April 2016

April, the last month before the 1 year countdown begins! Started pretty easy with an up and down on Grisedale Pike after a shift at work, never gets old!

Took a few days off as I knew on the 7th and 8th I would be run ragged, an I was! I was asked by Jim Hall from Salomon if I was available to join the Salomon elites, who were in town on their annual advanced week, on a few runs as a local runner and being fairly knowledgeable on routes. I was informed it would be 'really slow, about 10k, and lots of photography stops' famous last words!

I rocked up to the hotel on the morning of the 7th and walked into the dining room, where all the athletes and behind the scenes staff were eating breakfast. My first thought was 'I'm so out of my comfort zone' surrounded by people you only see on videos and in magazines, all just chilling out and eating! I was given a care package by Salomon and went off to get changed ready to run about 30 minutes later. 

The group I had was made up of Ricky Lightfoot, Tom Owens, Ryan Sandes, Remi Bonnet and one of the footwear technical guys, Felix. Joining us was another local runner, Phil Winskill, who I had heard of but never met. Ricky immediately suggested Bob Graham leg 1, which is fine, at my own pace, not with some of the best and quickest guys on the planet though! Thankfully, for filming purposes they decided to head up from the village under Carlside, so whilst they ran across the fields from the hotel, I bummed a lift with the photographer and got a head start on the climb to the summit. 

They eventually caught me just after the tarn, and whistled past having a crack as if they were running downhill at leisure! Conditions at the summit weren't great, super cold, visibility zero and the ground a mixture of snow and slush. Tom & Ricky said they would carry on and the rest of us turned and headed back via Jenkins Path. I absolutely walloped my big toe on a slab hidden in the slush, and by the time we had decended to the shepherds monument my foot was pretty sore, so I ran on well behind the group. 

The next day the group I was with consisted of Rickey Gates, Max King, Remi Bonnet, Martina Valmassoi and Greg Vollet - the team manager. My foot was still mega painful, but I headed out with them up the side of Latrigg towards the car park, not surprisingly they dropped me before we even got over the A66 bridge, but to my surprise they did come back for me! Talking about how they had seen my video, and asking what the transplant means in relation to running, and how, when I run so much, it affects me so much on the climbs. Once we hit the car park I pointed out the route up Jenkins path, and the sheep trod which would take them to Lonscale Summit, and I would meet them on the Cumbrian Way below Lonscale. Also at the car park the Barefoot Maestro Aleks Kashefi and Lucy Stephenson had just finished up a run, so I stood and talked to Aleks about his upcoming E1 trail challenge, a ridiculous 4000mile run North to South through Europe!! 

The two days with the Salomon athletes was a runners dream, they are all super nice people with no ego's at all, just people that love running, and who are fortunate enough to do it for a living! And getting run with Rickey Gates was just awesome, one of my running idols without a doubt, and genuinely one the nicest people on the planet.

Following on from this I was feeling psyched up and wanting to push myself, so I set myself a mini challenge, 5 Skiddaw summits in 5 days, each after work. Joined on the first day by George and Adrian O'Brien we had a leisurely ascent and then tried to teach Ade the art of downhill skipping, which he thought was hilarious, but ultimately very effective! I don't know how, but I managed to impale myself on the gate latch, of a gate I was actually holding open, no broken skin, but the bruise was appearing almost instantly.

The 2nd day I was on a solo mission, George was at Mountain Rescue training, so I powered up the hill to be met with a wonderful sunset. The descent was a painful affair though, the bruising in my leg made descending quite comical I would imagine. It was right over my ITB and every downhill step it just pulled like crazy. I lost a full 6 minutes just on the Jenkins zigzags. 

The third day, even at work I knew I couldn't go out that night. Limping all day sealed the fact that a night off was necessary. On the 4th day I hit up Grisedale, figuring at half the distance and if it was painful, I only 2 and a bit miles of descent to grit my teeth through! Day 5 I hit Grisedale again with George and Zoe from Wilder Guides. We had planned on Skiddaw, but as it was ensconced in a snow/hail storm we decided to go to Grisedale which was bathed in sunshine! It turned out to be the right choice as we never saw any of Skiddaw from the climb up Grisedale, and friends who'd ran Latrigg that night confirmed how horrible it had been! Instead we were treated to a beautiful sunset with views over West Cumbria.

A few more runs in the latter stages of the month managed to get me up to:

88.29miles

28,152ft

16 runs.

Still running virtually every mile in the Inov 8 terraclaw, starting to feel quite a lot of the ground through them now, but 330+ miles and over 105,000ft of ascent & descent on them since I got them! Time for some spending! 

A 7 day slog at work, including 8:45-23:00 on the first of 7 days pretty much rendered the final week run free, but myself and George snuck in a Walla circuit, on which I matched my PB despite feeling tired and slow, good signs! Which reminds me, set a 6 minute PB on Coledale Horseshoe in there somewhere too!

Remi, Ryan, Ricky & Tom

Breezing up Carlside 

MMB, Micha, Yngvild, Matina & Mira

Mira Rai

Myself, Aleks, Rickey & Max

March...ing on

So March is over, another month closer to my Bob Graham challenge. Though with 13 Months of training to go, it seems a long way off. On the other hand, it doesn't seem far enough away!

I clocked in at 69.57miles with 26,461ft for March. A week working away on long shifts, a week of having my OH home from Uni and an insanely busy Easter Weekend at work (which is still continuing with the odd mix up of random school holidays) the first and last weeks of the Month were pretty quiet on the running front. A busy day at work can include over 6 miles of walking/stairs, even as far as 10 miles on a wet Saturday during school holidays. Add in the stress of keeping a very busy shop running smoothly, and by 6pm all you want is a beer and bed. Makes getting out the door a very hard choice.


For some it's not a choice, they just go out, put in the miles and ne done with it. For me, it's the balance of getting the miles in, but not exhausting myself and doing more harm in the long run than missing a few sessions. It's an infuriating situation, I know what miles and ascent I want to be doing, but I also know my own body, and when the tell tale signs of extreme fatigue start showing, I have to be sensible, though sometimes getting out and blowing off steam can be as beneficial as missing a session.


Honestly though I am happy with March. Coming off a serious dose of Flu in February, and the life outside of running throughout the month, I think I did well to get 26.5k of vert into very few runs - just 12!


My new favourite session, love it or loathe it, is the 10kg weight vest hill reps that I devised for myself. Starting from the Grisedale car park just above Braithwaite, there is 375ft of climb between the first step and the first stile, in a little over 0.3miles. Certainly steep enough for working the legs, especially when you add the extra weight. I start my watch and go up and down as many times in 60minutes as I can, as soon as the clock hits 60 I head back to the car, a short sharp session. Now, uphill is not my forte, my heart doesn't work in a way to make uphill in any way shape or form easy. The lack of nerves means my brain can't tell my heart that I'm trying to go up this steep hill with extra weight, so my legs scream for oxygen and blood flow, my lungs get the message so I begin to suck in huge breaths, but my heart plods on at resting rate. Eventually the hormones released by my leg muscles reach the heart in the blood on the way back, heart then interprets the state of the returned blood, and kicks in. a bit.
Anyway, I struggle on the ups! the first time I did this session I managed 3 full up and downs and got about a 1/3rd of the uphill on the 4th rep. I was hurting. Worse than a full day out with 6/8000ft of climb. I'd covered a little over 2 miles and 12/1300ft and my legs were toast. The day after being the first time I had had DOMs in a long time! The next week I got to within spitting distance of the stile to signal the top of the 4th rep, but as per my own rules, I turned round and headed back to the car on the stroke of 60. I skipped the next week as my OH was home and we don't get a lot of time together usually, but the week after I went back out and made contact on the top of the 4th rep about 4 seconds before the clock ticked over.


My aim is to get reach the top 5 times in the 60minutes through the continuation of my training, at which point the incline will move to Cat Ghyll. 600ft in less than half a mile, with the weighted vest - I doubt i'll get many reps out!!

I finished the month off with a sunset bimble up Whiteside, along the excellent ridge upto Hopegill Head and back down the storm ravaged remains of the Gasgill Ghyll path.

All but the weighted vest sessions have been in the Inov 8 Terraclaws, really enjoying running in these shoes, and for me works in just about every situation, just need rockplate for the super rocky sections. The weighted sessions are done in the roclites, more cushion to curtail the extra 10kg i'm carry and the exponential increase in impact through my feet! 

February

February 

65.27 Miles

22,415ft

343ft/mile

12 runs

It's hard not to be disappointed this month. Finishing January on a high had the thoughts of February up in the 40/50k vert bracket. I took the first two days as rest days, off work and off running and truly rested, a little stretch & foam roll, and some easy walks whilst doing errands. I ran on the 3rd and felt a bit sluggish, but put it down to the busy month previously.

I didn't feel up to running on the 4th & 5th and spent most of the 6th in Keswick Cottage Hospital with suspected kidney/bladder infection. Annoyingly the test for such isn't brilliant in my case as it looks for antibodies, of which my body is suppressed to keep my heart alive. Antibiotics and lots of fluids were ordered and off I went, another few days without running.

By the 8th I was back out as the itch needed scratched! Easy 3.73miles 1004ft to Walla summit and back, out again the next day for 6.52 & 1824, again the next day for a reverse Coledale Horseshoe with Byron & Tom and again on the Thursday for a recover 6.5 1800ft. No ill effects from the infection then. 

The week after comprised of a few more Walla With Attitude runs as they have become known, and an evening, solo ascent of Grisedale Pike as no one would play out with me! Into the weekend we continued with another WWA and had planned a 10ish miler with about 3000ft for the Monday morning with George. About a mile in though I knew that ten miles was not going to happen as I felt pretty lousy, a scratchy throat had been causing a dry cough, and my sinuses were getting blocked as we ran. We opted for a 5mile 1200ft alternative and even on the descent I was feeling lacklustre and achey.

Monday night saw my better half and 3 of her university friends arrive for a few days, with the plan being to take them to Langdale on the Tuesday, I'd have a bimble upto Pavey Arc whilst they did photography stuff and would meet at Stickle Tarn on my descent. Sadly, or in hindsight gladly, everyone was hungover and we didn't leave town until after 11 which left no time for a run and the time they wanted at the quarries for photography. I felt OK during the day, just enjoying some early spring sunshine whilst they did their thing. Heading home though I started to deteriorate, I have an internal marker for when I have a fever, it's hard to explain, like someone popping a bubble wrap bubble every few minutes in my head. Sure enough when I got home my temperature was sky high, so paracetamol in, most clothes off, get temperature down asap! Luckily I do respond fast to paracetamol and my temp was down to relatively acceptable levels, when Azja says she is feeling rough. Having to go one further her temperature is higher than mine was, but paracetamol doesn't have any effect on her. 

That was basically the end of the week for us both, we made it out to have some lunch together on Wednesday then took the friends to st bees beach and we made our way home to bed, duvet and lemsip! 

I knew I was away working the first week of March so headed out to Low Fell on the 28th to stop the cabin fever and to see if I was feeling better. Zip zero energy on the climbs, and slow on the descent but just getting out was enough!

Also this month I took delivery of 2 pairs of Inov-8 shoes, kindly provided by the folks at inov-8 to aid my training for the Bob Graham, so a huge thanks to those guys. My thoughts on the shoes will be forthcoming but I've barely ran in them so far so that will have to wait,

Year to Date 2016

156.01 miles

50,417 ft

YTD 2015

81.51 miles

14,045ft

January 2016

January '16

After the atrocious weather throughout November/December at the end of 2015 I was keen to boost my ascent quite considerably going into 2016. Finishing on 28,000ft in 90 miles for January, I was a bit disappointed, having wished to have been nearer to 40,000ft. However looking back, maybe I did better than I should have.

As the calendar weeks work differently from work weeks, I found myself without a day off in the first 7 days of the year, so no long run that week. The 2nd week I spent 3 days in Leeds working from early morning to late evening, week 3 saw me undergo heart surgery and week 4 a combination of 2 nights in London followed by a severe onset of gout due to a new medication, oddly enough, to combat gout! So taking into consideration the activities outside of running, perhaps I didn't do too badly.

The biggest noticeable difference is that an after work bimble is now 6.5 miles and 2000ft ascent, whereas previously even 3 flattish miles used to be enough! My legs didn't feel battered by the end of the month either.

The biggest talking point of January is obviously the film, Life On The Fells. Its success has been phenomenal, which is amazing for the guys that made it, James and Todd. So how did it come to be that a hairy monster like me ended up being in a running film?

James & Todd are studying Wildlife & Adventure Media at Carlisle Art University, for their project this year they decided that being so close to the Lakes, they would make a fell running film. Quick search of #fellrunning on Instagram and you invariably end up on my page. I take lots of photos on runs as an excuse to breathe again. They saw my Bio and my history and thought that I'd make a good subject.

We spent 4/5 days in a few locations running up and down and over and through in pretty much every weather system imaginable, and a hour or so in the house doing an interview. After that it was up to them to create the film they wanted. 

I saw nothing of the film until the premiere at the university, though people there had seen it already, and we're asking 'are you the guy?' 

The film is amazing, mostly because they made me look like a real runner in the footage! But also the way they didn't lead with my history, and made it a shock discovery for the viewers. In the premiere there was an audible 'gasp' from the crowd as they figured it all out. 

Afterwards several people came and shook my hand and offered words of awe and inspiration etc.

The film was then released on social media, and as the say, the rest is history. It has gone above and beyond any of our expectations in as far as the reach it has achieved, and though not its primary purpose, hopefully it has encouraged a few people to sign up to be organ donors.

For me, I want the guys to get a good mark at university. It's not a publicity stunt for me, nor to blow my own trumpet. It was me running and the guys and filming, 3 people doing what they love. If I've inspired people to do more then that is great. For me, I'm nothing special, I have an odd history for sure, but I'm just another person who loves to run.

February has no external commitments so I'm looking forward to beasting out some big hills! 

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See the Film Here: https://vimeo.com/152971030

Todd Gardner: https://www.facebook.com/ToddGardnerMedia/

James Stevens: https://www.facebook.com/JEGSMedia/