I spent a good hour on Sunday printing out then reading the race information available thus far, and that nervous excitement about a big race started to kick in. After the initial read through, I immediately started to think about my race support crew and possible pacers. My support crew rarely changes when it comes to races, and of course Andy will be there to look after me, making sure I’m eating, drinking, moving and sleeping, but not necessarily in that order! Pacers was another matter, and whilst I have reached out to a couple of friends already, it’s a big ask asking them to commit to pacing duties this far in advance, especially when they are still probably trying to figure out their own racing year.
Looking at the roll of being a pacer for this particular event, it certainly won’t be easy. The pacer must also be prepared to be out at any hour of the day, be self-sufficient and equipped to deal with weather conditions, terrain and possible wildlife encounters, carry their own stuff, not only keeping me moving, but also themselves. I looked at the distances between the checkpoints that will be accessible to both crew and pacers, and the minimum distance they will have to do is 48km, or around 30 miles, which means they also have to be confident about being able to cover that kind of distance on hilly, technical terrain. Thankfully those friends that have already said they should be able to help out already have that experience, and I’m really hoping that they get to experience this event with me later this year, and can contribute to me successfully reaching that finish line!
Of course, prior to that, I do have other races in my schedule, the first one being Hill of a Race which is just 8 weeks away. I’ve been neglecting the hill work during January, but it’s now time to pick things up a bit and start embracing the climbs!
Last weekend, I headed out to the trails in Devon with the intention of running as many hills as possible within the 10-mile that I had on my training schedule. Every hill I came to that was of a decent length, I ran up five times, trying to achieve as much elevation as possible and to get my body used to the effort involved in running up hills. It wasn’t easy, my lower back and glutes were getting fatigued, but I did somehow managed to get almost 2,000 ft of ascent into my run. I was very happy with that, although the following day, my muscles were definitely sore from the unaccustomed movement of going up!
Other than that, training has been going well. I did another 5km time trial last week on a winter’s night that saw ice and snow underfoot, yet I still ran 22.30 despite the conditions. I also ran a good, solid 30km on Saturday in awfully windy conditions, where the temperature hovered at around -29 with the wind chill – not much fun in all those layers, but at least I was snug and warm underneath.
This coming weekend, I have double run days on both Saturday and Sunday, with a target of 40km both days. Thankfully the weather looks to be warming up although that might make things slick underfoot with ice or snow melt. But that’s ok as Hill of a Race is the one where we run up and down a ski slope for 6 hours, and the conditions won’t be known until on the day; might as well be prepared and get as much variety in training as possible, then race day won’t come as one big surprise!
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