Running Backwards

I had the sudden thought that I set up this blog to record my training and progress towards an attempt at the West Highland Way race in 2012 and so far I've pretty much steered clear of the whole topic of training.

Magical Misty Mabie

I'd love to set out a detailed 4 weekly cycle, with each week containing 5 or 6 sessions, but the nature of my job means there is seldom such a thing as a typical week. So what is this job that keeps me from my running? fighter pilot; international jet setter, long distance lorry driver? No...... I sell wood for a Scottish sawmill business. I live in Dumfries, am officially based in Lockerbie, usually spend 1 or 2 days a week in central Scotland and my sales patch covers Inverness to Dover to Cornwall and I rack up between 30 -35,000 miles per year, so work constantly interferes with the more serious business of running.

As an aside when I took up running I also held a private pilots licence and was seriously into camping and outdoors stuff and spent a lot of time away from home, so much so that one of my friends became totally convinced I was a secret agent, much more exciting than selling wood but sadly untrue.



Anyway back to the training, the backbone of my regime is the Saturday long run and this week was no exception, a bright but chilly 8am saw Caroline, Andy, Ian G and yours truly setting off on the mountain bike trails of Mabie Forest near Dumfries. Like most distance runners our warm up consisted of ...... well sod all really. Basically its jump out the car and start running, its far too cold to stand still.

Ready for the off



It really is this nice

Our regular route is a 12 mile loop mostly following the Red Mountain bike route round the south of the forest and starts with a 1 mile steady climb from the Bike Shed, co-incidentally this is the first mile of the Mabie Trail Race route. I'd woken early on Saturday and had a brian wave that we should run our regular route, but backwards, not actually backwards but you know what I mean. No-one objected, and I suspect that the thought of not running the first mile uphill won out. What I'd failed to consider is that the last 2 miles of our normal loop is pretty much downhill from the highest point of the forest all the way to the Bike Shed and that reversing this meant substituting a 1 mile climb for a two mile climb! Bizarely though it felt like we were running a completely untried trail, albeit challenging on the legs.

Mile 3 - downhill for a change

Andy climbing Descender Bender

As we set off Caroline announced that she had seen snow on top of nearby Criffel Hill and much amusement was had as we totally failed to convince her that what she had realy seen was cloud shrouding the summit. Mile 9 on our normal run is a long uphill on a fire road with a horrid sharp switchback climb at the end, running backwards this transformed into a very enjoyable downhill with a couple of 1/2 mile loops as the sun started to ooze over the skyline and actually deliver some watery warmth. Sadly this pleasant downhill section was soon over and the looming grey sweeps of "Descender Bender" beckoned. The advantage of running on MTB trails is that the bikey fraternity have a great propensity for naming almost anything other than the flat bits with dramatic names like "The Scorpion", "The Slab","The Elevator", even if they do sound like B list horror films. Descender bender is great fun to run down, its a series of sweeping embanked curves running from the highest point in Mabie dropping about 400ft in 1 mile, or backwards its a b*ll breaking slog.

 

After this bit my detailed memory gets a bit hazy, being male I'm genetically incapable of multi tasking, so trying to navigate the route backwards, remembering to take photos (involving periodic sprints ahead of the group in a futile atempt to get dramatic "running towards the camera shots"), ensuring I didn't fall over on what can be tricky technical trails, remembering to hydrate and joining in our ongoing babbling, rambling running conversations (chafing and racing always feature highly), I pretty much don't remember much of miles 5 through 12.

 

 

Our average pace for the 12 mile loop is pretty consistent around the 9:45 mark, backwards it was 10:30, and the slog up the fire road second time really was a slog. With another 4 miles to run I crammed in a gel and took a good dose of isotonic, before we tackled "The Ridge", our name for this section not the bikeys. Not sure if it was physcological or if I'm getting fitter, but after the gel I felt really strong, we usually pretty much always run together, but today I decided to push on a bit and try to improve my average pace. Mile 13 9:08; mile 14 8:42; mile 15 7:31 and mile 16 6:37, not a bad last mile even if it is all downhill.

16 trail miles, 2100 of ascent & descent, average pace 9:39, total time 2 hours 34 minutes, feet wet but otherwise unscathed.

Working on the incentive and reward theory it was back to the Bike Shed for a nice hot cuppa and a slice of Malteser cake which I reckon contained about half your normal daily calorific requirements in a single slice, very yummy and well worth the effort.

Cheers

 

Glen Ogle 33 Ultra

As a relative newcomer to this blogging lark, it's surprised me how long it can take to compose my thoughts, translate this into something approaching English and then present it to the world in a legible and non-epic length and format. Never more true than my GO33 race report, which I've started to compose 3 times now and and failed to save on each occasion, so 4th time lucky.
I had two objectives for this end of season event, 1st to complete it and 2nd to enjoy it. I reckon if I'm going to have any chance at the WHW race distance I have to try to enjoy these longer events, take in more of the company and scenery rather than just relying on the challenge and satisfaction of completion.
In a valiant attempt to achieve the former I spent the Friday evening at The Inn at Strathyre meeting fellow competitors, marshalls and supporters, Oh and did I mention the Guinness? Yes I failed again and spent the night before a race consuming more of the black gold than was good for me. Well at least this time I hadn't had an epic week with work in the lead-up, wrong I'd been away from home since the previous Monday and checked into The Inn with enough luggage for a football team.

At least The Inn was only 5 minutes from the start so I could have a longish lie-in, having registered the night before and a relaxed pre-race morning, nope dropped the ball there too somehow and ended up charging along to the start, failing to hear a word of the race briefing and starting right at the back of the field of 150 plus runners, on the plus side I was very much enjoying myself and I'd only had time for one nerve induced pre-race pee rather than my usual 4 or 5.
Bang on 8am and we were off, its a steady climb for the first 2 miles, and I covered this at a nice steady 12 minute mile pace. I wasn't really bothering about racing others just trying to take in the view and ENJOY!, the next 5 miles are broadly downhill to Lochearnhead and the field spread out surprisingly quickly, there is a horrid switchback climb up to the old railway line above Lochearnhead followed by a fairly steady 2 mile slope to the head of Glen Ogle, I really enjoyed this section, felt really strong and ran 8:20 - 8:35 miles up this section, I passed 11 runners on this part and thereafter I was only passed by two runners, I hoped this burst of speed and enthusiasm wasn't going to have horrible consequences later on.
Taking time to top up my bottles at the water station at the valley head I crossed the A85, a quick hello to Donald Sandeman and then it was downhill towards Killin, amazingly still with dry feet!
Near Killin, the route doubles back through the forest and then climbs steadily for 750 feet for just over 4 miles, I walked the steep bits and ran the slopes passing 2 or 3 people and still feeling really strong. Then its back over the A85 again, bottles topped up, rice pudding consumed, gels re-stocked and off down Glen Ogle. Having really enjoyed the run up the Glen I hated the run down, in fact I was slower going down than I was going up!
Having high fived a party of Scouts just after the viaduct, I gave my self a stern talking to, forced down another gel (my 4th of the day) and took a good gulp of isotonic, this seemed to do the trick and my last mile on this section was at 8:05 pace.

 

As some of you may know I'm trying to give up swearing, the half mile or so down the switchback into Lochearnhead was a major challenge, I've managed to concoct some colourful alternatives to foul language and I expressed the full range on this quad and calf busting descent.
I ran the next 2.5 miles to checkpoint 3 without seeing another runner and despite the very clear direction arrows, I suffered the inevitable qualms of doubt about being on track, but never fear, checkpoint 3 hove into view and the very helpful ladies topped up my bottles, cleared out my gel empties and sent me on my way.
I went through marathon distance in a respectable 4hours 10 minutes on the leg towards Balquidder and I confess I was starting to feel "heavy legs", however I still passed three runners in the next 3 miles (OK one of them had run the Jedburgh Ultra the previous weekend). With under 29 miles showing on my Garmin, I met two gents who shouted "you've only got 2.8 miles to go", part of me wanted to believe them, whilst the other part resolved to return and do them some harm if they were fibbing.
This race has a sting in the tail at mile 30, with a roller coaster up and down on-road section for about a mile, I could see Derek Hill ahead of me and although we were both walking the steeper bits, every time we walked I closed the distance down, "I can take you" thinks I.... wrong on the downhills Derek pulled away every time, then we'd hit an uphill and I close the distance, but it wasn't to be, despite an 8:03 last mile. The final marshal guided me towards the shoogly bridge and I let fly the traditional Ainslie sprint finish, sadly I forgot to look at the camera, so once again another finish line photo where I'm "blowing out my hoop".

I finished 44th overall in 4:58:28, well chuffed to sneak in under 5 hours.

A quick change in the car, than it was back to The Inn for a bowl of soup and a cup of tea, I hadn't been able to book a room for the Saturday so I decided to head straight back to Dumfries, so was back home just after 4 o'clock, mission accomplished.

I thoroughly enjoyed the race, I'll definitely be back, but I enjoyed my post race bottle of Malbec even more.

Cheers