of injury.  And fifteen minutes after finishing I was driving home whilst preparing a theoretical packing list for the following evening.

And so I sit in the YHA bunkhouse in All Stretton with enough running clothes to start a small shop.  The first of the three marathons will commence in twelve hours, but it is not the first one that worries me.  All three have barely any elevation change and are routed on light trail, a converted train line.  The lack of hills would be seen by most as a blessing, and it does mean that they should be wrapped up more quickly, but for me it takes away those easy options of walking, and it means the use of the same muscles for each stride.  The risk of injury seems higher here than any any point of the year so far.

And with the next event seven days from today, there really is no time for that.

Golden Fleece Circuit

And finally, an event that I have turned up for and successfully trotted around in 2016.  Who would have thought?

For anyone reading this who is unaware, the Golden Fleece Circuit is a mixed terrain event in South Yorkshire.  There are 15 and 27 mile options and it is organised by the local Scouts group.  If you've ever been to one of these, or an LDWA event, you'll know the deal on the low key nature of the day.  You'll also have a feel for how important your ability to navigate a route is if you want to have a good day out there.  Generally you'll be provided with a couple of sides of A4 route directions, a basic map, and an expectation that you can look after yourself as an adult and not be a burden on the organisers (or mountain rescue, depending on the event).

As the name suggests, the Golden Fleece Circuit is a looped course which keeps the logistics pretty simple.  The small hall that doubles as registration area pre-race, and soup kitchen post-race has enough capacity to store kit bags while you explore the nearby wilds.

For my part, the day went well.  From some basic research I knew that the route would be a mixture of paths and tarmac.  I was also aware that I wouldn't be standing on top of a moor trying to take a bearing with my rusty navigation skills.  A good prospect for the first event in a long while.  Still being in recovery from injury, and not wanting to explain a worsened wound to the nurse on the following Tuesday, my execution plan for this was to take it easy throughout.  I'd say I was about 80% successful.  I'd like to explain more about the route, but like just about every event I've taken part in, most of it was a blur.  I can be sure when I say that this is a very runnable route.  I think there was one hill that would force you to a walk even if you were looking to race this hard.  Of course, that hill was in the last couple of miles because, Race Organisers.  The route was relatively easy to follow for one of these types of events.  If you're expecting ribbons on every corner, this is not the run for you.  I did manage to step off the route for a while due to thoughtlessly following the couple of groups ahead of me, but that is most definitely my fault rather than anything else.

The weather was also a little interesting with all four seasons making an appearance.  The drive up from Northampton had been shrouded in drizzle and flurries of snow.  This is not a great sign when driving north for an outdoor event but for the majority of my run, the sky stayed on my side.  The wide expanse allowed plenty of opportunity to watch the clouds as they rolled in, not that there was much to be done about it when it did arrive.  10 minutes of chilly rain 90 minutes into the race, sun so warm that I would have been happier in shorts and t-shirt during the next hour, and then a little later, driving hail as I travelled along a ridge line.  It did finally throw it down with rain in the minutes after I finished.  You couldn't help but feel for those still out on the course.

It is a couple of days later now and no particular ill effects seem to have occurred.  My calves would feel happier if I'd put in some proper training in the weeks beforehand.  I did pick up a head cold which is yet to clear but nothing that is preventing ongoing training, so it would seem that the Edale Skyline on Sunday is still on the cards.  At least that is only 21 miles.  This was certainly my thinking until I started to read the blogs of people who ran the race in 2015.  The thought of running in thigh deep mud was not something that gets my juices flowing at this moment in time.

For reference, I've noticed that some of the events I attend do not have good route files available so I'll be uploading mine.  The FIT file is direct from the Fenix 3.  The gpx file is the converted version through Garmin connect.  For this event, it is definitely worth bearing in mind that I took a bit of a detour 20km in.

Route files