Ramsay Countdown 3 - Of Lists and Ravens

Lists...

I'm a bit of a newcomer to lists. I discovered them in my late 30's and now I wonder what I ever did without them! At the moment I have a notebook for work and one for running. Actually that's not true, I have a selection for work and a selection for running. I write in them, making lists primarily.

It's not that I then need to return to them but it does help clear my mind of all the information that's swimming around and trying to make a nuisance of itself. I remember when I started training as a teacher we did an exercise which was basically answering some questions and then doing a short calculation. You then had to try and remember what the previous questions were. I couldn't remember a single one and was primed for the news that I was going to have to work harder.

Rather unexpectedly it turned out that the less you could remember the more efficient your brain was because it didn't hold on to information that it didn't need. I was chuffed, needless to say. The trouble is it's no good having an efficient processor if you can't remember what you are processing a few seconds later. This is where lists have been a revelation for me. I can process the information and let it sit on a list while that happens and then I can document what I've done so when someone asks me I can tell them. 

It's wonderfully liberating as well being able to put something down on paper and then forget about it until it needs resolving, often the need to resolve it has disappeared by the time you come to make any decisions. So I am surrounded by lists. I'm resisting the temptation to adjust and fine tune the ideas down on them. Some are functional, some are speculative, some are a record of information that is current at the time of writing and some are nonsense.

In and amongst there might be the odd comment or doodle, or a memory that stands out. The doodle of the rocks and the raven are from my recce along the Grey Corries. It was an impressive bird, I mean it was larger and had a deeper voice than any raven I have heard before. I half expected Thorin and Bilbo to emerge from the mist and tell me about how the ancient Ravens were friends to the Dwarves and used to be able to speak to them, a skill that is all but lost today. But they didn't. It did look majestic and it was definitely talking to someone though. Maybe it was me.

and lists...

Ramsay Countdown 4 - That's it then!

Last track session, last hill rep, last run out.

Steady. Well steady for 400's anyway, if I'm going that fast on Saturday someone slow me down!

Feeling strange. Pretty much like I always do the few days before a round. 7 months of building, of using shorter races to check fitness, check kit, adjust pacing and feeding strategies. 3 months of early starts and hill reps, weekly mileage checks, feet of climb increasing gradually then dropping only to increase again, and again.

Support runs, long runs out in The Lakes, Wales and Scotland. Days out, nights out, wind, rain, hail, snow, sunshine, drizzle, mist, lost and found.

All done. Banked. Ready to be called upon.

Time to gather it all inwards. Focus it all. Be ready to access it all, to draw on what I have done before, of what I know I can do when backed in to a corner. Some bits will be needed, some saved for another day. Time to focus for short periods but still keep a relaxed focus for a long time, of perspective.

Ready for the highs and lows. The tears. The breakdown of everything and the rebuilding of it along the way.

I will be different. I will be the same.

Last track session, last hill rep, last run out.

Bring. It. On.

Ramsay Countdown 5 - Markers

Kites - brilliant!

All the advice is that you should now be feeling like you need to have one last blast in order to feel stronger, one last long run in order to put your mind at rest - and the trick is to resist this. My trick for resisting this is to visit my training hill one last time.

The Ellers - a 1.3 mile hill with 784 feet of climb. I've set it as a segment because this is the hill I run up twice a day when I'm training for these long rounds. It's about a ten minute run there, it varies up to about twenty minutes uphill, ten minutes jog down and then ten minutes home.

Last year it got to  about 4 weeks before my Paddy and I decided to see what pushing the pace on the climb would lead to - at this point I was run/walking up in about 18 minutes. I managed 13 something and the record for the segment, a segment that I had created to help monitor my consistency up the hill, was 12:13. At that point I told myself that if I wanted to complete the Paddy I should try for the record the week before as a last, short, hard effort.

Running against the clock is a funny thing. Whether it's 24 hours or 12 minutes it gets inside your head. Your body responds differently. Where you might back off you push on, where you might think that's enough you decide it's just the beginning.  Last year I duly claimed the record in 11:49 and was chuffed to bits. A segment I had created and now had the record on as well.

So to this year. How to gauge how the training has gone this close to the Ramsay attempt. I'll try and beat my own record, which still stands. I think that's partly because it's tucked away and partly beacause who would really want to run that hard up this hill! I look at my previous attempts and notice my average time is coming down from an initial twenty minutes to closer to seventeen. A good sign. I also note that Strava has me having run up this hill 154 times.  I laugh a little at this, particularly as I didn't use Strava for a long while.

So I run there at a faster tempo than usual, a warm up if you will, and my legs are feeling good. I set off at a slightly harder pace than I think is sustainable but manage to keep going owards and upwards. At half way Ithink I've got this in the bag but then it kicks again and I remember now that last year I had started slow and then finished strongly so I will have a race on my hands to the top. I get a little faster without truly getting into the red. As the seconds tick over I stop my lap timer.

It looks like I have done it by a few seconds but I am reluctant to be sure until it is downloaded and verified. I run home to see that I have beaten my record by 6 seconds. I am curiously both pleased and disappointed.

 I'm never really happy it seems.

 I'm pleased I've beaten my record and lowered it to closer to 11:30 than 12:00, which I like. But I thought I was further ahead at halfway and wanted it to be a lot clearer that I was ahead of where I was this time last year.

And that's one of the markers I have been looking for. A marker as to how my training has gone. It's a small one, but on reflection last year I was really out on a limb thinking I could maybe set the record and this year I was slightly disappointed with the margin of gain, so that's a step in the right direction - I think!

My Paddy started with 4 hours of strong winds and horzontal rain, it briefly broke for leg two and three hours of glorious running but then deteriorated through the long leg until I was battered back into my full wet weather gear again. It did ease off then but I am beginning to realise just how much those early battles with the weather must have taken out of me and using this to feed my motivation and confidence going in to what is generally accepted as the harder of the Big 3 rounds. My Bob Graham was run in 23:49 and the Paddy in 23:48 but in significantly worse conditions. If I am at about the same, or slightly ahead of my, fitness as at this time last year then that bodes well. The game is truly afoot.

Another marker is getting grumpy with my family during the taper. To counteract this today I took Louis and Rupert out to fly a kite. To be honest afternoons don't get much better than this. Just as important as the physical build up now is the mental one. Positive images, thoughts and experiences will all count. For a start I've several hours of small talk to fill with people I know to varying degrees. I'm not much good at small talk at the best of times and to be honest that could be one of the hardest parts of the challenge!

Now if I can just work out an anecdote from this afternoon...
 

Ramsay Countdown 8,7,6 - Sca Fell Pike, Bare Feet and Nut Bombs for Breakfast!

Louis following with a full pack.

Where does the time go?

Just got back from Borrowdale, not running but supporting, and it has been a couple of days without WiFi or reception good enough for data. Lovely.

Sally has completed her challenge to walk/run the three highest mountains in the UK by summitting Sca Fell Pike. We set off together as a family and walked up to Styhead Tarn. Great fun, and after telling Sally that we were on the path, I was reading the map after all, we got to some crags to scramble across. No mean feat with a three year old and a six year old. As we rose past the waterfall it was clear that the main path was in fact on the other side of the river! Not sure I'll live that one down after showing Sally how to read a map lol.

Sally on Sca Fell Pike Summit.

Sally went on to summit on her own while we waited at the stretcher box for the runners to come through. It got windier and colder so we watched the first few, gave out some haribos and water, then headed back down via the main path. One person commented that we had see the first 3 ladies through and tried to engage Louis in a conversation on this. Louis was a bit non-plussed and so was I until I realised he must have thought that, what with Louis and Rupert having long hair, they must be girls. It's interesting the assumptions we make.

On the way up Rupert had got his shoes wet, as of course we all did, and he asked if he could take them off. He then proceeded to walk most of the 2.5 miles up to the tarn barefoot. I can't deny I was envious of the freedom and the extra experiences he was getting from the surrounding hills. "I'm going to walk on that one because it will be warm", "When you walk on these ones it tickles". These are just a couple of examples of things he was saying walking up - it chimes with the book I am reading - Footnotes - about why we run and how it makes us human. I think after my round I might well join him for a few lake district barefoot walks. It says in the Bob Graham handbook that Bob Graham himself reccied the tops barefoot, saving his pumps for the big day itself. 

Rupert climbing barefoot while I look on enviously!

Nutbombs - bought in the morning before the Borrowdale race, made by a lovely couple and made of peanut butter, coconut, cherry, dark chocolate and various combinations of these and other ingredients. Great for getting up mountains, and down mountains. Just the right blend of sweetness and savoury so you can go on eating them. And when you wake up in the morning and the first question from the littlest is "Have you got any of those round things" you know they've gone down well!

Nut Bomb

Time - 24 hours is a long time to run. The last 3 days have flown by. When I left we were surely going to lose the 5 day Test Match against Pakistan, it was clear after the best part of 2 days we were well behind. A match I have just listened to the finish of with England winning - brilliant! Could not have timed that better. Sally was faster up and down Sca Fell Pike than I imagined she would be and the Borrowdale Fell Race winners took less time than I can comprehend to finish the race.

 Douglas Admas wrote that "Time is an illusion, lunch time doubly so" in The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. The character who says it is Ford Prefect and he is from another planet so has a different perspective on pretty much anything and everything he comes across on planet Earth. His companion through the book is Arthur Dent who wanders around aimlessly, in his dressing gown, looking for cups of tea and trying to make sense of it all. 

There was a point here somewhere but I'm not sure if it's that I feel a bit like Arthur Dent at the moment wandering around while trying to make sense of things or that I'm wondering if time on Saturday will be an illusion and bend and stretch to suit my purposes and give me 5 days worth of a Test Match but compressed into a lunch time. 

Only time will tell.

Ramsay Countdown 9 - Details

Tracker - invaluable.

Details.

This is the time, just before it becomes last minute, where the details come together.

The schedule, changes, on the ground logistics and contingency plans usually start to take a more solid shape and the actual plan falls in to place. Conversations start taking place that reveal gaps in the plan, misplaced information or possible alternative scenarios to consider that until this point have been consigned to the 'to deal with later' pile.

There's a lot to consider, not least the fact that a team of people are organising their lives around a day in your life. Some have taken time off work, travelled great distances and committed to working for me through the night. Some are family, some are friends, some I have met once and some not at all. In the middle of this I am putting people in touch with people to arrange between themselves, guiding the overall plan and trying to make sure everyone is happy (or at least not unhappy) with their lot.

The details matter. For my Bob Graham I had clothes in bags and I knew what was where and what was needed by who. Not much use if I'm incoherent and asking for "that coat, you know the one?". Lesson learnt and for the Paddy I was somewhat over organised! I had a kit list matched to labelled bags that included a stationery section - well you never know when you might need a ruler or a calculator do you?

This time at least there are only two support points, although I have engineered another near the end after seeing it work on another round. I need to prepare the spare clothes I might need which will to some extent be dependent on the weather. But only to some extent, I can probably tell you now what I will be wearing for each leg and what I am likely to have spare in case the temperature drops!

There will be food bags for the pacers to carry, 2x water bottles, small bottles of sugary drinks (usually coke but maybe iron bru as well this time) and a drybag of additional clothes, depending on what I've got on. Add to this the food for the support team to have ready for me - on this occasion I think I'm going for coffee, beans and a cornish/sausage roll + brown sauce. Then also the food for the pacers for when they have finished plus any spare layers that might be needed if it's been particularly wet/cold.

Then there's the waiting around - there's really not much I can do about that part apart from stick to the schedule, which to be honest I'm trying to run faster than! To this end I will be carrying a tracker so people can, well, track me and make an informed decision about when to set off for the different points. I'm using Cover My Tracks, based in Fort William, which also gives my family the reassurance that if I do get in to trouble (although trouble is not on the schedule!) then I have a way of sending a message in an emergency that does not rely on mobile phone coverage.
I've watched other people's trackers and it quietly sucks you in. So if you can't sleep, log on and tune in - you can imagine the details playing out in front of you while I move around the mountains.

Details - they are important but also if something isn't quite right? Crack on.

Obsessive? Me?

Ramsay Countdown 10 - Tapering

10 days to go.

Counting down from 10 is like a proper countdown, who starts from 21?

10 days where all I can do is mess things up! There's no more fitness gains to be made, no training that I can do now that will have any difference on the outcome.

That's it. Done. Dusted.

Now I need to make sure I arrive at the start line rested, refreshed and ready to rock.

This magic art that is called tapering.

But how do you taper for something that's going to take everything you've got and then a bit more? I've looked back at what's worked for me previously and for my Bob Graham I spent the week before camping on my own with Maria and Louis so lots of activities but no actual running or cycling as such. I think I got round that day by being too stubborn (I mean driven) to admit defeat when I thought I was behind schedule and when I was actually behind schedule. Bloody mindedness can get you a long way it seems!

For my Paddy Buckley I've looked back at my Strava and although in my head I thought I had taken it easy for two weeks it appears not. I went all out in a race the week before, only a 10k race but it was hilly and I was going pretty close to flat out, and I also kept up my hill repeats until this point as well. Something that I dropped this year last week.

Today I went out for a gentle bike ride that ended up being 42 miles. Probably get away with that. I didn't push too hard and it was nice to keep ticking over with a couple of hard efforts along the way.

 Tomorrow I am booked in for a sports massage to unlock the feeling I have in my legs and running frame. I think the cumulative effect of all the training means I need relaxing. At least I think that's what I need.

Who knows? And that's more or less where I'm at. Nobody knows. All the books, coaches, internet chats and sports blogs point to one thing. Nobody really knows. Even looking back with hindsight is only partly useful because when you replicate something that worked previously there's no guarantee it will work this time. Tapering is not only an individual thing it's also different for each event and for each particular set of circumstances related to the run up to each event. And for each person.

Reading between the lines it seems very likely that tapering is a made up idea designed to make people worry about the days leading up to an event! I think I could go so far as to say that as long as you believe you've had the perfect taper then that should be fine.

So I shall continue to run short distances daily, maybe. Unless I don't feel like it in which case I shall have a day off. My hands and feet are tingling due to the mileage drop which I know is a good sign. I liken it to feeling like being wound up slowly so that at the point of the event I let it all go. What I mustn't do is treat any of the coming days as training - there is a danger I could go too far and too hard and not leave enough time for recovery before the big day. But then again who's to say that might not be what I need?

So that's tapering cleared up - I hope you're all the wiser for it.

Ramsay Countdown 11 - Inspiration

3 Peaks Training

Inspiration

It comes in many forms.

 I started on this running journey because I was with Sally as she birthed Louis in to the world in our downstairs room. In a pool. With no pain killers. It made me think, about lots of things. This was significantly different not only to how birth is represented in the media but also my own previous experience of birth and a hospital environment. It made me think.

I wondered what I might be capable of if Sally and her body mind could do this?
I wondered how much of what I was able to do was being underused?
I wondered if I could achieve great things, amazing things even, with the right application?

Inspiration

Alpe D'Huez long distance Tri, then an ironman. I was searching for my limits, not found them yet. Then a chance read of Born to Run - this coincided with me finding mountains to run in. Sally remembers me telling her wide eyed that I had heard of people who go running in the mountains with head torches, imagine!

My first Bob Graham recce will stay with me forever. Meeting up with two complete strangers and spending 8 hours running through snow capped mountains into darkness. A sunset unrivalled in my expereiences before or after, a magical scene of light and dark, of reds, yellows and oranges refelected, refined, constantly moving and it totally blew me away. I'm still chasing a sunset like it but if I never find one I have at least this one to call my own.

I remember Sally saying to me that her dad had commented  - either he'll think it's the hardest thing he's ever done or you'll have lost him! I think a bit of both but I would say that Sally and I have gained rather than lost anything in the process.

Inspiration

I've supported others for all three rounds, I've witnessed great feats of mental and physical strength. Of having the will to endure when there is nothing left, only to discover there is more left in there after all.

I'm supporting Sally in her attempt to run the Yorkshire Three Peaks and in the process seen her run up both Snowden and Ben Nevis and fix her sights firmly on Scafell Pike. From a standing start less than 12 weeks ago. Amazing.

Inspiration

Going to work with an amazing staff who give their all, day in, day out to provide for the children in their care. People willing to go the extra mile, not because they have to but because they want to. Because it matters. In spite of everything. It matters.

Inspiration

My friend and occasional running partner who summitted Everest. He dropped me on his winter Bob Graham going up Blencathra when I was supporting but still waited instead of running off in to the dark and snow - forcing me to raise my game on the comeback from injury and finish with him on schedule.

My friend who I supported on the Ramsay and the Paddy through hours of uncertainty and doubt (for him) knowing that I just needed to show the way and keep putting food in.


Inspiration

I like the quote below from Heile Gebrselassie - it starts with action, through belief and back in to action again. There are so many ways to be inspired by so many people for so many reasons but without doing anything about it that counts for nothing.

Look after yourself. Look after the details. Aim high, aim for further than you think is possible. Dream, and if you're going to dream - dream big.