Wednesday 29 July 2009

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.

Sunday 5 July 2009

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....