Brief report:

Suffered diarrhoea from first hour onwards.  Then came the vomiting.  Still roughly on schedule.  Peed for the first time at hr 12 – it was very dark brown.  Damage done.  Eventually ended up in tent for several hours.  Got up and jogged a few laps to finish.  Result? Just under 92 miles – some 50 miles short of what I wanted.

I guess you can’t run far with no calories and no liquid inside you.

More to come.

Because I like to run a long way

Because I want to raise a lot of money for these people....

.... and because I'm one of these. A big one.

I have confirmed my pace chart which, although ambitious, is I hope realistic.  I have also done some work on a quick checklist for my support crew to keep tabs on what I’ve eaten, drunk and how fast/slow I’m running.

Running this week has been short and sharp, my legs have felt ready to rock and I’ve been feeling frustrated that I can’t go and blast out a fast 15 miler.  I’ll probably only run about 15 miles this week prior to the race.

All that remains is to do a bit more mental preparation, to remain well hydrated over the coming days and to eat a slightly higher proportion of carbs than usual.  (There won’t be any massive pasta binges!)

The Sri Chinmoy website is promising some “live” or “nearly live” updates, it can be found  http://uk.srichinmoyraces.org/ultras/24hour_09/home09

This is what the Tooting track looks like (viewed from the start of the back straight, where the support crews are camped).

I'd better get used to seeing this track

OK.

My mileage has dropped from an average of 100 miles per week to around 80 – 85 for the past month.  This has been mainly due to external pressures… you know… things other than running (!).  I’m not worried about this at all – it should mean that arrive on the starting line fresh and “slightly under-cooked” as opposed to “a bit burnt”.

I’m into my taper now,  this means that mileage will drop considerably for the remaining 10 days before the race.  I won’t be running it slowly though – the aim is to increase the tempo a bit, so that the pace I’m aiming for at Tooting will seem ridiculously slow.  For example, this morning I ran a nice little 4 mile tempo at close to 6:00 pace, this afternoon I may attempt a sub-6 pace. 

In between these tempo sessions I will be jogging a few miles very slowly.  I will probably try to run every day until the race as I find that my legs complain when I’m not running – they tend to “turn off”.

I’ve just recieved the list of competitors from the lovely Shankara (Race Director).  I must admit that I’m a bit daunted by the depth of the field and amazed by the international flavour.  There will be runners from Sweden, Norway, Australia, Germany, The Netherlands and Belgium amongst others.  A total of 45 have entered.

There is lots remaining for me to organise.  I still need to get on-line and order my gels, Nuun and protein bars.  I need to check tentage and camping stove arrangements with Nick and get my blasted iPod Shuffle replaced for the nth time! 

I have been working on my pace chart for a few weeks now – and I’m finally fairly confident that I’ve got it right.  My crew, and I, will know (to the second) what pace I need to run each lap in.  I have broken the race into 4 x 6hr sections with a pace and distance goal for each section.  This takes into account a controlled slowing and walking breaks.

Most of my training from now until race day will be mental.  By that, I mean that it will be psychological – I don’t mean that I will be running crazy mileage!

I will copy a post I made on RunningAhead about mental preparation in another post.

Have had contact with a few others who will be running in Tooting – Lee Chamberlain (who has just broken the World Record for 7 days on a treadmill – you need to get out more Lee), Anth Courtney and a few others.  I also recognise many other names: Ken Fancett (of course), Robin Gardner (who was just behind me at Crawley), Reima Hartikainen (Swedish international who performed well at the World Championships), Stefan Lindvall (another Swede who consistently performs well), Smiler Sid, Geoff Oliver (multiple world record holder at aged 76!!!), Richard Quennell (won the Draycote 35 and was 2nd at Faversham), Carl Sommer (33 min 10k man with 3 24hr races under his belt).

The competition will be tough.

But I will achieve my goals.

Happy running to you all.

Mens’ 24hr race results:

Team results:  Australia, England, Scotland I think…

Absolutely incredible performance from John Pares, Steve Mason and Chris Carver.  I suspect that Chris may be a little disappointed not to have got an individual medal – but he should be very proud indeed of this performance. Martin Fryer of Australia won with a very creditable mileage indeed.

This must bode well for a GB Team in the World Champs in Brive next year.  I wonder what the selection standard will be….. hmmmmm tough I bet.

Womens’ 24hr results:

Sharon Gayter bounces from triumph to triumph at the moment.  A stunning effort girls – well done!

We were even more dominant in the 100km races:

Mens results:

Can’t ask for more than that boys! Stunning.

Womens’ results:

Brilliant!

Mountain running?  England won team gold in EVERY event.  Won’t list results here, but you can see them on the website:

http://www.cumbriacommonwealthchampionships.org/Results.htm

John Pares on his way to Commonwealth Bronze

However, it’s not stopping me running or slowing me down.  I do think I can feel some very slight improvement, but nothing dramatic.

Last few weeks mileage has been:

101, 101, 101, 46 (taper for aborted 6hr), 104, 114.5, 114.5, 106

So 7 out of last 8 weeks at 100mpw +.  

Average for last weeks is something like 98.5 – I’ll take it.

In his blog Krupicka tells a very, very good story of how tough it was out there. I recommend that you read it – it is an inspiring story of failure. He writes almost as well as he runs.

His blog is here: http://antonkrupicka.blogspot.com/

Just before Fish Hatchery, where he was to DNF

A few excerpts: “On a good day, running 100 miles is fucking hard. Period. On a bad day, it’s borderline impossible.” [note to self: remember this.]

“I roughly stuck to my pre-race plan of tritely Going Big Or Going Home and I came down on the rather more tarnished, grimy side of that coin-flip gamble.”

Hagerman Pass Road, mile 16

“The quads began cramping regularly. Which sounds so simple and almost trivial written in an English sentence like that, but in the felt reality of life it was devastating on a physical, emotional, molecular level. The sun beat down. Life was more than a little desperate.”

Sumitting Hope Pass the first time

 For what it’s worth… my analysis of Anton’s problems is that he didn’t replace enough electrolytes. He only mentions Nuun once. He drank mainly water. Given the unexpected high temps I would have been aiming for 75% Nuun and 25% water. This may explain his cramping.

The itinerary will be something like this:

Stage 1 : Loja to Alhama de Granada, 56km.

Stage 2 : Alhama de Granada to Jatar, 47km.

Stage 3 : Jatar to Jayena, 48km

Stage 4 : Jayena to Santa Cruz del Comercio, 50km.

Stage 5 : Santa Cruz del Comercio to Loja, 37km

Well Saturday was very disappointing.  I was feeling very strong and very fit.  The hill was steeper than I was expecting, but it was short and sharp.  This actually suited me fine as I have the strength to power up short hills with no bother.  Some of the bean pole marathoners were struggling with it from the outset.

The first couple of hours saw me knocking out 7:45 miles, a bit quicker than planned but very comfortable indeed.  I slowly moved up through the field from 7th to 4th and was looking forward to achieving 45 miles plus.

However, from about 16 miles onwards it became apparent that the hill was starting to hurt my achilles.  The pain eased off during the remainder of each lap, but came back again with every hill climb.  I started to think about how I was going to recover quickly enough to train properly and realised that I only have 12 weeks left until the 24hr race – of which 3 should be taper weeks.

I decided to retire at the 3hr mark, having run just over 23 miles.  It was the hardest decision I have had to make in my running history.  But it was the right decision.

The winner ran an excellent 50 miles or so.  Had I continued I would have placed in the top 3, maybe 2nd.

The disappointment is weighing very heavily on my mind at the moment.  I need to banish the demons, and banish them quickly.

To that end, I will be a) rehabilitating my achilles as best I can and b) running some miles.

On the plus side… I will be very surprised if there are any hills on the track at Tooting in October.

My goals are:

• > 42 miles
• place in top 3
• beat existing course record

I don’t think I can win this as the list of competitors has a 2:20 marathoner who has run in a GB vest competing.  I’m not sure he has run an ultra yet – but that sort of pedigree will be hard to beat.  (Reckon I could have him over 12 – 24 hours though! )

In order to achieve this I am going to aim for 8 min miles with no walking breaks.  If this were another 12hr race, or longer, I would of course take walking breaks.  However, I’m going to take this as a bit of a test to see if I can hold 8:00 pace for 6hrs with no breaks.  If I can’t…. nothing has been lost.  I don’t need to win this.  It will just be treated as a great long run in the bank.

My fantastic brother, Nick, will be coming along to support and as a volunteer lap counter.  His presence will hopefully help me as much as it did in my last two ultras.

In order to maintain 8:00 pace I reckon I need to run each lap in about 5:13.

(8 min miles = 5 min km.  5 x 1.044 = 5.22.  60 secs x 0.22 = 13.2 seconds.)

In reality I expect my lap times to vary between about 5:05 to 5:30 – but hopefully the average will give me 8:00 pace overall.

And yes… I realise that 8 min miles will give me more than 42 miles.  In fact, if I maintain it… it will give me 45 miles which would be amazing.

60/8 x 6hrs = 45.