"Train Hard, Race Easy"

I never got this, I'm bit slow on the uptake no doubt,  but the penny's hovering even if it hasn't dropped completely. You'll have to stay to the end for the punchline.

Ultra races have hills. Well some don't, I suppose. I ran the Thames Trot from Oxford to Henley last year, I don't think I'll do it again, it was certainly flat enough to put me off ever thinking about any of the canal towpath events. No, for me, ultras have hills. Even so, some are real runners' races, like the West Highland Way, where a three hour marathon will probably stand you in better stead for a good finish than a regular bout of Munro-bashing. The hills are there but they're not huge and there are long gentle bits in between. Then there are the races that are mostly hills, where they come at you in a steady and relentless succession. To get round these there's no alternative, you have to go out and practise hills, lots of them. These events come later in the year on my programme, the Lakeland 100, the UTMB, etc, so it's been my strategy to work on getting distance at a reasonable speed up until around April, then start  hill training after that, when the days are longer and the weather generally better. It hasn't worked, so this year I started on the hills much earlier, after a longish break from running in September.

I'm lucky in that both Snowdonia and the Lakes are near enough for a day out so that's where I usually trained. Now in races I never run up hills. I might jog extremely slowly up the odd gentle slope but in general I reckon that if I can still run the downs and the flats for most of the race, that's the best use of energy. So I've never run up hills in training either  - well if you're not going to do it for real, why bother practising? Just have a good day out, put in a reasonable amount of height gain and it must be doing you good. 

Well during the winter, weather, time pressures, or general laziness meant that I didn't get out to the mountains every week. But I have a good enough local hill, from the car park to the summit is around 900ft of ascent, and my favourite loop gets up in just under two miles and down in two and a half.  My loop used to take an hour, give or take, walk up, run down. Sometimes I would do three or four laps. But then one day I did it with a heart rate monitor, something that I usually only use on tempo runs because I'm not over technical about these things. Can't remember why, just did it. I noticed that my heart rate never approached any sort of elevated zone. Doing the hills was probably helping with muscles but I was getting no other training benefit at all. I was working harder on recovery runs around the lanes at home.

So I started to run the uphill section of the loop. At first it was painfully slow, I could probably have walked faster, but over the weeks I got into it. My lap times on the hill are nearer to 45 minutes now, and I can break 40 if I only do one lap. The big learning for me was that although I am getting pretty knackered as I get near the top of the "up", by the time I have had nearly 20 minutes of running downhill I'm ready to go again. Like I said, slow to learn what everyone else already knows. Measurable progress is encouraging in any form, so even now the weather is starting to improve, I shall still go and do a few laps of "the hill" occasionally.

My last two significant runs have been a six mile tempo at 7.07 pace (still can't get to the elusive 7!) and a 30 mile trail run at 11.15 pace.  If you've followed my blog a while, no prizes for guessing which I found tougher, but the trail run, as well as being the most enjoyable, showed two interesting effects.  It was my first long run of the year (this time last year I'd already done a 34 and a 50, but I'm happy starting a bit more gently this year, the summer's still a long way off) along a trail I know quite well. There is about 4000ft of ascent over the section I ran, no big climbs but sections that definitely slow you down, up 300ft down the same, that sort of thing.

I've been playing around with training without fuel, so I ran the first 20 miles on just water. I didn't feel particularly bad, but as soon as I started eating (two gels between 20 miles and the end) I felt supercharged, and definitely ran the last 10 miles fastest. Not sure what to make of this, does it mean that practising the fat-burning is doing some good or does it just demonstrate that it's a complete waste of time?

But the clear and biggest positive was the hills. After running my 900ft up on "the hill"  regularly, all the little hills on the trail just felt as if they weren't there. Now I'm far from thinking that this is going to make a big difference to my performance in the events this year, but it's a real psychological leg up. And as so many wise people have said, get your head right and the rest is easy.

"....Either I'm too sensitive, or else I'm gettin' soft......" *

I like reading the running blogs, so once or twice a week I click up the blue page on the WHW site and see what everyone's been up to. Here we are barely out of of January and I've read of folk turning out in the pre-dawn and running long into the dark evenings. Thirty mile trail runs and fearsome snowy hills. Running in crampons on the ice. Two hundred plus miles for the year already. Ten mile tempos at a pace I can just about sustain for three or four when I'm going well. I'm impressed, inspired, but also I have to admit a little envious.

For I have a confession to make; I just don't like this time of year at all. It's cold, dark, and gloomy. Now thirty or forty years ago I used to be able shoulder my iceaxe to spend several freezing hours in a Scottish gully with spindrift pouring down my neck and feel that I'd had a good day out, but these days I just can't face it. Same with running, I get out there and my hands and feet never warm up, joints creak, and the whole thing just feels so well, hard. 

Sunday evening my lady wife and I were driving out in the sub zero darkness en route to The King's Speech (a very worthwhile trip, if you haven't yet) when we passed a runner in shorts. Shorts, for heaven's sake! Are these guys macho, or crazy, or are they just on another planet from me? Surely there must be other wimps out there who would rather be enjoying a pie and a pint by a roaring fire?

But then yesterday it got warm; temperatures reached a heady 10 degrees. The sunlight slanted down from a cloudless sky and well past five in the evening I could still see the trail. It won't last of course, but just a glimmer of that winter might be on the way out, maybe not the end but the beginning of the end. Hope so.

(*"If you see her, say hello", from Blood on the Tracks, Bob Dylan)

A Lot to Digest?

I was going to ramble on about something else but John Kynaston's recent post on nutrition brought me back to this for (I hope!) the last time for a while. I think all the theories have been pretty well covered by people far more qualified than me, but I have found the anecdotal evidence from everyone interesting and helpful, so for what it's worth here is my contribution, just a collection of thoughts on what I've experienced and what I think I've learned over the past few years.

1. Why is nutrition so important?

 Since I got interested in ultras four years ago I've read a lot of race reports, and a common thread is

 - if you didn't perform as well as you had hoped in a 50 mile race, it is quite likely to have been a nutrition problem

- if you didn't perform as well as you had hoped in a 100 mile race, it is very likely to have been a nutrition problem

OK, some people twist ankles (unlucky or careless), some end up with sore muscles (not enough training), but lots of well prepared people have a tough time on the day because the food doesn't work out right.

2. Listening to the experts

The advice I've seen is interesting and directionally useful but I'm sceptical that anyone can just tell you what to do and it will work. Two problems at least:-

- you have to work out your own "energy balance" figures, the "rule of thumb" ones are just too approximate. I see figures quoted for the energy you burn when running, but in two different runs last week I recorded 430 cals/hour and 990 cals/hour (Garmin figures, but is there a better source?). This is already a wide range, but I'm a fairly average 11 stones in weight  -  if you are 7 stones or 14 the figures would be very different.

- nutritionists are rarely if ever "average" ultra runners. Some don't run at all, so will not appreciate what it's like trying to make a food choice 20 hours into a race, and at the other extreme some are the top ultra runners who (a) run a lot faster than me so will burn energy much faster, and (b) get round even the longest races in not much over 24 hours, so don't know what it feels like at the end of a second night out.

3. The amount of calories you can take in per hour.

Again I've seen quoted figures but these are for a runner with a set physiology and particular weight going at a particular speed. This must also vary widely. I haven't recorded exactly what I've eaten/drunk in many races, I'm not that organised, but here are a few examples from occasions when I did take the trouble:

- In the 2009 Highland Fling I took in 4000 cals; for a 10,5 hour run this was 380 cals/hour.

- In the 2010 Highland Fling I took in 2400 cals; for a 10,2 hour run this was 235 cals/hour.

I can't remember which run felt better, I remember them as being about the same.

-In the 2010 West Highland Way I took in 4000 cals; for a 23,5 hour run this was 174 cals/hour.

My experience has been that I can take in more cals/hour in shorter (50 mile) races because it takes 12 hours or so of action before the continuous motion of running starts to affect digestion. Conversely (or may be logically) on events with a lot of hills where the average pace is much lower (more walking), I tend to eat more.

4. When to eat

The advice is to start replacing carbs right from the start of the race. I have found I have to be very careful not to overeat in the first 30-50 miles. The paradox here is that food tastes good in the early part of a race and you are tempted to take in plenty to get it "in the bank", but this is the very period when you are going fastest so have the least spare energy for digestion. In the WHW race I have traditionally met my crew for the first time at Rowardennan (27 miles), stopped for breakfast and then waddled out so full of tea and butties that I could barely walk for the next few miles. I have firmly come to the view that "a little and often" is the way for me; this is quoted received wisdom by many, but it doesn't square with the sort of food that is usually on offer at fully provided events - lots of pasta, cakes, bread and cheese, etc.

5. What to eat

For me there is not (or maybe not yet) any magic answer; also, I find that the advice to try out your race nutrition in training simply doesn't work. For example I once tried Perpetuem, liked it, tried it out on a 55 mile training run and it worked great. I used it as the main nutrition strategy for that year's WHW and it was a disaster; I found I couldn't stand the stuff after 20 miles and ate almost nothing from there to the end.

The bit of advice that has worked best for me is to work more with liquids and gels rather than solids; I really enjoy a Mars bar or a marmalade sandwich but I know now that a gel or a milkshake will do me more good for longer.

I know a lot of people move from sweet to savoury tastes as they go through the event; I agree with this to a certain extent but I also find that some sweet things such as low-flavour gels (like Gu), fizzy Coke, crystallised ginger, etc hit the spot right through to the end. I think it's worth trying lots until you discover your own fallback fuels.

Although it didn't feel right when I first started this "athletic" activity, I'm now happy to get a lot of my calories from fizzy drinks if they're available  - Coke and ginger beer are my favourites. I used to "pre-flatten" them to go in a conventional hydration system but they taste so much better with the fizz still in  - although you do get sticky hands at times!

6. Eating "enough"

The biggest encouragement in recent discussions, a big eye-opener if you like, has been the general consensus on how little food you can absorb continuously  -  put another way how little you can get by on and still run a good race. I think this has removed a huge psychological barrier. I (and I'm sure others) used to worry that we "weren't eating enough" to survive the course; this puts an additional pressure on you, you try unsuccessfully to take in more food, and it's easy to get into a downward spiral of mental negativity. In the 2007 CCC, I was recovering from a bad cold, coughing a lot and not eating  much in the days leading up to the race. I ate nothing in the race itself except Coke and chicken noodle soup but finished in the first quarter of the field, easily my best result in the Chamonix races; on reflection, the fuel was perfectly adequate and my attitude of "well there really isn't any alternative today" contributed to the relaxation required for a good run. It's taken me over three years to evaluate this properly. I'm now happy that 150-200 cals/hour will get me around, less if there's a lot of walking involved.

7. The other stuff 

The other stuff of course is hydration and electrolyte balance. I'm still working on hydration; I don't often get thirsty so the advice to "drink to thirst" doesn't work, I have to experiment with different intake rates to try to maintain weight during a long outing. It's a tricky business and any advice would be welcome; at the moment I seem to be homing in on between two and four hours running from a litre of fluid, depending on temperature and activity level.

In many of my events I have suffered from nausea at some point. By a couple of years ago I had understood that this was almost certainly due to electrolyte imbalance, but what to do about it? The big problem I had that once it started I couldn't seem to work through it, it was with me until the end of the race. I had tried Nuun (couldn't take any of the flavours after 12 hours or so) and Succeed caps (got worried about taking too many in relation to fluid intake in case it made things worse). After a lot of experimenting (which you can normally only do under race conditions!) I have come to the conclusion that Succeed is best for me, one an hour in normal conditions regardless of fluid intake; I have also found that taking two or three together with a drink or a bowl of soup can actually retrieve a situation that is starting to get bad.

That's it then, more than enough from me on this subject, though I'm very interested to learn of other peoples' experiences and strategies. I had a great outing in the Lakes on Friday, round a bit of the Lakeland 100, blue skies above and frozen ground underfoot, that's what the game's really about, fuel is just a means to an end.

Enough is Enough?

A couple of years ago I wouldn't have dared coming clean in January about plans for the year in case things went wrong. Well, things always do go wrong one way or another but the blogging spirit eventually overcomes the inhibitions so now I'm happy to nail up my colours and take the flak if the performances don't meet the ambitions.

Now I've always felt my plans were fairly modest compared with some of the keener ultra competitors - John Vernon, Jim D, Sue Donelly and Rob Apple to name just a few - but both this year and last I detected the mildest hint of a raised eyebrow at my gameplan. The ever wise Murdo tM put things in true perspective by directing me to Nick Ham's blog, with the comment "You're just a part-timer Andy!"

2011 Gameplan

Well, after two or three weeks of inactivity it's time to creak into action for the New Year. At the moment I'm working on the ten pounds or so of extra insulation that my daughter refers to as the "Christmas cocktail coat" and wondering whether I'll see the underside of an eight minute mile ever again, but I'm sure that's the same for many of us and deep down we all know that it will probably come good in a few weeks. Just need to get out there on the "Lance Armstrong days", face a bit of weather and pain again, and sooner or later the sun comes out.

The more rewarding part is planning the year's objectives. I decided I would do fewer races this year but it's like opening the chocolate box, with such delights available which ones can you possibly not go for? I guess my compromise is to start a bit later and get two or three months solid work in first, so here's the plan:

19 March: Hardmoors 55 (54 miles) After running this one in the rain, wind and fog last year I really wanted to see the view so I'm back. Jon Steele's "Hardmoor" series of races based on the Cleveland Way are well organised yet pretty laid-back affairs and deserve the increasing support they seem to be drawing.  About 50 entrants so far so it should be good. It won't be a fast race for me, first of the season, somewhere near the 12 hours I got last year will be fine.

10 April: Rotterdam Marathon. I lived in Rotterdam for over six years and still have a soft spot for the place, this will be my fifth start in the event. I enjoy city marathons and this is in my calendar so I don't neglect to do a bit of speed work in the first quarter of the year. Again it won't be a PB but I should be aiming for somewhere around the three and a half hours.

30 April: Highland Fling (53 miles). Couldn't miss it. This was my first ultra in 2007 and I've run them all since then.It's where I first started to meet all these amazing crazy people who think that turning out for fifty or a hundred miles on a Saturday is somehow a completely normal activity. Irresistible. If I can get to the start in good shape I'll have a good crack at it, 11 minutes faster than last year would get me under 10 hours, must be worth a shot (can't believe I've just owned up to that plan...)

18 June: West Highland Way (95 miles). Why do this one? If you have to ask, the family haven't talked to you yet. I'd like to finish in good shape somewhere around the 24 hour mark, but each year I've set myself  a sort of "process goal" on this one rather than the specific time. For the last two years it was to get to Lundavra in daylight which I finally achieved last year. This year I'd like to get to the Lairig Mor in a fit state to run along it - rather than the hobble that I normally do!

29 July: Lakeland 100 (104 miles). If it isn't already, this will surely become the UK's premier ultra. A rugged and very demanding but beautiful course, great organisation and lots of welcoming "village hall" checkpoints. Over two hundred entries into the solo event so far this year, the race director is predicting it will be full within the next month or so, in only the fourth year of running. Goal for me - completing the course is tough enough.

26 August: Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc(104 miles). The race that sooner or later every ultra runner will want to do to complete their CV. Having missed out in last year's ballot I have an automatic entry for this year. The whole Chamonix experience, with over 2000 starters this is not wilderness racing but certainly not to be missed. Just run up and down Snowdon, then Ben Nevis, then jog an undulating 10 miles; repeat 4 times and that's all there is to it. You have 46 hours  - 45:59 will do nicely, thanks.

15 October: Round Rotherham (50 miles). I've missed this the past two years because it has clashed with family events, but determined to go back this year because it's such a good course and enjoyable day out. No particular goals for the fourth quarter of the year, just enjoy it.

17 December: Tour de Helvellyn (36 miles). Haven't had confirmation that this will be run again, but after the success of last year I'm sure it will. A bit of a target to keep me in action before the Christmas rest again.

So that's it, seven ultras of various lengths and a marathon.  A bit less than last year's plan but still a full year, I'm really looking forward to it.

2010 that was

Well, all the stuff that has to be done before Christmas seems to be done, so an hour or so earned to think back over the year and maybe what I've got out of it.

I won't dwell on the individual races, I wrote about each one after the event and the results are over on the right anyway. I was pleased with some and felt I probably could have done better in others but that's par for the course I guess. I wondered at times whether I had signed up for too many but on balance it worked out OK. I won't deliberately target so many for next year but I won't artificially restrict myself either if there are events that look as though they're going to be fun.

What I have done though is to try and analyse one or two statistics, a thing that I'm not usually interested in but I'm glad I did it because I've found the results a bit surprising  - chastening, one might say. The basics for the 50 weeks of the year that I've recorded are

Total miles run 2050
- so average miles per week was 41; in reality a bit higher when active, as I've had several weeks off ski-ing, climbing, etc.

Number of runs 181
- so average number of runs per week was 3,6 -  a bit more if you allow for the "missed weeks" above, but it's clear that I still take plenty of days off!
- and the average length of run was 11,3 miles. I know this is skewed by the long races but I was still surprised.

As I was surprised by this mean length of run, I broke down the number of outings into bands:-
Length of Run        No of Runs
less than 5m           42
5m - 10m               80
10m - 20m             39
20m - 50m             14
more than 50m         6

There is no consistent correlation between the length of the run and the speed, because for example a 10 mile run might be a fast (?!) - paced outing around my local lanes, or a trip up Snowdon. So I looked also at the total miles run at different average paces:-
Pace (mins/mile)     Total Distance at this pace (miles)
below  7,30               37           (tempo pace for me)
7,30 -  9,00             626          (comfortable road and easy trail running)
9,00 - 12,00            558          (mixed trail and hill, just about still running)
above 12,00            829          (hills and rough country)

Now even though over 340 miles in the last band came from just 4 events (Heart of Scotland, WHW, Lakeland 100 and UTMB), I think these two tables show that:

(a) I'm a jogger who runs occasionally, rather than a runner!
(b) I like getting out in the hills and enjoying the day out rather than doing specific training
(c) The amount of time I put into higher aerobic stuff is pretty pathetic
(d) I don't get out as often as I should
(e) I'm not going to improve unless I change my training habits.

I need to think about this over a glass or three of red wine during the Christmas holiday - do I want to carry on what I'm doing, and carry on enjoying it as I do now, or should I respond to the "could do better" prompt?

Another takeout from the year in a different area is that after 4 years of running ultras I think I'm now finally convinced that age (not a subject I like to dwell on too long!)  is not all that relevant.  I used to feel that I had to make the very best of each year because I might not get another chance, but now I'm much more of a mind that if you keep going you can keep going.

Whatever, I've enjoyed every step of the year (well, maybe waiting for the bus in the downpour for the TDS that never started wasn't so great, but you get the picture..) and I'm looking forward to next with some excitement. I'll post my plans next time.

To all readers of my infrequent and sometimes random ramblings, have a great Christmas and New Year. See you at the races!

Ending with a Whimper

I was really looking forward to my last event of the year, the "Tour de Helvellyn". Reccied the bits of the course I didn't already know, waymarks in the GPS just in case, bag packed and up at 5am, leaving a generous two and a half hours to cover the 140 miles to Askam, register, and start at what I guessed would be first light at around eight. The forecast was for a cold but clear day and the race organiser said on Friday night that it was looking good for the event. There was an inch or so of snow on the car as I left the house but once out of the village the roads seemed fine apart from a seemingly unnecessary 50mph limit on the M56.

At 7am I was in the vicinity of Wigan, barely 40 miles of the journey done, sitting on the northbound M6 which had become a carpark. There were stationary trucks everywhere.  I found a radio station which told the story, the road had been blocked since midnight because of a fair bit more snow than expected and a jacknifed truck. Eventually we got going again but it was 20mph stuff with the road congested and constricted. I had no chance of making the final start time of 9am, let alone my chosen one of 8. I reluctantly bailed out at the next junction and drove slowly home, to spend the rest of the day hanging doors in the kitchen.

The race was a great success, 50 starters, 37 finishers, a fine day out by all accounts.

The following day I made my weekly trip over the Pennines to visit my mum in Sheffield; there was barely a scrape of snow on the road the whole way. That's life.

But the year wasn't all bad, review in a few days.