Gulp…
Where does the time go!? My last post was 4 months ago when I took you through my training plan and what the last 4 months held in store for me and my training plan. Let me take you through what I’ve been up to in that time, did I stick to the plan, did I do anything differently and what’s in store for the final 4 weeks.
When I created the plan I had quite a lot of emphasis on being active and doing several sessions a week, spread between rowing, strength work, cycling and running. Now we all know that I probably had more of a fear of the running due to my previous longest run only being 15 miles and Patagonia needing me to run back to back 20+ mile days. Therefore some weeks I haven’t managed to do as many sessions as I planned to, but always made sure I was on track with my running. It’s not all been plane sailing as I had a little calf strain around September that limited some of my back to back running days at the weekend. Nothing that a little massage from an old physio friend that I have couldn’t sort out.
If we look at my Strava running totals over the last few months you can see I was trending in the right direction until I hit the calf snag. Now let me tell you why there was a big blip in the early stage of October.
For those of you that don’t know, I am heading to Patagonia with a friend. Jamie and his family live over in Boston, I have been fortunate enough to be able to get out and visit Jamie a couple of times in the past. So when I knew we were doing this together and knowing Jamie’s experience at long distance running I wanted to see if I could get over and visit him for some training. I booked and flight and said we would sort the rest at a later date. Well…Jamie already had a plan!
The New Hampshire Presidential Traverse
On one of our catch up’s prior to me heading across the pond, Jamie asked if I was up for a challenge and adventure. I’m never one to turn down an opportunity to push myself and little did I know what Jamie had in store for us. The New Hampshire Presidential Traverse is a 22 mile hike across the White Mountains that see you climb and summit 8 mountain peaks.
I knew it was going to be a challenge and a rough day when Jamie was explaining that we would need to see how the weather would be to decide if we were doing it. At this time of year that area of the country can have sunshine, rain, wind and snow! The plan was to head up the night before, stay over and get on the path for 5:30am! After some research on when the local Dunkin Donuts was due to open, we scrapped that plan and got some food before we started at 6!
I took a lead for the first few hours as I knew the other guys were not just fitter than me, but also used to hiking in these conditions and terrain. So with me leading it meant I could control the pace and attempt to keep my heart rate low enough that I wouldn’t exert too much energy. Wishful thinking as I was super hot! My first real time hiking with a rucksack of kit, and I choose to do it on a 22 mile mountain hike! As we were climbing for those first few hours, we were in darkness, under the stars, feeling the rain, then the snow and also amongst what looked like a scene from Narnia!
As we were climbing we saw a number of others coming down the path, saying that it was a white out at the top and therefore very dangerous to progress across the mountains at such a high elevation all day. We decided to push on and judge for ourselves, we were already a few hours in at this stage and I know the guys really wanted to get this completed, not just because we drove 4 hours to get there! Once we got to the first clearing in the trees people must have looked at us and thought we were mad. An American in his shorts and 2 British guys in a base layer and t-shirt! Where as everyone else watching us and looking on we’re already full on kitted out like they were about to be snowed in for weeks! The final climb to the first peak required us to put ice spikes on, another couple of layers and some gloves. Jamie threw his toys out the pram when he struggled to feel his fingers, big time sulk on the climb, touched the top and just headed back down! Well he missed out, the fog cleared as soon as we got above the clouds and the views were amazing!
I knew from seeing this view that the day was going to be filled on great scenery and tough climbs! We pushed on and got up the next climb in pretty good time. It was when we went up the third climb that I was starting to tire and needed to get some energy in me. I was slowing and also making some silly errors on a very very hard terrain to climb. It was relentless all day and full of large steps, small steps, scrambling on hands and knees and tough tough challenging descents. We knew that getting to the top of Mount Washington was a big step as it was half way in distance and majority of the elevation complete, we got there in 9 hours, yep 9 hours in and only half way! That’s 11 miles in that time, so that tells you just how slow and steep the day was!
It was when I saw this sign that Jamie decided to tell me that Mount Washington is actually, statistically the most dangerous mountain on the planet for fatal accidents. This is mainly due to how accessible it is, and from that sign, just how ferocious the winds can be!
The next 6 hours or so we’re going to be a tail of two halves! I had to change my socks at the stop halfway as my feet had got wet a couple of hours before. The first 3 hours were cracking, the sun was setting, was managed to see some of the fall leaves in the distance and the sun picking out the amazing colours. The next video will show just how stunning it was.
After this, the sun started to set and set quick! We had a final 3 hours of descending by head torch and I was nearly running on empty. My body was trying to give up on me and my right thigh and hip flexor was gone! I think I had to pretty much drag it and carry it down the final 2 hours and they were slow slow going! Hats off to the patience on Jamie and Brodie as they were sticking with me the whole way. I reckon they could have finished an hour earlier if it wasn’t for me. However we got it done and it took us 15.5 hours! The shame was we missed out on seeing the sun actually set on the tree lined mountain side. We were passed by some incredible people on the hike, some young guy that had started 4 hours after us and more than likely finished a couple hours before us! Oh the joy of being young! It was an epic adventure and well worth the blood sweat and tears along the way!
As you can imagine we had a lot of discussions throughout the day and one of them was how many steps we would do! I took a wild stab at 60k where as Jamie and Brodie went for 42k and 35k respectively. I only came up 4k out with a total step count of 56k! The next video comes from Relive and shows just how tough the day was.
Whilst I was in a Boston I also managed to get out for a cheeky 5km and a private kayak lesson before the hike. The 1.5 hours on the river learning about kayak technique was invaluable! I really think without this lesson I would have struggled out in Patagonia, yet the things I picked up will help me be more efficient and safer on the water!
The trip was great for my training, although it wasn’t running 22 miles, it was 16 hours on my feet and over double the elevation that I will need to tackle in Patagonia. So an experience that will always be in the memory bank and something I will draw on during the tough times ahead!
For some reason, I then thought it would be a great idea to head out to Miami the week later for a weekend visit! At the time I thought I would be fine and had even planned to get a long run in. However in the heat and only a week after the hike, my body was needing some rest! I think it was maybe a step too far for my ageing body!
I’ve been back a week and managed a 18 mile walk/run at the weekend, mixing a first 4 mile walk of the dog with a run/walk after. Trying to get more time in the legs than distance at the moment.
My original plan had suggested that this weekend would be my biggest in terms of distance. Now I still plan to get out for some lengthy runs, but I might actually mix it up with a brick session of run, bike and then another long run on Sunday morning, making the most of the clocks going back and a lighter morning.
The weeks that follow this will probably ease off the running, up strength work and time on the bike. I have a half marathon around Richmond on the 6th November, which I might use as a final long run, park somewhere a few miles away, run there, do the event and then run back to the car maybe. Then slowly taper off to the event week.
So that’s a little bit about what I’ve been up to and how I’m getting on. Hope you enjoyed the read, next update will be even closer to the start!
I Just Felt Like Cycling 