race coverage

Well done to all those involved in William Sichel's website for providing first class coverage of the Espoo indoor 24 hour race.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading about the race as events unfolded and, from a personal point of view, I was most interested to see how Paul Hart would fare.

I did feel a bit sad for him not reaching his target of 236 km after such a promising debut last October ... I am also a bit glad though as the selectors meet next weekend to choose the team to represent UK at the World 24 hr Championships in May and Paul's performance is definitely better for me.

At the moment I feel that I've about a 50% chance of being selected.  Still training hard though and I'm probably fitter now than I was this time last year.

an enjoyable evening yesterday, a rant today

Enjoyed a lovely evening yesterday at Korks in Otley with a chance to catch up with those Otley AC members I don't see often enough - Janice, Eric, Malcolm, Huw, Phil Robinson, Bridget and loads of others.

It was good to see the trophies awarded to those runners not normally associated with athletic prowess ... and the introduction of awards for new club records is a good idea I think.

One thing though ... why do some people refer to me as a 'heavy metal fan' ?  I know my music collection has some stuff that most people would categorise as 'heavy metal':

Aerosmith, Alice Cooper, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Marilyn Manson, Metallica, Motorhead, Saxon, Twisted Sister, Van Halen, Velvet Revolver

But there is also lots of stuff that no-one would claim to be 'heavy metal':

Barclay James Harvest, The Beatles, Blackmore's Night, Blondie, The Blues Brothers, The Doors, Ian Dury, Eagles, ELP, Gnarles Barkley, Jethro Tull, Journey, Kaiser Chiefs, Manic Street Preachers, Marillion, Bob Marley, Maroon 5, Robert Palmer, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rolling Stones, Rush, Scissor Sisters, Seasick Steve, Patti Smith, Squeeze, Stray Cats, The Zutons, ZZ Top

And then there's the third group, that in which some people might define as 'heavy metal':

AC/DC, The Answer, Chris Cornell, Deep Purple, Def Leppard, Evanescence, Extreme, Foo Fighters, Ian Gillan, Heart, Linkin Park, Meat Loaf, My Chemical Romance, Nazareth, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Rainbow, Soul Asylum, Stereophonics, The Sweet, UFO, Uriah Heep, Whitesnake

Over on the left hand side, and down a bit, you'll find a list of what music I'm listening too most commonly at the moment and of the ten albums listed I would say that five belong in the second group and five in the third group. The strange one (and one of my favourites) is the Whitesnake album Starkers In Tokyo ... some people would say that Whitesnake are a heavy metal band and yet this live album is simply one singer and one acoustic guitar (no drums and no loud electric guitars).  It is therefore impossible to say that this is a 'heavy metal album'.  It is very good though.

OK ... rant over.

PS ... when it was decided last November that Otley AC should enter a team in the Pennine Bridleway Relay I immediately sent an email to the team captain offering my services.   I haven't heard anything since but the event is tomorrow and I know we have a team entered.  I presume we had more than enough people to fill a team ...

news update

Still very cold outside.  Not running today but yesterday I still needed a hat and three pairs of gloves!!!!  There hasn't been any snow for a week or so now but the average temperature on my training runs has still been around zero Celsius (32 Fahrenheit).

Mike Blamires recently picked up on the item from my last post about the Melbourne to Sydney race of 1985.  His recent post compares the nutrition strategy of Yiannis Kouros in that race to my nutrition strategy during the Run To London.  Mike does know a bit about that as he was one of my helpers last May - he ran with me for 25 miles or so beginning at about 4.30am on the Sunday morning.  One thing he later said will always stay with me:  "I never thought I'd see a man run 200km in 24 hours and yet look so fresh."

Thanks Mike ... without your help I couldn't have raised well over £2000.

A few days into the future now and on Friday there's the Annual Presentation Evening of my club - Otley AC. The Runner Of The Year competition was won by Tom Hannah and the Handicap competition by Billy Rayner. I didn't finish in the top three in either of those competitions but I do think that the rules of the Runner Of The Year competition make it very difficult, if not impossible, for an ultra distance runner to win.

Although I doubt I'll be collecting any trophies this year it's still an enjoyable evening with lots of food, drink and memories of 2009 with the good company of over 50 members of Otley AC.   Unfortunately Fay will be absent this year, for the first time, she has another important meeting to attend instead.

Speaking of Fay ... she fell badly at lunchtime today and came home with torn trousers, a cut and badly bruised knee and a swollen hand.

On a final note all the best to William Sichel who's taking part in the Espoo indoor 24hr race in Helsinki at the weekend. He's using it as part of his build up to the 1000 mile race in Athens in March. I believe Paul Hart is also running in Helsinki.

just for fun ...

Just found this on Multidays.com - a short and simple animation ... but it's very good.
Nike - Onwards by James Jarvis

And this website - ultramarathonrunning.com - is quickly building a repository of races, results, articles, etc. One of the more recent articles is entitled Energy Balance in Ultramarathon Running and is a study of Yiannis Kouros' Sydney to Melbourne race in 1985.  A very interesting read it is too ...

future plans coming together - slowly

Weather here is getting much better now.  The snow has almost gone and temperatures are above freezing again.

Running has been much easier although I do think the past few weeks have offered unexpected benefits in the form of extra strength training - for body and mind.

As far as racing goes, there are one of two things in the pipeline - all in the very early planning stages at present.  The first of them is the World Championships 24 hr in Brive for which I hope to be selected to represent UK.

[Although I wouldn't be surprised if the selectors decided against sending a full team].

There is also an interesting document on England Athletics website.  It is entitled '2010 Selection Policy Ultra Distance' and qualifying criteria are specified for 50k, 100k and 24 hours.  Does this mean England are planning to send a team to a 24 hr race later this year ?  If so, which one ?

I note that the A Standard has been set at 225 km. I ran 231 km only four months ago and 228 km in October 2009 so I see no problems at all for selection to an England team this year.

The document can be found here. Click the link on the right hand side of that page.

Also planning for next year - and even 2012.  A 48 hr race is probable for 2012 and another very long charity run for the year after.

In the meantime there's lots more to achieve - the foremost being 150 miles in 24 hours.

selection policies

UK Athletics have announced their selection policies for 100k and 24 hr championship races in 2010.  Find them at the bottom of this page on their website.

Interestingly, the 24 hr policy mentions that, in the not too distant future, a trial race may be used as part of the selection procedure ... hmmmm.

I've put a link to that on this page along with the selection policies of USA and Ireland for comparison.  Those for Canada and Australia haven't been announced yet but I'll link to them in due course.

Also added a wee bit to this page.

Just found a rather good satellite photograph of UK taken yesterday morning. Notice how everything is white ... deep snow over the whole country.

bad weather

Training is continuing as normally as possibly in this prolonged spell of snowy and exceptionally cold weather. The photo below, taken by Martin Bland, is from a large city not too far from where I live.

A quicker training run isn't easy at the moment but ... things are progressing very well thank you.


Just heard on the tv weather forecast that we've got at least another ten days of this snowy and cold weather.


On a slightly different subject ... statistics from this well respected German website referring to 2009 show that my ranking for 24 hr races has progressed from number 56 in the world (2008) to number 44.


Similarly my European ranking has moved from 45 (in 2008) to 32 but my UK ranking has fallen from 3 to 4 [because of Richard Quennell's fantastic run at Tooting Bec in October].

Overall these stats show a marked improvement from me ... but I know there's much more to come yet.


Now for the weird and unexpected stuff.


During my Run To London I covered 218 miles (350 km) in 45 hours.  If I had covered that distance in a 48 hour race my rankings for 2009 would have been:


world ... 8
Europe ... 6
UK ... 1
England ... 1


Well impressed by this and these stats give me lots of hope for a good debut in a proper 48 hr race in 2011 or 2012.

Annual Review - 2009

As usual for the last post of the year I intend to look back over the previous twelve months and briefly revisit some of the many highlights of 2009. I hope you enjoyed reading about them at the time and that this post refreshes your memory as well as it refreshes mine.

JANUARY
Announced my intention to raise money for Orchid by undertaking a (very) long run from Otley to London. Spent three weeks looking at maps and planning a suitable route before beginning specific preparation by using a headtorch for the very first time. I also spent lots of time writing letters and emails to suitable businesses in the hope of arranging sponsorship. I currently have two sponsors so all that time was worth the effort but overall things could be better on the sponsorship front. Perhaps the economic climate is against me at the moment. Very cold weather this month made training difficult at times.

FEBRUARY
The Run To London route was measured at 218 miles. The cold weather continued and in the middle of this month I caught a cold - my first since 2006. At the end of this month the website for the Commonwealth Ultra & Mountain Running Championships was launched and The Wharfedale & Airedale Observer published a lengthy article about the Run To London.

MARCH
Began assembling a dedicated crew for the Run To London. Ran most of the route checking for road works, diversions, etc. Sponsorship reached £1000 - all going towards research into the prevention and cure of men's cancers (penile, prostate and testicular) and at the end of this month Up And Running donated lots of kit, and some shoes, for me to use whilst on the long road south.

APRIL
At the start of the month I took part in the North of England 12 stage relay for my club - Otley AC. Had a very enjoyable day in Stockport where we qualified for the National 12 stage relay for the first time in the club's history. In the middle of the month Keir took part in a 5k race in Leeds as part of his Duke of Edinburgh (bronze) award - very proud of him.

MAY
Three women and one man represented Britain at the World 24 hr Challenge in Italy where Anne-Cecile Fontaine ran 243.644 km to fall short of the world record by an agonising 13 metres. Also this month Nadeem Khan wrote a profile of me for the IAU website detailing the Run To London. At the start of the month I had three very successful crew meetings in Leeds where I met many of the dedicated bunch of helpers for the first time ... I was very impressed by their dedication and willingness to give up their weekend to help me raise as much money as possible. And then I resigned (after almost ten years) as secretary of Otley AC and as race director of the Otley 10 ... the workload was becoming more and more unmanageable and the resulting pressures had meant that something had to give. Also attended an England Athletics ultra squad weekend where I met a few of my heroes for the first time. Interviews with Radio Leeds and Yorkshire TV Calendar followed towards the end of the month. Oh .. and then there was the Run To London.

Donations are still welcome at Bmycharity.

JUNE
Began training seriously for the Commonwealth Championships later in the year. There was also the Otley 10 where I helped at the finish for a change. This was followed a few days later by a large get-together of myself and many of those who helped raise well over £2000 for Orchid a few weeks earlier. Later in the month Assist Creative Resources decided to sponsor me by supplying Shotz electrolyte tablets, Shotz gels and Shotz energy bars - all very welcome for the race(s) in Keswick (and beyond). At the end of the month I ran a 5k race around a reservoir near Rochdale and was rewarded with an age-graded pb. Considering I ran 218 miles only four weeks earlier this was a big surprise ... as was the presentation by Andy O'Sullivan before the race.

JULY
Greg Mulholland MP tabled an Early Day Motion in the House of Commons about the Run To London followed a few days later by phone confirmation that I had been selected to represent England at the Commonwealth Championships. In the middle of the month I had a bad race in Hull - I guess my body needs more than seven weeks recovery after 218 miles in 45 hours. At the end of the month I took part in the Washburn Valley Relay for my club.

AUGUST
The England kit (part of it) arrived in the middle of the month and I road tested all of it at least twice. Cannot be too careful about seams, good fit, chafing, etc in long ultras. Felt a bit strange though running around Wharfedale in England kit. At the end of the month I spent a week crash training ... ran over 160 miles and spent over 32 hours running, cycling, stretching, strength training, etc. A very tiring month.

SEPTEMBER
At last ... the Commonwealth Championships ... I spent five nights in Keswick and my race was on days two and three. Overall it was a very good few days and I was very pleased with my position and my team silver medal.  Less pleased with my overall distance though - I should have run at least 4k more. I know I can do that.

OCTOBER
At the start of the month a family member died and at the end of the month I spent a few days in hospital having a throat operation. Also in this month came the sad death of the brother-in-law of Helen Barber - one of my helpers on the Run To London. He had been suffering with penile cancer for a while but was hoping to run part of the way with me. Sadly he took a turn for the worse and his health then sadly deteriorated quickly.

NOVEMBER
Greg Mulholland MP tabled another Early Day Motion, this time trying to get the British media to give more coverage to ultra distance running. Spent this month slowly getting back to fitness after my illness and surgery.

DECEMBER
Finally got around to analysing all the lap times from Keswick. Set personal bests at 50k, 100k, 150k, 200k, 50 miles, 100 miles, 6 hrs, 12 hrs and 24 hrs. At the prestigious BBC Sports Personality Of The Year I was disappointed that the Commonwealth Championships were not deemed worthy of even a brief mention. Very bad weather this month caused the cancellation of the Otley AC Christmas handicap for the first time ever.
Overall 2009 was an amazing year with two big highlights. I'd like to thank everyone who contributed in any way whatsoever but particularly my sponsors ASSIST Creative Resources Ltd., FitnessFootwear.com and Alan Young for all his help and advice (for 2009 and beyond).

As for the future ... well May 2010 has the World 24hr Challenge in Brive-la-Gaillarde and in September there's the Perth 24 hr race (probably). The only downside is that UK Athletics won't select the team until February - so it's a case of keep training for now and hoping for that UK vest. Possibly fit in a couple of other races too but these are my 'target races' for the next twelve months.

If not this year then I'm confident of putting in a very good performance in Perth which will strengthen even further my case for selection for the 2011 championships.

Happy New Year and/or Hogmanay to you all ... and thanks for reading.

shoe review

The North Face - Hedgehog GTX XCR

Many thanks to FitnessFootwear.com for these shoes.

The first thing to note about these shoes is the soles. As soon as I removed them from the box I noticed that the very deep lugs seem more than capable of dealing with all trail running possibilities.

The shoes are marketed as being for 'fast paced hikers' but I guess most trail runners would be more than happy in these as they are lightweight, waterproof, breathable and durable. The North Face have designed these with a grippy Vibram® outsole and a low-cut profile for fast movement across varied terrain.

Other features include: waterproof and breathable Gore-Tex® XCR® membrane. Abrasion-resistant, bomber synthetic nubuck and breathable sandwich-mesh upper. Northotic ergonomically-designed footbed with Poron® forefoot and heel inserts and AgION® antimicrobial footbed covering a lightweight, compression-molded EVA midsole.

I have used these shoes quite a few times this month running on The Chevin, through Danefield and along other paths and trails around Otley. The uppers have not really proved waterproof but that is probably more due to the snow (deep in places) than to wet grass and mud.

As expected the grip has been excellent in all conditions except black ice but, surprisingly, the laces are a weak point and are frayed at the ends already.

Overall an excellent choice for trail runners ... and they are available in various colours and styles. All available here.

Christmas handicap

Today was my first quick training session since my illness.  It was going to be Otley AC's annual Christmas handicap near Timble in the beautiful Washburn Valley.

Unfortunately, due the very bad weather recently, it was cancelled yesterday morning.

So ... this afternoon I did a tempo run.  Three miles at about half marathon pace on a course that still had a few icy patches.   Fun.

Very surprised by my time which worked out at about 6:40 per mile.  My target was somewhere between 6:37 and 6:45 per mile.

Further proof that I'm getting back to fitness ... rapidly.