Post Christmas...Hill Training

I'm lucky to have the Ash Ranges on my door step (Just over a mile away to be exact). The area is owned by the MOD and most days is out of bounds till after 4:30pm while the Army train here. Great in the Summer but not so good in the Winter with the shorter days. Credit to the Army though, in the holidays the red flags are down and you can access all areas every day.

The area is well over 2000 hectares and consists of heath and woodland but gives you just about any other terrain you can think of....and plenty of hills. Short and sharp and plenty of long tough climbs, it's the perfect place for hill training. The beauty of it is, is that some days you can be out here and not see a soul. Even members of the British Olympic team come out of London to train here, so that gives you an idea of the quality of the area.

Hills...

...Hills...

...and more hills (This is a tough hill, even though
 it looks just like a flat path in the picture!!!)



Paula Radcliffe on the trails

I've read recently that Paula Radcliffe does a lot of her workouts on trails for her marathon training. If it's good enough for Paula then it's good enough for me and my London marathon training. Trail running is perfect conditioning for the runners body, The uneven paths under foot strengthen your feet and ankles while the undulating landscape and hills strengthen both the legs and the core muscles. Spend 10 miles over here and I always feel that my core muscles have been worked as much as my legs.

After the indulgences of Christmas this was the perfect run to bounce back.Three days at my Sisters, eating too many sweet things,not moving and sleeping dodgy on an air bed was enough to throw my body out of kilt and feel like I had turned into a slob! But this workout which consisted of nearly 13 miles, 10 of which were spent on the hills went a long way of burning off the excesses of Christmas and get my mind firmly back on marathon training.

Out with the old....

I decided to trade in my old broken running partner Brian (Twitter: @bsmithy100) for a new updated model for the weekend run....Tim....OK not such a glamorous name, but check out the Twitter name.....@jedirider.

Of course, I'm joking! He's not really broken and still my regular running partner, but today I had the chance to run with Tim whom has been out many times with Brian and myself and we've also ran in races together including my last Marathon.

Tim, me and Brian at a previous run

With time permitting I could only get out for 10 miles today, which was a third of what Tim was completing. Tim is embarking on a wonderful journey into mad marathon.....I mean ultra marathon running and competing in next years North Face 100 in Australia, a 100km ultra race in the mountains. You can follow Tim on his journey at his new blog Tim runs the North Face .

Tim was running along the Basinstoke canal from Woking, which passes through Ash Vale where I live. Nice and flat, which was a nice change from my recent training runs where I've been hitting the hills.

Nice and flat!

I want to train a lot on the hills for next years London marathon. I spent alot of time training on them for my last marathon which was very hilly but with London being relatively flat I'm hoping the time spent on the hills will make things easier???

Another thing I want to concentrate on next year is my nutrition, I eat fairly well at the moment, but like everyone there is room for improvement.

I'm also considering doing the brilliant Janathon, a concept that will be familiar with bloggers in the UK. Basically you need to exercise and blog everyday throughout January. At the moment I'm not sure how that will fit into my marathon training and whether I have to time to blog everyday, but I still have a couple of weeks to decide.

Janathon

Before then I'm going to relax and enjoy Christmas, and not worry too much about what I eat and come back in January fully focused on the London Marathon.

Thanks to everyone who follows my blog or just stops by once in a while, it makes doing it really worthwhile and I wish you all a Merry Christmas:)

Return to the Pilgrim's Way

A day off work and with the London marathon starting to appear on my radar my thoughts are now turning to a return to some serious training. Last Saturday, early morning I was fortunate to be able to get onto the Army land that is less than 2 miles from my door step. The red flags that are usually up in the day at the weekend preventing you to get on the land were down, meaning I could take advantage of the brilliant hills and trails that are available. It was one of those great runs you get once in a while where everything falls into place, the weather was good and there was not another soul around. Beautiful.

With a days rest in between I was out again on the Monday, this time a tough 14 miles over the North Downs. This was my longest and hardest run since the Pilgrims marathon back in September taking in a route that gives you 2000ft of elevation to deal with.

The run takes me from my house along the tarmac through Ash Vale village, out towards Normandy village before getting off the roads and hitting the trails.

Early trails en route

After the early trails it's then on the road again and the start of the hills through Wanborough. After a gradual climb I hit the killer climb to the Hogs back (A31) and up Wanborough Hill, a hill that even cyclists in low gears struggle to climb.

Ouch!

The downhill recovery takes me through the quaint village of Puttenham and the steady climb onto the North Downs.

Puttenham

The Pilgrim's marathon runs from the Village of Seale to Guildford and gets its name from using part of the ancient Pilgrim's Way trackway as part of the course. The full route of the ancient Pilgrim's Way runs from Winchester in Hampshire to London. There is evidence that the trackway was a main trade route between 450 to 500BC. After the growth and importance of London and the decline of Winchester as the Capital with less metal supply coming from the West, the trackway was in danger of becoming redundant. From a trade route the trackway was saved following the murder of Archbishop Becket in 1170 with pilgrims journeying to Becket's shrine along the path, thus gaining the name of the Pilgrims Way. Some of the original medieval cobbles can still be seen today....History lesson over!

The Pilgrims path can still been seen today

In the marathon you have to run up the path which is a never ending climb, but today I was heading the other way and flew down the path desperately trying to avoid turning my ankle on the uneven cobbles. The route then continues along the undulating North Downs and eventually onto the village of Seale, but not before I had the unusual experience of running along side some farm land and being hit with the strong smell of Coriander. It was in abundance in one of the fields where Farmers were at work harvesting the crops. I had no idea where Coriander grew, I thought it was somewhere exotic not just round the corner!

The Beautiful North Downs

After Seale it's time to leave this beautiful side of the Hog's Back and head homeward. To get back over the Hog's Back from Seale I take the brilliantly named Thundery Hill and head back to civilisation.

Having struggled across the Downs the temptation was to call in here......

Water Stop?

....I decline, and before long I'm on the Blackwater valley path that then a brief spell on the Basingstoke Canal before reaching home. I thought I'd share with you in pictures this wonderful route that gives a real testing run but in beautiful surroundings.

One other thing I'd like to share is the brilliant head...er...band..gaiter..scarf??? I'm not quite shaw what it is called but it was in my goody bag after the Marathon. When the weather is bitterly cold I like to wear a hat but the trouble I have is that I get too hot after a while. The brilliant thing about my head...thingy, is that it keeps my ears and forehead warm but allows the head to breath and cool out the top. It can also be pulled down as a neck warmer. I would strongly recommend.

More Rambo than Runner!



The Grim 2011

Sunday morning, one week on from the Hellrunner, time to put on my oldest pair of trainers and head out the door to my latest planned race...The Grim.

The weather was not as kind as the previous weekend, and the temperature was more what you would expect for the time of year.

The Grim takes part on the Army vehicle training grounds in Aldershot a short drive from where I live. As with most races I was running with my trusty sidekick Brian.

We had taken part in this same race last year, I say last year but it was actually January of this calender year. It was postponed last December due to the snow. We arrived about 50 minutes early although there was no need, the parking for this event is ample, even for the 2000 participants taking part.

This year the course has been adjusted to 8.5 miles rather than the 9 miles, and has a couple of new features, one being some railway tracks to hop over??? and some logs to scuttle over, not really the most challenging of obstacles and looked a little out of place in the wide open area that they were situated. On the plus side the pathetic small cargo net that you had to crawl under last year had been removed.

The main water feature of a ravine filled with muddy clay water that varies in depth depending which side you run on (stick to the left if you don't want to be submerged!) remained, and the mud that follows is nigh on impossible to move in, let alone run.

Grim and bare it!

Before and after this water feature the course is a mixture of woodland trails, sandy hills, stony paths and lots of puddles. With the puddles it is up to the participant how wet they want to get, as you can go around a lot of them. Last year I got in the spirit of things and went through most of the water, this year I decided to skip them where I could (Been there, done that, got the T-shirt).

Overall I managed an average pace of 8:26 min/mile which over a course where at times you are waist high in water or in a bottleneck at the beginning of the course, I was pretty pleased with.

The £25 for such a short course is steep and although you pick up a cotton T-shirt and a shake at the finish, this race is wildly overpriced. At least the Hellrunner organisers put some effort in around the course last week, with fireworks at the start and some overhead fire and music as you go through the water features and a decent goody bag and medal. No goody bag or medal here! Although well marshaled and a good pre race atmosphere this is all there is to offer. There were no stalls to look around at the beginning while you wait unless you count the hot dog vans!

In my opinion this is an event that you do once for the experience, the short course is more playful than challenging or 'Grim'.

If you want more for your money for a similar type of event, go for the 12 mile Hellrunner race, a real challenge, worth the money and takes place around the same time of year.

Hellrunner 2011

I awoke Sunday morning unaware of the weather waiting outside. Rain, Wind and Cold...Marvellous! The scene was set for a wet and cold Hellrunner!

Hellrunner South takes place at Longmoor Army Camp, Bordon, Hampshire. It is part of a national series of events that take part yearly up and down the country sponsored by Brooks.

I didn't know the course but I did know to expect the infamous 'Bog of Doom' and the 'Hills of Hell'.

When it comes to running, I'm a bit of a purist, I run because...well, I like to keep running! I've done a similar event 'The Grim' (which I'm doing again next Sunday) which like the Hellrunner, features water obstacles along the way. To me this is more like competing in Total Wipeout than a running race.

As long as you go into these type of events with a different mindset, ie: Time means nothing and I'm going to get wet! then you will be fine. I had this in my head that this was more a training run than a race.

With 2000 people running, and the run starting at 10am, I would advise to get there at 9am. I was running this event with running partner Brian, and we were not parked up until 9:15am, which wasn't a problem and made for less waiting around but meant queueing in traffic for a while.

Miraculously the weather had broken into clear blue skies and not as cold as expected for the time of year. At the start area there was the usual stalls set up selling running apparel and the Clif company selling their energy and recovery products. They also had bite size tasters of their products to try, which was a welcome pre race boost and very popular with everyone.

Lined up at the start we waited for a devil on stilts to make his way down the road ahead wielding canisters of green smoke, followed by fireworks and a large explosion which I assume meant that we were off.

The course is, and I quote from the official web site 'Somewhere between 10 and 12 miles'. Not the most helpful but I'm guessing that it is nearer to 10 than 12....I'm going with 10.5 miles.

Brian and myself, early on...dry and clean!

The first couple of miles is pretty much flat or heading downhill along quite well drained terrain, but what goes down must go up and from there on in that is what you can expect....hills!

The course is challenging not only with the hills going up but coming down can be quite hair raising too and very unpredictable under foot. This would be a great course to run on your own one weekend because with the amount of people running, from the very first hill you hit a queue and are forced to walk. This was the biggest problem all the way round, every hill for the best part of the race was a bottleneck.

There are some hills that were very tough not only because of the gradient but also a lot have sand under foot making it doubly hard to get up. The water features are probably the highlight of the race because they are so different to what you're used to on a Sunday run. The good thing about the water features are that they come towards the end of the race, so there are no silly water obstacles along the way put in for the sake of getting wet.

The Bog of Doom is the first of the water to overcome, a stretch of black, stinky water that you have to wade through with the level above the waist. There are roots underfoot that cannot be seen and can easily be tripped on, and yes right towards the end I tripped, luckily my arm partly breaking my fall.

The Bog of Doom

After this it's more hills to cope with and with wringing wet trainers and shorts to drag you back. It's not long before you're back in the water again, this time with the lake crossing. This consists of reaching the top of a 20 ft sand bank that you have to slide down before wading across a quite large expanse of water before attempting to climb the same sized bank back up again.

With the water features out the way it's then the final couple of miles back to the finish, which again consists of...you guessed it, hills and also the sand dunes, an undulating trek across the sand before hitting the tarmac and crossing the finish line.

The sand dunes

I finished with a chip time of 1:39:52. If this was nearer 12 miles or 11.75 miles as someone told me on Twitter today then that would give me a mile pace of 8:30. When running I was probably running close to this if not a little faster, but with the stops at most of the hills and the water obstacles there is no way I was maintaining this pace. If I go with 10.5 miles that gives me a pace of 9:30 which overall is probably nearer the mark. If anyone has the precise distance, please let me know.

Overall this event was better than I expected, as I said at the beginning, you are best going into this race with no expectations and treating it as a really good testing, training run. The organisation was generally good, a scattering of Marshall's, one water stop (It needed no more) and a great goody bag at the end which included a Brooks tech training T-shirt.

The night run

This was one of the best runs I've done in along time for the following reasons:

1) It was on the spur of the moment.

2) The novelty factor and a bit of an adventure.

3) I couldn't see the big hills I had to run up!

Sunday, early evening, I'd spent the afternoon sat freezing watching my son play football desperate to get out for a run to get my legs warm. I text friend and regular running partner Brian to see if he was up for a evening run. He was having the same kind of afternoon and was as keen as me to get going.

The fog had not lifted all day, so we went out on our run at 4 o'clock which gave us about half an hour of remaining daylight. With head torches at the ready we head out across the Ash ranges (a mix of stony and woodland trails plus hills).

It wasn't long before the daylight turned to dusk but the eyes adjusted well to the ever fading light. The fog was quite thick and so the landscape was just silhouettes of trees and distant hills. It was a brilliant sensation to be running in what felt like the middle of nowhere in the dark and fog.

We took the pace fairly steady but was slowed by the gates and cattle grids along the way, which meant we could have a good old chat. 90% of the conversations Brian and me share on runs or at work are about running (much to the disappointment of work colleagues!) It felt like we were running in the middle of the night and we imagined how this run would compare to running in an all night Ultra race. We were soon put off the fact by the thought that it was only 5 o'clock which would mean there would still be probably another 12 hours of running in the dark ahead of us!

There is a few challenging hills along the way but because of the dark and fog, you could not see far enough in front to see how far the hills went on, which seemed to make them easier.

The head torches were ineffective against the fog and the light just bounced straight back at you. Most the time we spent with the lights off which gave a bit of adventure to the run and it's amazing how the eyes become acclimatised to the dark. In the final few miles we did work out that putting the head torches on the side of the head gave a dull light in front of us that was easier to run with against the fog.

I'd done this run many times in the day, but it was amazing how different it felt at night. This is something I would recommend if you are tired of the same routes, what feels like two different runs for the price of one.

After spending an hour and a half of running in the still of night across the trails it was actually frustrating to come back to civilisation, street lights and waiting at the road for cars to pass!

No Google Images, I typed in Night running not Knight....doh!

Winter Training Looms!

It's been 6 weeks since my Marathon triumph, I use the word 'triumph' in the sense that somehow I managed to complete the hilly 26.2 miles albeit a mixture of walk/running in the final 5 miles.

Fun?

Thoughts now turn to Winter training and ultimately destination London, and the Marathon in April. In between then, two races that I have booked in are The Hellrunner and The Grim. The races are within a week of each other, 12 miles and 8 miles respectively. The first of which is 2 weeks away. For those who have not heard of these races, they consist of a lot of water! The bog of doom is the name of one such obstacle, so you get the idea. When booked up on a hot summers day, these races sounded quite appealing, now it's November...not so!


Since the Marathon it was always my intention to have some down time but at the same time not losing what I had built up to through training for my last Marathon. I've been running a lot less recently but hopefully the base fitness remains.

Today it felt like Winter training had finally begun, a 9.7 mile run to work with colleague Brian, equipped with head torch, gloves and a long sleeve top but I have not resorted to the running leggings yet, I'll save them till the real cold weather takes bite.

Winter Training

The plan now is to slowly build back up the mileage and get to somewhere between 30 - 40 mile weeks come the new year. I reckon on that being just about right for me and get me to my goal of a sub 4 hour Marathon.