Letting the side down

Before any of my team mates panic over the title of this post, I'm not dropping out of the walk with just a few weeks to go. Well, I'm not planning to. Just yet.

Regular followers (if there are any) will be aware we finally managed a 30k team training session a couple of weeks ago. I've been pondering some of the conversations and reactions from the team following that session. During the journey back to Balham from CP9, James commented that he was struggling to keep pace with John, whilst John had earlier observed he thought James had been pushing the pace quite aggressively. Martin has since said he needs to train a lot more to keep up with everyone else, and I'm primarily worried some part of my injury-prone lower limbs will give way before or during the walk itself. Heel, achilles, knee, calf, take your pick.

So despite the fact that we've only met and trained as a team once since we all foolishly volunteered to enter Trailwalker, I think we have the makings of a strong team. Nobody wants to let the side down, we all want to pull our (not insignificant, in some cases) weight, and I think we all have similar goals in terms of target completion time. The only slight concern I have is James still thinks we need to stop for food. What's all that about?

So, last one to a pub in Brighton that's still open at 4am on Sunday 17th July buys the first round!

training session 12 June

We had a good training session yesterday - we walked (and even ran some downhill bits...) from Checkpoint 6 (Botolph) to Checkpoint 9 (Kingston), 30.84 km by the GPS and covered in 5hr 25 - with virtually no stops. John set a blinding pace in the horizontal rain, and without allowing for a lost 10 mins or so reconciling the differences between the map and the route description, we were doing 5.7 km/h, comfortably quicker than our planning time. That should see us beating 20hrs for the event, and if the slowest member (ie me) manages to buck up a bit, 18hrs might be on.......

When the socks came off I discovered three toes glued together with blood, just little nick from a toenail, which I only felt as a slightly sticky pad to one of my toes. 10 mins in a hotel sauna last night, a bit stiff today then a slow 3km run tonight to loosen off and I feel remarkably well, considering.

A great day out though , in spite of the weather. I know we (I) can do it now. Bring it on. 

Team training day is looming...

I'm looking forward to Sunday, the first opportunity we'll have had to get together as a team and walk (note the word, Michael!) a part of the course.

Due to our geographic spread, we've not managed to get together so far, although we have had a couple of conference calls....
Clearly this won't be sufficient to sustain us through 20+ hours of shared pain, so the plan is to walk the route from checkpoint 6 (Botolphs) to checkpoint 9 (Kingston Hollow). This is around 30km, so a great chance to stretch our legs, with the bonus that these stages are the ones we're expecting to cover at night - having walked this part of the route in daylight should reduce the chance of getting geographically embarrassed, shouldn't it?

As to my friend and colleague now known as Imelda, all this talk of running shoes is making me nervous. Perhaps we can slip some lead insoles into the Merrell BodyGlove LightAsAFeather YouCanRunAllDayInThems......

The Imelda Marcos of Running Shoes

At times, I wonder whether I'm turning into the Imelda Marcos of the running shoe world. After a spate of minor niggles last year, culminating in a fractured left heel that prevented me from running for about 4 months, I keep experimenting with different footwear. At last count, I seem to have accumulated eight pairs of what my wife might class as "trainers", ranging from the sublime (Zoot Kanes) to the faintly ridiculous (Vibram Five Fingers Speeds). I have four pairs of fairly traditional running shoes (from Zoot, Newton, Brooks and Somnio), a couple of pairs of off road shoes (from Inov8 and Salomon) and a couple of "experiments" (the aforementioned Vibrams and a pair of Terra Plana Evos).

Over the last few months, I've been trying to transition from landing on my heels (heel striking) to a more "natural" running form where you tend to land on the ball or middle of your foot. It's a mental as well as physical challenge, but is starting to feel more comfortable. Some of the shoes really require this style of running, particularly the Newtons, Vibrams and Terra Planas, as they offer little if any heel cushioning. The thing is, it really does feel more natural to avoid landing on your heels. I can feel my feet and knees acting as springs, absorbing more of the impact when landing "naturally", whereas I feel a significant jolt through my spine if I land on my heels.

If you watch good distance runners, they appear to glide along, touching the ground for the bare minimum of time before lifting off again. If you watch most "joggers", myself included, they tend to spend far too long actually on the ground. I'm going to persevere with the "natural" running form, whilst resisting the urge to buy too many more running shoes. Although... I am tempted to pick up a pair of Merrell Trail Gloves - http://www.merrell.com/UK/en-GB/Product.mvc.aspx/23456M/52217/Mens/Barefoot-Trail-Glove

Whether we run any of the Trailwalker route is entirely down to my erstwhile team mates. I'd happily have a go but I think certain individuals on the team might tell me to be a bit more sensible. After all, 100km is quite a long way.