8 March - Postponed, possibly...

I'm unable to commit to the 30 June for the PBR this year.  I have just won a new contract which will mean working in London for about 3 months full time and for a big chunk of the week for 9 months after that.  It's a brilliant development professionally, but it means that I can't train during the week like i would need to.  For my family's sake, i am not going to be away all week and then train all bloody weekend. Something has to give, and it's this.

I've also been uneasy about committing to a fixed date because from that spills a schedule and a plan, and the whole thing starts to feel different to the low key event i want this to be.

What I'm going to do instead is to train as much as I can, and spend the summer racing.  Races are easy to organise and I love competing against my peers.  I'll train to race over some of the big classics (Ennerdale and Wasdale I have yet to do) and aim for a sub-4 hour Borrowdale in August, something I've got close to but never done.

The idea, which was the original idea, is to decide quite suddenly to go and do it.  To get to a point when I think i'm fit enough, make a few calls, pick a clear warm day in the later summer and go for it.  This way it's low key stress free and it means I'm not working away panicking about not training enough.

It's the only choice really.

w/c 27 Feb - Busy and fast!

Another short blog entry this week, because I only managed to get out twice - Saturday and Sunday.  The working week was very busy and crucial as we were starting with a new client.

But what a great couple of runs!  It feels like I'm stronger - there is no better feeling for an athlete that knowing that the effort of training is paying off.  I ran what i glibly call my 1:15 run on Moel Famau on Saturday.  It's a run that I've only run under 1:15 twice before - it's a 7 mile rollercoater that has 2,300' feet of ascent and descent in and very runnable, which is what makes it so tough.  I managed 1:14:42, which is a personal best.  It was a shock - i felt good but it was muddy underfoot and so I was not expecting to fly.  But it clicked, I ran and it was good!  I pushed very hard when i sensed it was 'on' and was knackered at the end.

The next day the snow fell and Moel Famau was transformed from a spring like breeze to a wintry scene again, which I was fed up with.  I managed another strong run of 6M and 2600' (some reps up Fenlli thrown in) the day after and ended up having a good weekend.  But the need for a long day is growing.

If i carry on like this, i'll get fit, but not fit for a round.  Hoping for a long day out next week.

Week Summary:

Sat - 7M, 2,300 feet - fast hard run
Sun - 6M, 2,700 feet - snowy brisk fell run

Total - just 13M and 5,000 feet

w/c 20 Feb - At last, a full training week

10,000 feet climbed, 40 odd miles run and lots of enjoyment this week - exactly what training should be, especially training for a round.

I felt well, after 2 weeks of illness, and had some time to run most days.  It was great.

It was kind of brilliantly unremarkable.  I want every week to be like this, although the long days will have to start soon.  I just want to get fit now for the Edale Skyline in March and feel this week has gone some way towards this.

So there is not much to report, just a good solid week.

Mon - 3 miles in Birmingham

Tues - Speedwork pyramid 1,2,3,4, 5mins, 4, 3, 2, 1

Weds - Edale Skyline (2/3 of it) with Nick.  Very wet day.  15 miles, 4000'

Thurs - Rest

Fri - 4 railways, 1350'

Sat - 6 Pistyll Hill reps - very hard intense session 900'

Sun - Moel Famau * 4 (Bottom Car Park, MF, Loggerheads, MF, Cilcain, MF, Clwyd Valley, MF) - 9 miles, 4000'

Total - 40 miles, 10,250' feet climbed

w/c 13 Feb - Not much better, but better...

Another poor week.  I was away on a new client site which means training is nigh on impossible.  Plus I was still feeling pretty poor.  And then away in Nottingham seeing family at the weekend meant being nowhere near any hills.

This though is OK.  I managed to get out a few times and do some leg weights in the hotel gym.  The gym was a soulless place but the quads were burning when I'd done and those four sessions may well have had more physical benefit than I thought.  Mentally though it was dire.  But it was OK because I rested up for the most part and now, after two weeks of enforced low level training, I feel great!

I'm not tired.  I ran on Sunday in Nottingham (on my 39th birthday!) and felt the best I've felt for ages and ages.  What a nice present.  I felt like I was bounding along.  I felt the same today (Monday) as I ran along the towpaths of Birmingham (away again....).  This two week tempering of the training has made a huge difference and I can't wait to get onto the hills.

It's also made me realise that the chances to squeeze in a run are a constant preoccupation and it's not a nice way to live.  Every time I'm home after a few days away with work, it's always on my mind to get out.  This is what running does, especially when training for a round.  It's a great thing when you have time to train like mad, but I don't.  So I'll train when I can enjoy it.  That doesn't mean filling every gap with a negotiated run.  It means going out when there's time to relax and enjoy the run.  It means doing a smaller number of bigger runs.

But rounds demand respect and preparation.  This is why I will do this one differently.  My BGRs were done on quantity.  This one is all about quality.  It has to be.  It's not about the miles I put in, but what I put into the miles.  I like that maxim and it will be in my head until June.

Quality miles often come from races, long races especially.  I usually stop racing for rounds and focus on long solo days at a slow pace, much like the rounds themselves.  This is sensible and right, and I'll do one or two days like this.  But I want to race a bit more.  I love my sport and it's races where it comes alive.  So unlike before, I will use some big races to work bloody hard and get fit.  This means very few mammoth days.  I'll do a 48 hour PBR in April, so 2 12 hour days there, but the focus thereafter will be local runs on Moel Famau and some serious racing in May and June.

I've entered or will enter....

March - Edale Skyline (21miles, 5000 feet ascent)

April - Teenager with Altitude (17miles, 7500 feet ascent)

May -
Great Lakeland 3 day (3 days, each of @26 miles and probably 6000 feet ascent),
Sandstone Trail race (33miles, 2000 feet ascent),
Old Counties Tops (40miles, 10,000 feet ascent)

June -
Ennerdale (23miles, 7500 feet ascent) and...
...Helvellyn (15miles, 4,400) on consecutive days,
Great Lakes Run (13miles, 7000 feet)

Then the PBR at end of June

Looks like a great Spring and Summer ahead!

Week Summary:

Monday - still ill
Tuesday - Gym * 2
Weds - Gym
Thurs - 9.5 miles, 600' hilly road run (felt bad)
Fri - 4 miles (still felt bad)
Sat - Rest
Sun - 9 miles, 1000' - felt fantastic, at last!

Week summary - 23 miles, 3 gym sessions.  5 days feeling crap, 2 days feeling great - bring on next week

w/c 6 February - Ill

A frozen Kinder Downfall

This week, after the snowy Long Mynd, I was ill.  I managed two runs, and it was awful.

On Monday, I was sore after the LM but felt good, if a little snotty.  On Tuesday, it all went wrong.  Let's just say that a few sudden trips to the loo were required for the rest of the week.

I managed to get out and run on Kinder on Thursday in the snow, but didn't feel great and it put me back a bit.  Took some nice photos though!

My wife and daughter were ill later that week and so when i felt better at the weekend, my planned run on Sunday on the Moelwyns was not going to happen.  This was a blow as I need to get some long runs in.

A road run on Sunday once the Immodium had kicked in (ewww!) and that was it.  Just 13 miles and 2300' for the week.

Next week I'm away with work and running is going to be tough, esp as I'm nowhere near the hills at the weekend as I'm visiting family.

All of a sudden, this thing feels very hard to train for...

w/c 30 Jan - Time to go long...

Typical Long Mynd slope

Well the plan last week was to hit the Long Mynd hard and see if I could beat my pb on that course of 2:13.  I missed it by quite some way, taking 2:26 to complete the course.   I was 76th from 210 runners, which was ok.

There are 3 reasons for this.  One - a stinking cold which had me feeling pretty ropey after half an hour's strong running (i stopped, expelled an alarming amount of snot using the fell runner's favourite 'one finger on side of nose and blow' technique and ran on feeling a bit better!).

This has now turned into a horrible virus and i'm pretty poorly now, 2 days later.  Strangely, this is reassuring as i now know why i couldn't get close to that time.

Two - plenty of snow to make the going a bit slower (i did 2:32 last time it snowed) and Three - I'm just not as fit as i hoped to be, nearly, but not quite.I've also adopted a John Wayne style walk.  Part of it is the satisfying tiredness one gets after a race.  The rest of it is the fact I now have an arse injury because i had no choice but to bum slide down three of the descents in that race - the ground was too unsafe to run down.  So I have a new injury to add to the list!

I'll keep the quality going, but now it is time to go long.

The last few weeks have been great as I've gone from a low base to a reasonable standard and feel that I have a platform to move onto bigger, better, longer things.  If I'd have gone to long days from nothing, I'd have really suffered.  Now, I think I'm ready for some bigger days out.  And it is these big days out change the rate of improvement.

This week, sore legs after the Long Mynd, a sore arse after the sliding descents and a stinking cold mean I'll be running less often.  But a gap in my work diary means I can get two log hill days in.  So, I'm going to run the Edale Skyline route on Thursday (21 miles, 5000 feet ascent) in order to recce the new route (including the down-and-up option at the end) and the long leg of the PBR on Sunday (20 miles, 7000 feet of ascent).  This will be my first 10,000'+ week of the campaign and the start of longer, harder runs.  This is where the training starts to look towards a 24 hour round and not simply a return to fitness.  It's about time.

Improvised descending

The Long Mynd was all about confirming that the low fitness ebb of 2011 was over, which it just about did.  The Edale Skyline in March will be the next test.  I should be running well there, well under four hours.  My pb is 3:42:52, set in 2006 when I was training for the London Marathon (where i went on to break 3:15).  I would really like to beat this, which means some serious training because I was pretty damn fit then.

The plan is to keep on doing a couple of quality sessions each week, but to try and do two good hill runs. One will be a long day, over the mountains with loads of climbing and at a slow pace and the other being more runnable an done at speed.  The two runs this week fit this perfectly.  The Skyline is a runnable joy of a route, esp if the bogs are frozen, and the PBR leg is a long and slow march over many mountain summits.

So I'm looking forward to some real mountain running, as soon as I can walk properly again.

Week Summary:

Mon - Rest
Tues - 9 miles, 1,2,3,4,5,4,3,2,1 minute efforts - hard session 9 miles
Weds - Rest
Thurs - 4M tempo during the day, 9M hill efforts (eve)
Fri and Sat - Rest
Sun - Long Mynd Valleys - 11M, 5000'

Totals - 33 miles, 6,500' climbing

w/c 23 Jan - Less is less

A very light training week - just 20 miles and about 3000' of climbing with no long run.

This was because of a combination of work and life events.  I was away for 4 days in Buckingham on a (very good) course and then it was time to enjoy my beautiful daughter's first birthday on Saturday.

Family, friends and neighbours were in attendance for the oblivious Rosie's big day.  More than anything, it was a day for reflecting on the progress we have made in a year as a family.  Not always easy, but always wonderful.

A regular easy week is said by many as a vital part of any training plan - a less is more approach, if you like.  This may be so, but I was not trying to be clever but was simply busy remembering that obsessed by getting fit for PBR I may be, it isn't the most important gig in town.

Rosie, Mummy, Daddy and Cake

Week summary:

Monday - nothing
Tuesday - easy 3M in Buckingham after course
Weds - nothing
Thursday - 8M, 2000' Night run with the club on Moel Famau - brilliant
Friday - 3M tempo, quite a good pace actually
Saturday - Rosie's birthday party!!
Sunday - 6M - 5 * Marford quarry intervals (ranging from 6:15 to 6:23)

Total - 20M, 3000' ascent



Next week: The Long Mynd Vallays fell race - let's see how fit I'm getting....

w/c 16 Jan - Cautiously optimistic

This week has been another good one - 5 training sessions and a good mix of quality and hill work.  It feels like a week of transition from one phase of fitness to another.  Up until last weekend's XC race, my current state of fitness was "returning from injury", which is code for 'don't expect much' when speaking to other runners.  It's a common start-line excuse.  Now, I'm definitely feeling like I'm "in-training" and starting to feel stronger.

Calf Summit - looking west towards the Lakes

I wondered this week if i was strong mentally though.  I set off on Wednesday to do a run around the Sedbergh Hills course, 16 miles and 6000' ascent but as I ran up the first summit onto Arant Haw the cold wind really got up and the prospect of a long day was not appealing.  When I was a 24-hour round virgin this would not have put me off, but I didn't have masses of time and found myself doing a reasonable run to the Calf and back taking in Winder on the way down.  I ran well but didn't have the stomach for a huge day in the cold and strong wind.  I don't know why.

Summit plate on Winder

Maybe I'm being a bit more discerning thesedays, knowing that the coming weekend might yield better conditions and a chance of a longer run?  I don't know, but the indiscriminate hunger i had 5 years ago is now something else, something more calculated perhaps?  Whatever it is, i realise that doing the PBR as the person I am now does not mean trying to recreate all of what I did 5 years ago on the BGR.  I have to use everything I;ve learned about getting ready for rounds having done them summer and winter.

One of things I learned is that getting race fit, with quality and climbing, first before moving into the phase of doing really long days in the spring an early summer is a good move.  Hammering out big days form Jan onwards will wear out your head and legs, and your home and work life.  Training for long races involves long runs of 3 hours or so, not 8, 10, 12 hour epics.  These are needed, but not yet.  I'm also keen to run as much as the ups for now.  This builds strength and power.  The big days April and May will add stamina and mental strength.  This is my approach.  It balances all the forces in my life, and gets me strong for some confidence boosting race performances, with the Edale Skyline (March) and the Long Mynd (February) being particular targets.

With that in mind, running for 2 hours on the Howgills instead of 4 hours is not going to hurt, but come the summer it has to get serious.

Week summary:

Mon - Rest
Tues - 5M, 5 efforts on Bickerton Hill
Weds - 8M 2800' - Sedbergh, Arant Haw, the Calf and back again + Winder
Thurs - 7M 6 * 800 metre efforts (club session)
Fri - 5M, 5 efforts on Bickerton triangle hill
Sat - Rest
Sun - 11M, 4100' run in the clywdians (very windy)

Total: 36 miles, 8,900'

w/c 9 January - Back to average

Elidir Fawr from Carnedd Uchaf on a cold clear day - 15/1/12

A decent week - 5 sessions and a return to normal form.  This is more of a statement than it sounds because I have been well below par for about a year for one reason or another.  But at the cross country at Lilleshall on Sunday I was back to being fair to middling, inside the top half and amongst my running peers.  It's a good place to kick on from and was my target for the end of January.

I've decided against going solo, and soon after mentioning that, I've had some volunteers to help already which never ceases to amaze me.

As for last week's training, it was a good week, with two hill days and three quality sessions, including the XC race.

A dreary day on the rocky Glyders - 11/1/12

The Glyders on Wednesday were under thick cloud and rain, making for a tricky run across the top.  It was one of those days when you pull up in the car and think twice about getting out.  I managed a reasonable run out over Y Garn and the two Glyders, but didn't fancy Tryfan and that gully descent in the wet on my own.  A bit of SMJ i thought (Sound Mountain Judgement, which is what you say to yourself it is when you think you're being a wuss).


A tough club session (hill sprints), the XC and some mile intervals near home worked on the quality aspect and then on Sunday, the sun came out and so I took off to the Carneddau.  It was a complete contrast to the Wednesday run, a blazing winter sun and perfect visibility on and around Foel Fras.

So in all, about a 40 mile week with about 8,000' of climbing - not bad.

Week summary

Mon - 6M, 5 * 1M intervals
Tues  - Rest
Weds - 8M, 3500' ascent - Y Garn and Glyderau in bad weather
Thur - 8M, club session hill sprints
Fri - Rest
Sat - XC race 6M, 39mins
Sun - 13M, 3800' ascent - Foel Fras round to Moel Wnion

Wild Horses on the Carneddau - 15/1/12

Not alone with Paddy

I've been talked out of a solo attempt, by two people - my missus and myself.

I had a run out on the Glyders on Wednesday in terrible weather, heavy rain, mist down to the valley and high winds.  I wouldn't fancy being up there on my own after 18 hours or so if it were like that, and it could be.

More importantly, neither would my wife.  She's having to put up with yet another round after summers and winters on the Bob Graham and so i really ought to listen a bit.

So, it's on, but i'll get a little help.

w/c 2nd Jan - Nothing yet....

Kinder Downfall

These are the hard yards.  I can't see any big changes yet.

When you're returning from injury, or even just upping the training, there is a point where the increase in training seemingly produces just increases in tiredness rather than in athletic performances.  It's a rite of passage, and has to be endured before the speed and power start to show themselves.  Until the rite is earned, it just feels crap.

This week I've really enjoyed being able to run as much as I have.  My client is being a bit slow in calling me back after Christmas and so I've a little more time than expected.  This means more time with my gorgeous wife and baby daughter, but the runner in me is smiling also ;-)

I have been away to work a couple of days and had to be sneaky about getting runs in, but for the most part it's been great week, including two lovely days in the hills.

Hard yards they may be, but when those yards are spent in the hills it's such a pleasure.

Next week: a race, to see whether i'm any fitter, really....

Week summary:

Monday - 10M, 2100' Kinder Downfall route
Tuesday - Rest day
Wednesday - 12M, 5000' Long Mynd Valleys (plus extra hill) route
Thurs  - 5 sprint efforts (at 11pm after conference dinner - amazed i sneaked it in!)
Fri - Rest (well, driving most of the day :( )
Sat - 6 reps up Pistyll Hill, which is an evil and VERY steep road rep.  5 flat out and 1 warm up - red lining all the way
Sun - 2 Tattenhall Railways and a bit of trail running - too many dogs around

Total - 8,000', 30 miles or so

Yearlet, Long Mynd

w/c 26 December - Back in the Habit

For the first time in years, I ran every day this week.  It was limbo-week, between Christmas and New Year, and it was great to be able to get out.  I didn't manage to get out for long each time generally, but I do feel like after a year of inconsistent training, I'm finally getting into a rhythm and starting to improve after the injury.

One of the most difficult things about training for a round is sustaining the motivation and interest over a  6 month period with just one goal.  It's easy now, at the start, especially having been starved of running for a bit. But it gets hard when everyone else is racing and you're focussing on long days.

It's New Year's Day today and I ran a local fell race, the Hangover Hobble near Llandegla.  A few of my friends did it too and it made for a great way to start the year.  I ran ok, and had the aforementioned hangover at the start!  But I really really enjoyed it.  Boy have I missed racing.

It occurs to me that missing racing and the difficulty of a single goal for 6 months points to a simple plan - to train for fell racing for 3 months to get really fit and then hone that towards a round for the summer.

First target will be the Long Mynd on 5 February.  The aim is to get a time that is roughly in line with my previous ones.  That doesn't sound very ambitious but given how much fitness I have lost recently, and that I've been in generally good nick when I've done that race, it would be great to be properly 'back' by then and I can kick on from there.  My best time there is 2:13 (2008) so I'll aim to beat that, conditions permitting (I did 2:31 in snowy conditions in 2009).

After that, we'll see but come Easter I'll focus on long days and the round.  Provisional date, 30 June 2012 - a full moon and 5 years to the day that I did the BGR!

Week Summary:

Monday (Boxing Day) - Easy 4M with Alison - our first run together since before Rosie was born
Tuesday - 10M and 2,700' on Moel Famau with Nick, Kate, Shaz and Heli
Wednesday - 4 0.9M efforts fast around Marford Quarry - a brilliant circuit
Thursday - 6M at the club, Border League route with Martin and Kate
Friday - 3M 1000' dash up Moel Famau - very wet!
Saturday (NYE) - 3M 1000' dash up Moel Famau - very dark!
Sunday (NYD) - Hangover Hobble, 6M  800', 47:29 - very muddy!