Petzl Nao review

Ah, the Petzl nao. Reactive lighting. I'd heard a lot about it, and saw someone with one of the first ones out doing the rounds this time last year on the High Peak Marathon. What a cool looking bit of kit - and only £135 or so. (Which to some people may seem inordinately expensive, but when you consider what you are getting, isn't actually all that much).
I don't actually have one, but managed to blag one off a mate for a few weeks, which was good, as he was off ice climbing and apparently didn't need it. As luck would have it, I then became inordinately busy during the evenings and didn't manage to get out with it for a couple of weeks, and then had a concerted effort at getting out and about with it just recently.

Yes, there are more comprehensive reviews out there, with a whole lot more words, but it's best not to repeat everything they say, that'd be pretty pointless.

So, in my opinion, what's it like?

To look at -as I'm sure you know if you are reading this, its got 2 lamps - one diffused and one spot, and a distance sensor thing on top of it, a head gripping head band, which seems a bit revolutionary as it uses string, elastic and plastic, and a contoured battery pack at the back, which is USB rechargeable. Nice, all well and good and a pretty design.

Considerable lack of comfort

The first thing I noticed when I put it on was that the lamp portion of it seemed quite heavy in comparison to other lamps I've used recently (mostly Silva), and it took me a bit of time to work out what was the most comfortable tightness to pull the cord to in order to keep the torch on my head. Once on, it was very stable, and certainly didn't feel like it was going to come off. However, the lack of padding on the bit attaching itself to my forehead was really hard. I'm not normally one for complaining about how uncomfortable headtorches are, but the light unit on the Nao, being forced onto my head by the amount of tension I had to crank into it was not comfortable in the slightest.

Locked on, but uncomfortable on the ear

Off I went for a run, thinking that it was going to get a little more comfortable. Well, it did, a little, but only because I put a buff on and made sure that was between me and the lamp. The only other annoying thing was the cable routing on the left hand side of the torch - when on my head, the attachment (which is non-adjustable) appears right next to my left ear, and after about 45 mins of running causes considerable discomfort.

Brightest

The lighting, though, especially the reactive nature of the torch is terrific. Seamlessly translating from close up dimness to far away 355 lumen brightness, is most impressive. The adjustment is infinitely changeable via a natty bit of petzl computer progamming, however it kept crashing on me. In fact, it crashed so regularly I nearly threw the thing out of the window.

For those of you worried about it reflecting back on you in the mist, or as you breathe and steam goes up in front of your face - yes, it reflects back on you and dims accordingly - however, there is an option to have the torch on one single power setting at a time and take away the reactiveness- on downhill sections when you are pounding away and really really don't want the torch to suddenly dim on you because it thinks something is close to it - you can whack it on a specific brightness (chosen by you back at your computer) and away you go.

lower setting

The only thing I found a little concerning is that the generic brightness when I was running was just a little too dim for the speed I was going. If I looked further along the trail, the torch got brighter, but I wasn't looking at where I wanted to put my feet, and when I looked down at my feet, the torch dimmed to the point that it wasn't as useful as I wanted it to be - and I couldn't find a setting to make the middle setting brighter. I wonder if it has been set at a specific level for a certain amount of distance.
Maybe that's one which someone with more patience, or perhaps a petzl program that doesnt crash - could answer.

So overall I was very impressed with the reactive lighting tech, and that there is a solid light that you can rely on as well if you are heading through a section where you really really don't want the light to react to anything. However, I found it heavy and uncomfortable, and have some reservations about the usefulness of it while running at speed.
Its a great concept, but for running, I'll be waiting for the 2nd generation.

The on-ny off-y switch. rotational and with a lock. Excellent idea

Lent

Sunrise run in Glenridding. Stop making excuses and do it. 

I got annoyed at the beginning of this year with a lot of people making a big show of "giving up" alcohol for the first month of the year. Abstaining from drinking any alcohol for all of 31 days. Could they do it? Would they fail?
To be honest, it didn't really interest me, and what made it more annoying was the fact that some people had the temerity to try to get sponsored for their abstention. I mean, really. Giving someone money to give to (and admittedly) good cause because they managed to stay off the sauce for a short time. I think not.
Just give the charity the amount of money you have saved by not drinking 3 bottles of wine a week, and at the same time, don't shout about it.

Which brings me to Lent. That time of the year when traditionally the New Years Resolutions have been long forgotten, and we look to another reason to deny ourselves the things we may enjoy. In my cynicism of the world and the people in it at the moment, I didn't so much rail against the whole idea of abstaining from something for 40 days, but was thinking about something I heard about a while ago - that it takes 21 days to make a habit.
Theoretically, over 40 days, it should be possible to make something a habit - indeed, within a month it should be possible, but only if you are willing. If you give up something completely, cold turkey, and you spend a lot of time thinking about the thing you can't have, that only heightens the enjoyment of the end of the self-imposed denial period - and goes a long way to explaining why people get horrendously drunk at the end of a time away from alcohol - or binge eat chocolate at Easter after ostensibly not eating any for a period before.

So I decided not to give up something material for this period, especially something that I enjoy - as that would mean giving up running, or cycling, or lifting weights. Yes, I could give up nutella - but that happens when the shop doesn't sell it in big enough jars. Yes, I could give up carbohydrates, but then my training would suffer. I'm not saying I don't have any bad habits, I'm sure I do, and Lynne could give me a whole list of them, however, after a long period of introspection, (about 5 minutes) I came to the conclusion that I would give up making excuses.

My internal voice is now sounding something like this...

"I can't train because I don't have time".  - Make time.
"I don't have time to study" - make time
"I'll never understand that concept because it means learning about something else in order to work it out, and I don't get that either" - in which case, study what you need to and work up to it.
"Oh - I'll get around to doing that later on" - do it now
"I love going for a run, (but I'll sit around and talk about it rather than doing it)". Shut up and go for a run then.

That kind of thing.
As it is, I have had a much better time of it recently - it also helps that I have some excellent motivation to work hard and train hard, in the guise of MFT and the Gym Jones site.
All is good, and although its harder work than it seems, giving up making excuses is making me more productive, stronger, and happier.
I somehow doubt that I'm going to binge on excuses come Easter.

Trigger 2013

Coffeeeeee

Up again early for a race, always fun, but generally much better when there is a coffee on the go.
This is the one I have been looking forward to for a good couple of months. A 34k wander across 3 moors, hitting 3 trig points, and generally having a bit of a good time.

Last year I came in 23rd in a time of 3:59:40 (or so), and crashed badly on the way over Kinder in terms of a sugar low. This year I really wanted to get faster than that, though it would pretty much depend on the ground conditions, which in the weeks leading up to the race were not looking particularly promising. The last few recces I have done were across knee and ankle deep bogs in very little visibility.

Kit Check

Thankfully, yesterday was pretty breezy, and did a good job of drying the bog out a bit, and then a bit of a freeze overnight gave it a nice firm crust. It ended up being pretty fast conditions, which was great.

After arriving, kit check went smoothly, and also showed me that I had packed 2 maps instead of one, so that saved me a bit of weight. Which was immediately put back on again as I decided to take a camera. Unfortunately I couldn't find a decent place to put it in order to get at it quickly - so it went in the bag, and I just ran with extra weight.
I was surprised at how little some people took with them in terms of kit, but then, I suppose you can get fully taped waterproofs and food and a map and compass in a 2-4 litre bumbag, I just took my heavier kit in a slightly larger bag. Perhaps in hindsight I could have cut down on the weight of the gear I took, but it wasn't really a problem. It was the food that weighed more, and I needed that right to the end.

Credit - www.flamingphotography.co.uk

The basic plan was to have half a geo-bar every half hour (from the very start) and then a powergel type thing before hitting Lawrence Edge and then another one just before hitting the climb onto the Northern edge of Kinder. The main key was not to get too carried away at the beginning. You can get very caught up in the first section, hammering along the path, and completely knacker yourself out before you get to any proper hills. So I tried to take it easy. (It helped that there was a navigational mix up in the first 300 metres, meaning that the faster runners missed a turning and had tom come back through the group... considering that we started from a slightly different place this year, maybe ONE of us might have reccied the beginning....!)

Alastaire took off with the front group (as soon as they worked out the right direction) and I didn't see him again until the very end. He ended up doing fantastically well, but had to contend with 5 mins of not being able to move anywhere after being afflicted with cramp on Kinder.

I trotted along at my own speed with Dan and Andy in close proximity, and a couple of runners from Carnethy. I saw Jasmine and Heather waaay ahead of us, spurred on by each other and looking like they were just going to batter the hell out of each other on the way to a new Womens record.
Underfoot was really good going. There wasn't quite so much ice as there was last year, and the run down off Black hill toward Crowden Little Brook had a decent amount of squidge to it - in comparison to a year ago when it was solid mud ice - so MUCH better to run on this year.

I was running pretty well on the way down to Crowden, but making sure that I was eating in the right places. This was going to be the important bit- as I remember it getting really quite difficult as I got onto Lawrence Edge last year, an energy gel was consumed, and although I didn't necessarily feel energised, I knew that there would be a bit more stuff in me which would get me up the hill.
There was a person in front of me who I thought was Grouse, so I kept him in my sights all the way across and up on the way up to the Edge. I finally caught up with him, and found it wasn't. Oh. Ah well, I guessed he was far far away ahead of me.

Thanks to Eleanor Swan for the Snake summit photo

Heather was just up ahead and took the same line as me up the Edge, but a different one around the top. I took the "short cut" which I had looked out a couple of weeks back, and lo and behold, it spat me out exactly the same distance behind her as when I started it.
Great.
So it wasn't until we got into the groughs going up beyond Wildboar when I was able to take a sneaky line and get out in front of her.

More food, and a bit of water, and the drag up to Higher Shelf Trig, with a couple of other runners near me. To be honest, I never actually recced that bit, and was very much making it up as I went along, just aiming for the highest point on the hill. It kind of worked, and we bounded off down the hill toward Snake Summit.

Coming into the finish

By this time I was getting pretty tired, but there was a marvellous boost as the assembled Glossopdale supporting horde cheered us on through the Checkpoint. On and across Featherbed moss, and I began to see more people in front of me for the first time since Crowden. Excellent, but a minor thing in the way - that being the North Edge of Kinder. It was just as long and steep and horrible as I remember it from last year, and I ended up hauling myself up with hands as my feet dragged behind me. A Dark Peaker was alongside me, but we left another guy straggling a way behind us as we climbed up onto the top.

Bagged the trig, and then, because of the icy top, I took a bit of a new and radical line across to the Downfall. Needless to say it didn't work all that well, but at least I didn't end up at Fairbrook naze like a couple of runners from Carnethy may or may not have done(!).

Food. The best reward around. 

Through Kinder gates with a couple of other runners, one of which who observed that none of our legs seemed to be working particularly well. Definitely seizing up, and at that point it was about 3:15 into the race, the faster guys would certainly have been finishing by now. (As it was, Oli finished in 3:08!).
Up into the groughs and quite a zigzagging route through the area, and then out and over the bog - mercifully iced over, so a decent speed was maintained, and then along the south edge of Kinder. Again, not really something I had reccied, and that was to be my eventual downfall as the 2 Dark Peakers behind me that I had overtaken through the grough maze on Kinder took a much better line and thrashed me off the hill, finishing a minute or so faster.
New line for next year methinks...

As it was, I finally caught up with Grouse coming off Grindslow, overtaking him near the bottom, and just about managing to hold him off in a near on neck and neck finish.
20th overall, in 3:47:11, about 16 seconds behind Alastaire, whose red hat I had seen in the last 100 metres of the race - the first time I saw him since the beginning.

Well done to the rest of the Glossopdale Harriers who ran, especially Mark Ollerenshaw who came 3rd, Julien, 10th overall, and first V50, and John S, with the incredible exploding shoes, which ended up being held together with Gaffa tape for a third of the race.
Stevie K from Pennine had a fabulous run coming in 4th, and 1st Vet 40, and Jasmine was 6th overall, and first Lady.

Johns incredible exploding shoe.

What a day.