Calorie Counting

Well, another tough week - the same as last week except that I seem to have done nothing but eat. I've had fish and chips twice plus an eight ounce burger - not all on the same day mind. Whilst wiping the grease from my chops, I thought about the calories I'd need to consume on the run. You burn about 100 calories per mile which means that I'll have to eat 10,000 of them on the run in July. The three lard-fests I had this week would only account for 4,500 of them. Not that you'll find a fish supper as recommended carb loading in Runners' World. For my training I use sachets of gel. They're gloopy, gooey, sickly sweet mouthfuls providing 100 calories each. This means that I'd have to eat 100 of them just to get round. Not. The organisers will be asking us soon for suggestions for the food at the checkpoints. Popular are things like rice pudding, honey sandwhiches, soup and pretzels (for the salt). Anything low residue (so All Bran is out).

Wrekin Reps

The Wrekin is a lovely little hill near Wellington. It's 407m high, has an Ironage hillfort on the top and a semi-resident population of Fallow deer. To the top and back from the Forest Glen car park is three miles and 200m of height gain. Saturday's session was eight repeats: 24 miles and 1600m of height gain. It was lovely for two reps. The mental stamina required to do another six meant I had to dig quite deep to finish: Hendrix on the iPod helped. Another test materialised Sunday morning when I had to go out and do 12 miles. Imagining they could talk, my legs were saying to me, "Just another half hour in bed Baz. It won't matter if you don't go. We'll really love you." It reminded me a little of my dad's comments on hearing about the poor bloke that tragically collapsed and died after running the Stafford half last weekend, "If he'd have had a lie in and a full English, he'd be alive today". Maybe, maybe not. Dad's too old for running half marathons now but you do hear people using incidents like that to justify not exercising. Better to die like a lion than live like a mouse. My thoughts are with his family. Now, back to my legs. Of course, it does matter if I don't go. The whole point is training my body to go when I don't want to. What's it like doing long runs back to back? Well, for the first two or three miles of the second session, it feels like trying to run with two dead legs. They kind of feel like they don't belong to you; maybe they belong to a distant great aunt, or the Pope perhaps. They certainly don't belong to a runner. Does it get any better? No, not really; you just get used to the feeling. You just keep putting one foot in front of the other, 180 times per minute. Anyway, I'm really chuffed that I've completed the first proper big weekend. I've a few blisters which should dry up tomorrow, no joint, tendon or ligament problems and no chafing. All I need to sort out now is my worryingly pale legs, lack of good looks and absent natural charm. I do have a rather fetching tattoo though.

I've been quite touched by the reaction of people at work. I always thought doing things for charity, mate, was a bit cheesey. People have been very supportive though, saying what a tremendous thing it is that I'm doing, almost as if I'd completed the 100 already. Often, they relate the challenge to a significant run that they've done, but then say that their's is insignificant compared with the Lakeland 100. Not so. If you're running your first 10k, you're still going into the unkown, testing the limits of your mind and body. Until you've done it, you don't even know if you're capable of it. When you start getting into the longer distances, you realise that often, the limiting factor is what's between your ears rather than a perceived lack of athletic ability.

Now to the cancer bit. Some bad news today and some good. The bad: Jade Goody. She died this morning aged 27, leaving behind two kids. The primary cancer was cervical cancer. Whatever you think of her as a celebrity, there's something desparate about a young mother's death in those circumstances. The good: my mate Deb. She's on her second dose of chemotherapy for breast cancer and is doing well.

I've got a well-deserved rest day tomorrow. Don't forget to make a donation at www.justgiving.com/runbazrun. Thanks. Baz.

Pontesbury Potter and GPS update

The Potter on Saturday was a great event. You start any time between 8 am and 10 am and follow a typed route description across the Shropshire hills. The route changes every year and this year's was a stunner. The weather was perfect. Gary and I used it as a training run and used our usual walk uphill run the flats and downhill routine to finish in about 2 hours 40 for the 14 miles. That's pretty slow for a road run, but we're not training for the roads.

Sunday saw us on the Long Mynd in Church Stretton for a four hour session. I used the GPS for the first time. What a great piece of kit. It gives you a magnetic bearing and distance to your next waypoint, wherever you are. All the guesswork disappears. Great, as long as your waypoints are right and the batteries last.

Last night I was up Loamhole Dingle again. The midweek run is now 10 miles so I've had to tag on a section of the Ironbridge half to get the miles in. The legs were a bit dead after the weekend but once I got going it was good fun. A good way to get rid of some of the baggage you bring home from work.

The weekend coming is going to be quite tough (nothing new there then). I've got to do 23 Saturday and 14 Sunday. The plan is to do eight reps of the Wrekin; that'll give me 24 miles and 1600m of height gain. Time to deploy the iPod to keep me sane.

Sleep Deprivation

Tough week so far. Worked nights and got seven hours sleep in two days. Good practice for the Lakeland 100 but not great for work, home and training. Still, there's plenty of people that would swap with me if they had the chance so I shouldn't complain.

Missed Tuesday's five but did the Loamhole Dingle eight miler in the dark last night. Good practice running off road when you can't see and all you've got for company are the tawny owls.

I'll get five in this morning before I go to work and then it's the Pontesbury Potter on Saturday (13 miles) and then a training run on the Long Mynd (20) on Sunday with my mate Gary. Mmm, Barry and Gary - it has a certain ring to it. I'll be testing out the GPS on Sunday. I've not used one before and it's a recommended piece of kit so I'll have to get used to it. We're going to follow the Stretton Skyline fell race route. I've plugged in the waypoints and the idea is to let the GPS tell me the bearing and distance to the next point with minimum reference to the map. We'll see how we go. If it turns into a night route I'll know to stick to a map and compass.

New Kit

At the insistence of my wife Ellen, who's doing the 50 mile race at the same event, I've bought new running shorts. This wouldn't normally attract comment except for the important issue of chafing. Every point of contact between skin and material is a potential race-stopper. Go to any half-marathon and you will see blokes that will know better next time with sweaty circles of blood on their vests caused by jogger's nipple. Of course, I don't suffer from this condition because I'm not a jogger. I have been known to get the occasional episode of fell-runner's nipple which is just as painful. The cure: get rid of the man boobs and put a bit of tape on your nipples. Chafing shorts are not so easily remedied; even if they were, I'm not sure I'd want to be putting loads of tape down there. Vaseline works but it doesn't stay on very long. As tired and shabby as they are, I won't be in too much of a rush to get rid of the old shorts until I've properly field-tested the new ones.

This week's training has gone according to plan. It's a recovery week so the mileage is low. Two fives, an eight today and finishing with a 14 tomorrow. This morning's run with Ellen was great. We ended up in Loamhole Dingle which looked a lot nicer than it sounds. Tomorrow's run takes us up the Wrekin - fueled by curry and Stella. I was supposed to do two miles on Monday but it was thrashing it down and it hardly seemed worth getting my new shorts wet.

Lakeland 100 Ultra Marathon

I've set this blog up to record my progress while preparing for the Lakeland 100. What better way to start than with a day off! The run itself is a total grueler. 100 miles and 6800m of height gain to be completed within 40 hours. I've decided to do the run for Cancer Research UK and you can sponsor me at www.justgiving.com/runbazrun. I thought I could count on one hand the number of people that I knew with cancer. I could. Then I went on to my other hand and now I'm onto my toes...

Although I'm not new to long distance stuff, (I've done the Manx Mountain Marathon, the Three Peaks Yacht Race, two Ironman triathlons and the Devil of the Highlands), this is by far the most daunting challenge to date. In fact, just the thought of taking it on gives me the jitters. My training programme is based around a long run Saturday and a medium run Sunday and Wednesday. You do three hard weeks and then one easy week. During the hardest sessions the long run is 30 miles and the medium is 20. Thankfully this won't be for a couple of months. My weekend just gone was 21 Saturday, 13 Sunday. I can't recommend a hilly half marathon on a hangover if you're considering it. To cope with the height gain I've got to fit in some hill work. The Wrekin in Telford is local to me and in the early part of the training, Shropshire residents are likely to see me slogging my way up and down this hill made famous by the expression, "Going around the Wrekin to get to Wolverhampton". That's me with the small black rucksack, blue shorts, headphones and, hopefully soon, a Cancer Research UK running vest. I'll move on to the Long Mynd soon and then there's a big training week in May up in the Lakes.