I thought this week would be a nice and easy one after the exertions on the Welsh coast, but that would be too fanciful!.. Driving back after the run I took a call from my team's manager telling me that they only had 10 players so could I play the next morning. He'd been warned that I was not planning on being around, but if in desperation I had told him to consider me for a 3rd sub just in case of injury to a player during the game, however circumstance conspired against me and at 10:30 on Sunday I was lining up on our home pitch for kick-off and a full 90 minutes. It took a few minutes to get the legs moving, but after 7 minutes I managed to score my first goal at home for a couple of years!
I'd promised myself that when I scored I would run over to the memorial bench for my friend Ritchie with whom I played up-front with when I first started at the club over a decade ago.
Ritchie was the same age as I was and one night went home from his brother's after saying he did not feel too great. He couldn't get to sleep so went to kip on the couch so as not to disturb his wife… And never woke up. His heart stopped during the night.
So I ran across the length of the park to his bench and sat on it - much to the bemusement of my team-mates who aside from a couple of them never really knew Ritchie or the significance behind what I was doing! At half time the manager explained to the team what I had done as there were a few questions about what on earth I was on!
Anyway, we won and I felt surprisingly fresh at full-time, on the pitch as the game wore-on and others tired, my stamina certainly kicked-in and enabled me to blend-in with the pace of those around me.
Well it took about 4 days for me to stop walking like John Wayne and get the full use of my body back. No strains or long-term injuries were suffered from running or kicking a ball around… So in this time-off it gave me a chance to think about what to do next and what I learnt from the run.
The most major thing was a footwear issue… Mine were inadequate for the trail in those conditions. I just could not get enough traction through the grips with all the slick mud. Whilst very comfortable and water-resistant through their gore-tex coating my Asics were just not 'man enough' for these extreme conditions, even though they were marketed as 'trail running trainers'.
Looking at what most people were wearing for the run, it seems that Salomon, Saucony and Inov8 were the makers of choice for most. Looking at the marks left in the mud by others, these trainers certainly have better far larger lugs for purchasing a grip in the mud and I feel these are definitely the way to go for me.
The second most pertinent part was looking and interpreting the GPS data for the event in greater detail beforehand so I can gauge what lies in front of me… Lots of saw-teeth = lots of sharp ascents and descents rather than long drawn-out climbs! Failing on this point meant that I really had not put in enough hill-work (for 'enough' read any)... I had been concentrating too much on ensuring I could last the distance and not worked on the undulation of the terrain that I would face, which cost me dear in terms of time and sapping my energy, which combined with the footwear issue proved to be counter-productive. Both of these can be dealt with by a bit of sensible training and a change in footwear!
With the shortfalls here it blew-out my plan of treating the race as 4x10k legs to make it more digestible on a psychological level. By the time I had reached the third and final checkpoint, my spirit and will had been pretty-much drained as a consequence, so my time was rubbish to say the least even though I was on-track for what I wanted after the half distance. It appears that I can run for about 15 miles without too much of an issue, but any longer and I have extreme difficulty in making a good time. This must be my natural 'wall' and I need to work on psychologically breaking through this as much as I do physically. It may be a case that I have to just go for 15+ miles before I even stop for a breather as once I stop beyond 13 miles my mojo seems to disappear and I can't get started properly again thereafter.
In my hydration pack I had carried around 3L on my back. By the time I reached the finish line I still had around half of it left! So I had carried around twice what I needed, expending more energy, and restricting what else I could carry in the back-pack. I think I need to step it down to 2L of fluid in the bladder for the future. The checkpoints had plenty of things like jelly sweets and flap-jacks for snacking to the point I did not need anything with me bar my gels, so again something to bare in mind.
At least being critical in an assessment of where I fell down in the race I know I can take stock, make changes and learn from historic failures!
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