Toughest Race in Scotland?

Mike Raffan's Facebook post was a little challenge not to be ducked.

"I was out for a long run today and was thinking to myself my legs are still tired after Tuesday's race. It was only 3,5 miles but hilly thus tough. That got me thinking: what is the toughest race in Scotland? I know what my answer is but I'll wait to see what some others think first, please justify your answer, don't just say "Tough Mudder 'cos it says so in the name and I found it hard". I don't mean the toughest one to win as that is any race with a strong field. What is the toughest race to finish? Hopefully after a few days and everyone has had time to answer, Andy Cole will write a blog post giving his analysis. Excluding the Spine as it is only in Scotland for a few miles."

I don't know Mike well but we've chatted a few times (the last time when he was acting as a kit-check marshal in last summer's Lakeland 100).  He's definitely no slouch as a runner, having a 18hr 18min West Highland Way under his belt among other good performances. Well sorry Mike, it took a bit longer than a few days, other things got in the way, but here goes.

Mike was referring to a post I did a while back called "The Toughest Race in the World?", in which I tried to compare races on the basis of how hard they are to finish. It still gets a regular stream of hits so it must be good for a bit of pub talk if nothing else. My contention was that if you know you can finish an event then how tough you choose to make it by going faster or slower is just a subjective game you play, but if there are some events that you can finish and some that you can't, then there must be a way of ranking just how hard a task finishing is for you. I thought of revisiting that with particular reference to the Scottish races, but time passes, the idle thoughts go on, and  I ought to be able to do better than that by now.

So I've tried to build a little model which could be applied to any race. Now I'm not claiming any stunning scientific underpinning here, just a bit of knowledge that I've gained from doing quite a wide variety of races and which I've tried to apply in a logical way. For sure it could be fine tuned, and there may be better places to start even, it's just a first hat in the ring if you like.

In the other post I went into some detail on what factors can make a race hard, but if you get bogged down in every possibility then you never really get started so I've just considered the most significant. A bit like, say, a rock climbing guide  -  grades are for good conditions and if you choose to do your climb in the rain then it's going to feel a bit harder.

The Model

It seems to me that there are three main physical quantities that set the overall work to be done when completing an event, and these are

1. The length  -  goes without saying, 100 miles is tougher than 50, all other things being equal.

2. The ascent -  or rather the ascent per mile, because for example  4000 ft of up in a 20 mile race is going to have rather more impact than 5000ft over 100 miles. I have called this the Climb Factor.

3. The ground underfoot  -  well compacted trail or springy grass is much more helpful to progress than trackless rocky hillside or knee-deep bog. I have called this the Ground Factor

So, if you take the Length of the course, and multiply it by the Climb Factor and the Ground Factor, you have a measure of the overall undertaking that the event presents. I've called this the Overall Effort (for me this is just a number, no units, it's just for comparison with other events).  Now the Overall Effort alone does not necessarily make a race tough. The UTMB course has a a pretty high Overall Effort rating by my scoring, but it's completed by lots of people every summer, many of whom have done little or no training for the trip - they just take 10 or 12 days to complete it. What makes the UTMB race tough is that instead of 10 days, you have only 46 hours to get round. The time factor is the key  - and this was the main conclusion from my earlier post.

So although the Overall Effort is an interesting enough value in itself, to rate how hard an event is to finish, you have to bring in the time pressure. I have done this by using two further factors, which are

4. The cutoff time  - again goes without saying. Now you could argue there is a difference between races which just have one final "must complete by" time and those which have intermediate cutoffs which normally force competitors to go faster earlier in the race. The theory behind the latter is that if you don't make the early cutoffs you have statistically no chance of overall completion. I actually don't agree with this at all, it just reflects what most runners do, rather than what they should do, rather like the positive/negative splits argument for marathons. We could debate this for a week, but to no point as it's too complicated for my model anyway. I'm only considering the final cutoff time.

5. Fatigue  -  it doesn't matter what the climb, ground, and so on are like, covering it when you've had no sleep for the past 30 or 40 hours is not the same as when you just started out. The longer a race goes on, the more impact fatigue has on your performance. I've called this the Fatigue Factor.

So if I take my Overall Effort, divide it by the the cutoff time (if you're finding a race near your limit, you'll be quite close to this time when you finish), then multiply by the Fatigue Factor, you (finally!) have a measure of how "Tough" the race is. Again this is just a number so one race can be compared with another.

Now, I could go on here about how I've devised each of these factors, but if your Myers-Briggs personality indicator is anything like mine you'll have had enough of this chat by now, and want to get on to the results! So I will explain the basis, but I'll do it at the end of this post for anyone that wants to carry on that far. So here we go.....

Results for some Scottish (and non-Scottish) races

Now another health warning here is that it's quite difficult to get accurate and consistent basic input for some events. If you look at the UTMB "qualifying events" list you see for example that the height gain given for the West Highland Way is 4500m, whereas the the sum of height gains for the Highland Fling and the Devil o'the Highlands is 5500m! I've taken info from original websites as the best available, and used a bit of judgement where it didn't seem consistent.

So, looking at the Scottish races, which was Mike's original question:

The Fling and the Cateran come out similar, with the Devil slightly tougher because of its higher climb factor and tighter cutoff relative to its length, but it's marginal and you could argue that these three are very similar. Finish one and you should be able to finish the others. The Double Cateran is significantly tougher than the WHW and this makes sense. They have similar climbing, but imagine you are just about to complete the WHW in 35 hours; to complete the double Cateran you would still have 15 miles to go, and you should have finished seven hours ago! This probably makes it Scotland's toughest ultra race  (not enough details to judge the new Cape Wrath event, but multi stage events are anyway generally easier to finish because of the recovery time allowed), but the biggest recognised "outing" in Scotland is the Ramsay Round, and I think this makes sense.

Comparing the Scottish races to those south of the border, the Hardmoors 55 and Lakeland 50 are not far off the Fling and Cateran as undertakings. The Lakeland 100 is up there with the Double Cateran, in spite of the 40 hour cutoff, because of its tough ground and fierce climbs. The Hardmoors 110 appears to be in the same league but I'm a bit sceptical that the total ascent figure is right on this one, nearly 20,000 ft seems a lot, but I'm sure Jon Steel could confirm whether this is actually true or not. Again, the mountain rounds are the big challenges. Another confirmation that this is about right is the completion rate.  Even the ultras generally recognised as gnarly normally manage about a 50% completion rate, whereas I think something like 75% of Bob Graham attempts end in failure, and maybe even more for the harder Rounds.

Abroad, it may be surprising that the Tor des Geants comes out easier than any of the Chamonix races but I think this is fair. It is a massive Overall Effort, but 150 hours is long enough for anyone that wants to complete it to take their time and do just that. It doesn't have the "must keep moving" urgency of the Mont Blanc events. 

I just put the Barkley Marathons in to confirm that however you try to rate it, it will always come out a class above anything else in the world. The only completers of this event so far have also had top ten finishes in UTMB, Hardrock, or have a similar pedigree.

A race that doesn't fit the model is the Spine, where conditions are everything. Completing the Pennine way in 7 days in summer would present the average mid-pack ultra runner with no real problems, a bit like the Tor des Geants. So how hard it is to complete with ice, snow, sub zero temperatures and constant wind I just don't know  -  maybe I'll have to try it one year(!).

I deliberately didn't read through all the replies to Mike's original post. I'll do that later, to see if anyone agrees with me!

So that's it. Just a bit of fun really. I'm there to be shot at. If you want any other races put into the same model, let me know.

Constructing the model (for those that are interested)

There is always a danger that when you apply some science to a very imprecise subject, you end up kidding yourself that you have a much better handle on what is happening than you actually have. So I have tried not to be too clever but just to apply some basic "finger in the air" rules on how to deal with the various inputs. It works as follows:

Climb Factor

This is 1 + (total climb in feet)/(length of the race in miles)/ 500.

Now (total climb in feet)/(length of race in miles) gives the climbing per mile. In fact it is only half the climbing per mile, because in most races the ascent is balanced by an equivalent descent so you only climb over half the race distance. This is where my figure of 500 comes from. I started from the assumption that if a runner can cover a mile on the flat in X minutes, he is likely to take 2X minutes if that mile includes 500ft of ascent and 500ft of descent. Play around with some figures and you'll see what happens. As a further refinement, I multiplied the resulting factor by 1.1 (ie adding 10%) if the nature of the race means that it has very steep and/or very long "in your face" climbs  -  1000ft gained on a well graded and easy to follow path (eg Devil's Staircase) is not the same proposition as 2 or 3000ft in one go over boulders, tree roots, scree, etc (Bovine Alp, Black Sail Pass, etc)

Ground

I gave each race a rating for difficulty of ground, on a 0-10 scale, where 0 would be a smooth (but maybe not metalled) road or path, and 10 would be Barkley type terrain (no path on 40degree slopes with knee-deep scrub, briars and fallen trees).  So forest tracks and occasional ploughed fields (Round Rotherham) would be 1, good trails (West Highland Way) 2, trails but with boulders and bog (Lakeland 100) 3,  grassy/stoney fells (BGR) 4,  and so on. My top rating for the UK was 6 for the difficult rocky and heathery ground encountered on the Ramsay. I then converted this into the Ground Factor by using 

Ground Factor = 1+ (ground rating)/20.

Fatigue Factor

It's difficult to put this into a linear equation, because fatigue hits you at particular points. You have a day out; you have a long day out; you miss a night's sleep; you miss two night's sleep; and so on. I think each of these events causes a step change in your ability to deal with what's going on around you. But then eventually, on the very long races, you get back into balance where you're just about getting enough rest to go on (within reason) indefinitely. So I brought the fatigue factor in via bands  - up to 17 hours Fatigue Factor = 1;     18-23 hours =1.25;    24-30 hours =1.5;   31-40 hours = 1,75;    41-60 hours = 2;   above 60 hours 2.25.

Time I got back to doing a bit of running again.

Ladders, Snakes and Facing Reality

This could be my last ramble across these pages for a while unless I can find the inspiration to say something interesting about life, the universe, or the social implications of plastic beermats, because it won't be about running. For a while, running is off. And as reading about the not running part of running must be even more dissatisfying than writing about it, this will be my last post on the subject of injuries!

It seemed to be going well. Since getting back into action in the middle of December and taking things easy, I thought I was making progress. I was running 3 or 4 times a week, albeit quite slowly. I had run a marathon around the local roads, just to see if I could get the distance. Ten days ago I had managed 8 miles at just on 9 minute mile pace, far from spectacular but if you were generous an outing you might actually call running. I had walked up a few mountains. I had planned an exciting looking year of events. I was looking forward to the South Devon Coast Ultra due to be run today (if it happened in the prevailing weather conditions).  But last Sunday I set out on a 15 mile run along my local Cheshire Sandstone Trail which I had done plenty of times before; I had already done a similar run back in the middle of January. I was, I thought, taking it fairly easily but then after around 10 miles the calf strain which first troubled me back in October started hurting noticeably again. While I wasn't stopped completely, I ended up walking the last few miles. Things felt like they had before Christmas. When I got home there was a neat little bruise indicating the latest area of torn muscle fibres.

Wednesday saw me back at the physio to restart the sorting out process. As she worked on the scar tissue we discussed how to approach recuperation this time. You're going to have to stop impact loading it for longer she said, walk, bike, don't run. But then another observation, you know you have noticeably less muscle mass in your right calf and hamstring compared with the left, not really surprising that they're the ones that give you problems. I didn't know, I don't spend a lot of time looking at the backs of my legs in the mirror.

I know I've had a bad knee for over 10 years. It always hurts, sometimes more, sometimes less, but I've always got by with it. I've always taken the view, in consultation with the knee surgeon, that if I don't get any clicking, swelling, or restriction of movement that I would leave it alone and live with it. But looking back I've been kidding myself for the last year or so. Over this period it's always been bad on uneven ground, especially on descents. In a situation like this, however much you try to "shrug it off" as my hero Joss would say, I'm afraid you always favour the other leg. First to land when you come downhill, stronger to push off with on the climbs, consciously or subconsciously that's what you do, you arrange your action to minimise the pain. So I guess that's how one side gets stronger; or the other gets weaker which comes to the same thing.

Can't go on like this, it's not going to work, it can only get worse.  So I'm back to the knee guy on Tuesday, to see how much he can fix. When he's done what he can, I'll maybe try running again. I'm not going to rush.  I'll post again when I've got something worthwhile to say!

Plans for 2014

Well, as regular readers will know I'm currently making my way back extremely slowly from a couple of injuries (still not sure that I'll get away without more surgery on one knee) so I hadn't really thought seriously about events for the year to come, even though I had entered quite a few back in last year before my troubles started. January is usually the time for getting some speed in, intervals and suchlike to try to improve (or at least arrest the decline of) the VO2max. But I suspect mine's gone through the floor now as two consecutive miles at 9 minute pace counts as a tempo run at the present time. Sensibly, I should just keep nudging forward one week at a time and forget about events for another couple of months at least. But that would mean missing out on a lot of fun in some nice places. And on the positive side, looking at the diary I see that I've managed to hobble my way around nearly 160 miles in the first four weeks of the year, and I've also made my way wetly up Coniston Old Man and snowily up Helvellyn.

So I've decided that while still taking things much easier than in recent years  -  no real speedwork and running no more than three times a week  -  that I won't be deterred from going to the races. The goal each time will be to enjoy the trip and finish in as good a shape as I can. I will be very slow, just staying ahead of the cutoffs will suit me fine, and at some stage hopefully I'll get strong enough to start back on becoming a runner again. So here's the plan:

8 Feb: South Devon Coast Ultra. I ran the North Devon Coast race in this series last year and thought it was brilliant, well organised and with stunning views, so I wanted to get a bit more of Devon. I've entered the Ultra which is 35 miles, but I can duck out to the "marathon" at around 29 miles if I feel I'm not up for the distance by then.

23 Feb: Grizedale Trail Marathon. Grizedale is one of the best poor weather options in the Lake District, varied forest often opening out to great views. This one should be ok.

22 Mar: Hardmoors 55. I've run this race every year since its inauguration in 2010 and have enjoyed it in a range of conditions from the warm sunshine in 2011 to the near arctic of last year. My best time is a few minutes over 11 hours but I'll be happy to finish inside the 15 hour limit.

26 Apr: Highland Fling. Another not to miss, it was my first attempt at an ultra back in 2007 and I've been every year since.For the past four years I've managed to win the Vet 60 category but no chance this year; although it's a less demanding run than the Hardmoors, usually in much better weather, so I'm hoping that I'll be up for a finish in around 12 hours by then.

3 May: Great Lakeland 3-Day. Although I've done the Welsh 3000's many times and really enjoyed my Wainwright ticking in 2012, I've never tried a "mountain marathon" event, so this year's the time for a new experience. 3 days in the hills and camping overnight, with a choice of route difficulties.

7 Jun: Cheshire Sandstone Trail. Again, I've covered this 33 mile trail many times as it's pretty well on my doorstep, but always alone and always in the winter. Time to take part in the official event, and in hopefully better conditions than I usually experience!

21 Jun: West Highland Way. Unmissable. This will be my eighth in a row, but I won't get near my 2013 PB of 22 hours 23 minutes I'm afraid. I'll have a target nearer the time but I expect it to be around the 26-28 hour mark.

28 Jun: Lakeland 10 Peaks. Only a week after the WHW but after reading about it I couldn't resist this one. The 10 highest tops in the District, based on Keswick. As an undertaking it looks similar to the Welsh 3000's and there is enough time allowed to take it at a walk (which I'll probably do!)

25 Jul: Lakeland 100. The big one for this year. After success in 2011 it was a DNF for me last year, so a score to settle.

29 Aug: Anglesey Ring of Fire. Anglesey is only an hour away for me, so I'd run bits of the coast path over the years, then around 5 or 6 years ago I did the whole thing over two separate days and found it a good trip. I was interested when the race was first started three years ago (it's run over three consecutive days with overnight stops), but it always clashes with the UTMB weekend so I've never entered. This year I'm giving Chamonix a miss and staying in the UK.

4 Oct: Lake District 3 x 3000. Scafell Pike, Helvellyn and Skiddaw with an interesting course linking them. More miles but fewer tops than the 10 peaks. Should be a nice one to round off the year, but of course there still the immaculate Tour de Helvellyn on the last Saturday before Christmas......

Well, that's the plan. If the injuries or their treatment put paid to some of it, then that's life. But it looks pretty good from here. Let's hope for some nice weather.

"It's running Jim, but not as we know it"

On January 5th I ran 13.1 miles out and back along the peaceful undulating road that follows the East shore of Coniston Water. I took me just under two and a half hours, probably the slowest half marathon on a road I've ever done, but I got back feeling pretty pleased; that's the way it is these days.

I had my final (I hope) visit to the physio on 10th December, after another false start and recurrence of the calf strain I've been trying to shake off since the middle of October. She had another go at it, but the message wasn't great. You've been lucky up to now but sometimes these things take a lot longer than you want. I got instructions for lots of stretches and a final warning to take it easier this time.

I started again on the 18th December, for no other reason that it was exactly a month before the Anglesey Coast Ultra which I'd entered way back, and which I'd still hoped to make. Not a very sensible thought but in practice I did approach things a bit more intelligently this time. My first "run" was three miles  - I walked the first mile then jogged at 12 minute mile pace for 5 minutes in each of the other two. It seemed to work OK.  Each time out I added a bit more distance and a minute's "running" to each mile. At least I was getting good at walking; I can hold a steady 13 minute/mile pace on a flat surface now - might be useful for some event in the future!

After the walk/jog half marathon I gradually got into jogging continuously but have kept with a one mile brisk walk to warm up, a dodge that I think I'll keep to for some time. Last Saturday I managed a very muddy 17 miles on my local Cheshire Sandstone Trail, but you really don't want to know how long it took. On Monday (I'm making sure I always have at least one day off between outings) I did 6 miles in the forest at the heady pace of 9.40 minutes/mile. It was too much, sore again Tuesday morning so an extra day off. Today I waddled round 8 miles at a steady 10 minute pace with no problems. But no chance of the Anglesey run at the weekend; there never was really of course.

So that's the way of it for now. Going to be a longish haul it seems. Long slow jogs and 10 minute miles for speedwork. It may be running Jim, but not as we know it.

Review of 2013

Well now that the partying and holidaymaking is done and we're back in Chester to start a new year, maybe it's not quite too late to look back over the old one. A game of two halves, as the manager often observes.

At the finish of the West Highland Way race

The statistics are pretty simple; over the year I ran a total of 1816 miles, compared with 2119 in 2012. The first time I haven't topped 2000 miles for seven years. The reasons will become clear as we go on. I didn't change my pattern of covering most of those miles pretty slowly though, as I completed

159 miles at better than 8 minute mile pace (compared with 280 last year)

294 at between 8 and 9 minute pace (378), and

1363 at slower than 9 minute pace (1461)

But ultra running for most of us is about long not fast and I completed 24 outings of 20 miles or more.

My intention for the year was to target three main races, the Highland Fling, the West Highland Way and the UTMB, but to run others for training and, well, because I enjoy doing the events. Up to a point it worked, that point being roughly the start of July, but I wasn't really aware of that until later. In brief, the events panned out as follows:

19 January: Anglesey Coast Ultra (33miles)  Part of the Endurancelife Coastal series, this one was cancelled because of a foot or two of snow on Holyhead Mountain. Can't imagine it being called off if it was a Hardmoors or Nav 4 event, but we have to respect that each race director knows his clientele and sets the rules accordingly. Not an auspicious start though.

23 February: Belvoir Challenge Marathon (27miles) An undulating but not hilly trail marathon on a nice course through the Belvoir Estate in Leicestershire. Cold enough for some falling snow at times but not cold enough to freeze the mud. Still, it was a nice enough outing to start the year. Finished in 4:28:20.

9 March: Wuthering Hike (32 miles)  I'd done this one a couple of times before but the day coincided with the worst period of a bad cold that got me for about four weeks, so I didn't bother to go. Another failure.

23 March: Hardmoors 55 (55 miles)  Just about recovered in time for this one. My previous three runs had taken between 11:10 and 11:50 in this event. I had decided to take it easy and planned 12 and a half hours, but the weather had turned very cold again in March giving us sub-zero temperatures, a fierce wind and deep snow on much of the course, so I was happy to get home in 13:21:40.

13 April: Exmoor Coast Ultra (34 miles) I got a free entry into this because of the Anglesey race being cancelled. It was a stunning course, great tracks and views and lots of climbing. I finished in 6:35:29 and got the V60 prize.

27 April: Highland Fling (53 miles) My seventh attempt at this great event. I gave it my best shot, feeling that I could get under 10 hours if all went well. Finished in 9:57:56, just under 3 minutes over the V60 course record.

19 May: Scafell Pike Marathon (28 miles) A trail run to Scafell Pike summit and back by a sort of figure of eight course from Keswick. A tough but satisfying run with climbs (obviously!), lots of technical ground and difficult navigation in the conditions on the day. Finished in 6:30:26

22 June: West Highland Way (95 miles) After a couple of mediocre times in recent years, this was the one I had planned for. We had ideal running conditions on the day and I was able to beat my previous PB by over an hour to finish in 22:23:13. Definitely the highlight of my year.

27 July: Lakeland 100 (105 miles) Having completed this race before, I didn't give it the respect it deserves. After my West Highland Way performance I thought I was a shoe-in for 35 hours at worst. Covered the first half too fast, made hydration and nutritional errors, and ran out of steam near the top of High Kop at about 70 miles, so returned to Howtown and dropped.

31 August: UTMB (104 miles) Even after the Lakeland knockback I was confident of this one, but still couldn't get beyond Champex (75 miles). I've concluded this race is probably too big for me.

14 September: Ultimate Trails Lakeland 100k (66 miles) After the disappointments of the previous two events I needed this one to get my confidence back. I had a good run and managed to get back as 1st V60 in 17:10:58

After this, I had planned to do the Rotherham Round in October, but my perpetually problematic knees were complaining a bit more than usual so I decided to have 4 weeks off. I'm still not sure whether this was a mistake or not. I restarted full of enthusiasm in mid October but in retrospect started to ramp up the speed too fast. My reward was a tweaked hamstring which cleared quickly, then a pulled calf which didn't. I'm only now getting started again very, very slowly after the calf injury, so I also missed out on the Tour de Helvellyn in December which is one of my favourite races. In the last quarter of the year I went 8 weeks without covering any miles at all, and another 4 when I managed 10 miles or less.

So not a great end to the year, and of necessity a slow start to the next one. But that's life, I've been lucky in avoiding injury since I started running in 2004 until now. Here's hoping for a steady recovery in 2014.

Runners or Tourists?

Whenever I have a tough time in an event and come out with some sort of disappointing performance I can guarantee that some of my wise friends will say afterwards, "Ah, but it's because you're trying to do too many races. You hadn't recovered from the last one." To be fair this is a fairly common point of view, and these guys are in good company. In his "Lore of Running" all-time running guru Tim Noakes says that "....recovery from a short ultramarathon may take up to six months and between 9 and 12 months for runners who compete in 160km/24-hour events. Although you may be able to race two marathons a year, runners who wish to race ultramarathons regularly for more than a few years should limit these to one per year, with the possibility of running one other long race three to four months before, or four to five months after, that ultramarathon."  I have many running friends who would say the same - "pick your big race, train for it and give it your best shot, anything else is likely to compromise your performance".

Now all these guys may be right. But I'm choosing not to believe them. Two reasons. First, if you load all your ambition, hope and focus on to just one event, and then for some reason it doesn't work out (say you twist your ankle or catch a cold three days before the race), then you're left with not much satisfaction for all the months of effort you've put in; and second, I just enjoy the events  -  and one day per season seems a rather meagre ration for something you spend quite a lot of your time thinking about and preparing for.

Some runners seem to have no difficulty in successfully completing multiple long events in a season. In 2012 Terry Conway broke the record for the West Highland Way then 5 weeks later broke the record for the Lakeland 100. In the same year Jon Steele ran an ultra a week for 50 weeks, and Nick Ham regularly works through an annual programme that many runners would consider a 5 or 10 year project. There are plenty more examples. But are these guys just exceptional? Maybe those of us who are of more modest abilities just can't cope with more than one or two big races a year. Maybe.

I've been mulling this over and two thoughts keep coming back into my mind. The first one is the recent West Highland Way podcast in which John Kynaston interviews John Vernon.  The starting point and prompt for the interview was that this year JV completed his tenth WHW in as many years. Now this in itself is an impressive enough achievement but it's by no means the only thing John has on his CV.  He does several long races every year; in the same 10 years he also has 10 Fellsman finishes  -  a race generally thought to be about as tough as you can get without running a hundred miles  -  and in 2010 he completed the LDWA 100, the West Highland Way, the Lakeland 100,  the UTMB, and the Hardmoors 110, all within a four month period.  I've known John for a few years and we've shared many events; if I finish I normally finish faster  -  but I don't always finish and he always does!

When asked in the interview what was the secret of his high success rate, he was very clear. I like to do the events he said, but I don't see a need to do them fast, if I get home in something around double the winner's time then that's OK by me. Depends how you want to measure success I suppose, but it's a sound enough proposition.

The other thought took me back to a climbing trip to Chamonix about 15 years ago. My partner and I had ambitious plans and decided to kick off with a training day by going up Mont Blanc du Tacul. This is a straightforward snow climb but it's readily accessible from the valley and gets you quite easily up to over 4200 meters for a bit of altitude acclimatisation. To get there you descend a few hundred meters from the Aiguille de Midi cable car station, walk across the top of the Vallee Blanche, then climb up the face of the Tacul, reversing the whole thing on the way back. We took an early cable car up to the Midi and planned to be up, down and back to town by mid afternoon.

About half way up the Tacul face we caught up with another team, a pair of French girls, and we chatted for a moment or two while we all took a breather. They had set out quite early from the Cosmiques Hut which is quite close to the foot of the face. They were in no hurry, they said, they would probably take most of the day to get to the summit and return to the hut for another night. They were not really mountaineers, they insisted, "We are just tourists!". But they were clearly more than that, moving slowly but competently up the face. We pressed on to the summit, and after a few minutes set off down, meeting "les touristes", still on their way up, all smiles and clearly having a wonderful time. We got back to the Midi as planned, satisfied with our day but nevertheless somewhat knackered.

And so to 2014. Well, I've entered a lot of races. I suppose I have to admit that at the moment I'm unable to run at all  -  my last attempt to cover a flat 5 miles at the dizzy pace of 11 minute miles resulted in a recurrence of the calf strain that has kept me out of the game for the last six weeks or so  -  but I'm assuming that I will get through this frustrating interruption eventually. So, as I say, I've entered a lot of races.

And I'm thinking of becoming a tourist.

On Yer Bike! (a cautionary tale of serial incompetence)

I'll begin at the beginning. I've related some of this before, but, as I say, I'll begin at the beginning because there may now be an end in sight, or maybe the beginning of an end, or at least an end of the beginning, if you see what I mean.   

I don't get injuries. Well, not strictly true, back in the days when my ski-ing and mountaineering were more adventurous I did have the odd excursion away from the intended course leading to some sharp contacts with nature, but nothing resulting from overuse, a word I wasn't really aware of at the time. And now I have mellowed into jogging round the hills occasionally and rock climbing only when the weather is supportive, I wasn't expecting to get hurt. But I had had what seemed like a hard summer with a couple of disappointing DNF's and my joints and muscles seemed to be protesting a bit more than usual, so I cheered myself up with an encouraging performance in the Lakeland Ultimate Trails 100k in mid September then decided on a month off for a bit of R&R.

After the month off I started running again. I was disappointed to find that the rest had done nothing for my knees so I went back to the knee man and had them both scanned. Nothing major since the previous look-see three years ago but everything had just got a bit worse, displaced bits of cartilege from over-rotation of my right knee due to a ruptured ACL, increasing  tendonitis in both patella areas, a bit of bone degeneration, etc,etc. Probably does you as much good to carry on running as to stop was the general verdict, it's just that it's going to hurt a bit more. We talked about a bit more surgery, I said I would hang on another year or two and take some paracetamol.

I started running again too fast, too soon. I pulled a calf muscle so went back to the physio. No running for three weeks, just massage, stretching, and a bit of walking. She passed me off as good to go, with the proviso to take it easy. I tried. I jogged round the local forest at barely five miles an hour. The calf started hurting after a mile and I limped back. Another week off then a determination to start even more easily. Walk three miles with 5 minutes jogging. Walk three miles with 6 minutes jogging.  It was sort of working but every time I felt I was getting somewhere the pain nudged me back a notch. 

Last week I was still contemplating the Tour de Helvellyn, a great outing on the cards just before Christmas, 38 miles through the normally wintry Lake District. I was trying unsuccessfully to convince myself that I could probably get round by walking most of it when the problem resolved itself at a stroke. Jumping off a bouldering problem at the local climbing wall, I landed badly on my unstable knee with the result that I could then barely walk. Five days later the swelling has nearly gone down and I can make the limp almost undetectable if I concentrate. But I think that's the full stop for the year, I'll concentrate on getting going again for 2014.

The moral of this little saga  -  well, until I decided to have a rest I was going OK, I'd just done 66 hilly miles around the Lake District  -  so I'm left to reflect that "if it aint broke, don't try and fix it!" The picture below of my mileage from the start of the year until the end of November for the past five years tells the sad story of autumn 2013.

But there is always something that you can play at. I decided to join in a climbing club meet going night mountain biking at one of the forest venues near us in North Wales. It was a whole new experience for me, I hadn't had my bike out for a couple of years but I reasoned that you can normally ride a bike even if you can't walk so well, and at the place we went to you can rent a powerful headlamp for the evening. After that, it's just like running through the hills in the dark, except that everything happens a bit faster.........I think it will keep me interested and maybe even help to stay marginally fit until I can go running again.