Posts

Showing posts from 2017

Centurion Autumn 87.5

Image
With hindsight, on the day I should have either not run at all or should have dropped out and offered my services as a pacer instead. I didn't. But I'd managed the NDW100 , I reckoned I could have nipped in with a much better time without having the injury, and the A100 is nowhere near as tough as the NDW. Well that was the logic and self delusion. Ivor's words of wisdom (I have many, all experience based): Do not underestimate a 100 miler, and never get complacement about tackling one. Training Hole So. After the NDW100 I was slightly injured. After running 55 miles on a sprained ankle I had torn a muscle, so I couldnt get back into training. After being really well behaved, I finally, tentatively started a bit of training. Then out running with my son, on his bike, we had an accident, I fell into him and smacked the front of my (bad) shin really badly against his bike frame. This triggered tendonitis. My Strava graph shows the difference in volume bef

Piglet Plod

Image
SVN Piglet Plod So Sunday was the SVN Piglet Plog  in the Ashdown Forest. I'd wanted to do a Saxons, Vikings and Normans event for a while simply because they sounded awesome (cake taken seriously) and the medals are quite simply amazing, unfortunately, they are normally based out in the deepest darkest recesses of Kent... however, for the Winnie The Pooh series races, they're much closer to home turf in the AA Milne region of the Ashdown Forest. Fancy dress is "positively encouraged" so even though it's the 'Piglet Plod'... I really think I'm an "Eeyore" sort of person and so: Eeyore is sad. The plan for the day was.. well unlike other events I wasn't really sure of the best tactic for a time limited race, I had a vague idea of trying to get to 6 loops at a comfortable pace, but would be happy to do 5, but that was about it really, and I may have mentioned something along these lines to Cara who may have even believed me. O

Strava pruning

Image
So after the start of the month the Strava timeline is full of everyone has "joined a challenge", and then gosh everyone has completed 10% of their challenge, and X has completed a challenge and so on. Alright there are more annoying things to be bothered by in the world and some people might be really into these challenges, but I'm really not all that interested and I quite like just seeing activities people have done. Unfortunately there's no way to modify or configure these in the normal Strava settings. Although it is "something they are thinking about" So what to do... So firstly, the web interface... thankfully the Strava web interface is really clean and nicely designed. What if we just inspect the elements, aha! they have nice unique and explanatory class id's... we can just use ublock or something similar, add a bunch of rules and clear them all away. strava.com###suggested-follow-module strava.com###dorado-module strava.com###i

Equipment of a mediocre ultra-runner

Image
Under enforced rest I was sulking about my leg and finally cleaning all the kit from last weekend's race and thought of the reasons why I had each piece of kit... and then thought it might make an interesting read. I'm probably mistaken of course. So here's a summary of the sort of kit a mediocre ultra-runner might find useful to carry. Having tried out various bit of kit over several years of both successful (and unsuccessful) ultra runs of various lengths I've settled on a set of equipment that I feel comfortable with and works well* (*for me, caveat runner, your mileage may vary etc etc). Most of it isn't the quite the latest and greatest technology or kit available, despite being a gadget freak I'll stick with something if it works or I can't find anything better. Here I am kitted out at the end of NDW100. The only piece of kit that didn't seem to be living up to previous experiences was the head-torch, but that might just have been down to

NDW100 report

Image
TL;DR - I finally finished a 100 mile race! OK apologies for the ridiculously long write up, but I ran 100 miles , I think I can be excused for rambling. If you can learn from others mistakes, then I should be able to provide ample material for a degree level education in ultra running. This was to be my sixth attempt at the 100 mile distance - completely ignoring the advice of WC Fields - I was trying more than just again and again. Each time I'd failed I thought I'd figured out what I needed to do the next time. A brief whistle stop tour of my previous attempts and reasons for failure (not forgetting a random scattering of other endurance events, Ironman triathlons and injuries interspersed along the way) were: 2012 - NDW100 (50m) This year there was a dual 50/100 run, so the temptation to stop at the halfway point was just too great, I simply decided I'd had enough and 50 was good enough for me. 2014 - NDW100 (66m) Back and determined to crack it. Gro