New Year's Running Revolutions for 2023

 

The week from Boxing Day to New Year's Day was very good. Boxing Day I managed 20 miles with Bracknell Forest Runners, including a whole new section of paths and trails paralelling London Road, taking in Ascot Racecourse and some other areas.

Overall, I got in 56 miles for the week. After the 20 miler on Monday, I took a rest day, and the day after that I went to the gym. Thursday I got back to running in a big way, with a 13.5 mile run following my course called "Trailrunners 8:30s" which 'satnaved' a run that I'd done with the BFRs a couple of years ago.  It is the most 'traily' course I have on my watch. Actually I'd like to figure out a way to code all the trails, tracks, and roads in Swinley and then put together a scale of trailiness. But when I think about it, there's so much variation, that it's nice to have different kinds of trails put together to mix things up.  All winding rocky single-track might get tiresome after a while. You'd want some springy pine-needly double (or triple) track roads thrown in just to make things interesting.  Still I can dream of my 'master map' that's probably only exists in the minds of the veteran runners of Swinley that I follow around each week.

One of the best runs I did over the holidays was my Christmas Eve run, that followed a course of the first run I ever did with Bracknell Forest Runners. It's called "My First Forest Run" on my watch, and it's from 19 May 2019. It's in a tie for my favourite forest run, with the one noted above that I did on the 29th of Dec.  Overall I think I did a pretty good job of pacing myself.

The long run on Boxing Day was at a brisk pace of sub 8:30 from Mercedes to Blacknest Gate, and then it settled down into some easy to moderate pacing, depending on who I'd latched onto going around Virginia Water Lake. I got going with a couple of people who are doing preliminary base training for their upcoming spring marathon efforts, and finished off with the north-of-Ascot section at another good brisk sub-9 pace.  Overall the run came out at sub 10mm, and this included a little bit of walking I'd thrown in just to give it a kind of 'ultra' feeling.

I had also, on the 20 miler, tested out my recipe from Jason Koop's Training Essentials for Ultrarunning: his bacon-egg rice balls.  I at five of these balls on the Boxing Day run, and they were excellent. Washed down with water they went down nicely, and provided a nice salty snack and some mid-run carbs to keep me going.  Koop recommends water with food so that you can keep track of hydration and electrolyte consumption separately.  I think I agree with this approach now that I've tested it.  So the Boxing Day run was beneficial on many levels. It was an ultra training run of 3.5 hours, in which I tested both walking and eating along the way.  I finished feeling quite fresh.  This is a very auspicious start to my ultra-training plan for my Race to the Stones 100km run on 8 July 2023.

The two trailruns I did were of quite different pacing, but both were very beneficial in a way the long 20 miler hadn't been: they were trailruns (as opposed to the mostly road 20 miler). The Christmas Eve one was deliberately slow: 11mm+ pace because it was a day after a hard session I'd done to re-introduce tempo runs into my regimen. On the Eve of Christmas Eve I'd done a 'tempo/tempo/hills' run around South Hill Park, with 12/6/6 at tempo pace (7:30mm or faster) and four 90 second hill efforts up to Hilton.  The day after that, any trail run was going to be easy, and I'm proud of myself for how evenly I paced Christmas Eve after that, all 11mm, with not a single mile under 10mm, and this for a 12 mile run.

The last run of the 56 mile week that just ended yesterday, was yesterday's group trail run at 10mm pace, and it was just so relaxing.  We did selfies (see www.instagram.com/gwilymeades ) at Hut Hill and elsewhere, and I actually chatted a bit (or at least it felt chatty to me).  On the Boxing Day 20 miler too, I had managed to keep up the flow of chat fairly well (for me anyway), and I think it contributed to an overall sense of flow for the run.

So, as I head forward into the new year, my priority is on recovering well, which, today, I've done. Sorely tempted to do back-to-back social trailruns, I held back today, and stayed inside, and read Aschwanden's Good to Go: How to Eat, Sleep and Rest Like a Champion. I can only compare it to other iconic, scientific, and easy to read books like Hutchinson's Endure and Epstein's Range. Good to Go deserves only the highest praise. I'm polishing it off in a day. You get all the scientific studies you could need, but wrapped up in excellent science writing narratives and participatory exploration of the the recovery techniques discussed.  It's great, and all runners should read it.  It's perfect for a recovery day.

The other one I've been reading, which I treated myself to as a feel-good (but not necessarily rigourous) read, is McDougall and Orton's Born to Run 2. One of the first things they recommend doing is taking a week off to explore various small 'exercise snacks' of various squats, deadbugs, and quick feet mini-drills to wake up and reconnect the bodies and brains of long-distance runners. It's a really different book from the first one, to which it constantly alludes, but the really nice thing about it is that it follows up with some of the 'characters' from the original Born To Run, and it gives you hands-on information, including crucially several recipes from Pinole Bars to Posole, energy gels and bars, special recovery drinks and meals, and all kinds of inspiring food ideas.  It's also a training plan.

As we head into the new year, I'm looking forward to my second run of the year, a 'Fatigue Efforts' session of 5 * 90sec with 30 sec recoveries, and also my first marathon training run on the 8th of Jan.  As mentioned in an earlier post, my training plan this year consists solely of club runs, with the addition of a Friday tempo or hill run, alternating by week.  Sunday runs will be beefed up, and I'll have up to 3 recovery days per week (Tues, Thurs, and Sat). Back to back running will be Sunday/Monday, to give that all important 'tired legs' approach for my ultra on 8 July.  With that said, the marathon is also a training run, and it takes place on the 16th of April in Manchester.  My next race, however, is Wokingham Half Marathon. If you're running it, I'll see you there, but also at the 'training' runs, by which I mean track, MNCR, and Sunday runs at the lookout.

On NOT using a training plan

2023 is shaping up to be a lot of fun. I've decided not to use a training plan (based on some discussions with two of my fast running friends at BFR) for two reasons:

1. training plans are usually not written for you, the runner

2. they become too obsessive

What will I use in place of a training plan? Well, my training plan will be to USE MY RUNNING CLUB AS MY TRAINING PLAN! This means doing ALL THE CLUB RUNS: MNCR, Track, and Sundays at the Lookout.  Add in Friyay/Hillyay and a couple of recovery runs and I'll easily get 40 miles a week.  No obsessing: just show up and run!

WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF THIS BEFORE? (oh wait, I did...I just tried some other stuff that didn't work as well).

The only modification I'll make is to add more mileage on the long runs on Sunday as needed.

The only written running plan I'll use is later in the year for my 100km RTTS all in one go run, in which they provide a low-mileage plan that actually looks ok.

The races I'll do this year include: 

-Wokingham Half

-Manchester Marathon

-Race to the Stones 100km non-stop

-Windsor Half Marathon

And the plan is:

1. MNCR 7-8 miles (plus w/u & c/d)

2. Tuesday/rest day

3. Wed. Track 5mi + 3mi w/u + 1mi c/d

4. Th recovery 2mi + GYM squats 

5. Fr hillyay

6. Sat recover 2mi

7. Sun 2.5 w/u + 8mi + 2.5c/d (HERE IS WHERE YOU ADD IN MILEAGE FOR THE MARATHON TRAINING)

I'm also considering doing Run to the Sea again, 50kms in Bournemouth.  Should I do it?

London Marathon 2022

It was both my hardest effort (481 acc. to Strava) and my best run of all time, by which I mean, in the time I've been a runner, which is the last six years, I enjoyed the run more than any other I've ever done.  I achieved what I'd call a 'flow' state during this run, a state of mindful conscious reaching out to the crowds and the course that made the whole thing incredibly enjoyable and effortless-feeling.  

I ended up running 27.7 miles in part because of the above strategy, the honing in on faces in the crowd, to make eye contact, and to, above all, smile to take away the hurt. It worked! When I'd key in on the people flowing past, their outstretched hands, and their voices calling my name, I found myself running faster. I was amazed, and stunned when my splits starting coming up closer to 5min/km instead of my target of 5:50.  I had to slow myself down several times.

The result was an even or possibly even negative split race for me. There were two points where my emotions dipped a bit, one early on, and then one around 17miles.  The first one was easily overcome because I was still relatively fresh. The second was was overcome by seeing my wife Diane who miraculously appeared at 17.5 miles, giving me a big boost. Also by the sheer amazingness of the supporting crowds who seemed genuinely invested in pumping up the volume and the positivity.

This was my favourite run of all time. Check out the photos, map, and medal on Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/7899929845

Thanks also to everyone who donated and supported my charity of choice, Treloar's!

Are you really an ultra-runner if you've never DNF'd?

 

Today I ran some of the copses of Bracknell as a way of starting my training for the London Marathon 2022. The weather has cooled a bit, but it's still nice and sunny, and heating towards mid-day. It's still July but the marathon date (2 Oct) is surprisingly only 10 weeks off.

Having completed a PB marathon and 10k in the last few weeks, and also having 'completed' my first-ever DNF at Snowdon, I'm being careful to recover properly before taking on new challenges or races. I've been taking it easy since Snowdon, but also just revelling in the fact that despite the DNF it was such a fun run and great day. 

Besides which, are you really an ultra-runner if you've never DNF'd?  I would say NO!  Now I'm an ultra-runner!

And I'm going to shoot for a PB at London, which I've left as a fairly easy mark having finished in 3:50 at Southampton back in April.

I'm running for charity (Treloar's), so please donate if you can: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/gwilymeades

Southampton Marathon 2022

At the start line: focused!

It wasn't that hot of a day, but the new course is very hilly, even more so than when I ran my first marathon here back in 2018. 

What I'm saying is: they've added hills since then. And it was really hilly back then.

After completing the marathon this year, with all its delights, including 4 times over Itchen Bridge, Strava told me that the course (two times around the main loop) had 1050 feet of elevation gain.

One thing I will say is: it felt like it!

Psychologically this is an interesting course. You got a loop within a loop, and you have to do the main loop twice if you're running a marathon.  That's four loops, which is why you cross the bridge that many times. 

Some will say, the bridge isn't really a hill.  I beg to differ: it really is! It's not as big as that REALLY big hill later on, but the bridge is not flat. It looks like a mountain when you're running up it, and it goes on for a good long while. It's hard!

Powering across Itchen Bridge

Photo: Colin Mitchell

Now, I had some strategy going into this race, though technically, it was a training run for me in preparation for my 10 July 2022 Xterra Ultra Snowdon race. With that said, I spent at least five to six weeks doing marathon-specific training, using the training plan provided by Southampton.

Just past halfway, feeling great!

The photo above shows me just past the halfway point, feeling great. My strategy was to maintain an 8 minute mile pace throughout the race, with even pacing. With that said, my watch reads in km, so I told myself not to ever go faster than 5 min/km as a rule, so as not to go too fast (which I inevitably would).

The first mile was slow, and then they got a bit too fast, but not by too much. Splits were around 7:58 mins per mile at times in the early going. Later, the first time up the hill for example, I told myself to pace it out, and dropped down to maybe 8:30s.

I knew the second mini-loop, on the east side of Itchen, would be possibly the toughest psychologically. This is the 15-19 mile zone. It was hard, but not that bad. A big boost came when I crossed Itchen for the last time, and actually this was a nice spot because the wind had a big cooling effect, and the temps were creeping upwards.

At mile 20, just past the stadium (which we ran through, and was a big boost), the pace dropped just a bit. This is where in my first marathon in 2018 I had decided to walk.  Not this time. I didn't walk once during this race.

To mile 22 I was fine, there was a breeze, and some bands were playing really excellent music. It was a nice day for a sunny run.  Then I turned the corner for the final hill and the wind completely dropped away, there was no shade, and I was surrounded by concrete.

At the same time as I hit a 10min/mile pace, so did everyone else around me.  We were, at least, in sync, and I wasn't being passed.  Through the university area we finally got some shade, and there was great support through there too.  

I switched from Soreen/Lucozade power mode (one quarter of a Soreen mini per mile maintain up through mile 20), to Lucozade and water only (though I did power down a big block of Kendal sugar bomb). The water was the key thing as I had dutifully kept my energy stores up, and now just needed to sweat.

I was sick of Soreen, but cool due to having taken water at at least 10 different stations.  There were a lot of water stations, and a lot of water to be had at each, not in little sippy cups either.  These are proper sack/bubbles, with more than enough to quench the thirst.

The support was excellent, it was fun, and the course is amazing, with a lot of variation. I would run it again, actually. It was my Personal Best marathon time (that is, of ALL TIME, FOR ME), at 3:52:44, beating my previous best by a couple of minutes. This despite the fact that I took a wrong turn at the (very silent, unsigned) split point where the HMs carried on to their own finish line, and we took a left for our second half.  

For a training run, I'm super happy with this. I had trained to go faster obviously but as all marathon runners know, nothing ever really goes according to plan on race day, and you take the good with the bad.  Actually there was very little of the latter, nothing bad to report (just that unclear split point), and I love every aspect of this course, which has helped in my ultra training and racing to come.

What winning the Radgick Award means to me

I keep a running journal to manually record my route, distance, time, and notes on daily runs (or rests), with one entry for every day, whether I run or not. It started out as a Runner's World pre-formatted book that I'd bought at Smith's, but after a couple of years of those, I just started writing out the headings each time, always making sure to include some information on how the run went. This might be how I felt, or how the weather was that day. I paraphrase below from my journal entry for today.

Yesterday I received the Radgick Award for ultra-running from Bracknell Forest Runners.  This was an incredibly validating and meaningful award to receive for me.  It has a great deal of value in addition to that which I gained from completing Race to the Stones and Run to the Sea this year. That extra bit of recognition really helps, and its value goes way beyond the physical object.  And it's not just about looking back. 

I now have added inspiration about what went so well last year, and how to apply it to the coming one. I've identified 5 things that went well and that I plan to continue doing:

1. I listened to my body. I didn't run when I felt that doing so might result in injury or sickness.

2. I was consistent. Long (10, 12, 15, 18, 20+ miles) training runs occurred at least every other (if not every) week.

3. I let myself recover: 2 rest days per week

4. I did strength training (at the gym or at home): 2 times/week

5. I paid attention to eating enough and eating well before, during, and after running

My goal race for 2022 is the 60km Xterra Snowdon Ultramarathon. It looks crazy written out on the page (and even crazier looking at the elevation profile of the course). In the meantime, I have Wokingham Half and Southampton Marathon as milestones on the way to that midsummer dream, about which I will be blogging in the months to come.

I feel that I must also add that, while training for ultras often involves a lot of solo running, it wouldn't be possible without social support from friends and family, and without a lot of social and group running. Track, MNCR, and BFR Sunday runs from the Lookout are the true inspiration behind successful ultra running!

Run to the Sea 2021

 

My first ultra since Race to the Stones a few months ago, I had been checking out the course on Google Earth for a few days.  My practice runs had been supposedly about honing my race strategy in terms of pacing and nutrition.  I say 'supposedly' because for some earlier races (the Stones, and Brighton Marathon), that strategy (especially the nutrition part) hadn't really worked out.

But for this race, it did, both on the food and on the pace side.  Where earlier in the year I had failed to eat enough on the course, which had then contributed to a severe dropping off of my speed, during this race to the sea I had replicated a strategy that I had honed pre-lockdown, way back in my Laurentians run into northern Quebec when I spontaneously went out for a 48km run from Morin Heights on the Corridor Aerobique.  I count that as (until now) my best ever run.

The run I did yesterday, down to Poole and across to Bournemouth, has just usurped that position as 'top run'.  What I done earlier, I did now, which is to say, "Eat enough."  As in the Laurentians, I took with me sufficient food to fuel a 50km run (and then some): 4 Peanut Clif Bars; 3 SIS gels; 3 bottles of Lucozade, spread across three bottles (one in my Kalenji trail bag/vest; one on my running belt; and another carried by hand to the first check point where the empty bottle was discarded).

I ate all of it, the final two gels being washed down with a berry flavoured Lucozade in the final three miles of the race.  I still had energy, though a very faint tell-tale tingle haunted my finger tips, a sure sign of impending low-blood sugar for me.  

The beginning of the race took us through dry forest-lands bordering on some swampy areas, in alternation.  I had lined up with the 7:40am group and spotted a few other BFRs across the way.  But second later everyone was running, grouped or clustered or single (like me), just behind the whole big cluster.  I was NOT going to head out too fast.  This, the second successful strategy, which was to keep the pace above 10mm the whole way.  Begin the race and you intend to end it.  Which I did!

It was more like 11mm+, which was even better.  I ran along behind a bit group that had some jokes circulating and some big laughs, a great feeling that was infectious.  As they pulled away from me I actually began to believe I might've been in last place, but then I remember all the people I'd left behind back at the toilet queue.  A couple more solo runners passed me and I settled into the first leg to the checkpoint.  The scenery remained haunting and beautiful with early morning fogs just beginning to lift across boggy meadows and moors.

The terrain was pretty flat throughout, with a wide gravelly pathway and lots of room to pass other runners, or be passed, or to say hi to dog-walkers and families of the earlier morning bent.  At each checkpoint I ritualistically downed a Clif bar and washed it down with plenty of Lucozade.  I hit the second check point having only consulted my watch a couple of times, and that to see if I was indeed on the right track, following the organiser-supplied .gpx file I'd set to 'Navigate' as a course.  It was spot-on the whole way.

So, the long middle section arrived, and my pace crept up a bit.  I run a lot of half-marathons, and was heading into that distance, between the 19km checkpoint 2 and the 31.5ish km checkpoint 3.  During this log segment I paced myself with some 10mm runners and overheard their chat and knew I was on a fast bit and that I'd need to not get carried away if a finish was to be possible.  My instinct to just finish always kicks in at some point as I fatigue during a race and adjust.

The first time I checked my distance was when navigate informed me I had 21km to go.  It was nice to have this information well past the halfway point because in my mind I was only just halfway.  And here I was with just a couple of kms to the next checkpoint, and already on the seafront.  Once you hit that seafront you feel like you're on the home stretch, and you have a lot of support along the way.  You feel a bit like you're just out for jog like everyone else, nothing special for certain stretches, but then of course there are the dedicated supporters walking along, or sitting at one of the many pub tables along the way.

A lot wobbly looking people in the heat of the final checkpoint, and we had only 8+km to go at that point.  The last 5 miles felt long and a bit hot (though with cool breaths of air from the sea), and I mostly managed to run the whole thing.  I think I only walked for less that one mile during the entire race.  An older runner paced me for part of it: he was indefatigable and never once walked and he had an absolutely metronomic pace going.  I was with him at checkpoint 4 at which point he stopped for about a minute, and then was off into the distance without me.

The last legs are the most inspiring finishing segments I've seen for a while, with grand vistas along the beach to a distant headland cliff.  You push through some sand and up a knoll and you're there, and everyone's so laid back lolling on the grass like its a summer festival.  Which it was, with summery weather even though only early autumn.  A great day, and a very memorable race that I'll consider doing again next year.