Strathcarron 10k

2 weeks after a 24 hour race racing a 10k wouldn't normally be on the agenda. However this is a fundraiser for the hospice where Elsie's sister has just started working so we thought it would be nice to do it. Esther planned to do it pushing Ailsa in her super flash running buggy, so myself Elsie and Joe decided we would race it and then jog back to run in with Esther and Ailsa.  My post brain haemorrhage pb of 36.30 was at the Marymass 10k 2 weeks before Glenmore24, so today on a hilly course 2 weeks after Glenmore I probably wasn't going to get near that and I decided not to look at the watch and just run on feel.  And the feel was- blowing out of my arse. The 1st 4k is pretty lumpy and mainly uphill.  Joe and another chap had sped into the distance, so I was left at the back of a group of  4 fighting for 3rd place. Despite the legs feeling a bit on the hurty side it was fun to be running hard instead of doing the ultra shuffle at 10min mile pace. In the 2nd half the other guys in the group slowed a little and I managed to hang on for  3rd place. Forgot to stop the watch at the end, but strava suggests time was about 38:10.  Normally a time that would make me a bit grumpy but I was pretty pleased with the effort coming a couple of weeks after a +100miler, plenty of time to get some speed back. Elsie came in at around 43 mins, then we jogged back up the course to find Esther who was doing brilliantly pushing Ailsa in the running buggy.  This weekend it is back into the hills for the 2 breweries race down in Broughton. 30k with 1500m climbing makes for a decent day out and good beer at the end is an extra bonus.  Not looking forward to that last climb up Trahenna though...

Glenmore 24 2014, a sleep deprived race report

(This was written in a sleep deprived state the night after the race, I might come back and do a more considered race blog later)

You always think you are going to get an amazing nights sleep after running a 24hour race, but it never quite works out like that. I can't move my legs a millimetre in any direction without yelping in pain, so in the absense of sleep i might as well rustle up a race report. It's around 48hours since i last slept so expect spelling errors, factual innacuracies and flights of fancy. It's possible none of this actualy happened, but if that is the case i can always play the brain haemorrhage defense trump card.

So, Glenmore 24 hour trail race.  I won this race back in 2012. It's the only race i've ever won, and that was quite exciting. So when i entered the 2014 race back in november I was hoping the big boys would stay at home and I could win another shiny trophy. I guess like my Bella team mate Greig Gleindinning I am a bit of a pot hunter. Although his technique is to find 10k races in obscure borders towns to win, my version is to find stupidly long races where you can win by being the last person to get bored of running around in circles. Well, I jest, you do need a bit of training, but a low boredom threshold will take you a long way in 24 hour racing.

In Feburary the aforementioned sub arachnoid brain haemorrhage occured (try spelling that after 48 hours with no sleep) which kind of blew a hole in my training. Most of Feburary was spent enjoying the facilities on ward 65 at the Southern General and much of March was spent napping and trying to remember what I'd had for breakfast. By April I had got fed up of googling brain haemorrhage to 5k training plans and started doing a little bit of running, I even ventured out for a few hill races. My lack of fitness was apparent, I could no longer keep up with bellas's resident mountain goat al ewan and had to resort to giving the v60 ladies a run for their money. By may i was back at work and i was running regularly but very slowly. By june most of the fatigue and headaches I had been having were starting to wear off and I was starting to feel like normal. It was at this stage that Glenmore became important to me, I felt that if I had a decent run there it would be the final stage in getting my life fully back to how it was before the brain haemorrhage (end of the serious bit, stay with me there is some toilet stuff coming soon).

Over june, july and august i got 3 decent months of training in but that doesnt make very interesting reading so lets just cut to the startline...

We are in a field near Aviemore. Its cold and it's raining and I'm about to spend the next 24hours running laps of a 4 mile trail loop. I'm starting to seriously question my life choices. Is this really so important to me, couldn't I just have done Parkrun? The gun is fired and we trot off on our 1st lap past loch morlich and I immediatly start to remember why I love this race. A lot of people think lapped races are boring. But there is a really elegent simplicity about them. All external complications like navigation and carrying food are stripped away and it just becomes about the process of moving one foot in front of the other. You pushing your body to the limit, how far can you go in 24 hours?
Or at least this is the kind of bullshit you have to keep telling yourself in a 24 hour race to stop yourself nipping off for a bag of chips and an early night in a warm bed.

My 2012 race had been punctuated by stomach problems in the early stages -"stomach problems" tends to be the euphemism of choice in race reports for massive exploding bottom issues (I believe my effort of 4 poos in the first four laps is still a race record).  However there was no such drama this time around, which is a bit of a disappointment as all race reports need a good poo story, hence me revisiting past glories. Instead the main theme for the 2014 glenmore 24 was rain. There was was rain, thunder, and hail in varying quantities. But this is Aviemore in September, you don't come here for the weather, so you just have to suck it up and get on with it. And thats what I did, I ran, walked and shuffled for 24 hours. And I loved every minute of it, which I guess marks me down as some sort of weirdo, but there was a load of other weirdos out there doing the same thing which makes it even more fun.

So I'm actually getting pretty tired now so I wont give you a blow by blow account- I might come back and do that later. Lets just have some race stats: i managed 124 miles in the 24 hours...a bit less than 129 in 2012 But enough for 2nd place behind the rampaging Johnny Fling who also gets bonus points for running most of the race in his underwear.
Result: a wee trophy, a pair of socks and a congratulatory snog from RD Bill Heirs. It doesn't get much better than that. 
Bonus comedy moment at the end came when the race doctor came and saw me because he was worried about my fat hands. Fat hands? I've never been so offended.  He tried to make me wave them in the air to help the fluid drain away.  I explained the girls at the water station had been making me do that while singing "Reach for the stars" for the last 6 hours anyway. Without that who knows how fat my hands would have been.

So that was that then, a good day out. I think 124 miles means we can put this Brain Haemorrhage stuff to bed now.  Oh and I'd better end by giving a special mention to Elsie who devoted her weekend to ultra support duties.  Duties which included watching me smear my bum crack with vaseline.

She is a very special lady.

Kaim hill race and not running for scotland

Last weeks exploits of returning to work and hill racing took their toll on me and I was a bit wiped out by the weekend. I was back to sleeping during the day and bailed out of an attempted run up cort ma law on sunday turning back before i even made it to the crow road car park. Fortunately this seemed to be a temporary set back and by monday i seemed ok. I managed a bit of speed work with the virgin active bods on tuesday and was feeling like i had enough energy to manage Kaim Hill race on wednesday.  I had a bit more zip in the legs than at Beinn Dubh last week and got round in 38:47, which is only around 4 minutes slower than last years time so maybe some progress is being made.

On saturday was the Anglo Celtic Plate- the home nations 100km race. Back in february I had been selected for the Scotland team only to have my brain haemorrhage a couple of days later. Frustrating timing! So running for Scotland was not to be this year and I had to resort to following Adrian Stotts twitter updates from the race while at work. I was really chuffed to see Paul and Andy have really good runs helping the team to 2nd place behind England.  While i was in a bit of a grump having to miss out, a small part of me was relieved at not having to do a 100km road race.  My legs were in absolute bits after last years 100km race in Perth. But it is a bit annoying  having missed out on a Scotland vest, hopefully i can get back to that level again. On sunday this felt a bit more realistic as i had the best run i have had in ages. I ran up Dumgoyne after heading out from Milngavie through Mugdock.  Legs felt great, the least fatigued I have felt on a long run on the recovery.  Off to Mallorca next week supporting E on her ironman 70.3, hopefully should fit in a few runs on the Serra de Tramuntana hills, can't wait.

Beinn Dubh hill race

It's bog and burn time of year again, I love this series of short midweek hill races so despite not really being hill fit i thought it would be nice to make my racing comeback here. Beinn dubh is the 1st race in the series this year, i ran it for the 1st time last year and had a decent run to finish 9th in 40:37. I was curious to see just how much fitness i have lost since the brain haemorrhage. The answer unsurprisingly was quite a lot as i toiled up and down in 47:59 for 36th place.  The long runnable descent in this race is fantastic fun, but it trashes the quads and 3 days on mine are still feeling pretty tender. A bit of work to get the hill fitness back then i think.  Fellow bella al had a great run to finish 1st vet in 38:49, 5 mins quicker compared to my 7 mins slower- interesting to see where our respective fitness levels have gone in a year! Onwards then, to Kaim hill race next wednesday, a slightly shorter and smaller hill which i did in 34:38 last year, so lets see if i can at least keep it under 40mins.

week2 recovery

mon: 45mins spin/20min run on fatigued legs
tue: 2x1k, 1x1k off 10mins. Plus 400m reps off descending recoveries.
wed: 45spin (2sets under/overs)/20min run on fatigued legs
thur: 1hr body pump, 1hr easy paced running
fri: 30mins at about 80% max hr
sat: 20k on whw with brendan, out and back from milngavie back via mugdock.
sun: 9k easy with elsie

total 62km running
8hr15min total training

Usual monday of spin and run back from gym. Tuesday was the big one, the 1st post brain explosion attempt at some speedwork. So far I have only managed easy paced running, I haven't felt able to inject a bit of pace into the legs yet. I decided I was ready to try the session at Virgin Gym's tuesday run group. The session was 3x 2km reps at 10k pace, but for me it was really just a see what the legs will do sort of session.  Kevin advised just doing it at an aerobic effort but it is so difficult to keep the heart rate down I thought I might as well run it hardish to see how the body responded.  I could only manage around  4.20/km -about a minute per k slower than I would have been doing it previously. Heart rate was over 90% of max all the way. The only positive spin on that is plenty of room for improvement.  Weirdly it didn't feel like a 90% of max effort, normally that involves breathing through every oriface but this felt easier.  Did long run with Brendan again on saturday, similar distance as last week but went off road for a wee jaunt on the west highland way.  Legs still feeling sore after this distance.  Feels weird when the old weekend long ones would be 3 or 4 hours -suddenly I have free time at the weekends, hope I don't get used to this.

onwards

After the excitement of sundays 10 miles I woke up feeling like my legs had ran a marathon.  I dragged myself down to Kevin's Spin class at Virgin optimisticaly hoping to loosen them off a bit but it really just succeeded in wiping me out for the rest of the day. But felt good to try and get myself into my old routine.  Be interesting to see if I can manage this when I am back at work.  I had visits to GP and Brain Injury Clinic this week and they both seemed cautiously positive about me returning to work fairly soon.  Physicaly I am going to be fine at work, I am just waiting for the brain to catch up, it currently seems reluctant to concentrate for longer than a few minutes.  It was just a very short run on tuesday, but feeling better by wednesday and managed morning spin class and a 10k run. Thursday morning I did bodypump still using lighter weights than normal and ran back from the gym- about 20minutes.  Friday things went a bit backwards, I was feeling pretty fatigued all day and only managed a short run to do the friday night Peckams beer run.  Saturday was long run time, I managed to coax fellow Bellas Greig and Brendon into my short slow long run group.  Greig only has one fit leg at the moment and Brendon has only had about 1 run in the last month so we were all well matched. 16km round to Glasgow green at back, easy pace with some good chat.  Felt a lot more comfortable than last week so progress is being made.

So 1st full week back running 6 weeks post brain explosion it is a weekly total of 35km, plus 2 spin classes and 1 body pump.  Happy with that.

39 days

I didn't ask the doctors how long I should wait before I started trying to run again fearing I wouldn't like the answer they gave me.  In the end I lasted 39 days.  I started with a few sneaky visits to the gym over the last week or so, and rather than making me feel even more tired it has perked me up a bit for the rest of the day.  Despite this I've been reluctant to try running, too much movement really hurts my head and I couldn't face the pounding running would give my head. However my headaches have improved over the last couple of days and on thursday night I anounced to Elsie I was going to try a run the next day.  She didn't look particularly pleased with this plan.

So Friday 21st march, the 1st post brain haemorrhage run. I decided just to head out for a very steady trot around the block, nervously clutching my mobile phone should anything go wrong.  I managed a very slow 5k, heart rate sky high, legs heavy but wow it felt good. I had a smile on my face for the rest of the day.

In the evening we headed down to Elsie's mum and dads for a bit of a family get together for the weekend, I packed some running kit just incase, it would be rude to visit Cumbria and not get out for a wee run.  So on Saturday I went out again, this time with Elsie's sister Amy, another easy 30 mins running, just as slow, heart rate sky high again but felt just as good as Friday.

On Sunday Elsie and Amy were heading out for 10 miles, and I asked to tag along to see if I could manage a longer run. Joe S came with us too, he had a bit of a chest infection so was happy to run at a (for him) very easy pace. It was a stunning day with great views towards the Lake District, with snow glistening on Skiddaw in the distance.  The 10miles flew by, but legs were pretty heavy towards the end. It was a pretty undulating route so it was hard to keep the heart rate down (avg 84% mhr). By the end legs were feeling pretty trashed.  It's pretty amazing how much muscle wastage there has been in 39 days. 2.5 months ago I was racing 100 miles at a decent pace, and now 10 miles at a slow pace feels like a similar level of effort. I'm hobbling about today with some cracking DOMS.

6 weeks post SAH a very unexpected 17 mile week!

An inconvenient Subarachnoid Haemorhage

The plan post Spine Race had been to take it very easy for 2-3 weeks before starting to build towards some shorter faster races (D33, Highland Fling or if selected Anglo Celtic Plate).  The mess my feet were in after the Spine race made it much easier than normal to take a few days off running.  I had massive bruising under my toenails which eventually resulted in 5 nails departing.  Aside from this I felt surprisingly good in the days after the race and after a couple of easy weeks I was soon getting back into the old routine.

Cut to Monday 10th Feb which started as a pretty normal day- ran down to Spin class at Virgin Active follwed by easy run into work, about 5 miles running in total.  I had a fairly routine day at work before jogging down to Bellahouston park for the session with Bellahouston Road Runners. Planned session was cruise intervals (8/6/4/3/2/1 mins) round the usual southside loop past Rouken Glen.  Immediately on 1st rep I felt a bit off the pace and didn't feel quite right, nothing major, just slightly not quite right.  At the end of the 1st rep I decided I wasn't going to get much out of the session feeling like this so decided I would jog bag to the ski centre.  Brian and a couple of others offered to jog back with me but I told them I felt ok to head back on my own.  After a few minutes jogging back I suddenly had an agonising headache, kind of like someone was reaching inside my head and squeazing my brain, this was one of the most painful things I have felt in my life so was pretty sure this was a bit more than a headache.  Apparantly a passer by found me hanging on to a speed camera and helped me over to Thorntree Hall where the caretaker called an ambulance. I was sick a couple of times while waiting for the ambulance and started to get really cold as I was still in my sweaty running kit.

The ambulance arrived and took me to the Victoria hospital, which I apparently moaned about because I wanted to go to the Western Infirmary which is really near my flat.  I had a CT scan at the Victoria which showed I had a Subarachnoid brain haemorrhage. I later learned around 10% of SAH cases die before they make it to the hospital, so on the plus side I was doing alright so far.  I was transferred to Neurology at the Southern General. Overnight I developed Hydrocephalus, which is caused by the cerebro spinal fluid being unable to drain away. This was treated by putting an extraventricular drain in my head to remove the excess fluid.  I also had a CT Angiogram which showed the bleed was caused by a 3mm ruptured aneurysm, this was to be treated by Endovascular Coiling to prevent further bleeding.  Endovascular Coiling involves making an incision in the groin and passing a catheter all the way up to the aneurism site and inserting a platinum coils to prevent further bleeding.  Pretty clever and a bit nicer than the alternative method that takes the direct route and opens up the skull. After the procedure I took a bit longer than expected to wake up so was put in ITU but eventually woke up at 9.30pm on tuesday night and was well enough to be moved to ward 65 the next day. By Thursday I was a bit more aware of where I was and a bit less confused, I was telling  Elsie off for missing her triathlon training, and hassling her for flat hunting news (the lease on our current flat ended in less than a month and we didn't have a  new flat yet). With all this to cope with I'm pretty impressed Elsie hadn't suffered a meltdown yet.

Much to my displeasure I was told I would need at least a couple more weeks in hospital. Over the next week I deteriorated a bit and developed a meningitis infection from the extra ventricular drain. This was treated with antibiotics and a fresh drain put in.  After this I made a pretty good recovery, and was able to have the drain removed.  Once the drain was out the hospital were happy to release me back into the wild, and 3 weeks to the day since the initial haemorrhage I was on my way home  Remarkably in between visiting me every day Elsie had found us a new flat, and the weekend before I was released the bella boys had helped Elsie move our stuff in.  It was great to come to a nice new place to live, perfect to begin the recovery process.  From what I've been told and read I can expect at least 3 months of feeling exhausted, headaches and insomnia, but otherwise it looks like I am one of the lucky ones who will make a full recovery.  So it looks like feet up for a bit. At least it will give all those post Spine race niggles a chance to heal.

Spine Challenger 2014

Before sitting down to write some thoughts on my race I had a little read over some blogs from this years race and I think no one summed up the experience more accurately than Mimi Anderson who declared “shit that was hard”. I don’t think anyone who took part in the race would disagree with that. If you can't be bothered reading on that should be your take home message

But for the rest of you, a bit of background: the Spine Race is a 268 mile non stop race along the entire length of the Pennine way. In January. For those who don’t want to spend the next 3 months recovering they also offer a shorter race: the Spine Challenger- a 108 mile race from Edale to Hawes. Exactly the same route as the Spine race, you just get the luxury of finishing at checkpoint 2 instead of pushing on to Kirk Yetholm. I like a long run but 268 miles is pushing it a bit so I went for the more sensible 108 mile Challenger option.

Me and Elsie travelled down the day before, staying at Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese Inn, which sounded delightful but wasn't. Thin walls and neighbours having a lively bit of rumpy pumpy didn't make for the most restful night. And they wouldn't give us an early breakfast either, so a quick cup of tea and porridge in a pot it was before we legged it over to Edale for an 8am start.

The weather forecast had promised a dry day, so inevitably as we gathered on the start line the heavens opened prompting a mad dash in the packs for waterproofs. I had to feel a bit sorry for the optimistic chap in compression shorts when the rain turned to first hail and then snow.

The first few hours flew by and were pretty good fun despite the unexpected snow. Navigation was pretty easy at this stage mainly because we could just follow Marcus Scotney's Hoka footprints in the snow. In what felt like no time we were at Torside reservoir, where I was told Marcus was going well and was 10minutes ahead in the lead. I decided not to try and hang on at his pace and stopped to sort out my feet which were already very wet and were getting a few hot spots.

The field started to spread out at this stage and I was mainly on my own. Things were going well until I had a wee lapse of concentration on Castleshaw Moor where I missed a turn and went too far west. I dithered about retracing my steps, but instead decided to  straight line it back to where the Pennine way crossed the road a short way ahead. Probably the wrong decision as I watched Daniel Hendrikson overtake me taking the correct path while I struggled through tussocks and bog getting back on track. Despite the wee error I was still feeling in good spirits and managed to push on at a decent pace trying to make the most of the fading light. Before long it was getting dark and it was headtorch time, the thought of 15 hours in the dark wasn't exactly filling me with glee.

I had hoped I might be able to catch a glimpse of Daniel's headtorch in the distance but he seemed to have pulled away, so it was just a matter of grinding out the miles to the checkpoint at Hebden Bridge. The organisers didn't make things easy for us -getting to the checkpoint involved a steep scramble down through some woods before popping out at a scout hut.

I didn't hang about long at the checkpoint, just getting on some dry clothes and wolfing down some beef stew. It was great to get some proper food  after 11 hours of gels. Apparently Marcus had left a couple of hours ago in the lead but the 2nd placed chap had stopped for a lie down so I gained a place and left the checkpoint in 2nd place with another 60 miles or so to go and a long 12 hours till daylight.

The next section was pretty difficult, there were lots of flagstones over the boggy moorland, but the water on the slabs had frozen making them pretty sketchy to run on. So the option was run over the icy slabs risking a fall or run alongside them going knee deep in ice cold bog. Neither option was very appealing, and progress was pretty slow. Soon a head torch appeared in the distance behind me, I thought it was Daniel in 3rd place but it turned out to be Pavel who was leading the 268 mile race and was looking incredibly strong. We ran together for a some time. There wasn't a great deal of chat – I don't think he could understand my Scottish accent- but it was nice to have some company for a bit. I was really impressed with Pavel, he was doing an extra 150 miles on top of what I was doing, yet a lot of the time it was him that was pushing the pace on.

The terrain didn't improve much, after the frozen slabs it became very boggy and it was pretty difficult to move at any speed. Navigation became a bit tricky as the route heads through a number of fields with no obvious path and it was often difficult to find the style or gate to cross the walls.  Mentally this was the lowest part of the race for me, my feet were starting to get pretty painful too as they had been wet for the entire race thought the Drymax socks seemed to be doing a good job of preventing any blisters. It became a matter of just keeping on moving forward until the mini checkpoint at Malham tarn where I could sort myself out. We hit Malham tarn just as it was getting light, I devoured another coffee here and  managed to get my water bottles open which had been frozen up for the last couple of hours. The coffee and daylight gave me a big boost, so I started to up the pace a bit and parted from Pavel here. My slightly fuzzy brain did a few calculations and worked out that  while catching Marcus was unlikely I could still get under the old course record of 32hrs18mins. However there was still an icy scramble up Pen-y-ghent to negotiate before the last push down to Hawes. The coffee boost got me to the base of Pen-y-ghent, however it soon started to wear off so the scamble to the summit wasn't very swift. At the top I got a nice surprise as Elsie and her mum & dad were waiting there to cheer me on. I hadn't expected this so it was a great lift to stop for a hug and a photo before I carried on in much better spirits.

My good mood didn't last too long, descending the other side I started to feel in a bad way again. My feet were becoming an issue and had become very swollen causing my toes to get badly bruised underneath the nails. The pain was pretty intense but strangely the pain was worse if I walked or stopped, so the best option was to run as hard as I could so it wold be over sooner. The toe problems probably ended up working in my favour as I probably ran the last section faster than I would have done without the pain.  I ended up getting to Hawes in a time of 29hours 33 mins, 2nd place behind Marcus who took the win in 29hours and 1 minute. A great result in his 1st hundred miler, especially considering his injury problems in the run up to the race.

So, in summary, yes Mimi, I agree- shit that was hard. And I only did 108 miles. I cannot comprehend what those doing the 268mile race were going through. Pavel ended up finishing the 268 miles in 110hours and 45 minutes. The man is a machine.

And as for my toenails, to date 5 have departed.  One more looks like it might also be leaving me soon. I won't disgust you with a photo.