Pumlumon Challenge

It was third time lucky for me on the Pumlumon Challenge. I got the second fastest time in 2007 (Allen Smalls and Matt Davis crossed the line to beat me) and was second in 2008 too (Mark Hartell beat me: I caught up to within 30 seconds of him at one stage, but he pulled away from me: agghhh!). I was motivated to have a good crack at the race this year: it's a lovely race, the first prize is fantastic (a beautiful framed photo of part of the course) and I'd set myself the goal of giving the Vasque series a good crack in the second half of the year.

It couldn't have been a more beautiful day for the race. There was a cloudless blue sky. As we drove up the A44 from Llangurig, we exited the fog to see the beautiful clear mountains of Pumlumon: what a sight! The event centre is the Forest Commision complex and red kite feeding centre on the A44 and is an idyllic spot for the start of a race.

Once we started, someone went off like a shot: really, really fast. I'd never seen him before and was really concerned that this could end up being a brutally fast chase (until someone blew up). I gave chase (with Martin Indge and some others) and we were doing a stupid pace round the lake: 5m30s / mile! Things calmed down after the first little hill, but then it was full pelt again along a forest track: 5m30s / mile again!

We hit the real open country at Dinas mountain. This allowed us to get into more of a rhythm. My local knowledge was starting to pay off here as I was clearly choosing better lines than the others around me. They seemed to settle into the idea that I knew where I was going and was a good person to follow. I'd have liked to shake them off, but this seemed too early for any of that sort of heroics. I was planning on running the race with team mate Martin Indge too, so I was trying to match pace with him.

There followed a steep hill up onto the Plumlumon plateau. A runner, who I later learnt was called Hugh, set off in hot pursuit up this and he was clearly catching me up. I decided that now was the time to go for a big push. The tactic I decided on was to to run as hard as possible for as long as it took: a do or die approach. I knew my lines across the terrain really well and executed them well. I ran all the hills and ploughed on through the heather and the boggy patches (on my secret little paths that were unfortunately being shared with Hugh about 30 seconds behind me). The one place I seemed to make a real difference was on the forest track near the source of the River Severn, but Hugh was catching up with me as we approached the source itself. He finally caught up with me at the north eastern most point of the course. We'd run flat out for over an hour and about 8 miles: it was pretty tiring stuff, especially as the heat was starting to build up.

Hugh was starting to run away from me a bit along the big wild valley that forms the northern section of the race, but I hung on in there and did my best to catch him up. I seemed to catch him in a particularly boggy patch and from there, we ran together and chatted. I found out that Hugh had done a 17h40m South Wales Traverse which I found pretty impressive and made me wonder what I'd got myself into: trying to race someone who was clearly so capable.

The dreaded Drosgol this year was a pussycat. Although the ascent was gruelling, the descent line that I had this year was great. I managed to avoid the tussocks by picking up some good quad bike tracks. Although my line was significantly longer than the direct tussocky line, I'm sure it was quicker and was definitely less soul destroying.

I noticed that I seemed to have the edge on Hugh once back on the track. I was still chatting to him, but I felt I had something in reserve. We stayed together to near the final manned checkpoint (on the Nant y Moch reservoir road) and then up the next hill, but after that, I just decided that I'd run at what felt like a comfortable pace and see what happened. I seemed to ease away ever so gradually. We were still only 30 seconds apart at the final checkpoint (in the middle of a bog!), but I just sensed that the tide was turning in my favour. I had a great line from the final checkpoint (near a hill called Disgwlfa: a checkpoint that many people had trouble finding) towards a ford and the final big hill. I managed to run on a good little path and avoid the nearby tussock field: those sheep know their way around Wales! This got me a little further ahead. I then ran in well along the tracks to the finish to win by about two minutes: a great feeling after two second places in the previous two years.

It's given me quite a lot of confidence knowing that things aren't over when someone catches you up. If you stick with them (whatever the temporary pain is), it seems like you can still regain the initiative. Or maybe Hugh was just being sociable and running with me along that northern valley and I did the nasty at the end. I hope it wasn't like that.

I really enjoyed the race. It's a highlight of the Vasque series for me. What a wonderful place to hold a race. The remoteness should not deter people.

There's now less than a week to get back in shape for the next race in the Vasque series: it's going to be quite an intense finish for me this year!

Lakes 50

Blorenge: my new training ground

I wasn't very happy with my result at Osmotherley Phoenix. I went away and had a bit of a think about things. Although I could blame things on the heat and having done a lot of racing for the 4 weeks beforehand, those excuses didn't really hit the nail on the head. I think the edge had just gone from my running. Something needed to be done. I formed a plan:

- do some serious interval training: this would get me running faster, just getting used to moving my legs faster

- do some hill training. I had always been good on the hills in the past and I think things had lapsed a bit with most of my training being done around Chippenham

- get more competitive

Based on all this, I decided to enter the Lakes 50 and use that to focus my training. Training has been going well. I've been doing 800m and 1000m intervals on the Peckingell straight (a leisurely mile and a half jog from work to a wonderfully quite section of country road by the Wiltshire Avon). I've been running up and down Blorenge in the Brecon Beacons: multiple ascents per session. Blorenge has the biggest vertical ascent in the Brecon Beacons (470m) and is steep. I've got my ascent time down from just under 25 minutes to 21.5 minutes. More importantly, I now feel confident: I feel like my old self on the mountains. I ran the Stroud AC Cherington 10k race last week and posted a time of 38m30s: I was pleased with this run as my first 10km road race, I was even more pleased with the mental state that I ran the race in: I was always pushing, always competing.

I'm looking forward to seeing what effect the training will have on my ultra-running. The Lakes 50 should be a really good place to gauge my progress. I tend to get inspired by running in the mountains and the Lakes has some special mountains. It looks like the weather is going to be cool and I'm not going to have to put up with the same heat that I suffered in at Osmotherley. 

The big potential problem I see for myself is that I know very little about the course. I know a bit of the section in Langdale and I've caught fleeting glimpses of the early stage from a cloudy and wet KIMM five years ago (is there any other type of KIMM?). I am going to be navigating the Lakes 50 on sight with map and compass: this is something that I'm quite looking forward to, but it will add another dimension and more stress to the race.

A part of me says that I should be running in the Lakes 100. I just don't think this is a good idea. I know how the UTMB (Mont Blanc 100 mile race) affected me in 2007 / 2008 and I don't want that this year. I want to enjoy the last races in this year's series (and the plan is to do quite a few of them) and doing the Lakes 50 should leave me something in the tank for later in the season. If I'd done better at Osmotherley, I'd have been tempted to have a crack at the Lakes 100 (the points would have been in the bank before the Lakes race). As it is, I need a solid performance at the Lakes 50 followed by a couple more solid performances in the series's latter races.

And what if it doesn't go to plan at the Lakes 50? I'll just have to redouble my training efforts for the next race! Whatever happens, it'll be fun.

Osmotherley Phoenix: too hot to handle

I think I enjoy really hot races in retrospect, but never at the time. I've never run well in a hot race. This year's Osmotherley Phoenix was a hot race (last year's Downland Ultra and UTMB are other classic examples).

I had an "interesting" preparation for the race. I'd done the Three Peaks Yacht Race the week beforehand (finishing 10 days before the Osmotherley race). I'd gone for a 6 mile run round Chippenham in stinking heat about 5 days beforehand to prove to myself I could run in the heat (it was hard work, I don't know what I proved!). I drove up to Osmotherley on the Friday night and ended up sleeping in the car on the moors as the local campsite and youth hostel were fully booked: it was not the best night's sleep.

Osmotherley had a great atmosphere on race day: both at the start and at the finish (when the Osmotherley summer games were in full swing). There seemed to be a lot of runners on the start line and the organisers seemed to be really pleased to announce that this was their biggest race yet, with more than 350 runners on the day (it is a race that deserves to do well as it is well organised, crosses some great scenery and chooses a good runnable route across that scenery).

So, what went wrong with my race? It basically came down to the heat. The heat got to me right at the start. I felt I ran really badly for the first 10 miles. The sun just got to me. The morning was cloudless and whenever I was out in the sun (9 of the first 10 miles), I just seemed to wilt. I ran OK in the shaded sections, but these were few and far between. I felt bad enough to pull out, but I've never DNF-ed, and this didn't seem like a good place to start. I think I was about 15th at checkpoint 4.

Things started getting much better for after midday (after checkpoint 4) as a wind picked up and the clouds built. I ran pretty well for the next 10 miles and was probably running at a similar pace to the leading pack (based on reports I was getting from the checkpoints): just a mile or more behind (such was the impact of a really poor start).

My recce between checkpoints 6 and 7 proved to be irrelevant as the course map posted on the wall of Osmotherley village hall was different to the line I'd recce-d. It was back to square one and I had to navigate my way across the intricate line of footpaths. It's a shame that the line I recced isn't allowed as (I feel) it's more in keeping with the rest of the route (in my view), following moorland tracks and paths. The Osmotherley Phoenix is a "defined route" race, so as long as everyone sticks to the route, it's a level playing field.

Black Hambledon was hard work, as predicted. I caught sight of the leading pack here, but was unable to reel them in: they were just that bit too far ahead to be "in touch". When it came down to it, I was just happy to have a good push to a solid finish. Sixth wasn't exactly the result I'd wanted, but I was pleased that I'd pushed through a bad patch (oddly right at the start of the race) and had a good run over some of the race. The Osmotherley Phoenix is too good a race to be disappointed with though: the moors are too beautiful and the atmosphere at the finish is too happy to feel down.

A great weekend out. It's time for me to rest for a few weeks and dream it all up again....

Osmotherley Phoenix recce

Martin Indge and I had done the Castles and Islands race on the Saturday (13 June) and Osmotherley was on the route south (that doesn't happen very much for a Bristolian!); it was a beautiful day and a little recce of the hard section of the Osmotherley Phoenix seemed to be in order.

The good news is that Osmotherley is already preparing itself for the Phoenix: the Summer Games advertising is up all over the place and it looks like party time. It's a beautiful village and will provide a great place to hang out for anyone coming to support the race.

The south eastern section of the phoenix is pretty desperate to navigate. While the rest of the course is along great swathing tracks, the SE section is across an intricate section of paths across farmland. I'd taken a pretty wayward route through here in 2007, ending up in a pheasant coop and am aiming to navigate better in 2009. Anyway, we were out to recce this section, to practice our navigation and to loosen off after the Castles and Islands race. All objectives were met. I think I've committed the route to memory and what a great little route it is too! We were so enthused at New Hall (the very SE-most point of the route) that we continued along to the west and up to the Hambleton Hills where we were greeted by great long views across the Vale of York to the Yorkshire Dales and an immense sky full of fluffy white clouds.

Martin did some navigation training on Locker Low Moor as we headed back to the car (parked at Locker Low Wood). I found a beautiful "single track" path through the heather down here. It was gently downhill and on the most beautiful springy dry peat: I forgot all my aches and pains here and just pelted it back to the car for the shear joy of it. It would be nice if I ran like that in the race itself. It was just a 2 hour, 10 mile recce, but it was great to get out and I'm looking forward to the race now (hopefully the Three Peaks Yacht Race won't do me in in 2009 like it did in 2008).

Green Man Challenge record

The Green Man Challenge is a 47 mile run that basically follows the Avon Community Forest Path circumnavigating Bristol. Why do it? It's actually a great run through some nice scenery and is a pretty hard navigational challenge. As a Bristolian ultra-runner, it's something of a right of passage. One other thing: there's an excellent trophy that is kept on the wall of the Green Man pub in Kingsdown (my local).

Fellow Team Vasque runner Martin Indge and I pencilled in May 4th 2009 for a record attempt. Part of the goal of our run was to get some good training in for the Three Peaks Yacht Race and Old County Tops: a couple of races that I'd like to do well in this year.

We had been a bit worried about having to put up with sunshine and warm temperatures (another benefit of the Green Man Challenge: it's in the sunny south!), but on the day there were no such problems. We had pretty perfect conditions: cool, cloudy and with the occasional drizzle shower: we could run at the perfect temperature all the way round.

It must be said, I wasn't feeling the best for the first half of the run. I think that two solid days working on the boat wasn't exactly the best preparation. We were 2 minutes down on the previous record pace after the first section (Clifton Bridge to Dundry) and we had to put up with this 2 minute deficit for the next four hours. The running in the southern section of the route was particularly nice, through fields full of wildflowers, along the banks of the Chew river. The eastern section of the route (Keynsham to Shortwood Hill) is along the line of the Dramway - a really ancient old industrial tramway linking collieries to the river Avon. There are the old stone sleeper beds still in the path. You run along thinking you've left the Dramway behind and then a few miles later you'll see the stone sleeper beds and Dramway signs again.

The northern section of the run crosses agricultural land, then down the beautiful Frome river before heading across the not quite so beautiful Bradley Stoke. One thing that is really noticeable about the Green Man Challenge is that where it crosses a built up area, you can't see the built up bits. There seems to be this amazing green line round Bristol that the Green Man Challenge seeks out. By the northern section (starting at Hambrook), I was starting to feel more my usual self and we started moving well from here. We took 10 minutes off the record time to Patchway, another 10 minutes off to Blaise Castle and the last 10 minutes off for the final leg back to the Clifton Bridge. I knew that I'd struggled over these last sections last year and was pleased to find the going easier. One thing that really helped was having Martin's parents in a support vehicle. There's no water to drink on route and so having supporters to carry some water makes a real difference.

Looking for a good time, we put our foot (feet?) down for the last couple of (hilly) miles. The Mariners Path through Sneyd Park was as desperate as usual - will it never end. As we rounded the Clifton Downs, we could see the Clifton Bridge gracefully spanning the Avon Gorge: journey's end. One last push up the hill to the observatory and we were there. I stopped the watch and we'd got round in 7h20m: 28 minutes faster than the old record. We were pleased with a great run. It bodes well for the future!

One of the odd things about our run was that I made almost exactly the same navigational mistakes that I made last time even though I was looking out for the known problem areas. I guess I am going to have to recce these places in the future if I want to better my time.

We finished off the day with a contented pint in the Green Man / Kingsdown under the gaze of the Green Man Challenge trophy.

Three Peaks Yacht Race training weekend

The multicoloured cliffs of Alum Bay
March 28th saw Martin Indge and I down on the Isle of Wight for a Three Peaks Yacht Race training weekend.

We met the sailors at 1am on Lightning Reflex (the team yacht!) in Cowes and proceeded to talk and catch up over a few cold ones. Getting to sleep at 2:30am was probably not the best preparation for a long Saturday.

After a cold night aboard, I was kicked out of my berth at 7am. I dreamt of bacon butties (as promised by Gary, one of the sailors), but they were not forthcoming (although there seemed to be a lot of activity around the galley). Breakfast consisted of some nice Original Crunchy for me, but Martin mistook my description of us having muesli for breakfast to mean that we were going to eat cold Quaker porridge oats. He chomped valiantly. It didn't look appetising.

We were doing the Junior Offshore Group Nab Tower race. This is a race for offshore yachts from Cowes, round the Nab Tower and back. The Nab Tower is an old fort that was sunk onto the Nab Rock in 1920, lying some 5 miles off the east tip of the Isle of Wight. They built the tower on land, floated it out into position and then sank it. Maybe their marine surveying was not up to today's standards, but the Nab Tower leans at an angle of 3 degrees and hence has the air of a nautical Leaning Tower of Pisa.

The yacht race down to the Nab Tower was fantastic. We were powering along under spinnaker with the boat humming nicely (Lightning Reflex seems to hum when she's going well). Going downwind, everything's calm and you feel like you are going really quickly. Things changed as we turned around the Nab Tower and tacked back to the finish line. We were now going upwind and hanging off the weather rail of the yacht (the rail is the edge of the yacht and the weather rail is the top rail when you're sailing upwind, as opposed to the lee rail which will be the one dipping into the water on the other side), with Lightning Reflex heeling over at 40 degrees. Going upwind is traditionally considered to be harder on the crew than downwind sailing and I was pleased that Martin and I still felt good after a 4 hour pounding in the boat.

Martin and I left the sailors in Cowes and drove over to Yarmouth in the west of the island for a run. By the afternoon, the skies had cleared, though there was still a brisk wind. The running into the wind was hard, but we seemed to be greeted by fantastic views around every corner: the beaches around Totland, the multi-coloured cliffs of Alum Bay, the distant hills of the Isle of Purbeck, The Needles, the south coast of the Isle of Wight sweeping off into the distance. I think we were running pretty well, trotting up all the hills at a nice pace. We covered nearly 20 hills miles in just under 3 hours. The skipper, Geoff, decided this wasn't good enough and told us we'd have to run faster up Snowdon. I think this is good: no room for complacency and he obviously wants to be competitive. For me, it was a training run: getting used to sailing and then running, so I was pleased with how we went (and we actually did OK). We'll get some harder training in before the big event though.


Martin Indge running on the western tip of the Isle of Wight with The Needles behind
A gruesome drive back to Wiltshire and Bristol followed and, feeling somewhat tired on the Sunday, it struck me that a good short sharp little run would be a good way of simulating the Three Peaks Yacht Race. I thus put in 9 miles along the Portishead coast path. It was another beatiful evening, with the sun setting over the Holm Islands with Exmoor in the distance. It's going to be nice getting out to sea again. The Bristol Channel is going to be a good Three Peaks training ground for us. We'll be able to sail to Cardiff and do the South Glamorgan coast path or go running in the Portishead / Clevedon areas after a day out at sea in my yacht. First things first though, there's some more hill training to be done.....

Lake District training weekend

March 22nd saw Tom and I out on our inaugral Old County Tops training weekend of the year (this might be my only Old County Tops recce this year depending on how things work out). Tom is my Old County Tops running partner. We've won the race two years on the trot and we're going to do our best for the hat trick.

The goal of the day was to recce some of the alternative lines of the race route and to cement our knowledge of the rest of the route. We were out for seven and a half hours and we probably found one better line. However there were four or five places where we decided that we weren't executing the known route very well, so we'll work on that before race day.

For me, it wasn't just about the out and out recce of the Old County Tops race route that was important: it was also important to have a good training session out on some big hills and to enjoy the Lakes again (almost every Lake District pimple is a better training venue than Bencroft Hill: the closest you'll get to a mountain in Chippenham - my workplace). Funnily enough, we did find some big hills and I was pleased by how we powered up them, especially the ones late in the day.

We ran most of the day into a headwind (how can that happen on a circular course?). When we were on top of Helvellyn in a howling gale, the dark views over to Scafell Pike looked really forboding. The weather never really did go that nasty (certainly not as nasty as the 2007 Old County Tops race when we ran over Greenup Edge into a horizontal ice storm) and I think it was good training to run into the wind as we did.

We got 28 miles and 7 and a half hours running in which I was pleased with. This clearly isn't race pace, but I don't think that's what recce-ing is about.

Before my running career, I was (and still am) well into rock climbing. Saturday was a beautiful sunny day and so we headed up to Pavey Ark for a day climbing some of the classics. I was a bit nervous about how things would go, but as soon as I was delicately crimping my way up the first pitch of Arcturus I knew that the old magic was still there. We were really enthused by the first climb and were up and at it until the sun went down (and the clouds came over). We walked back down to the Old Dungeon Ghyll using our headtorches, well pleased with a great Lake District weekend.

Team Running at Wuthering Hike

I ran Wuthering Hike with my Three Peaks Yacht Race partner, Martin Indge, and we were well pleased to win the team event (6th runners across the line).

I think it was really good for us to run this as a team. It was Martin's first ultra and the first time we've run that sort of distance together (which is a sort of obvious statement, but there you go!). What seems to help when running as a team is to keep each other motivated. That is especially important on the Wuthering Hike as the first half of the race is invariably very fast and you tend to suffer from Hebden Bridge back to the finish. We kept going well on this latter stage by breaking the hills up into stages, agreeing to run set distances ("the bent tree", "the third lampost") and then having little walks to recover. Another aspect that seems to be really important is to make sure you're both eating and drinking well (Martin perked up particularly well after being fed some Shot Blox by Todmorden golf course).

One of the hardest aspects of the early portion of the race was the headwind. This was something in the region of 25mph from the west (and you're running west): Force 6 to us sailors. It was in some ways natural to gauge the wind on the Beaufort scale as there were white horses on the Widdop reservoir and more than the odd competitor will have been drenched by a wave coming over the top of the dam wall! The way we tried to get round the wind problem was to run in the lee of someone else. The best plan here is to run behind another competitor, but when Martin and I were on our own, we'd take turns at the front to keep the pressure off

Navigation went well. In fact the map never came out of the bag! It was my third time round the Wuthering Hike and I seem to have committed it to memory. I even got the section over Penistone Hill correct: go in what seems like the wrong direction round the left side and you take a sweeping arc back round to Howarth.

The start of our Three Peaks Yacht Race training seems to have gone well. Next stop the Welsh 3000ers (some time in April).

Wuthering Hike here we come

I've spent the week since the High Peak Marathon thinking about the Wuthering Hike. It's always been difficult to prepare for this race with it being so close to HPM. I think I'm doing quite well this year, taking it easy and then going for a 6 mile run north of Chippenham this lunchtime. The lunchtime run felt good: I was pleasantly surprised with how I was running.

This lunchtime I was running with Martin Indge. I'm running with him as a team in Wuthering Hike. We have ulterior motives here as Martin is going to be running the Three Peaks Yacht Race with me this summer and we want to see how we can run together effectively as a team. Martin is also hoping to have a crack at the Vasque series this year, so running with him should be a good way of easing him into the scene (and showing him the way!).

I keep visualising the course in my head. This will be my third time in the race and I think I know it quite well now. I'm hoping to navigate well. The section round the back of Todmorden golf course is a particular concern as there are loads of little alleyways and ginnels round there. I'm also looking at navigating the very last section better than last year. In 2008 I had to ask the local dogwalkers where Howarth was: not my best navigational effort to date, but at least I showed resourcefulness!

Whether Wuthering Hike will make a big impact on my final position in the Vasque series is not my greatest concern (but we'll be giving it everything). I'm going to be running several team races with the other Martin this year and Wuthering Hike should be a good learning curve for us.

Good luck to everyone else racing this weekend!