Edging towards Morocco

8 days on, and things have progressed reasonably positively on the injury front. I've had 4 sessions with physios, a Pilates class and a one-to-one session and a visit to a Chiropractor since the injury which, on the one hand makes me feel optimistic about my recovery, and on the other hand makes me feel like my body is falling apart needing so many people and interventions to hold it together. Without wanting to dwell on the negatives too much (or tempt fate), it does seem that things are moving in the right direction.

I've lost most of the pain in my calf muscle apart from when really pushing off on it or stretching it extensively. I can walk pretty normally now which bodes well. Having rested it and iced it for a good few days I've been advised to push it along a bit so I've started doing a bit more targeted exercise on it.

I had thought I'd left the stupidly early mornings behind, but on Thursday morning I dug out the headtorch and met with Rich at 6.30am just up the road. This session had a number of aims.

First I wanted to see how my leg was getting along. It seemed fine and coped well with a 4 mile outing, albeit with no pack weight and not too fast.

Secondly to get some photos of us in our shiny new sponsored kit which we'd just received back from Sue at Heatherhill Farm Embroidery in Bamford  in the Peak District. Possibly a little of the "all the gear, no idea", but I'm happy with the desert look at this stage.

I'm the tall one (not stood on a rock) on the right.

And finally to meet with a reporter from BBC Radio Sheffield in order to record an interview with us ahead of our live appearance on the breakfast show with Toby Foster next Tuesday. This nearly pushed me to my limit on the leg front as she wanted to record it whilst we ran. I gingerly trotted along and luckily I don't think that running was Kat's thing as she didn't appear keen to push the pace.

Kat from BBC Radio Sheffield wasn't used to being up so early - she didn't even have time to dry her hair!

So having suffered no ill-effects from that little jaunt, and benefitting from another physio session with Derek French today, I set off for a brisk march of 7 miles this afternoon. I'd been feeling as though my back problems were being compounded by protecting my injured leg however once out and up to speed all seemed to settle down and I started to really enjoy the outing. I think that I've been getting a bit stir crazy being unable to do anything and having enforced rest. Whatever, I faced the demons of where my injury took place on the aptly named Limb Valley towards the end of the hike and finished off the 7 miles in 1 hour 36 mins and feeling much much better about my prospects for the race itself.

Despite the look, I'm actually feeling better about my recovery at this point

Aside from the BBC coverage, I've also been in touch with both the Sheffield Telegraph and Sheffield Star to try to secure some more coverage for our charity fundraising and for our kit sponsors Otto's and the Mediterranean restaurants in Sheffield. I'm hopeful or articles in both next week.

Our fund raising has now reached over 90% of our £5,000 target, and today stands at  £4,657 and hopefully with a final push we should hit the target before we go.

The final bits of kit preparation are coming along well, although I'm struggling to bring my overall pack weight down below 10.5kg before adding water. That's a fair bit heavier than I was aiming for, despite cutting off almost 100g from my rucsac and seemingly trimming the rest of it down as far as I think I can. I may change my views a bit after practicing with it in the Sheffield Hallam University heat chamber from tomorrow, and probably even more once I get to the desert and experiencing the conditions, and seeing what others have packed.

Disaaaaster!

Not ideal preparation for the race.

Having finished work until after the race I had a few goals whilst off work:
1) Be well rested
2) Have all my kit sorted out
3) Remain injury free

I'm doing ok on 1) and 2), but number 3) is proving harder than I thought. After best part of 10 days with almost no cardio training, last Thursday I decided it was time I went out and enjoyed the ability to run in the middle of the afternoon and the lovely weather. Fifteen minutes into the run however my left calf muscle gave a disturbing popping/squelching sound and I almost fell to the ground with the pain, unable to stand on my left foot, or walk on it, let alone run on it. Five minutes at the side of the trail hoping it was just a really bad cramp and trying in vain to stretch it out left me fearing the worst. I turned, somewhat dejectedly and hobbled off in the direction of home. A fifteen minute run out turned into a fifty minute incredibly painful limp home, interspersed with a liberal amount of swearing and cursing as I played through in my head what this might mean for the race in just two weeks' time.

At home I had a hot bath, elevated my foot and applied ice and took anti-inflammatory drugs to try to minimise the damage. And continued swearing. I seriously thought that was my race over - a quick google of torn muscle injuries didn't help as I discovered recovery time was at best 2-3 weeks, at worst several months. Given that I couldn't put any weight on my left leg, I was fearing the worst.

The next day I went to see a physio recommended by Darryl - Derek French. I'd heard of him a long time ago through the tri-club so his reputation was widely known about. He said it was too early to determine exactly what I'd done, and that the key thing over the next few days was RICE treatment - rest, ice, compression and elevation, just what I'd done since the injury. He also applied an electrical therapy to my leg (a bit like a TENS machine). It passed electrical pulses into my injured muscle to stimulate the healing process and felt quite odd, very tingly and made my foot twitch. 25 minutes of that and I was amazed at how much better it felt. I was warned that the injury would start to feel worse again as the treatment wore off, but it did make me feel a little more positive.

Since then (it's now Monday) I've rested a lot, applied a lot of ice, worn compression socks all day and night and sat with my foot elevated for many hours and it's got a lot better. I can walk with only a slight limp, although I can't push off from my left foot with any force. I guess I'm protecting it a bit as it's made my sciatica flare up a bit more in the last few days too. I'm back to see Derek the Physio tomorrow, followed by the Chiropractor Lee at Breathe Pilates recommended so I'll have a better idea of how it's recovering and hopefully have some improvement in my back too. Based on how much improvement I've seen in 4 days I'm confident (notwithstanding any more injuries!) that I'll make it to the start line, although I have no idea what it's going to mean for my race pace.

Apart from the injury my preparations have been going pretty well. I've got my ECG done, thanks to my friend Alli the Cardiologist. Oddly the ECG print out stated "abnormal ECG", although Alli simply scribbled over that with a biro and wrote "normal ECG" next to it. I assume the race doctors will be fine with that!

Luckily I didn't need to shave my chest for the ECG

According to the ECG, I also have a "marked sinus bradycardia" which I understand translates to a slower than 60bpm heartrate (mine showed 49bpm) and "1st degree AV block" which I think is a slow electrical impulse - Wikipedia suggests potentially some more sinister risks with this, but very low ones, and the Alli the expert didn't seem phased by it so I'll not lose any sleep over it just yet.

Apparently it's "normal".



We also had an evening with a couple of sports psychologists at Sheffield Hallam University on Thursday evening. Just 4 hours after my injury it was potentially excellent timing as my mood plummeted. In fact the conversation was a little unstructured and seemed to loosely cover areas we'd touched on at the Racekit training weekend last October. It was useful to remind ourselves of some strategies to deal with things going wrong, but the whole session seemed a bit predicated on us all assuming the worst and risking crumbling at every turn.

The weekend also saw the start of our heat acclimatisation training in the Virgin Active sauna. Nothing at all camp about three middle-aged men spending their Friday night sweating in the sauna for 45 minutes. Three sessions in total over the weekend ahead of the more formal heat chamber sessions at Sheffield Hallam Uni next weekend and every day in the build up to the race. Not sure I feel totally at ease in the heat just yet, but I'm assured it will help.

I now have all 4,885grams of food parcels packed up ready to go. I am now focusing on keeping the rest of my kit to somewhere under 5 kilos so that my pack isn't ridiculously heavy at the start of the week.

19,401 calories for the week, including pork scratchings.

Tomorrow's physio visit will determine whether I can look at doing some more cardio work ahead of the race, and indeed may give me a clearer idea on likely target pace for the event. Apart from that all I can do it work through the still ridiculously long list of admin to sort out before I depart.

Not sure what to put in it yet, but my pack has been pimped ready for action

Tapering, admin and nappies

Not a typical week in my build up to the race. I've managed a total of 8 miles - actually a welcome relief after the previous two weeks, and also managed to be up working until midnight and undertaking many visits to the hospital pre, during and post the birth of my third child Eddie.

Latest distraction from training

The little man arrived on Wednesday 14th and has pretty much dominated the week's activities, as one might expect. It adds another dimension to the preparations for the race, is likely to mean I may struggle with enough sleep before heading to Morocco, and makes me very glad I've got all my key training out of the way before this week.

Apart from a solitary eight mile outing on Sunday (a most pleasant change without a pack of any kind) the only training has been some Pilates - both a one-to-one session and a "reformer" class - lots of sliding up and down on a platform using assorted bars, straps and balls to develop core strength and increase flexibility/mobility. Both are quite hard work, but still seem to be doing me some good. To see if I can push things along a bit I've signed up to see a Chiropractor recommended by Lee at Breathe Pilates next week. Not sure what that will entail.

We've also been contacted by an MSc sports psychology student from Sheffield Hallam Uni who wants to work with us to develop our mental preparations, so Rich, Darryl and I are heading there later in the week to see what we can glean from a few sessions with him.

In between all of the above I'm trying to work through my seemingly endless list of jobs to tick off before I fly out on 5th April. This has been helped enormously by having now finished work until I get back from the race - first two weeks of paternity leave, followed by some annual leave and before you know it, a whole month off - brilliant!

It's getting very close now, and I'm starting to get really, really excited.

100 miles more

Another 100 miles in a week of training, straight off the back of the previous one. Knackered!

Celebrating the end of my 2nd 100 mile week on Stanage Edge

Fitting in 100 miles (5-11 March - this update isn't very up to date) with 2 day trips to London for work in the middle of the week was always going to pose some challenges, as was doing that kind of mileage straight after the previous week of 101 miles, but it's now done. The crux session of the week was a 41.5 mile trip out on Saturday going from home round Redmires to Stanage, all the way along to Strines, down to Ladybower, round the reservoirs and then back up to Strines and along Stanage, dropping down into Burbage and then home via Houndkirk and Ringinglow - if you don't know it, look it up on a map, it's a long way!

Having had 4 seasons thrown at me in one day, and being close to running out of water at 28 miles (a cheeky duck into someone's garden to replenish from an outside tap) and bonking along Stanage at about 34 miles all added to the effort, but I was pleased to be home in 9 hours 15 minutes. To put that in perspective, that's faster than the High Peak 40 last September, despite being 1.5 miles further, whilst carrying a 10.5kg pack, and off the back of 150 miles in the previous 12 days. I can't grumble at that really.

Due to Rich having a foot injury in the week, it meant that our planned trip to camp in the Peak District didn't quite materialise, and that I would be running the 40 miler alone. Instead I sought to replicate race conditions as much as possible by using race rations alone from Friday morning until Sunday afternoon and camping in the garden using only equipment I'd have on the MdS. It worked well, combining being able to see the family with managing my body through a tough weekend of training. Some valuable lessons stored away in there for the race.

Trying to replicate race conditions, by making the tent crowded!

On the following day I felt a bit sluggish but surprisingly ok and helped along by Rich who was bounding along like an over-excited kid having had an easy week of training due to his foot, I managed another 15 miles in a reasonable time (faster per mile than the previous day) and in pretty good shape. I was still glad to see it end though.

And so that concludes the "proper" training for the race. From here on in it's tapering and kit preparations. Oh, and a baby arriving imminently.

101 miles in a week

After 7 days of running back to back, I’ve finally found 10 minutes to update the blog on what has been my biggest week of training thus far – 101 miles.  I put in 12 miles a day Monday to Friday, either to or from work, followed by two 20 milers at the weekend, one walking (with a couple of miles of running at the end) and one trying to run as much as possible.  Hence Saturday’s 20 miles took me 5hours 17, whilst Sunday’s 21 miles was completed in the rain, then sleet, then snow in 3hours 52; both with about a 10kg pack.

Also, apart from being well pleased with actually covering 100+ miles in a week, I’m even more pleased that I can run a bit now too.  It’s not without discomfort, but I think that’s more due to me not actually running at all since New Year and my muscles being a bit shocked.  So far however, there have been no terrible repercussions for my back.

Possibly linked to this progress has been the trip to the Pilates expert, Lee at Breathe Pilates in Sheffield.  90 minutes of dynamic stretches and a host of other exercises on a range of equipment, followed by homework aimed at developing core stability and mobility appears to have done some good.  My back feels a lot better and Lee seems confident that I have time to remedy the worst of my sciatic issues before the race.  That’s the kind of news I like.

This week’s less than positive news came from Sheffield Hallam Uni however, where it seems the students aren’t as interested in probing and analysing two slightly fat middle-aged men as they prepare for a silly race in the desert as we all assumed they would be.  It doesn’t look as though we’re going to get a chance to get fully acclimatised in the build up of the final few weeks, although we have been offered a few sessions to help us test kit and the like, and as the saying goes....”every little helps”.

I’ve also got a bit of a sore ankle too as a result of the increased mileage, but some judicious icing and compression should resolve that before long.

So, a day off running today, then back into it tomorrow as I start my second (and final!) 100+ mile week, culminating hopefully in a weekend camping in the Peak District trying to replicate race conditions as best I can (rations and sleeping in the cold, as opposed to sand and heat) covering some 70miles from Friday morning to Sunday lunchtime.