Beinn Dubbh Hill Race

I thought with 10 days to go to Anglo Celtic Plate 100km race a little last bit of quad bashing at Bein Dubh Hill race would be a great last hard training run. This race has great sentimental value for me as last year it was my 1st race back after my brain haemorrhage. Last years was amazing, to be out running in the hills so soon after what had gone on made it a special night. It was a hard shift to get up the hill though and at that stage I still had no idea whether I would be able to get back to running at the same level. So a year later to be doing it as preperation for running for Scotland seems a bit surreal.

Luss isn't the easiest place to get to for 7pm after work.  Myself and Joe Symonds had formed a convoluted transport plan which concluded with getting a train to Old Kilpatrick where he had left his car...something to do with avoiding city centre rush hour traffic. I'm not sure...it made sense at the time. Inevitably Joe missed his train, so the drive up to Luss was a bit frantic, but at least I have got the 2015 near death experience out the way thanks to Joe's driving. In a rare turn of events Elsie had got there in good time so picked up numbers for us and waited for us at the start.  We rolled into Luss about two minutes before the start at 7 o'clock. Joe was still in his work gear, I suggested he could probably give everyone a five minute start, do the race in his shirt and tie and still win.  This would probably be considered taking the piss, but if I had his speed this is the kind of stupid thing I would do. The race ended up starting 5 minutes late so in the end we were there in plenty of time.

There was a good turn out from Bella including a rare turn out from the hill hating Greig Glendinning who was also insisting the dog driving tractor on to motorway incident earlier was nothing to do with any of his. Al Euen and Bob were there too.  They set a good early pace and I tucked in behind them. I reached the summit just behind Greig, who waved me past early on the downhill insisting he descends "like a bag of crisps". I made chase to Bob but couldn't catch him despite him finding the only bit of bog for miles and faceplanting in it. I reached the finish in about 41 minutes. About 6minutes faster than last year.  A decent reasonably hard effort, the fast runnable descent meant the quads felt nice and jelly like at the end, which was the main purpose of the evening really. They don't feel as sore today as I expected so maybe the quads are in better shape than I thought. We'll see in 9 days time. Although ACP is on a flat loop it is still usually the quads which are the 1st thing to go. After multiple bouts of flu and fatigue over the last few weeks I finally seem to be coming together just in time. Maybe a few weeks of lower mileage won't have done much harm. I have always said I would rather be undertrained and fresh than well trained and tired. I am going to get to test that theory in a big way in 9 days. Can't wait.


Kit courtesy of  TeamNathan
Hydration vest: NathanVapourAir
Shorts: Pearl Izumi Fly short
Socks: Feetures merino
Fueling and Hydration:  Osmo & Honey Stinger

Training update

I had good intentions of writing weekly updates of the training during the build up to the Anglo Celtic Plate hopefully with lots of big miles and lots of quality sessions. Training started really well but then my troublesome IT band started to niggle a bit. A visit to physio Jon Trevena gave me some interesting news as he diagnosed me with having tibial varum in my right leg- basically I am a bit bow legged- too much horse riding as a child? He thinks this is has been causing me ITB issues and has given me lots of exercises to do to get me on the mend. It is a longerterm project though and told me I would just have to manage the IT band as best as I can in the few remaining weeks in the build up to ACP. This has meant lots of treadmill miles as this seems to irritate it less if I add a little bit of incline. This culminated in an epic good friday 50km treadmill session, very sweaty- around 6 changes of t-shirt and about 3 litres of fluid consumed (Osmo hydration seemed to work really well) I think the staff at Virgin Active were considering having me sectioned. Unfortunately training has been a bit stop start due to me picking up a few flu type bugs which have been leaving me feeling pretty wiped out on a number of occasions. This weekend was all set to be the peak training weekend with a couple of back to back long sessions planned, however most of today and yesterday were spent in bed with me feeling completely zonked. I am hoping todays rest will nip it in the bud and I can get out for a good long run tomorrow. Fingers crossed. Reading fellow Team Nathan runner Antonia's travails in the build up to the World 24hour champs has left me feeling positive. She has a great attitude. Things don't always go to plan, but you just have to get on with it. The plus side of getting ill is that the lower mileage has probably helped the IT band mend faster than it otherwise would have.

Stevie G has given all us Team Nathan guys some lovely new shoes Courtesy of Pearl Izumi. The Pearl Izumi EM Road n1 and the trail version too.  I haven't given the trail ones a proper workout as I have been spending too much time on treadmills. But the Road N1s are fantabulous. I know I would say that as I have been given them for free but I do mean it, if he took them off me I would be running barefoot to go and buy a pair.  Why? They are the shoes I have most enjoyed running in since my beloved Brooks Green Silence were phased out. They just feel fast, they encourage you to run with a light, quick cadence like a good racing flat would but they feel more cushioned than a racing flat, I will be happy doing a road 100k in these. I really like these shoes. And they look pretty nice too...

Week 3 ACP Training. Cutback week.

I had originally penciled in next week for a cutback week but my legs were pretty goosed after the Borders marathon at the weekend so I decided to bring it forward to this week- listen to your body and don't be a slave to the schedule and all that.  So just short run commutes at an easy pace monday tuesday. On wednesday we were down in Cumbria seeing E's mum and dad and I was still feeling a bit overtired so just had an undulating 10miler round the farm. Legs finally started to come back to me by the end of the week and so squeezed in a couple of sessions, 10 Gardner St hill reps, and some sustained tempo hills on friday. Main key session was on Saturday where I decided to have another go at sustaining target ACP pace over around marathon distance. I did this on the canal running from Falkirk back home to Glasgow. It is a bit soul destroying running on the canal, but it's a good place for trying to maintain a consistent pace. Average pace was about 4.27/km going through marathon distance in about 3:07 so a wee bit faster than last week at Borders marathon, not really surprising given the lack of wind. Effort wise it felt a bit easier this week although mentally it is a bit harder doing this on your own rather than in a race.  Sunday the plan was to do 20 ish at an easy pace on tired legs. However I felt a wee IT band twinge about 15km in, and then to top it off a bird shat on my head. I decided things were heading in a bad direction and decided to cut the run short and get the legs recovered and hopefully nip any IT Band issues in the bud.  Massage booked for tomorrow and will be doing the ITB rehab routine religiously.

 ITB REHAB ROUTINE

Week 2 ACP training

Mon
Recovery 2 x run commute
17.7km
Tue
Run commute/catch up with Andy Murray + 8 x Gardner St Hill reps
26.4km
Wed
Run commute + bella session 10 x 2mins @ 10k pace,
28.7km
Thur
Gym: Bodypump plus easy pace run commute
14.7km
Fri
Easy pace run commute
16.3km
Sat
Kilpatricks hills, 2 x crags loop, duncolm & slacks. Epic rain and wind.
26km 1166m ascent
Sun
Borders Marathon, ACP Race prep session 42km @ 4.28/km pace

Total 173.9km

Another fairly solid week. Main session this week was on Sunday at the Borders Marathon. The aim was to do this on tired legs and have a go at target 100km pace to see how this felt. The day before I did a good session in the Kilpatrick hills in some pretty grim weather and legs were feeling like they had had a hard week when I woke up on Sunday morning.  There was no danger of doing anything stupid and racing it hard if the legs were feeling like that. Borders marathon is run on laps around the safety track of Kelso racecourse so would be good prep for the Anglo Celtic Plate which is laps of a similar length. It was a pretty windy day so it was difficult to do an easy pace/effort but managed to keep a fairly steady effort to come in at around 3hrs 8mins which is 4 28 per km pace.  Legs felt ok at the end but whether another 60km at this pace is possible remains to be seen.  Was good to meet ACP teammate Keziah who had a strong run for a comfortable marathon pb.

Week 1 ACP training

An invitation to run at the Anglo Celtic Plate for the Scotland means a wee change in racing plans for the year.  Originally the plan was to run the Highland Fling in April as I built towards the West Highland Way race in June.  I nearly bit Adrian's hand off when he offered me a place in the Scotland team despite the unpleasant prospect of having to run 100km on the road.  So Highland Fling is out (3rd consecutive DNS!) and Anglo Celtic Plate is in. I'm not really sure it will make for an ideal WHW race build up but as Adrian Stott sagely pointed out to me it didn't seem to do Paul G any harm last year.

In a bid to make my training a bit more focused I think I'll try and blog my training each week Steve Way stylee over the next 10 weeks. 10 weeks! not very long to try and get some road speed in the legs, but here goes...

Mon
am:
Spin 45mins inc 2x11 min climbs with microsurges
Run commute
pm:
bella session inc 10xhill loops bella park tempo effort
31.6km

Tue
Recovery, run commute 16.2km

Wed
Run commute plus Glasgow Green tempo session 6laps 14.5km @ 4min/km pace
Total 35.6km

Thur
Recovery 2 x run commute 15.5km

Fri
Recovery
Run commute x3 16.1km (actually some more in there but watch went on the wonk, lets not quibble over a couple of km)

Sat
40km at ACP Pace including Pollok parkrun
40km 4.27/km

Sun
Time on feet bonk run (off road/hills)
Milngavie-Killearn and over Dumgoyne
33km/800m climbing about 3 1/2 hours in a wibbly glycogen depleted state. Fun.

Total for week
189.2km
Biggest mileage week for some time, amazing the rocket up the arse a Scotland vest will give you. Lets see if I can maintain it....

National XC Champs, Falkirk

After Carnethy last week this was part 2 of "do the races I missed because of the brain haemorrhage" week.  The national XC champs are on a 12k undulating course in Callender park, Falkirk.  I normally love this race but the apocalyptic weather forecast slightly dulled my enthusiasm for it.  I originally had grand plans to do the race as part of a long run, perhaps coming back towards Glasgow along the canal after the race.  But a hard week at work and the freezing rain meant this plan was quietly shelved in exchange for doing a few extra laps of the course to get some bonus miles in.  The race turned into a bit of a suffer fest for me as my stomach went to pot on the 2nd lap and lap 3 was just hanging on in the hope of reaching the portaloos in time.  Though in these conditions I don't think anyone would have noticed if I had just let rip down my legs.  Fortunately there were some good performances from the other Bellas which lifted us to a fairly respectable 11th team which isn't a bad result at the nationals especially as many of our xc speedsters were absent.

Looking forward to a nice week of training with no races to distract next weekend.

Carnethy5

I should really get my arse in gear and reactivate this blog with some race reports, so here goes with a Carnethy 5 quicky.  I am back in business after the minor hiccup that was 2014.  Training has been going well in the last month after sorting out my IT band problems so I was well up for Carnethy5 hill race last weekend, especially as last year I was absent due to being camped up in ward 65 at the Southern General.  This year the race fell on Valentines day, so I offered Elsie the chance of a romantic post race meal at Beeslack High School, unfortunately I was rejected and had to spend it in the company of Bellahouston Road Runner's David Stakes (always a pleasure).  Weather was perfect for a fast time this year, but there wasn't quite enough in the legs for a sub 60 run this year, but feels like fitness is heading in the right direction.

Great to head home with a specially brewed beer to celebrate the 45th edition of the race too.  Not a bad wee beer.

Off to Falkirk tomorrow for the national XC champs, looking like a wet, wet, wet one.