So why does my Garmin tell lies?

I have a Garmin Forerunner 305 and while for most things it's a splendid bit of kit, there is one bit of measurement that it's rather bad at.  Now if you're training to run long races, one of your key records will be the total distance you've run; for example I always feel reasonably confident if I've covered about a thousand miles before the first big event of the year, the West Highland Way Race. But if your races start to involve a lot of real hills, the quantity that becomes as important as your mileage and maybe even more so is the total height of ascent you have accumulated. Bob Graham Round aspirants will talk of needing to build up enough "10,000 ft weeks" and so on. And this is where the Garmin starts to go wrong; not just a little bit wrong but seriously wrong at times, sufficiently to question it's usefulness at all for recording height gain. This has bugged me for a year or two now so I set about trying to find out the reasons for the problem and what I could do about it.

While I hadn't bothered to gather any proper evidence, my feeling was that in hilly country the Garmin was overestimating the ascent a bit, but as the route becomes flatter the overestimation goes up substantially. I first looked at a couple of outings to see whether this was actually true.

Last Sunday I went for a walk in the Lakes, a slightly extended form of the Kentmere horseshoe but convenient for this exercise because I have the exact same walk in a guidebook, the author of which gives the total ascent for the round as 4400ft. It has quite a bit of up and down, but also some long stretches with gentle gradients once you are on the main ridge. My Garmin told me that the total ascent was around 4800ft. So, accurate to about 10%  - not great but in the ballpark.  The following day I went out for a steady six and a half mile run along a straight and level section of my local canal towpath; allowing for the odd thickness change in the footpath bed, maybe a total height gain of 10ft. The Garmin showed a total height gain of 724ft.  So here we have the issue.

I've found it very difficult to get any real information on how the Garmin works, but I've managed to piece together the following - any comments or additional gen would be most welcome!

First, there is an inaccuracy whenever the Garmin takes a height reading; I've found a few views on why this happens but I'm happy to just put it down to "the system". It makes small errors all the time and larger errors less frequently. If I look at the elevation trace of my canal run it's very noisy but most of the variation is within +/-15ft though there are occasional peaks and troughs at +/-50ft. The trace of my Kentmere walk was much smoother and enabled me to compare the map height at each top with the height recorded by the Garmin, which gave the following comparison:

Top                        Map Height       Garmin Height     Error

Yoke                      2316                 2321                     +5

Ill Bell                     2483                 2491                     +8

Froswick                2360                 2394                     +34

Thornthwaite Crag  2572                 2570                     -2

Gray Crag              2293                 2233                     -60

High St                   2718                 2728                     +10

Mardale Ill Bell       2496                 2525                     +29

Harter Fell              2552                 2588                     +36

Kentmere Pike        2396                 2423                     +27

Shipman Knotts      1926                 1958                      +32

So again, not very scientific but you can see the spread of accuracy, similar to that on the flat.

But secondly we have to think about when the Garmin takes the readings and what it then does with them.

On a Forerunner 305 there are two modes of data capture. Mode 1 collects and processes a set of data once per second. A lot of data in a short time, useful for downhill ski-ing, mountain biking, and maybe runners doing sprint sessions but too much for distance runners, especially as in this mode the data store is full in 3,5 hours. Most ultra runners will have the Garmin set to Mode 2, which is called "smart" capture. A simple interpretation of this is that it collects and processes a new set of data when it sees that something has changed - direction, speed, etc.

When it constructs a trace for any parameter over time  -  position, height, heart rate, etc - the Garmin then applies a "smoothing" algorithm so you see the trend rather than the noise of all the individual readings. This works better for some parameters than for others, for example position (ie the "map" track) and heart rate are quite smooth, whereas pace is always quite noisy.  Height ("elevation" in Garmin-speak) seems to be noisy for flat courses and much smoother for hilly ones.

It's easy enough to see where the over-estimation of height gain comes from, look at the sketch below:

 

This shows the elevation of a track. The blue line shows a runner progressing along a level course A-B-C-D. The red line shows the Garmin interpretation of the elevation it thinks the runner is at. It underestimates at A, overestimates at B, and so on. So unless the red line is completely smoothed by the algorithm to match the blue one, the Garmin will record height gains from A to B, and from C to D, where in reality there are none. This is a gross simplification, but it shows the problem. Now imagine that the runner is actually going uphill, as below:

Again there are errors in the Garmin elevation record, but because there is now an actual height gain, the degree of over-prediction will be less. Again a huge simplification, but you get the point. So it will be easier for the algorithm to smooth the trace if there are actual elevation changes than if there are none, and I could surmise that the steeper the route, the more accurate the Garmin will get, which seems to agree with what I find in practice.

So where has this little exercise got us?

Well, if you're still with me, I think I've convinced myself that

1. Garmin "height gain" is inaccurate because there is an inaccuracy in the initial readings.

2. The system is able to compensate better for the inaccuracies as the course gets hillier

3. There seems to be some sort of semi-logical explanation for this.

What I don't have is any way of applying a correction that will work consistently, even an empirical one. For example, I suspect that the inaccuracy would be different on a continuously up and down course than on one with the same overall height gain comprising one big hill and flat for the rest of the route.

 

What I do seem to find looking back over quite a few records is that if the outing shows a Garmin height change overall of around 300ft per mile, then the record starts to look believable. Below that, I think the errors are significant and I don't think I'll bother with them.

Any comments or contributions welcome!

Wandering with AW

Rainbow over Martindale

As my regular reader will know I haven't been doing a lot of running lately. Actually I've just started again, which has now presented me with the interesting problem of how to make up for missing the best part of four weeks then fitting in a taper before the Highland Fling in two weeks time. Well. no-one said this game was supposed to be easy.

But in the meantime I felt I should get out a bit, and while any movement involving sudden deceleration (like a foot hitting the ground every running stride) brought with it some incentive not to try a repeat, I could walk more or less OK. My main adventure for this year is the Tor des Geants in September, which basically consists of walking up a lot of big hills, so I thought it wouldn't hurt to start early and get some uphill practice in the bag. But where to go? My biggest local hill is Snowdon and while it's a fine peak I feel I have some personal acquaintance with almost every rock on the main paths by now. No, I would go back to the Lakes, which apart from the Lakeland 100 route and the odd day Bob Graham wondering (no, not a typo) I know much less well.

Start walking in the Lakes and you immediately run up against AW. Not many folk are immediately recognised by their initials alone, but Alfred Wainwright's "Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells" must be known to anyone who ever pulled on a pair of boots. So much so that the 214 tops detailed in his series of hand written and illustrated books are now known simply as "The Wainwrights", a list to sit alongside the Munros, Corbetts, Nuttalls, and so on, and collecting the Wainwrights is a pastime to which many Lakeland wanderers devote a fair amount of time. Jan and I know several people with pieds a terre in Cumbria who are devotees, including one couple who having completed the set a time or two are now setting about revisiting them in alphabetical order; retirement affects us all in different ways.

Now I've never been one for ticking off lists but I guess you know what's coming. I decided the best way to get to know the Lakes better and do a bit of uphill training at the same time would be to have a tilt at the Wainwrights. To put the thing in perspective, this is not like setting out on the Munros. Joss Naylor once visited every top within a long, long week, but by any measure he was (and still is) a pretty handy performer and if you read the accounts he was a bit tired when he finished. A calendar year, or maybe a summer, might be a more sensible objective.

So I bought my "Wainwright Map" and got started. In five day trips so far I've clocked up 55 tops. The low hanging fruit is always the easiest of course and the thing will get harder, but the days are longer now and maybe I'll even get a bit fitter. And part of the fun is the evening spent before any trip trying to work out an interesting route over a reasonable number of hills. I was surprised to find when I started that over the years I had already climbed around 60, so I set a simple rule for this year. Any top that I have not visited before I would make sure that I did on a day when I could see the view, which left me this 60 "in reserve" for days of mist and low cloud.

Wainwright Map

What I've found already is a lot of pleasure in going to places I would never have considered. Sitting alone on the splendid summit of Cold Pike watching the crowds on the Crinkle Crags to Pike o' Blisco motorway; lunch on the warm springy grass on top of The Nab under a blue sky, and a dozen other memories already.

Will I see it through this summer? I hope and think so, once I've embarked on something I don't give up so easily. But I'll have to get back to a bit of proper running again now. Watch this space.

The Toughest Race in the World?

This is one of my rambles, be prepared, you may need a gin and tonic or whatever to get you to the end.

I'm a bit out of action for the moment, bruised ribs from a fall nearly two weeks ago, not helped by the coughing from a nasty cold, and it's making any exercise a bit painful. So I'm busying myself with some long promised household DIY and then getting to grips with the car I'm trying to build in my shed (every man needs a shed). But in pursuing these tasks ones thoughts wander, and mine have been wandering back over a subject I blogged about nearly three years ago  -  what makes a race "tough"? I think two things prompted the the theme:

1. Ultra Running has gained huge momentum even in the short time I've been involved. Lots of new events are springing up, many of them claiming to be "the toughest" race in the UK, the World, whatever. So if the claim has even a scrap of legitimacy, what are the criteria that make a race "tough"? The figures you generally see when a race is advertised are the length and the total height gain - are these the real qualifiers?

2. A chance remark in an online forum I read and occasionally contribute to. A runner who had entered the Hardmoors 55 but hadn't run it before asked how it compared with the Lakeland 50, which he completed last year. He was concerned that the cut-offs in the Hardmoors looked a bit tight. After thinking a bit  I fashioned a reply along the lines of   "Different sort of race. The Hardmoors has lots of runnable ground and no major climbs, but it's longer, the weather can be bleak in March, and the indoor checkpoints are much further apart. I would expect an average runner to take an hour or so less for the Hardmoors." Although I haven't done the Lakeland 50 (planned for this year), I have covered the ground in training and as the second half of the Lakeland 100, and my impression is that the individual big climbs and the proportion of more technical ground underfoot make it a tougher event. The guy who asked the question duly completed the Hardmoors and reported that he enjoyed it but that he had found it tougher than the Lakeland 50. Was that just a subjective difference of opinion, or is there something more interesting here?

Well, within a few miles these races are the same length, so how do their height gains compare? The Hardmoors claims 2700m of ascent and the Lakeland 3000m...........hmm, not so much different in the overall scheme of things. I wondered just how much bigger the hills were on the Lakeland 50, so I put the two profiles on the same scale, and they came out like this:

Now I'm not claiming 100% accuracy for these profiles, it's beyond my limited ability to take information from very different sources and present it with total consistency, but they should be good enough to give an impression of the hills involved. What they show here is that although the climbs on the Hardmoors are smaller, they are not insignificant and there are more of them.

This got me thinking about another comparison. The Hardmoors 55 and the Highland Fling are on paper almost identical courses, the Fling being 53 miles and 2600m of ascent, and the Hardmoors 54 miles and 2700m. You could even argue that the Fling balances its very small disadvantage by by more technical ground in the section just north of Inversnaid. Yet having run the Hardmoors three times and the Fling five, I can't get my Hardmoors time better than well over an hour slower than my Fling times. But check out the comparative profiles of these two:

What is happening here is that although the Fling does have a few real climbs, a lot of the total height gain comes from a large number of much smaller ups and downs. I'm starting to think that this "undulating" height gain has a lesser impact on us, both physically and mentally, than "significant" (we'll come back to that word!) climbs. For another example, the Round Rotherham 50 miler has a total height gain of 800m, which would be a major climb in anyone's book, but because it is spread out evenly all around the route you would be pushed to remember a single uphill, and the overall impression is of a fast, flat course.

This got me interested in looking  at the way the hills present themselves in other popular events. First, compare the West Highland Way (95 miles, 4500m of ascent) and the Lakeland 100 (104 miles, 6300m):

No prizes for guessing why the WHW record is well under 16 hours while that for the Lakeland is a whisker off 22. Not only does the Lakeland have more climbing overall, but it has a lot more more distinct "ups". But the climbs on the Lakeland 100 are put firmly in their place when you compare it with the Bob Graham Round  (around 70 miles, total ascent 8000m), as you can see below:

Although shorter by 30 miles, the BG with its continually tricky,  often trackless ground and real navigational challenges is clearly a tougher proposition. Or is it? Maybe it depends on the time pressures, we'll come to that later.

I have heard people claim that because of these climbs, and the ground underfoot being more technical, the Lakeland 100 is as tough as the UTMB (104 miles, total ascent 9000m). Well, actually no, have a look:

Maybe this is why the Lakeland has an allowed time of 40 hours and the UTMB one of 46.  The UTMB with its huge publicity is often quoted as "the world's toughest ultra" which I'm sure cuts no ice with the Americans who have the Hardrock with the same distance and height gain, all done at a significantly higher average altitude. Just to complete the European scene, here is the UTMB compared with the first half of the Tor des Geants (overall 200 miles, total ascent 24000m), which suggests that even in Europe the UTMB may not claim the overall difficulty crown.

Well, these comparisons might be interesting but where is all this leading?  Before I start jumping to conclusions, there's another point that came out of the original forum comment. The guy asking the question felt that in the Hardmoors 55 "the cut-offs look tight". Now I've never really thought about this because the Hardmoors 55 is comfortably within my capability. The overall time allowance is 15 hours and I would always expect to complete in under 12. But the total time allowed for the Lakeland 50 is 24 hours, so if you're a runner for whom these events are a challenge to complete,   you obviously have to get more of a move on in the Hardmoors than the Lakeland.  And running even a little faster than you are really comfortable with takes its toll. Jon Steele made a similar point recently, saying something along the lines of " In the Hardmoors 110, the climbs after Osmotherly feel so much easier than in the 55, because you're going slower." I can go along with this, because I find the Highland Fling course much easier when it is run as the first half of the West Highland Way, taking me an hour or more longer than when I run the Fling as a race in itself.  

So if the allowed times are more generous, this lets more runners pick their own pace and not be driven by the cutoffs, so the event will seem less tough for many. Now in spite of the comparisons I've made above, the West Highland Way is still a demanding event; you need a good degree of both training and commitment to run 95 miles with 4500m of ascent. But if your aim is to finish, rather than achieve a specific time target, then the 35 hour allowance definitely helps, both physically and psychologically. You can get quite a lot of things wrong and still make the finish (I have some personal experience of this!). Last year 80% of the starters finished, and of the finishers only 17% took more than 31.5 hours (ie taking more than 90% of the total time allowed).  But in the same year the Lakeland 100 and the UTMB had statistics similar to each other but very different from the WHW; only 50% of the starters finished, and over 40% of the finishers took more than 90% of the time allowed.

So, time to tease out a few conclusions on "what makes a race tough?"

Last time I blogged on this, I said it was really only about about length, height gain, and ground underfoot. I've changed my mind.

Length  - yes, it's a bigger undertaking to run 100 miles than to run 50.

Height Gain - yes, it's harder to run uphill than on the flat, and even harder if the hills are significant.  For me I think this means when a continuous uphill goes up a steeper than runnable slope for 100m or more of vertical gain  -  these are the ones you remember.

Ground Underfoot  - yes, it's harder going over the scree and boulders of a typical Lakes or Snowdonia footpath than a leafy forest track, and even harder through the knee-deep heather and bog you meet on some bits of the Bob Graham.

But all these things are only harder if you try to keep up the same speed. They are not harder if you decide to go SLOWER. It's taken a while but I'm finally coming around to believe the adage that I was given by several experienced runners when I started this game  - " it's not the distance that gets you, it's the pace". So, if (and this is quite a big if) you've done the right preparation - you've trained, you know how to manage nutrition, hydration, lack of sleep and so on - there is no reason why a long, hilly event should be any tougher than a shorter, flatter one, if you are able and allowed to take it at a pace which is comfortable. Remember, we're not talking about the racers at the front of the field here, nor even about someone striving for a personal best time in an event they know they can complete comfortably, this is about how tough the guys who just want to get round in reasonable shape find the experience.

A couple of years ago I did a 100mile LDWA event in Scotland which had, apart from a 20 mile section in the middle, gentle climbs and easy ground underfoot. I was in no hurry and finished in just over 30 hours. 3 weeks later I was able to run a PB in the West Highland Way. No pressure and an easy (for me) pace got me an easy trip. But the cut-off times in both the Lakeland 100 and the UTMB are very challenging for me, so I find the events tough. 46 hours for the UTMB, particularly with the faster pace required to make the cut-offs up to half way is hard, but it's nothing to do with the length or the terrain. Last summer I walked around the UTMB course in just over 70 hours and it felt like a holiday.  I believe I'm close enough to get around the UTMB one day but it's a stretching target. But as for the major mountain rounds, I think they're beyond me now. I enjoy travelling the Lakeland fells enormously and could get round the Bob Graham in say 30 hours but I think sub 24 just isn't on (but I guess that's why we now have the Joss Naylor Challenge for more "mature" Lakeland addicts).

So back to where we came in. What makes a race tough? The answer is simple  -  the Race Director.

Wittingly or not, it is he who decides the reputation for toughness that the event is going to get. Want a 50% drop-out figure? Set a tough time target. Want the event to be a satisfying achievement for anyone prepared to put the work in? Give the competitors enough time to get the payback for their commitment.

The organisers set the rules. And of course that is exactly as it should be, when we remember that what we are engaged in is, after all, just a game.

The Ups and Downs of the Hardmoors

The North York Moors are a bit too far away for a training venue for me, but I'm getting to know the Hardmoors 55 course reasonably well as this was the third time I've run the event. A rising but easily runnable opening nine miles lead from the start at Helmsley through farmland and woods to the northern scarp edge of the Moors at Sutton Bank, then a 300 ft drop down the side of the White Horse and a corresponding rise back up to the edge again. From here, nearly ten miles of fast, flat going along the edge followed by a long steady descent gets you to the first major checkpoint at Osmotherly, 22 miles in. The next twenty miles are the real meat of the route; five climbs and descents ranging from 400 to 1000ft over the roller coaster edge to Clay Bank, then another long climb to the highest point on the Moors followed by a remote and often bleak but very runnable section via Blowarth Crossing to Kildale, the second major base at 42 miles. There is still a sting in the tail for tiring legs and lungs, another five shorter but steep climbs, including the out-and-back to the well known summit of Roseberry Topping,  then the final long descent through the woods, usually in the dark, to the finish at Guisborough.

Previously we had had two very different years for weather, the first cold and wet, the second sunny and warm. This year promised something in between the two. For me this event is very much a curtain opener for the year, see if 50 miles still feels a long way, finish in good shape but don't worry too much about the time, that sort of thing. Race Director Jon Steele had persuaded Martin Dietrich to take over his job for the day, allowing him to run in his own race, so after a quick briefing from Martin we were off from Helmsley on the dot of nine o'clock, a field of around 130, more than double that of the first running two years ago. I ran for a few miles with Alison, who had introduced herself earlier as one of the few other Brits signed up for the Tor des Geants in September, we agreed to stay in touch. It wasn't cold but a gentle drizzle appeared shortly after the start, the sort of thing where half the field puts a jacket on and the other half doesn't bother; I went with the latter group for now, which worked out OK because it fined up after an hour or two.

On the long flat section after Sutton Bank I was cruising comfortably, consciously keeping the speed down because it's easy to suffer later if you overcook it here, chatting on and off with various other runners. I felt the speed work I had been doing was making it seem easy. It was all going really well, then I had a moment of incompetence and caught my foot on something. One of the guys I was with said afterwards that it was just a slightly higher lump of peat because it had the gouge from my trainer on it. Anyway, we were going along fairly smartly, better than 10 minute miles I guess, and I came down quite heavily - second time in three races, I really must look where I'm putting my feet. No blood this time, but something, I suspect it was my fist trapped between my falling body and the ground, thumped solidly into my ribs. Concern form my companions but I collected myself for a few seconds then said I was OK, they should carry on, I'll walk a bit. The adrenalin usually carries you through for a while, I walked for five or ten minutes then got jogging again, ribs a bit painful to touch but I thought nothing to worry about. I was soon on the descent and arrived at Osmotherly in 3.53, about ten minutes slower than last year.

A quick cup of tea, restock the bag,then I was off up the hill out of the village. I gradually discovered that heavy breathing, coughing, and any real foot pounding were a bit painful, so I would have to get by without any of those. I ran all of the next section with Chris, who I'd chatted to for a while earlier on. A very competent performer (21 hour Bob Graham among other things), he was taking things easy as he had a head cold and didn't want to make it worse. We agreed to walk all the significant ups and jog everything else, and the roller coaster bit seemed to go past quite quickly. A lot more checkpoints than previous years, some marshalled, others self-clips, but all easy to spot and the weather was almost perfect for running on this section. But on the long climb up towards Blowarth I was struggling with Chris's pace a bit so I suggested he push on, which he declined to do initially but then did just after the checkpoint at the crossing.

By now it had clouded in again and started to rain. It didn't look too bad though so I put on a light Pertex top, not a great decision. Soon afterwards I caught a lady runner who was having trouble with her rucksack. The waist buckle had broken so she'd tied the ends together and now couldn't get it untied to get her jacket out. She said she was OK but these moors can be tough on even the smallest misfortunes at times, so we worked at the knot for a few minutes to get her waterproof liberated, then I carried on my way. It was raining pretty steadily now and I was starting to get cold. I also knew I was hurting a bit more so should take some painkillers, but I was now breaking one of my own rules, the one that says when you know something isn't right stop and fix it before it gets out of hand. I'd convinced myself that it wasn't far to Kildale and I would sort things out there, but it was actually still 6 or 7 miles further on. Still, I carried on and caught one or two other runners, one of whom was Jon himself going through a bit of a bad patch - not surprising really, he's running an ultra every week for a year and had had practically no sleep in the run-up to this one because of the organisation required. He perked up later though and went on to beat me by more than 20 minutes.

Eventually I got to Kildale, rather cold and wet, but surprisingly back exactly on last year's schedule  - I'd covered the ground from Osmotherly ten minutes faster than ever before. I had been a bit concerned that my total lack of any hill training so far this year was going to bite me, but I think the speed work and Chris's pacing over the hillier bit got me through. Nevertheless, I needed a bit of TLC so I stayed for a couple of cups of tea,  put on a clean dry top and proper waterproof, took a couple of paracetamols and sorted out supplies. I stayed there about 15 minutes, far too long for a stop in a fifty mile race but I felt it was necessary at the time.

I just about made my target of Roseberry Topping before the lights went out and gratefully accepted the jelly babies on offer from marshal Pat on the top. Then it was just on with the torch and off across the last bit of moor, up the last hill and down through the woods to the finish. In the three runnings of this event it has had three finishes  -  the cricket club, the rugby club, and now this year at the Sea Cadets hall. I think the Sea Cadets is two or three hundred yards further down the road than last year's Rugby Club finish, the significance of which was not apparent to me until I got to the bright lights and the finish line to discover that my time was 11 hours, 23 minutes and  1 second  - just 1 minute and 49 seconds longer than last year! All things considered though, I can't complain.

I didn't feel great at the finish, but stayed around for an hour for some tea and chat and to luxuriate in a dry shirt. I stayed for the prizegiving. The winner came in with a time of just under eight and a half hours - these guys are amazing. I got the Vet 60 award, introduced by Jon as "the first old b...d to get home". Can't ask for more. I drove back to the hotel for a long shower, and just before crawling into bed reflected that Pat was by now just about finishing his stint on top of Roseberry Topping and packing up his tent to walk down. These guys are the real heroes of any event.

Two days later my legs are fine, I think must be in reasonable shape for the year. Only problem is I still can't cough or laugh without wincing!

Back to the hills

 

I hadn't been back to the Lakes or any other hills for that matter since the Tour de Helvellyn back in December.  Every time I looked at the forecast it was gales. I've been picked up by the wind a couple of times in the past and it's an experience I don't want to repeat so I stayed away. But with the Hardmoors coming up and a fair bit of Bob Graham reconnoitering to be done and John K waxing lyrical about the Lakeland 100 course I thought it was about time I got my act together and got up there. Nothing too taxing for starters, I would go for a walk, boots and all, so I opted for what I could make of Leg 2 of the BG Round.

There's a lot of renovation going on at Tebay services so I forewent the full English for a sausage butty in the car which saved a bit of time and put me in the car park at Threlkeld just after nine. Out I got into the bright blue but still rather windy day and sidled off down to the river to begin the climb up Clough Head. I should have known better for a first day out of course because this is the second biggest climb on the whole Round, luring you in with a gentle ramble up to the Old Coach Road then hitting you with over 1500 ft of full frontal grass to the top. I took well over the hour (the BG schedule says 50 minutes) but once on top, out of the shade and into the sunshine, it seemed worth it and I breezed along the mostly frozen ground feeling all was well with the world.

I had to stop on the pull up to Great Dodd to attend to incipient blisters (just when did I last wear these boots?), but apart from that the sun and wind accompanied me to Sticks pass in fine style. There was another lone walker a Dodd or so ahead, but otherwise I saw no-one for five or six miles. Maybe I'm selfish or just antisocial but I'm happy with it like this.

After the pass more people and more clouds showed up so it was clear I'd had the best of the day. But I carried on over Raise, then Whiteside lived up to its name with the path becoming completely snow covered from here on, easy to follow the footprints now up Lower Man to reach the usual cluster of humanity at the strange but efficient cruciform shelter on Helvellyn summit. But as promised the wind was getting stronger as the day wore on, odd moments of having to stop and crouch, looking for convenient rocks to hang on to if it all got out of hand. I had the usual minor difficulties finding the tops of Nethermost Pike and Dollywagon in the clag, but then they were done and I was down into the daylight again at Grisedale Tarn.

I'd enjoyed the day but the wind was dampening my enthusiasm for going higher again, so I ignored Fairfield and Seat Sandal and scuttled off down Tongue Beck to Grasmere, tea, and the bus back to Threlkeld. A good enough return to the fells, but we won't dwell on how long I took. We all have to start again somewhere.

Confused dot com?

Well, maybe, maybe not. No tales of nice days out in the winter sunshine here I'm afraid, just a bit of rambling philosophy on training  -  so you can click out here if that's not your thing!

About a month ago I related how I was introducing some faster outings into my training in an attempt to get a bit of improvement in my ultra performances. It came out of a discussion with people experienced in training for ultras, but as always in this fascinating sport there is never an unchallenged view on anything.

The first questioning came from Stuart Mills, who also knows quite a bit about ultra running having won the Lakeland 100 and the Hardmoors 55 as well as many other events. He left quite a long comment on my blog but including the following:   ".....there is no one answer in terms of what is the best way to train for ultra trail running to improve performance, but based on my experiences and reading of the limited academic literature, what you are doing is something I would definitely not be doing. The question I ask is how often during an ultra you will run at 8 minute mile pace or faster. I barely run at that pace during an ultra after the initial few hours. So why train at that pace?..........Stick to what you have done....."

Well that made me think a bit. Why not go back to my old ways? But I do remember a saying that my Dutch colleagues were fond of when I worked in the Netherlands for a few years  - "If you always do what you always did, you'll always get what you always got" - so if you don't change the input, don't expect the results to change either. I looked around for some more support, and on occasions like this I always go back to Dr Tim Noakes (The Lore of Running) for starters.

Here I found "....after 12 months or so of training, athletes who only do distance training reach a definite plateau. To improve beyond this, the athlete must either further increase the distance run or else run the same distance but run some of that distance at a faster pace..." Hmm, so either faster or longer, not very conclusive. But he also says  "Speed work also trains the central governor to allow for greater effort. A target is set and a time laid down. But the governor resists by testing the will, arguing that such effort is unnecessary. As result, speedwork becomes a test of will" and we all need a bit of that in our ultra endeavours, but still not conclusive.

I was rescued by Andy Dubois (Hardmoors 110 winner and personal trainer) who in his blog post "Three Common Training Mistakes" wrote "To force the body to change it is necessary to step outside your comfort zone on a regular basis. Whilst some training sessions should be performed at comfortable intensity there are other sessions where it is necessary to push yourself to ensure you receive the training benefit.............you will sweat more, puff more, your muscles will hurt more and it will be harder mentally, but for those that can embrace this the results will follow."

So I carried on happily enough until I listened to the really excellent West Highland Way podcast No6, by Marco Consani and Thomas Loehndorf.  Both had, by their own standards, disappointimg early experiences in the world of ultras, but then for both of them it came spectacularly good. Their secret? Not pushing so hard in training, enjoying the outings, not coming home trashed every time!

So where do all these conflicting words of wisdom from the experts leave the rather less able performers like me (and possibly you)?  Well, that means that I've had to think a bit, not something I'm all that used to these days, but I was maybe set on the right track by remembering a snatch of conversation in the Tour de Hellvellyn back in December of last year. I ran for quite a few miles with a guy who was 69 years old who had been a road runner then come into ultras relatively late in his career. "But I used to be able to run a three hour marathon, and ten miles in an hour" he said, "so the pace needed for ultras seemed very easy to keep up without much effort".

I think that the problem is that when the good guys talk to the rest of us, some of them don't understand just how wide the gap is. They understandably talk to us in their own terms, but unless they have some coaching experience with much less able competitors, we may get the wrong messages.

I'll make an observation from another sport. At the climbing wall that I go to once a week in the winter, the routes are nearly all set by a young guy who can climb comfortably around the 7b grade. Let's say that this is the equivalent of a two and a half hour marathon, not world class but still decidedly good. After he's set a route he grades it, and I'm sure he gets all those at the top end spot on. I climb at around the 6a/6b grade (achievable by pretty well anyone who puts their mind to it a bit, say the equivalent of a three and a half hour marathon) and the routes he grades in this range are often completely wrong  - because to him they're all just "easy" - and he needs those of us who are near our limit in this range to help with the differences between one and another.

So back to running. Stuart M focuses a lot on the mental side of ultras, and it this is clearly an important part of his success, but it doesn't hide the fact that he is still a pretty quick runner. A couple of months after his win in the Lakeland 100 he ran the Beachy Head Marathon in just about 3 hours. I'm sure he'll respond but my challenge is that you don't get to be able to nail sub 7 minute miles over a very hilly trail for 26 miles by doing all your training in the comfort zone.

But overall I think I got the most useful information from the Thomas/Marco podcast.  They were running alongside a canal, flat but obviously wet and muddy. They said they were aiming for 8 minute miles but were going faster than this as Thomas told Marco they were going too fast once or twice, so I guess they were somewhere in the 7.30 area. It was clearly comfortable though as they were chatting easily and not breathing very hard, telling us how these easy sessions were good for them.  Easy session - 20 odd miles at 7.30?!  I found this hard to take at first but I did a bit more research. I was sure I had read of Marco running a half marathon recently, and I found it in Debbie's blog - he finished in 1 hour 18, just about spot on 6 minute mile pace for the 13.1 miles.  So cruising along the canal, Thomas and Marco were taking 25% longer per mile than Marco's half marathon.  Now half marathons hurt a bit, you're breathing hard from quite early on, but even with a bit of pain my best half marathon effort was at an average 7.17 pace, and 25% up on that is 9.06 minute miles. Yes, even I can cruise along for quite a few miles at that........

Now I'm not pretending that this is totally scientific, I'm just comparing myself with one other runner, but it's interesting to take this a bit further. In 2010 Marco and I both had, for our differing abilities, good West Highland Way Races. Marco got to Rowardennan (27 miles) in 4 hrs 28 min. If I continue to use the comparison of our half marathon paces as a predictor, I should have got to Rowardennan in 5hrs 28min  - in fact it took me 5hrs 29min! It doesn't work quite so well to the finish, where Marco's time of 18.47 should have compared to a 22.48 for me, where in fact I finished in 23.34. Whether Marco had a storming finish or I cocked up the last few miles is not really relevant, other factors come in late on in a 95 mile race, but it's still close enough to be interesting. All this does nothing more of course, than to give one or two anecdotal examples along the lines of the performance predictors that you see on many websites  - put your time for one distance in and predict your time for another, so what overall am I driving at?

Well, the crunch argument seems to me to be:

1. If you can improve your half marathon time, all other factors being equal (ie you still do enough "time on your feet" miles)  you will improve your ultra performance, simply because you can go at a higher base speed before it stops feeling "easy".

2. The only way to improve your half marathon time is to get your heart used to working comfortably at a higher rate. Unless you practice this, it won't happen.

3. So at least a moderate amount of speed training must be necessary to improve ultra performance.

There will still be runners out there who will say, no, I'm still improving and I don't do any speed stuff. My answer to this is as follows.

We all come into ultra running with a certain amount of basic onboard ability - we could measure this by our 10k time, half marathon time, or whatever. For already accomplished road runners coming into the game, this basic ability is very high. But whoever we are, we then have to learn how to run ultras. Getting your body used to many hours of continuous activity, hydration and nutrition, equipment selection, race strategies, getting all this progressively better improves our performance. Performance will improve without any attention to improving or even maintaining our basic ability. But we will reach a point where we have got all, or most, of the gains we are going to get from this. At this point we will only improve if we turn our attention to covering the ground faster in the same degree of comfort  - running faster.

I'm now convinced that over the past 4 or 5 years I've learned a fair bit about ultra running, but I've got lazy.

I gave up first 10k's and then half marathons because I didn't like the discomfort involved. Easier to do a longer run, enjoy the view and not get out of breath. My best 10k time is 42.35. It was 4 years ago on a fast flat course with plenty of other runners, and I thought I would never see that sort of speed again. Last week, after doing a minimum of two faster sessions a week for 8 weeks, I ran round one of my local loops, exactly 6 miles, on my own on a cold blustery day, in 41.50, which equates to a 10k of around 43.30. Now I'm not saying that this is magically going to improve my ultra performance, but I don't think it can do any harm. I might even run a 10k race later in the year!

Plans for 2012

After a bit of thought and now that the ballots have been done and the nifty applications made and so on I've managed to sketch out a programme for the year. Last year I did 8 ultras and 2 marathons, and while that's nowhere near in Nick Ham or Jon Steele country, it was probably a shade too much for this particular runner, so this year I'm going for a bit less volume in the hope that it might improve the quality. That's the theory at least. So here's the plan.

17 March  -  Hardmoors 55 (54 miles)

This the only race for which I can claim to have run all of them (well, both actually) and it's a fine outing. Time to catch up with the Man of Steele himself and see how his plan to run an ultra every week of the year is going. First long run of the year, no time ambitions, just enjoy it, aim to finish not too long after nightfall.

I'm still thinking that I might do a marathon around mid April, I've done two a year for quite a few years, but haven't seen one yet where the appeal, the date, and the cost are all in line.

28 April  -  Highland Fling (53 miles)

Done the last 5, wouldn't miss it.

12 May - BGR

No I'm not going for a full Bob Graham, I'm not sure my knees are still up to it these days, but a few of the West Highland Way gang are targetting this weekend for an attempt and I've volunteered to pace and navigate the three middle stages. That should be quite enough of a workout, and I don't want to get too knackered as I'm off to Croatia on the 13th for a week's climbing.

23 June - West Highland Way (95 Miles)

As for the Fling, wouldn't miss it. This year I'll see if it's possible to get a bit under my PB of  23:34.

28 July - Lakeland 50 (48 miles)

The Lakeland 100 is probably the premier ultra of the UK now, but for me it's too tough to just turn up and do every year. It's a great weekend though so I've entered the much easier 50 just to stay part of it. Still quite burly for a UK 50. The aim is to finish in a respectable time in good shape.

9 September - Tor des Geants

This was my Plan B if I was unlucky in the UTMB ballot. I'd heard that it filled up in 4 days last year and as these things tend to gather momentum fast I was on to the site about ten minutes after entries opened. I looked in again later the same day to find it was already full; I subsequently found out that it filled up 27 minutes after opening. All this keenness for a little jaunt 200 miles long and with 24,000 metres of ascent. But at least there's enough time to have a few sleeps along the way so it should be my kind of trip. Sounds like an adventure, can't wait.

Probably no Autumn marathon either this year as I'm hoping to fix a climbing trip to the US in early October, no great loss this year I think.

20 October - Rotherham Round (50 miles)

Lovely event now it's fixed in mid Autumn. This will be my 4th time around.

Nothing definite for the closing stages of the year yet. I enjoyed the Brecons Ultra in November last year, but not enough to want to do it again. Maybe I'll try Glen Ogle. Then we'll be back to the shortest day and hopefully there will be another Tour de Helvellyn.

It looks good from here, I'm looking forward to the year ahead.