Spine Blog 8 - Darkness

January 9th - the race will start at 7am. Sunrise doesn't happen until 8:20am.
We run through the day, and Sunset happens at 4:18pm.
We run through the night - and on January 10th, Sunrise doesn't happen until 8:20am again.

Foggy Morning on the High Peak Marathon a couple of years ago

Hopefully, I'll be finished by the time the sun sets at 4:20pm on January 10th, but there is no real guarantee. At the very least I'm going to be running through 17 or 18 hours of darkness.
I am no stranger to night runs, and certainly no stranger to headtorches, having been a course tester for the Marmot Dark Mountains event, doing the High Peak Marathon and other night based races. I haven't, though, competed in an event with quite such a long time in darkness before.

Headtorcher on Bleaklow

Although I have a pretty decent headtorch and spare batteries, I don't really know exactly what the burn time is going to be on it. As a runner, we don't tend to run until torch batteries run out - it is more of a "go for a run in the dark, make sure the batteries are charged beforehand, and make sure they get charged afterward" kind of thing. In the Spine Challenger, this isn't going to be an option.

The Silva website gives an estimated burn time at 10 hours on the lowest setting, and 2:30 on the highest. So no, I'm not going to be going around spraying light everywhere. 5 hours of extremely bright light might be useful for a bit, but for the rest of the 11 or 12 hours I'll be stumbling around in complete darkness. Not so good.

We can only hope for a night as good as this

Having said that - is the 10 hours burn time actually useful, or is it really 5 hours of decent light followed by 5 hours of insipid illumination that would really only be useful for letting mosquitoes know where I am in the summer? Also, once the light is being used for running, its quite unlikely that I'm going to be just using it on low mode.
Looking for signs, checking I'm on the right path, going down hills, scaring off monsters, that kind of thing - needs a bit more than low level lighting, and I would imagine that flicking through modes is
going to significantly impact the usable time for my light.

All these thoughts are going through my head, and I had a bit of a non-scientific experiment
involving the torch and a stop watch to see just how long it takes to run down. I was fairly impressed to see that it stayed on for 9.5 hours, way above what I was expecting, and pretty close to the advertised 10 hours. It was telling me it was low on battery for about 2 hours before it suddenly just went. None of this pansying around getting dim, just run, run, run, run, dead.

Good to know.

A few mates have recently done some overnight runs and races, and have been testing kit during those, which is a thoroughly good idea and makes me feel quite unprepared. (or at least, under-prepared), still, getting a better handle on just how long the light is going to last will give me an idea if an extra light is needed for that time when the last batteries die and it is still a couple of hours to sun up....

Remind me why you're doing this again?

Glossop Mountain Rescue Team helping out in the aftermath of Storm Desmond

The Floods that are happening at the moment - those guys in Mountain Rescue Buoyancy Aids on the front pages of newspapers and news sites- they're volunteers. They don't get paid for their time.
The kit all costs money. The water training courses costs money. Those floaty boats cost money - and for the last few flood calls we as a team have attended, we had to borrow one.
It's not paid for by the government, we are not part of the fire service - it all comes from donations.

There are 4 of us from Glossop Mountain Rescue running the inaugural Mountain Rescue Spine Challenger Event. We will run 108 miles from Edale to Hawes alongside other members of rescue teams, and the Spine Challenger event.

We are raising awareness and funds for our individual MR teams - without the support of people like you, our ability to respond to Mountain and Flood rescues would be severely curtailed.
Please visit our Just giving page and help us out. 

Spine Blog 7 - a continuation of distance? conundrum

Its got to about 4 weeks out now. Not long to go at all. I'm continuing to be a little wary of the tendonitis which basically scuppered my training throughout November. I'm really really aware that if I go out and do a very heavy long run now, there is a chance that I could end up with a reactive tendonitis that would pretty much rule me out of the race altogether.

This may well be something that I wouldn't normally think about, but is also a bit of a problem that I find with runners and cyclists in my physiotherapy practice. Being a few weeks out from the race, or the big event - a niggle appears and the immediate thought is just to "run through it".
Maybe this is a good thing, maybe this is the worst thing you can do.

In all honesty, if the race was this weekend, I reckon I might just be able to muddle my way through. It isn't actually the fitness that I am worried about. It shouldn't be for anyone else really. If you're worried about fitness in a 108 mile race, you shouldn't be doing it. You should be doing a much, much, much shorter race.

The question is, at this stage, will a 50 mile training run get me in better shape for the Spine Challenger? I don't think it will. I suspect it might break down a few muscles, it might make me stronger in the head - which is really where it needs to be, but will it make me any fitter? I'm not entirely convinced. It'll probably just take too long to recover from it to do any real good.

At this point, I'm going to try keeping fit with a series of shorter runs with all my kit - making sure that I know where everything is, making sure the clothing systems work, the lighting systems work, that I know where my batteries are, and the food, and the water etc. And, perhaps most importantly, that I know where the heck I'm going.

Yes, of course fitness is ridiculously important here, however, headspace is so much more of the issue once you get going. After 50 odd miles, its not really going to be a question of are you fit enough, it's going to be a question of is your head in the right place, have you got your nutrition sorted, and do you know where you are, and where you are headed.

That being said, the longest I've ever run before is 55 miles, so who knows, maybe I'm talking nonsense, we'll see what happens on January 9th.

WHY?

As ever, a plug for Glossop Mountain Rescue - I'm doing this, the inaugural Spine Mountain Rescue Challenger as a part of Glossop Mountain Rescue, and raising funds for the team. We are all volunteers and give our time freely to help those in need in the wild places around the place we call home. Our patch includes Bleaklow, in essence, 250square km of high bog, and we are using this challenge to specifically raise money for the less glamorous aspects of MR.
The medications that go out of date and need to be replaced. The MOTs for the Landrovers. The replacement waterproofs that get worn out by team members. The radios that get mud and waterlogged etc. We rely on donations to keep our charity going.
Head on over to the justgiving page to find out more.

Spine Blog 6 - Food

mmm. Chewy.

Time is rapidly running out for getting kit together, practicing with it and making sure that everything fits nicely for a long run in the cold.
As much as you practice being on your feet, navigating and working your way up the Pennine Way, the one thing that simply cannot be forgotten, but is so often left until the last minute, is the food situation.

Soup and a roll?

The race is continuous. The Challenger edition - 108 miles has a cut off of 60 hours. If you're going for a time that is on the slower end of this, you're looking at a decent amount of time on your feet. Even if you intend on doing the whole thing in one hit and taking somewhere around the 30 hour mark, there is still a significant nutrition issue to consider.

Considering what may or may not go right or wrong, how do you keep yourself fueled for up to 40 or 50 hours? On the one extreme, just stuffing your face with gels and liquid calories isn't really going to be conducive to getting through the whole thing. At the other end, sitting down for sandwiches and soup every 4 hours, and then meat and 2 veg at the end of each day isn't exactly a strategy that is a viable option for most of us, simply because of the sheer amount of weight that you'd have to carry.

moonshine. Not recommended

The answer must lie somewhere in the between. (thanks, Nic for the line).

The whole idea about nutrition (and I say this not at a nutritionist, but rather, as a competitor with a basic concept of what the body needs), is that it enables you to finish the race without throwing up (and losing a load of calories that your body needs), without carrying so much food weight that it makes it impossible to carry your bag, and with food that you are able to face even after 30 straight hours of running and eating.

HPM food stop

No, this isn't just a running competition, or even just an endurance competition. This is also an eating competition. Who can create the best food, and be able to eat and stomach it continuously all the way to the end of the race. Mess this one up at your peril. Its a lot harder than just putting one foot in front of the other. I've written a blog about feeding in long races a while ago so you might find some more useful information there.

The homemade way

So what is my strategy?
Same as always. Find what works for you and stick with it. I suspect I'm going to be going with a combination of Traidcraft Geobars, knock off Mars and Snickers from Aldi, pitta with LOADS of butter and various fillings (tuna Mayo...mmmm), and a few select bits and pieces from the ever excellent Feedzone Portables.
As for drinking, I'll probably end up with 2 bottles, one with water and the other with some kind of Lemon/lime flavoured electrolyte derivative.
And a Lot of Coffee. 

WHY?

As ever, a plug for Glossop Mountain Rescue - I'm doing this, the inaugural Spine Mountain Rescue Challenger as a part of Glossop Mountain Rescue, and raising funds for the team. We are all volunteers and give our time freely to help those in need in the wild places around the place we call home. Our patch includes Bleaklow, in essence, 250square km of high bog, and we are using this challenge to specifically raise money for the less glamorous aspects of MR.
The medications that go out of date and need to be replaced. The MOTs for the Landrovers. The replacement waterproofs that get worn out by team members. The radios that get mud and waterlogged etc. We rely on donations to keep our charity going.
Head on over to the justgiving page to find out more.

How hard is it to find a treadmill to use?!

Go to any council run Swimming pool in the country. You can pay a few quid, walk through the doors, jump in at the deep end and proceed to impress everyone with just how bad your swimming is.

No test, no showing you around the pool, no induction, no monthly fee. Just turn up and swim. Fantastic.

So why can’t we do that at gyms?

I am a runner and a few months ago had a set to do on a treadmill. (don't ask.... I know the response here is "just run outside you wuss".... but bear with me here). A treadmill isn’t the kind of thing you have lying around in your house, so I decided to go to my local council gym.

It was going so well until I walked in the door.

"Have you had an induction?"

"No"

"Well you need an induction before you can use the gym."

"I just want to use the treadmill. I have money here that I am willing to give you in exchange for 25 minutes of time on a treadmill."

"No - you need an induction, which will cost £20, and then you’ll need to pay for either a monthly membership, or a “casual users” membership."

What? Really? I mean…. Really?

Imagine if I went to a swimming pool and they told me that, I really wouldn't know what to think.

I eventually managed to get into a martial arts gym that has a treadmill, paid way over the odds to use it, but heck, it was a lot easier than going through the palaver of getting into the local council run gym.

Thankfully I found a way around it (and it did not involve an induction, but it did involve a lot of words and emails), and for the past few months I have been able to go in and use the treadmill. Everytime I have gone in there has been a bit of a hold up at the reception until they can find my name on the system, which obviously has a note next to is saying “don’t argue with this person, take his money and let him use the damn treadmill”.

All was well and good, until Lynne wanted to use a treadmill yesterday. She is a Level 3 Personal trainer, a runner and knows her way around a gym. She has not had the induction at the local gym either. She went down to do a treadmill set and was placed in exactly the same position I was in 6 months ago.

Crazy.

In this day and age of trying to encourage people to exercise, to get out there and do stuff, there are still so many barriers to actually being able to do it. Not everyone wants to join a gym for months,

Lynne proving she knows what to do on a treadmill

flexibility is a much more important thing. Swimming pools seem to understand it, and have done for years.

In fact the swimming pool that is run by the same council that wouldn’t let us in to use the treadmill let me in to swim the other day. Charged me £4, didn’t ask me if I could swim, and I merrily went off to use the pool, which I have never been in before, and I haven’t been swimming in, ooooh, about 7 years.  

No health screening, no medical form, no taking of name or address, no paperwork. 

Here is some money, let me go swim. Thanks. 

In exactly the same gym I can go and use the bouldering wall which is semi-famous for its tendon shredding holds - again, pay and play, no questions, no issues. 

Letting someone who doesn’t know how to swim into a pool, where they could quite happily drown, or letting someone who can run into a gym to use a treadmill.... which seems objectively more dangerous? 

Surely council run gyms should work to the same principles as the council run pools. We should be encouraging people to get out there and exercise, not putting barriers in the way.

Spine Blog 5 - Gear

Yes, I am still in the process of recovering from Achilles Tendinopathy. I haven't run for the past few weeks - but to be honest, there is a better blog about that which I have written and posted here.

At this point, I'm really hoping that the previous work that I have done, all the distance and ascent that has been covered in the period of the last year or so will stand me in good stead for the Spine Challenger. I figure that I know I can run 50 odd miles pretty off pat. Hopefully anything beyond that is really more of a mental challenge, dragging my sorry body along for the second half of the race.

Whilst working through injury, I'm keeping up aerobic fitness through other means - cycling and rowing, but nothing, of course really mimicks the pain and length of running. That is simply going to have to be just something I just get on with and trust my base.

For the time being I have been settling down with the kit list, making sure I have what I need, and if I don't have it, then begging or borrowing something that will help me make do. At the same time, I am making sure that if I DO borrow something, then I use it and get to know it in the time that I have before the race.
No point in running with kit, especially emergency kit. that you don't know how to use.

Trying to keep the weight down as much as possible, this is where I'm up to thus far.
Bag- OMM 20 Litre
Roll Mat - OMM duomat (nicked from another OMM bag and forced into the 20 litre)
Sleeping bag- Mountain Hardwear Speed 32 (borrowed from a lovely running partner)
Cooking gear - Alpkit MiTi mug, crux folding stove and small gas canister (borrowed from a lovely climbing partner) (not yet borrowed, but I have a pocket rocket and Ti-pan on standby just in case
Bivvy - SOL bivvy bag
Torch - Silva runner + spare battery
Waterproof - OMM Aether Smock
Waterproof trousers - Montane eVent trousers
Knife- I still have yet to source a lighter one than my swiss army knife
Shoes- probably inov8 Orocs, or maybe terraclaws, depending on the conditions. would love to try out some new soon to be released shoes... but the chances of getting hold of a pair of those are vanishingly slim.
Gloves... crikey, don't talk to me about gloves, we'll be here all day. I suspect throughout the course of the event I'll go through 2 sets of fleece pile Montane Mitts, a set of Primaloft mitts. 3-4 pairs of stretchy fleece gloves and a pair of eVent overmitts. And maybe even a pair of "waterproof" sealskins lobster mitts.
2 buffs
a fleece ronhill hat
map/compass
GPS - garmin oregon
the lightest spare tops and bottoms I can find- to be honest, they're going to be the helly's that I have in a cupbord somewhere.
ski-goggles (not sure if a pair of wraparound oakley type protective glasses will do?)
extra, warm layer - Montane Verso
Spikes - Kahtoola Microspike

all wrapped up in large numbers of Alpkit waterproof bags.
There will of course be an awful lot of food going in there (something I'll cover in a later post), a couple of water bottles and a kitchen sink, but thats the bulk of the items.
I'm playing around with the idea of having a chest pack as well. In previous longer fell races, I have been fine grabbing food and stuff from the smaller waist pockets in the OMM bag, but on a longer endeveour such as this, it may well be a sensible thing to have a larger pouch which is accessible on the move.
We'll see if I can get a hold of one of those. 

Now I just need to start getting a few more miles on my feet in the lead up to the event. It's what, just about a month away now. This should be interesting.

(this isnt a complete kit list... its just what I have cobbled together at the moment.... there are still some outstanding bits and bobs to get, so please don't shout at me that I've forgotten to include such-and-such... I probably know). 

WHY?

As ever, a plug for Glossop Mountain Rescue - I'm doing this, the inaugural Spine Mountain Rescue Challenger as a part of Glossop Mountain Rescue, and raising funds for the team. We are all volunteers and give our time freely to help those in need in the wild places around the place we call home. Our patch includes Bleaklow, in essence, 250square km of high bog, and we are using this challenge to specifically raise money for the less glamorous aspects of MR.
The medications that go out of date and need to be replaced. The MOTs for the Landrovers. The replacement waterproofs that get worn out by team members. The radios that get mud and waterlogged etc. We rely on donations to keep our charity going.
Head on over to the justgiving page to find out more.