Mid-Channel....

Mid-Channel....

Tuesday 16 February 2010

The Hills are alive......

Firstly, Hi to Ian and thank you for your comments - you're right, we Cadman's are few and far between!

I raced the Stamford Striders 30k this weekend, a notoriously hilly course ideal for tough marathon preparation. Normally I quite like hilly courses as I am reasonably strong and for the first 17-18kms I was quite happily motoring along. By 22kms, I had a massive stitch and never wanted to see another hill! Yet still they get coming! That last hour was a real struggle and it will be interesting to see how my splits changed (though hard to judge on a hilly course). I think I need to perfect my nutrition strategy. I was well fuelled and hydrated before the event (had 700ml of H3O Pro, some Soreen and a Banana) but I need to think what I am going to eat during the event itself. I use High 5 gels at the moment but you should really take them with a lot of water and given there were water stations only every 5kms this was hard to acheive. I also don't like stopping at water stations and whilst I am reasonably skilled at drinking whilst running, I probably don't get enough water in and I certainly felt parched by the end of the race. I do wonder if not taking enough water on with the gels caused the stitch? Or it could just be all the jolting around - my internal organs did feel like they had had a bumpy ride especially with all the downhills.

Stitches are becoming more and more of a problem for me having hampered a few of my last races. I don't seem to have too much of a problem in training probably as I tend not to be pushing the pace for a long period of time but racing is a different ball game. I wasn't planning to do anymore long races in advance of the marathon (though I have the Sleaford Half Marathon next weekend) but I think I may now do the ALDI 20 in Ashby-de-la-Zouch simply to practice nutrition at marathon pace. Which does mean I have to be strict and do all the rest of my long runs at a SLOW pace to get time on my feet.

Swimming for me yesterday as recovery and I am practising my drills diligently and not doing much more than that. Every so often I throw in a 950m (1/4 IM) distance TT just to make sure I am on track but as these are fairly consistent at 17.30ish without too much effort I am reasonably happy. Just off to the gym now for a tempo run session and some weights. I headed to my trainer sponsor, ProFeet (www.profeet.co.uk) on Saturday at their fabulous new store on Fulham Road. My insoles were checked and I got some new trainers and socks which will be fab as I think my others are on their last legs - they must have done over 500miles so time for retirement! I ran the 30k in them as I didn't want to switch to the new ones for such a long race but today's tempo run will be the test of whether these new ones suit my feet. They are Mizuno but a slightly different type (more forefoot support) so we'll see!

1 comment:

  1. Hey thanks, never been acknowledged by another C. before. Ran 73 miles last week mainly off road and hilly fair bit of snow on hills. One run was along part of the Peninne Way as i was in county Durham doing things to a roof. A strange village with over 30 triathletes. And then in the pub at night there'd be people who were into hill running or mtn biking if not Tri. Anyway the guy with the condensation problems in the attic he's signed up for Zurich so is his neighbour and some other guys in the village, nuts! Anyway I think of you and the A to A and I keep coming back to the question 'Swim the channel after running 80 miles?' Eeee.. Me and 'Fat' Boy are signed up for the inaugral Great Glen Death March 3rd april 100k race from Ft Wllliam to Inverness (running), starts at 9pm, that's going to be awful but not as awful as... need I go on? What I mean is you're warping my mind with regard to what is possible/impossible. Cheers I.

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