Taking care of business...

The MdS is probably the biggest thing in my life at this moment. Everything is considered from an MdS viewpoint. I want to know how many kcal per 100g in everything I eat, regardless of how likely it is to be used as an MdS foodstuff - olive oil isn't really something I want to drink and cheese would probably end badly after a few days of desert heat but I still want to know their calorific content. Holidays are starting to be planned around MdS training, for now life is the MdS.

However I still want to enjoy myself and do the things I want to do not just the things I have to. Over the last week a couple of events have come up related to work, both of which I've done whilst making them part of MdS preparation.

The first was quite straightforward. Every year a local firm of solicitors organises the 'Race 4 Business', a 3.3 mile run around Chelmsford for runners from local companies. As I've been using the Parkrun (3.1 miles) as my weekly tempo run and as I wouldn't be around for the one last Saturday it was easy to slot the 'Race 4 Business' in as my weekly tempo run.

The reason I wasn't doing Parkrun this week was that on Saturday (and a bit of Sunday!) I was part of a team of four (plus a driver) doing the Three Peaks Challenge, also organised through work. For those that don't know this involves climbing up (and down) the highest mountains in Scotland, England and Wales; Ben Nevis, Scafell Pike and Snowdon. The challenge is to do all three including travelling between them in under 24 hours. This isn't an event which appears to be part of most conventional training for the MdS but conventional is overrated anyway. 

Originally I was hoping to test a lot of my MdS gear on the challenge but due to the appalling (in other words British Summer) weather that was forecast I just used the socks, backpack with water bottles, GPS and head torch that I was planning on using for the MdS. I also decided to try some of the foodstuff I was planning on taking, i.e. savoury energy bars, Peperami and Nuun tablets.

Without going into a lot of boring detail I can report that the equipment was a success, especially the socks. Only one small blister under my big toe, which given that I had a lake in each boot for most of Scafell Pike and Snowdon, I thought was pretty good.

Nutritionally I was certainly left with food for thought. This was my first time with Nuun tablets and my first impressions were that Grape tasted much the same as Strawberry Lemonade and both tasted much like upmarket bathroom cleaners smell! However I had Nuun in one bottle and water in the other and found myself always drinking Nuun in preference to water so I'll continue with those a few more times before making a decision. Peperami and pizza flavoured bars were great after Ben Nevis, good after Scafell Pike and beginning to get a bit dull by Snowdon. I think more flavours of bar and perhaps beef jerky as an alternative to Peperami sometimes might help. I also found I had a bit of a craving for salted peanuts (which I stole off my wife) and so will add this to the food list.

For anyone still reading we completed the challenge in 21 hours and 52 minutes, got thoroughly drenched and I'm typing this whilst wearing compression shorts and calf guards today in order to try and regain some semblance of movement. We also had a great time and were the fastest team of the weekend! In terms of the MdS I feel I learned some things about my equipment and food, also walking around 26 miles and climbing over 3000 metres gave me at least as good a workout as any ultramarathon would have given me at this stage in my training. So there you go, the MdS and life do not have to be mutually exclusive - the next 'crossover' is going to be some nice warm holidays for heat training!

Food, glorious food...

Since my last post dozens of people... well one actually if I'm honest, have questioned me on my food choices. Now this is one of the areas I expect to change a few times before next April but I'll try and explain my current (what passes for) thinking on the matter.

The MdS rules state you have to carry food equivalent to 2000 calories per day as a minimum, now under normal circumstances I'd want to take enough food to equal my estimated calorie usage, however as most people don't seem to regard even entering the MdS as normal so....

On average the MdS covers about 150 miles. Running without a pack in UK temperatures I use around 110 calories/mile. The pack will add about 10 more calories and the temperature probably another 10, so lets say I'll burn 130 calories/mile (there is a point to all this maths honestly). So at that rate my calorie consumption for the MdS will be 19500 - except that that's on top of my Basal Metabolic Rate (which is basically a posh way of saying 'the amount of energy I'd use if I stayed in bed'). My BMR is 1550 calories/day (according to my high tech bathroom scales) so that's another 10850 calories, therefore the grand total of calories I'm likely to expend on the MdS is 30350 - I could have just told you that at the start but at school I was always taught to show my working.

If I chose my foods wisely I should be able to average 3.5 - 4 calories/gram of food so my 30350 calories of food would weigh at least 7.6kg. With my current thinking on all the non-food items this would mean I would start with a pack weighing around 11kg - which is far too heavy. So my current view is if I'm not going to carry enough food to meet my total requirement I might as well aim a lot nearer the minimum. According to the MdS website the top competitors take an average of 16000 calories with a total pack weight of 7.2kg. No I have no illusions that I'm going to be in the top 100 but if I want to compete according to my definition in a previous ramble then I need to at least consider adopting the strategy of the top runners.

If anyone is still reading, a quick word about my actual food choices. Many people take dehydrated meals - I'm not going to. Why not? Because if I do I'll have to take a stove and a kettle to boil water (and some fuel) and its more hassle at the end of the day before I can eat, and more weight to carry. If the event was in the UK in April then 1. wouldn't have entered and 2. I would want a hot meal each day, however in the Sahara I'm not sure it will be as necessary. Now an ice cream every day, that would be good... My current food choices are savoury energy bars, Peperami, muesli, nuts, recovery milk shakes and possibly a few energy gels and sweet energy bars.

Next weekend I'm doing the Three Peaks Challenge - i.e. climbing Ben Nevis, Scarfell Pike and Snowdon in a day. I'm planning on fuelling this with a diet not dissimilar to the one I've outlined so we'll see how I get on and if my plans change afterwards....

Decisions, decisions, decisions...

Whenever I've run in the past I've never had to make too many decisions, maybe decide which top to wear based on the temperature and a bit of a thought about what pace I'm going to go for. However for the MdS there are a whole range of decisions to be made, all of which could have a significant impact on my finishing position and more importantly how much I enjoy the race.

As I mentioned in a previous post I think I've decided my target finishing position and therefore I have a fair idea of the pace I'll be aiming for. However that's only the start....

What to wear? Actually I'm fairly comfortable with that - I think. Loose top, compression shorts, road trainers, trail socks and Raidlight gaiters are the current thinking. However pants are still a bit TBD and I'm not sure whether to wear calf guards - the plus side is I'll need less suntan lotion  so I'll probably take them, I can always bin them if I change my mind.

Apparently Colin Chapman's philosophy for  creating fast cars was 'simplify then add lightness'. I intend to follow this philosophy with the contents of my all-important MdS backpack. On the one hand its got to contain everything I'm going to eat, sleep on or change into for a week and on the other hand it needs to be as light as possible as I've got to carry it 150ish miles. This leads to all sorts of decisions, food being a main one. I'll probably do a separate post on food at some point but for now the decisions are 'how much?' and 'to cook or not to cook?'. So far the answers are '2000 calories/day', the minimum allowed for the MdS and 'no'.

Sleeping decisions, a sleeping bag is mandatory and actually doesn't present too many questions - or so I think at the moment. The trickier decision is to take a sleeping mat or not, does the comfort justify the weight? At the moment the back pad of my backpack is a thin sleeping mat so I'm mostly dodging that question for now - depends if I think I can find a patch of nice soft stones to lie in I suppose.

Clothes to change into are another difficult area - it would be nice to take off my sweaty, salt encrusted running clothes at the end of the day but a change of clothes is more weight. So far I've allowed for a long sleeve top in my weight calculations but I'm not sure whether to ditch that or add some leggings or something.

On top of this there are 'luxury' items to consider, a camera, an MP3 player, GPS - all need batteries, all add weight.....

My first round of 'decisions' has left me with 7.8kg on my back according to my spreadsheet - I think I'm going to need a few spreadsheets for the MdS. Watch this space to see how this evolves and whether it gets nearer to the magical 6.5kg minimum or whether a love of comfort prevails....

To compete or complete - what is the question?

One of the questions that seems to keep cropping up in relation to the MdS was 'Competer or Completer?'I must admit its not a phrase I particularly like as it seems too much like one of those glib pieces of 'management-speak' that actually has very little meaning when you break it down. After all I think it would be fair to assume that everyone that enters the MdS would like to complete it, so does that make us all 'completers'?

The more interesting part of the question relates to how we define a 'competer'. For a very elite few the answer is simple, they are the ones trying to win the MdS. For the rest of us we know we can't win and we know it would be stupid to try. If I tried to run at the pace of 2013 winner Mohamad Ahansal I wouldn't last the first day. However...

This is where I say something slightly controversial - most people could complete the MdS. There, I've said it - can I justify it? Obviously I think I can, the average pace of the slowest competitor on the MdS is about 3km/hour or slightly under 2mph for those of us that haven't gone decimal yet. 10% of the entrants walk the whole course. I believe that most people in reasonably good physical health could get to a standard where they could carry an 8kg rucksack 150 miles over 6 days even in 50+ degree temperatures - with some training. Whether most people would want to is a different matter...

I should stress here that I'm not trying to belittle the achievement of those that walk the event - although I believe it is within most peoples physical capability, the mental strength required is enormous, to keep getting up day after day and trudge across the desert in searing temperatures requires much more than physical ability and I believe that every single person that has done that has accomplished something amazing and something I haven't yet!

Having rambled on for a bit I'll try and get back to the point just in case anyone is still reading. My view of 'competing' is not to aim to win but to set myself a target and to try and meet it. for some simply finishing will be a sufficiently challenging target, others may try for top 50, top half, first person from their country, whatever. So yes, I obviously want to be a 'completer' but I'm competing as well. The target I've always set myself as my 'minimum standard' for previous events has been to take less than twice as long as the winner. Last year that would have put me 367th. Rory Coleman reckoned that for me top a top 300 finish would be mean I'd had a 'bloody good MdS'. So at the moment my competers target is a time of less than twice the winners with a 'stretch' target of 'inside the top 300'. However I reserve the right to reassess this as my knowledge of the MdS and my likely performance increases over the next few months!

Training - Take 2

After leaving the last post with a cliffhanger... ending I suppose I should quickly dash everyone's hopes of a dramatic conclusion and carry on with the story....

The previous post explained how I'd secured an entry, so what happened next? Well after the initial feeling of 'Oh ****, what have I just done?' had subsided it all got very exciting, I was invited to join a Facebook group for  2014 MdS entrants. Now I thought I was pretty cool having run a few marathons but it quickly became clear that was just a jog to the shops for some of these guys. 'Druids', 'Pilgrim', 'Race to the Stones' - I wasn't entirely clear at this point if I'd joined a running group or a pagan cult. Anyway I decided I'd better enter an 'Ultra', as anything over 26.2 miles is known. I found a nice 50km run around London in February that looked perfect for my first attempt. OK we need to start training (I tend to think of myself in the plural at times) - don't go, mad build up the mileage, lots of shorter runs to start and it will be fine...

...and it was. Until Christmas got in the way. After two weeks of hardly any running the obvious way to start 2013 is with a week of 50+ miles of running. Also we all know pain is a sign of weakness and your body's way of saying 'don't be a wuss, get on with it' - so when my groin/hip started to hurt the logical thing to do was to completely ignore it and carry on running until I actually couldn't run any more. To avoid doubt, please read the previous paragraph in a very sarcastic tone of voice.

So I'm now out of the Ultra, out of the Colchester half-marathon and missed the first eight weeks of the new Chelmsford Parkrun. Pain is your body's way of saying 'stop now or stop later for longer'. When I'm on the MdS option 2 is the one to go for but while training, option 1 every time.

Anyway we are now finally at 'Take 2'. The pain subsided, I gently got myself back into running and realised I really needed to find out more about this MdS thing. Fortunately there is this lovely bloke called Rory Coleman (www,rorycoleman.co.uk - check it out) who has complete ten MdS (you thought I was mental)  and for a very small sum of money will tell you all you need to know about everything MdS related - at the end of the day he's also got you to run 26.2 miles around Cardiff whilst still learning about the MdS. So I've had a very enjoyable day with him, got my backpack sorted and am now slowly increasing my training, taking days off when I need them and generally listening to my body - so far its all going very well!

A very glib phrase often used in the context of the Mds is 'Competer or Completer?' In my next ramble I intend to try and make sense of that phrase and explain where I sit on the 'compete or complete' scale. Or I might write about something completely different - who knows?

It seemed like a good idea last year....

About 12 months ago I was sat nervously in front of my computer pressing 'refresh' every 10 seconds or so from 9:58 onwards until suddenly there it was, the entry page for the 2014 Marathon Des Sables had gone live! Two or three minutes and five hundred quid later I had a confirmed entry. If sitting pressing 'refresh' and waiting for the exact moment the entries opened sounds a little excessive then its worth noting that eleven minutes after the entries opened all the UK confirmed places were gone!

A few people seem interested in why and how I'm going to do the MdS - mostly the 'why' if I'm honest - so I thought maybe I should write something for those people. The intention isn't to go into huge depth about training and equipment - although inevitably they will figure quite a lot - but is more for those that want to follow my journey to the start line and see how my thoughts and ideas develop. It will be updated randomly when I get round to it and think I have something to share. The next post will discuss what I've been doing to prepare over the last 12 months and how I've already got it wrong once....