Ballot success and back to the gym!

Some thoughts about training

High time to update my blog, in particular with reference to the 2 race entry ballots I wrote about in a previous post.

On January 1, whilst I was running through the mud on the North Leeds Greenway Ultra, the email arrived to say I had been successful in the ballot for the Snowdonia Marathon Eryri which will be on October 28. This will be my 5th time running this wonderful event. Then on January 10, to my even greater delight, I received the email stating I had also been successful in getting a place for the CCC at UTMB in Chamonix on September 1st. The ‘little sister’ of the full UTMB course, this 100km mountain race has 6100m (20,000 ft) of elevation and takes the runners from Courmayeur in Italy via Champex-Lac in Switzerland to Chamonix back in France. I am absolutely over the moon though also daunted by the prospect. I have run races in the Alps and the Pyrenees before, and whilst I have determination and endurance in spades I am a steady runner to start with, and particularly slow at descending on technical terrain, and I know I will need most of the 26 hours and 30 minutes that are allowed for this race. In fact getting timed out is not beyond the realms of possibility. It’s a long race and a lot could happen along the way.

Before all that happens though there is the small matter of the Dales High Way with Punk Panther on May 13th, 90 miles (and 14,000ft) from Saltaire to Appleby. It is at least equally daunting! It is now exactly 16 weeks until the event so structured training has resumed in earnest this week. After the Dales High Way there are, handily, another 16 weeks to the CCC. So there will be time for recovery before jumping back into the programme, probably about 12 weeks out.

At the end of 2021 I purchased an ultra marathon training plan in preparation for my 55k/10,000ft race in Val d’Aran in July 2022. I chose to buy one from Higher Running, the coaching partnership of Sage Canaday and Sandy Nypaver based in Colorado. I really like their approach to running and coaching and am also currently completing their on-line ultimate running course which should give you the tools to take your running to the next level. Sage posts useful ‘Tuesday Training Talks’ on YouTube, well, I find them useful anyway. I guess I am a bit of a groupie!

Their plan served me well, indeed so well that I have continued with it ever since, making adjustments to suit my goals, races, and non-running activities in the diary. That was a 50k plan, I now use their 50 mile plan, which is not all that different apart from having slightly longer ‘long runs’ scheduled, and topping out around 60 miles per week in total for the heaviest weeks, instead of 50. The majority of the runs are easy pace, or easy pace with strides added in, one long run each week obviously, and generally only one ‘session’, consisting of speed intervals in the early weeks moving more towards tempo sessions in the later weeks of the plan.

The main difference in my training is that I have returned to the GYM! Strength and conditioning, as well as working on mobility, is so important for running performance as well as for injury prevention. It is so for all runners, but definitely crucial if like me you try to run quite a few weekly miles, are running most days of the week, and are not getting any younger 😬. I have been doing some (not nearly enough) strength training at home, ever since the pandemic. As well as doing body weight exercises I bought some cheap weights from the middle aisle of a well-known supermarket and some resistance bands. I followed YouTube videos. I found it hard to motivate myself to go to the gym when I was working from home, it had been easier to pop in on the way home from the office. And so my gym habit slipped into near-oblivion. But with these mega races in my calendar for 2023 I decided I wanted to return to the gym to make use of the vast range of equipment and weights available. For starters I cannot squat with a ‘big’ weight on my shoulders at home as I have no way of getting it up and over my head, let alone down again! But that’s only a small part of it, having dumbbells and kettlebells of every conceivable weight available is so helpful, as well as medicine balls, wobble boards, steps of different heights, and machines to work on any conceivable muscle group. Yes it is perfectly possible to make do with a limited range of weights, but I find one session per week in the gym and at least another one at home, as well as a stretching/yoga session, works for me. I also use the stair climber for my warm up to get some much needed elevation in.

I would like to write something about training in the gym, because I know that some people feel apprehensive about setting foot in there. Perhaps, like me, they don’t quite have the body-beautiful look of the fitness influencers on Instagram. Perhaps, like me, they are a bit older. And once you are in there, what do you do? Machines can be daunting, the free weights section even more so, especially when it is busy, filled with people who all appear to know what they are doing. I have been fortunate, back in 2016 I went on a 6 week course called ‘Strength training for women’ where a small group of us were taught the basics by a (female) personal trainer (PT). This was fun, useful and felt entirely safe and non-threatening. After that I had the confidence to go in on my own and build on that knowledge. In fact I was so taken with it that I had regular sessions with the same PT for a couple of years after that, and that has certainly expanded my arsenal of exercises to do. My advice to anyone who feels daunted by the gym is to ask for an introduction to the facility and the equipment, all gyms should do this, and if financially possible have one or more sessions with a PT to get you going and check that your form is OK. YouTube is your friend and will show you lots of exercises with suggested sets and repetition rates, but you do want to be careful that your form is right otherwise you might be doing more harm (for instance to your back) than good. If like mine, your gym runs a course, then you’re in luck. As for feeling intimidated, I would say there is absolutely no need to worry. I use a University gym, 95% populated by students, and really no one looks at a late middle-aged woman just getting on with her own thing. Honestly, no one is interested and I can count on being virtually invisible 😁 If you are in the free weights area you will see lots of people just sitting down looking at their phones. They really are not going to look at you as they are engrossed by their screens. They are resting between ‘sets’. People who lift heavy weights generally have quite long rests in between. If you are lifting lighter, as many runners will want to do, you can get away with slightly shorter rests. I try to be time efficient and do some arm exercises in between sets of squats for instance. Though I might also be seen on my phone to just make a note of what I am doing, it is useful to keep a record of your training. I then copy and paste it into my training plan. There’s nothing like a nice looking Excel training spreadsheet to gladden the heart!