Training thoughts…

Howdy,

Apologies upfront if this waffles at all. Trying to get a sense of where I’m at in my training and where to go next.

I’ve been training for the BGR since August, and it’s been going well. A fortnight ago I did leg 4 twice in 4 days without feeling too shabby, and this week I linked leg 3 and (most of) 4. Leg 3 went great to Scafell Pike (not far off 18h pace), but I found leg 4 a struggle. This is new for me.

being unapologetically unscientific, I see three components in how quickly i move from A to B in the hills:

1) how quick I can run — I never really struggle with this. I was still managing 9min/mi on Grey Knotts, which isn’t going to win any marathons, but it’s respectable for what I’m trying to achieve

2) how quick I can ascend — I can do this well enough, but it tails off quicker than my running

3) feeling like poo - I’d researched enough to know this was going to happen, but I only really started to experience it for the first time on Red Pike. I could run and force myself to climb, but I felt bloody awful — sore, miserable and physically sick.

I’m good at 1) and pretty confident through consistent training and recovery I can improve 2), but does anyone have any thoughts/advice about 3)? Can this be trained? Or are humans just built in a way that if you run 30 miles in the hills, you’re going to start to feel awful?

Cheers.

An afterthought — I bruised big toe really badly in a freak rock-flipping incident about 15 miles in.
I shook it off at the time after a couple of moments hopping round Esk Pike, and carried on, but even two days later it is very sore, very swollen, and I’m limping round the office.

It wasn’t weighing on my mind at the time except for the downhilliest of downhills, but I’m wondering in retrospect how much it was holding me back — either as a result of being a bit more ginger on my feet, a bit of extra "system shock" for my body to deal with, or both. Appreciate I won’t get a black-and-white answer on this but i’m interested in anyone’s experience/perspective.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by skipchris

An afterthought — I bruised big toe really badly in a freak rock-flipping incident about 15 miles in.
I shook it off at the time after a couple of moments hopping round Esk Pike, and carried on, but even two days later it is very sore, very swollen, and I’m limping round the office.

It wasn’t weighing on my mind at the time except for the downhilliest of downhills, but I’m wondering in retrospect how much it was holding me back — either as a result of being a bit more ginger on my feet, a bit of extra "system shock" for my body to deal with, or both. Appreciate I won’t get a black-and-white answer on this but i’m interested in anyone’s experience/perspective.

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SC


Don't over analyse what you achieve and how you feel. You are obviously going very well from your account and are able to put in the distance. Just some thoughts. many runners have bad spells, in fact most do after several hours on the move. Its often accompanied by nausea. Eating on the half hour every half an hour can regulate this abit, even if you don't feel like it, do it. After you feel sick, you have to force yourself to continue intake, even if its the last thing you want to do. Try savoury rather than sweet?! This is what your support team would do and keep badgering you to eat and drink.


18 hour pace. is very good and faster than most. Do you need to moderate this a bit? You need to go for many more hours than just a leg and a bit. perhaps stick to a written schedule and hold your self back at the start of a recce.


Lastly, I think the long rounds are part physical and part psychological. If you can spend 10 hours on your feet, you can spend 20 plus, somehow your body wins through in a mind over matter argument. Also be aware that bad spells will occur, but most come out of them after half and hour/hour or so.

From what I have read you are getting there and just need that psychological strength to take you all the way round. this is why a support team are good to have!!!!

Cheers CM, appreciate the thoughts.

Your point about food is well made, I do think I dropped the ball a bit here: I was having so much fun running round langdale that I put off eating for a while, which probably came back to bite me. I’m doubly-cross about this as it’s something I did really well on my leg 4 jaunts a couple of weeks ago.

I think I maybe think about “training” too narrowly as “physical training”, but I guess instilling the discipline to eat automatically is equally important.

I’m trying to do my recces at 18h pace as I feel it gives me the biggest margin of safety/error for my run itself. But yes, maybe I need to moderate this on a 30 mile recce vs a 15- miler!

I take your point about a good support team! :)

Good support runners instinctively know when to feed you, when to take your mind off not feeling at your best (you can’t beat a Swiss Toni style quiz if you’re blowing more than a bit going up Farefield), when to ease up the pace or slow it down. As CM says it’s why you have them. I agree with him: don’t overthink it - you’re supposed to be doing this because you want to, plus because you enjoy it. They’re some of the best days / weeks / years of your life . . .

Aye you’ve touched upon something important there. I’ve had to have a reckoning over the past few days about why I am attempting something so hard.

I bloody love running up mountains, and I’d taken it for granted that meant I ‘should’ do the BGR because… you run up a lot of mountains on it. Sounds daft when you put it like that.

Having finally experienced the painful downsides of big-distance running, I’ve had to take a harder look at why I’m doing it and be clearer with myself about my reasons. Taken a couple of days of thought but I’m feeling more up for the training than ever (as soon as this f*****ng toe goes down a bit).

With regards to bad spells, I'm no BG expert, but it's all been covered above... they happen and you just need to continue to try and eat and drink and keep going, and you'll come out the other side. Having bad spells in training or long races will benefit you mentally. I can say that doing the 10 Peaks really helped me in 2017. I had a bad spell lasting the best part of 4 hours, and i managed to come out the other side and finish in the top 25%.... the mental confidence that instilled in me has carried me through many other races since...

As to your toe... from my experience, I doubt it made much difference at the time... I had similar on a 40 mile ultra last weekend. Wore an almost new pair of trail shoes and started to feel pain in my toe from about 20 miles. But it didn't really make any difference to my speed at the time (I had enough to worry about going through my own "bad spell")...... but i certainly felt it immediately afterwards and in the days after...