Quick Dash up the Wrekin

Yesterday, I ran up the light side of the Wrekin . I didn't time it, but reckon it was 18 mins up, then 13 down. I wore the Five Finger Flow Treks, and where it was not too steep, concentrated on Pose-style running. It's the first hill run since Langdale 4 weeks ago, and just something to keep me in the game ahead of the 8-mile Wrekin Wrecker race in a couple of weeks. I fasted until lunch, when I was celebrating with a family member. This degenerated, later, into non-paleo food. I am fasting today in penance. ... Read more

Preparing for the Nevis Beast: Mixed Hill Training

Location: The Wrekin, Telford, UK
Date: Sunday - 29th August
Workout: 75 minutes of mixed walking, hiking, running

Next week, it's Ben Nevis beast. I keep referring to these races as beasts. Which they are. But each one has its own special form of beastliness. Last month, the Borrowdale Fell Race's beastliness derived from the length of the race. With Nevis it's the height.

I approached yesterday's training run with caution. Last week I had a great outing in the Malvern Hills, which saw me go barefoot for part of a 4-hour low-intensity hill run in which I did some Pose Running practice.

Funnily enough, I picked up a foot problem. Who'd have thought? 4 hours with no shoes trying a new running method?

Anyhoo, yesterday I decided to simply do a mixture of barefoot and fell-shoe power hiking yesterday. My new x-Talon 190 shoes had arrived, a minimalist, studded trainer I've conceded is necessary for muddy, steep, grassy fell races.

This photo shows the full range of my current grip options, from foot to fell shoe.

Workout

• 21 minutes power hiking in bare feet to the top via the light side (took a steep shortcut to make it harder but quicker)
• * At the top, donned new x-Talons *
• 7 minutes jogging / pose running down the dark side because my foot felt better than expected.
• 14 minutes power-hiking back up the dark side - taking myself closer to the lactate threshold after my success with this pre-Borrowdale (that training session is in this post.)
• 35 minutes walking back down the light side with Mrs M.

Total Time: about 1 hour 15

Food: was a hare's leg for lunch when we got back and roast chicken for dinner.

The stony paths on the Wrekin made the first barefoot part a challenge - but I feel I am continuing to build toughness in my feet and this was not an uncomfortable experience.

The x-Talons felt great the minute I got them on. It was like getting the suspension on your car fixed. Don't read too much into that analogy. I am not saying it felt 'right' - just nice!

My sore foot seemed to benefit from being used. I was nervous about the downhill, but it seemed far happier when running than when I had been walking during the week. Fingers crossed, it will be fine for the rigours of Nevis. ... Read more

Unexpected Joy of a Mid-Paced Hill Run

Location: Light Side of the Wrekin
Day: Today, Sunday

Workout: ran to the top of the light side of Wrekin hill and back down.

Time to top: 17:14

Total Running time: about 28 minutes

Post Workout Nutrition:Eggs, strawberries, wild blackberries, coconut cream, cocoa - two hours later:

I set out to run this at a pace I don't normally use - what runners call 'tempo'. I prefer to call it 'sub pain'. Most of the time I try to keep my short workouts intense and my long workouts easy. The Paleo/Primal way. Even when I am I ascending the Wrekin, which takes about 20 minutes, I tend to want to make it intense, albeit that I can't make it short.

But after yesterday's cycle ride, and with the Borrowdale 17m 6700' beast on Saturday, I decided to opt for an in between. I decided that randomness rules, and that includes random adherence to the short-intense-long-easy rule ;-)

I was really glad I did it. My time (17:14) to the top was nothing special. I've done it in under 16 in the past. But I felt strong. Although I was breathing heavily, I did not really feel any pain. My legs were not hurting at the end, in spite of the post-cycling stiffness at the start.

In short, I took it easy but made it count. I felt refreshed at the end, not fatigued.

On the way down, I gave my increasingly hardy feet something to think about by deliberately aiming for the rockier sections. My Vibram-protected forefeet seemed to be taking the punishment happily.

I have been walking on pavements in bare feet most days during the week recently. I am lucky enough to work in a place where the state of the pavements between the station and my office is pretty rough. At first this hurt a lot. Now I am much more comfortable with it. A combination of desensitisation and perhaps some skin toughening. I think this is helping with the tolerance to more significant trauma when I am wearing the Vibrams.

The knee, by the way, is in much better shape. My consultant told me not to worry. "It's just the stitches bedding in," he said. "Go away and have fun. Only bother me if it's getting worse, not better."

I'll probably write a separate post about that one. ... Read more

Weekend of Long, Easy

Saturday: 19-mile bike ride round the canals of the West Midlands, UK


Total time: 3 hours 45 minutes

Food: I fasted all day, then tucked into roast chicken & roast vegetables in the evening, several hours after the bike ride ended. I felt duly rewarded:




Sunday: long, easy hill/trail run around Ercall Wood and the Wrekin.

Total time: 2 hours 38.
Heart rate: monitor stopped working, but I am pretty sure I was 140 - 160 most of the time.
Altitude profile (in metres):

Food: fresh crab and salad:

This was eaten a couple of hours later than expected, thanks to my idiocy in locking my car keys in my own boot. My running partner Lightning had to drive me home to get the spare, a fine gesture considering this took a couple of hours out of his Sunday. Since I'd also had no breakfast, I was pretty hungry by the time I tucked into this.

Knee Problems

Recently increasing my running mileage appears to have aggravated my knee. At least I think that's what caused it. Hard to tell. Over the last month, the site of the surgery has grown steadily more sore. Fine in the normal plane of movement, but sensitive to twisting.

This is worrying, because those internal stitches are supposed to have totally healed. I have a meeting with my consultant next week. Clearly it can't be all bad, otherwise I would not be able to do these things. However, I need to know whether I should stop doing them and let it rest, or whether he is going to tell me I need more surgery. If he tells me this, I will think very carefully about whether it's something I am willing to do. ... Read more

Heart Rate Tells Hill Training Story

I thought it would be interesting to describe today's Wrekin workout from a heart-rate perspective. Follow the blue line - that's my heart rate. Starts at 60, maxes out at 193 (time to the top: 18:51), then stays at around 100 during the walking at the end. Altitude is the red line. Couple of photos underneath, including lunch photo. Lots of sun in the UK at the moment. It's a joy.

On the way back up the Light Side, after meeting Mrs M

Resting and waiting for Mrs M after the fast descent of a steep section


Two hours later, lunch at home - crab, avocado, rocket

... Read more

Dark Side of the Wrekin, Weighted Vest, Pain

Location: Dark Side of the Wrekin
Date:19th June

Workout: ran to the top of the dark side of Wrekin hill and back down.

Time to top: 21.36 (39 seconds faster than last week)

Total Running time: about 45 minutes

Post Workout Nutrition: don't know yet - am writing post 90 minutes after I finished.

I woke up last night feeling faintly nauseous and not quite right in the stomach. It must have been the pork I ate last night. For a time I was worried I might be heading for a full-blown food poisoning incident.

I managed to get back to sleep, but when I woke at 6.30, I still felt slightly off colour. In the past, I would have ignored it. I had decided I was running, so I would run. And in the past, I was fitter.

Thus, I drove to the Wrekin anyway, donned weighted vest, started stopwatch, gritted teeth and headed upwards. Amazing how quickly the body realises there are other, more pressing things to worry about and stops bugging you about silly things like bacteria it doesn't quite see eye to eye with.

My continuing quest to re-kindle my friendship with the god of pain was well-served by today's outing. My time was 39 seconds faster than last week. I would say this was:

- 40% increased intensity (happier with the pain)
- 30% I weigh less
- 30% I am fitter

Last week I was back on speaking terms with the god of pain. This week we were having coffee. Well, he was having coffee, I was having a peppermint tea. ... Read more

The Wrekin Dark Side with 9kg Weight Vest

sportstracklive.com

I was bristling with training gear on Sunday morning. First, the 9kg weighted vest. It's a while since I donned this for hill training. It's the kind of thing you start dreading if you leave it too long. The dark side of the Wrekin is about as steep as it gets, so truly running up it is a challenge even without extra ballast.

Second, I was strapped up with the heart rate monitor and had the GPS phone in my pocket.

Alas, however, I failed to properly start the bluetooth on the phone, so no heart rate. What I do have is this very cool widget from SportsTrackLive that allows you to replay the run to the top - click the small play button towards the top. Then it's better to zoom the map out a little with the usual Google map tool, and use the forward button under the graph to speed it up.

Allow me to summarise the heart rate for you in words. Slow (before I started), fast (as I started), like a train (the rest of the time), slower (after I had finished.)

Mrs M was around and about on the hill, so I spent another hour mooching around with her, which was still keeping my heart rate at about 150 (by now I had fixed the bluetooth) because of the extra weight I was carrying and the recovery from the savagery of the initial ascent.

Time to top: 22.25
Post run nutrition: A hog roast a couple of hours later at the farm we buy our meat.

Lightning and I have several tough, and increasingly long mountain races coming up this summer and autumn. There will be more of these cruel, weighted, steep hill sessions, interspersed with evil Tabatas and inhuman weights circuits. There is no choice but to get fit. ... Read more

'The Wrekin Streak' Fell Race - Fasted

Location: The Wrekin
Date: 21st April

The Race: up the light side and down again. 2.75 miles, 810 feet of ascent.

Time: 26:56

Post Workout Nutrition: a rabbit, an hour later.

Two years ago I ran this in about 24:15. This time I am a little heavier, a little less fit and a little slower downhill because of my 'barefoot' footwear.

The last excuse I can live with, the first two, I must work on.

That said, I am growing in confidence with the downhill, which is heartening. Last time I ran down the same route I was much more afraid and less surefooted. Perhaps my feet are strengthening, but I have a sense that I am also becoming less afraid.

There were also three interesting dimensions to this run.

First, I had not eaten since the night before, when I had eaten a mackerel. Yet I was able to fuel nearly 30 minutes of hard running, then drive home for 45 minutes. At no point did I feel faint.

Second, I have been on a virtually zero carb diet since Monday - there were no vegetables with that mackerel, as the photo shows.

Third, earlier that day, I received two combination vaccination jabs for a variety of diseases. Can I workout later? had been my question. Just make sure you eat plenty was the response, which as you see, I duly ignored.

I must confess that at the start of the race, my legs felt heavy. I am not convinced this has anything to do with any of these factors though. They had felt heavy all week, even before I started the change in diet. I attribute it more to the combination of a long, easy run on Sunday after 'incorrect nutrition' the night before!

Update: Lightning has posted a few videos from his headcam, which he cunningly secreted aongst the branches of a tree at the start/finish. Here is one of them. You can see me trundling home in the last 20 seconds, and can tell that by this point my feet were feeling the wrath of the stoney ground.

... Read more

Wrekin Fell Race with Head Cam

Location: The Wrekin, Telford, UK
Date: 29th March

Workout: The Wrekin Fell Race

Post workout nutrition: this, 15 minutes later.

Total Time: 57:11

In the first few seconds of the video just after the starting whistle, I can be heard saying

"I was in no doubt about that."

With this video camera, you can only really hear what I am saying. What Lightning had just said was something to the effect of

"You realise you look a dick with that strapped on your head, right?"



I'm getting a little better with Windows Movie Maker now, so I edited the start to cut out some gibberish I was spouting in the first few minutes and some pointless pre-race footage.

Since this was made, I have also managed to set the clock on the device, so it will no longer seem to suggest that these videos are archived footage from 2008.

Nevertheless, the video still ends before anything interesting has happened - just over 10 minutes into the race. I need to buy an 8 gig SD card, which will quadruple the capacity and allow me to film more than just the most boring part of the race.

At 3:10, Lightning hoves into view, sporting his own mini-cam mounted on the back of his waist bag. This sparks a conversation about the fact that I'm filming him, filming me - which, retrospectively, is ironic because he'd mistakenly failed to turn his on. At 5:00 I overtake him and that's the last we see of him in the video. However, about 5 minutes later, on the first, steep downhill section he did come hurtling past.

Later, I doggedly trudged past him on an equally steep uphill section and managed to hold the lead of a minute or two for the rest of the race.

Lightning's a pretty good downhiller, mainly because he knows no fear, and I am vulnerable on very steep, loose ground because my Vibrams are no match for his studded fell shoes. Thus, the discrepancy between our respective times to the Wrekin summit, which we tend to use as the benchmark of our relative fitness, are not necessarily the best comparison of overall fell running prowess.

Here's the satellite map of the route - it was up, down, up - then back the way we had come:

You can see the altitude profile here:

The long, flat part at the start is actually standing around waiting to start, not a long flat section. Considering the right hand side should be a mirror image of the left (ignoring the flat section), this does give you an idea of how accurate the GPS is on altitude.

One useful aspect to this outing was some experience of The Ercall, another hill North East of The Wrekin that Lightning and I might now more often incorporate into our training runs.

Finally - a photo of me towards the end, camera askew, for some reason saluting the photographer!

... Read more

Dark Side Wrekin Ascent with 10kg Weighted Vest

Location: The Wrekin, Telford, UK (Dark Side)
Date: 14th February

Summary
- Dark Side ascent with 10kg weighted vest
- Walked descent via 'South Flank'
- Light running
- Log carrying

Post workout nutrition: this, 2 hours later.

Time to Top: 23:07
Total Time: 1 hour

I haven't run with the weighted vest for 12 months or more. Looking back through my records, I see I ascended the Dark Side in 21:20 with the vest in 2007.

It's tough going on a slope that steep when you are carrying an extra 10kg, so I was frankly pleased just to run the whole distance after all this time. Matching and beating my previous best can be a target for the coming months.

Recovering at the top

Lightning, as his account details, came in 15-20 seconds ahead and still had more under the bonnet. Looking back, I can remember when, in the early days of his mountain running, he was unable to continuously run up the Light Side - so his performance on Sunday was a reminder of how far he has come.

We did a recce of a different route on the way down, walking down the 'South flank'. Lightning has run up this before, but I have not. It looks like a really tough deal because the ground has a looser composition of leaves and soil and there are no breaks from the incline. It looks to be almost 200 metres of consistently steep going.

Coming down the South flank...


...and testing the gradient for a future ascent

We then jogged back round to the normal path and rustled a couple of logs. Carrying our 'prey' back to the cars was a good final workout. I started with a pretty ambitious size, especially given I already had 10kg strapped on... and finished up swapping it for Lightning's more modest pair of stumps. At one point after the swap I dropped one of the sumps and it careered down hill towards his legs, missing them only because I shouted a warning.

Sizing up the logs


My ambitious selection


Lightening, having narrowly avoided being struck by my rogue stump

The knee held up well in spite of still being a little tender after the 3-hour race the weekend before. It had complained a little when I sprinted the final few yards to the top, but no more than it had a right to.

The state of the weighted vest at the end

Relaxing in the sun for a few minutes

... Read more

Hill Sprints, Log Rustling and Parkour at The Wrekin

Location: The Wrekin, Telford, UK
Date: 31st January

Summary
- Warm up jog, including short, steep hill
- 5 x 15-25 second sprints
- 15kg log carry (half a mile)

Post workout nutrition: none - fasted until dinner.

[Click on the small photos in the main story to show larger versions]

It was cold and crisp as we approached the Wrekin Hill on Sunday morning.

This shot of the hill from afar gives a sense of its isolated beauty, but not, as Lightning and I never tire of pointing out, a sense of the challenges of the steeper ascents.

However, we weren't here to scale the beast - merely to scamper up and down one of her flanks for some interval sprints.

This was my final training run before the Long Mynd Valleys race next Sunday. It's an ambitious target (3 hours +), given that my knee has only managed 20 minutes of hill running since the op - but I have been so impressed with its performance that I intend to give it a go.

To reach the slope we'd earmarked for the sprints, we had to run up Little Hill - about as steep a climb as it's possible to run, but mercifully short. I was pleased to find I still had the old bounce in the legs and was able to dodge ahead of Lightening to take these photos of him completing the ascent . I suspect he was sensibly taking a slow-and-steady approach to preserve his legs for the sprints.

We set the camera timer to capture the start and finish of one of the sprints . The first sprint took about 16 seconds, after which I stopped timing them; but after the 5th and final sprint, my legs were pretty cooked and I'd be surprised if I took less than 25 seconds.

Lightening, on the other hand, seemed to recover better. He was also, as ever, faster. As I've remarked before, our relative abilities are an excellent illustration of the differences in muscle type; contrast the relative ease with which I jogged up the ascent with my lesser speed on the sprints. The fact that I am leaner certainly accentuates that contrast, so it will be interesting to see how things pan out if/when we find ourselves more comparably fleshed...

On the way back, we carried some logs - what Natural Messiah likes to call a 'kill carry' - simulating the effort involved, post-hunt, in carrying the prey back to camp. On the other hand, it was an opportunity to garner some fuel for Lightening's wood burner. I am not clear whether we could be accused of 'log rustling' - but I doubt whether our modest haul will make much of a dent, given the many piles of larger logs that festoon the forest.

For a non-Paleo person, Lightening does a good impression of a caveman, shouldering this monster for a good half mile . My own, more modest log was still a struggle. It can't have weighed more than 15kg, but it's easy to forget how hard carrying awkward objects can be when you spend too much time in the gym .

Here was our final haul: .

I am not sure how this fits in with the Paleo scenario, but Lightening decided to throw in some impromptu parkour using one of the logs. Pretty impressive stuff: .

Finally, on the way home, I couldn't resist pulling over to take this photo, which captures the weather perfectly: . ... Read more

Better Mountain Run Time but Downhill, Knee Complains

Location: The Wrekin, Telford, UK
Date: 24th January

Ran to the top, then walked down.

Total Time (to top): 17:02

Post Workout Nutrition: none - fasting until the evening meal.

The snow and ice from last week's Wrekin run had vanished today, so I was able to have a crack at a decent time. 17:02 is slower than my best, which is around 15:45, but it's close enough under the circumstances, which are:

- I was operating at about 8/10 effort level, where 10 is the level of effort I would employ if a sabre-toothed tiger was chasing me up the hill.

- whilst the knee felt good on the way up, over the few bits of terrain that are flat or decline slightly I detected a weakness that felt like it would lead to damage over longer stretches. Thus, my physiotherapist's prediction that I would initially struggle except when going uphill was borne out.

So in terms of raw fitness, I feel reasonably comfortable with the time.

We took a few photos on the top. The first has given me a messiah-like appearance thanks to the sun breaking through the clouds in the background and the second has given Lightning the appearance of a man recently deprived of two rolls of carpet.



Finally, there is the obligatory footwear shot:


The Five Fingers you see me wearing are actually 'Flow Treks' - they have the neoprene upper of the Flow, but the tread of the Treks. I did not even know these existed - I stumbled across them in a shop in London recently, and they seemed like the perfect solution for fell running and a way to protect my Kangaroo-skin Treks from the rigours of running.

This is good news, because the Kangaroo-skin Treks are about as close to a 'normal-looking' pair of Five Fingers as it gets, to the extent that I have actually worn them to a couple of business meetings. Well, if Sergey Brin can do it, then so can I ;-) ... Read more

First Fell Run Since the Knee Op

Location: The Wrekin, Telford, UK
Date: 16th January

Ran to the top, then walked down.

Total Time: 20:42

Post Workout Nutrition: this, 2 hours later.

Don't get the wrong idea from the satellite picture... it was a snow and ice-clad Wrekin that Lightening and I unceremoniously sloshed and skidded our way up yesterday.

The route map is courtesy of his new GPS phone which tracked us ascending from the car park (top right) to the summit 200 metres higher (bottom left) then back down the way we came.

The speed and altitude map did not really make sense, so I've not included that.

I'd elected to make this the first real trial of my Vibram Treks - the recently released Vibram Five Finger model which has a few millimetres of tread. After my skidding acrobatics wearing Vibram Flows at a fell race last year, I had decided that basic, flat-soled Five Fingers were not up to the job.

Perhaps this was not the best time to perform such a trial: my first fell run after the knee op, on a mostly sheet-ice path. However, since my companion was scarcely more sure-footed in his fell-running shoes, I think we can deliver an open verdict for now.

The photos are also courtesy of Lightening, and are not staged, honestly.

This could just about pass as a genuine 'action' photo...

...but here we are stretching the bounds of credulity.

To give you an idea of the ice: normally, Mrs M walks up the Wrekin while we run. She gets a small head start while we stretch, beat our chests and do Maori-style war dances. On this occasion she returned after five minutes and declared the route impassable.

I was pleased with the performance of the knee. Given the beating it took two days previously, and the increased stabilisation needed in the conditions, it shouldered its 50% of the responsibility for propelling me to the top with little complaint. I suspect running downhill would have taxed it more, but in those conditions we preferred to walk anyway.

The 20:42 time is far short of both our bests - previously, I have made it in sub-16 and Lightening in sub-18. I think we agreed that this was attributable as much to festive excesses as the conditions under foot. However, I felt I had more in the tank when I got to the top, so I'm looking forward to a possible visit next week to aim for a better time.

This one is authentic: I was genuinely standing there doing nothing.

I did plenty of quad stretching later that day, which my physio tells me is now going to be very important for the rehab of the knee. Until now I have not been able to bend it far enough for that to be possible.

This year's goal will be to get a respectable time in the Ben Nevis race, assuming we manage to get our entries in quick enough to beat the rush... ... Read more

Hill Sprints in Vibrams Reveals some Limitations

Location: The Wrekin, Telford, UK
Date: 31st July

We found a steep stretch of hill and did:

sprint up the hill ~ 25 seconds
walk slowly down (~ 2 minutes)

x 3

Post Workout Nutrition: this, 60 minutes later.

I did not take a photo - but it was shaded by trees and a mix of leaf-covered hard soil and tree roots with some embedded stones.

We did each sprint in grizzly bear mode (i.e. as though being chased by one) and both found our legs giving up during the last 5 seconds.

BBS Recovery

My partner did 4 sprints (one more than me.) I was concerned about just how 'rubbery' my legs felt after number 3. I was conscious that I was still recovering from Monday's BBS workout and did not want to affect performance on the next one too much.

So I cheered him on from the sidelines.

Fasting

I was also coming to the end of a fast - it is very unusual for me to workout in the evening - I normally do it in the morning, when the most I have been fasting for is 12 - 14 hours. Other people seem to find working out at the end of a fast not to be a problem.

From an evolutionary point of view, it would not make sense to make it harder to hunt just when you need the food most. So for now I am chalking this up to poor sleep and post-BBS weakness.

Vibram Performance

Whilst my partner had some state-of-the-art fell running shoes, I was in the Vibram Five Fingers Flows. I had seen forum posts suggesting the Vibrams are not suitable for that kind of terrain, and this experience proved the point. Since they have no tread on the sole, muddy or grassy surfaces, especially when wet, are a real problem.

As it turns out, there appears to be another product in the pipeline which may solve that problem - the Trek. In the meantime I will have to decide whether my fell running should be done the Vibrams, my fell-running shoes, or a choice depending on an assessment of the terrain.

Fast Twitch

It was interesting to see the difference in acceleration between my sprinting partner and me.

Whilst the composition of the soil at the bottom of the slope did make it harder for me in the Vibrams, he appeared to have more raw power when fresh....yet by the top of the slope, I was pulling it back to finish level, albeit on stonier ground.

I suspect he may have a little more fast-twitch tucked away than me, something our respective bench press performance would confirm...
... Read more

Caveman Hill Workout

Location: The Wrekin, Telford, UK

Light run: 5 minutes, medium incline
- 20 press ups
Hard run: 2 minutes, steep incline
- 5 slow chin ups on tree branch
Light run: 5 minutes, medium incline
Hard Run: 90 seconds, steep-ish incline
- 20 press ups
Light run: 3 minutes
- Failed attempt to lift a heavy log ;-)
Hard run: 30 seconds, steep incline
- 20 press ups
Light Run: 3 minutes, no incline
Sprint finish: 30 seconds

Essentially, I ran up the hill and threw in some fast bits whenever it got steep. Then I walked down.

I was running with a friend, who is slower than me. Normally I wear a 9kg weighted vest to even up the stakes, but this time I said I would do random exercises instead. Having him there as someone I had to keep catching up after doing press ups was a great way to ensure I continually pushed myself. There were moments when I really did not want to carry on running, but the desire to stay with him kept me going. ... Read more