Mountain Runner

TRAINING: Dissecting the sausage session

2012-02-09T20:14:00.001Z

I’ve waxed lyrical about the structured fartlek type called “sausages”, ever since adopting them based on my readings of the section he dedicates to the topic in “Healthy Intelligent Training” and thought I should give readers a real “view under the hood” to understand how you can run this type of fartlek as “an easy day” yet still run pretty fast. The key guiding principle of “sausages” is:

Make it natural
Make it varied
Make it fun

So parks with some hills and other “natural features” are the best arena for sausages. The second element arises from these four rules:

No one can pass out the leader
The leader dictates the course
Everyone gets to lead
Followers can run wide or take shortcuts as they please

Yesterday, we did a pyramid sausage looking like this:

30 seconds fast / 15 seconds slow
1:30 minutes fast / 45 seconds slow
2:30 minutes fast / 1:15 minutes slow
5:00 minutes fast / 2:30 minutes slow
2:30 minutes fast / 1:15 minutes slow
1:30 minutes fast / 45 seconds slow
30 seconds fast / 15 seconds slow

The beauty of the above session is that if you include the mandatory 15 minutes of warm-up and cooldown, you have a 51 minute non-stop running session but with only 14 minutes of faster running buffered with plenty of aerobic running. People generally emerge smiling and stronger, ready for the next days “longer” steady aerobic effort, rather than shattered and in need of a 48-hour recovery as after intervals.

Session in statistics

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/148170372

I led out the long 5 minute segment with each of the other guys leading two different segments (we were a small group of just four despite the lovely clear evening, family, work and niggles carrying their toll on our group).

You’ll notice from the Garmin file that we see paces anywhere from 3:20min/km pace to 3:58 (with a 2:53min/km for the last 30 seconds!) with the average pace being 3:39min/km for the 14 minutes. This is 18:17 5k pace, a good bit slower than the 5k pace of everyone in the group, meaning that essentially what you have here is 5k-10k pace efforts (92-96% VO2max pace). Last time I was tested at this pace (16.4kph) my lactate concentration was 5.05 mmol/l.

This could lead to severe acidosis fairly quickly but with the long running recoveries you trigger something that has come mighty back in vogue on running forums around the world of late: the “lactate shuttle” discovered by a physiologist called Brooks in 1984. Fartleks predate his discovery by almost sixty years and happen to be one of the best ways to stimulate this “shuttle” to work. Essentially, while you jog along, your body will transport the lactate in your system out of the muscles into the blood-stream where the body can reuse that energy to fuel the heart muscles or be reused by your liver to produce glycogen.

Am I ready?

I observe that sometimes runners are huffing and puffing through the segments and struggling to recover properly even during a session such as this. To do a fartlek like the one shown above you first need to be quite aerobically fit. Essentially, if you are not fit enough, you will train your lactate shuttle at paces that are way too low to be useful in most races and your focus should rather being on increasing the pace at which you can run steady.

Once you have accomplished this you see the effect I observe in most of the runners joining my Wednesday session. Most run a fair amount of mileage and have an enjoyment of longer aerobic running. You can see the effects of this in training when they hold very consistent pace throughout, their heart rates drop quickly while jogging and they do not feel trashed afterwards.

What if I don’t like this session but want the effects?

No problem. Every time you run a steady aerobic run on a very undulating or hilly route, you are inadvertently going lightly anaerobic and triggering similar effects to the sausage session. So run over very varied and challenging terrain on your steady efforts and your body will get to spend plenty of time “lactate shuttling”.

Why would Lydiard use it?

As I mentioned in an previous article, Lydiard did not know anything about the lactate shuttle when he wrote his first schedules in 1950 but he knew that keeping all the body’s “energy systems” and “paces” somewhat stimulated was important even during aerobic conditioning. He also recognised that this should only be supplemental as such training was useless without focusing your main effort on the adaptations that contribute by far the most to your performance on any distance from 800m to the marathon: steady aerobic running to raise your lactate threshold as far as possible.

My recommendation on how to use it

Sausages are the perfect way to implement this mix of paces for reasonably fit athletes (beginners, should do easier unstructured fartleks first). In the modern Lydiard schedules we use based on the Lydiard Foundation’s instructions, there are two weekly fartleks for distances from 800m to the 10k and one for half-marathons and above (this being for runners doing 7 days per week).

I would encourage athletes not to drop the fartlek if they need to “skip a day”. It is a great help during the high mileage phase in keeping your legs flexible and stressing the body in a slightly different way. In my own programme it falls nicely between two runs of 90-minutes plus, so I use it to blow off some steam and my body tends to feel better, rather than worse, for the longer run the next day. So I know I am not overdoing the intensity. Monotony is one of the main causes of injury and loss of motivation and the Lydiard aerobic phase has often been accused of epitomising that type of training. In reality, it was nothing of the sort with plenty of undulating running, strides, sub-threshold runs (Out and Backs) and fartleks to constantly mix it up. In many ways, the aerobic phases features almost all types of running except hard sustained anaerobic efforts with little recovery.

DIARY: The tough days

2012-02-07T23:19:00.001Z

I had a feeling today’s run could be a chore: very busy day at work, increased resting heart rate in the morning and just a slight “lack of motivation” throughout the day.

So I opted to hook up with Jason, who is recovering from his niggle, and do some laps of Tymon Park. During the first lap, we ran into Richie as well who then joined us for the remainder of the lap. The chat was a great help but time still felt like it was creeping slowly for some reason. I picked up a bad bloody blister on the right foot, which I need to fix and every now and again I get sensations from the ankle that warn me that I need to thread very carefully over the next day. This is the time where I can either push it over the edge or stay on the right side and help it grow back stronger.

After Richie left us, Jason and I ran together for an hour before he headed back to the gym (and his beloved sauna!) close by. I was a bit down on my target pace of 4:49 min/km although running mainly on undulating grass in the dark probably slowed us down. Feeling fine, I sped up a bit on the last 30 minutes to finish the planned 18.6km in 90 minutes. Yesterday, I had purposefully kept my pace very much on the slow side and done an easier day of 9km in 45 minutes in the dark around Glendalough. So far a positive start to the second week of training, now I just need to make sure I don’t cause any new problems with my ankle.

Back at the gym, I popped into the sauna to relax for a bit. Jason was still there and lambasted me for the visible layer of stomach fat I’m still carrying! The coach has to set an example: if not in performance then in attitude and always be willing to do what he asks his athletes to do. I’m upbeat about it though, any visible fat should burn off in a month or so and that’s free seconds for each kilometre right there.

Afterwards, a long drive home and didn’t return until 22:30. A bit too late as I like to be in bed by then normally. The drive home is always a poor recovery from a run which means I always try to do some toe squats and other light exercises to ease back out afterwards.

DIARY: A proper long run

2012-02-05T22:53:00.001Z

51 weeks after breaking down for the first time and the slow implosion of my 2011 season, I was back at the Vartry Reservoir for “a proper long run” to be done the way Lydiard wanted it: at a comfortably hard pace (some would call this steady).

We have had some extremely busy weekends of late and this was no exception with the Crusaders “Do” on in Irishtown which left us returning to Glendalough past 2 o’clock in the morning. The evening was great though especially with our coach Michael reciting all the great wins and performances by the teams this year. Of course, I managed to miss my own “moment in the sun” as I was in the restrooms as I got called up as “Club Man of the Year”. At least I have the trophy!

Jason, Aoife, Tressan, I and other “Cru” at the annual “Do”

What pace for an out and back?

I had been positively surprised with my first Out and Back: I always run from my house in Glendalough towards Laragh and then out the Glenmacnass road as this makes the first half harder than the second helping along the “negative split” that is the ideal scenario for an Out and Back workout. At first my head-cold had left chest and everything else feel slightly rusty but eventually, especially once the worst climb passed, I got into a strong motoring rhythm.

My average pace for the run was 4:23min/km. This compares very favourably to my 4:25min/km pace for the same route in my first run last year but (there is a but) I did manage a much longer run then. This is 13.6kph which is currently just below my lactate threshold and exactly the type of sub-threshold intensity this workout calls for in the early stages of the programme. Running faster induces greater glycogen depletion, more endocrine (hormonal) stress and more muscle damage, all of which hampers the ability to run well in the Sunday long run and can linger on as a fatigue for several days destroying the overall quality of the week. For every week that passes, this pace will drop slightly and distance increase before, once I enter the hill phase, the pace becomes essentially threshold pace or just beyond it.

Long run “exam”

I was nervous like a schoolboy before his first exam this morning: would my ankle hold up? Would I still be able to produce the quality I did last year? The answer came quickly enough, from the first stride my legs were neither tired nor sore and only a narrow slippery trail on the first small loop at the Vartry Reservoir kept me from the expected 4:53min/km pace.

As the run continued, I felt increasingly confident even when the ankle acted up a bit or I skidded around in my Inov-8 Recolite sandals on a particularly wet bit. Whenever the going was hard and fast, such as the short road bits, my pace dropped to 4:39-4:40min/km without pushing unduly. When the time passed 90 minutes I remembered that this was the period that counts when the fast-twitch fibres are beginning to deplete and become fatigued. This is when are trained for endurance giving you the strength you need late in races. “Run until exhausted and then begin meaningful work”, I heard Percy Cerutty’s voice say in my head and on call, I sped up for the last kilometres running strongly to the end to finish off 25.2km in 2:01. Such ended the shortest of my marathon long runs!

Coming home I compared the time to last year: I had run at 4:49min/km pace and I rated my effort at “5 out of 10”. The previous year I had run 27km in 2:10 for my first Vartry run and rated it a “4 out of 10”. My heart rate had been 150 for that run back then while unfortunately my problems with the new Garmin strap meant I am not currently recording mine. My Lydiard programme predicts that ideally, a runner with my resting heart rate should not go beyond 149 for this workout but Romain Denis’ test in a few weeks time with UCD will confirm the precise zones for me.

Evaluating where I stand

Looking at the two workouts, it seems clear that biomechanically and strength-wise I am not far off last year (in fact, I reckon I am better, as my running has a better flow now) but I likely am a little bit shorter on endurance at this time. Again, once the last of the head-cold passes, hopefully I will have yet another gear. It is a pity to stand at the same point of performance one year on but at least any regression seems to have been slight and if I can build back to 80-minute half-marathon shape in seven weeks like I did last year, I would have a chance of achieving my Copenhagen objectives.

Reference to the Boards.ie discussion

For those reading my blog who followed the discussion on Canova on Boards.ie, you will notice that the paces I ran at constitute what the Italian coach would term 110% of marathon pace (my Out and Back) and 120% of marathon pace (my long run). Lydiard would have referred to the effort at 1/4 effort for my long run and 3/4 effort for the Out and Back.

Of course, this assumes I am in sub-2:49 shape right now (which is almost certainly not true). Best case scenario, my current marathon “form” is 2:53:20 based on previous results and this is even slightly optimistic after a poor spring, so a marathon race pace of 4:06/min/km. This would make my paces 106% and 117% of race pace. This ignores tiredness, temperature, illness, form and a myriad of other factors influencing what constitutes “race pace” on any given day. To avoid being caught out by such factors and partly caught up in an “unpredictable” equation, I always go by intensity first, e.g. “how it feels” and pace is just a reference point for evaluating the work done.

DIARY: Cold days

2012-01-31T21:23:00.001Z

With the news of impending snow hanging over the valley cottage, my wheels were more of a concern than my legs for once. A late night call by the AA had removed the damaged winter tyre and replaced it with an old summer tyre that had been stowed in my boot for quite some time.

Meanwhile I was surprised how quickly my legs were recovering from Sunday’s wet journey across the Wicklow Gap and while I dosed down the training to balance out the unplanned length of the run, I had no trouble doing pleasant jogs both Monday and Tuesday. Unfortunately, I knew “something was brewing”, from the moment I stepped in the door and out of the rain on Sunday I had a burning sensation in my throat and right enough, I can feel my temperature rising and the strength waning somewhat. This must be a record number of cold within a 12-month period signalling that either it’s just a bad year or not all is right in the health department. I tend to blame the two-hour daily commute, driving is a stressful activity at the best of times and sitting in a banged up old car for two hours every day cannot be good for the health.

Either way, I hope I recover better than the car: by the morning I tried the trip out but the front of the car was shaking uncontrollably, so I needed to abandon the journey and called back my trusty friends in the AA (not the drinking ones). They corroborated what my own mechanic had speculated to me on the phone a bit earlier: the replacement tyre was damaged. Luckily, in the light of day the rescue mechanic was able to find the problem with the winter tyre. It had a damaged wheel-cap, seemingly from a collision, which caused air to seep out an a rapid rate. Many hearty blows of a hammer seems to have sorted the problem out for now.

This is where the car and I part ways in terms of injury status, however. My ankle is now recovering after each workout and with 50km under the belt in the first three days, only a bad worsening of my cold should stop me getting back to 100km this week. My car on the other hand, also needs a new timing belt and a new front right shock (interestingly, my “right shock” is the problem too!). So every time I get into the car, I know it could potentially give out any moment. A broken timing belt is essentially the car equivalent of a stroke, so not something you want to happen. The logistics will be tricky but I’m hoping to have the vehicle picked up for the substantial repair job this entails leading into the weekend. Good thing Aoife will be back as we need to go to Dublin both to test Suzanne Kenny’s new “Anti-Gravity Yoga” and attend the Crusaders Social.

Bet of the year perhaps: who will give out first from the mileage – me or the Avensis?

DIARY: Kevin’s Way Run (and more..)

2012-01-29T22:40:00.003Z

Our last Sunday long run turned into more of an adventure than any of us had bargained for, our plan was simple: run all of St. Kevin’s Way from Hollywood to Glendalough, allegedly a run around 30km.
One look out the window in the morning up towards the Wicklow Gap left no doubt that we would have none of the clear conditions enjoyed earlier in the weekend but the reasonable temperature and lack of wind made the persistent rain tolerable.

The incessant waters were laying another trap for us, however, as we optimistically set out around Slievecurragh. This stretch was wet but scenic and the back-road ideal for running with not a car in sight. Then followed a spell on the main Wicklow Gap road. As the signs read “Glendalough 21 km” we veered off right away from the main road and we looked forward to finishing the road stretch.

A bridge too few?
After 5km the moment arrived, only, the bridge across the river, itself only a feeder to the King’s River dominating the flood-plain, was gone and the water masses so powerful that after careful inspection we reasoned no other option remained to us than a painful slog back and the prospect of abandoning the run and returning to Hollywood or facing potentially a 39km run. The group was notably more silent trotting back to the cross-roads yet jokes were never far from ear and only Kevin decided to turn back as his cold was at him. Not a bad choice given what would follow…

We had put 18km behind us at this stage and did not get off the main road until the 24th km. “Car”, “Car”, "Car", was the constant chorus here, replaced by “I hate this road" from Jeff. As we finally passed Ballinagee Bridge and turned back onto trail, we took a look at the water-logged grassy path on our left which would take us further on towards Glendalough. “I want the road back,” said Jeff. Be that as it was, we slogged upwards on what normally would be a gorgeous grassy section. It remained pleasant yet unjustifiably wet!
As we crossed back on the south side of the main road and onto another forest trail, we saw another bridge. Only problem was that the bridge was lying on land and once again no spot could be found to cross. We could see the lovely path on the other side but had to slog through some branch-riddled undergrowth and crawl a fence back to the Wicklow Gap road to endure more tarmac before we finally hit the stretch of the way I am most familiar with as I can do it out and back from my house. From here mainly trail remained, but in the torrential conditions it had turned into quagmire and pseudo-bog.

Slippy slop
At the best of times, this part of Kevin’s Way can be slippy, today it was a mud-fest. Even once we abandoned the softer trail for the rockier parts, we felt like running in a river and the cold layer of ankle deep water did its best to hurry our progress here as the thought of losing toes began to fester in the brain. Then once again water blocked our progress. What is normally a shallow fort with barely any water was another roaring stream. Puzzled we looked across and Tim tip-toed into the water and back out again checking the depth. “I’ve waded across here countless times”, I thought to myself and then thought of Aoife’s home-made cakes and the tea waiting in the house. Oh, and also the European Handball Final in which Denmark were due to play Serbia (we won!). So, I decided to just plow through it. The water was thigh-deep and cold, which was oddly pleasant, but my footing seemed strong and I reckoned if I fell the others would fish me out (Jeff, remarked, I should have asked them to stand downstream first). Not long after I had crossed, James and Caroline helped each other across before the rest of us followed: Jeff, Martin and Tim, the six.

From here it was finally plain sailing and the stepping stones back into Glendasan provided a nice break from the monotony of slogging. The pace had been frisky at times, especially during the first 20km, and on the final tranquil kilometres back to our house, we upped it again and returned with spirits unbroken. “It’ll stand to us in summer”, said Jeff and mirrored the overall positive attitude of the entire group despite the overall misadventure our stint had turned into. No record attempt on Kevin’s Way should be attempted for a while it is safe to say! What is equally safe to say is that it is hard to quell a mountain runners never-say-die attitude, especially when he has the prospect of cakes, tea and biscuits to look forward to.

Run details: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/145658611

Another car “breakdown”
To cap out the misfortune, however, I returned home to a flat front-tyre only 48 hours after I had a full wheel alignment test done in Dublin. With the lack a pump, I have a head-ache to work out. Since me and that car seem symbiotically linked (we tend to break down with equal frequency) I am hoping this does not bode ill for me!

Only at New Year’s Eve, I dodged a bullet as I drove to Dublin and back with the nuts in the wheel almost totally loose. My mechanic had forgotten to fasten them after treatment! Luckily, the wheel stayed on during those 120km of driving and we discovered the problem before I took it out for another spin.

DIARY: Goodbye dunes, hello marathon

2012-01-28T22:47:00.001Z

Our last dune session unsurprisingly drew a small crowd, competing with the Ticknock mountain race was always going to be difficult and with Aoife being slightly ill and Jason away on a stag in the West, it was up to Sean, Tony and I to pull the curtain on this series of Cerutty-inspired workouts. We went for a shorter dune loop today (taking less than a minute) to try and bring in more quality into the uphills and really getting the legs driving upwards.

It was good fun, but I don’t regret taking a break from that now and beginning my “proper” marathon training tomorrow which means “Out and Backs” every Saturday, the famous Lydiard “sub-threshold” run which gives you all the benefits of threshold running without the injury risk, staleness, glycogen depletion and muscle soreness that follows regular threshold running. The first “Out and Back” looks gentle enough with 12.5km in 57 minutes planned. I’m usually a bit faster on these workouts, but will be watching myself so I don’t stray too far across the actual threshold. There will be time enough for that when the Progress Calibration Runs replace the Out and Backs after the aerobic phase is over. So head down and prepare to run high volume until mid-March.

My ankle had been acting up a little this week after the hill session we ran in Munster last week, and because I had a particularly busy week my exercises were always rushed so I could not fully get it “worked out”. After today’s running in the sand, though, followed by the icy dip in the Irish Sea, I had time for a long regiment. I had also seen Hagen for my monthly recurring appointment in his MyoReflex clinic, so by evening time all tension was released and the ankle feels great ahead of tomorrow’s 30km plus stint on St. Kevin’s Way. Even better, Aoife is recovering faster than hoped and will do a hike tomorrow before rewarding us with her home-made cakes when we arrive in Glendalough.

We’re missing the IMRA Social this year as we have been away last weekend and are already committed to the Crusaders Social next weekend. We have not had many quiet weekends the last two months, so we had to opt out of this one sadly. Overall, I took a bit of a step-back week in line with my new “cautious” policy and recorded 75km. I’m hoping this will allow my body to super-compensate after the bigger two weeks. My first marathon training week calls for 103km of running but I expect it’ll be a bit less the injury break has taken some seconds off my base pace and I am expecting it will take 3-4 weeks before I am running consistently at the pace I need again.

To help my quest I have signed up with Romain Denis for a lactate test again at UCD and also have begun using a nutrition diary before meeting the professor of nutrition that works at UCD Sports and Performance. I hope she’ll highlight all my bad habits, check if I take in enough energy at the correct times and hopefully put some pressure on to keep me on the ideal path. I estimate I am about 3 kilos too heavy at the moment, so there is a lot of speed to be gained for the marathon in May if I can shed them in a sensible manner and optimise body composition as I go along.

DIARY: The “easy” road

2012-01-27T22:34:00.001Z

It has been a busy week catching up with everything after the extended weekend in Munster. Standing at the Ballyhoura race start to run the mountain running training day brought back fond memories of one of my first mountain races which happened on that very course. I remember being midpack somewhere before getting lost with a local runner for twenty minutes in the woods and then finishing joint last. This time local man Tom Blackburn ensured no one got lost in any way and despite the chill wind we had 25 people or so eagerly participating in a 2 hour session.

I had another treatment with Hagen Stroh today and he really brought the pain which I see as a positive because he highlights exactly where my muscles are still unnecessarily tense. “Form follows function” is his mantra and while I have come on in great strides, my movement patterns are still in work in progress.

I can feel this when resuming training. I have now found a way to neutralise and manage the throbbing and irritation in my right ankle all of which is caused from tightness in the right hip and the right calf but I cannot bull-doze through training the way I did last year. Two consecutive weeks of 90km was heartening but my paces are noticeably more conservative than last year and I have to accept building my fitness slower this year. It’s been challenging because of my strange work hours and I’ve found myself doing some runs as late as nine o’clock in the night by torch-light but these have been particularly relaxing.

On the plus side the few times my ankle has gotten sore a few days of easy jogging have put me back into “a happy place” and I have surprised myself by managing 26 days running in a row since I decided to lay low and recover from New Year’s on 1st of January. The way things are going I will not find myself in 80-minute half-marathon shape within 7 weeks, as I simply cannot yet bring the pace and intensity into my aerobic running I had last year when I started with no niggles whatsoever. But this time I am positive that with my new patient approach, I will actually manage to arrive fully trained at a peak event. This has not happened since Snowdon 2009 (and even that was a fluke!) so you could say it is about time…

DIARY: Running and writing

2012-01-17T22:35:00.001Z

It seems like everytime I cross a few things off my list, five new have appeared and whenever I settle down to catch-up on some long overdue task, I have heard a new cool thing on the radio I’d prefer to write about instead. What happens then is what you have seen on the blog recent, not too many ground-breaking new theories!

My main projects at the moment is writing about the newest findings on injury prevention and the programme I am working with Antony Riddle on rolling out in Ireland which loosely bases itself on an amalgamation of the disciplines Somatics, Resistance Stretching, Natural Movement, Myoreflex therapy, Postural Alignment Stretching and psychoneuroimmunology. That will be a mouthful in all its cross-disciplinary glory.

The second piece is an article series comparing Arthur Lydiard’s training to some of the “more modern” methodologies that has sprung from it such as those of Renato Canova and De la Rosa. These are taking more time than expected as there are so many misunderstandings and different interpretations surrounding all methods that it is easy to debate them towards or away from each other depending on what you put your finger to. In the end, I decided to create a series to look at different aspects in part such beginning with how the methodologies structure the phases and why they are not as rigid as they seem on paper. Nobby Hashizume has gracefully provided some good insights and feedback from discussions he has had with Canova and I am awaiting a reply from Keith Livingstone, author of “Healthy Intelligent Training”, who I am hoping will help chip in with some quotes and opinions. I am working with Keith on rolling out a series of online talks in Ireland on his book and his modern representation of the Lydiard system and we are all very excited about this collaboration.

Finally, of course, there is the running. I’m back feeling like a whole human being again since overcoming my problems and today as I did 10km with a session of 10x100m strides in the middle, I found myself running as fast as 16 seconds on grass without ever forcing my muscles to contract. It was pure flexibility and turn-over and I felt light and relaxed despite the many miles the previous days. My Monday jog ended up being very late, I did not get out until 9 o’clock to run by head-torchlight in Glendalough.

Overall, my running year has come off to a great start. I shamefully admit taking 1st of January off due to a New Year’s Party lasting until 5 in the morning. With plenty of British ales, Irish whiskey, traditional singing and Karaoke to finish off the night, we decided to begin the year restfully. Since then it’s been all about the work, though, and I have run every single day to clock up sixteen days on the trot. I am always happiest when I can run every day without pain. In that time I’ve run 171km and climbed about 2800m on my hill runs. My current work rate of 7.5 hours per week needs to increase to about 9.5 by next week and then slowly towards 10.5 for the majority of my marathon programme but I consider it a great start and hope I will have the time and energy to get in supplementary jogs in the mornings or evenings in addition to my main mileage as soon as I am confident that I am 100% “out of the woods”.

DIARY: Review 2011

2012-01-16T11:18:00.003Z

Among the runners I worked with last year, one could justifiable leave the season with a lot of disappointment and the knowledge that his coach had let him down.

Thankfully this runner is myself, another proof that being a self-coached athlete can be extraordinarily difficult. Where a “3rd party coach” has perspective, you have emotion. Where your coach sees unacceptable risks, you see worthwhile gambles. A similar cycle of events as 2009 and 2010 was not met with the hard wisdom earned from those years but rather with the same propensity to repeat errors and this time the consequences were harsher: by the end of the year I had completed only 2160km (1342 miles) of training.

Year on year
My performance has plateaued over the last few years and you do not need to be a super coach to figure out why:

2009 (mileage): 3023 km (1878 miles)
2010 (mileage): 2980 km (1852 miles)
2011 (mileage): 2157 km (1341 miles)

There are no quick-fixes or magical formulas out there to make up for such a drop in mileage, despite the number of charlatans around claiming the opposite. My year also had a terrible rate of consistency as I started by running five of my ten highest mileage weeks ever, within a five week period (the first five!). In twenty-five out of the year's fifty two weeks, I managed 35km or less weekly mileage. Five weeks featured zero mileage when the injury was at it’s very worst. Looking through the year, I would classify 14 weeks as “proper training”, not an impressive return.

This misfortune may yet lead to a fairy-tale ending, however, I saw that I retained 82-minute half-marathon form many month's past the beginning of my injury spell and today my fitness and training capacity seems to be returning at a storming rate.

Racing statistics
In terms of racing, I did more than my training would really have warranted, basically doing a race per week of proper training. Unsurprisingly, I was rarely effective and my overall haul does not compare well to the previous years:

Races/Yr	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011
#	41	16	27	26	14

The count of 2007 races is not something for a runner with competitive ambitions to aspire to but this year turned out worse than even the plantar-haunted 2008 which had marked a previous low-point in my fortunes. 2009 and 2010, while frustrating, at least had the redeeming qualities of being slow progressions from that damaging year.

Adding to the story, five of my fourteen race happened during the brief period of 27th November to 11th December when the La Santa Running Challenge (another great highlight to be fair) kickstarted me again, leaving the overall year barren both in terms of racing and training.

Highlights
The year past did not turn into a complete wash-out even so, my personal highlights being completing my first ultra in spite of the lack of training, recording a 5 mile PB, running my half-marathon PB close weeks after the ultra and taking the silver medal with our Wicklow Way Relay team. The latter three were bittersweet as the half-marathon and 5 mile showed how much more could have been had things been different, and the relay, while exhilarating, would have meant more if I could have added 100% of my potential to the 100% effort I put in on the day.

In terms of coaching, there were so many positives but I’ll cover that in a separate article at some point. A final highlight from a non-competitive perspective was acting as team manager for the Snowdon team, a rewarding experience and welcome excuse to stop over at a race that has come to be part of my annual cycles, injured or not.

Madman in training
Training rhymes with constraining for a reason and my most damaging flaw as an athlete is the inability to accept deviations from a set plan even when my physical condition has changed from the outset. Looking back over the autumn weeks leading into the Dublin Novice Cross-Country, a dismal performance by athletic standards, you see a runner who has just shrugged off an injury and is recovering his fitness suddenly doing two-three quality workouts per week (mainly cross-country specific tempos, intervals and the Lydiard hill circuit).

This training would have been fully appropriate had the season gone exactly as sketched out at the beginning of 2011 but not for a runner who had the period March-August largely disrupted by injury. Unsurprisingly I began to run some decent times in training and some strong workouts. In reality, this was just the last flicker of my winter condition being consumed and by the time the Novice came around only a fatigued shell was left to hobble injured around the course of the Novice race. If was a race car at the outset of the year, the bright sparks of August were just the flames from the wreck being set alight by the roadside.

Either way, the cross-country races marked a premature end to the autumn season while also set the scene for my most fortunate chain of events of 2011.

A complete understanding of injuries
In terms of learning and experience no year ranks higher than 2011. I have broadened the scope of my knowledge far beyond the field of running which has proved extremely valuable as publications focusing on one event tend to be somewhat limited once they depart into areas that is not their key expertise (such as nutrition, injury prevention, psychology and health).

Rarely a day passes now without me sending a mail off to some expert or scientist and every week usually adds a few more books to the “read” list. My meeting with Dr. Mark Cucuzzella, Antony Riddle and Hagen Stroh particularly helped redefine my understanding of the nature of chronic injuries and illnesses. Where our modern paradigm has become blinker-visioned in treating almost all conditions as structural problems, science really suggests most causes are purely functional and eminently curable. But that is a topic for an upcoming article.

Where to go from here?
The natural reaction would be to throw the baby out with the bath-water at this stage. Three years with little improvement and many injuries would suggest a potential that will remain unfulfilled and a body to injury-prone to handle the sport, but the truth is different.

Since meeting Antony, my body is stronger than ever and getting better every day. My new understanding of the causes of injuries means I can counter and repair almost on-the-fly and a return to running has been the obvious result. By embracing Somatics and Resistance Stretching, and the emerging scientific field of psychoneuroimmunology (ouch!), I have the opportunity to almost completely nullify the negative physical and mental effects of aging until an extremely advanced age. With a refined understanding of nutrition and training, I am better placed than ever to capitalise on this new platform.

Weathering “runner’s low”
Personally I feel like a general who has lost most of his battles but remains almost confident of winning the war. When I checked my running diary for the figures for 2011 I noticed that I had not filled out a single entry since 18th of September, such was my despondency after the last injury-blow. I had gone off running, literally, in what was probably a low ebb in my enthusiasm for the sport.

Now, on the other hand, enthusiasm is fully restored, and in many ways a change of mindset has brought it back to levels it had not reached since the early years when everything was exciting and no cynicism surrounded my view of the sport.

Summary
In terms of pure numbers, I wrote down 15 goals for 2011 and achieved 3 (and these were more process focused goals). Athletically, 2011 was a failure on almost all counts. But I feel it will be a landmark year when I look back once upon a time. No training I did this year could have handed me as big an advantage for the future as the things I had to go discover in my search for why the injuries kept recurring. The answers seemed obvious, but they are not (if they were more traditional treatments would have worked, they did not). I see that as more valuable than a PB or race victory in many ways: I never accepted the frailty of my body as a “de facto” and never stopped searching for the true explanation regardless of how many specialists had to capitulate. In the end I found my answers; now I have to retain that wisdom and apply it to make 2012 the success 2011 could not be.

Ron Daws believed that every able-bodied man has the capacity to run sub 2:30 for the marathon. Keith Livingstone confirmed that it was not seen as an extraordinary feat in his time and I agree. Functional, environmental and societal problems constrain our ability to utilise this level of talent but anyone who could overcome those problems and be trained right should set their aims very high indeed and I am no different. 2012: here we come.

TRAINING: Sausage sessions

2012-01-11T22:28:00.001Z

Both as a coach and as a runner there are training sessions that I enjoy more and some less. Coming home from tonight’s fartlek, I had enjoyed myself greatly in both roles. I’ve taken to participating in most of my own sessions as it is a golden opportunity to train with people.

For this evening’s fartlek workout I had chosen a session called the “sausage session” (which is really just a colourful name for “structured fartlek”). It may seem that “structured” violates the very essence of what a fartlek is supposed to be about and detractors would be right in pointing this out. But when you are running as a group, you need to take advantage of that and the sausage session is designed to be random and unpredictable in its own way and knock “us Western runners” out of our cosy even-paced workouts into the sort of roller-coaster running that African athletes so excel in.

A quick history of sausages

The “sausages” were introduced to New Zealand (and the Lydiardites) in 1968 by Roger Robinson and quickly proved a very effective training method both for cross-country specific work and as a way to increase oxygen uptake during the aerobic phase. These sessions were still run at the top aerobic intensities but offered a little something else from the easy and steady mileage during that period.

I first read about the session in an article from New Zealand Runner titled “Where Have All the Runners Gone?” about the steady decline of New Zealand athletics but only really took notice when Keith Livingstone included it in the Lydiard Foundation “training manual” Healthy Intelligent Training.

How to do it

The rules of a sausage are easy: one person leads each interval and no one is allowed to pass out the leader. However, slower runners are allowed to cut corners and faster runners can run wide if they so wish. Each runner is told the duration of their interval and the maximum intensity they should look for.

Today’s “sausage” looked like this:

3 x 3 minutes, 1 minute jog recovery (max 10k pace)
2 x 5 minutes, 2 minutes jog recovery (max 10k pace)
3 x 3 minutes, 1 minutes jog recovery (max 5k pace)

There are not breaks in this workout, you never stop running, and I particularly enjoyed this aspect as it gave a great sense of pace and kept the adrenaline level high. Initially, the runners chasing the leader seemed reluctant to cut corners but as the session went on, more and more used this. The 1.3km grassy circuit at UCD was almost ideal.

Our luck did not stop there: I had precisely eight runners in attendance on the day which meant each runner only needed to lead once. This is another useful aspect of the training session: everybody get’s exposure to how it feels to lead a chasing group regardless of relative ability in the group.

The pace

I decided to lead off to set the expectancy for the pace and was actually too conservative as I ran the 3-minute split at 4min/km pace (a good deal slower than my 10k pace, although perhaps not at the present moment!). From here on every runner who had to take his turn really brought the effort. James Clancy blasted away in before the dreaded “third man”, Jason Kehoe, ran the fastest “sausage” of the day, as we had all feared he would, setting a 3:39min/km pace.

Then came the vaunted 5-minute sections: Jeff Fitzsimons had promised talking pace and snickered about his 25km run the day before. These promises and exertions seemed forgotten as he disappeared away in a rush and held what “a brisk pace” throughout the long leg. Tim Chapman did settle the pace a bit but we were not relaxing by any means (again, unlike what Tim had promised, runners are terrible as setting expectations).

Newcomer to my group Paul Doherty got the first shot at 5k and put in a strong shift before it Sean Burke put in a 3:46 paced turn at the rudder . I noticed during the sessions how different runners adopted different rhythms. Some were on the back of the leader or thereabouts for each single repeat while others would drift back and relax for a few before hammering full force into later (usually in their own leg, a bit of pressure comes with the leader’s mantle). And, of course, it was hard to really know because everyone cut their own corners (or refrained).

Counting warm-up and cooldown the running came to over 15km (more for those admirable fellows who ran to and from the venue) ensuring that this was still essentially an aerobic workout.

Next week

Next week will feature another sausage session: Part of the beauty of the concept comes from the endless variations available. Perhaps I will tease runners with the 1 x 1 min, 1 x 2 min, 1 x 1 min, 1 x 2 min repeat ad nauseum (meaning invariably faster more interrupted running). Or perhaps we’ll do something more akin to a pyramid or a staircase or perhaps something with a very nasty long segment in the middle (10 minutes anyone?). Time will tell…

DIARY: Dunes and mountains

2012-01-08T16:47:00.001Z

Last year my running season began with a series of largely lonely very strictly prescribed aerobic workouts. These were undeniable effective in creating aerobic fitness quicker than any other method of training but mentally it took an iron discipline to execute them week on week and eventually breakdown followed.

This year necessity and experience finds me using a different approach having inserted a one month “pre-strength” period into my marathon preparations for Copenhagen, an approach inspired by the Japanese adaptation of the Lydiard system which features daily 5-6 hour hikes with backpacks to build up muscular and tensile strength to its maximum. The Japanese then embark on a gruelling aerobic period with three runs per day (90 minutes morning, 60 minutes Noon, 90 minutes evening) six days per week before their weekly long run.

My training aspirations do not reach that far but mountains is a language I love and understand and I have decided to create my own pre-strength programme based around a mixture of regular hill running, fartleks, stride and drill sessions and Saturday dune running at Brittas Bay.

As I learned from Antony Riddle last year, whatever sport you pursue, the environment in which it takes place (be it a boxing ring, a lake or on a mountain) must become an unobtrusive part of your every day living. Running must come as naturally as walking and should be linked to a positive experience by your sensory session. When you go out the door it should not feel painful, tiresome or forced but rather enjoyable. One of the easiest ways to make it pleasurable is to have company so rather than do my regular 1-month coaching break I have increased the number of sessions I run in January and make sure I participate in every one!

Fartlek

Wednesday began this new routine on an abysmal day of roaring winds and lashing rain. Only four lonely souls made it out to the darkened UCD campus but our fartlek turned out anything but recreational as we subjected ourselves to all sorts of paces and finished off doing some “fun racing” over the 100m, 200m and 400m distance.

A real easy fartlek should be fully self-controlled but when we meet up I try to make a common game out of it with certain rules. Our competitive instincts always run high as it is, so my challenge for the coming weeks is how I can “restrain the flock” and ensure we do not go overboard in these sessions.

Working out the pains

My troubled right ankle flared up badly on the last part of the Fartlek but thanks to Hagen Stroh, Antony Riddle and my new favourite toy “The Stick”, I can manage to release it. The stick provides instant muscular release, aggressively attacking any knots and trigger points particularly in the calf similar to what I am sure Ger Hartmann will do. I cannot do six hour sessions but with the Stick at hand I can torture my calves several times per day.

Antony Riddle’s postural exercises allow me to “reset my posture” before every run. I do a series of natural squats, foot yoga drills, core exercises and jumps from a step directly down into a squat position. These drills help overcome muscular tension and bad habits from sitting too much and old injuries and leave me starting my run with better posture. The jumping exercises “convinces” the sensory system that the system is indeed fully ready to take the pounding ahead and helps kick-start the natural springiness that we all possess in our legs, turning them from stiff and rusty to flexible and soft.

With a few easy jogs and this routine my ankle settled and caused me no trouble during the weekend’s running.

Dune running

Eight runner turned up to my first dune running session and we got quite a workout here and I left with the impression that people saw this as something a little different. We began with a slow run over the entire stretch of trail among the dunes (about 2km worth) before doing some warm-ups on the beach and four quick sprints to the top of an extremely steep dune. The last bit was mainly a bit of fun and had most on their hands and knees as they reached for the grass and belted down again.

This done we prepared for the main part of the day: 2-3 circuits featuring 460m of intensive running over the dunes with equal recovery back on the beach. Greg Byrne, Jason Kehoe and myself shed our shoes and went barefoot while Gary park ran in Nike Katana (a “spikeless spike”) about the flimsiest shoe you can get (and I mean that as a compliment).

The change in grip and power of each leg drive was incredible as both Jason and I noted immediately. Suddenly we were slipping less backwards in the soft sand and each lap saw our group take off at a ferocious pace as a pack of beach-hares hunting each other: up and down and up and down, with no lay-off. On the final lap our enthusiasm almost caused a triple-collision between Jason, Greg and I. We did not get away entirely Scot-free: Aoife had to pick up five thorns from the dead thistles that had strewn the path the same evening. Jason likewise had to go to work with his pinchers.

The shorter circuit proved a better choice than the longer one I had originally intended. With its longer length and steeper dunes, all but the strongest wore out fairly quickly on the long loop and what we were looking for was some explosive strength work and to really work the ankles, calves, quadriceps and hamstrings. With the short and undulating dunes, we got what we came from. As a bonus, the lack of impact from the sand leaves your legs fairly fresh for the next day.

Trooperstown/Paddock hill circuit

The final group session of the week proved the most popular with a full twelve mountain running enthusiasts starting out from the Visitor Centre car park and a further two joining us at the Woollen mills: Tressan and James McFadden. I got worried when I saw James: last time we went on a long run, he had set a ferocious pace up the Torc Waterfall climb during our Kerry Weekend which left half the field gasping for air.

His running style is deceptively effortless (and he had finished 5th in the BHAA cross-country the day before!) and you get pulled along until you start feeling the string late on. Each stride uphill, even a steep slope, sees almost his entire foot hit the ground and “bound off” the ground giving him a powerful uphill bounce rather than a conservative shuffle.

I found myself first in the firing line during the initial single-track which means you have commenced the climb to Trooperstown chatting away with James up front. As we hit Trooperstown proper, I decided to let myself drop off as Kevin O’Riordan and James continued at a pace that left me wondering what we’d have in store for all the miles ahead. The trio of Tim Chapman, James Clancey and Jason Kehoe working their way up behind me caught up here while James and Kevin ran back to us and our front group took off down the shoulder together.

Food at the end of the tunnel

Luckily, Aoife knew the route as well as a sizeable gap had opened very quickly between our group and the next runners. It’s not pleasant to feel under pressure to keep up during a long run, so this worked out perfectly. By Boots mountain, James had left everyone and only come running back towards us as we emerged from Trooperstown Wood. The mountain was wetter and sloppier than last weeks and without grips it made for a real slide-fest in places.

At the foot of Brockagh I told Jason, Kevin and James to go on ahead as Tim and James Clancey had fallen a few hundred metres behind on the descent off Scarr and I wanted to ensure they took the right turn. We ran in together in just a few seconds over 2 hours for the 20.7km. This was 9 minutes quicker than last time so we felt like we were moving at times and to reward ourselves for the effort, I had worked on a vegetable soup the previous day which was served for everyone in our house with pots and pots of tea before Aoife rolled out the birthday carrot cake in honour of the double-celebrants: James and Tressan.

No one got lost and the reviews of the route seemed favourable, Brendan Doherty went as far as telling me he’d “add it to the armoury”. Next up we’ll be looking for something slightly more open mountain but with the current extremely wet conditions, my creative brain cells may need to work again as my first choice route can be slightly soggy even on a good day!

DIARY: Running into the New Year

2012-01-02T22:51:00.001Z

The period between Christmas and New Year is one I use to recharge my batteries and have rare catch-up time with the family back in Denmark. New Year’s Eve is the biggest party of the year in Denmark, and the Glendasan Cottage saw a great bash indeed. To strengthen our fortitude for this rare type of ordeal (at least for us!), Aoife and I were joined by Caroline for the last mountain run of the year. Building back from injury, I have mainly run on the mountains without strict pace or time targets to rebuilt strength and confidence.

Evening run: Djouce

The first of the big Christmas mountain runs was the informal IMRA run done by IMRA up Djouce on a stormy Tuesday night. We were a huge group of more than 30, faces were hard to make out, runners were just voices with bobbing head-torches.

Trooperstown-Paddock Hill Circuit

I’ve raved about this run in an earlier post, but today we decided to do it again. This time I did feed myself some Orbana before although I usually don’t do this before aerobic training runs. With at least five late nights over the Christmas and New Years period and unsteady eating, I did not want to risk another blow-up.

By the time my watch gave out (at the 10 mile point on Paddock Hill), we had been running over 30 seconds faster per kilometre and this time I ended the run tired but pleasantly so. It remains a great run and will be on my list of Sunday runs planned with groups for January.

Brockagh pandemonium

Another advantage of our house’s location is the direct access to the Wicklow Way, and we took advantage of this to follow the steep ascent up towards the Wicklow Gap road and further on up the zig-zags to the fire road that takes you past the lower flanks of Brockagh mountain.

Two days before New Year’s, we decided to do a short run from home to Brockagh East top (not the one used in the IMRA race) which is only about 4.5km of climbing from the house. Once we hit the open part of the ascent, however, it became painfully clear that even the winds on Djouce a week previous had been mild compared to the gale now blowing across the mountains.

We battled through a pandemonium that threatened to burst eardrums and left you running with hands on ears while at the same time flapping back and forth on the grassy path to avoid being blown into the heather. We got a short respite as the path curled inside the higher flanks of the hill only to be hit full-force on the final stretch to the summit. With less than a few hundred metres to go, we simply had to give up as the wind tore at flesh and sanity at ever higher level and no prospect remained of even a brief triumphant stay on the peak. Sometimes, it just isn’t worth it and today was one. Coming home with the wind in the back was a relief and had we bothered we could probably have set some pretty good times down the fast grassy descent to the fire-road.

Camaderry Circuit

The last run of the year proved one of the most rewarding: we struck West out of Glendalough on St. Kevin’s Way up until the old ruins close to the Wicklow Gap. Instead of continuing along the Way, we followed a small path left towards the old Luganure mines. A rocky path carries you halfway up, a nearby stream always your companion, before the final section of wet grassy steps and mud-path before you can gain the Eastern summit of Camaderry.

Some of the views here had an almost “Lord of the Ringesque” quality to them and the gentle shrouds of mist made me feel completely isolated. Traces of men could be seen in age-old quarries but they seemed so faint they belonged to another age. This is one of the best paths I have seen in Wickow and one of the few to mirror the splendour of the best Lakeland ones.

The descent was quick, wet and enjoyable. The wind was strong but not as strong as in previous days. The route was 9km long with 535m ascent and took us about 70 minutes going at a gentle pace.

The Stick!

Aoife bought me a new gadget for Christmas called “The Stick” and it probably would be my favourite if she had not bought “A Dance with Dragons”, the fifth of books that the new acclaimed HBO tv-show Games of Thrones is based on, an intoxicating story featuring storytelling and writing of the absolute highest calibre. She also got me a Kindle, so “The Stick” probably only ranks third among the presents but it may prove the most valuable.

Using it I found some awful knots in my calves in several places and managed to quite easily relieve a lot of tension. It’s important to keep those muscles from getting to tense, especially on a chronic basis: tendons are passive tissue and cannot cause any trouble on their own. It is the tenseness of the muscles attached to them that cause all the problems. Definitely an innovation to recommend to anyone with tight calves.

I have had much to do creating programmes for CE over the holidays so my usual annual review and other articles on my list have not yet manifested, hopefully I will find time for it all eventually. The most important thing for me is to begin every year with a pretty blank slate and that goes for running too: most of my injuries are under control and the highlights and lowlights of the last year are now just reference points for future decisions: they do not truly matter anymore. The training to come, the achievements of 2012 are what is important. A good marathon in May is my first objective and then I will decide where to focus my energy and interest for the summer. Autumn may feature another marathon but I certainly want to attempt another go at the cross-country as well.

Apart from my own hopes, on the coaching side, there is much to strive for: we had a very successful 2011 in terms of wins and PBs but mistakes were also made and we could have done even better. This will be the challenge for 2012, to consolidate the gains and take a major push-off to the next level for everyone involved with our Lydiard system.

Until the next post (hopefully sooner than the last), Happy New Year to all and see you at the races of 2012. May they be many…

DIARY: Glendalough-Trooperstown Circuit

2011-12-19T13:59:00.001Z

Yesterday’s first real long run after my injury problems began was full of highs and lows and as I staggered delirious and glycogen depleted up the last climb I did not have the mental faculties left to appreciate what a fantastic route we had just about finished or wonder why it had taken me over a year of residence in Glendalough to finally go do it.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/135181679

The Trooperstown Connection

I have lamented the loss of my regular run on Trooperstown Hill since moving from the side of the mountain into the monastic valley below and my eye has been attracted to the small trail and fire-road that leads out of Laragh on onto the Ballard area south of the Trooperstown massiff. From here you can connect to any of the trails on the mountain by following the steep eroded climb to the Eastern shoulder of the hill: a climb used only once for an IMRA race (during a trial race).

Whenever I run from Glendalough to Scarr following Paddock Hill I have looked curiously at the little stile over the fence on your right hand side. A small grassy trail departs the Wicklow Way here in the direction of the main road to Laragh. A quick look at the map confirmed that this trail leads straight from the Trooperstown car park to top of Paddock Hill crossing over the Oldbridge road on the way.

Starting point: Glendalough

Aoife and I began our run at the door and followed the Green Road away from Glendalough. Usually its bustling with tourists but yesterday was strangely quiet and we ran into the Woollen Mills meeting only a few small groups of walkers. From here we followed the Laragh-Rathdrum road for a hundred metres before following the left fork in the road. At a small bridge, popular among kayakers, a broad trail leads left. It looks like the connection to Trooperstown but must be ignored: the real trail is much smaller, marked by a set of stones with yellow paint and quickly turns into a narrow overgrown trail before you re-emerge onto fire-road. Shortly thereafter the road splits again and your instincts tell you Trooperstown should be the right fork. Once again, intuition must be over-ruled and the left trail past a few houses taken.

The run from Glendalough to the foot of Trooperstown is about 3km and its steady climbing from here. When you emerge from the last stretch of grassy fire-road you are on the main dirt-road running through the farms at Ballard and straight ahead of you is a direct ascent of Trooperstown. Zig-zags and some fairly steep gradients made this bit good fun but my leg muscles were barely working especially my right glute which has been tangled in a knot since the cross-country last Sunday.

Trooperstown race route

Once we arrived on the shoulder, we followed the muddy and frozen upper trail left to circumnavigate the two peaks of Trooperstown Hill rather than going left to the top. We wanted a reasonable long run and reckoned we needed the extra miles we’d get by doing the roundtrip. We ran all the way to the backside of the second peak, the area called Clarabeg where my old house stands, and up to the “Boots” at the small cairn on the east top. The next two miles were the most slippy we had encountered, a hiker yelled at us “isn’t it too icy for that lark”. “No, it’s grand” we responded as we hopped from green patch to green patch.

At this point we had been following the Trooperstown race route in reverse since we landed on the shoulder below the top and we followed the old descent down on the fast fire-road to the river and past the impressive new mountain rescue hut at the road. My legs had nothing left at this point and my head was starting to feel very light.

Paddock Hill

Once on the main road to Laragh, we watched out for cars and ran north towards Dublin for about 200m. The first trail on the left hand side of the road was the one I was looking for. More climbing ensued here and I used up my last energy stores to get over the steepish fire-road and only once we landed on the Oldbridge roads, crossed it and I saw how long the climb to Paddock Hill was, that I realised there was more running left than I had stores in my tank.

Thinking back, I had under-eaten slightly this week and Saturday had been particularly bad because we spend the entire day in Dublin, first doing a session with Crusaders in the Phoenix Park and then organising the screening of “Unbreakable” in the evening. I felt that now. Muscles soreness was a problem, but not as bad as the fact I felt dizzy. I knew the feeling, I had hit the wall and it would only get worse from here as my brain would steal all the sugar for itself and leave my hammered legs to rely only on fat. At my current level of fitness, this did not bode so well.

It was a pity that my brain started lagging here because the climb to Paddock Hill was a real highlight once you left the fire-road and the track grew narrower and grassier, first between pine trees and then through low bushes. A huge white broken tree makes a useful marker if you have issues deciding what trail to take. Aim for that and you’ll hit the trail that leads you to the Wicklow Way.

The Wicklow Way to Glendalough

We had about 16km (10 miles) of running done at the top of Paddock Hill and from here the first grassy and then rocky descent to the Glenmacnass race start remained before we had to cross the bridge and run over the low shoulder of Brockagh. I had planned this section in because the view as you run this part of the Wicklow Way towards Glendalough is one of the most rewarding.

I could barely appreciate it, however, as my legs would repeatedly refuse to run and Aoife had to patiently run back and forth as I staggered forward my thoughts all focused on sugary drinks of all types. It felt like the Lakeland Ultra all over again except with no food.

Eventually, we got over the final climb and with most of the remainder downhill, I brightened up a bit and even took some enjoyment from the zig-zag descent through the trees before you jump a few stiles to emerge on the Wicklow Gap road. Another short descent and we were back in Glendalough and 400m later, we were home. I feasted on Orbana, a protein supplement, cookies, a bowl of fruit and nuts with youghurt and a cup of hot cocoa. Then I began to think of the restaurant appointment we had. I almost fell asleep in the hot bath, but once I got out a few cups of tea with honey revived me again and I shook of the fatigue that sometimes follows this sort of glycogen burn-out.

Summary

Bonking aside (good training for the marathon!), this route is an amazing training choice: 20.66km with 654m ascent and the vast majority on interesting and runnable terrain. The route has great variety and Trooperstown and Paddock Hill are among the most pleasurable places to run if you are looking for something in between a trail run and an open mountain experience. With trails always clear to see and passing mountain rescue on the way, it is one of the safest choices too!

The huge circular loop leaves you with a great feeling that you “went somewhere” and if we had not been so shattered both the ascents and the descents really suit steady effort running: if you want to put something into the climbs and have fresh legs, you can really do it here.

Find another kilometre somewhere and this would be a spectacular mixed-terrain mountain half-marathon with a scenic finish in Glendalough. My first preference variation would be to start further up the Green Road run up past the Poulanass waterfall and then follow the higher road back towards the Woollen Mills. This would add another climb, some great views of Brockagh, Camaderry and Scarr and a bit of distance.

RACES: National Novices

2011-12-11T20:07:00.001Z

I went into my fifth race in fifteen days (on the back of the La Santa series) in buoyant mood: my Garmin ForeRunner had been found by a nice lady in Lacken so all I need do is pick it up tomorrow evening. On the downside Aoife now has to figure out a different Christmas present for me than the ForeRunner 910XT I had put on the “need urgently” part of my wish list.

The scene was the fabulous setting of The Curragh, a traditional hunting ground for cross-country runners, and today the battlefield for the multi-coloured armies of Ireland’s clubs for the title of National Novice Champion. Despite an indifferent weather forecast, they truly came from near and far for this event. Eighteen senior ladies teams and thirty-two men’s teams resulted in record fields for both events: the ladies 3km (ish) race and the four 1500m laps set out for the male runners.

Relaxed

I had no aspirations or illusions coming into this race and my goal was as modest as “not finishing last”. Four races in four days during the holiday has helped my fitness but miracles don’t happen overnight and six month’s with little training tends to show in cross-country.

So my mood was relaxed, my warm-up was easy and I didn’t nit-pick about any particular detail of my build-up. It could have been any other day as far as I was concerned: all I wanted to do was replicate the La Santa strategy of running close to lactate threshold, always in control, and finish strong. This way I feel I am building myself up through these races rather than tearing down the house.

Only concern had been a very tight right glute. During yesterday’s dune run at Brittas Bay my leg had not been able to track and I had been unable to complete more than one stride. To fix it I did some trigger-point work with the foam roller and some more precise work with my thumb to get the points worked out. It seems to have worked as it didn’t trouble me.

Cattle

We were herded into our starting pens, each team in their own enclosure with a slight downhill vista of open grassland ahead of us. I took off controlled but at decent speed (running without a watch what did I know!) and happily realised that there seemed to be a fair few people behind me. Unless I was running much too fast it would not be a battle for last after all.

Quite the contrary as I took a wide turn around the first of the always muddy corners, I noticed there were singlets everywhere. This was the most massive cross-country field I ever entangled myself with and it made for great running. From the first bend I started picking off runners and this continued throughout making it a fun run to do. I had no clue about pace or position in the chaos and running without the watch was an advantage as my full attention directed itself at the next runner. Always the next runner or pack of runners. I closed gaps that I normally don’t close in cross-country very quickly but this was perhaps because I ran too far back in the field for the pace I had.

When we hit the two shallow hills for the first time, my brain tried its usual “preserve here and kick back” but instead I thought of Cerutty “it’s only pain” and gave the little bit extra on each of these sections to stay with my group or break away (on some occasions). I grabbed 1-3 positions each lap on the downhill section where I really seemed to make up ground and on the muddy stretch at the top I jumped the small waterhole that had formed. A clear sign there was plenty in the legs.

Colm Hill and Keith Daly were among the many supporters yelling our names and their position was ideal close to the finish: swinging into the final straight I’d gained more positions and only lost one to an Inishowen man. I almost got surprised by some very heavy quagmire, just a stretch of 4-5m, on which you could easily lose a step. I decided I had to react lightning quick on the other side to build up to my maximum sprint pace or a pack of wolves would be upon me. Aoife said later that I was actually clear and I closed the gap to the Inishowen man to 1 metre but the step lost in the quagmire stopped me from catching up.

Results

Looking at the results afterwards its amazing to see the depth of the field. Although I felt like I passed several dozen runners I still finished 226th of 253 so not that many behind me. My fellow Crusaders finished 5th (Sam Mealy), 87 (Stephen Moore), 117 (Jason Kehoe), 138 (Richard Healy) and 184 (Gary Park). 20 seconds meant literally 20 places by the look of it but men’s times are not up yet. Paul Duffy who had swept all before him during our La Santa challenge was 81st and top placers from the hills finished a bit down as well: Jason Reid (102) and John Brennan (165). This is no slight on anyone’s performance but simply shows what happens when you bring talent from all the 32 counties together in one place and should give my hill running readers an idea of the level of competition.

I went away happy (not so usual for a 226th finish) and feeling another bit stronger as I keep clawing my way back to the sort of fitness I need to start my marathon training. Today was a perfect school in how to race man-to-man and never drop your concentration. It was total immersion in the experience. Sure, I could probably have suffered, my heart rate returned to normal very quickly after the race and there is no sign of being drained but that was part of the point. I got my kick, my fitness boost and a positive experience. Triple bonus. Make that four with the return of my watch…

DIARY: Expensive recce

2011-12-08T22:46:00.001Z

Two days ago I joined a gang of Adrian Tucker, Greg Byrne, Zoran Skrba, Richard Nunan and Kevin Grogan for a night-time recce of the section of the Art O’Neill Challenge running from the foot of Blackhill to Ballinagee Bridge. It felt a bit awkward to finish so close to home yet leave the car at the other end of the hills in Lacken but the allure of trying out the crossing made the evening car ride worthwhile.

We set off armed with head-torches and reflective gear up the rocky incline of Black Hill, the path flanked by wet mush, every step made uneven by moving rocks. Yet the mood was chatty here and only once we left the hard section for the wet grass did my legs feel the burn. The four races had left me with less in the tank than I thought and I struggled somewhat with pace until we crested the top and made our way downwards. The first descent was all dark grass, but largely even, and my Inov-8 BareGrip showed themselves ideal for this type of descent. At no point of the 10km traverse did my feet even threaten to sprain and the improved postural work I have done definitely paid off as I felt more stable than ever. While I stumbled twice (a good ratio on the day which featured tumbling all around) this was from catching a tip of dirt with the front of the foot.

Stay high

Adrian planned to lead us over Billy Burn’s Gap at the highest possible point trying not to drop too far down the flanks of the gap. Wetness was everywhere and dry feet only a fleeting memory but the further down we went, the soggier the slog. A few stream crossing provided ample entertainment: jumping from rock to rock by torchlight has a certain charm to it.

More fun descended followed through slightly heavier vegetation and earlier than I had expected we arrived at the edge of the forest lining the long road of the Wicklow Gap. We followed this past another stream crossing and back onto a very hard-packed fire-road. By the time Adrian’s son picked us up we had only been out around 90 minutes. Starlight had helped, the early mist and wind receded during the middle section of the trek and the shapes of the surrounding hills stood out clearly in dark silhouettes.

Lost value

When we changed at the car I chugged my watch carelessly into my backpack and we all headed into the car. Greg checked that we had left nothing behind on the ground and off we went back to Lacken. Here I grabbed my bag, unzipped as it would prove, and jogged over to my car. I scrambled through my back for some more dry clothing and stuffed everything back into the boot before putting the heater on maximum and dreaming about my hot bath as the old Toyota brought me home.

Next morning I looked for my Garmin to check out the route details. No where to be found. I searched my car, then my jackets. Then my water-proof bags and the laundry basket. Still no sign. Panic set in. I checked the backpack again. Nothing. Eventually, I could bear it no longer and took the car out to Ballinagee Bridge in the early morn’ and looked around where our car had been parked. Nothing there. I continued my search in Lacken scouring the street where the car had been parked. No watch. Gone was the ForeRunner 310XT. I left a note in the local shop and phoned up Blessington Gardai station in case an honest soul should find the watch and find it in their conscience to return it to its rightful owner.

The others in my party looked in their gear, in case I had stuffed it in the wrong bag and Adrian had a look through his car but again to no avail. Mentally I’ve written off the 300 euro plus watch but its painful (as if someone had shot my dog, in front of me) and with Christmas time coming up I cannot replace it immediately. This leaves me in the strange situation that for the first time in many years I will have to train for a while without a Garmin? How will I cope. And where is the ForeRunner 310XT? On some forest floor? In some random person’s possession? Or lost somewhere in my house I do not have the imagination to search?

DIARY: Club La Santa–Running Challenge

2011-12-03T20:11:00.001Z

With the La Santa 10k and the 13k Ridge Run done and dusted and the half-marathon looming 24 hours ahead, I and many other runners looked at the Puerto del Carmen Beach Run as a bit of an intermezzo. Generally my results improve with distance and my history of running on soft ground suggests it is one of my weaknesses. Paul Duffy, Sportsworld, who was still in the lead overall at this stage, seems to have had similar thoughts to me: the race just had to be survived with a reasonable result and the tactic would be to inflict fatal damage on the competition at the half-marathon. Paul finished as low as 7th on the day in 18:03 but conceded only 30 seconds to Søren Helmer meaning he maintained a 57 second gap on the Dane.

Puerto del Carmen Beach Race

The beach race consisted of two 2.5km laps of which about half were faster more compact sand and the rest was deep, soft and similar to running in heavy mud. I made an early mistake: wanting a conservative start for the third consecutive time, I started much too far down the field. Luckily, I could work myself into a more suitable position quickly. The first 200m were crawling along with the sand dragging the feet back with each stride; but then we hit the compact part next to the water and I could get the legs moving at something approximating 5k pace.

Close to the turn a tiny incline threatened to rob us of all momentum as you had to run upwards through very thick sand, making barely any progress. The wide curve turning us back towards the finish line likewise made passing difficult but the group I ran with where making up places all the time nevertheless. I had chosen to race in Vibram’s (after having used Inov-8 Road-X 155 for the 10k and Inov-8 X-Talon 190 for the hill run) and it proved an inspired choice as shoes only made matters worth on the shifting sands.

My discomfort level was a bit higher than I had expected so when we moved into the second part of the second lap I did not cover a break-away as well as I should have. Two runners I had beaten the previous days got a gap and without the stadium track to allow me a full-on sprint finish I found myself stranded (no pun intended) with no ability to make up places on the final 200m. This meant finishing as low as in the 10k (58th of 300) in 22:44. The race terrain had been as tough as any cross-country race but also gave me an epiphany: even my revamped stride was utterly useless on the soft ground. This obviously highlights some mechanical flaws and weaknesses as it is possible to almost skirt over the ground. Thinking back to Percy Cerutty and Herb Elliott using dune running, I have some ideas on how to fix this remedy for next season. More on that to follow…

Recovery was easier to find than sure footing during the race: a group of us traipsed down to the shore, did a short mile cooldown in the baking sun of the beach and then waltzed into the salty waters for a while before we had to catch the bus back to Club La Santa. Tomorrow another battle awaited: I had moved up five spots in the men’s ranking despite having had the poorer of my three runs so far. I hoped the half-marathon would be a fertile hunting ground for my negative split tactics.

Vuelta de Tinajo

We had taken it easy for the rest of Tuesday doing just the yoga and stretch and relax as well as some easy swimming and jogging (Aoife felt up for the AB-attack class but my abdominals were still slaughtered from playing around on the fit-ball).

In any case, most runners had a healthy respect for the “La Vuelta de Tinajo” half-marathon that marked the finishing event of the 22nd Running Challenge. The race begins at the Los Dolores Church in a small village called Mancha Blanca close to the larger town of Tinajo. From here we had to do a 10km loop around Montana Tinache (a 448m volcano) on bumpy roads before a long, net downhill, descent on a mixture of asphalt and dirt roads to La Santa. Knowing we had another finish on the track already had me feeling more confident.

My approach to most half-marathons is the same: run comfortably for one kilometre, check the split time and see what is possible based on that. We rushed off in a huge pack away from the church and as I looked the time said “4:12”. Ok, there would be no personal bests today that was for sure, when I had looked down during the Waterford Half-marathon the time had said “3:53”.

A guy passed me out and I turned to him “lovely day for it,” I said to him. After that we fell into conversation and he admitted he was hoping to break 90 minutes for the first time. He took the lead for the next five kilometres but as we moved towards the toughest hill of the day, I burned him off. Next an English runner attacked me aggressively on a stretch of warm road but I stuck close on the climb and as my pace increased over the next few kilometres I burned him off too.

The remaining people in the front were not fading at the rate I had expected. This was the hottest day and in half-marathons poor pacing is usually at its worst. But so far no sign of it. All I could do was to stay patient especially in the face of the two toughest climbs of the day. I thought the first “gentle” hill would be “it” but as it turned out the infamous “Coronary Hill” came three kilometres later and cost me significant time. In hindsight I should have run it much more aggressively as there was time to recover.

I found myself passing out runners every 500m or so now as we ran on the best roads of the day out through Tinajo before the long section of desert tracks began. A group led by the two leading Sportsworld ladies were chasing me, I noticed, but they never got closer. My legs kept having more energy to spend but they were not generating the pace they should for the intensity. The fastest kilometre

The other René

Looking through the results I had seen that I constantly finished just ahead of a René Cirarklar from Denmark. He had gotten victory against me in the 5k but now he was drifting into view. I could see he was battling it out with a Dutchman. My mood was buoyant from having successfully passed a very determined English runner so I kept upping my aggressiveness and caught the Dutchman with 3km to go. The “other René” was getting great support as we turned back onto the road for the “La Santa hill” a small climb that we had already run up three times previously this week. I noticed that people came back to me much faster on the hills, so I put some real effort into catching my namesake and it was instantly effective. Cresting the top, I knew I had to use the same strategy as in the 10k: keep pressing the pace slowly upwards to nullify the threat from any soldiers of fortune. Even dying runners can sometimes muster a finishing kick, so I had to use my large reserves to keep them away so full focus could be on the kick on the stadium.

This time the exercise was in vain: no runners drifted in view as I entered the stadium so my kick was only for the crowd and for the time. I could just about break 86 minutes (1:25:50) and over the last 500m I had put 26 seconds into the other René leaving no invitation to a late come-back open. My heart rate dropped very quickly back to normal and I felt energised, rather than drained, from the effort. This had been the case in all the four races and leaves me optimistic that despite having gone from a VO2max of around 60 (early season) to around 53 (now), my fitness reserves are still strong enough to build 2:47 marathon form back onto. Surprising that despite four months of little training, I still ran faster than in the Strawberry half-marathon and ran the last 10k in under 39:30 suggesting that either the downhill gave me more than expected or I had been really rusty during the initial 10k.

Aoife had started extremely conservatively, as I had suggested she do after her troubled outing at the Strawberry half-marathon. She needed a positive experience with the distance again, to my mind, and negative splits is the best way to do it. Arguably she left it a bit too loose at the start and was hammering at the end. She still had enough in the tank to run a best time for the distance. Not too bad with three days racing and endless classes in the legs! She had also contracted some very bad bloody blisters the previous days but compeed allowed her to get through the race.

Paul Duffy finished the job with a strong 69:27 outing to claim the overall series win. Søren Helmer faded to eighth on the day but Henrik Jørgensen kept Paul honest coming second in 69:48. The overall field depth impressed me as a time of under 86 minutes would usually have resulted in a higher placing than the 44th of 306. It was by far my best position of the race series so the half-marathon remains the race I am best conditioned for at present. Despite four days of racing, runners remained very competitive throughout which is interesting to see and illustrates that you do not have to be 100% prepared to race reasonable close to your best.

Overall results

Sportsworld couldn’t quite break the might of the amassed Danish runners despite Paul Duffy’s individual victory. Sparta won the team prize for both men and women while Sportsworld finished second female and third male team. Our own Crusading ladies were third female team

My afternoon jog was run at 6 minute/kilometres (not miles!) as the muscles were, after all, completely shod. We did a relaxed class to match our physical and mental capabilities (Tennis for beginners) and lounged in the cold water of the pool. I had gotten an easy sports massage the previous day and today I decided to go for the first to trips to the Wellness Centre: with a plunge pool (10 degrees), Jacuzzi and steam room it really got the blood flowing back into muscles in desperate need of nutrients for repair!

Finishing touches

We finished the week with some more easy jogging, a functional strength training class and 800m of swimming in the pool. I played around with my crawl technique and managed to knock 15 seconds off my initial lap time for each 50m turn. I haven’t practiced swimming since I was a kid and it is amazing to see how a few technical corrections can increase your pace substantially (having the ForeRunner 310XT to take your laps in the pool makes the sport much more fun). In this, as in many other ways, swimming is a substantially different sport. Yet, the strong heart and lungs developed by Lydiard style training were of benefit in everything we did. The main trick was to get used to a different breathing rhythm than the steady one used in running.

The last day had 25 degree sunshine and I look like a red panda now from having worn my sun-glasses for the entirety of the trip. Sad to be back, I wish every day could involve as much physical activity, but alas everything has an end. Look out for my review of Club La Santa and my full itinerary for a taster of what you can expect there at ChampionsEverywhere. My legs are recovering nicely now, probably helped by the incredible food and my heavy use of Orbana and other supplements throughout. SiS sponsored the event and there was plenty of product handed out. The energy drink tasted liked soap to me but the recovery drink had a nice berry taste and packed a hefty caloric punch (368!) which meant I used it after the half-marathon when the body will just about synthesize anything and with the race costing me about 1600kcal that is a lot of extra food needed so supplements come in handy to help get back in training almost immediately.

SBR

As a finishing note: thanks to my “temporary team-mates” on the Sliabh Buidhe Rovers (and guests) team Paul Gibbons, David Leonard and Sean Murphy. Savage running throughout from the lads and I hadn’t a whiff of getting among the third scorers. Next year, I’ll try and bring along a male Crusaders team for some more inter-Irish rivalry!

RACES: Club La Santa

2011-11-29T15:21:00.001Z

Picture a sunny Canary resort designed specifically for the needs of athletes of all abilities combined with a quiet location at a small lagoon on the Atlantic coast and you have Club La Santa. Aoife and I have travelled down to the Danish-owned facility for the second year as part of the annual Crusaders trip (the club owns time-shares here).

Club La Santa is designed as a self-contained village close to the village of La Santa and sports a running track, tennis courts, an Olympic pool, basketball and football courts, a gym, sports halls, a leisure pool and a wellness centre. For us the most exciting thing is “the menu”: literally every hour offers the choice of a circuit class, yoga, pilates reformer, zumba, boxing practice, body toning, fitball or any other class you can imagine. We have our favourites (particularly the circuit classes) but to each their own. If windsurfing, kayaking or biking is what you are about, you simply hand in a token to get the mode of transport of choice.

Like last year, I travelled to La Santa off the back of good winter training (Dec-March), a spring and summer ruined by injury (April to July) and an early stop to the cross-country season with another injury (August to November). So there’s no better place to get the old ticker back working properly and get the body in the sort of shape to start serious consistent training again. With plunge pools, cheap massage, warm weather, rich food and plenty of naps, you can live the perfect life here: that of a professional athlete.

Running Challenge XXII

Apart from classes, each week at La Santa focuses on a specific sport or event and naturally our club travel down during the Running Challenge (now in it’s 22nd year) which consists of a gruelling four races in four days: a bumpy 10km on road, a 13km ridge run up one of the smaller volcanic mountains around, a 5km beach race on loose sand and finally the “Vuelta de Tinajo” half-marathon race. Aoife and I signed up along with three of the girls from the club as well as a contingent of Wexford runners (DMP and SBR men) and a large crowd of female and male Sportsworld members. Some local competition for a far away place where most of the runners come from the huge Copenhagen club Sparta.

Preparation

As always, I couldn’t just run this challenge: I had to formulate a plan, preferably a master plan. I knew two things: 1) I was more unfit cardiovascularly than at any point in the last few years and 2) Very hard anaerobic running would only make me less fit as the week progressed.

So, I decided that I would try to find my threshold pace in each run and only go slightly beyond it towards the end. In addition, I’d buffer the runs with plenty of aerobic running and would ensure I picked a moderate to hard intensity for the classes we had decided to do in the afternoon. It’s not La Santa unless you train 2-3 times per day (then it’s just a holiday!) but with four hard races, proper recovery and marshalling of the available resources would be the key to leave the island stronger than before and resume my marathon training.

Three of the races (all but the beach race) finish and start on the track at La Santa, a detail I have a particular liking for especially as it allows an unimpeded late charge. Saturday featured a social jog with all the challengers in the morning. We then did 2 hours of body toning and fitball classes back-to-back (my stomach still hurts three days later!) before a leisurely swim and an evening jog around the lagoon. All set?

10km

Not so. I felt sluggish, my breathing was shallow, the heart was uneasy and the body heavy for the first race. I had clearly eaten too much and my body was not prepared for any intensity. Looking at the two 5km loops ahead and the 25 degree plus heat, one thing was clear: most of the field would go off to fast, heat up too fast and blow up on the last loop.

I decided to start super-conservatively in the hope of “getting the body” going and then push on from there. Aoife was close by from the start and told me later that as we passed through a 3:58 first kilometre and saw me plodding along she thought “What is he at!”

When the heat was done with us, we were faced with two straits of strong head-wind. Aoife and I were essentially racing each other for the first time in years. “Tug in behind me,” I said, “I’ll break the wind for you.” She declined as my rhythm didn’t suit her. We were making up places as planned throughout the race. Granted, I was far from were I would have been six months ago, but raced well within my current capabilities. On the final steeper climb ahead of the last 2km, I broke a gap and got away from Aoife. The risk was averted, a domestic upset would not manifest!

I took out another four runners next to the white walls around La Santa and while the legs were full of viscosity and lacked sprite, I still got another two on the track. It’s great to finish a race on a high and when I stopped, I could note that I had managed to break 40 minutes (just about!) although my official time was 40:22 (the route was slightly long, perhaps because of the many bends which could have been run better). I was 58th out of the eight or so hundred competitors. Aoife too broke 40 minutes for the first time, and gave thanks to my careful start having held her back. “I thought I couldn’t pass you,” she explained. It was some race to record a PB in. Sportsworld’s Paul Duffy had finished a distant second after a run-away Danish-man but would celebrate victory the following day on the Ridge Run and the team competition looked to be a battle between Sparta’s Danes and Sportsworld’s Irishmen.

In the afternoon we signed up for our favourite circuit: the “EasyLine” circuit which consists of three laps of a mixture of resistance, plyometric and abdominal workouts. Thirty seconds hard with 15 seconds transition. The beauty of EasyLine is that the machines are hydraulic so the more power you put into them, the more resistance they push back at you. This loosened us up nicely although I had worries that would have taken the life out of my legs for hill run the next day…

Ridge Run

“You should have the advantage today,” the boys from Sliabh Bhuidhe Rovers told me ahead of the next run. They’d all finished in 34-35 minutes for the 10k, so I didn’t get my hopes up. Especially as the route now only had a few hundred metres of technical downhill after a few nasty falls on the dark volcanic rocks had made La Santa’s “Green Team” volunteers reconsider the original route.

The Ridge Run featured a few steady kilometres on road before veering off left onto dusty desert tracks. After my initial discomfort the day before, I suddenly felt eminently comfortable. My breathing was easy, the legs barely felt the gradient increasing and I was smiling to anyone in general and waving at our loyal supports (Michael, Caroline, Susan and Niamh) throughout. Eventually, the leading Sportsworld lady came up and started pushing the pace. As always masculine pride demanded that I stay with her so I snapped out of my leisurely climb and started working. As the dirt path led onto the rocky ridge, my pace dropped a bit and she and a few others build up a small gap which they held as we crested the top.

I pulled back a huge gap immediately on the short rocky descent but then we were back on tame dirt-road with a strong wind blowing head-ways. We still had six kilometres home, so I decided to stay patient despite my efforts making not the slightest dent in the lead the group ahead of me had. But it’s never over until the fat lady sings for a Lydiard runner (or so he claimed himself) and as the path grew a bit steeper and a bit sandier, ever more runners drifted back to me. I ambushed the Sportsworld girl and a few others by being quick on the turn at the last aid station (a trick they had used on me just thirty minutes prior). The only urge I felt now was accelerating and it turned out to be one of those races where the legs just kept giving and I could run aggressively to the finish. As the final icing on the cake I caught a runner with my sprint in between the two finishing mats. A cruel way to get caught but you have to keep running hard to the line.

Cooldown

When doing so a lot of activity back to back it’s very important to get your acidity levels in the working muscles back to normal before the next day and jogging is the best way of doing this. After each run I did 15 minutes cooldown in barefeet on the grass and then another run in the afternoon of 3-5km. These were what you could call “disgustingly slow” (5:30-6:00 minute kilometres) but that’s the way they are meant to be. So if you want to use this technique, do what I did and look at the waves, the Western-like desert around and lap up the sun. Oh, and stay away from other runners!

In the afternoon, we had our highlight so far: we went to the Boxing for Beginners. This was a fantastic workout and I took to it with gusto (I like to think I the instructors visible excitement came from the passion I put in my hooks, jabs and uppercuts). We started with some fun sprint-drills (such as having to sprint from prone) and in addition to technical instruction on the basics of the sport, we had to do a boxing-inspired circuit and finished off with a 400m sprint race! We were only two men in the race, so we got a 15 second penalty. Somehow the sight of ten ladies galloping away from me put the devil in me and I spurted down the track in a mighty sprint. We had been threatened that every girl that finished ahead of us would incur a penalty of five push-ups. I caught Aoife in the home-straight and another at the death. There was only a few metres to the last three, but despite a good effort, there was no way around it: fifteen push-ups for René and more for my unlucky male compatriot behind me. Perhaps the 400m is my calling…

What lies ahead

This post is written in a rush at the La Santa reception area (one hour internet for three quid being the price) but the battle continues with the 5km beach race and the grand finale: my trademark event the half-marathon. So far I feel stronger and more energetic every day (only my calves are in bits) so here’s to two more good races. I’ve only done nine races this year before this week and soon it’ll be four in four days, almost a third of the year’s allotment. Sane? Probably not. A good way to get your mojo back. Absolutely….

DIARY: La Santa Sport

2011-11-24T22:43:00.001Z

Less than a day to go before Aoife and I are heading to that training mecca that is Club La Santa Sport on Lanzarote in the Canaries. We had a terrific week of training and holidaying there last year and expect this year to be every bit as good.

This means a welcome break from computers and other digital gadgets and while the experience does not have the simple austerity of a Kenyan training camp it nevertheless allows you to train 4-5 times per day while getting plenty of rest. Circuits, swimming, races, yoga, pilates, boxing and other activities can be cherry-picked like meals off a menu and it begins on day 1 when you get the weekly schedule full of inviting tick-boxes.

So the Blog will be silent for a week or so, I am hoping this training week will kickstart my body after injury and flu and back into the sort of shape necessary to start my marathon training.

DIARY: Rugby, cross-country and hills

2011-11-20T22:08:00.001Z

Another busy weekend has past. I have just returned from a long day in Dublin which began with me watching the Dublin Intermediates, all the while getting a 40 minute run in while cheering on the team. The cheering probably didn’t have anything to do with it but the team secured a bronze medal and one of our young upcoming men, Sam Mealy, took an emphatic victory. As he turned his head back at the finish line, he could see no one in sight. Jason was our third scorer gaining a crucial place on John Brennan at the death before being ambushed by Jason Reid and losing it right back. It was enough in the end as the team took 50 points. They tied with Donore but had four men across the line first.

My frantic running around Tymon Park was my second real run after returning from first the recurring ankle injury I aggravated during the Dublin Novices (effectively ending my cross-country season). Just as I prepared to return I got a bad head-cold. After two weeks of no improvement, I was put on antibiotics and eventually it cleared enough that I dared a few short jogs this week.

Kevin’s Way

Saturday, Aoife and I decided to run out Kevin’s Way for her 2 hours 9 minute run. She was meant to race the Avondale 4 Mile Fit4Life trail race the next day as a workout, so we wanted to ensure her legs were not too fresh so she would not race too hard. This meant taking it handy, which was good for my body. Coming back was a bit of a shock despite our easy pace up from Glendasan to the Wicklow Gap. Once the stony section passed behind us we faced some serious bog, mud and oversized puddles. I counted myself lucky losing my shoe only once and taking just a mild tumble on the way back.

We ran outwards and upwards for 10km before turning back. With about 35 minutes to go my body realised it was no longer fit and my blood sugar plummeted. I became quite dizzy at this point and eager to get home, so while the body tried to slow me down, I decided to speed up. Once I had replenished the 1000kcal I burnt in a feasting bonanza accompanied by a half hour nap, I was feeling much better. After constant sabotage of my training since July, I now hope to stir the body back into action.

Rugby

The other exciting project of the weekend was finalising the development of “Lydiard training for rugby” a booklet and set of programmes we are preparing for a local rugby club. Lydiard came from that background and his principles have had great success as a conditioner of athletes from almost any sport be it Gridiron, rugby, kayaking, swimming or horse-riding.

I love the look of the programmes and looking at the full-body conditioning and the technical, tactical and agility workouts required for these athletes, have given me some new ideas on how to implement such a comprehensive package for runners. We may have less focus on technique, tactics, agility and strength/power but we still need it and think I have the method to piece it altogether in a balanced way that can be managed by athletes.

Hopefully, I’ll get time to work on it at some stage next week, a busy week at work awaits as I am flying off to La Santa Sport for our (newly) annual trip with the club for a full week of non-stop workouts and racing. No better way to get the body back in action than such a crash-course in my experience. With good food, plenty of naps and warm weather, everything is easier. Not spending two hour stuck in a car every day likewise does wonders for your help and your mood.

DIARY: Two specialist all the answers–Part 2

2011-11-08T20:20:00.001Z

I had left the appointment with Hagen knowing more than ever about my injuries:

My symptoms are not true damage as much as a defensive response my body has developed to running
He considers it unlikely that I have rheumatoid arthritis

I knew that my vitamin experiments, while not having caused me any problems, would have been ineffective then (they had no condition to treat), that my strengthening and stretching should be of the “resistance stretching” variety to strengthen the full muscle and Hagen also suggested some changes to diet which I will cover in a separate article.

Previous experience with running form

So as I boarded the flight to London, I wondered what new information I would gain to further help me on the road to permanent injury-prevention and performance enhancement. I have read most Barefoot books on the market, I’ve tried many minimalist shoes, I have attended ChiRunning courses, learned about POSE, participated in Running Clinics, watched the Evolution Running material and learned directly from Dr Mark Cucuzella (known from “Born to Run”). So what could I learn from Antony Riddle?

Who is Antony Riddle

A lot, I expected, for I had stumbled over Antony Riddle when watching a video with his colleague, the famous Lee Saxby. Antony is the director of the Gloves Boxing Club together with Lee and also runs the Pilates Running website. While he is a level 3 POSE instructor, he does not teach POSE. He considers Dr Romanov a genius but believes the starting point in the sprint movement pattern used for POSE does not result in the ideal running technique for normal running. Likewise ChiRunning, he does not agree with the “lean” technique employed in ChiRunning but this is not the major difference.

Matt Fitzgerald showed in “Run by Feel” that thinking about how you run while running actually consumes more energy so this is an inefficient way to correct your mechanics. Matthew Syed similarly showed in “Bounce” how important it is for performance to train movement so diligently that they become part of the subconscious of the athlete, leaving the athlete’s conscious mind to focus on strategy and similar questions. The conscious mind cannot make decisions quickly enough and causes stilted, tense and poor movement patterns.

Testing

Aoife and I walked into the back alley leading to the Gloves Boxing Club. The club has been built inside an old railroad ticketing office and we were immediately impressed by the intense atmosphere and the hard but dynamic training undertaken by boxers both inside and outside the ring. In the backroom, “Tony” was finishing up work with another client. She was running on the treadmill in the erect pose characteristic of his approach.

If I wasn’t convinced before, I was now: Antony had feet the likes of which I had never seen before. They looked more like hands. When he told me how his wife had given birth while squatting for 45 minutes, I knew I was talking to a man who could return the human body to its natural state.

The method

What had attracted me about Antony’s methodology ahead of the others on the market was a simple thing: he talked about the hierarchy of movement – because we sit so much we don’t stand right, because we don’t stand right we don’t walk right and so on. Fix the posture, and you fix the runner. No thinking about each step or leaning forward etc. Just return your body to its natural posture and balance and go out and run along joyfully. Pleasantries first and then we went into action:

“So, this is your idea of forefoot style running,” Tony said to me without sarcasm before I gave way to Aoife on the treadmill. He filmed us both running with and without shoes (I was wearing my Inov-8 Road-X 155). To me he pointed out several flaws:

Foot landed slightly ahead of hip, although on forefoot (corrected by fixing posture while running)
Arms too tense and robotic
Right foot wanted to “avoid” contact (it was sore)
Left leg returned back to front too quickly
Cadence was too slow and I hit the ground too hard (too much noise)

As I struggled during the first few corrective drills, Antony got hands on and started manipulating my legs, toes and hips. He found the sore spots on the posterior tibialis and hips and worked on them as Hagen had. Then he diagnosed both my feet with Morton’s toe (meaning my second metatarsal protrudes ahead of my first). This can lead to Morton’s syndrome and explains my metatarsal irritation history. Essentially, by wearing shoes that are narrow at the front my big toe has been pushed inwards. As the big toe can no longer fulfil its role as the main stabiliser on foot-strike the second metatarsal takes over. Sadly it is not as well equipped. We assessed my footwear and even the new Inov-8, with its wider snout, is too narrow at the front. Only my Inov-8 Recolites, Vibrams and the Vivobarefoot models are wide enough to allow the big toe out into its natural position.

Fear of movement

I performed the intricate squats (if you think you know how to squat, think again!), the freaky toe stretches and jumping exercises as instructed. Every drill pushed the body to rework the “bad software” programmed into it by years of misuse. “It’s easier to change the software than the hardware at least,” I quipped.

It would take me too long to describe all exercises here but I will write more about them when I get the programme on ChampionsEverywhere and for those who want to see the full thing, we’ll bring Antony over in the new year for a workshop, the method is too good not to spread to Ireland.

Early in the programme it became apparent that a lot of the squats and poses caused me painful tightness and cramps and I would jump out of them. Antony would use psychological tricks to get me to focus on something else and suddenly the sensations were gone. What was up? Then was asked to go on a step and jump directly down and into a deep toe squat. As one movement not two (e.g. not jumping down and then going into a squat).

Humans have incredible elasticity in their legs but we have lost it because we run only on soft surfaces (our shoes). Put a kangaroo in a bouncy castle long enough and it won’t bounce so well anymore. When a hard object hits a soft, the soft objects gives and springs away from the hard object. Our feet are meant to be the soft object naturally jumping from the hard surfaces beneath us. Because we wear shoes our legs turn into hard objects, fooled by the soft shoe, knocking down against the hard ground. It’s like throwing a metal bar onto a ceramic floor. It isn’t pretty.

So as I stood there to regain my elasticity, Tony noticed how many jumps it took me to get comfortable. Having noticed my earlier pains he said: “your body has Fear of Movement”. It’s like a lion in the room…

A lion in the room

If a lion suddenly walks into the room, it will trigger you fight or flight response (flight if you’re clever, fight if you have a gun). While this state has some uses it is generally a damaging state for the human body, a stressful type of exercise which we should not be subjected to too often.

“When you go out and run there is always a lion in the room,” Tony explained, “your body is afraid movement.” Twisting my ankles he showed how all of my ankle sprains have turned my ankles immobile. Ask me to move my ankle and other muscles fire. The ankles are like trapped in a panic, wanting only to lock. This is the cause of all my pains: my body has come to see running as an attack and the nervous reflexes stored in my muscles destroy my movement and pain is send to try and stop the exercise.

Slowly but surely, Antony began to teach me how to refocus my mind, release the tension and work myself into movement patterns that are not damaging to the body. As the body learns the new patterns its resistance to injury increases immeasurably – suddenly the force subjected can easily be withstood and the tension and warning signals reside. As Aoife said: “You looked like a man standing at the edge of a cliff on that step.” Just before writing this sentence I went over and gleefully jumped off my own Reebok step. Then I did it with a barbell over head. In two days, I have remembered how to jump.

So much to learn

So much more happened in the session that it is hard to summarise here: we were showed how to move up and down stairs most effectively by using the body’s natural “lifting” muscles instead of “pushing” (lift three kilos of legs instead of pushing 70 kilos of man!). We jumped and transitioned into our natural running form to the sound of a 180bpm metronome and we learned why standard strength training is so damaging and why having a strong psychology can pull you through forces your body cannot normally sustain…but not for long. One day it will leave you a wreck. Tony talked of Federer, grace personified and never injured, who trains naturally, whereas Nadal uses intense weight training and you can see it in his powerful muscly way of playing and his huge list of injuries and matches played on pain-killers.

How long to be fixed?

“Six weeks,” Antony told me without hesitation, “after each session you have a 72 hour window before your body starts reverting to old habits. You should perform the drills to set your body up for the run ahead.” The technique is not limited to running, Gloves Boxing Club was formed as the fulcrum because boxing is a sport that requires all parts of the body to be worked in unison. Yet, Antony deals with the specific, not the generic. He evaluated some of Aoife’s functional training exercises and noted that some were not intrinsic in the running movement and should be removed.

During the session he had found the root cause of her nerve troubles and “burning feet” as it became clear that her ankles started to rotate inward when squatting. This would happen during running too. Even the light Inov-8 X-Talon 190 she was wearing did not help the problem: “I can see you are pronating even as you stand there in those shoes. Pronation is not bad but too much pronation is.”

Conclusions

This session felt like getting a black curtain violently pulled from your eyes. I have held a big puzzle with a thousand pieces for a very long time and tried to figure out how to put them together to explain my woes. In a few intense hours they all fell together. Every injury I have had now makes sense. The physical problems are obvious, but all easily fixed with Antony’s system. Much worse is the “Fear of Movement” which I must release as I get more confident moving properly again and in collaboration with Hagen’s myoreflex therapy.

I am like the boxer Antony described to us: “who was put in the ring on his very first day and beaten up. Now every time he steps into the ring, he is tense and in fight or flight mode. His hormones and enzyme levels are not working right, his heart rate is unnecessarily elevated and he is wasting energy.” The road and the mountains beat me up because just like the first-time fighter, I had not learned how to defend myself. I was as uncomfortable out there as the fighter was in the ring.

How complicated is the human body. Yet so simple.

DIARY: Two specialists all the answers–Part 1

2011-11-07T20:31:00.001Z

Last week I sought out two of the best specialists in their respective fields to help provide some answers of why I hear many tell me they think the answers are simple but they are not. Take an example: last week I got injured stretching (yes!). A simple calf-stretch with pressure on the foot has left the front of my foot sore for six days. It reminds me of the old joke about the goal-keeper who dislocated his shoulder operating a remote-control (apparently true!). I have healed while hiking over high mountain daily and run an ultra with no ill-effects. I have gotten injured doing just a few runs or, as in this case, stretching. What is going on? After a four year search and more specialists than you can shake a stick at, all the answers were finally revealed to me by Hagen Stroh, myoreflex therapist, and Antony Riddle, director of Gloves Boxing club and human movement expert.

Let’s start in chronological order with my trip to Greystones before moving on to our weekend in London to see Antony in Part 2:

Myoreflex therapy – your muscles remember

Like elephants, your muscles never forget anything done to them. Intuitively this should make sense: most of the things we can do without thinking (picking up a book, driving a car) are stored in our muscle memory. When doing a certain action, our body remembers the pattern necessary to replicate that movement.

But what if the pattern is remembered wrongly? You might have learned to walk up stairs early but you’re doing it wrong or you may have learned to protect yourself from a fall but what you are really doing is tensing up and making matters worse. Yet that is your “muscle-reflex” (myo-reflex).

These negative patterns store themselves in our muscles as “tension” and Hagen Stroh specialises in finding these points and “resetting” the muscle to return to its natural relaxed state. His education is trifold: a physiotherapist, myo-reflex therapist and naturopath (healing practitioner if translated literally from his German degree). He has treated an impressive array of world class football stars and regularly jets out to Real Madrid to treat some of their players. During a treatment session with Barry Minnock, the phone rang: it was Jürgen Klinsmann the great German striker and former national coach.

I felt instantly comfortable in the spotless and friendly clinic in Greystones as Hagen worked his “magic”, a very simple technique of looking for muscles that are tense even in their relaxed state and then essentially “poking” their reflex point while doing some light manipulation of the joints. My hip and posterior tibialis sported particularly painful spots not surprising given they are the traditional injury points. They are not, however, the cause of the injury as Hagen explained: “The fluid that showed up in your ankles on the scans is not the injury but just the body’s protective response to a load it cannot handle. The weakest point of the chain always breaks but that does not mean the injury comes from that area. In your case your ankles have generally proved the weakest point.”

Hagen went on to explain to me how the body grows in the foetus and how this process affects us later. The spinal cord and the hip area grow first with appendages following later. Nerve endings and veins all start in the core area, move out in the appendages, before coming back again. So must of Hagen’s work focuses around resetting the natural movement of the core. He went on to echo my own sentiment that “orthotics don’t fix feet, they fix shoes”. Excessive pronation does not arise from some innate flaw in our biomechanics, in my case it is simply caused by the hips malfunctioning. Something else has to compensate and unfortunately this compensation comes at a cost of increased injury-rate.

In preparation for my marathon next year, I am going to strike up a regular collaboration with Hagen with monthly sessions similar to what Sami Khadira and other professional soccer players enjoy. This makes sense: if you know you have negative patterns ingrained in your body, then you need them worked out regularly especially if there are many or if they tend to “recur” (which they will if you do not improve the way you move and live). Again, an ounce of prevention beats a pound of the cure.

Another issue Hagen addresses is the pattern by which our muscles tend to strengthen, that is, in the centre of the muscles while being weak at the furthest ends where they connect to the tendons. You do not need a doctorate to guess that this is a problem when engaging in sports requiring explosive or dynamic movements. When you run your muscles move through almost their full range of motion (unless stuck in a shuffle!) and the weak muscular development at the tendons is bound to cause injuries and performance issues. Doing a bicep curl of a leg curl like this is fine but that type of strengthening work will only exacerbate the existing imbalance. This affects all muscles: your hips and core muscles shorten from excessive sitting while your legs and arms likewise suffer from disuse.

Hagen’s cure is something called: “resistance stretching” (a loose translation from the German). I am currently reviewing the German material on this technique (an advantage of having grown up five kilometres from the border) but the concept is simple: you apply resistance over the full length of your muscle thus stimulating it to strengthen over the entire length and not just in the middle. This is the type of strength that a runner needs, as Arthur Lydiard puts it: “A runner needs the strength of a ballet dancer, not a weight-lifter”. Antony Riddle would tell me three days later how “body-building has contaminated most sports such as boxing, tennis and running”.

What was the cost: well, the session is a bit more expensive than the regular physiotherapist (95 euros) but Hagen has an impressive resume and takes his time with you and if you have any kind of health insurance you can claim back.

If I thought I had learned a lot during my hour with Hagen, I was in for a surprise, in part 2 I will look at how Antony Riddle put the remaining pieces of the puzzle together and introduced me to the concept of “fear of movement”…

DIARY: Rocky the runner

2011-11-03T20:07:00.001Z

With the last remnants of injury and illness fading away slowly these days, it is almost time to begin training for my next big event: the Copenhagen marathon 2012. I will cover this journey and the design of the training programme etc. in every detail on the ChampionsEverywhere website (launching tomorrow all going well) but before talking about that I took a moment to reflect on this as a milestone moment.

Whenever I return from injury I do it with a feeling that this is the last-chance saloon in terms of getting it right. While I can retain high fitness for many years to come, I only have three more years remaining as a non-Masters athlete and I cannot keep expecting the body to heal all wounds. Likewise, mentally I feel I have done well to bounce back but with four frustrating years behind me, I should expect to reach a limit where either mind or body just won’t cooperate any more.

In 2008, I thought everything was possible and the sky seemed the limit. Today I am a washed up club-runner, what boxers would call a “ring-wreck” with a punch-drunk body from too many knocks and blows. This sounds depressing but I don’t feel depressed: after all Rocky was a washed-up fighter as well and he made it. (don’t mail me to tell me it’s just a movie).

The lessons learned have been hard ones but it teaches perseverance in the face of adversity. I have a lot of catching up to do over the next few years but I am armed with a better knowledge of the sport than ever before and truth is, I have done very little consistent training the last few years and still had reasonable results. To take a step up I don’t need years and years of training, I just need 1-2 years of consistency and a clean run at my peak races.

I think the programme and resources I am putting in place for the Copenhagen marathon could be the final solution I have been looking for. It is a bit like Rocky getting his one big fight, the one chance to return to glory. I see the race that way. Get it right until May. Bring out that seminal performance I know is in the bones and that I know the Lydiard system can conjure. So the Copenhagen marathon is my Apollo Creed. Can this aging battered body put itself together for one last fight?

DIARY: Weekend of race watching…

2011-11-01T22:31:00.001Z

Just as my injury has healed any last remnants of damage left after the laser treatment, I caught a nasty head cold. While the raised temperature burned out after a few days the infection seems to have gotten into both sinuses, throat and respiratory tract meaning I am still in no condition to start training.

This meant my role was back at the side-lines, my prime spot these last few years, but at least the action was so good it almost warranted popcorn (not that I’d eat that, of course): our upcoming Crusaders women’s team ran well at the Leinster Novice securing individual bronze for Catherine Thornton and winning the team competition ahead of Dublin rivals Sportsworld and Donore. With our men winning the Dublin Intermediate last year and Alan O’Brian’s individual victory the previous year, things are really starting to change for our club in cross-country. On a personal level I was glad to see Aoife run well in her first cross-country this season.

She had me nervous briefly lying in 11th with one lap to go. By the final 600m she was still in 8th before launching a steam-train like charge through the field to take 4th. With her old foot-problems having acted up intermittently, we have had to be very cautious going into Autumn season and have not yet commenced real quality work. Yet bettering last years 6th place and with peak form yet to be built, things are looking positive. Tressan McCambridge, another name readers will recognise from the hills, has also had her share of injuries this year but worked her way through the field well to take the 4th scoring spot and the precious gold medal that goes with that position when your team takes the win. Cormac Conroy stood next to me as Aoife charged and asked “what training are you giving her?” before going over to her after the race to say “I’d like to race like that from now on”. He may not have needed the inspiration as he went on to run well in a competitive masters field with many hill runners: Ben Mooney, PJ O’Carroll, Derek Coogan, Aengus Burke, Martin McDonald, Jimmy Mac and others I am likely forgetting as I type along.

Speaking of late charges, Richie must have unleashed the sprint of the day as he came into the 100m stretch a good 25m adrift of the two next runners. He unloaded his entire body as one big spring to practically vault them After his successful Aras contract, he’s clearly still working his way back to the fitness he had when running such a stormer for us on Wicklow Way Leg 1 but the old “Healy kick” is still well alive and a fearsome weapon.

Jason and Amidou were also both in the fray. We didn’t know what to expect as the field quality can vary wildly in these events but personally I was pleased with 24th and 37th for the boys on a tough course with plenty of man-to-man throughout. Almost safe home, Jason had reeled in a few Rathfarnham runners but one took him by surprise in the sprint and our green-jerseyed rival did everything right, going by Jason so fast he did not leave a window open for him to go with him. Yet, in the end both scored for the Dublin team and got to take home another gold medal.

Marathoning Crusaders

From watching in the Belvedere Estate, I went with Aoife to do more spectating in the streets of Dublin. Ndungu, the men’s winner, was a marvel to behold as he pulled away from the nearest pursuants with a few miles to go. Every single time he lifted his leg off the ground his heel flicked all the way up to his glutes. There was not a glitch in his form. His stride was complete and powerful as if he was still at the beginning of a fast track race. The two Kenyans behind him on the other hand, looked reduced to a painful shuffle. Although this was probably still sub-5 minute mile shuffling!

Our real object was to support our club runners and other running friends, however, and there was too many out there to mention but we seem to have managed to cheer on most of the people we expected to see. As on any day there was plenty of PBs but also much disappointment when stomach cramps, injuries or poor pacing paid toll to month’s of preparation. First Crusader was Rob Cross and sadly his plantar fasciitis problems of recent months nagged his entire run yet he still PBed with a time just over 2:50, but we know he’s good for a lot more. Another Crusader, and fellow Dane, Torben Dahl ran low 2:50s as well only 10 days after winning the Polar Circle Marathon on Greenland. Going by his other results we know he’s good for a lot more. With a growing squad, I’m optimistic ahead of the many road championship races in the new year.

Crusaders of the Year

Speaking of growth, I met our head coach Michael who broke the news to me that I have been elected “Crusader of the Year” for my efforts with the training group in the hills and in south Dublin (of late), recruitment of runners and work on the Crusaders’ website. I am naturally delighted with the recognition of these projects. This has been a seminal year for the club, now the second-largest in the city, with so many highlights, so I see it as a real reflection on the quality and performances of the “south-side” athletes that the club committee decided to reward this work over the many other good initiatives undertaken by club members this year.

I’ll now have to find space in the house for the perpetual trophy that goes with the title. Most of all, we’ll have to continue to bring together athletes to train, to put proper training systems in place for them, to arrange trips and to race together as a team. One component of Lydiard’s success often neglected a mention in accounts is the value his athletes derived from training together. “Arthur’s boys” brought each other on, the same effect observed in so many areas that turn into a “centre of excellence” because the right conditions present themselves. Take a group of runners at least 8-10 strong, give them a proper training structure and the motivation to work hard and have them feed of each other. After a few years you will see success. It’s really that simple. This project, athletics, is a life-long one, as Arthur showed, at least as I see it. If I have 50 years left, then I hope to give them to athletics. If I have 70, then I want to give those. There is enough work just in this field for a thousand life-times. So why not spend one?

So great weekend overall, if only my cold would go away…

ARTICLE: High weight, low reps

2011-10-25T21:47:00.001+01:00

When your main physical activity is running, you have to make sure any other activity you do is fairly effective. While injured I have done my best to try and build strength through other forms of training. I have favoured sessions that kept my heart moving for a period of time to stay active and fit but as I return to running my eye again moves towards the most time-efficient strength training modalities.

Naturally then I have rekindled my interest in Tim Ferris’ “The 4-Hour Body” essentially a quick guide to how you can “hack” the human body. Sadly, despite some claiming the opposite, no hack exists for the aerobic system. Some training forms are faster than others in developing the aerobic system (steady running outpaces jogging, for instance, in this respect) and you can do many things to gain quick or short-term improvements but the aerobic foundation develops over months and years and your ultimate potential can only be realised if you are willing to train from 3 to 10 years consistently and systematically.

Yet, the impatient need not despair, there is room to improve strength, power, running economy, breathing muscles and other factors and get some extra benefits much quicker than that. In “The 4-Hour Body” Tim Ferris’ takes on strength training in the chapter “Effortless Superhuman”. The principle is simple and scientifically verified: you can maximise strength gains simply by following a very simple training protocol of very heavy weights and low reps. Interestingly, this does not differ significantly from the training advice given by Keith Livingstone in his modern Lydiard bible: Healthy Intelligent Training.

Leg strength, properly developed, can boost both injury resistance and performance. Improperly developed it makes you stiff, fills you with scar tissue and ingrains undesirable movement patterns into your system. Ferris’ method is borrowed from the great sprint coach Barry Ross who has female athlete lifting as much as much as 184kg despite being only 59.6kg. This was achieved through 15 minutes actual lifting time per week. For and endurance runner fifteen minutes seems reasonable enough, so what’s the theory…

Deadlift

I tested the most important exercise of Barry Ross’ workout: the classical deadlift which essentially consists of lifting a barbell off the ground up to hip level and then lowering it back to the floor. Proper form is very important to protect your back during this exercise and anyone wanting to do it should watch the online videos that can be found in troves on YouTube.

My personal gym equipment does not actually allow me to lift very much. I stacked the barbell which every single weight I had in the house but yet still only had around 55 kilos. No matter: as this was new to me I technically had a lot to learn and the weight was heavy enough to be challenging, particularly as my core and back worked hard to hold good form with this load. Rather than my masculine pride being hurt, I reflected on the fact that a girl weighing about ten kilos less than me can lift more than three times the weight from a positive angle: there is no way I should not be able to lift 184 kilos too. An oft-quoted standard to aim for is to be able to lift twice your body weight. Bruce Tulloh wrote in 1976 in “Natural Fitness” that a man that cannot lift half his own body-weight over his own head can consider himself weak. So how do you get started getting these strength gains?

Lift then run

By lifting very high loads, so high that you can perform now more than 2-3 repetitions, you keep your active lifting time less than ten seconds and avoid triggering the anaerobic system with all the negative consequences that has.

Additionally, these weights are so heavy that the body will switch straight past all your weaker muscle fibres (such as your Type 1 endurance fibres) and go straight to utilising your powerful fast-twitch fibres. This allows you to do your lifts and go run afterwards as you are not stimulating the same fibres in the two workouts (unless you plan on doing a sprint session in which case this advice does not stand). Tim Ferris’ mentions that running and then lifting is a recipe for disaster.

Between each lift in these sessions you will need a long rest (3-5 minutes) for full recovery before you lift another 1-3 times. You would usually aim for a total of about 9-10 repetitions all with weight at about 95% of your 1-rep maximum or basically as much as you can lift more than once. My session consisted of 3 x 3 reps and 1 x 1 rep. The deadlift works essentially every single muscle in the body so very few other exercises are used in Barry Ross’ programme. The workout is done three times per week (usually Mon, Wed, Fri).

Here’s an example:

Dynamic stretch
10-12 push-ups
Deadlift: 1 set of 2-3 reps @ 95% 1RM followed by 1 set of 5 reps @ 85% 1RM. 1 minute after each set, athlete performs 2-4 10-15m sprints then continues rest
Core exercise: 3-5 sets of 3-5 reps (30 secs between sets). Barry Ross’ uses a sadistic exercise called the “Torture Twist”

There is a little more to it than this and I would recommend the book but essentially an endurance runner does not need to set aside very much time to become super-strong if Ross’ experience is to be believed. For now, it has allowed Allyson Fellix to run the fastest 200m of 2003. As one of the members of the US Anti-Doping Agency’s “Project Believe”, there is all reasons to believe the power to run that fast is simply a result of Ross’ conditioning. So why not get a barbell and try it out for yourself at home?

DIARY: More laser, more treatment

2011-10-18T23:34:00.001+01:00

I have been laser more often than Han Solo over the last few years and today I got another bout courtesy of a cancellation appointment with Dr Leahy at the Laser Centre.

He found some small pockets of fluid in my ankles and estimated that the constant irritation/re-irritation of the area is most likely from a certain degree of calcification, a condition he sees regularly. To finally try and eradicate the condition, he anesthetized both my ankles before firing an absolute barrage of high-powered light into the joint. This was far and away the longest session I have had so far and the most aggressive treatment since he cured the remnants of my plantar fasciitis. I was asked to ease into it over the next ten days, advice I will take. Having only run twice since the Dublin Novices I am no longer in a hurry. The cross-country season is largely over for me, so I am better off focusing on rebuilding for the Copenhagen marathon in May 2012. Perversely, by getting in two races I did as well as most years!

My regular source, the Laser Centre webmaster and coffee shop owner (now there’s a job!), told me on the way out that even the laser has a difficult time providing rapid recovery for ankle injuries. It is an insidious area to get to heal. Sadly it is also a fundamental part of the movement jig-saw and without it very few movements are possible. I still cannot know with absolute certainty whether it is calcification or rheumatoid arthritis (or both) but we can rule out tendonitis. All lower leg tendons looked strong and healthy.

ARTICLE: Sugar Spike–my contradictory advice

2011-10-15T12:24:00.001+01:00

A few weeks ago I send an email to a group of runners with advice on how to eat leading into an important race. I mentioned that they should stay clear of energy drinks and other sugary sources from sixty to ten minutes before race start as failure to do creates a sugar spike in the blood fooling the liver into lowering the production of blood glucose. This creates an early “crash” as the liver realises what is happening during the early stages of the race and restarts production.

Taking the sugar in the last ten minutes avoids this effect as the body is already well into exercise mode by the time the sugar hits the blood stream. I then went on to contradict myself by mentioning that those using Orbana should take it twenty minutes before. One runner pointed this out and I did not have time to explain why no contradiction actually exists, so here goes the explanation:

Simple versus complex sugars

“Sugar” is just the colloquial term for simple carbohydrates (mono and disaccharides). Monosaccharides or “single sugars” are the most basic components of carbohydrates and you see them with names such as glucose (called dextrose in this context), fructose, galactose, xylose and ribose. When two sugars bond together they become “disaccharides”: glucose and fructose combine to form the common sucrose (found in honey, sugar cane and sugar beet), glucose and galactose form lactose (milk sugar), two glucose form trehalose (found in insects, shrimps, larvae and Accelerade!) and so on.

The mono and disaccharides are the carbohydrates you have to watch out for in the window from sixty to ten minutes before the race as they can create the blood sugar spike. The last two types of carbohydrate: oligo and polysaccharides or “a few sugars” and “many sugars” cannot and are therefore called “complex carbohydrates”. The common polysaccharides you know are starch (from potatoes, rice, wheat and similar sources) and glycogen (a complex molecule consisting of about 30000 glucose units used by your body to store its long-term energy).

Orbana avoids creating this spike because it relies on complex carbohydrates over simple carbohydrates compared to most other sports drinks. Let’s have a look at a comparison chart:

Orbana versus other commercial drinks

While looking at the below keep in mind that 39g of sugar is approximately ten teaspoons (the content of one can of coke).

It is easy to see that the energy drinks you generally buy in the shop compare very poorly when ranked based on percentage of complex carbs and these are the most likely to cause sugar spikes. This also makes them the worst source of energy you could contemplate taking into you while at work or otherwise looking for nourishment while not engaged in strenuous exercise.

Accelerade does not look well in this comparison but the product is somewhat redeemed by an otherwise impressive ingredient list. Like Orbana and HI5, Accelerade contains significant amounts of other useful nutrients whereas the traditional over-the-counter energy drinks contain little or none.

The above figures are all per typical serving of the product, so you can easily see why you should not load up on the advanced products (Orbana, SIS, HI5) unless you are starving or very active – the caloric content, while healthier, is much higher. This is one reason these advanced products provide you longer term energy. For an active person, this is of no concern whatsoever as you can be reasonably sure your body will utilise the energy and nutrients for repair and recovery. Give the body something to use the nutrients for and it will.

I’ll look at a more in-depth comparison between the other ingredients of Orbana and HI5 in a later article.

REVIEW: PowerBreathe Kinetic 3

2011-10-10T22:57:00.001+01:00

Revolutions in training methodologies don’t come by very often but I may have temporarily taken my eye off one: back in late 2007 I decided to leave nothing to chance and optimise every part of my life and training. As part of this I purchased the PowerBreathe Sport series, then the second iteration of inspiratory muscle trainers released by the market leader.

Exercise physiology has been slow to pick up on the effect of inspiratory muscle fatigue on overall performance and while I had tremendously successful results during my first period of training with the PowerBreathe Sports, I forgot it along with all the other radical solutions that shaped my 2008 success (my only spike in training occurred from post-2007 to 2008, since then it flatlined, see the graphs at the end of this post for the evidence. Imprint the image on your retina for that is the fate of any athlete who forgets the root of their success and for any athlete who is consistently injured.)

This aside, I have recently returned to those positive habits and while I stupidly lost my previous PowerBreathe I am now a very proud owner of the new PowerBreathe Kinetic 3 the “world’s 1st intelligent digital breathing trainer”. But before we look at this amazing new gadget let’s look at why you’d spend time doing anything as stupid as breathing through what looks like a mixture between a Star-Trek tricorder and an asthma-device.

Breathe strong

With my material writing duties for ChampionsEverywhere being a high priority I currently plough through more material than ever, as I type this there is a tower of books, more than a metre high next to me, including both ground-breaking new literature such as “The Athlete’s Clock” and old classical training books such as Ron Daw’s “Running your Best” (the best Lydiard training book not written by the man himself).

Part of this tower is made up of “Breathe Strong", Perform Better” a seminal work on the importance of training the respiratory muscles written by Alison McConnell, PhD, who spent 20 years researching this field and may well one day be remembered as the founder of Breathing Muscle Training. I first began taking a new interest in this after conversations with Stephen Cleary, one of the Irish athletes at Snowdon. Stephen is an exercise physiologist and currently studies the effect of different breathing techniques on exercise performance and their studies have uncovered some interesting results.

Why breathing wasn’t thought to be important

Historically inspiratory muscles were not believed to be very important in exercise because even at maximal exercise your blood is usually 100% oxygenated (meaning your bloodstream cannot absorb more air even if you breathed harder). While this sounds strange because you feel “out of breath” this feeling actually comes from the fact that your body’s capillary system is not sufficiently developed to supply your working muscles with the oxygen they need. Essentially: it’s like having plenty of goods in the storage central but too small a fleet of trucks to get the goods out to the shops, or in short – because breathing doesn’t increase oxygen delivery to the muscles it cannot be a limiting factor in performance.

With this logic, it shouldn’t matter whether you maximise your breathing because breathing stronger would not help you. Only improving your capillary system will. While it is still true that maximising your capillary system through aerobic exercise contributes probably more than any other factor to performance in endurance sports, the breathing muscles have proven more important than first thought but for different reasons than originally assumed.

The truth of breathing

In running it has been measured that the breathing muscles fatigue by about 15% during exercise (compared to 20% for cycling, 22% for rowing and 28% for swimming). This fatigue should not matter because of the argument we just made above but it does and science has proven it comprehensively in recent years doing simple studies that showed that if you pre-fatigued breathing muscles athletes performed worse than normal in subsequent tests.

The breathing muscles perform two functions: one is breathing air in and out the other is to act as stabilisers of the trunk, these muscles include essentially all of the muscles attaching to the rib cage. These provide core stability and postural control when not fatigued. Allison McConnell compares this to a situation where your leg muscles were both responsible for movement and for pumping blood around your body. What is being asked of the breathing muscles is not much different.

Because the breathing muscles are critical, they demand more blood once they get fatigued. This part of the bloodflow increases with fatigue, pulling more and more resources away from your poor legs. That you are losing core stability and control at the same time only further exacerbates this problem as your movements become ever less energy-efficient (your running economy essentially starts to drop).

PowerBreathe

So enter “Inspiratory Muscle Training” (IMT) the new term for overload training designed to mimic “weigh-lifting” for your breathing muscles. Like any other muscle if you train it like this, it gains in strength and fatigues slower and the whole negative cycle described above is delayed. An impressive array of studies are presented in “Breathe Strong, Perform Better” and consistently show very impressive gains. Looking at some studies the effects of 3 hours of IMT were at least as good as those created by 5 hours of interval training. In general, the majority of studies suggested improvements of between 1.9 and 4.6% for endurance tests from 6 to 60 minutes. This resulted from generally 4-6 weeks of training.

Kinetic

The new Kinetica essentially does what the old PowerBreathe does letting you breath in and out against resistance. Sessions are generally 5 minutes of 30 reps morning and evening. Later you supplement this by doing actual exercises while breathing through the PowerBreathe to train your body to breathe deeply and effectively while conducting sports specific movements.

The best feature of the new PowerBreathe comes from the digital screen that automatically resets your training level to your ability and provides data on your performance such as load (the resistance to inhalation, essentially the “weight lifted”), power (in Watts), and volume (average amount of air inhaled per breath) in litres. The latter is particularly interesting for endurance athletes as it helps tell you something about your potential VO2 max.

In my recent tests I have managed to breathe in 4.3-4.5 litres/min but while this is higher than the average of 3.5 litres/min, I have expected it to be higher based on the 2008 tests. Today I used the PowerBreathe in “Test mode” to gauge my volume and managed a breath of 5.6litres/min and I am sure technique and training will improve this further.

This is important because if I can learn to reach intensities were I can utilise all the oxygen of this volume my VO2max would increase from the current tested 56-62 to 81. I need to pick up on this challenge, the lungs and the oxygen is there. I have to create the ability to use it and to bring it to the muscles. Otherwise I will remain a huge engine strapped in on an insufficient chassis.

The Verdict

I believe I have made a good purchase as this tool definitely allows you to do the best type of IMT and provides all the feedback needed to keep motivated. At the same time it’s use for coaches and healthcare practitioners to evaluate the lung capacity of their athletes gives them insight they previously needed a laboratory for. Too early to judge the product in its entirety but one day it may be seen as an essential supplement to gain those extra percent of performance we are all looking for.

The plateau

As mentioned, the proof of my performance plateau since injuries set in and radical habits were abandoned in the period 2009 to 2011:

The period post-2007 to 2008 (2008 would have shown further improvement if I had raced more in the roads, but I only raced in the mountains):

ARTICLE: Cross-Country Pack Mentality

2011-10-04T22:12:00.001+01:00

Thought I should share a nerdy moment I had yesterday (I outdid even my own lofty heights here) as I ran my cross-country splits and the cross-country splits of two other runners through an analysis. This analysis was prompted by a question asked to me of whether a runner would have run faster if they had not started as such a fast pace.

From my observation the entire field (except perhaps the top-3) guys started out at a pace that was close to suicidal for them. I estimate most of the field ran the first kilometre in very close to their middle-distance paces. Here is what happened comparing two other runners splits with mine:

The numbers at the bottom are kilometre and the flat line in the middle is the average pace. By converting all three runners times into relative percentages of their average pace, they can be easily compared, notice some trends:

All three runners started at a pace well above what they could maintain (in reality one started at 3:08min/km, one 3:17min/km and the third 3:20min/km)
Each runner suffered an immediate dip on the second kilometre as heavy acidosis started to set in and recovered a bit of pace on the faster 3rd kilometre
This exact scenario replayed itself on the 4th, 5th and 6th kilometre. The bottom pace kept getting lower and the “peaks” lower as well as fatigue accumulated
All runners recover enough to mount a much faster last 600-770m (all three runners had different distances recorded for the distance after the sixth full kilometre
Runner 1 and I follow almost exactly the same pattern of pace relative to average. Runner 2 is slightly different, staying lower from kilometre 4-6 but rallying a relatively faster finish

Three samples are not enough to make general statements but if you compare this to the observations on the day, you may be seeing a reflection of the pack mentality that affects you when running cross-country. If everyone ran more steady would everyone run faster? Perhaps. If one runner broke the pattern and decided to run more evenly, ignoring the others, would he be faster? Probably. Kenan Furlong, my team-mate certainly showed this, starting well back at the start and then finishing a good 15 seconds ahead of me despite having slower road times this year. All potentially a reflection of superior pacing. But comforting to know that most of us jumped over the cliff together.

DIARY: Arthritis Cure?

2011-10-03T23:16:00.001+01:00

I am coming around to the way of thinking that cutting people open, irradiating them, poisoning them, or giving them a strange chemical with side-effects may not really be the best approach to the long-term health of our population, or myself.

Currently I go to great lengths cleaning up my life-style and bringing myself back to paleolithic standards. It is a step by step, but I am getting there. I have gotten particularly fascinated by Dr. Andrew Saul writer of numerous books and owner of www.doctoryourself.com.

Following in the footsteps of Dr. Max Gerson, he claims that mega-doses of the right vitamins, fresh vegetable juices and otherwise organic largely vegetarian diet can prevent and reverse the majority of illnesses and ailments even cancer and cardiovascular disease.

To test their convincing proposition (seen in documentaries such as “Food Matters”, “The Gerson Miracle” and “Dying to have known”), I have decided to embark on their arthritis treatment:

   * Eating primarily raw food diet including cultured dairy products such as cheese and yogurt
    * 75 to 300 mg B-6 daily, preferably with a B-complex supplement
    * Niacinamide (essentially a “version” of vitamin B3) every two hours or so, up to a thousand milligrams or more daily
    * Vitamin C to saturation (as much as the body will hold without loose bowels)

I am already taking around 4000%-5000% of the RDA (recommended dietary allowance) of vitamin C) at the moment and plan to increase this further as it has caused no negative side-effects (as expected). The stated doses above will constitute 23000% RDA of vitamin B6 and 5556% RDA of B3, so as you can see there is a reason most clinical studies would fail to show any any effects from vitamin dosing. This sort of dosage is simply very rarely used and the myth is propagated that vitamins are toxic in high doses such as these (fat-soluble vitamins seem to be potentially able to cause overdoses, but in the 17 of the last 25 years there has been no reported cases of even suspected vitamin overdoses in the US, whereas there was 147 deaths from aspirin poisoning alone in 2003).

Some clever shopping has allowed me to order the necessary dosage for this type of mega-loading (not otherwise easily done) so it will be interesting to see the effect when I begin. Buying high quality vitamins is important as some are buffered with materials that do not digest easily enough and means the vitamins pass straight through the parts of your digestive system where they need to be extracted. Essentially the pill just carries it in and out of your system!

The use of Recommended Dietary Allowance has caused a lot of damage through being perceived as a limit by some. In fact, the RDA is simply the minimal nutritional considered sufficient by the Food and Nutrition Board in the US during WW2. There is another measure called Upper Tolerance Limit (UL) which show the maximal level that has been proven to be non-toxic to humans. These levels are 2000mg for Vitamin C (I’m well above this), 100mg for Vitamin B6 (I’ll go to 300% of this) and 35mg for Vitamin B3 (I’ll go to at least 3000% of this).

Given the loss of nutritional value in our food over the last five decades and the amount of vitamins and minerals destroyed by the toxins we are exposed to on a daily basis (mercury-fillings, chlorine in water, smoking, alcohol, stress and other modern-life staples all burn of vitamin C as an example), there is a high likelihood that the majority of our population are nutritionally deficient. At the same time, they likely have a caloric surplus further exacerbating an already bad situation. If anyone wonders why so many of us are sick, tired, or otherwise suffer ailments, look no further.

Experiment to be continued…

RACES: Dublin Novice Cross-Country 2011

2011-10-03T09:27:00.001+01:00

Thankfully, running does not include judges sitting by the side rating your performance. In such case a lot of “zeros” would have been recorded against my name after a dismal showing at yesterday’s Dublin Novice Cross-Country.

But positives first: Jason and Amidou acquitted themselves with top honours, both finishing with spectacular sprint finishes and Jason leading the team home in 12th with Amidou 20th. That moment they brought back to life the sight of Snell, usually one of the slowest kickers in the field, sprinting away from the field on the last lap, and confirming that it’s the man with most endurance that can hold on to his speed until the end. Jeff Fitzsimons, newly of my Thursday group and also newly of Crusaders, had a storming debut on the cross-country race with a fine run.

With little or no training and some other factors not right on the day, I had no chance of honouring the Lydiard system similarly, rather I had barely taken the first stride before I thought to myself “I feel like ****”. No power came from the legs. Despite this, when I looked down at the speed of the first kilometre and saw “3:20”, my reaction was similarly profane ("”oh ****”). On the plus side, the majority of the large field made this mistake and slowed inexorably afterwards. On the downside, this is only twelve seconds from my mile PB pace. Given my current low ebb of fitness, I probably was running at 1 mile pace.

Physiological side-track

Some interesting things happen at this pace and they likely buried the last faint chance I had of a decent performance that day: this is top-end glycolytic anaerobic exercise where glycogen is being burned off like you had endless stores available. To support this process, lactate is produced in huge quantities (your blood concentration raises to 8mmol/l and rising) and the waste product of this high concentration from this begin to seriously impair the functioning of the working muscles. Any buffers my few quality sessions have developed (basically, my body’s ability to create alkaline substances to neutralise the hydrogen ions and other junk resulting from this metabolic process) are quickly overwhelmed.

Oxygen debt soars: A healthy fully trained athlete can take a debt of around 15litres of oxygen. Incur a debt of 1 litre/minute and you can run for 15 minutes. Incur a debt of 5 litres and you can run for 3! My maximal oxygen intake has been measured at 5 litres/min (about 43% above average). We don’t know how much oxygen I use at 3:20min/km pace but its safe to say that I can run over thirty minutes at 3:45min/km, yet likely less than six minutes at 3:20. Once I had run the 3:20, most of my “15 litres” of oxygen debt where gone.

Race on

After some initial back and forth, I settled into what must have been 60th-63rd position during the second lap (my worst). Surprisingly, despite what, to me, seemed like a total collapse, only my team-mate Kenan Furlong (who paced himself well, one girl asked: “Why is Kenan jogging at the back of the field?”) passed me at this stage. This worked wonder as he pulled me with him past a Liffey Valley man, then one of our fellow Crusaders, and then two Rathfarnham runners.

On the third lap, I felt some semblance of power to up the pace, but my breathing was like a steam-train. The last hill killed my chances of catching Kenan back and I feared I would be hit by a massive group of people from behind. I kept trying to speed up but little happened. The pain had been intense enough that I kept picturing a towel in my hand that I felt like throwing into the woods. But in cross-country, of course, you never stop.

Turning the corner for the last 300m, I glanced over my shoulder and to my surprise I had 200m on the next group. My pace had returned to 3:38min/km and I had managed to push my breathing from asthmatic to erratic and, fearing a late kicker, kept pushing until I crossed the finish line and could lie down under the trees.

“You looked like ****,” Aoife told me, “you’re pale a ghost.” Despite this I recovered quickly both in energy levels and soreness. Only my ankles started throbbing away like something had injected fluid into them. Today, there’s no muscle soreness either, always a sign that something stopped the body from performing to its limit.

The facts

What was good

I came away pleased with my attitude. From early on, I had nothing to race for and few people to race. Stranded in no-man’s land with my A team colleagues far ahead and me unable to assist them, and frankly, feeling sick, I kept pushing as hard as I could. I can look myself in the mirror today.

My finish of 59th constitutes my best performance yet in the Novice until you count in that it was the smallest field yet, so that’s a purely statistical celebration and not one that fills me with much excitement.

What was bad

The race had been changed and was the longest novice race yet at 6.8km (versus 5.9km last year). 3:52min/km pace (my average) seems respectable on paper, but it’s only three seconds off my half-marathon pace and I had nothing to offer. Yet, my pace in previous years was 3:50 (2009) and 3:59 (2010) on a significantly shorter course. So despite being disappointed with myself, I am further ahead than the disparate performances of yesteryear.

My preparation has been all over the shop, here’s a list of the mistakes: too much food in the morning, too little food on the Saturday, hot bath the day before, 1am bed-time, major issues with my ankle arthritis (I was hobbling from Thursday evening to Sunday morning), and complete lack of structured training and mileage. ChampionsEverywhere content writing has kept me very busy this weekend and I am currently trying to work on a cure (article to come) for my arthritis as it often cripples me for 48-72 hours after a fast workout. This week I lost the Wednesday 90 minute run and the Friday jog on that account. Losing a third of the week’s work on a consistent basis can’t continue.

The food strategy was particularly stupid: I know I run best when I am half-starved so the body does not have any blood diverted into the gut for digestion. This keeps me sharp and alert and the blood glucose level of my bloodstream at maximal levels as long as I have eaten properly in the days leading up to race day.

Race rating: 2/5 (some rays of light in a poor tactical and physical showing)

DIARY: Cross-Country dreamin’

2011-09-30T17:39:00.001+01:00

Goals, goals, goals. What’s the target for Sunday’s Dublin Novice Cross-Country? My surprise (fluke?) performance in the National Half-Marathon meant I got myself picked for the A-team which adds changes the dynamic: Instead of racing in the B team and trying to prove I should have been in the A team, I need to race in the A team to justify being there. But as an experienced hand in this type of competition now, it’s not too big a risk especially as we have much more than the required four scorers in both the A and B teams. Hopefully having such a huge crowd of white shirts around will spur on a great performance.

Let’s look at previous history:

Last year proved a bit of a disaster for me, so my first aim to get back to improving on my time of 22:31 from 2009. This sounds like a big improvement over my weekend time of 23:57 but it needs to be considered the course was much slower than the Phoenix Park version and about 300m longer (that accounts for about 67-70 seconds extra).

My fastest ever cross-country paces have been in the Carlow race I did in winter (5k rather than 6k) and the Teacher’s BHAA race all the way back when I was preparing myself for the Dublin Marathon 2007.

If I can match a pace around these performances (let’s say 3:45min/km for ease of reference), I should be able to run around 22:08. This would be an almost ideal performance from my current fitness level. So is it possible?

Yesterday’s session

I could take some strong clues from the training session I ran yesterday. We had a very strong group of including Amidou, Jason, Niall Heffernan, our club captain Gary Park, Jeff Fitzsimons, James Clancy, Tim Chapman, Richie Healy, Jonathan Healy, Zoran Skrba, and John Barry. With strong wind and some reasonable tough uphill, our session consisting of 3x1 mile reps with 400m jog recovery followed by a 200m sprint with 200m recovery should showcase a lot of the capability for Sunday.

I asked all runners to set off on the first mile at the pace they wanted to use on Sunday during the Novice race. Yet, I am almost certain the majority of runners set off faster than they will potentially do with some sub-5:30 miles recorded on the first lap. My own first mile of 5:48 was quick enough and since it represents 3:36min/km pace, much quicker than I need to have a good run on Sunday (keeping such a pace would mean 21:15 for the Novice course, which does not seem realistic).

The body’s reaction to the pace is also interesting, during the second mile we all slowed as the wind really picked up. For me this meant a very slow 6:04 which was still the pace I need (3:46min/km). I recovered to do 5:53 for the third mile and then a very fast 200m at the end.

Tactics

I believe in Mark Wetmore, the legendary Colorado Buffalo coach’s advice that you should run fast past any bottleneck then settle into steady pace for the first mile of the race and then start working your way through the field.

Ideally this will mean I can run a reasonable steady (3:45-3:50) first kilometre (so a mile in about 6:05) and then either stabilise there or work my way through it.

The only concerns have been that I got a strange little soreness on the left outside of my left foot after my hill session with Jason on Tuesday. This was perhaps because we were doing the downhill 400s in faster than 2:30min/km pace which is not a pace my body would be accustomed to doing very often (that, of course, is the point). This led me to cancel my 90-minute aerobic Wednesday run. I feel rebuilding endurance is the most important thing for me at the moment, so the timing has been very unfortunate in recent weeks than whenever I have had to cut a training session, it has always been the aerobic ones.

But on the flipside, my natural speed has returned to a degree I haven’t felt for years. Of course, this is only of limited help, it is not speed that limits our performance (the majority of athletes have plenty of speed), it is stamina. Hopefully, the mixed work of the last five weeks will be just enough to pull out a solid run for the team. I can find solace in the fact that my training has been dire for the last three months, and my current fitness is mainly down to better lifestyle. Once a proper routine is re-established, another performance peak is likely.

DIARY: Evil mercury

2011-09-28T00:02:00.001+01:00

The messenger god Mercury is widely adored by runners, including Lorraine Moller who based the name of her autobiography on the deity. But a murkier Mercury exists: the highly toxic substance you find in your dental fillings.

As part of my current drive back to perfect health, I have studied the research on dental amalgams made of mercury and concluded that the five or six old fillings I have are posing a very real risk to my overall health and that my body spends every day wasting precious vitamins and other resources fighting off a slow, but certain, mercury-poisoning.

The facts

A recent World Health Organisation study has shown that the lowest exposure to mercury, in terms of urinary secretion, is so low that the amount of leakage occurring from your dental amalgams are well above it. In my case, with around six amalgams, I could be dealing with over 120 micro-grams of mercury per day but it could be as high as over 240 micro-grams per day. The point where signs of a toxic effect start occurring has been shown as low as 10 micro-grams, so in the worst case scenario my body is detoxifying 12-24 times the tolerable amount.

I will not list the quite technical reports here but suggest those interested watch this video: http://www.toxicmercuryamalgam.com/

The solution

My home country Denmark, Sweden and Norway banned the use of mercury amalgams in the early Noughties so at least our future generations are safe-guarded in those countries but for those of us with old fillings the only solution is to have them removed and replaced by fillings of other materials.

In recent years a new type of dentist, called “holistic dentists”, have sprung up around the world specialising in this. However, normal dentists may oblige so I have booked myself in with my regular dentist at the Carysfort Clinic next week to take count of the mercury amalgams and get a pricing on what removal and replacement will cost.

Why again?

Obviously, I want my body to focus on keeping me healthy and performing to peak ability. What’s the point of eating tons of C vitamins if my body is spending the majority of them fighting off the damage of mercury, a potent cytotoxin which interferes with the normal functioning of cells. Autopsies on dead monkeys with amalgams showed accumulation of mercury in organs such as the kidneys, brain, lung, liver, gastro-intestinal tract, and exocrine glands. You cannot have two things in one space so as long as your system is full of lead, mercury, and other toxic substances, there is less room for vitamins, minerals and other beneficial trace elements to be absorbed and benefit your health and performance.

Multiple sclerosis patients with amalgam fillings showed significantly lower levels of red blood cells, haemoglobin, and haematocrit, among other things, clearly factors athletes would be concerned about if it affected them similarly. Removal of amalgams in have shown immediate beneficial effects on a range of chronic conditions. The WHO risk analysis in 1997 concluded that amalgam fillings posed the following health risks:

Impairment of the functions of the central nervous system
Impairment of kidney function
Impairment of the immune system

All in all, not something you want in your mouth if you care about being at in absolutely perfect health. Any resource spend by your body fighting toxins is resources that could be spend fighting disease or building you faster and stronger.

Even if there were no studies to support the danger of mercury does it not strike anyone as funny that a substance that is handled with great care before it goes into the mouth and after it is taken out is suddenly safe when inserted in a tooth?

Even if the toxicity was minimal would we really want any kind of toxin permanently embedded in our body? The ban imposed in the US in 2003 of mercury fever thermometres should tell us something. It was discontinued for the treatment of syphilis because the symptoms of its toxicity were sometimes so bad it was mistaken for the disease itself. Consider just the two first lines about its toxicity on Wikipedia:

Mercury and most of its compounds are extremely toxic and must be handled with care; in cases of spills involving mercury (such as from certain thermometers or fluorescent light bulbs), specific cleaning procedures are used to avoid exposure and contain the spill.

Mercury is not the only toxin that we are being subjected to on an almost daily basis. In my view we must minimise our exposure to these whenever possible. So if you are an athlete sharing my concerns, get a dentist to replace your mercury fillings. Next instalment on this topic will talk about the chlorine content of 90% of Irish drinking water, its toxic effects and how to protect yourself from it.

RACES: Star of the Seas Cross-Country 2011

2011-09-25T22:57:00.001+01:00

Our little group consisting of Amidou, Jason, Tony Collins and I had a fruitful trip to Co. Meath and the old-fashioned cross-country festival event there. We arrived in good time and had time to take in some of the junior races and bask up the nostalgia of seeing this great course with its two extended climbs on each 1500m laps (of which we had to do four as the race was over the classical novice distance of 6k, or about 6.2km as it proved).

Wet and windy conditions meant the race could be slower than back in 2007 when I ran it in gorgeous sunshine but some high calibre runners were in the field which promised a frenetic start. Everyone in the group agreed to try the approach I have copied from Colorado’s successful cross-country coach, Mark Wetmore, to run the first lap fairly steady and then focus on picking up places.

It worked a treat and catered to the current strengths of all the lads, who are all currently training on my Lydiard schedules. Jason arrived first home of our group, but we don’t yet know the position (nor the time as his watch gave out) but Amidou arrived not too much later in a strong 21:57 with Tony in town in 22:02.

My legs had felt alright although I quickly realised they lacked power on the climbs, so I took it conservatively on the uphills and managed to claw back well on the descents and flats on lap one and two. On the third lap, having steadied myself a bit further up the field, this party trick wore off and I didn’t really make much further ground. My splits were pretty stable (staying in the 3:50s after a first in 3:46) but I lacked both uphill explosiveness and full finishing power.

I worked solidly throughout and despite the slightly disappointing time of 23:53, I had run 11 seconds faster per kilometre than in 2007 despite being less race fit than then. A bit of gloss was added when the announcer declared our trio of Crusaders (Jason, Amidou and I) the second-placed team ahead of Raheny: We were tied on points at 65 but I had arrived in 38th versus Raheny’s last scorer in 45th. Hosts Star of the Seas swept to the win.

Always intended to be a final test ahead of the Dublin and Wicklow Novice races next Sunday, everyone was chuffed with their performances and could take some good lessons (and 30 quid for the team!) away from the event which went on without a hitch. For myself the lessons were pretty much as expected: raw speed is strong, endurance is reasonably well developed but power and strength needs a lot more work. Also, I need to keep watching my caloric intake as there were some signs of low glycogen levels today. The endless feeling of pulsating energy from the working muscles that I felt during the National Half didn’t manifest today. It made it all the more satisfying to battle up through the crowd where no favours were given and I had to swing one gentle elbow.

Jason had a similar incident when a guy pushed himself through his group of four with the words: “For f*cks sake let me through", only to be passed out by the entire group only a few hundred metres later and never seen again. Clearly, some practice on pace judgment and common courtesy to be extended to this gentleman but full marks for competitive fervour.

Such ended a great trip north, a long day but it felt good to dirty the old spikes again.

DIARY: Return to Star of the Seas

2011-09-24T23:07:00.001+01:00

Exciting day tomorrow ahead as I return to the site of my first ever cross-country race at Star of the Seas in Stamullen, Co. Meath. This is a real old-school cross-country festival that really got me sold on the discipline and despite having done a 5k trail race with Crusaders the day before, I still managed to finish 35th of 45 in 24:09 for the very bumpy six kilometre course. That, of course, was 2007, and with four years of, albeit, inconsistent training, I should run a lot better tomorrow and will be joined by fellow Crusaders Amidou and Jason as well as Sli Cualann’s Tony Collins from my training group.

I hope to get a race report up but this weekend has very much been dedicated to furiously writing material and content for the ChampionsEverywhere website so we can get down the temporary splash page and get the full site up in all its (we think) glory. While you wait, I try to keep our Facebook page updated as much as possible with relevant information.

Training has been very tough this week. Too jetlagged still to train in the mornings, I had to do all my sessions against the fading daylight as I leave work relatively late. With a one hour commute each way, time is very precious, and returning between nine and ten leaves less time than I would like for my coaching duties and other running related activities (as well as that elusive thing, rest?). I had been blessed the last month with unprecedented levels of energy after changing diets and beginning my testing of ProArgi9, Mistify and PhytoLife from Synergy but even these products could not stop the havoc of the West-East jetlag. I have slowly weaned myself back to humanity through good food and vitamin overdosing.

But train, I did, an interesting week with a very hard hill circuit with Jason on Tuesday (in retrospect our sprints were to brutal), a good 85-minute run on Wednesday and a mixture of hill session and a 3k cross-country time trial Thursday. I did a relaxed 40-minute jog as my recovery day before revving my engine ahead of tomorrow’s race with the same 10x100m stride session I did before the National Half. Seeing my times coming down between 15-17 secs rather than 17-20 secs is a heartening sign that my raw speed is on the way back. As my aerobic phase was not as good as planned, I buffered this with more than 7km of extra easy running and felt the better for it.

DIARY: The Hand of Snell

2011-09-20T22:43:00.001+01:00

Contemplating a little memento I got here as I sit in the Cottage recuperating after the first Lydiard Hill Circuit of the new training phase. With a very short and not particularly high mileage aerobic phase, it felt tough especially with jetlag and caloric deficit feeding it but having Jason for company through the two hard laps saw us through the same high quality workout that served Halberg, Baillie, Puckett, Julian, Davies and Snell so well fifty (!) years ago.

And the memento relates to the last gentlemen: On my table lies one of my most treasured books, the 1965 Australian print version of “No Bugles, No Drums”, Snell’s biography. It now bears the inscription of the man who won three Olympic golds, two Commonwealth golds and set eight world and two Olympic records whilst doing so: “To Rene, Keep spreading the Lydiard magic in Ireland. – Peter Snell”. I am sure the market value of this old copy has soared but it will remain in my bookshelf for as long as I am able to keep it.

Snell is the world’s greatest middle-distance runner as far as I am concerned despite the tough competition from men such as Elliott, Walker, Coe, Ovett, Cram, Guerrouj, and Kipketer. His personal best 800m time of 1:44.3 was run on a type of track often estimated to be at least a second per lap slower than modern running tracks and would still have been good enough to take the gold medal at the 2008 Olympic final in Beijing. It is still today, 49 years later, the New Zealand record. Add to this his superb 3.54.4 mile. One of those rare powerful runners with 22.3 second 200m speed who combined their talent with 100-mile weeks and you had an almost perfect athlete.

He retired, arguably still at his peak, at the early age of 26, since, back then, running was not really a sustainable profession. We’ll never know what he could have gone on to do. We do know that he went on to grace the profession of sports science. Aged 73, he still serves as the Director of Human Performance at the University of Texas Medical Centre in Dallas, a testament to a man who never grew tired of pursuing his passion for performance.

Striding down the fast descent section of the circuit at just around 1-minute 400s, Jason and I could contemplate the fact that Snell would stride down double this distance putting 55s 400s together at this best. Still I find it only inspires, rather than deters, and feeds the hope that we too, even as late starters, will get a chance to share in the Lydiard magic.

DIARY: Lydiard Invitational Seminar Attendees

2011-09-20T07:56:00.001+01:00

Time for a quick update no our seminar! I am back from my trip to Boulder and Reno with the usual heavy jetlag (constant thirst, headaches, disturbed sleep patterns and generally just feeling awful) which I only experienced on the way back (not out where I felt great).

I thought I would post a quick update with the list of the people who attended to give you a flavour of what sort of experiences we’ll be sharing here and on ChampionsEverywhere in the coming month:

· Lorraine Moller: New Zealand international with a twenty-year career that culminated in the Olympic bronze medal for the marathon in 1992. Winner of nine major marathons and three Commonwealth medals.

· Nobby Hashizume: Former corporate athletics coach for Hitachi corporation, Lydiard protégé and founder of the Lydiard Foundation

· Sir Peter George Snell: Winner of three Olympic and two Commonwealth gold medals, breaker of five world records. Currently Director of Human Performance at the University of Texas Medical Centre in Dallas

· Malcolm “Bobby” McGee: Coach of Josia Thugwane, the 1996 Olympic marathon gold winner, and ITU World Cup winner Barbara Lindquist. Bobby McGee is the columnist and technical editor of Runner’s World South Africa and author of “Magical Running”.

· Steve Jones: Former World marathon record holder, British marathon record holder and winner of four major marathons (Chicago twice, London and New York)

· Rod Dixon: New Zealand middle-distance runner, Olympic bronze-medallist over 1500m in the 1972 Olympics. 1983 winner of the New York City marathon

· Jason Karp: 2011 IDEA personal trainer of the year, exercise physiologist and author of “101 Developmental Concepts and Workouts for Cross Country Runners”

· Frank Shorter: American 1972 Olympic gold medallist in the marathon and member of the National Track and Field Hall of Fame.

· Jerry Siebert: Peter Snell’s great rival in middle-distance in the mid-sixties and member of the world record breaking 4x880y American relay team and AAU 800m champion in 1962 and 1964

· Mark Cucuzella: Family physician and Associate Professor at West Virginia University School of Medicine and winner of the Airforce Marathon 2006 (aged 40), Mark also serves as the Chief Medical Consultant for the Air Force Marathon and spearheads several initiatives to combat child obesity and instructor in Natural Running and “Exercise is Medicine”

· Jonathan Beverly: Editor of “Running Times” magazine

· Michael Sandrock: Author of “Running with the Legends” and “Running Tough”

· Melody Fairchild: Owner of Fairchild Fitness and the Run Happy Camps, Melody is regarded as the best ever female high school distance runner in the history of the US and the 8-time Colorado state champion.

· Mark Wetmore: Colorado Buffaloes head coach for sixteen years and only National Division 1 coach to win all four NCAA cross country titles at the same school. His athletes have earned 11 spots on the US Olympic Track and Field teams.

· Glenn McCarthy: Masters and high school coach and former interpreter for Arthur Lydiard during his stay as Venezuelan national coach.

· Cameron Graves: Kiwi youth international preparing to make his attempt at breaking the New Zealand junior 3k record.

· Paige Higgins: Second fastest female marathoner in the US in 2010 with a personal best of 2:33:06. 12^th at the IAAF World Championship marathon in 2009.

· Yuiji: Exercise physiologist and developer of RunningAhead.com

· Harvey Seifel: 13:48 5k runner and high school and college coach.

· Silvio Guerra: Olympic marathon representative for Ecuador and second-place finisher at the Chicago and Boston Marathons.

· Michelle Davis: Ran the 1984 Olympic trial when almost nine months pregnant, youth coach and part-founder of the “Running Start program.

DIARY: “Brazilian” Cross-Country

2011-09-07T23:18:00.001+01:00

When our new ChampionsEverywhere website goes live, I will have a dedicated coaching column there talking about sessions I coach and participate in and sharing enough detail for other coaches to steal ideas (or chime in with comments!).

As the site is not yet live, I am publishing the first instalment here on the blog and the session I will discuss is the one I ran and participated in this evening in Marlay Park which is part of my Autumn cross-country series.

I will publish a separate article on session design but to help you interpret what we did, it bears to note that my sessions consist of five stages: warm-up, technical, main, and cooldown with a tactical focus for the day added in for good measure.

Cross-Country Session 07/09/2011 – “Brazilian”

The first series of sessions we are doing during the aerobic and hill phases of the Lydiard program are meant to provide some anaerobic stimulus early as runners will need these adaptations from the beginning of the cross-country season (late September/early October). We buffer this with the a fair portion of standard aerobic mileage in the early weeks to ensure general conditioning is not neglected and runners can keep their peak form through the cross-country season.

Overview

Phase: Aerobic (cross-country)
Focus: Running form and uneven pacing
Tactics: Passing and dealing with uneven pace
Intensity: 6-8/10 (Rate of Perceived Effort)

Course

For this session I have adapted the standard Master Run Coach session called “Progress Calibration Run” (PCR) which is essentially a tempo run. I measured out a 5km on grass in Marlay Park consisting of a 200m run-in to a three lap course shaped like a figure eight.

Warm-up

We jogged gently 3km from Taylor’s Three-Rock Pub to Marlay Park and did one lap of the course of the session so everyone could get familiar with it ahead of time.

This was followed by two staple elements of all my seasons: a series of standing dynamic stretches followed by a few running dynamic stretches. The standing dynamics serve to gentle test everyone’s range of motion and loosen out the entire body from top to toe. The moving dynamics take this one step further as you essentially mimic exaggerated movements that are part of a proper running stride.

Here is the series used this evening:

Neck rolls
Shoulder rotations
Arm rotations
Hip rotations
Side-stretch
Leg swings (45 degree angle)
Leg swings (full kicks)
Side-lunges
Knee rotations
Shakers

Due to time constraints and the bad weather, I decided to move on straight to the technical part rather than continue with running dynamics as planned.

Technical (Proper stride form)

I am very passionate about getting distance runners to perform strides properly rather than simply performing a very fast running movement. It is a key component in increasing your raw pace, your sprint finish and overall flexibility and range of motion.

We began with a series of three run-throughs of tightly positioned cones which the runners jog towards before rapidly moving their arms and legs to clear the cones and stride off easy at the other end.

This exercise forces the runner to run erect, their knee will invariably drive high as they are attempting to stay clear of the cones and fast feet, coordination, and good arm movement are essential to get through fluently.

We followed this up with a look at the “heel-flick”: During very fast running you will see sprinters and middle-distance runners essentially touching their glutes with their heel while their quadriceps is parallel to the ground. This shortens the leg to the greatest possible degree and because a shorter levers rotates quicker, you can reach maximal cadence this way.

As many distance runners are unfamiliar with this type of running, we performed 4x60m of these butt-kicks before moving on to 3x60m strides each focusing on the three essential parts of a fast running: fast (cadence), relaxed, and tall.

Progress Calibration Run

On to the main event: Our group of eleven lined up 200m from the first lap under the instruction to run the first lap in a “Brazilian” fashion.

This is a session I have picked up from the internet and consists of all runners forming a perfect military column as they run. The person at the back must always run to the front as fast as they can. Normally, this is a fun warm-up, but I wanted to use the session to practice two strategies that are necessary to master to be successful in cross-country:

The ability to deal with uneven pacing especially early in the race when competitors jostle for position
The ability to pass with conviction rather than waste energy on several half-hearted pass-outs resulting only in being passed back out again

Obviously, the faster runners set a punishing pace for the slower runners who on the other hand could attempt to slow down the pace momentarily when they hit the front.

My experience

I fell in the second curve (my bare feet proved too slippery for the grass) and felt on my own body how hard it is to recover and have to pass out a column ten strong!

Great team spirit emerged during this first uneven lap: Jason would encourage me to “close the gap” when Amidou rushed to the front and upped the pace. “Good work” would sound out when the task was managed.

Our group proved quite strong and crossed the first mile in just under six minutes and shortly after, we finished the first lap and it was again every runner for himself, left alone to find their own strong pace. Two tightly knotted groups formed out front which I sadly lost contact which was a pity as I kept the gap even thereafter and had to run on my own having a gap to the runner behind me as well.

Despite the uneven start, most of the runners coped extremely well and either kept steady or sped up further. Unsurprisingly, James McFadden simply took off on his own and was not seen again by the rest of us!

I missed the Inov-8 grip in the wettest corners were the lesson is that bare feet simply cannot provide enough traction for quick tight turns on a wet day but finished strongly on the last lap and was pleased with my time of 19:15 for the 5k. An astonishing improvement of 35 seconds since my last session on 17th August which, together with my half-marathon this Saturday, confirms an unusually rapid return to form.

The chatter afterwards suggested the session hadn’t killed people off.

Cool-down

We keep our cool-down simple as we rarely have time for static stretching and the weather was not really encouraging hanging around. So the team simply took the shortest jog back to Taylor’s Three-Rock Pub (2km) instead of our usual 3-4km jog with a detour through the park.

DIARY: National Half Analysis

2011-09-05T11:47:00.002+01:00

All the data has come in with the results of the National Half-Marathon now on the Athletics Ireland website. Our Crusaders team finished 18th of 25 teams with an accumulated time of 04:04:13 for our three first scorers (Amidou, Markus and I) which is an average of 1:21:24 per person. We truly were hanging with a tough crowd as the winning team time of 3:22:18 (average of 67:26) testifies. Nine men broke seventy minutes.
Our team only held of Clonliffe’s B team by eight seconds so good thing everyone ran hard till the end. If you find any errors in the analysis blame the fact I wasp stung me on the back of my head during yesterday’s easy jog (which meant I found a sprint finish to the house as I used to be allergic due to having been stung too often, but I got away with it).
Splits
As always for half-marathon distances I post my split analysis below:

An interesting pattern can be seen on kilometres 7, 9, 11, 14 and 16 all featuring 10 or more metres of climb. This immediately affects my pace (it drops over 4-minutes), yet on four out of five occasions I follow this up with a sub-3:50 kilometre immediately after on the downhill. I was only loosely conscious of this at the time but did try to run the downhills harder and the uphill steady. The reasoning: You get more speed for the same energy on a downhill than on an uphill so in running attacking on an uphill is rarely seen as the best pacing strategy (that doesn't mean it doesn't have utility). It can be interpreted as a weakness (and indeed it may be) but in this case more likely that I simply ran at steady effort and and let the terrain do its work.

And once again, as always, the splits remind me how irritating it is that I always seem to be away when there is a 10k on in this country and simply cannot get the chance to eradicate the 38:28 I have standing against that but hopefully one will pop up in the cross-country season (incidentally, I’m away for the Firhouse 10k this weekend!).

Based on this form, I have signed up for the Copenhagen Marathon in May next year and will finally return to the distance I was born to run after a four year hiatus. This will be a classic Lydiard-style approach with a long cross-country season placing the pre-conditioning in place before a full marathon cycle on the other side. A two week dose down should hopefully allow me to recover enough for a reasonable summer season afterwards.

ARTICLE: Half-Marathon route comparisons

2011-09-04T19:20:00.001+01:00

I thought it could be fun to compare all the half-marathon distance races I have done (most of which are here on the island) to see how they compare in terms of ascent (lowest ascent to highest):

Unsurprisingly those over real trail and mountain are much much tougher and Connemara’s half comes out as the toughest with Dublin and Achill running it close. The Strawberry looks faster if you went only be ascent while the new Waterford Half-Marathon course is clearly a very fast course compared to all of these.

DIARY: Diet Samples–Introduction

2011-09-04T10:57:00.001+01:00

Based on some feedback on Facebook, I will post a few samples of recent diet to give people an idea of how I have tried to improve my cardiovascular health (and overall health by the same reckoning). But first an introduction of why I made the change.

Note that while this is loosely inspired by the approach taken in “The Paleo-Diet for Athletes” (e.g. a cave-man diet) and the film “Food Matters”, it is by no means a complete representation of either. Rather it’s a transition step between those diets and my former diet which, on analysis, I found to have the following major issues:

Too many processed foods
Too many proteins
Too much diary, grains and breads
Too much warm food
Too much caffeine
Too late meals
Too much sugar

In addition, I needed to supplement better to get enough of the right nutrients as the only way of achieving the amount of nutrients necessary to reverse the damage done and stay super-healthy is to do substantial shopping of specialised foods in organic food markets and health shops, something very difficult to do especially from Wicklow.

Why “too”

It takes a substantial article to explain the why the above list can be eaten “too much” so I am just going to summarise and you will have to take my word that I have done the research (or if curious go have a browse yourself.

So taken from the front, processed foods are high-calorie/low nutrition and tend to be extremely acidic. This means they contribute little positive to your system (unless you’re starving) but require energy from your system to break down and calcium from your bones and muscles to return your body to a neutral pH.

Proteins have the same problem, we need much less “pure” protein than we believe because it is not the proteins the body needs but the amino acids that they are made up from. Consider this: When you eat protein your body spends energy to break it into amino acids. So if you can simply eat amino-acids, you’ll still get all the protein you need and a better more efficient absorption. Most proteins also come from animal sources which increase the acidity of the body and causes the body to cannibalise its own calcium stores to the detriment of your muscles and bones as mentioned above. Spirulina is a great natural alternative and possible the best source of easily absorbed non-acidic protein available.

Diary, grains and breads have the same disadvantages as the previously mentioned foods: they make the body acidic and have a poor nutritional content. In addition, grains and breads contain nasty proteins such as gluten and lectins that inflame your intestines, pollute your blood stream (forcing work on the liver), and are likely the main cause of almost all auto-immune dysfunctions including rheumatoid arthritis.

Eating predominantly warm foods is a problem because cooking is a process of food destruction which renders food more or less toxic. Studies have shown that people eating predominantly warm food triple their white blood vessel count in the period after (e.g. your body treats the warm food as “an invader”). Cooking generates carcinogens, mutagens, coagulates proteins, destroys vitamins, and returns minerals to their native state (e.g. iron as found in the ground rather than the organic type we can digest). Fats are altered chemically into free radicals, more carcinogens and other damaging components. Cooked food is therefore largely dead food and often dangerous food.

I do not think I need to say much about caffeine. I enjoy my tea but this artificial stimulus to the central nervous system creates strange peaks and troughs in energy levels. Caffeine is not intrinsically bad and has many health benefits (and some types like that found in Yerbamate tea have few of the normal side-effects) but needs to be dosed properly to allow steady energy over the day and deep sleeping at night.

This brings us nicely to late meals: After around eight o’clock (depending on your unique circadian rhythm), the body switches to “maintenance mode” and begins repairs for the following day. Eating a hefty meal at this stage (or later), diverts energy from these crucial processes and into trying to break down this food. Sleep disruption can be the obvious result as it proved in my case (I had a particularly bad penchant for eating late).

There’s a lot to take in here, so at ChampionsEverywhere we’ll use the latest science from the researchers behind the “Paleo-Diet” and the “Gerson Therapy” to give very specific guidelines for ideal nutrition pre, during and post exercise.

Sugar finally is one most readers will be familiar with and it needs stating that not all sugars are born equal. Certain sources such as fruit and honey have health benefits especially if eaten at the correct time of day in reasonable quantities but most do nothing but suppress your immune system, upset your mineral balance, cause drowsiness, increase insulin responses and an absolute host of other negative effects.

Why is acidity bad?

I’ve spoken a lot about acidity, so just to point it out: There is a strong relationship between multiple diseases (including cancer) and the acidity level of the body. A healthy body, be it for purposes of injury or illness, stays in a primarily alkaline state (e.g. a “positive pH”). It’s a topic that deserves its own article but you cannot take your acid balance seriously enough if you want to feel great and stay injury and disease free.

Quick word on the pancreas and liver

This is something I want to cover in A LOT more detail later, but all the above may make more sense to new readers on the subject if I throw in some information about what poor diet does to your system. Consider that the liver is your “internal cleaner” while your pancreas is one of your main hormone factories as well as being the producer of most of the enzymes that break down your food.

However, what is less often discussed is that these organs have an important role to play in keeping you healthy and fight off all forms of diseases. If these organs are constantly busy breaking downs heavy processed foods or animal proteins or cleaning up the damage done by poor food, they cannot also perform those functions as well (they are like you and me, they only have that much time!).

Are we all sick?

“This seems a bit extreme, I’m perfectly ok, healthier than most,” is a reaction I would expect (I had the same). But then I remembered a memorable comparison made by perhaps the foremost intellectual of our current time: Sam Harris, writer of the “Moral Landscape” (a book that, if made mandatory reading in all schools, might make for a better world).

Harris states that like morality (the main topic of his book) the term “well-being” (substitute health for our purposes) does not have a clear definition. If someone vomits thrice daily we consider them “unhealthy” or “sick” but what if everyone did so? “What about a world,” asks Harris, “where anyone who can’t run a marathon is considered sick?” Is that conceivable? The answer is not as important as to realise that what is considered healthy depends on the standard around you. If everyone runs marathons, and you can’t, then you are likely to be viewed as sick by such a society.

So what if we are all more or less sick, poisoned by our own food habits? Well, then we don’t see it that way, because its not obviously apparent. Yet, compare us to the health status of tribesmen before they were contaminated by a Western lifestyle. Consider that many scientists believe we humans do not live as long as our maturity age suggests we should. Consider the plethora of cardiovascular and cancer diseases we fall afoul to. Consider that instead of fixing the cause, you are given a chemical, a poison, or radiation as a correction. Consider the wide-spread obesity. Consider the afternoon energy slump (it should not happen!). Finally, consider that it is possible, that you, like most people around you, are sick and that eating differently could make you healthy. Consider that the difference between you and a Kenyan may be less genetic and more lifestyle. Then go do something about it.

RACES: National Half-Marathon 2011

2011-09-03T21:12:00.001+01:00

When I did the National 10k in Navan in 2009, I instantly adored it: Great atmosphere, small strong field, colourful club-vests everywhere and that indescribable “championship” feeling that only an official AAI event truly carries off.

The happy “Cru” post-race, arranged in order of height

Imagine my surprise when the announcement that more than 900 runners had signed up for the National Half-Marathon in Waterford. Our small Crusaders contingent of four male runners was dwarfed by multiple teams from Donore, Rathfarnham, Clonliffe, and scores and scores of other clubs from all over Ireland. From all the far corners of the island they had come to compete and looking at the very front, it must have been a long time since such a strong half-marathon field has been assembled on this island.

Confirmed class

By the end, Sean Hehir had convincingly taken his first title in the event with an impressive 65:25 victory over Brian Maher. The wily Sean attacked aggressively on the tough ninth mile and was rewarded. Class-act Alan O’Shea followed in third with “IMRA-man” Barry Minnock fourth in a new PB. This gave Rathfarnham the team victory when another man going to Albania to represent IMRA, Mark Ryan, finished seventh. The leading lady ran a stunning 74-minutes. We should not get carried away, there is still a bit of work to do before 62-minute half-marathons are seen regularly again but the signs of a growing confidence and ability is evident.

Surprise start

When the start went a lot missed the sound (was it a gun? Was it a horn?). For those of us positioned too far down the field (as it proved), the movement of the huge crowd ahead signalled the start. I knew I had the right mindset on the day: First I had forgotten my socks so had to run barefoot in my LunarLites (an incident that means my feet look like someone tortured them with a razor and leaves me with mixed anticipation towards my Epsom salt bath!) but decided to simply shrug it off (the “I could care less, how much could it hurt” attitude). Secondly, I didn’t hurry or surge to get free of the massive crowd that formed all around me.

The last I saw of Amidou was the first mile (which we crossed around 6:12), he steamed ahead a steady effort and did not fade. The first kilometre had gone in 3:56. I felt great, so saw no need to slow down. I considered it around 7km when I had a lengthy conversation with an Eagle AC runner. Barely a minute went by without passing runners and he asked me what I hoped to run “don’t know, 88 minutes would be satisfying today”. “Ok, then you want to slow down NOW, we’re on around 83 pace.” “That’s alright,” I replied, “feel too good to slow down right now, will see later.” Ten kilometres came in 39:34 and I took down a HI5 gel just in case the caffeine would make any difference. I was well-fuelled on a huge dose of Orbana and ProArgi9 and did not feel either dehydrated nor low on sugar.

Familiar faces

I remember passing out a few well-known faces among the ladies who have run in the hills such as Fionnuala Doherty and Lucy Darcy. I knew that with my projection they should actually be faster but when I hit the first noticeable hill at the start of mile 7 and everyone seemed to be slowing down, I just went harder. The hill gave me no problems and since its cheaper to speed up on a descent, I came off hard to take a few more people. Before I knew it nine miles were up and the course turned sharply back away from Tramore and towards Waterford again.

Not everyone just let me pass them out, many put up a great fight which helped me keep momentum and several runners came back. As I always noticed that my breathing seemed disgracefully inaudible compared to the others (any tiredness was purely in the legs, but there was no sign of lactic acid), I always decided to pelt off. This proved particularly helpful when I almost fell asleep on the 14th kilometre (4:11!). When three people formed a wall behind me to seemingly push me on, my pace came down around 3:50min/km and stayed there.

Then came my hero of the day in the shape of a Galtee runner I had passed out a kilometre back. Up on my side he went and there he seemed to stay. Suddenly he was just behind me, then on one side, then on another. He worked very hard and I felt like commending him (but that seemed unsporting on second thought) and I did not want to be too cocky at this stage. With three kilometres to go, he hit the front and for a second I felt a hint of tiredness, would I lose him now?

My mantra of “tall-relaxed-fast” brought me back, rhythm returned and I pulled up on his side and then ahead: For the first time today there was real discomfort but my breathing was still very strong. I had more air than I could use, only my legs could stop me. A few nasty corners almost dropped me behind him but then we pulled ahead of two more runners and as the stadium entrance approached I gambled on a fast turn: It was crucial to hit the inside track first and force them around me.

The Galtee Runner was a man for going all the way, I hit the inside track and increased pace. I could feel his presence just behind me and sprinted towards the finish. Suddenly he was on my side. Would I lose another sprint finish? I have not won any really for years. Then I thought “100m strides”, my centre of gravity lowered and my cadence increased and suddenly I was free. Even better, I could feel another gear emerging but before I could use it I ran out of course and crossed the line in 1:22:48. The last kilometre had been the fastest in 3:42 with a seven second last 50m to hold off “the man who kept me honest”. (We both shook hands for having helped each other well over the line).

The penny drops

I couldn’t believe it, it had been a commandingly controlled performance and I had run within twenty seconds of my previous PB. The Strawberry Half is a minute slow, many say, yet this still warranted celebration. I could not possibly be this fit. My training did not warrant it. But then I realised it: I had eaten myself fit. A return to the cave-man style diet I employed in 2008 and the supplements I used to speed up the repair of my cardiovascular system had fixed several of the issues holding my performances back. Less fit, yet more fit. It sounds like a contradiction but confirms one of the core tenets of our new company ChampionsEverywhere: To be truly fit you must be very healthy first. That is the real foundation for performance, trumping even aerobic fitness.

Could I have broken my best today with a bit more knowledge about my own capability. Undoubtedly, but I focus only on the positive now, I am ready to train well for the cross-country and my half-marathon PB is shivering in the bushes somewhere, that’s for sure.

Da Cru

My compatriots had done extremely well: Amidou ran home first in just over 80 minutes, knocking more than eight minutes off his PB. I went from proud athlete to proud coach within minutes. Then Markus told me he had finished just behind Amidou likewise in 80-something. He knew he could have run faster but with a very heavy marathon week behind him, this was a solid workout. Our fourth man, James, arrived in a new PB of 91 minutes not much later.

“Honorary” Cru Maura Matthews who ran for our Wicklow Way Relay team (but is now Clonliffe) had set a new PB as well in an impressive 88 minutes. Only black mark of the day was Keith Daly’s run which was marred by a late muscle injury to the calf which had him struggle through and cast clouds of doubt on the marathon ahead. This is a pity for anyone who has followed Keith’s systemic strong progress this year. Hopefully a quick fix will still allow him to refocus for a marathon in the very near future and get the results his recent performances warrant.

DIARY: Phoenix Rising

2011-09-03T20:43:00.001+01:00

Why had I chosen to sign up for the National Half-Marathon is something some readers may ponder if they have followed the last seventeen weeks which have largely consisted of a few (or no) runs per week. It was worth it: I finally confirmed why it has all gone so wrong since 2008 and got a surprise in return.

The objectives

I had two goals:

Get a Crusaders team represented in the event
Get a precise measurement of my starting fitness for the cross-country season

Sneakily I recruited Markus Roessel and Amidou Dembele along with our strong M55 runner James Cottle. For Markus, this was early preparation for the Florence Marathon. For Amidou a strength workout ahead of the cross-country season. For James a test ahead of the Dublin Marathon.

My goal: I really had little idea but decided to do a “half-marathon crash-course” consisting of:

Tue: 42-minute 10k
Wed: 90-minute 20k
Thu: ??-minute 5k (cancelled because of my aerosinusitis)
Fri: 10x100m strides, 100m recovery

When I ran my times while staying aerobically and felt a bit of power in the strides, I knew I wasn’t too bad. “Within 5 minutes of my best, will be satisfying (82:28)”, I told the others.

From Strawberry to National Half

Almost two months ago I threw myself at the Strawberry despite a lingering injury. With severely disrupted training, hot weather, and a tough course, I battled my way to 1:26 flat. Not a disgraceful time, but conceding four minutes and feeling altogether terrible, made for an unhappy day.

With immediate healing not around the corner, resuming a curve of improvement seemed a long way away. Winter looked to be a a long uphill battle to return to square one and only then think about improving again.

Then, things looked up: First I completed the Lakeland 50 Mile ultra and my tendons started to heal. Second, I was given a clue to my longer term performance problems when a test revealed I had the arterial flexibility of an eighty-year old man. My legs were driving an ancient car and who know where my health was going?

A cured man

A quick cure of ProArgi9 and a few other supplements along with a complete radical change of diet (no bread, little or no diary, no cheese, minimal meat, more greens), and suddenly all changed. My facial complexion started to change, I started sleeping properly again, my energy-levels rose, I felt more relaxed, and then, amazingly, I went through five days of late night at a festival with no hangover and no tiredness.

During my “crash-course”, I noticed two things: 1) I was not fit in the traditional sense of the word, my breathing was more laboured than in winter (as expected as I have barely run now, and did 100km plus weeks then) and 2) My paces were higher than they should be by a good 10-20secs/km.

Also, my intestinal problems were gone, the air pressure in my chest and the general discomfort of my chest area was not evident. This was the same pressure that prompted me to get checked at the Blackrock Clinic last year. They found nothing amiss.

I felt like a new man, but I have learned that in athletics the trees don’t grow into the sky (at least overnight), so what to expect. Race report to follow…

DIARY: From Festival to National Half

2011-09-02T17:19:00.001+01:00

So much to report from the last few weeks yet so little time with a work trip coming up shortly and the launch of the ChampionsEverywhere.com website in September.

On my annual trip to my homestead of Tonder in the marshlands of South Jutland, I finally found the cure for hangover (I had none despite five days of late nights and festivities at the 37th Tonder Folk and Roots Festival). It involved heavy usage of Orbana and other remedies, and I’ll share the secret with you when I get the time!

With our Volunteer Party only finishing on Monday evening late (to the tunes of the many musicians who had stayed to play for us (such as The Dubliners, Coast, Skerryvore, and “Pokey LaFarge and the South City Three”), I had four days to get fit for the National Half-Marathon. I have no goals for this race except to help Crusaders get a team represented (which we will have). I want a good hard long training run and if I can finish within five minutes of my previous best I would have a reasonable indicator that I can rebuild sufficient fitness for a new assault on my PBs in late autumn.

Aerosinusitis

To enact a “crash-course”, I did a fast 10k on Tuesday followed by a reasonably good 20km on the bumpy trails of Glendalough in roughly 90 minutes. This left me hopeful to do a fast 5k on grass Thursday but my flight home triggered the strange condition of aerosinusitis which is a painful inflammation and bleeding of the frontal sinus (in my case the left) which caused massive headache and slight sight disturbances. I decided to rest it out and the final preparations are now a set of 10x100m strides this evening with some jogging to buffer it. The symptoms are almost gone now and I’m hoping to still feel reasonable well tomorrow.

Supplement review on ChampionsEverywhere

The recent supplement that I am testing has transformed my energy levels and well-being beyond all expectations, in fact, it made me so inspired I have completely changed my eating patterns and habits to maximise the benefits. This is another thing I’ll write about in detail but this product review will be one of the first to appear on www.championseverywhere.com instead of this blog.

If you go visit, please note we still have our old splash page up at the moment as development is now in the finishing stages and we hope to start testing for a mid to late September launch. From the start the website will give our fellow athletes a chance to purchase Orbana and

Lydiard Certification

For the latter we’ll be imparted with some of the best wisdom in the business when Jason and I travel to Boulder to attend the opening Lydiard Coaching Seminar where there’ll be some real notaries present both to learn and to speak. I’ll be posting some details about the course and the attendants on our Facebook page over the weekend.

After Boulder, work takes me to Reno in Nevada for a week and it’ll be an interesting challenge to balance the busy schedule there with the cross-country training as I hope to be back running 100km plus weeks again by that time. This year has been another long and frustrating road, but it has also been the most instructive of all which I remain confident will benefit in the long-term.

DIARY: Tests and Truths

2011-08-22T09:10:00.001+01:00

As part of testing a new product I had a few tests done this week which seem to have helped me come full circle in my quest to understand my recurring lower leg problems particularly around the ankles, posterior tendons and metatarsals.

The test measured various cardiovascular metrics and as expected both my normal blood pressure and my central aortic systolic pressure (CASP – the pressure at the root of the aorta next to your heart) were just on the positive side of average whereas my Radial Augmentation Index came in at 93%. Now while this sounds good, it is actually bad as this figure is 10% worse than the average results for even the 70-80 age group.

Radial Augmentation Index

The RAi is a measurement which has seen a lot of research (try Google it) and it is described in those as “a useful and easily obtainable parameter for vascular aging”, “Raid unmasks premature coronary artery disease in younger males” and generally is an indicator of the stiffness of your arteries.

In addition, the testers looked at my waveform which showed up as extremely erratic rather than the normal “high hill followed by low hill”. There is “flutter on the line” so to speak and the comment was made to me that it is often seen in people with diabetes.

Inflammation

In my case, however, both the RAi and the arterial pulse waveform were likely associated to the light inflammation in my ankles on the day of the test as this causes tension to build up in the arteries.

This lead me to down a route of inquiry which finally seems to confirm what I have suspected for some time about my injury: It is a form of tenosynovitis (usually linked directly to rheumatoid arthritis). Dr. Patrick Leahy and my physio John Murphy already confirmed this in separate tests and what leads me to believe that all my lower leg pains are of that nature is the following:

I got a mild flare-up in the first week of training
Ultra-sound scans clearly showed no tendon damage and sufficient blood-flow to all areas just the week previous

In short: There is nothing wrong with my tendons, the pain comes from an inflammation of the fluid-filled sheath around my tendons (called synoviums). As this form of aggressive over-reaction by the body is a form of auto-immune response, it is likely brought on by sub-optimal diet (and may have been brought up initially by the serious stomach infection I carried for most of 2010, and possibly parts of 2009, which is common in rheumatoid arthritis).

Vascular stiffness

This is not the only cause of the very high RAi figure but explains some of the performance issues I have been seeing in present years such as the inability to push harder due to pressure around my chest despite legs still not being flooded with acid. This has also manifested in a failure to reproduce my previous max HR of 198 in subsequent tests.

My arterial stiffness would simply cause too much pain and discomfort to push into the truly maximal area of heart beats per minute I could exert myself at in 2007 and 2008. Long-time readers will remember I had a barrage of tests done at the Blackrock Clinic last year to find the root cause, but they failed to find any. Interestingly they did not perform any testing for arterial stiffness.

Reliability

I would need to get the test confirmed with a doctor for absolute certainty but the medical device used is certified by AAMI and the European Society for Hypertension and has a reliability over 99.17% compared to the traditional method of inserting a catheter into the aortic root (auch!). To boot, the test was conducted thrice.

As far as I am concerned all the pieces of the puzzle seem to fall together and all point in the same direction: I must address my health first and reverse the premature aging of my cardiovascular system as well remove all food-groups causing the inflammation that sets on after certain levels of rigorous exercise.

Several studies have shown that removing products such as dairy and bread from your diet can completely reverse the symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis and other auto-immune conditions. I confirmed this with myself when I entered the Paleo-Diet ahead of having my best spell of improvement (meteoric in fact) in early 2008. Both injuries and performance-plateau returned or worsened once I returned to a traditional diet.

New product

Back to the purpose of the test: A new product has been brought to market heavily backed by good scientific research which purports to be able to provide all the benefits of the Paleo-Diet, and reverse cardiovascular stiffness. I will be testing this on myself for the next quarter and hope to have more tests done to collect evidence of the efficacy. Health is often seen at the bottom of the fitness pyramid, below even aerobic endurance, and the last day’s experiences brings back to me just why it is the true foundation on which you build your athletic performance.

TRAINING: Cross-Country Starts

2011-08-17T22:56:00.001+01:00

I hosted and participated in a great session this evening, the first of a series of Wednesday cross-country sessions, I’ll be hosting in Marlay Park for the next month and a half (until darkness conspires against us). Jason attended the warmup, being on his rest week as he was, so he can cover for me as I’m away a few Wednesdays in August and September on travels.

I have adapted the Lydiard programs “Progress Calibration Runs” to cross-country, so after a lengthy warm-up and a set of running drills and strides, it was time for the main session: five kilometres of tempo running on a grassy figure of eight. Route consisted of a 200m run-in and then three laps of about a mile.

During cross-country training, Lydiard allowed for a small dose of anaerobic training even during the build-up because athletes needs a reasonable anaerobic capacity much earlier (the Novices starts in early October and the season does not finish for the senior runners until late February and early March). The soft terrain tends to limit the anaerobic stress compared to track workouts, which also makes it a bit easier to allow for this exception without compromising overall fitness.

So a small crowd consisting of Amidou, Kevin, Jeff and myself set off. I felt duty-bound to lead out and give people an idea of the pace. The idea is to not approximate real race intensity at all in the first weeks but to slowly crank up the pace as you get fitter. Trying to be a hero the first time out, leaves you taking more out than in.

Amidou took the lead as expected early enough, broke a gap to our trio and showed why he has been in such fine form of late. I eventually drifted to the back and here it showed why the company can play such a fundamental part in quality training – particularly for cross-country which is all about running against the man and not the clock. I settled into a stubborn strong pace and just focused on keeping the gap to the same level and run a solid time to start off with.

After the long lay-off from quality training, my body had a bit of a shock from Sunday’s long run and by Tuesday, I replaced the scheduled ninety minute run with a short jog and a long core synergistics session at home. It became apparent that my sore throat had weakened me a bit as I really struggled through a session that I’d normally be able to put some serious effort into but by Wednesday morning I felt bright again, the niggles seemed to have settled again, so the grassy run seemed to be on.

Runaway Amidou could relax while he watched the rest of us come in within five seconds or so of each other. Coming weeks will have bigger crowds and each of the following sessions will have a “little twist” to simulate the race conditions in cross-country ever more closely. The first twist: A 200m sprint start before settling into the rhythm. Why is this needed? Go to a cross-country race and find out…

DIARY: Lydiard Coach Certification

2011-08-16T23:03:00.001+01:00

Some exciting news that I have been sitting on for a few weeks while awaiting news on whether I could get my logistics sorted: The Lydiard Coaches Certification is ready to launch together with Master Run Coach and fortune has bestowed the rare honour on me to be among the thirty attendees at the launch seminar invitational.

This will be a jam-packed weekend in Boulder, Colorado, a well-known mecca for running, in early September and my comrade-in-arms Jason Kehoe will travel as well. Lorraine Moller, the New Zealand marathon bronze-winner from Barcelona 1992, runs the event on behalf of the Lydiard Foundation and with Dr. Peter Snell, triple Olympic gold medallist, and Greg McMillan among the special guests, it’s safe to say we will have access to some of the best minds in athletics as well as people who had first-hand experience working with Arthur Lydiard.

We are chuffed to go, needless to say, and eager to return to Ireland and get the Master Run Coach program and the Lydiard training system spread in Ireland under the umbrella of ChampionsEverywhere which will provide our infrastructure to provide the Master Run Coach services once the full website launches in September.

With Orbana Healthy Energy and Master Run Coach, I am convinced we have secured the best energy product on the market alongside the best training system. There’s much more to come and the new website will allow me to post flashier looking articles on a more superior website which should mean easier access to information for everyone who’s been following the blog.

Expect to hear a lot more from here about the trip, “meeting the legends” and our plans when we return.

DIARY: Autumn season begins…

2011-08-15T21:25:00.001+01:00

It has been twelve weeks since I did a run that could be considered as a meaningful training session apart from a few desperate races that I patched myself together for either out of duty (Wicklow Way Relay), restlessness (Strawberry Half-Marathon) and desire (Lakeland 50 Miler).

So in some ways yesterday’s two hour run with Markus Roessel and Aoife, on the Bandon peninsula in Cork, was a bit of a shock to the system. Despite the break, the old hip and feet were a bit battered after that but a cold dip at the sandy Broad Strand.afterwards undid some of the damage. Monday morning followed with a forty minute fartlek where I tried to feel my way in as the body was stiff. My fitness is ok but not as fantastic at it had been in March, yet the deconditioning of the legs is the main barrier to overcome leading into the cross-country season ahead.

I hope to partake and organise several training sessions over winter as this is an essential part of cross-country conditioning. In many ways, cross-country is the purest form of racing – no splits, no PBs, and less selfishness. It’s you and your club singlet, battling it out for every position, fighting against every man to score points for your team.

So, the train leaves the station again hoping to reach the planned destination. Not having a major race to peak for, but just focusing on racing cross-country and picking up valuable strength, tactics and experience at man-to-man racing should be extremely helpful in laying the foundations for a 2012 where I will, to borrow a phrase, “return to an old friend of mine”.

DIARY: Directing Devil’s Glen

2011-08-10T23:44:00.001+01:00

Returning from holidays is never easy and with a trip to Cork coming up to celebrate Shane O’Rourke’s upcoming wedding, there’s been a few loose ends to tie up.

Tonight I did my annual stint of volunteering for the Devil’s Glen route, the only course on the IMRA circuit I can claim credit for coming up with although true laurels should go to the designers of the two walkways in the area: The Seamus Heaney and the Waterfall Walk most of which are taken in in their entirety as part of the 8.5km figure of eight that makes up the race route.

The reception from runners has been extremely positive every year it has been on which is very pleasing because I treat this as “my baby”. From the first few training runs in the valley I knew it had the makings of a good race. It’s scenic and its varied. The initial steep climb is unusually testing for a race such as this and the following fast descent is one of the swiftest on the calendar. You’ve then got a bit of footwork for the interesting zig-zags down to the river Vartry before the vaunted 2km “slog of death” towards the waterfall. The upper path offers good running and fabulous views but both the climb up to it and the very late “sting in the tail” seem to be placed at the most inopportune moments for the competitor. The fast abrupt descent to the finish closes off a route with plenty of surprises.

As usual most comments surrounded the fact that there’s no let-off on a hard but runnable course such as this and people will not believe the 2km at the river are not longer. There were some good battles in the field and some good sprint finishes for the crowds to cheer on.

Jenny McAuley set a new ladies record while Ian McGrath could take his second win and almost the trail league. It was a close call with my fellow Danish-man, Torben Dahl, pushing all the way and only 24 seconds back in the end. His first podium finish. I’m glad I could help a countryman out by directing the proper course for him!

With plenty of traffic on the N11 we were lucky to get all volunteers there in time but there were plenty of experienced hands to help me ensure things went smoothly (thanks all).

This concludes a busy evening after a busy weekend where I had to get seven cross-country programs designed and out to the athletes. There’s a sense of excitement around these parts. For some of us the training for cross-country starts on Sunday and, having a special love for this discipline, I am dying to get started on what will be a testing training program and an even more testing race series from September to December (for me) and over into the new year (for some).

ARTICLE: The Perfect Athletic Day

2011-08-06T22:35:00.001+01:00

The big challenge for us “amateur athletes”, who have to juggle our athletic aspirations against our work-life, while at the same time trying to shut out the noise of the large clock of time ticking against our best years, is how to get the best out of our time.

I have long tried to find a perfect formula for this, primarily because I rate my own talent as being extremely modest. I feel I have a propensity for running but not an extraordinary one. I, like many others, can only succeed through dedicated hard work over a very long time. For us, there will be no easy victories, so how do we swing it when work and other obstacles stop us from training as much as we could otherwise?

The Two Hour Rule

My own personal solution for autumn is one I call “The Two Hour Rule”. It is simple in design: Every morning I get half an hour to wake up and get energy in the system. The next two hours need to be focused on exercise.

Why two hours? Well, one big difference between casual runners and professional athletes is that professionals can fit in more additional quality work around there running such as warmup and cooldown, good stretching, technique drills, conditioning, and cross-training.

But running always has to be first, so by having the “two hour rule”, it means if you are doing a 2 hour run (or more), that’s you done for the day, No further work is needed. But on other days, say you are doing fifty minutes fartlek, you should dutifully spend another seventy minutes stretching, doing yoga, do some speed drills or whatever else you believe will supplement your program best.

Why this extra load, can I recover, you may ask? Well, you would need to be intelligent in the sort of work you add in. Warmups, cooldowns, stretches, yoga and other exercise tend to aid recovery not hamper it. Secondly, I have come to firmly believe that a large problem for our competitiveness in the west is the sedentary life-style that our jobs impose on us. Another challenge, stemming specifically from running, is that it can be hard to do more than 10-12 hours of running even for a seasoned athlete without breaking down. Yet I believe it is desirable to be physically active beyond 10-12 hours.

Beyond the Two Hour Rule

By having the two hour rule, you ensure that you are at least moderately active for two hours per day or 14 hours per week. It doesn’t have to stop there, in a perfect athletic day, I would suggest a further hour of light exercise in the evening adding up to 21 hours of activity per week as a minimum for a healthy human being. The extra hour should generally be spend on supplementary recovery exercise such as stretching, light jogging and similar easy activities, although serious competitors can obviously be more ambitious (and indeed, many triathletes would scoff at this whole notion as they are likely doing well more than 21 hours as it is).

Can this be done? Well, the three hours would be a challenge and if you work day is longer than eight hours, you’ll find yourself pushed into very late hours and in turn your sleep will be compromised, however, under reasonable circumstances you may just be able to pull it off.

Below is an example for a worker, with a one hour commute each way and eight and a half hours of sleep, using this philosophy:

Start	Finish	Activity	Time
07:00	07:30	BREAK	0.5
07:30	08:00	TRAINING	2
08:00	08:30
08:30	09:00
09:00	09:30
09:30	10:00	COMMUTE	1
10:00	10:30	COMMUTE	1
10:30	11:00	WORK	8
11:00	11:30
11:30	12:00
12:00	12:30
12:30	13:00
13:00	13:30
13:30	14:00
14:00	14:30
14:30	15:00
15:00	15:30
15:30	16:00
16:00	16:30
16:30	17:00
17:00	17:30
17:30	18:00
18:00	18:30
18:30	19:00	COMMUTE	1
19:00	19:30	COMMUTE	1
19:30	20:00	TRAINING	1
20:00	20:30	TRAINING	1
20:30	21:00	BREAK	2
21:00	21:30
21:30	22:00
22:00	22:30
22:30	23:00	SLEEP	8.5
23:00	23:30
23:30	00:00
00:00	00:30
00:30	01:00
01:00	01:30
01:30	02:00
02:00	02:30
02:30	03:00
03:00	03:30
03:30	04:00
04:00	04:30
04:30	05:00
05:00	05:30
05:30	06:00
06:00	06:30
06:30	07:00

DIARY: Ultra preparations

2011-08-04T21:21:00.001+01:00

So how does a novice ultra-runner prepare for his first outing? I thought that would make a reasonable topic for this evening’s post. Obviously you may not want to go ahead and duplicate this as this is the methods of someone inexperienced in the particular discipline and for whom plenty of refinement is likely needed but here we go:

Making up for lost time…

First I had to deal with the obvious problem that my last eleven week’s of training had been poor from a running perspective as I could not shake my achilles injury. From 46km to 14km to 27km and then I dropped to zero for four weeks before managing an average of less than twelve kilometres per week for the next four weeks. All in all, 11 weeks and 140km was all my body would take, something that was almost within a week’s work earlier in the year.

So, I assessed what I had done: I increased my strength and flexibility hugely through a rigorous training regime. I had also kept some minimum fitness through a few long hill walks, a bit of race-walking and the conditioning just mentioned. I knew my race-fitness was long gone, but I wouldn’t need it. I would just need to stay on my feet, not get injured, and have my muscles and energy-stores hold out.

Running test

I tested myself up Snowdon, running steady up for 5km with the English Youth Officer, Bashir Hussein, whom I met on my course in England, before jogging downhill for 3.7km. My joints were a bit tender but generally good. So after our Sunday travel day, I gleefully threw myself at three massive days of hill-walking (up to 8 hours on my feet) with severe climbing. I reasoned just getting out there on my feet for three days would do me a world of good. Then I took to easier days before the race.

Shoes!

I still had two problems: I still didn’t know if my body could really run, or merely walk, and second, I still hadn’t a pair of shoes I could wear. The only shoes that I could now wear without pain were the series of light Inov-8s I owned. All seemed to flimsy for the endeavour ahead and because I have had irritation on the peroneal tendon in both feet, I needed something else. The solution surprisingly was Inov-8s recovery sandal – the Recolite 190. I saw it at Pete Bland Sport’s van in Ambleside and just decided to try them on and run around in them. No pain. “Ok, how much, I said,” and went on my merry way. I only had Friday morning to test them so took them out for 2km on grass and then trail. I didn’t feel great, and there were some complaints from the joints, but it was the best I’d felt so far anyway, so I went with it.

Other kit

I hadn’t been quite satisfied with my previous racing bag, a North Face model, as it got too sticky to the back. I tested quite a few in the Lake District before settling on the Salomon X20 because it was 1) light-weight, 2) had nifty side-pockets for easy access, 3) had loads of compartments and 4) felt comfortable and light.

I then bought a few carabiners so I could attach my map-case handily in front of me. My favourite activity during races is to forget that I’m carrying a map and just run in whatever direction feels right, so I hoped that having it slapping in my face with regular intervals would work. It didn’t.

Testing

This was the best part: How many times did I test run my new shoes? Once. How many time did I test my new backpack and my race food? Uh, not at all. What navigational preparation did I do. Well, I read the road-book, a lost cause with my memory except it showed me where the most dangerous place to go wrong was early on. I remembered this and then chose to ignore it during the race anyway. I was diligent with the map and poured over it in great detail but still there was something strange about my preparations. It was as if, instinctively I expected to run for a few kilometres and then have to pull out because of injury anyway. This hung as a bit of a cloud over the enthusiasm of my preparations. What about socks? Well, I bought a pair of new ones and decided to wear them straight away. They did well!

Morale

The morale of the story is that you probably don’t want to copy this approach but that a runner with a bit of stubbornness, some good base-fitness and reasonable equipment will find their way through an ultra.

The thing is, and this is not a regret, but an after-thought: Once I got into the swing of things last Saturday, around 20-30km out, and found myself well up midway to Mardale Head, my focus was only on one thing: Moving further up the field. At this time, I felt like I could achieve a great result. In the end, things didn’t stay quite as lofty, and I was delighted to just finish, but next time I would make a point of being fully trained, fully fit, and fully prepared and hopefully even more competitive.

DIARY: Lakeland 2011–Yewbarrow to Gable 1

2011-08-02T21:29:00.001+01:00

Aoife and I had warmed up for more Bob Graham recces by doing the two Scafells from Wasdale. Once you have been up those fells and then visited the other range, you’ll start to appreciate one essential truth about the Lake District: If you like rocks, the Lakes are the gift that just keeps giving. It is really hard to overstate the amount of rocks you have to scramble up and down here.

As the Bob Graham map states “STRAIGHT UP. There is no easy way out of Wasdale!” This meant that the “Big Day” of walking we had planned for Tuesday would begin with an incredibly steep ascent of Yewbarrow (a fascinating mountain which looks like a boat turned upside down) before we could do a huge ridge circuit on to Red Pike, Scoat Fell, Steeple, Pillar, Kirk Fell and Great Gable. Whenever you plan these routes out and look at the contour lines, the heights of the peaks and the distances in between, you are in a way wasting your imagination.

Nothing you read on a map allows you to do justice to the scale of the Bob Graham Challenge. Simply completing this traverse with Aoife the day after having done the Scafells (the two peaks you’d do previous to these eight peaks), can easily leave you sitting down depressed at the enormity of the task.

Monstrous Yewbarrow

As always, we used our trusty Wainwright books to get started but clues to the best ascent of Yewbarrow were hard to come by. A direct ascent was suggested rather than the longer walk down to the “official path”, a very steep rocky ridge ascent in it’s own way. It looked like there was no way, but I made it harder on us.

We found what looked like the semblance of a trail uphill which quickly ended when we found ourselves trapped behind a rock wall. Climbing this would prove great practice for the ultra later in the week. After this we battled through waves of scree-field and ferns. While we wanted to avoid the crags, somehow they drew us in as the only real target. This could have proved quite dangerous as we were crawling up severely moving rocks on a horrendous incline. I believed that I saw a gap between the crags and, luckily, I was proven right. This was pure fortune as I had accidentally led us through a gully known by Wainwright as “The Great Door”. Around it only steep crags rose blocking all access to the summit.

As the risk of rockslide was great in the gully, I let Aoife crawl up ahead and she took the below picture as our travails ended on the soft grass.

Yewbarrow stands as a curiosity this way: It’s flanks are harder to take than a fortress but the summit ridge is friendly and inviting. I must have a talk with Simon Fairmaner about a better ascent route, as you can see from the below graphic you would struggle to find a steeper way anywhere:

Spirits were low at this point and it is an understatement to say Aoife was displeased with me. Indeed, it had been a pointless waste of an hour to scale this one mile of grass and rocks. Luckily we came off the summit well following the shortcut that leads you around the desperate drops on Stirrup Crag (the most natural descent route) which is not a great choice for those who don’t like bum-sliding off steep rock-faces. We didn’t but the advice was sound and we landed on the grassy plateau below Red Pike. Just one peak had been conquered, yet so much time wasted, we decided to push on and see how we would go as the route allowed for plenty of “early exits” to Wasdale should we tire or otherwise feel the need to retire from the hills…

Part 2: Red Pike and beyond…

ARTICLE: Ultra-learnings

2011-08-01T16:31:00.001+01:00

Posted from the Jonathan Swift, sailing across the Irish Sea…

As a postscript to my race report on the Lakeland 50 Miler, here’s a few things I learned during the race. There are almost too many to list but let me try with the one’s that spring to mind: First of all, it’s almost impossible to go out too slow but I know I would enjoy these events even more if I could complete them quicker and run greater parts of the distance. So to resume ultra-running later, I would need to really train hard for the specific requirements of the sport. On the positive side, basic fitness won over the years, made itself known through the event.

Long-distance walks

On the topic of training, the long-distance walks over very hard fells on Mon-Wed were good preparatory training for the event and shouldn’t be underestimated as a training tool for mountain runners, especially of the long-distance variety. I’ll devote an article to this subject at a later stage.

Food and drink

Hearty Lakeland food and one of the extremely tasty local ales every night the preceding week didn’t dent my prospects either. Neither did the full English I had in the morning with my cream/honey porridge starter!

On the run, as it showed, I cannot tolerate anything but fluid or semi-fluid food during such events (perhaps the sweltering heat played in, once the breeze hit and the sun receded, everything got easier) so I can forget about cakes, bars etc.

The caffeine in the HI5 bars weren’t a problem, but they did mean I ignored any tea and coffee offerings until the last checkpoint so as not to “over-caffeinate”. My mind was surprisingly clear throughout, which must imply a solid food intake. The Orbana probably played a crucial part because the vitamin/mineral content is so high; if it can cure my headaches on a normal day, its reasonable to assume the same ingredients can help keep the head clear during a long event in hot weather. The deterioration of taste and smell wasn’t pleasant (although I largely just ignored it, knowing the content was still good) but I fixed this by mixing in diarolyte after the Mardale checkpoint. This had the added benefit of increasing the thickness of salts versus fluid (osmolality), important in combatting hyponatremia (low blood salts) which the organiser’s warned were more dangerous than dehydration ahead of the race. I agree.

Footwear – sandal man

Footwear choice is completely individual, my tendon problems meant I couldn’t wear a shoe with a proper heel. Recent barefoot activity has meant a very strong foot, and skin so tough and callus free that I had no blister problems at all. On the flipside, my metatarsals were irritated in recent weeks so I needed some sort of sole to protect them from the rocks. To some of my co-competitor’s surprise, the solution to this problem was to purchase the Inov-8 Recolite 190 sandal from Pete Bland at the Ambleside Sports and run the race in that!

As an added bonus, whenever I went over on my ankle, only the sole went, because the sides of the sandal are lose, my foot simply slid down on the ground as the footwear tumbled over. The Recolite has reasonable grip, a very sturdy sole, and is low and flat to the ground. I’d run another ultra in it happily.

Barefooting?

Barefoot walking/running gave me several benefits for the ultra: Stronger skin on the foot (meaning no blisters) and no calluses left (these wear down naturally when walking around barefooted) for shoes to pinch and squeeze. Hot feet is the price to pay and I splashed most puddles to keep the temperature in my feet down and can’t imagine how warm they would have been in shoes.

Effects of terrain

On terrain: It’s hard to enjoy any sort of challenging terrain once you lose the more advanced motor functions. On the plus side you learn how to safely shuffle over most stuff, but it’s no fun to spend so much time running through scree-filled gullies and wet marshland in that way.

Several times, I find myself missing the Wicklow Way. Ultra-running forces you to come face to face with your inefficiencies, at least, which you should be able to transfer to normal distance running. Walking up with wide steps, for instance, is simply too wasteful. Running on your toes is largely also not done, as you can’t afford to lose good use of your calves with long distances to go. Walking hands on knees would kill the quads and back too early in the event. Early in the event I barely used my arms going uphill. Later in the event, I swung them madly to generate some kind of forward motion from the ever deadening legs.

Muscles

It is also amazing, and just as individual, were the main muscle soreness seems to occur post-race. Many runners had banged up quadriceps, hamstrings and knees. The masseur expected the same from me afterwards, but my soreness and cramping sat in the glutes, hip flexors, feet and calves. Carrying the bag for the whole day has left some very tense shoulders, and strangely, a very sore rib cage.

The most peculiar pain was in the backside of the shoulder blade. Once I tried to grab behind me for my passport in the car, the cause became immediately obvious, this was a pain from twisting my arm backwards to pull the water bottle out of the side-pouches of the backpack!

I believe my recent regiment of yoga, dynamic weights, core work, and synergistic work helped my legs stay in the game longer than they normally would. Muscular fatigue tends to be my weakness and usually occur before cardiovascular failure. In the ultra, I never really ran out of fuel and while the pulse got a bit more stressed at certain stages of the late climbs, in general my heart and lungs were working away happily. Fast downhill running, particularly on the very rocky terrain, became impossible after 30km, the relevant muscles were simply gone. Uphill running ceased being effective except for very short sections after Ambleside (the 55km point) as the power wasn’t there to move faster than power-walking allowed.

Heat

If it is the effects of a full day in the sun or something else, I don’t know, but I have been roasting and feeling like a radiator since the race. I wouldn’t have wished for a wet and miserable day, but when the last ray of sun disappeared purple behind the hills, our group breathed a sigh of relief. The rays had pounded us as much as the mountain passes.

Aid stations

I and my fellow competitors all seemed entirely in love with the checkpoint aid stations were I generally devoured salted soup, cups of coke, and water. The advanced Kentmere station had freshly made smoothies and lovely rice-pudding with marmalade. Joined with a shady refuge from the sun, a habit started of reasonably sizeable breaks here which is probably a place I could save some time in future events. At the late stop in Tilberthwaite, the marquee provided a beacon in the darkness from which our large group decided to depart in unison for the final pass. What’s the right strategy for aid stations, I’m not sure. You probably need to set a maximum time you can spend over the course of an event but also need to be flexible in allowing them to help you recover from crisis periods.

When I hit Mardale, I needed the extra minutes to stave off the early dehydration symptoms and get a fresh impetus for a renewed charge. A quick turn-around here would probably have finished me off.

Strategy

Don’t get lost would loom high on the list of winning tactics for me, but the key is to keep going at your own pace even if you have companions. I let my two travel companions from Ambleside catch up with me by walking a flat section after Chapel Stile as I reasoned they would be the best group to traverse the last two passes with.

While I think this assumption would have been proved correct, I should have run on ahead while I had the legs and let them catch up with me on the climb when I suffered my worst physical crisis of the day. By waiting, we arrived at the hill together and I was simply dropped. This isolated me from everyone else at one of the trickiest section and by the time I recovered precious time and energy had been wasted and more mistakes followed.

I noticed throughout the rest of the day that walking the uphills, shuffling down the technical descents and jogging the flats provided me the best rhythm and it would be important to maintain that rhythm throughout. That said, I ran most parts of the uphills (if easily) for the first 30km, which may or may not have been a mistake. My position of 23rd at this stage implies a fast start, but I was running well within myself at this stage, and my tactic was to get away from the bulk of the field to enjoy more unimpeded progress and less distractions to navigation.

100 miles?

Finally, words fail to describe the challenge undertaken by the 100 milers now that I have done half the distance, and the patient pacing of most of them is something to behold. As I said to one: “If I had known at 40km that I was only a quarter through, it would have broken my heart.” “It broke mine,” she said.

RACES: Lakeland 50 Miler–Part 2

2011-07-31T16:15:00.001+01:00

I had the gift of familiarity with the tarmac path leading out of Ambleside as Aoife and I walked it often while BnBing in Rydal last year. The man in the red singlet and I had now joined up with a strong group, moving well over the short climb coming out of town. So strong that by the short time we hit Skelwith Bridge, only three of us were left. As a blessing one had a GPS which allowed two of us to switch off for a while and just follow. This perhaps proved precarious later.

Chapel Stile

We joined with the Cumbria Way now, the type of terrain I had been expecting to run for most of the day, fairly flat path through a gorgeous meadow with the pink fading light of the day emanating from the fells ahead of us. I began to set the pace as we put together one of our longest consecutive spells of running now yet with only three miles to the next village, and checkpoint, Chapel Stile, time dragged now. At 60km, for the first time, one of my niggles came to the surface when the irritation in my right first metatarsal made that foot very difficult to drag along for a while. Secondly, my right calf had been a in a state of semi-cramp since Ambleside.

After stopping in Chapel Stile for some more soup and a quick sit-down (and egging on by a pair of nice old ladies to “come back for the 100 next year”), I told my two travel companions that I’d walk up ahead a bit to ease the body back into it as they’d be sure to catch up soon. It dawned on my now that a final surge seemed unlikely and my climbing legs were largely gone.

We joined up again making our way through a large campsite. Our GPS navigator explained that the next section to Tilberthwaite would be a killer with a long contouring section around Lingmoor Fell and a very steep climb to Blea Tarn before another bout of fell-contouring. Only there, he said, could you really be sure to finish.

Things take a turn for the worse

“Don’t lose him before the two last fells, whatever you do,” I had promised myself about our GPS navigator. Having him there would nullify the disadvantage of having to cross two more sections of open fell at night-time. Sadly, my earlier resurgence came with a cost and I eventually lost contact at a crucial time.

Failing to switch my head back on in time, I first found myself drawn too far off the fell-side track and all the way down to main Langdale Road. The setting here was bizarre: A female singer and guitarist sounded out the whole valley from the New Dungeon Ghyll hotel which lit up the dark night lighthouse and I remember hearing at least seven songs as I bumbled about losing another good kilometre getting lost. Head torches on the fell-side snapped me out of it but even my correction proved wrong as I wondered into a farmer’s field, closed to all sides by a tall stone wall. My light drew in another competitor and together we scaled over the wall to get the quickest way back to the mountain path. Some soft going followed until we could start the climb. Here again, I fell behind my new friend, and my poorest climb of the day followed. I stumbled around and could barely move properly against the punishing incline.

Hitting some tarmac, I got distracted by a man in a jeep and oriented myself two squares too far south on the map. This led me to run down the tarmac road and I lost about a mile once I realised I had gone wrong and could see more ghostly lights. They looked depressingly far away but I didn’t dare take a shortcut and strangely found a second wind, determined to work myself back to where I had left off. Sensing my predicament two friendly competitors emerged with an offer to follow them for a while. Three became many as we joined with more and more groups trying to make their way across often sloppy and indistinct paths.

When Tilberthwaite finally became apparently, I started to run again. No checkpoint had felt this far away and as elusive. It just went on and on and I was lucky to snap out of my increasing depression of losing further ground between here and home by my mistakes. Luckier to have made no worse mistakes.

The checkpoint itself was Spartan in food yet the most spectacular with a torch at the foot of the last climb of the day and a set of blue lights leading you up the first parts. Any remaining competitiveness had long been exorcised from the majority of competitors here. Our group, now up to ten strong, dutifully waited until everyone felt set to proceed and our guide led the way. I tugged in behind him, positively surprised to be climbing as fast as everyone else now and even able to get up on my toes without the expected cramping although I employed this sparingly. I felt I learned a whole new rule-book of energy-efficient movement patterns and rarely took my hands to my knees going up (if at all) because I knew this would bring the quadriceps and hamstring into play rather than the stronger glutes.

Lost in the marshes

Throughout the day, competitors warned me about the final section: On paper it is only 5km but the first 3km is a dreary uphill drag with a section through marshland followed by a very messy descent on what is practically scree before you can enjoy an easy tarmac finish into Coniston’s dark streets.

Our guide led us to a major waypoint at the marshes prime river but from here on our now huge group were swallowed up by the marshes by a simple error despite a team with local knowledge, plentiful maps and road-books, basic Garmin GPS and my basic heading readings from the 310XT. One small error led to more and we wandered the best part of half an hour through thick wet grass in the dark. You could say I have a history of navigational errors, and when not, hooking up with poor navigators, but I was lucky to be with this group as I was out of my depth doing night navigation in a marshland on open fell-side.

Eventually we dug out the long-hidden path and could start thinking off moving towards the finish again. We’d lost another bit of ground here and I would end up running close to 85km on the day rather than the expected 80km.

Once the rocky descent started, my patience stretched to its limits. Both I and many others could be heard stumbling clumsily against rocks and one 100 mile competitors astounded us by pelting past our merry band of 50 milers as if he carried the lesser load in his legs. Certainly he carried the greater skill. Seeing the Garmin split flash “Lap 83” was both bizarre and a depressing reminder that I could have had my feet up by now!

Finally, finally, it relented and the path turned from scree to mainly rocky. I started running. I wanted to go home now. So I ran some more and kept hoping to see the beginning of the tarmac road into Coniston. When it came, I ran harder and passed out two runners. My breathing almost felt anaerobic now but I kept shuffling, even the short uphill over the bridge and then past the petrol station and down to the left. Applause started to lift from the dark streets were family and supporters had been patiently waiting with the scores of volunteers all day (and would be throughout the night).

Finish line: And one final dip of the dipper. A man practically escorts you from here to the main hall were all finished competitors hang out and eat, as you walk in you are met with rapturous applause from people that started out as competitors but settle in your mind merely as a brotherhood during the traverse. It’s an emotional moment, but instead of the expected jubilation and emotional outburst, what I felt walking those steps could more be described as a quiet, contented pride.

Results

Some quick stats: 471 set out on the Lakeland 50 Mile and I finished 79th having been 23rd at Howtown, then dropping to 40th because of my first detour by Mardale. I held this position, losing a few, dropping a few until Kentmere. I was 46th by Ambleside and feeling strong which helped me to 44th by Chapel Stile. Taking our time and increasing tiredness dropped me quickly and the navigational errors on top meant I reached Tilberthwaite in 63rd after a desperate 2:37 split for the 12km.

Our long wanderings of the marshes lost me another 16 spots despite me passing out a good few runners in the end. Verdict: Without errors I would have probably have nailed a top-50 but I’m pleased with the result.

Ultra-pride

The last long while was not an athletic contest in the way I know and recognise it, but that did not detract, it merely gave birth to a different sense of achievement. To keep saying yes, when everything, and perhaps the majority of people, would say no, gives you a lot. To learn entire new horizons of fatigue, which should, if the mind and body does not forget as easily as it is want, redefine what leaving a training run tired should feel like, is an experience you cannot put a price on. To have left the 2011 season, which seemed gone into the dregs by injury, with something as tangible as completing a very hard ultra-run and join the ranks of those who call themselves ultra-runners, if only as a novice, provides reward for all the winter training.

But neither of these reasons were the root of the greatest satisfaction: It was much simpler – to do something you have set out to do. To say you’ll do something and then not quit on it. I think that is a character trait most of us would like to associate to ourselves. I know I do. I left yesterday evening with a greater sense that I will do what I set out to do, even when seems very difficult at the time and when many obstacles, most unexpected, are put in my way. When I sat down and gorged myself on lasagne, apple-crumble (with jugs of cream) and luscious tea, it was this quiet satisfaction that loomed around the entire room as more and more competitors were clapped in by the crowds. This was the extent of it, as Aoife said to me, surprised: “It seems to attract a different type, there’s less fuzzing by supporters and finishers than those completing the mini-marathon. People think the marathon is such a big thing, and then there’s all sorts out here, quietly doing something like this.”

Before I could relax with my post-midnight meal, however, I had to walk in for the obligatory weighing. The scales showed I had lost 3 kilos which the volunteer deemed to be “pretty good”. I agree but have a feeling it will return! I took advantage of a light massage after although little did it help as I almost didn’t sleep a wink. Small cramps and electric charges pulsated through feet, calves, and hips the entire night no matter what position I tried to adopt. Still today, I am surprisingly fresh and clear-minded (by my own standards), so I await the inevitable dip in energy levels.

My walking is comical to say the least, I struggle even with the simplest of movements such as standing up and stepping out of bed. I have to pull myself up stairs by the side-railings and Aoife supports my going up inclines. While normally I wouldn’t post this language on the blog, I think my colleague Marco will be satisfied when he sees me next week for he predicted that I’d be walking like I had “been gang-raped by bears”. (I think the bears come into it because of the mountainous terrain).

A few ice-cold baths have sorted me out somewhat so we’ll see how the body fields after two weeks of rest now before the autumn season.

Next up ultra-learning…

RACES: Lakeland 50 Miler

2011-07-31T16:12:00.001+01:00

“Did you do the 50 or the 100?” I was asked by the friendly volunteer in Coniston, the HQ of the Montane Lakeland 50/100 Mile Challenge. "I just did the 50,” I replied. “There’s no just in that,” he said, knowingly. As I learned yesterday, over the course of more than thirteen hours, fifty miles (80.5km) is a long way to go, no matter what you compare it against. When it involves 3000m of climb over five mountain passes, treacherous terrain at every twist and turn, and navigation at night-time, it is longer.

Expectations

I am not sure what possessed me to believe that the Lakeland 50 would be in any way comparable to the Wicklow Way. Paul Tierney, who did us all proud with a joint third-place finish in the 100 miles, will be sure to agree. Apart from patches of good grass and tarmac, endless rocky ascents and descents featured strongest on the journey, and the final twist in the tail was particularly cruel: A marshy wet traverse in the dark over the Yewdale fells back into Coniston by an old miner’s road in worse condition than the traditional descent into the Glendalough miner’s village.

Nowhere on route did you catch even a glimpse of a fire-road and, apart from the early grassy path from the starting point in the Dalemain Estate in the Northern Lake District, continuous runnable paths that one may be tempted to term “lovely” stood out as a sore thumb, notably the relaxing picturesque pebble-trail along the Great Langdale Beck to the Chapel Stile checkpoint late on.

Meeting Joss

The organiser’s must be commended for really putting out all the stops for this event which was run as smoothly as a military operation (well most) by a huge volunteer/marshal brigade who just could not do enough for us at the various checkpoints en-route. I was glad to retain my civility and courtesy throughout as these people really deserved it.

John Ruskin School in Coniston had been turned into an Ultra-Running HQ with stations for everything from comprehensive kit checks to post-race weigh-ins with a booming ultra-tenting village cropped up next to it. Smartly, the organisers had ensured that the pre-race briefing on Saturday morning featured a certain Joss Naylor, almost assuring dutiful attendance.

While my chances of an interview were probably ruined when Aoife almost knocked the old fell-giant over by accident (he was unimpressed allegedly), I took plenty from seeing him in the flesh. The old shepherd cuts an impressive figure, towering above most everyone else despite a slight hunch in his back. His skin is still dark and leathery, despite having given up the farm, and he carries an aura of raw strength that would be the envy of any 74-year-old.

As our Wasdale landlord had told us earlier in the week: “aye, he’s a good lad Joss”. Clarity of mind and purpose was still there to see even if we couldn’t understand most of the talk. I did understand one line that stuck: “Today you're the luckiest people in the world, because you can be out in these fells on a day likes this.”

Out of Dalemain

What he referred to, apart from his beloved fells, was the almost freakish heat-wave lingering over the Lakelands this last week. This heat almost exacted a heavy price, however, as both the Lakeland 100 competitors suffered in the warm day and night Friday before we joined in (belatedly) at High Noon Saturday.

Again my expectations were disappointed when the expected 4 mile stroll around lovely estate tracks turned into hard toil through heavy grass, practically starting up a climb that would be the prize-possession of any proper cross-country course. Aoife, allowed to join me for this section, admitted this nearly killed her. Luckily, I felt somewhat better, the first few miles were hard on the calves, especially as I was caught behind hundreds of other competitors and with a strong urge to free myself from the masses had made a point of working myself further up front. The most runnable section was early on and I wanted to be able to take advantage of my strengths.

Leaving Dalemain behind, the underfoot improved as we produced fine splits on a gentle grassy path swiftly followed with some reasonable tarmac. Any hint of a steep climb and I employed the “walk early, walk often” routine oft trumpeted by experienced ultra-runners.

Howtown

After the initial 6km in Dalemain, the next twelve came closest to the traditional racing I would be use to and recognise. The first modest climb quickly behind us, we had fast flats and descents on a trail contouring below Arthur’s Pike and Bonscale fell towards the first checkpoint at Howtown. I just let myself float the descents here but it felt like racing as I passed out many runners who in turn were often moving at fair pace. Hitting the checkpoint, the average pace was over 10kph or a eight hour finish. Yet, despite analysis, I did not truly appreciate what lay ahead.

The First Pass

One thing I did know: The next leg looked on paper to be the hardest (it wasn’t) with the greatest ascent as you follow a trail up through a re-entrant to the highest point on both the 50 and 100 miler: Kesgill Head at about 650m just below the peak of Wether Hill.

I climbed extremely well at this stage, gaining very serious ground and eventually hooking up with a strong local man, whom I learned was the owner of www.athletesinaction.co.uk . He did admit to have gone wrong coming off this pass where you have to leave the main track behind for a short bit to join up with another track running along the Haweswater to the next checkpoint at Mardale Head.

A bit too pleased with ourselves perhaps, thinking us in the top-30 at this point, and spurred on by a fast grassy descent, we went wrong again, overshooting the descent point and once we realised our mistake we decided to take the straight route down through the ferns. This proved a bit of a nightmare with slope, thistles, rocks, and nettles making for an altogether forgettable experience (and a lot of itching on my legs today). With 29km past, my leg got caught awkwardly in the rocky gully and I yelped as a bad cramp shot up through my left leg. I managed to trot it out and while I had serious worries of an early pull-out in the middle of nowhere, that particular calf didn’t complain again for the remainder of the event.

We had bigger worries: Our little detour had put us on the path a good 800m too far north and by the time we recouped the disadvantage we had plummeted through the field. Morale sagged as much as the levels in my water bottle. The sun burned ferociously and as I started to constantly stumble against rocks I knew that my salts were running low. I hit the first mental and physical dip of the day now, and just tried to focus on getting to Mardale Head, get food and refreshments and hopefully regroup myself.

With my recent nine weeks of injury problems and limited training, part of my felt I could be proud if I could just make it to the 54km point in Ambleside where Aoife would be. Once I had filled myself with salt-tanked tomato soup, two glasses of coke, and thickened my Orbana mixture with Diarolyte for heavier salt content (something I interestingly found preserved the flavour longer!), defeatist notions quickly perished and I joined up with a team of three Londoners for the long slog up to Gatescarth Pass. My earlier companion had moved on, I assume, to bigger and better things.

Kentmere delights

Most of the banter at this stage surrounded the Kentmere checkpoints, the best on route allegedly, with plenty of food, masseurs, shade and chairs! The combination of sun and eating meant I struggled with stomach cramps for the next two descents, having to resort to nose-breathing and trying to minimise my “bumpiness”. In either case, progress was measured with 511m climbing to do up rocky zig-zags before a long and testing descent on terrain reminiscent of the upper parts of Snowdon. We passed a Landrover parked alone in the middle of nowhere as the path improved which didn’t stop me asking: “Who’s got the keys?”

Apart from the car, the most dangerous encounter came from a sheep deciding to stand its ground and rake it’s hoofs at me. Reckoning that a head-butt to the hips from an upset yew would dampen my finishing chances, I stopped eyeballing the sheep and discreetly veered further away on the path. Clearly our local friend had had enough runners disturb it, turning even this docile animal into an aggressive threat.

My London compatriots left me for dead here before I returned the favour to a few other fellow travellers and after what felt like an awful long time, I arrived in Kentmere to be greeted by smiles, home-made smoothies, juice, and rice-pudding with jam. The real food proved a blessing as all the bars I had bought turned out to be dead-weight. I opened three different bars but with no saliva to speak off, I needed take only one bite before realising I had no choice than to return the unfinished bar to the ever stickier side-pockets of my backpack.

Apart from the Orbana drink, HI5 energy gels and a few salted cashew nuts were the only pieces of my pre-purchased foods that I could stomach and I relied increasingly on getting proper food at each checkpoint.

Ambleside

To my mind, Ambleside had been turned into the promised land. Get here and I had achieved my first major objective. Being 55km through and the largest town on the course, it seemed the place where you would know whether you’d make it or not. Little did I know that, in fact, it represented no such thing. It would have been the easiest place to drop-out but with easy roads leading out, only the most despairing would likely use this option.

To get there required me and my new co-traveller, a nameless runner in a red singlet with one (road) 50 miler to his name (in nine hours five minutes) pass over Garburn Pass. Officially the worst climbing was over. In reality, there was no easy climbing left.

Coming off the pass, a group of eight of us, including a man clad in Union Jack gear, showcased the art of effective descent-shuffling over rocky (!) path to gain some ground. Arriving on the final open fells in 8 to 9 hours still seemed a very real possibility and with it the advantage of not having to navigate the section by torchlight.

Myself and the runner in red were left behind by the group late on this descent (I should say that throughout the event, we found ourselves passing the brave 100 milers, easily spotted with their yellow numbers, as they patiently moving along their way) but paired up for the road section, fancying a chat navigated Robin Lane with great efficiency. More disappointment followed when parts of the expected easy run-in to Ambleside offered more concentration-sapping rocks.

As we entered the streets, all ills were forgotten for a while as we received a rapturous reception from the crowds in the street and another royal treatment in the Lake Runner’s Shop. I shuffled along well through the streets at this stage and Aoife cheered me on for a brief spell as we made our way further West. “The hardships are over,” I thought, “I’ll make it now, easy going from now on”.

Part 2 to follow…

DIARY: The Lakeland Summary

2011-07-29T14:37:00.001+01:00

There will be a lot to catch everyone up on when I return from England next week (hopefully having awakened happy after the post-Ultra coma). We have certainly had a productive week, following our “double Scafell ascent” walk on the first day with a “monster day” over eight Bob Graham peaks culminating in that gorgeous giant Great Gable (899m).

We moved then from Wasdale to Patterdale (without me getting a change to sample the local “W’asdale”) and got to work on more unfinished business as we set off for a long, at times tricky, scramble to Helvellyn (950m). Last here we had to abort because of horrendous conditions on the ridge but only midges and Striding Edge stood in our way and in good form we added in one of those “perfect mountains” Catstycam on the way home.

Thursday saw Aoife take another turn at the Fairfield Horseshoe as we again attended the sports fair that has survived modern times the best: Ambleside. She “slipped” from 2nd to 3rd compared to last year but mainly because of poor route choice from the legs and (I suspect) “Snowdon-legs” as she climbed well.

Well, lots of mountains in our legs (Aoife added in Latrigg while I sat here sipping chocolate-flake tea!) the lovely easy green hulk over Keswick often known as the little-brother of mighty Skiddaw (the Lake Districts fourth highest) which so impressed us when we ascended it in 2009.

DIARY: Scafell Pike–take three..

2011-07-25T19:47:00.001+01:00

With Robbie Simpson, last year’s years Snowdon winner and this year’s third man home, having explained that his training had been somewhat impaired by his stay in Ireland recently as there were “no mountains” to train on (he didn’t swing by Kerry, we assume), Aoife and I fittingly started our journey on “real” mountains.

What constitutes a real mountain anyway? Well, we went with Alfred Wainwright’s assertion that the difference depends on appearance and not altitude with grass predominating on hills and rocks on mountains. Whilst this bodes poorly for reclassification of our own Wicklow Mountains, it means that the day’s first destination – Scafell Pike, the Roof of England, can be called a mountain in every sense of the word.

Twice this Bob Graham peak had eluded me: In 2009 (injury) and 2010 (navigational error) so by taking up residence in Wasdale we had almost assured a perfect ascent. The sparkling sunshine would surely do the rest.

Tourist Path

We chose to ignore Wainwright and head the simplest route up to Scafell Pike (977m) via Brown Close. Apparently this is not as dramatic as veering more right straight on to the Mickledore Ridge and ascending from the West but I wanted to resume our journey from the East were it had last been derailed so I could follow my expected clockwise direction for my future BG attempt.

While perhaps less spectacular, this route is perfect for hill runners; a tricky rocky path for sure, but easy to follow and with manageable ascent grades almost the entire way. Any creeping boredom could be averted with a quick glance on Great Gable (899m) which probably never looks better than on a perfect day such as this. We’ll be heading there tomorrow.

Scafell Pike

As we neared the flattish summit made up of uncountable rocks you quickly realise you’re in the presence of England’s highest mountain as even the early hour, and our reasonably good pace (ensuring we pass out most hiking groups we meet), did not result in a lonely summit. You can see the crowds from miles away.

Perhaps because of this we didn’t linger long. Main thing, we had taken the summit in this third excursion and had a perfect day to find the trail off to Mickledore. To allow Aoife some rest for her legs after Snowdon and myself to ease into the week ahead of the Lakeland 50 Miler, we had scheduled just one more peak today: Scafell (964m) standing majestic over Wasdale just across the narrow ridge of Mickledore. It’s here that Richard Askwith was frustrated by the dangerous Broadstand climb (the direct route to the summit).

Like he, I don’t like the idea of climbing a rock-face that kills about five people per year, so my plan was instead to scree-surf downwards for about 200m and use the detour over Foxes Tarn. This time, we did not end up in god-forsaken bogland because I mistook the ridge, but found the route perfectly the first time. I can see why BG have qualms about this detour, however, getting down the scree sucks away precious time and the climb up through the gully is virtually that – a climb on hands and knees requiring concentration, something that may be in short supply after fifteen hours on the go.

Scafell

Rocks, rocks and endless rocks is what our Inov-8s had to content with. Thankfully the little light 190s offer great control if you watch your feet. Twice I almost kicked large pebbles onto my feet only for them to only glace me.

Overall, it had been easy going, though, at this pace, but we still relaxed at Scafell summit. It’s an impressive peak in it’s own right and a good bit of work to get off Scafell Pike and back onto it. If anyone thinks they are basically “two for one”, think again. The direct descent into Wasdale would be rough on the quads running and there’s plenty more scree-surfing before you can relax a bit more on steep grassy slopes. Afterwards, at the Wasdale Inn, a sampled the local Yewbarrow Dark, an amazing dark ale, which I felt was an appropriate warm-up for our attempt on the mountain of the same name tomorrow.

The stats

3:42:54 for 12.2km and 1167m climb. Technically, the route would rate as significantly more technical than any Irish mountain race. Only Croagh Patrick has similar terrain, but not for the same length of time. A good day’s power hiking which hopefully sets us up for tomorrow’s monster day with the following menu: Yewbarrow, Red Pike, Scoat Fell, Steeple, Pillar, Kirk Fell and Great Gable (Green Gable if we’re feeling frisky). Then it’ll be time to say farewell to Wasdale and head back to the more central Lakeland.

DIARY: From Snowdon to Lakeland

2011-07-25T08:45:00.001+01:00

To my great surprise, the Lakeland farm that constitutes our BnB in the far Western Lake District lies well clear of the intimidating horseshoe of cliffs around Wasdale, yet is within a few miles, and has high-speed internet. Not all places we stay may have this facility to allow me to share our journey, but for the two days we are are here, let me take advantage:

We left the successful Snowdon team behind us yesterday and despite the bad news that Emma Donlon has indeed broken two toes (joining one of the top Welshmen on the fracture list, he broke his ankle on the ascent!), I predict most people are still buzzing after the trip. I will attempt to get descent times up later. (with only three hospitalisations, the race organisers considered it “a good day”. We agree).

Nether Wasdale

After dining on steak and ale pie accompanied by the local “Red Scree” beer (a fell runners beverage if ever there was one), Aoife and I headed to the mouth of Wasdale and parked at the estuary at the mouth of Greendale. The silent Wastwater, England’s deepest lakes, was a glory to behold especially with the pure drops of Whin Rigg and Illgill Head towering behind. A small trail is meant to run at the foot of these fells but from our vantage point water seemed to join sheer cliff with no place for man to walk or wander.

Our main objective for today’s excursion, the Scafell Massiff, was hidden from view by the slopes of Lingmell but we could see Yewbarrow clearly on our left. Bob Grahamers say that there is no easy way out of Wasdale and you can see why – Yewbarrow (628m), one of the nominated peaks, has no easy flanks and should be a real test on our second day. Straight ahead of us, like a perfect pyramid bathed in sunshine, we could see another main objective for the next two days – Great Gable (899m).

Let the adventure begin…

DIARY: Lakeland Holidays!

2011-07-22T09:15:00.001+01:00

The blog will be quiet for a while which is a pity for I have a lot to write about including the very interesting myoreflex therapy I got in Greystones yesterday – a new strain of physiotherapy first researched and developed in Germany 20 years ago. I’ll write more about the clinic owner Hagen and the technique upon my return.

Also, there are more books to review such as the three barefoot books and the newest two gems in my collection, fresh in from New Zealand yesterday: “No Drums, no Bugles”, Snell’s 1965 biography, and “Run for Your Life – Jogging with Lydiard”, another original that birthed the jogging movement in the world.

But, of course, this weekend is all about Snowdon and I am taking the Irish team over later today for what will hopefully be a successful joust in one of the best fields in years. Then we look onwards to my own challenge – the Lakeland 50 Miler a week later.

Anyway, can’t stay writing, time to be off!

DIARY: Cross-Training and barefooting

2011-07-16T09:08:00.001+01:00

I have been quiet on the blog of late by my own standards, life being in one of those busy phases were most days feel like a chase of my own shadow. Today is another such as I depart for a wedding in Wexford, but thought I’d post a brief update on how I have tried to keep fit for the Lakeland 50 Miler in fifteen days time on a menu of mainly short barefoot runs and cross-training.

Barefoot

Let’s start with the barefooting, after digesting “Barefoot Running – Step by Step”, “Natural Running”, and “Barefoot Running – How to Run light and free”, I felt I had the academic expertise to get started. After watching Lee Saxby’s videos on VivoBarefoot and exercises on Pilates Running , the final pieces fell into place and I embarked on my journey. As a coach I need to get everything exactly right before showing it to others, so Aoife and I will travel to London in late September to have a one-to-one session with Pilates Running owner Antony Riddle.

Antony’s teachings were the most important to me as they deal with the “Hierarchy of Movement” e.g. if you fix people’s posture you can fix the way they walk and then you fix the way they run. He also impressed me with his theories that unnatural weight training exercises ingrains detrimental movement patterns into you body that you take with you into sport. To combat what he calls the “infection of bodybuilding” into boxing, Antony runs a 50-60s style boxing gym as well.

My barefoot running usually consists of 2-3km warmup and cooldown in flat shoes (such as my newly purchased Inov-8 Road-X Lite 155) followed by 1.6-2km of barefoot running on the flat concrete path at the Glendalough Upper Lake. This is a good transition surface to break down the footpads and bones just enough to stimulate them growing back quicker. As instructed in all barefoot books, I leave a full days rest between any such session.

To supplement I walk in the gravel outside my house every morning and do some “Cerutty-style” sprints up the tiny grassy outside the kitchen with a focus on high cadence and high knee lift. I also do no longer wear shoes, at all, unless I am at the office or in a public place. I’ve caused a few weird glances already walking to the Starbucks in Sandyford in my bare feet.

A few observations: Lower leg soreness clears much quicker than when wearing shoes, my foot flexibility and hardiness has improved measurably, I can pick up golfballs with ease now with my feet, and I no longer get cold feet. The latter was a terrible problem for me, so much I thought I had bad circulation. Michael Sandler explains in his book that this is due to the body diverting bloodflow to your feet for building new bone, fat and other material to turn the foot into a “living shoe”. It stands to reason that this additional bloodflow is exactly what you want with lower leg injuries especially in tendons where blood supply is the major impediment to speedy recovery.

If I can establish a safe methodology for transition, I will aim to help other runners make this transition as well. The improvement on my achilles in the three weeks of barefooting versus the four weeks of wearing shoes just demonstrates the problem: If you had a broken hand would you keep it in a cast and expect it to return to its normal function?

Cross-Training

I have also been helped by a very varied program of functional strength training, let me share how it has looked over the last few weeks:

YESTERDAY: Race Walking (8 minutes) and Yoga – 90 minutes
THURSDAY: Mixed running (normal, barefoot, strides and drills) – 50 min
WEDNESDAY: Barefoot Running – 33 minutes
TUESDAY: Core Synergistics
MONDAY: Rest

LAST WEEK

SUNDAY: MT. Leinster race and Yoga Stretch 1 Hour
SATURDAY: Barefoot Running – 20 minutes
FRIDAY: Easy running – 17 minutes and Legs and Back resistance 60 min and Core 15 minutes
THURSDAY: Yoga 15 minutes (morning) and Yoga (65 minutes) evening
WEDNESDAY: Core (15 minutes) and Arms and Shoulders (60 minutes)
TUESDAY: Race walking (15 minutes) and Cardio (60 minutes)
MONDAY: Barefoot Hill Walk (69 minutes)

TWO WEEKS AGO…

SUNDAY: Core (15 minutes), Race Walking (15 minutes), Hill Walk (30 minutes) and Barefoot up/down sprints (20 minutes)
SATURDAY: Back and Biceps (60 minutes)
FRIDAY: Race Walking (15 minutes) and Kenpo (60 minutes)
THURSDAY: Core (15 minutes) and Core Synergistics (60 minutes)
WEDNESDAY: Yoga (50 minutes)
TUESDAY: Yoga (40 minutes)
MONDAY: Rest

THREE WEEKS AGO…

SUNDAY: Strawberry Half-Marathon
THURSDAY-SATURDAY: Moping!
WEDNESDAY: Cardio (40 minutes), Core (15 minutes) and Legs and Back (30 minutes)
TUESDAY: Core Synergistics (60 minutes)
BEFORE: Weeks of depressed exercise-less moping…

DIARY: A voice through time…

2011-07-14T08:42:00.001+01:00

Two packets arrived to a joyful reception a few days ago in the Glendasan Cottage: One from Auckland, New Zealand, and another from Brooklyn, New York.

The first package contained “Running the Lydiard Way” in the original 1978 edition. While I have both “Run to the Top” and “Running with Lydiard”, even a quick skim confirms this book is even better than “Run to the Top” (which was published in 1962, but I own the 1997 version) in terms of understanding the masters teachings. Certain chapters of “Running with Lydiard” are better (such as the cross-country chapter) but the overall greater wealth of information and the large swathe of well-designed programs (from 200m to cross-country running up through all age groups and genders) engenders me to say that this 1978 work is the jewel in the crown as far as the Lydiard training manuals are confirmed.

After having read, discussed and listened so much to Lydiard’s teachings it never ceases to surprise me that I still learn something new every time I read another book penned by the Auckland man: Here, seven years after his death, the voice of the world’s greatest coach has still not taught his final lesson. As long as there are men running this Earth, I imagine his voice will still ring out to them. As a further sentimental anecdote, it warms the heart to see Lydiard reference Cerutty and Bud Winters, who I would rate as the two other coaches in a trinity from whom most athletic training worth knowing today has emanated.

The second package contained “A Clean Pair of Heels – The Murray Halberg Story” published in 1963. There’s no dust-cover left on the book, just the army-green hardcover. An inscription on the inside page shows the book once belonged to a P. Masters on 35 Mitchell Street, Wanganui. This book will have a very treasured place in my collection.

Murray Halberg, of course, was the winner of the Olympic 5000m in Rome in 1960 and a sub-4 minute miler (one of the first in 1958) and one of Arthur Lydiard’s greatest students (and Murray dedicates the book to him in a humorous phrase). A few pages in the language is crisp and clear and New Zealand of the 1950s has come to life. The no-nonsense simple honesty of the writing is typical of runners from this age. No high and lofty philosophising here, just colourful rendition of a life lived and the encounters and characters who played their part. Full review to follow…

RACES: Mt. Leinster 2011

2011-07-10T18:59:00.001+01:00

“You have created a monster,” Aoife said to me in the car as we were driving from the foot of Mt. Leinster to the prize-giving in Ballindaggan. I couldn’t claim full credit for what had gone before though: The Man from Mali, Amidou Dembele, once again used his blistering descent to move from 7th at the top to his first podium finish by the bottom almost catching Bernard Fortune who finished second after the record-breaking Tom Hogan.

The natural speed and fearlessness is Amidou’s own and perhaps also owed to the Mali school systems focus on sprint training during childhood years but the raw fitness gained by the Lydiard system now delivers the Mali man within striking distance of the money spots. By taking third, he ruined a perfect Wexford sweep as Des Kennedy relented to Amidou’s pressure late on and had to settle for the M40 prize, leaving “only” two locals on the podium.

Rene Redux

A lot of cross-training, barefoot walking and running, and seven weeks without running have restored a lot of strength to my achilles so when I went with Aoife down to Mt. Leinster today, I eventually couldn’t resist the chance to race.

Aoife had her sight sets on a crack at her own record on the route. A domestic upset was on the cards for the first time since 2007 with her having hit a vein of good form in the recent months as her peaking set in and my own fitness having deteriorated to a point where my Monday hill-walk up Camaderry had me fearing for my heart. Ok, it wasn’t actually that bad, but when in good form walking up a hill is like a walk in the park, this week it was a workout! Ditching my shoes on the grassy bit helped…

In the end, it would prove that I have no imagination as I ran the entire race at exactly the same pace as in 2010 but instead of being heartily depressed this time I felt only thoroughly entertained. Of course, most people’s performance today should be gauged against the 230m extra caused by an added detour at the top courtesy of works on the mast.

Record-breakers

This little trifle did nothing to harm the prospects of either Tom Hogan or Aoife Joyce, Tom matched Colm O’Cnoic’s time of 59:59 while Aoife knocked a minute of her own previous time.

The domestic upset failed to manifest: Setting off extremely conservatively I made some ground on the grassy zig-zags before we had a bit of nip-and-tuck on the ridge. Aoife had all the support apparently with several cheers of “get him”.

“Nice of you to join the race midway up,” Richard said smilingly in the Holy Grail after, it made a nice change to not suffer terribly from the gun as I tried to figure out what my legs had after the lay-off. My breathing felt shallower than normal but the calves kept themselves alive and midway on the ascent I made some further ground and basically kept motoring at the one steady gear I felt I had from there.

My fear: That there was no gear beyond it just a red zone and a quick death.

Septic tanks beware!

Wading through the sloppy quagmire that is the top, Gareth Little tried to break past me but I managed to respond and kept a second clear to the top. Barry Tennyson, one of the early starters, yelled “beware the septic tank”. I didn’t notice it but he had apparently stumbled into one, so clearly there are worse things than bogs lurking on Irish hills.

Summit time: 47:01. Coming off I meekly admit I took a 10 second break both mentally and physically and never managed to close down the gap as Gareth past by here.

Once clear of the bog, I clicked into a seamless joyful flow. I felt great and the legs moved like a bicycle beneath me, no braking, no effort, just my friend gravity. The control and grip of my newly purchased Inov-8 BareGrip 200 could not have been better. Mudclaw? Beaten hands down. Inov-8 X-Talon? It’s a mere sports car versus the formula 1 that is the BareGrip.

With no midsole you have to purposefully seek to twist your ankle to do so. If ever a shoe deserved a review it is this one. Together with the Road-X Lite 155 which I also picked up in BaseCamp (the first to buy either pair according to the staff) except a raving enthusiastic review once I’ve done a few more tests.

Always Martin Francis

When I heard feet and breathing behind me, I had a feeling it could only be one man. I had taken a few bad turns early on the runnable trail down but felt I was running too fast to lose places already on anyone but Martin Francis and so it proved. “I had hoped it was you,” I said as he passed.

The Sli Cualann man broke a small gap before we hit the short sharp climb midway on the ridge where I managed to build a small lead again on the wily M50.

Crash

It stayed close coming down the grass, there was no breaking of any note as we caught up with the later junior winner from SBR. We seemed to have distracted him a bit: Trying to fend us off he inserted little spurts and just as I finally moved through I heard a *thud* and some cursing. “You ok,” I yelled and as the affirmative rang back I continued. The better trail started and I knew from the signals in my systems that I couldn’t push the pace as the course flattened and when Martin broke it was for good. My fitness only left me enough to keep my legs turning over, not to move any faster.

Luckily, we had closed in on Dermot Murphy and the prospect of gaining another place, Martin quickly took and when I followed it left me a clear run-in to the finish. I was relieved to not have to push the pace further or engage in a sprint finish.

Crossed the line in 75:20 for the new course length of 13:38. I have lost fitness and gained a few kilos in the last seven weeks but the body is strong from my new regime of cross-training (more on that later) and today the new natural running form clicked in completely naturally (as it should, never concentrate on your running form while running). Just being back and getting one hill race in for the 2011 meant an awful lot. For the first time in many years, the pace and placement was entirely a secondary concern. With three weeks to the Lakeland 50 Miler I am hoping the body will be up for it and then the rebuilding starts for the autumn season.

DIARY: Snowdon manager

2011-07-05T22:18:00.001+01:00

An interesting, but relatedly very busy, day comes to an end. I received the offer today to take up the position of team manager for the Irish international development squads travelling to the Snowdon International Race. As a mountain running coach and a long-time fan of the race, refusing was never an option and I look forward to helping the team get a very successful performance in what looks like the most competitive field in years with strong international teams from the home countries, Slovenia, Spain, France, and Italy as well as the top SkyRunners in Europe attracted by the race gaining SkyRunner WorldSeries status this year.

This has meant a bit of late evening preparation work which we hope will show in a well-oiled traverse to Llanberis, the town hosting the race for the 36th time.

I have travelled to Snowdon every year since 2007 after first hearing the tales of the Welsh giant from Barry Tennyson on one of the many occasions I carpooled with him. He did not particularly like the unforgiving nature of the rocky slopes but that did not deter me from entering straight away. Truth be told, he had me at “highest mountain in Wales.” My understanding of the mountain and the race course is fairly concise by now and I will do my best to describe to the team what lies ahead. The team can add to this the experience of previous Snowdon-goers such as my better half Aoife Joyce or Tom Hogan can stand in.

The key to Snowdon is the varied demands of the course. The length of the overall race and the five mile climb demand the stamina and strength of a half-marathon running as well as mental and physical preparation for a continuous climb lasting almost an hour. Add to this the leg strength, concentration and skill to master the rocky descent. Despite this, the race is a good bridge for newer mountain runners into the discipline, the very steep sections are limited and the majority of the path is not overly technical. Strength often fails before technical ability during the long return to Padarn Park in Llanberis. The reward is a rare roar of huge crowds lining the streets.

Race director Stephen Edwards has done a fantastic job already reinvigorating this race and we always return with a great experience in our minds and hopefully this years Irish and other international competitors will do the same.

Here’s to a successful Snowdon 2011 for all.

DIARY: Lugnacoille 2011

2011-07-02T18:14:00.002+01:00

I had a fair bit of personal investment in today’s Lugnacoille race: Jason had made a return to training recently after his knee had healed from Carrauntoohil’s vicious assault. Another graduate of the Lydiard system, Amidou Dembele, also lined up looking both to test his uphill strength and his feared descent, having had extremely promising debuts on the 5k distance (on road) and 3000m (on track).
We hadn’t planned on Aoife racing as she’d felt a bit burned out after several races back-to-back in recent weeks. This is every runners bane during summer season, you need to take a few steps back to recover if you want to keep performing properly. However, having been newly picked for the Snowdon team, we had planned my signature “Up and Down” workout on Camaderry anyway, so once she woke up feeling great, we decided Lugnacoille would be a better workout ahead of the Welsh giant since I was going down as it was.
I hiked up to the top of Camarahill, ditching my Inov-8s once I got off the gravel, and continued barefoot to the plateau where I joined Jason’s dad to watch the race. Brian Furey and Jason took the front from the start, the latter sitting close on the formers shoulder. I didn’t recognise the third runner but next to the top of Camara was Peter with Bernard, using his trademark controlled start, leading a small group behind.
Jason’s dad provided engaging commentary courtesy of his binoculars including a few shocked “there’s a white one, and it isn’t moving!” I performed a set of ten up and downhill strides on the trail here in my barefeet to get a feel for it. Rocks wouldn’t have been pleasant but the additional control and lightness, even compared to the Inov-8 X-Talon 190s, shocked me. Even the extra 5mm midsole made me a less stable platform. I can’t wait to trial the BareGrips that are on the way in the post!

When the green Rathfarnham singlet of Brian Furey came into sight and Jason’s white was back at the nearest rocks, the game was clearly up and Brian strode strongly past us up the final small climb. Jason didn’t look his normal flowing self but as he passed, he smiled “King of the Mountain”. He had held his twelve second lead, finishing five seconds adrift Brian to the top, but the effort caused him to walk around the cairn and his main focus now was on Bernard. “You’ve got 400m”, I said, which was true. Bernard passed our vantage point shortly after with Peter down in fourth, looking comfortable.

Amidou hit Camara drifting Daniel Morrogh by 200m in seventh, “Go for sixth,” I yelled but that was not enough for the Malese downhill machine who duly took fifth descending in a shade over seventeen minutes, faster than last year's winner Martin Bradshaw.

Championship heats up
Today’s result leaves Jason still in the lead with five points, while Brian Furey still needs to shake off the fourth position from Carrauntoohil and has six. Bernard Fortune will remain an ominous and hunting figure on Galtymore and Donard with eight points. The only certainty is that the Irish Championship 2011 will come from amongst this trio.

“I won’t treat you if you fall again,” I told Jason before the race, knowing I was on first aid duty, but in the end I took pity as he had fallen on the rocks and grazed his knees. More expensively he had finished the job he started on Carrauntoohil by smashing his Garmin.

Diane Wilson took the win to bring her tally to four points (1st on Croagh Patrick, 2nd at Carrauntoohil) and Aoife arrived a few minutes later, looking strong and controlled and seemed full of energy and recovered from any early signs of over-racing much to this coach’s relief!

An exciting race to watch in near perfect conditions for the runners, there was a hint of jealousy there, but just being out there can be spiritual restoration enough.

TRAINING: Race Walking

2011-07-01T19:05:00.001+01:00

The final thought of the day is around an interesting walking technique I picked up in Tim Ferris’ “The 4-Hour Body”, a technique used by legendary sprint coach Barry Ross for getting his sprinters to baseline fitness.

It sounds simple: Walk out for 7.5 minutes at your fastest walking pace, so fast that you want to jog and then walk back in the same time. Repeat this three times per week and each time you have to go out faster.

Ludicrous as it sounded, I wondered if it had something in common with the old pedestrian techniques of Newton and decided that it could be a good low-impact cross-training for injured runners or as a second workout of the day for those whose joints cannot cope with a recovery jog.

As I walked out, I immediately felt like a darn fool (I certainly must have looked like one) but after a few hundred metres I noticed two things: 1) my muscles were working quite hard because the movement is so inefficient and 2) I was actually race-walking! Continuing at good clip I gained a new-found respect for this strange branch of athletics.

The heart is significantly less stressed by this exercise but it works the legs very well indeed and your speed is surprising: I walked the first kilometre in 6:37 then the second in 6:47 and did a total of 2.3km in 15:22, not too bad for walking speed. I could certainly imagine adding this in as extra aerobic effort when the legs are not up for any more pounding. For instance, this would have equated to a 4:40 marathon, so you are still moving at a pace and in a mode that could become useful in ultra-marathon races or very long and tough hill runs. Because you cannot use

As an added bonus, I noted I had plenty of time to concentrate on good upper body form: good erect posture and proper arm-swing that did not move in front of my centre.

Don’t get me wrong, aerobic running will give you a much superior cardiovascular workout and if I could sustain morning jogs every day in addition to normal training, that would be the preferred choice but knowing the limitations of joints and tendons, this type of speed walking could be a valuable way of getting more time on your feet than running alone will allow.

ARTICLE: Natural Experiments

2011-07-01T19:02:00.001+01:00

My achilles has been in rapid recovery ever since Sunday’s half-marathon. After two days of slight soreness, it appeared to have gone completely by Wednesday but the last few days I have been able to find a slight sore spot that still get’s irritated when I wear any kind of footwear (this is allegedly because of the shearing force of the heel pressing against the tendon). I’ve been keeping busy doing everything from weights to yoga to kenpo to core synergistics but my most interesting experiments are working further on improving my “natural running technique” and a special type of walking!

Changing patterns

It’s actually quite difficult to injure the achilles tendon, or it should be, for it is the strongest tendon in the body able to resist hundreds of pounds of force.

Over the years I have modified or tried to modify my gait several times from several different angles, from ChiRunning (in 2007) to Functional Movement Systems with Medfit in the recent year. In my early days of running my injuries were the classical type that most modern runners face: plantar, knee injuries, and ankle sprains.

Once I started to run increasingly on my forefoot the pattern shifted. The first thing that happens when you move into a more minimalistic shoe is that your posture returns to a more natural position: imagine standing in your bare feet and then putting a small book under your heels. Because most running shoes have a fairly pronounced drop from the heel to the front, this is actually the posture you adopt when running in such standard runners, unless you are highly trained (people who already possess good technique have been known to run flawlessly even in army boots!).

One of the many effects of this is that your anterior muscles (the quadriceps group), which is designed for braking, is actually used for propulsion, and the propulsive muscles (glutes, calves, hamstrings) are used for braking. So your muscles switch roles from what they were designed to do!

The human body is flexible, so over many years, my muscles, like those of many other runners, just accepted their new job and got on with it. So when I decided to “change the work shift” there was a bit of an outcry particularly from my calves (leading to achilles and tibialis posterior tendon injuries) and feet (leading to metatarsal tip pain). Like in our workplaces, change has to happen slowly if it wants to succeed!

Two specialists, same opinion

John Murphy, from the Carysfort Clinic, had long attributed my injuries to an underdevelopment of calf strength and flexibility as well as an inability to activate the gluteal muscles correctly. Both are very likely a relic of both my lack of sporting background and having grown up running in heavily padded ASICS shoes.

Adri Hartveld, the founder of Healus Technology and a physiotherapist and runner through 37 years, concluded as much when he told me:

From looking at your blog and emails to me I conclude you are keen, knowledgeable by now, but have not yet learned to prevent injury.

The Newton shoes were a good try, but like so many runners without years of forefoot running, your Achilles tendons couldn’t take it.

Healus Technology are currently testing a new shoe design which they hope will help smoothen the transition to a more natural running form, but you need to supplement with proper training as well and at the moment I am testing the strength and form drills in Danny Abshire’s “Natural Running”. Abshire has worked with several of the world’s finest athletes such as Lorraine Moller (co-founder of the Lydiard Foundation and Olympic bronze medallist in the marathon 1992) and Mark Allen, the six-time Ironman world champion.

Barefoot?

No, “natural running” doesn’t mean you necessarily have to go all the way, although at least a little bit of barefoot running goes a long way in ingraining the new movement patterns and strengthening the lower leg muscles. As Ken Bob Saxton memorable explains it in “Barefoot Running – Step by Step”, taking your calves out of the shoes is a bit like stepping out of a wheelchair, you are working atrophied muscles.

Transition Plan

Most people will use the transition plan and do some barefoot during it and then settle into their new running form in as minimalist running shoes as they become comfortable in. This use of the technique predates ChiRunning, Pose and Evolution Running by decades and the best example is perhaps this old video of Percy Cerutty training his runners at Portsea, among them Herb Elliot, the 1960 gold medal winner in the Olympic 1500m and world record holder on the 1500m and mile. The lightness and springiness of these athletes is what we would all like to emulate (and it can still be seen in some Western athletes such as Ryan Hall).

I have not been able to fully embrace the training program yet as I have to be cautious with my achilles but I walk in the gravel barefoot every morning and have not worn shoes for seven days solid (relying on Vibram’s). The lack of heel means no pressure on my tendon and not having my heel elevated means more stability and less twisting. Both seems to have contributed to a faster improvement of the symptoms this week. This is anecdotal but in light of the quickness of recovery after the half-marathon, not implausible.

What to wear?

My own plan is to heal the injury first, and then perform all the running the transition program prescribes. My LunarElites and other shoes with a notable discrepancy between heel and front will have to go in favour of shoes that are virtually flat. Shoes like this have long been unavailable, except as fashionable retro shoes like the Onitsuka Tiger, the original shoe brought into the US by Bill Bowerman before he started producing his own. Fell and mountain runners have been luckier as Walshes, traditionally, and now Inov-8s are largely flat to the ground. Since the barefoot craze started the existing light racers have been complemented with a plethora of choices as nicely covered by RunBlogger.

Of my existing collection my Inov-8 X-Talons is an amazing shoe and although I only got to try it in training, I already expect it to bring my descending back to it’s old standard. Compared to the PUMA Trailfox, Salomon’s and Adidas Kanadia it’s a rock solid platform with much more grip. My beloved LunarLites are up in the air, it’s a very pleasant shoe, but I suspect the heel is too high and too unstable which is not good for my tendons. My DS Racers are worn out and need to go to the bin and my Nike MayFlys can’t have too much mileage left on them. My current choice for a replacement is the new Inov-8 Roadlite 155.

Reversing the damage

By not wearing shoes with heels any more the shortening of my achilles can hopefully be reversed but that still leaves me to focus on strengthening the foot and the calves again until they are a level where I can wear a shoe that does not interfere with my gait for the same amount of mileage I have previously been able to handle.

There could be a few difficult moments in this transition, but I feel it’s the right time if I want to ensure a long injury-free career ahead of me. Certainly, a new world opens as you walk on things in your bare feet. You become more controlled in your foot plant and you learn just how sensitive your foot has become to all sensations! (there’s a reason we have reflexology!).

Anyway, hopefully another few days will have the achilles sorted completely so I can start my full retraining.

TRAINING: The Missing Peak

2011-06-28T23:52:00.001+01:00

One technique I use for myself and my runners to gauge both short-term and long-term improvements as well as assessing how well our peaking is working is “VDOT Development Chart”.

Generally, the chart will show you starting each season at a slightly lower performance level than the previous year but building to a higher peak as you hit the summer (that’s what’s supposed to happen if the Lydiard program is applied correctly).

While injuries mean that my graph is not as linear as it should be (overall trend is upwards but the graph is “too flat”), in general this holds true. This year, with the injuries hitting just as the peak was about to manifest, it is easy to spot the “missing peak”:

Notice how my progress from the 5k in 2007 has been limited, although consistent, due to the constant step-backs. Had the program been executed as planned you should have seen a jump of 2-3 VDOTs (my required performance level was 58 to hit 1:19:59, so I would have needed to increase my previous best level by only one and my early season race performances by only two). It’s safe to conclude that the program would have worked had it run its course.

Below you will see the progression curve of one of my runners which is much more in line with the level of improvement you will see if the athlete stays injury free (although, you’ll notice the earliest race is three years prior to all following).

RACES: Strawberry Half-Marathon 2011

2011-06-27T18:10:00.002+01:00

With three niggle-free days from my achilles tendinitis, I took the risky step of towing the line for the Strawberry Half-Marathon. When I sat down and put together my 24-week Lydiard schedule between Christmas and New Year’s Eve, this date, 26th of June, had “THE RACE” written next to it, meaning it was the year’s first peak race and my plan was to train hard enough to break 80 minutes after my 82:29 on the course last year.
No one, not even the Lydiard software tool, can predict exactly how the 24-weeks of training will affect you, but it does try. For me it reasoned that an average level of improvement would lead to 1:20:25. Close enough that I’d risk going for broke. When I met Romain Denis for a lactate test after seven of the twenty-four weeks, he told me “you’d run a half-marathon around 80 minutes if you did it today.”
Strawberry Half-Marathon
Percy Cerutty graced us with many memorable quotes before his untimely death and my favourite is perhaps “run until you are exhausted and then begin meaningful work.” If it is true, then I did a lot of meaningful work yesterday. At 2km, I was comfortable, at 4km I started thinking about dropping out, by 8km I was sick of hills and curvy bends, and by 10km I had just about steadied the ship for a long laboured grind back to Enniscorthy. Throughout I poured water from the aid stations over me prodigiously, I overheated much too easily even on a warm day like yesterday’s. My heart rate was too high, sugars were burning too fast and too hot, and everything worked worse as a result.
Coming on to the long 5km on the N11, I lost two spaces before gaining two back on the last mile, one of whom was Tony Collins, doing his first half-marathon as part of a hard stamina-based training run, but still went on to finish in 1:27 despite no specific training. When I passed I just wanted to bring as much space between me and his 800m kick as I could, but as it proved we were competing about slowing down the least and not contemplating a shoot-out to the finish.
Crossing the bend to the last bridge, I heard “here’s Martin Francis”, and we had a reversal of last year when he had arrived close on my tail after I had broken away on the first crossing of the Slaney at 15km. Both of us were not as “hot on our heels” this year. My time: 1:26:00 (official time, naturally, counts the eight seconds my watch was stopped while I tied my shoelaces after 4km).

Aoife, racing as well, didn't have a great day at the office either, and where I had injuries to content with I suspect recent races caught up with her, as did the work we had to put in over the weekend advertising our new venture with ChampionsEverywhere and a wedding. This blackened my mood a bit as I feel I should have balanced her program a bit better in hindsight.

All this, was, of course, positively overshadowed by Barry's brilliant win and new PB. The opportunity to work with Barry came unexpectedly but was obviously too exciting a prospect for any coach to turn down. Hopefully he'll go on to even bigger things from here and with great success being enjoyed by many in the Marathon Mission Squad, an exciting Irish Marathon Championships, perhaps the best in years, is shaping up.

An abject failure?
If you had told me back at Christmas that I’d cross the finish line in 1:26, utterly exhausted, I would have expected deep soul-searching, a complete revision of the existing program and my approach to training and all the usual drama and knee-jerk that so often follows a runner’s failure to perform to expectations.
But I had no need for that yesterday. In the two weeks since the Wicklow Way Relay, I have run four times (including both races). Apart from that, I had only four good anaerobic weeks (memorably setting a PB on the 5 mile in Killarney) during my last two-thirds of the program so it’s fair to say, the Lydiard program proved itself in the eleven good weeks I had, and cannot be blamed for the damage done by the last thirteen (there’s a lucky number).
A fast course?
Last year, the Strawberry felt perfectly fast, but with the strength to climb well and attack aggressively on the last half, this impression came easy. Previous year’s winner and this year’s runner-up Sergiu Ciobanu reckons the course could cost “as much as a minute” so perhaps I was in even better shape than the time suggested then and so was everyone else.
The hills started a fatal chain reaction in any case: I decided to just “hope for a miracle”, e.g. that I had simply retained most of my fitness, and ran the first four kilometres in sub-80 minute pace. But I was burning too much sugar and my heart rate rose too quickly and with it my body-temperature. Soon my legs were no turning over as effortlessly and when the hills came, I could not increase my effort but had to coast over them and from then on I focused solely on steadying myself.
Hard pounding
My achilles tendon has had biggest problem with hard heels and wobbly cushioning, so this left me with only one real choice for shoes: My Nike Mayflys. Unfortunately these are extremely light and flimsy and I knew my calves would take a hammering as they are not properly conditioned for doing this sort of distance without support.
Coming off the climbs this combination of overworked calf-muscles and lack of proper mileage and downhill training, removed all power from my legs on the climbs and by the time I hit the second half I felt like I had no “booster rockets” left to fire. I had two small engines left, and they had to carry me to the finish. Alas!
“Now, they are light,” said Barry, when looking at the MayFlys prior to the start, “they may fall apart before the race.” This was quite likely. The shoes are designed to hold together for only 100km and I am surprised they are still in one piece.
On the plus side the stability of the shoe and the fact that I could feel the pounding into my soles very precisely, let me to avoid the worst stride errors (as is now known, shoes do not lessen impact on your body, they simply send the shock wave beyond the soles of your feet whereas if you soles pick it up you can adjust to a less damaging stride pattern). I’d also taped myself up with Kinesio-tape which is quick becoming a favourite of mine simply because its so easy to apply compared to normal tape!
Result
Last year I finished jubilant and full of chat (much to the chagrin of Des Kennedy just ahead of me!), this time I had to lay down under a tree as Martin Francis talked away to me, but at least I got up quicker than after the Relay Leg 7 and had still finished 28th, just four spots down on last year.
Speaking to Tony and others afterwards it was clear I can be happy with the performance given how the season has turned out even if it was my weakest half-marathon since 2008. 86 minutes still means I have sub-3 hour marathon fitness to start my next build-up from and now my priority shifts to rebuilding a new peak for September onwards as well as ensuring my tendinitis does not turn into full-blown tendinopathy. This will likely mean another 2-3 weeks of little running, but if I can start rebuilding from mid-July, I can still take a lot from 2011 including the 5k, 10k and half-marathon PBs on the wish-list.
Event
I’ll review the course in a bit more detail later and compare it to Achill and Connemara, two of the other “tough courses” out there but more than anything else this is an event “by runners for runners”. Great organisation, plenty of portaloos, interesting course, places to store your stuff, plenty of kilometre and mile markers and just the right amount of water stations. Definitely one of the best half-marathons in the country.