I was working away from home on Wednesday, but on Thursday I did a 10k interval run. Again I picked a tough undulating route, but did 2 mins run, 3 mins jog for the first 5 miles. At the mile point I then did some hill intervals. I only did 4 reps of this hill, as I was already fairly tired from the effort. The hill is short and steep though. It takes approx 20-30 seconds of hard and fast running to reach the top, by which my heart rate was over 170 bpm. Then, a nice slow jog to the bottom by which my heart rate has gone down to 120 and then the same again. If I was just doing a hill interval session on its own, I would usually aim for 10-12 reps on that hill, but 4 was enough by this time. I jogged the last mile or so home and sank some Rego recovery drink straight away, to ensure I was fit and recovered for Sunday.
On Friday I did my normal gym session, doing plenty of core stability at the moment.
Saturday I was tempted to run, but I didn't want to grossly increase my weekly mileage and tempt injury, so I have it a miss. Below is the route and the hill and speed profiles from the effort. The GPS battery gave out at about 32 miles, so the speed recording stops. Also, any flat spots you see on the speed record are where I lost GPS for a few minutes.
So, Sunday: I needed a confidence booster exactly one month before La Trans Aqu. So, I just needed to know that I could cover the distance in the minimum time allowed, which is 12 hours, or roughly 3 miles per hour. So, I decided to walk and then perhaps at 25 or 30 miles, if I felt fine I would introduce some running. I aimed to walk between 3.6 and 3.8 mph and finish within 10 hours. I loaded up my pack to 8 kilos. By day 3 of La Trans Aqu, which is the long day of 55km, my pack including 1.5l of water is only likely to weigh 5.5kg. However, I overfilled it because I had to carry all the liquid for the day, as I would not be passing checkpoints of course. Also, I figured a little overweight would be a confidence booster.
I had chosen what looked to be an interesting route. The first 20 miles were flat, joining a canal about 1 mile and a half from my house. However, what looked to be an easy flat start quickly became a bit of a horror. I had hoped that the footpath besides the canal (towpath) would be un-made i.e. an earth or grass footpath. It wasn't. It was concrete with tiny little stones cemented into the mix. I did take a photo, but for whatever reasons my camera phone has error'd today and I've lost all my pictures. So, I apologise for the lack of pictures in this post. This concrete path was very hard on my joints, worse than running on tarmac even, as tarmac or asphalt is about 10 times softer than concrete believe it or not. The towpath was this same hard concrete for the first 11.5 miles. It was torture with an 8kg pack on.
It wasn't a very warm day, perhaps only 14C, so I was not drinking my water at a very fast rate. I had used very little in the first few hours, and it was all going straight through me, so I was very well hydrated. I decided that for this reason I would dump 1 litre of the water. This would better simulate the conditions on the day, as well as take some of the load off my tortured feet.
At 11.5 miles the towpath turned into a regular footpath, all grass and packed earth. Immediately my feet felt relief. I had by now travelled down into, and then out of Stoke-on-Trent, and up towards Cheddleton near Leek. At this point the canal follows the path of the river Churnet down into the Churnet valley. The route is much more picturesque at this point. I took tons of photo's, including the Churnet Valley steam railway which I didn't know existed and scared the daylights out of me as it came past "Choo Choo!!" I reached the half way point, 17.5 miles, in 4 hours and 52 minutes. This was exactly 3.6mph, which I had found was a quick but comfortable pace carrying the weight.
An idea had been forming in my mind for the last few miles, that instead of waiting to see how I felt at 25 or 30 miles, I should start running at the half way point. I stopped at half way, taped up a couple of areas of my feet that I felt might blister and then began running. I settled into the nice easy 5 - 5.2 mph pace that I found worked well last weekend (you can see the speed profile suddenly goes up at 17.5 miles to about 5mph). This nice pace was about to come to an abrupt end though. You can see the hill profile on the map route. At 20 miles, I had decided that I needed to work in some tough terrain as it would have been all too easy to follow the nice flat canal all the way to my final destination of the town of Uttoxeter. So, at 20 miles, I took a sharp right following the Staffordshire Way footpath for the next 10 miles. As soon as I left the canal I had to climb steeply (and I mean steeply) out of the valley. It was tough to walk up, let alone run. My pace dropped off to under 0.5mph as I ascended the 350ft climb.
What I hadn't factored into my time/distance calculations were the hills you see on the profile (practically all of the 2000ft+ of ascent was in the last 20 miles), or the fact that the British footpaths mean that every couple of hundred metres you have to stop to climb over stiles, do commando rolls under farmers electric fences, dodge livestock, or run/walk to your waist in long grass. All of the above I encountered over the next 10 miles. Just trying to maintain a 3.6mph average required a massive amount of effort. I had to ditch a run 20 minute, then walk 5 minute routing, and simply settle for running whenever I could and being forced to walk when the terrain dictated it. All of the steep hills killed off my pace to under 0.5mph, so I had to run harder at the top to balance it back out. Even with the running, my average dropped down to 3.4mph. What hadn't helped was that then encountered a group of 40 men (I think they were the gay ramblers association or something. That's what I heard them say anyway), who were negotiating a stile. I had to stand at the very back and wait my turn before running past them all and up the next and last steep climb.
I then got a nice downhill and up ahead could see a castle on the skyline. It's a familiar sight if you are fairly local, and one you will recognise if you are a rollercoaster fan. I could see the Alton Castle, of Alton Towers theme park fame. Sadly, I didn't have time to jog up and have a ride on Oblivion or Nemesis, so I headed up and into the town of Alton itself. I rapidly passed through Alton and back into country fields and stiles. I'd noted happily that I had passed through the 26.2 mile barrier and was well into ultra territory. Maybe this had a negative psychological impact, or maybe it was the effort I was putting in, but at 28 miles I was starting to feel tired. It was the first time I had felt tired really. Yes, my legs had been aching for a number of miles, not helped by the concrete towpath start, but until then I had felt strong. I had been drinking SIS Go electrolyte mixed to half strength (one sachet in a 1.5l bottle of water to be precise). I had also been periodically having some of the snack mix I made up, which consisted mainly of cashew nuts and dried banana chips, but also contained dried cranberries and mango. The regular intake of the drink and food certainly helped maintain my efforts to that point.
You can see on the speed profile at about 28 miles, my pace drops, and stays low right off the chart which only lasted until 31 miles when my GPS battery ran out, and so speed recording. Looking at my watch at about 30 miles, I had bought the average back up to 3.5mph, but of course now felt shattered just only walking, and was barely managing to register 3.3mph before the GPS ran out.
Then, I remembered what turned out to be my saviour. At about 31-32 miles I remembered that I had packed a SIS Go carb gel (I have one planned for the long day for emergency use). I ripped off the top and eagerly guzzled it down. The SIS ones are very easy to take, and need no water at all. However, I upped my intake of fluid too; conscious that I had maybe that was contributing to my ailing performance over the last few miles. At just past the 32 mile mark, when I suddenly went 'zing'. The carb gel hit my bloodstream. It was like Popeye eating his spinach! I felt great again. I have it a few more minutes to hit fully, recover my strength and at 32.5 miles I started running, and I ran the remaining 2.5 miles non stop. I ran at a reduced pace of 4.7 - 5.0 mph, but I ran it all the same. My finish post, The Racecourse pub and hotel (near Uttoxeter horse race course) came into sight. I started to fade a little then, perhaps my body knowing it was all over, or perhaps the carb gel ran out? Anyway, I jogged or whatever you want to call what I was doing by then into the car park. I took off my backpack, collapsed into the car, and thankfully started drinking the SIS Rego recovery drink that was handed to me by my gf. I also took off the knee strap. My knee hadn't bothered me at all, other that the last half mile where it felt a little sore. I put the ice pack on it as a precaution, and also took my first and only ibuprofen of the day. This was more precaution that pain though.
The drive home took 20 minutes. My gf asked it if was demoralising to know that had taken me 9 hours 41 minutes and 1 second, had taken just 20 minutes to return home. Yes it was a little! I had stiffened up by the time I got home, and was walking like John Wayne. I had a hot bath, a Rego Nocte drink, a good night’s sleep and in the morning I was fine. Hardly any aches or pains, I would have been fit to do it all again, which of course I'll have to in France.
I had done what I set out to do. I had managed to pick the average back up to 3.6mph, and finish the second 17.5 miles exactly 1 minute faster than the first 17.5 miles. When you take into consideration the all the ascent in that half of the run, plus the challenging terrain, and exhaustion, I had done well. The pack weight when I had finished was still 5.5kilos, about what I will be starting the long day of La Trans Aqu with, not finishing it.
My feet and toes are in good condition. All the preventative foot taping with Leukotape paid off. I got one blister at the back of my right heel, which was my own fault. I should have filed down some skin the night before in that spot. It's not a terrible blister and feels ok today. I've walked around all day today with no issues.
So, one month to go to La Trans Aqu. I have done the distance of the longest day (actually a little more), with more pack weight to start, and over probably tougher terrain. It's just to confidence boost I needed.
I took today off, but I'll do an easy 10k tomorrow as a recovery run.
See you next week.
No comments:
Post a Comment