British National 100k Championships - 24th April-14th May Training Log

W/C 24th April
M 20.5 miles (6:43mm)
T 6.5 miles (7:55mm), 7 miles (7:09mm)
W 16 miles (6:27mm)
T 10.5 miles (6:17mm), 10 miles (6:39mm)
F 11.5 miles (6:01mm), 6.5 miles (7:11mm)
S 8 miles (6:55)
S 40.5 miles (6:12mm)
Total 138 miles (6:33mm)
Total Training Time 15hrs 02mins


W/C 1st May
M 15 miles (7:04mm)
T 12 miles (5:57mm), 5 miles (7:49mm)
W 8 miles (7:19mm), 5 miles (7:44mm)
T 20 miles inc. 30mins, 4X5mins, 30mins (5:55mm)
F 8.5 miles (7:24mm), 5 miles (7:50mm)
S 10.5 miles (6:34mm)
S 22 miles (6:13mm)
Total 111 miles (6:40mm)
Total Training Time 12hrs 24mins


W/C 8th May
M 10.5 miles (7:36mm), 4 miles (7:26mm)
T 8 miles (6:46mm), 4 miles (7:15mm)
W 11.5 miles inc. 15X1min (5:21mm)
T 10 miles (6:42mm)
F 8 miles (7:59mm)
S 5 miles (6:34mm)
S 14 miles inc. Yorkshire 5,000m Championships (16:15!), 5 miles (6:46mm)
Total 80 miles (6:50mm)
Total Training Time 9 hrs 5 mins


This first week post-London was really critical in terms of the specificity for the ultra and I was keen to get in some big miles including my longest run ever. It went well with a 20 miler the day after London. There was still definitely some fatigue there but doing a 20 miler at a half decent pace on tired legs is good conditioning for what is to come on the 21st. The rest of the week went ok with some decent miles at not too shabby paces but it was all building to Sunday which was planned to be a 40 mile run. this would give me the opportunity to practice my fuelling as well as hopefully run a bit quicker than planned pace for the ultra. I split the session up into 4X9.5 miles (not your standard interval training!) just to break it up a bit. I did it on my usual tempo loop but changed direction after each rep. This confirmed what I already suspected in that my Garmin is quite optimistic in one direction and quite pessimistic in the other! The efforts were at 6:11, 6:02, 6:09 and 6:12 pace with the whole run averaging 6:12mm. It was a really useful exercise as it allowed me to gauge how much fuel I would need to take on in the race. I was running ok and started eating after 45 minutes then every half hour but only 150 kcals at a time. As I approached 30 miles I started to feel like I was close to 'bonking' so quickly ate a bit more and then felt better and finished the session quite well. That said I do think that the final rep pace was reflected by the lack of fuel and also perhaps that it was seven miles further than I had ever run before. It was such a satisfying run to get done though.

The second week I was just keen to ensure that there weren't too many ill-effects from my 40 miler as well as continue to get some decent miles in and a hard session. Although I had planned to run a few more miles this week I was sensible in that I eased back a little as I was suffering from DOMs quite severely on Tuesday and Wednesday. I had left the session until Thursday as my legs really weren't up to much faster running before then. The session itself went ok, not particularly fast but it was blowing a gale and considering how my legs had felt 24 hours earlier I was quite chuffed with the paces of 5:31mm for the first 30 mins, c5:15mm avge for the 5 minute efforts and then 5:38mm for the final 30 minute stint.

Last week was the first week of taper which included one 'sharpening' session and the Yorkshire 5,000m. I did a sharpening session of 15X1minute on/off on the treadmill with the on efforts at 20kph and off at 16kph. This gave me confidence that I might be good to run a reasonable 5,000m but it seems the miles of recent weeks have left my legs very strong but not very fast! I struggled in with 16:15 in what was pretty much a full effort! There was one benefit from it though in that it allowed me to calibrate my Garmin Footpod so I should get much more accurate readings for pace on the treadmill going forward! It confirmed my suspicions that when I run on the TM I am not running at the pace my Garmin has been giving me. This means it would appear that my mileage wont have been quite as high as I have reported in recent weeks although it wont be too far away!

I thought it would be sensible to get a blood test this week, given the change to the plant-based diet just to ensure I am not deficient in anything. The results are below and typically for Vegans there may be a deficiency in B12 and Iron. But these seemed ok. My Haemoglobin and Haematocrit seem to be in a similar place to where they have been when I was eating meat too so hopefully this is a positive sign. I don't really understand much about blood tests to be frank but it looks very similar to previous results so I don't think I should be worried. I will be having a vegan hiatus for a few days while I deplete my carb stores and go back on the dairy for a bit before loading up from Thursday.

So one week to go and I'm very excited about my first ultra. I have some idea what I think I might be capable of and think I can get to 75k in pretty decent shape but what happens after that is a complete unknown. For anyone that wants to track, you can do so here. The race starts at 7:30am on Sunday and there should be splits every 5k. See you on the other side!