It’s amazing to think that six months have passed since I
finished Te Araroa and that’s the last time I posted anything here. Whilst the
blog suggests otherwise, I don’t really feel like I’ve been ‘away’ from running
as such but patience has been important to claw myself back from the rather low
place I was in physically.. In the few months immediately after the expedition
I wrote a lot about my experiences for magazines and interviews, and reflected
upon the experience as a whole. I’m sure you’ve had enough of all that, and I
certainly think it’s time to start looking forward again.
The plan from here is to get back into some racing and
‘shorter’ challenges, and initially to have a go at some races that remain
unticked on my bucket list. I get asked a lot whether I will do another ‘long
trail’ project, and hand on heart I couldn’t say no to that question, but it
would definitely be a few years down the line because the impact on body, mind,
family and friends is massive. However some shorter fastest known time (FKT) challenges
appeal to me, of which there are plenty to choose from in the UK for starters.
I am mulling over some options for next year at the moment. Hush hush.
But right now I’m feeling in a really good place in terms of
strength, health and fitness. Hurray. It’s a good job really, because in a
couple of weeks time I shall once again be on the start line for the The North
Face Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc; possibly not the most forgiving ultra race
around, particularly as a comeback race. And of course it’s not a new race to
me, like I said would be my focus. But it’s a race I really love, and the last
time I had a ‘clean’ build-up i.e. without much racing involved in the few
months beforehand was 2010 on the comeback from injury, and that year I had a belter.
So why not hey…..
So what have I been up to over the last six months? Just
pulling myself back together really. Back in health now, I’ve realised just how
low I really was after Te Araroa. Yes, I know, it’s not a massive surprise to
hear I was deeply fatigued after all that running, but actually, I was pretty
bad. In the final part of the run, I never really properly recovered from the stomach
bug that stopped me in my tracks for 3 days, and I really just soldiered on,
determined to finish the job in hand. We suspected it was giardia at the time,
but after it lingered for weeks on return to the UK, I had various tests and I
found out I was actually suffering from salmonella. So the chances are it was
salmonella all the time, and with my beaten up immune system it probably lurked
in my body for several weeks, and only really responded positively after two
courses of antibiotics. I will never really know for sure, but what I do know is
that my recovery was particularly drawn out by my body’s struggle to absorb
what it needed, and it’s never great to have something like that sit around in
your system for too long.
I started doing some light running, walking and swimming
within a few weeks of getting back around mid-February. I felt like I was
learning to do all these things for the first time again, such hard work it
proved to be. The complicated picture of having a beaten up ‘system’ mixed with
general fatigue simply from the duration of the run was hard to pick my way
through. The exercise I was doing didn’t involve any significant exertion, so I
felt it important to at least get my limbs moving again after so much ‘rust’
had accumulated.
Before I finished Te Araroa my plan had been to taper down
from the daily distance and running routine by at least doing a little bit each
day for the few weeks afterwards. But what actually happened was that as soon
as my mind knew it was all over, so too my body let go, and physically my body
was just not up to anything. I soon let go of that idea, and did nothing in the
immediate aftermath.
I started to turn a significant corner during a holiday to
Scotland at the end of April. Running around the low level tracks of the local
glens was a really positive experience, and I could do it without stopping –
progress! From that point I gained some consistency, and step-by-step,
run-by-run, my endurance and speed started to creep back.
Mindful of just drifting back into a ploddy Te Araroa pace
and that finding some ‘speed’ would be the real challenge, I entered a couple
of local road races to try and push myself on. The first was the Purbeck 10k
which was, frankly, horrible. The first 5km was bearable, but the second 5km
was horribly painful. I’ve never been overtaken by so many people during a
race. But it gave me some focus for a spell of speedwork, and tempos runs to
work on threshold pace, and that proved successful with a win at a local 8mile
fun run and 2nd place at a half marathon. Progress….
By this time I was starting to run ‘long’ again, with a
staple diet of one or two twenty milers per week, sometimes a little bit more.
Without any taper I ran the Cortina Trail race in the Dolomites which again
felt like part of the process of getting me back to the right place. I wasn’t competitive
– I’m not sure I ever will be at the shorter ultra distance races without
specific focus – but I ran a solid race, did my own thing, and at a slightly
slower pace I could easily have held on for a much greater distance.
I then felt like there was a platform there for UTMB, so
I’ve spent the summer focusing my training accordingly, with several trips to
the mountains to get the necessary climbing and descending into my legs. I’ve
been to the Brecon Beacons, Shropshire Hills, Scottish Highlands, round the
UTMB course over 3 days and Snowdonia for my annual Snowdon ‘reps’ session.
With these training weekends alone, it’s been quite a summer already with some
great weather to enjoy long days in the mountains.
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| Col du Bonhomme on the UTMB course |
You can read about these outings in the blog posts I’ve
written for run247.com:
In all honesty I still don’t know for sure how my body will
be over 100 miles in the mountains, and I won’t know the answer to that until
at least after Cormayeur on the UTMB course. It’s a fine balance between
pushing yourself hard to get fit, but not tiring yourself so much that you’re
actually losing strength in the process of training. Whatever happens in UTMB
this year, I’m out to enjoy it, and I’ll certainly be starting with a big grin
on my face, simply from the experiences I’ve had over the summer, and the sheer
excitement that a unique race like UTMB brings. Let’s just cross our fingers
for some better weather this year, and a race on the full course.
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| Poles? Maybe, haven't decided yet. |
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| on the Ramsay Round route, big Ben in the background |
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| Chamonix bound on the last day of my UTMB training loop |
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| The last munro on the Ramsay Round route. Phew. |
