Month: November 2021

Down Through the Dark Streets

James C

I always wanted this blog to be a compendium of my thoughts on my main obsessions of running, the outdoors and music, which probably serves to explain my inactivity since my first few posts because its somewhat muddled concept. There is a symbiosis when I consider that my main outlet for long form music is my long run. It’s just about the only time I get to spend quality time with albums that I would otherwise chop into bitesize chunks onto highlight reel playlists. This has always been a marriage of convenience with the relationship defined by the simple placing of the two activities into the same available space, but more recently my trail meditations have revealed a deeper and more spiritual crossing of the paths.

As a mental health professional I’ve never been too far from the emerging world of mindfulness and it’s purported benefits to those experiencing a range of common mental health problems. Running always seemed to concord with its principle that life is to be lived and experienced in the moment, freeing you from the baggage of legacy and fear of what’s to come. Running trails, particular in twilight or dark gives you no space for your mind to wander as you react to the terrain and the challenge it presents.

Music is often just the passive soundtrack to this and sometime serves to take you away from from the beauty of silence and the ambience of night time nature. But on occasion the noise in your ears and the context of your run meld to deliver a piece of ‘in the moment’ magic that transcends both activities.

On one occasion during the early part of summer I was taking the longest and steepest path up a local landmark hill, at dusk, in a mist that sat below the summit, evoking the spirit of much grander climbs. My soundtrack was A Pagan Place by The Waterboys and I approached the top as the albums final track played. Down Through the Dark Streets is a stark piece built around a plaintive piano riff and pleading lyrics evoking images of time and place, in a first person narrative. Its dark tone and evocation of place connected totally with the physical toil of the climb and accorded even more when I noticed the secular monument that crowns the hill was itself crowned by a murder of carrion crows. It was as if they were waiting for sorry carcass and Mike Scott only served to soundtrack the drama playing out in my head. There would be worse ways and places to go.

A Murder at Four Stones

Doing your first ultra, some advice from no expert (no liability will be accepted by the author)

James C

A colleague recently mooted that they were considering running a local ultra running event and asked me for advice. The question of liability crossed my mind, but my excitement and ego quickly go me thinking about what advice could offer them. I’m rarely approached as an expert, but clearly rumours of my endeavours had caused someone to think I was worth asking.

So firstly what qualifies me. I’m not a qualified coach, running or otherwise, I am a registered health professional, but not in the muscles, bones, heart or pain field and I spent the first 15 years of my adult life avoiding running at all costs as anyone who had the misfortune to play football with me would attest.

I am someone, who is prone to agreeing to participate in ambitious escapades before ever considering,

  1. Whether I am able?
  2. What preparation will be required to get me to the the point of being able?

When I started running regularly, in my early 30s, I followed a fairly conventional path to half marathon glory. Did a 5k, then a 10k , then followed an 8 week plan, did the 13.1 miles (happy days), lost all impetus and stumbled along running infrequently for a couple of years afterwards.

A few years and changes of jobs later, I became aware whilst sat at my desk that colleagues were talking about having done various endurance type running events. I didn’t know these people particularly well and I couldn’t say they cut a particularly super human presence around the office. That aside, the fact I was hearing first hand about running 50 miles plus was enough for me to engineer the chance to agree with one such colleague to sign up for the next 40 miler that he was planning to do. I did this with an almost cavalier flourish suggesting a level of competence completely at odds with the reality.

I had 3 months to prepare and at that point was probably running an average of 10 miles per week. Shit

I started, as with any good project, and in the absence of an Ultra’s for Dummies book, with a thorough search of google. I suspect that over the subsequent three months, I read every single related article on the World Wide Web, mostly in lieu of actual training.

My takeaways were:

  1. I need at least 170 hours a week to fit in the requisite running
  2. The calorific requirements require me to adjust to a 10000 kcal/day diet and if I don’t I’m bound to either vomit or soil myself on the day.
  3. The navigational skill and kit requirements demand that I spend 6 months on a mountain guide course and do further research on getting away with larceny.

None of the above appealed to my half-arsed approach to most things, but a couple of nuggets therein did stick and prove to be the difference. Added to my own experiences here is a list of things that me through my first 40 mile ultra race in one piece and in good time.

  1. Accept walking as part of your training – I started to consciously walk hills I used to run up. I haven’t necessarily maintained this principle most of the time, but for the first time this permission was incredible. I noticed the time difference for equivalent runs was not massive and as I became more adept at switching to a fast hike on up hills I probably actually gained from the restorative effect. I live in a fairly hilly area and my training sessions became interval sessions, where both my tolerance and running speed increased.
  2. The above had a secondary benefit of enabling me to eat and drink more effectively on the move. The permission to eat for ultras is one of the great joys, but I always had difficulty taking even clear fluids whilst running. This usually ended with a roadside choking fit, water eyes and snot bubbles, but eating and drinking during a walk is far more doable.
  3. Make yourself as comfortable as possible – It’s gonna hurt. Reduce every possible additional problem before it becomes one. Lube, wipe, eat, drink, do your bag up properly, tighten your straps, shake it properly when you have wee….you get the drift. You’re out there a long time, so allow yourself the few seconds you never have when doing a 10k or half marathon.
  4. Find stuff you like to eat – I’ve always used gels and never had a problem, once I found a couple that didn’t taste like a cross between children’s penicillin and hair gel. But some people don’t get on with them, so find something you do. You will crave salt later in a race and although I love tucking into the communal crisp bowl (pre-Covid) at aid stations, I find that this craving is abated by chucking an electrolyte tablet in your water bottle.
  5. Have clothes and a bag with access pockets at the front – there is nothing more demoralising than realising the one thing you really want is buried deep at the back and you have to strand yourself at the roadside for what will seem like a lifetime to retrieve it.
  6. Keep it light – the google will tell you you require so many calories per mile etc etc., but consider what will be at each aid station, you don’t need to pack a Sunday Lunch. Keep an eye on the weather forecast, if its not going to be -6C you don’t need the 3 extra Merino sweaters in your bag. Know the route, the available support the weather, the time of day and pack what is necessary. Every gram counts once you go into the red zone. (I need to stress you must always follow the minimum kit requirements for any event and id certainly be more cautious in winter or overnight, but apply some thought to what you will really need).
  7. Poles – Scott Jurek uses them, so why shouldn’t we. If it’s hilly consider learning to use them. Once I got over myself and started to use them for lumpy runs I found minutes coming of my ascent times. Just be careful not to poke anybody’s eye out when you go over a stile.
  8. Buddy up – I do nearly every event on my own and I’m quite happy to exist in my own space, but I’ve learned that to spend some time in someone else’s company for at least some of an event is massively helpful and I’ve even made some friends out of it.

And finally. How much training did I actually do? I really struggled to get even close to having the time to run the miles required in any plan I found. What I did do, was get out as often as possible and even when runs were only 30 minutes to an hour ensure that I added some additional resistance, aim for steep climbs, carry a bag and get off road. When I could go out for a few hours I stopped worrying about pace, I ate, drank and walked on occasion, kept mixing it up. And in the end this far from superhuman managed to achieve something pretty super out there with the other weirdos out in the Worcestershire countryside.

Note: my colleague completed their first ultra and I had shared the above thoughts with her so I’m claiming full credit for their achievement.

Trail snobs

James C

Last week I wore a new pair of road running shoes for the first time. Exciting times, as any runner knows, nothing fires the synapses like gear. So, why is this worthy of my (and hopefully your) attentions? It’s notable because said new shoes, Altra Torun 4, have been in my cupboard since May. Stowed away because in that time I have not once ventured out for a run exclusively on the road.

I live in the urban Black Country, but have on my doorstep the bucolic South Staffordshire countryside, trails linked by an extensive canal network, woods and the wonderful Clent Hills. I regularly traverse three counties in 5-10 mile runs taking in a mix of road, bridal path, gnarly trails and wonderful hills with panoramic views of Birmingham, Worcestershire and the Shropshire Hills. Why would I want to run anywhere else?

But, the fact is I rarely see anybody when I’m out. Lockdown exercise certainly increased footfall (much to my chagrin), but I run in blissful isolation or in select company.

Conversely, when I drive about the streets are full of the gamut of the running community. The serious pace merchants, the plodders, the couch to 5kers, the groups and the being dragged by a dog..ers.

I love to see people running, it warms my heart. They’re actively trying to improve something, their mental health, waistline, life expectancy, a charities coffers or a personal best. It’s beyond reproach, they’re doing it, other aren’t, its dead cool.

But, I’ve assumed a position of superiority on the basis that they spend their precious time flogging tarmac and breathing fumes. They don’t experience the pleasure of absolute forest silence with a blinkered view enabled only by the beam of a head torch. They know nothing of being ankle deep in mud and animal shit. They’ve never known the exhilaration of being chased by a cow.

I’m a trail snob.

Why? What is the psychopathology of being such a thing?

  1. We think we’re more hardcore. Obviously running 5 miles on a bridal path in Worcestershire puts me in the same ‘Outdoorsman’ category of those legends of the outdoors like Killian Journet, Alan Quartermain et al.
  2. We think the gear is cooler. We turn our nose up at those brand that could just as easily be seen on the body of a footballer or tennis player. I don’t want to pay £20 for a t-shirt when I can spend £40 because the same brand makes walking boots! I need the protection, obviously.
  3. We can qualify our slowness. Extra points for when you make it quite clear in the description on Strava that the run you were on was a ‘Trail’, a hill or really shitty! GOP is all that matters.
  4. If a runner falls over in the woods and there was no one there to hear them shout ‘F*@!king bastard’ did they make a sound? You don’t get that kind of action running passed Aldi.

In truth I enjoyed my road run, in fact I’ve done a few more recently. Not all the time, for the reasons listed above, but its amazing what actually reveals itself in your urban space, particularly at night when the traffic has died down and you don’t feel as much like an dispensable extra from The Running Man. It challenges me physiologically and psychologically in that the movement is relentless and time/pace becomes more of a factor, its a great barometer of where I’m at.

So although outwardly I shall always be a trail snob, a little part of me does have a place for the tarmac and street furniture.