Bonking on purpose, walking on tired legs, new mantra, Look ahead to Week 12, and is it a Gnome?

This morning having got up at 6am, put some washing out on the washing line, I went for a 15 mile run with my weighty rucksack on.

I had a few nooks and crannies in Reedham that I had not yet explored, one of which was a public footpath which revealed a set of steps that led down into a hollow - I will do photos next week.
Beyond that it was a fairly mundane steady 12-ish minute mile running except I had decided I wanted to know how far could I keep running without topping up with food - obviously I drank water as appropriate because it was sunny clear skies and I was not aiming to be dehydrated.
I was wondering if I would make it through the whole 15 miles but I bonked just before the end of mile 14, after 2 hours and 50 minutes of activity.

Bonking at that stage allowed me (unplanned) to find out my walking speed on very tired legs especially given they did 5 miles on Friday,7 miles on Saturday, on top of the 14 miles just done.
So for the final full mile, I walked as briskly as I could sustain, and it took me 16 minutes 49 seconds - this is useful to know as it starts to give me a sense of my walking speed when I need to give my body time to recover, and also I can start to get a better sense of potential finishing times for the big day itself.

I have been reading a translated Japanese book by Haruki Murakami called "What I talk about when I talk about running"- I am currently about a third through it and it is a refreshing read of a Japanese author who likes to run, and is part travelogue, part training log, and part reminiscence covering his preparation for the 2005 New York Marathon.
One of the comments he makes refers to a quote (origin unknown) that I am adopting as my mantra;


With week 11 complete, Week 12 is the penultimate week of serious training, and will involve 3 x 6 miles (one easy, then two medium effort), an 8 mile on Saturday, and a 20 mile run on Sunday.

I did take one photo before I went out for the 15 mile run, that of me in my gear and with my rucksack on - I will leave you all to decide how Gnomish it is......

My Approach To Training For My First Ultra

One of my work colleagues was enquiring about my whole approach to training for the Ultra, not just about my running but my recording of food eaten on MyFitnessPal, so I thought I should share my answer in case it is of interest to anyone else.

In terms of my four to five runs a week I do them first thing in the morning typically starting at about 5.30am to 6.30am, and I do them having not eaten anything, known as a fasted run.

The reason I do this is based on forcing my body to learn how to burn it's carbs and fat stores more efficiently, so on race day when I do fuel up pre-race, and depending on distance top up at regular intervals, it learns to make the efficient use of the fuel I provide - that's the theory and based on the recent Sunday long runs, I am mastering the ability to keep sufficiently topped up so I do bonk late in the run.

The exercise aspect is only one part of my approach, with the other being how much and what I eat each day, and for that I use MyFitnessPal to help keep me on the straight and narrow.

A typical mid-week running day, I allow 1800 calories plus the calories earned from the run, which seems to be about 700 to 900 calories.

When I get back from my run, I have a cup of milk then a large bowl of cereal, typically muesli but currently Shreddies (as they need using them up) with a similar amount of milk = 500 calories.

Lunch will be soup and roll, salad with cheese or some meat, or last night's dinner leftovers, so anything from 400 to 600 calories.

During the day, snacks will be mainly fruit based, such as banana, apple(s), pear, orange etc plus breakfast bar style food = upwards to 500 calories.

Dinner will be about 800 calories.

Total = 500 + 600 + 500 + 800 = 2400 calories based on the maximums.  Given my "allowance" is 1800 + 700 = 2500, then it is all about right, and typically I will be 200 to 300 calories each of these days.

I eat less on non-running days with Monday being an exception as the Sunday long run makes me very hungry the following day, so I tend to merge Sunday and Monday together.

I hope this makes sense.

Week 9 completed, looking good, time pressured 20 miler, the backpack, and a look ahead to the dreaded Week 10

Week 9 I did five runs that added up to 41 miles (20 done today), and it is becoming clear that whilst I have no scope to do much more, particularly mid week, it is actually (surprisingly) very manageable.

There is a another benefit to all this running in that in the last eight weeks, I have lost 10lbs in weight and now need to lose another 3.5 lbs to set a new lowest weight - I have been recording my weight on and off for the last four and half years when at that point I had hit a whopping 16st (224lbs).  My present weight is 12st 10.25lbs (178.25lbs) and the current lowest record is 13st 7lbs (175lbs).
Anyhow, I am getting a lot of comment about I look slimmer these days - my missus reckons I am vanishing up my own backside..... - and to finish this section I have two "aspirational" shirts ironed and hanging up, waiting for me to fit into them, and I hope after Race to the Stones, I will fit into them for work.

Now today's 20 mile run became a little more time pressured than I had originally planned when I overslept by one hour and I had a deadline to be home by.  As a result today's run was more like a training session for a marathon rather than a run-but-take-time-to-enjoy-the-views-ultra.
As with all runs to date, it is a fasted run and I comfortably did the first ten miles around various farm fields, and facing the quarter-mile nettles of doom along the river like last week's long run, before then taking on water and to start with jelly babies.  At mile 12, another batch of jelly babies and water, then at mile 14 a large banana and water, mile 16 was a breakfast bar, mile 18 more jelly babies.  At no point was I feeling like I was out of energy, so nutritionally I had nailed it.
One thing I did do to help with breaking down the 20 miles was I noticed I was doing just about 48 minutes after four miles and quickly calculated that if I could keep to an overall rate of four miles every 50 minutes (12.5 minutes per mile) I would get the run done on time.   This was useful as I could add up batches of 50 minutes in my head and along with your subconscious being in full flow it kept the brain active working out if I was meeting this target. In the end I did it with a few minutes to spare at a rate of 12 minutes 20 seconds per mile.
Apologies, no photos due to this - will try to take some mid-week as I found a nice area that has a lot of environmentally friendly areas for wildlife just outside of Reedham.

That 20 miler was with a full backpack (with two full bottles of water as well), and out of interest I thought I should weigh the bag to work out how much weight I was carrying for the whole run - total weight was 7.5lbs, or just over half a stone.
I do need to start packing it with the stuff I will have on race day rather just stuffing it with lots of clothing - time to look at what I need on race day (will blog another time).

Finally a look ahead to the dreaded Week 10 - 3x6 miles (Tuesday to Thursday) and my only day off on a Saturday but Sunday is 26.2 miles, yes a full marathon.  Total mileage will be 44 miles.

The Last Big Long Run Before The Black Dog

Because the Black Dog Marathon is only two weeks away, I needed to get the longest last run out of the way, so yesterday I got up and did 18 miles using the fasted approach.

I recently listened to the Talk Ultra podcast where their training section was talking about the need to run in a fasted state, and to not fuel up until you effectively have exhausted your body reserves.  Up until this I had been pre-loading with a banana, refuelling at regular intervals which meant I was never forcing my body to learn to fat burn.

The run was surprisingly easy for the first 12 miles but gradually after that the need for run-walking became more and more, and miles 17 and 18 were really tough but I was determined to get to 18miles no matter what.

The next run will be on Monday when I aim to clock up 10 miles.