Beacons Ultra - the tour of a fool over Tor y Foel

I was both looking forward to and a bit concerned about running the Beacons Ultra again this year as last year I was not in a good place with my fitness/health something that was reflected in the fact that it took me nearly 9 hours to complete the course.  I know that this was still a respectable time, but my level of physical and mental commitment was sorely tested on the second lap as the big hill almost broke me and I had to have a serious talk with myself in order to stop me turning round and hobbling the 3 miles back to the start/finish point.

This year I have been slowly getting myself back to full fitness and trying to create a good solid base from which to put in some quality session in an attempt to regain something like the speed and endurance I had before.  Having recovered from whatever was wrong with me (and we never did get to the bottom of it), I have had six months of steady build up.  The Round Rotherham was my first ultra back but the Beacons was going to prove whether I was really back in the game again.   

Although the race followed almost the same route as the five previous years, this year’s course contained a small detour to protect an area of ash trees from the cross-contamination of hundreds of feet running through them.  By my Garmin, this made the course 46.4 miles and although this didn’t make the course much longer than usual, it did add another long incline to the race creating a bigger challenge for us runners but HEY – we don’t do this stuff because it’s flat!!!

We set off at 07:30 along the canal and myself and Kevin (who was another member of the Witney Roadrunners Team) started at a steady pace – determined not to get sucked into the sprint for the start of Tor y Foel at Llangynidr.  We both had the aim of achieving a solid first lap so that we could then see what we had left for the second.  Kevin and I stayed together until we topped the hill when I pushed on to take advantage of my ability to speed down hills (knowing that Kevin would probably catch me up again on the flatter section of the old railway line).  I managed to reach mile 11 before Kevin and another couple of runners caught up with me and we ran as a group almost all the way up the Gap Road to the Saddle.  As the terrain dropped away again, I pushed on and I didn’t see Kevin again until the end.  However, I was always expecting to hear his footsteps and an ‘Alright sham’ from behind me as he is a tough cookie (coming from Irish farming stock). 

I managed to do the first lap in 03:40 and was happy with that.  I didn’t feel spent and my head was strong enough to take on the 2 mile climb up the big hill.  I was really chuffed that I didn’t stop once on the hill, maintaining a steady walk/plod to the top and then descending as fast as I could (which was not as fast as the first lap) before beginning to work hard again along the Tal-y-bont track above the reservoir.  My wife Alison had parked up at the 11/34 mile point where you turn onto the Taff Trail and it was great to get some encouragement – especially when your body is knackered.  I had been running on my own since the start of the second lap and I was beginning to feel that it would have been good to have a running buddy as I was starting to feel that I was running on at an ‘auto-jog’ at this stage.  However, on looking round I could see other runners not too far behind which gave me an incentive to pick up my pace and work hard up to the Saddle for the second time.  Just as I reached the Saddle, I was joined by the second place lady Sallie Holt and we had a quick chat before I was off again in my usual free-fall running down the rocky slope.  At the bottom of the hill at the last checkpoint before the finish I had some food and filled my water bottle for the last time before getting my head down and trying to run as strongly as I could for the last 6 miles. 

At Llanfrynach  I caught up with Gary Davies and we ran together for a short while before I pushed on hoping that my second wind would let me stay ahead until the end.  As I reached the bridge onto the canal at Pencelli, I looked back to see that Gary had made some time and distance up (he told me at the end that he had also put the hammer down to try and catch me) and I knew I had made the right decision to press on.  So onto the towpath and just two miles to go and I think I was concentrating as hard as I’ve done in any race on driving my legs forward – managing just about to put clear space between me and Gary.  I was so intent on moving forward that I didn’t see Alison on the bring until she shouted at me to push all the way in.

I was very happy to finally finish 18^th place overall in a time of 08:16:54 especially at this stage of my training.  The idea is to improve my fitness over the next 9 months until my 50^th year and then to try and race competitively with other V50s out there.  My days of trying to be a racing snake (not that I ever really was one) are well and truly over!!). 

The third member of our team and our best runner Justin Young had a brilliant race to come in in a time of 07:12.52 in sixth place, mixing with some quality runners and giving a great account of himself.  Kevin was not too far beind me in 25^th place in a time of 08:33:05 and we came 4^th in the team standings. 

The Beacons is a great race.  The organising team are VERY friendly and there the marshalls are always a fantastic bunch.  The race sells out very quickly but it is well worth staying up until silly o’clock in the morning to secure a place!!!

Am I ready for an ultra?

The short and maybe cruel answer is, “if you don’t know you are, then you’re almost certainly not”

On the other hand however, if you are worried that you are mad to try and attempt a 50 miler when you may not have managed the total number of miles and all the training sessions advised by most programmes, then WELCOME to the club as almost everyone who takes part in ultra races is in the same boat as you!!

Most people have a life that gets in the way of consistent, regular, quality training – especially when you are talking about putting the miles in required in ultra-racing, and its participants therefore tend to have to make do with whatever training we can get and hope that this will be enough to get us through. Of course, the textbook answer is that you should never go into a race that you haven’t fully prepared for – and I agree. However, the reality is that I have yet to meet someone (at whatever level they are racing) who hasn’t had to make some sort of compromise with their training.

So what am I trying to say?

On my first 100 miler, someone told me that the first fifty miles of the race is run with your body and the second fifty with your head. However, this applies in practice to any ultra race. While your preparation will hopefully get you successfully through the first half of the race, it is often sheer bloody mindeness and an unwillingness to give in which will propel you forward to complete the challenge.

The overriding message from this is that while training is absolutely vital to train for any ultra, a less fit person CAN beat a fitter individual if that person is mentally stronger and is better able to cope with the stresses and strains of racing. As Billy Ocean said, ‘When the going gets tough, the tough get going’. This works as a great mantra to take your mind of the feeling that someone has filled your legs with lead at a feeding station – it always makes me smile!

The mind is a muscle like any other in your body and it needs the same level of training. So – get used to running when tired (that’s one excuse you shouldn’t use for getting out of training!). Visualise the race – it can help you deal much better with problems that arise and one final note. If you are able to reccie any course – do it! As they say in the army, reconnaissance is never wasted and the mental confidence it will give you will always pay dividends on the day.

When your body is strong you feel POWERFUL. When your mind is strong you feel CAPABLE. But when they are both strong you can feel INVINCIBLE!!

Run well and enjoy

Improve your training GUARANTEED

If you have begun to lose some of your edge, your performance in races has not been as good as you hoped or the plan you are following at the moment is making you tired but not fast, then perhaps it is time to ensure you regularly incorporate one simple but VERY effective element into your training programme. 

Yes – it is easy to improve the effectiveness of your training and to gain the confidence to maintain a strong training programme and the ability to make the adaptive physiological changes to your body to enable you to be the best runner, rider or swimmer you can be.

However be warned, you will need to find time in your busy schedule in order to incorporate this important element and it’s one which many people find VERY hard to include, even though it’s CRITICAL to the successful improvement of performance. 

Are you ready?  The action you need to carry out, to follow to the letter and not forget to do EVERY week is …..

REST!!!

YES REST - not complicated, not hard to implement.  So WHY do we not do it?

We all know the recuperative power of rest but we find it easy to push the benefits to one side.  Deep down we know it is vital to allow the repair of muscle tears after exercise and that in conjunction with drinking plenty of water, it will allow us to remove any rubbish which has built up in our systems – allowing us to fill it back up again once we resume hard training.  We just forget it every so often. 

So this week (and every week after that) make time for rest and recovery – after all it is as important to your training as any tempo or hill session. 

Downhill Running

Downhill sections of marathons or ultra-marathons are where you can either gain or lose a lot of time, depending on your training. While many runners consider uphill repeats to be part of their training, very few specifically target downhill running and yet running downhill is a skill which needs to be trained to improve. It places the legs under great stress and it will quickly trash your quads, leaving you with legs that might be barely capable of a shuffle. Downhill training is not just useful for a hilly course. Even if your race is flat, including downhill running in training will strengthen your legs so they don’t suffer as much damage in the later stages of a race, allowing you to maintain a good pace rather than merely managing a survival chug (my slow run) or worse still, walking (although this has its place at times in long races). I’d like to share a few thoughts and tips that I have used to good effect.  

Start slowly
Downhill running places a far greater load on the joints so it needs to be built up gradually. Start by making use of hills in your normal runs until your legs can handle the increased load without any extra post-run soreness.

Next stage
What goes up must come down, so then start specifically being aware of the downhill sections of your training. Instead of walking or jogging down a hill take a short recovery at the top and then run down. Think about running easily and taking short strides. Try and land softly and lightly with each stride rather than over striding and driving your heel into the ground. You are not trying to run fast downhill at this stage, you are just aiming to run comfortably.

Repeats
Once your legs have adapted to running comfortably downhill, you can start to increase the speed. Find a short hill that takes about 2-3 minutes to run down and run slowly uphill then run fast downhill. The pace should be faster than your normal run but not anywhere near flat out. If you are targeting a hilly race this type of downhill running training will be as important as your hill climbing skills. Develop this by doing more repeats or a longer hill, not by going faster.

Efforts
By now your legs and joints should be well adapted to running downhill so, this time treat the downhill section as the effort and uphill as the recovery. Find a hill that takes 2-4 minutes to run down. Run the downhill hard and slowly jog back uphill. Repeat 4-6 times. Running fast downhill involves a high degree of muscular co-ordination that takes time to develop. Having the confidence to just let go and fly downhill comes with practice so have patience. Crashing face first into the ground at speed is not fun!

Running up and downhill
Now you can combine both. Find a hill that takes 2-5 minutes to run up. Run hard uphill then turn around and run hard downhill. Jog slowly at the bottom for approximately 2-5 minutes and then go again. Do as many repeats as you can fit into 30-40 minutes. You might start with 20 minutes and build up to 40. This will teach your legs to run fast downhill even when your legs are tired.

Running long downhills
If you have access to a long steep downhill make use of it. Start with 10 minutes of running hard downhill and build up to 20-30 minutes. Run these at the same kind of effort you would run a half marathon.  

Terrain
Choose terrain which is as close as possible to the underfoot conditions of the race you are training. Running down a steep track requires a very different set of muscle firing, than running down a road as underfoot it will be far more challenging. This is obviously at the extreme end of hill training and it took me quite a while to build up to this but it was very effective for the Pennine 100. Final thoughts Downhill running hurts. Build up slowly and give your muscles time to adjust. When your legs can recover the next day with no more soreness than you would get from a hard run, then you can increase the distance or speed. Remember - running doesn’t only make you fit for races, it makes you fit for life!

And Relax …

Many of you reading this may have run the London Marathon last weekend. No doubt you will all have many stories as a result of your day. You will also no doubt have experienced many different emotions about your achievement. However, having had a few days to reflect on your performance you will no doubt categorise your run in one of the following ways: ‘I had a great race’ You ran the perfect race for you with pacing which matched your race plan, no niggles on the course, you were relaxed throughout the race (well, as relaxed as you can be running for 26.2 miles!) and you achieved either the your predicted time or maybe even achieved a PB. ‘I had a good race’ You ran the majority of the race as planned, but did not achieve your predicted time. It may have been that on the day you gave the race your best effort but perhaps you hadn’t managed to follow your training plan properly or you were training nursing an injury (in which case, well done for managing to complete a marathon at all!). Alternatively you may not have followed your race plan, going off too fast and making it difficult for yourself in the latter part of the race. BUT having reflected, you know you have the ability to achieve your desired time. ‘I had a poor race’ This can come down to many things. Maybe you didn’t have enough training under your belt, you may have overestimated your ability, you might have been injured and thought ‘sod it - I’ve paid my money and I WILL run this marathon’ or perhaps you worked yourself into an anxious state because you had a lot of sponsorship money pledged and you didn’t want to let everyone down - tense people never run their best. Whatever the outcome of your race, the next thing you will no doubt be thinking about is ‘what do I do now?’. For a great race, you would think that the answer to this is simple – more of the same. However this would be WRONG. For instance if you have trained for a three hour marathon and come in, in 2:59:59 then your next challenge (should you wish to accept it) is to train for a SUB-three hour marathon and believe me the training for this will be VERY different. For a good race you have a great base to work from. Your training was good, so all you need to do is create a situation which means you will be able to follow the whole of your training plan and achieve all its time goals. If you have been injured then once you have given your body time to heal, next time you WILL carry out your race plan starting off slow, consolidating in the middle and maintaining an even pace to the end. Very few PBs are achieved by starting off fast to try and put some ‘time in the bank’. For a poor race, my best advice is, that you consider getting some help if you have not managed to fulfil your goals by yourself! There are many members of running clubs who are more than happy to help anyone struggling to achieve their best race, OR alternatively consider employing a professional person such as a coach/personal trainer to create an individual plan for you. You have a period of time now to do the following: RECOVER - never underestimate the time your body takes to heal, it is as important as ANY of your training. If you had a run you were happy with don’t be shy about telling EVERYONE - well for at least a week anyway - and make sure you thank all the people in your life who have supported you in this mad thing you love doing (they have already listened to the moans about aches and crap weather and missed sessions so give all the good stuff too). Make notes of your thoughts and ideas to improve next time or just to jog your memory, for example the name of the gel that worked for you or that the Nike socks rubbed your heal. This post-race self-debrief will pay dividends when you are in training again as you will be working with tried and tested ideas. Your legs are not hurting so much because they don’t like you, they are saying we have worked very hard for you so can you now please look after us! Think about having a massage to push all the rubbish out of the muscles and lengthen them to aid a quick recovery so you can trash them again at your next A race. And finally ENJOY the feeling of completing the London Marathon, whatever the result! As a postscript - my own running has slowed a bit and I need to get my backside out and put some miles in and begin to build my long distance running up. My next post will cover how things have been going and a few results and feelings on the upcoming start of my EPIC year after all: “There is no better feeling than having trashed another pair of trainers because of too many hours of running”

Time to rest

Over the last few months my running has been going from strength to strength, so it should come as no surprise that I should reach a point when my body says ‘I need a rest’ as it did last Friday when Justin, Gareth and I went for a three hour run.

We had a good 18 mile route planned and thought we could just add a few extra twists and turns to increase it to a possible maximum of 22 miles.

I felt good for the first 8 or so miles, but by the time we had finished the canal stretch of the route, I knew that my pace was slowing. Given that Gareth and Justin are both entered for the London Marathon and this was their last big run before then, I told them to push on and reduced down to an ultra-chug which immediately felt more comfortable.

I ended up managing to run just short of 20 miles off road in three hours so the end result wasn’t bad but by the time I finished I was complete spent. My body was definitely telling me to rest, stretch and refuel properly before my next big training run.

I need to be able to do a good 5 hour run before I choose the ultra I want to enter so that I am fairly confident I will be able to make a good fist of it and not blow up. I am in a good place with my running at the moment and don’t want to mess it up so slow and steady has to be the watchword.

I am excited about the forthcoming year’s challenges. I have good (and fast!) friends to help me and support me on my ‘mad runs’ as they call them.

Running should not be your life – it should be what gives you life!

HIIT or miss

Some of you probably saw the recent Horizon programme ‘The Truth About Exercise’ which explored the assertion by a Canadian Physical Science team that you could improve your fitness by just a few minutes of training each week (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01cywtq)
While many of us wonder just how much exercise we really need in order to improve our health and fitness, the Canadian Scientists turned this on its head and set about asking how little exercise we need.
The emerging and answer appears to be - a lot less than most of us think — provided we’re willing to work a bit.
The Researchers at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, gathered several groups of volunteers. One group consisted of sedentary but generally healthy middle-aged men and women. Another comprised middle-aged and older patients who’d been diagnosed with cardiovascular disease.
The Researchers tested each volunteer’s maximum heart rate and peak power output on a stationary bicycle. In both groups, the peaks were not very high. All of the volunteers were out of shape and, in the case of the cardiac patients, unwell. But they gamely agreed to undertake a newly devised programme of cycling intervals.
Most of us have heard of intervals, or repeated, short, sharp bursts of strenuous activity, interspersed with rest periods. Almost all competitive athletes strategically employ a session or two of interval training every week to improve their speed and endurance.
But the Canadian Researchers didn’t ask their volunteers to sprinkle a few interval sessions into exercise routines. Instead, the Researchers wanted the groups to exercise exclusively with intervals.
CAN IT WORK? As with all things training the answer is yes AND no.
First you need to be prepared to work VERY hard. This doesn’t mean getting slightly out of breath and it starting to hurt a bit hard – it means flashing before your eyes and your body feeling like your limbs are about to explode and fall off hard. Your breathing will be so hard that all you will be thinking about is ‘when will this end?’ If you can take yourself to this place then you will be a fitter person.
Secondly, you need to be fully aware of the benefits you are gaining AND not gaining - the key loss being FAT LOSS. The intervals can’t be used to replace the maintenance of a good healthy diet.
The McMasters scientists did test a punishing workout, known as high-intensity interval training, or HIIT, that involved 30 seconds of all-out effort at 100% of a person’s maximum heart rate. After six weeks, these lacerating HIIT sessions produced similar physiological changes in the leg muscles of young men as multiple, hour-long sessions per week of steady cycling, even though the HIIT workouts involved about 90% less exercise time.
Recognizing, however, that few of us willingly can or will practice such straining all-out effort, the Researchers also developed a gentler but still chronologically abbreviated form of HIIT. This modified routine involved one minute of strenuous effort, at about 90% of a person’s maximum heart rate (which most of us can estimate, very roughly, by subtracting our age from 220), followed by one minute of easy recovery. The effort and recovery are repeated 10 times, for a total of 20 minutes.
This routine was then further abbreviated for the TV programme to 3 minutes a week with the presenter only doing 12 minutes of exercise per month! By the end of the programme he was exhibiting greater insulin sensitivity (good for removing excess sugars from the system)
According to the Professor of Kinesiology at McMaster who led the study Martin Gibala, HIIT training will not be ideal or necessary for everyone. “If you have time” for regular 30-minute or longer endurance exercise training, “then by all means, keep it up,” he said. “There’s an impressive body of science showing” that such workouts “are very effective at improving health and fitness.”
My personal view is that you might do well to commit to BOTH types of training in order to achieve a balance and not just target a single element of fitness. I have used HIIT training for a number of years to provide a short term alterative to a full programme and it works very well as long as the commitment is there SOOOO…
Try the methodology by all means - but don’t cheat yourself!!
Happy Training

Running in the park

A couple of weekends ago I ran my first Parkrun event at Cutteslowe Park in Oxford - http://www.parkrun.org.uk/oxford/home.

Almost 80 runners turned up for the three lap course and while it will never net you a PB, it allows you to have a good ‘gallop’ as my friend Kevin would say. The volunteers were very friendly and helpful and everyone was welcoming in a relaxed (yet competitive) way!

On the multi-terrain course, I did better than I had expected running a time of 20:34, coming in 8th overall and 2nd vet 45-49 (the first vet was the overall fastest on the day).

The Parkrun would make a good regular ‘sharpener’ for race preparation and I would highly recommend giving it a go.

Coast to Coast bike ride with a difference (that’s across America)

I am currently helping an ex-American soldier Tom Von Kaenel prepare for an epic charity bike ride across America. Tom was badly injured while cycling in the Pyrenees in Sept 2010 and was helped by both British and American solders and medical staff who saved his life and so to say thank you he has decided to do a cycle ride to raise some money for veterans of both the UK and US military. Despite still suffering from the after-effects of his accident, Tom is intending to ride from Brize Norton airbase in Oxfordshire on the 21st April to Heathrow and then from the West to East coast of America starting in Seattle, Washington and finishing in Washington DC on 4th July. Tom will then fly back to the UK on 6 July, riding through London back to Brize Norton arriving on 8 July – a staggering total of 4,200 miles.

Tom is hoping to raise £5,000,000 from his endeavours and you can find out more about his challenge at: www.sea2sea.org. Alternatively Tom can be contacted on: tvk@sea2sea.org; twitter: Sea2Sea1; facebook: Sea2Sea.

Long hours on short days

The last few weeks have been VERY busy!

I am very pleased to be able to say that at long last my website back up and running (with a new Web Designer on board) and can be found again at: http://www.cwpersonaltraining.com. We are working on some changes and improvements which will be rolled out over the next few months but in the meantime if anyone wants to get in touch all my contact information is on the site. In addition to looking at Twitter (as mentioned previously), I have been having fun looking at using a QR barcode for future promotional materials. Watch this space!

The results from my speed test with Justin have given me a good base to set my paces for my speed, interval and race pace training. The pace for my longer runs is fine but I am definitely going to have to increase the distances if I am going to enter any of the ultras I would like to do this year.

It feels great to finally be able to get some good consistent training in but getting back training properly while also taking clients for run training has made me realize that I am going to have to be careful not to overload my legs. I can feel that my shins are tight and my knees are a little sore, which is probably my IT bands having a bit of a whinge. I’ve also noticed that this has coincided with me doing more of my training on the roads, so it’s back to running off-road again this week as I do need to keep up my run tally if I’m going to get anywhere near hitting my Jantastic challenge targets with Marathon Talk (http://www.marathontalk.com). If you haven’t listened to Marathon Talk before then I thoroughly recommend giving it a go – it’s a great place for lively chat, information and quite a few laughs.

On the business front I have had quite a number of new enquiries and I have also been helping with Tom von Kaenel with his training for the Sea 2 Sea Challenge (more about this next time) – hence the busy last couple of weeks – but it’s all fantastic stuff!

New Year, Old Body, New goals

Well, I have done almost a month of steady shorter and longer runs with the aim of building a solid base from which to begin my training programme proper. I am doing a 10k speed trial with Justin on Thursday to enable me to calculate my VDOT time, which will effectively allow me to set all the times for my programme - from intervals to easy runs. While I have tried to be sensible over the past few weeks while I make sure that I really do seem to have put the problems of last year behind me, I am SO looking forward to returning to a more structured approach to my running. It makes it so much easier to see where I need to put the work in and that I don’t waste effort on the wrong sort of training.
Most of my recent runs have been off road and I do feel that this has paid off. Although the times per mile are slower, I have been able to get out more often as I have had very few aches after each session. It also means that I have been able to put some concentrated effort in at the end of each run by trying hard to pick up the pace in the final mile. All good practice for the last push at the end of a race! I have done a couple of longer runs (up to three hours on the ground or around 18 miles) and given the lack of light at this time of year, these runs have usually involved using my headtorch. I know a lot of people don’t like running off road in the dark but I do find it very focusing running to the beam and I love the sense of isolation it creates (I know – sad!).
I had a really enjoyable run on Boxing Day while I was at my Mum’s for Christmas. My Aunt’s running club always put on a well organised and well attended two lap race over four(ish) miles for those who can get themselves out of bed! I started well but the second mile of each lap was a long slow uphill against the wind and when I came round for the second lap I was done in! I averaged just over 7 min/miles. Not fast but not too bad after a big Christmas dinner the day before and a few real ales (possibly not the best way to taper for a race!).
Away from the training, I have been looking at how to better make use of social media sites to promote my Personal Training business and hopefully you will see the fruits of this research very soon!
Happy Running!

Web site update

Some of you may have noticed that my web site has been down since the middle of December. Unfortunately this is due to a dispute between Oxford Web Consultants and the hosting company which is entirely beyond my control. Despite being aware of the position and assuring me that they are dealing with the issue, so far Oxford Web Consultants have not been able to resolve the situation although I hope that the site will be up and running again in one form or another in the near future.

However in the meantime, please do contact me by e-mail (cwpt@hotmail.co.uk) or on my mobile (07581 229 393) if you would like to discuss your personal training needs!