Hot, Hot, Hot!

In my last post I mentioned I was going on holiday and that I might take the opportunity to see what running on sand in hot weather was like. Now as it happens due to the vagaries of the British weather I could have simply gone 20 miles down the road to Southend and had a run along the beach in thirty plus degree temperatures, however, as I'd already booked my flight to the Maldives, Southend would have to wait until another day.

After a 10 hour flight a quick lap or two of the island seemed the ideal way to try and get the knots out of my legs and hopefully stave off DVT for a while longer. The primary purpose of going to the Maldives was for the scuba diving but I reckoned a few sessions of eight to ten miles could be squeezed in....

 After a single lap the enormity of running in thirty degree temperatures and eighty percent humidity over soft powdery sand hit me with all the force of a ripe coconut dropping from one of the palm trees providing some merciful shade around at least part of the lap. After a few sessions I quickly realised my pace was going to be little more than half that I could achieve in the UK - also recovery (or at least stopping sweating) after each run would take around half an hour.

As a result most of my runs were four laps round the island, a whopping five kilometres in total! The longest run I managed was eight laps, a little over ten kilometres. I drank about a litre and a half of water whilst running and a couple of litres after stopping. After that I started drinking beer for its well known pain relieving effects. That was the only run Sharon didn't accompany me on at least part of. I understood that well enough, what I didn't really understand was why she came with me on any of the runs as she had sufficient willpower to resist the allure of the MdS and hence was doing it purely 'for fun'...

The staff and other guests were by now giving us that worried smile I'm coming to know so well and, strangely, explaining what I was training for didn't seem to help. However as they were all trapped on the island with me they pretended to be very impressed and said nice things while backing away nervously...

Anyway this is supposed to be a blog about my MdS not my holiday so I won't bore you any further with details of my holiday but mantas, sharks, eagle rays, sting rays, moray eels, octopus and about a million fish just in case you were wondering what we saw diving. Did I add to my font of knowledge? Yes I did. My running shoes and socks performed perfectly over sand, no blisters or overheated feet. A litre and a half of water per ten kilometres (about the rate its dispensed on the MdS) should be enough, particularly as I'm hoping for lower humidity and slightly less sweating on the MdS. However the main thing I learned is that training has to move up several gears from here on in. Leg strength and endurance is going to be a big factor on the energy sapping sand, so hills, hills and more hills will have to figure heavily in my future - there must be some somewhere in Essex....

Lessons Learned

Oscar Wilde apparently said "Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes." If this is the case then I have vast amounts of experience and seem to add to it almost weekly. He also said "Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught." As far as the MdS is concerned I believe there are people out there that can certainly give one a bit of a leg-up by sharing their knowledge but to really learn one needs to have 'experience'. I've already had a day with Rory Coleman to get the benefit of his 10 MdS finishes and have also signed up for a couple of MdS seminar days.

What I would rather not do is collect experience on the MdS itself. Far better to get the mistakes over with before the event or I'll only have myself to blame for failure. Not surprisingly Wilde has views on this too - "There is luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves, we feel no one else has a right to blame us." Anyway enough of literary quotes and on with the blog...

Last weekend was hot, very hot - not Sahara hot but hot enough that I thought I should gain some experience of running in hot weather. My first plan was to run Saturday and Sunday, however for reasons that will be explained later only the Saturday run actually happened. The plan was quite simple, full MdS gear (apart from sand gaiters, many of the people I passed gave me that sort of look you give someone when you are considering whether or not to call the men in white coats - sand gaiters would probably have sealed the deal as far as they were concerned) and run about 20 miles off road in the sun and see what happened. It's this kind of attitude that has caused me to become so experienced...

Later analysis of my run revealed that I made my first mistake pretty much as soon as I started putting one foot in front on the other - I set off way too fast. The result of this was that I got slower and slower and had to walk more and more frequently once I got beyond about 15 miles. The main issue was that I hadn't sufficiently allowed for the effect of the heat. Sure I know it slows you down, its not the first time I've run in hot weather (Edinburgh Marathon 2010 was possibly the worst) but its the first time off road and with a pack. Pace management is going to be absolutely crucial to the MdS and is something I'll be working on quite extensively over the next 9 months.

The other thing that I had heard but hadn't really noticed before is how exercise can cause one to feel the cold a bit more than usual after exercise. I think I noticed this time because it was still scorchingly hot when I finally staggered home and showered and I found myself putting on more clothes than I had earlier in the day. This may raise some issues for the MdS in terms of clothing for the evening and sleeping bag ratings - no long sleeve top and a thin sleeping bag may be lightweight but will I need more even in the desert? This is another area for research - I can ask questions of past finishers but I suspect a lot of it is down to individual physiology.

One thing I am fairly happy with is my shoe and sock combination, which again worked perfectly. Less successful was my shorts/pants combination. Without wishing to describe my underwear in excessive and almost certainly unwanted detail, I believe the waistband of my shorts is pressing the stitching of the waistband of my pants into my skin around my waist. Add sweat and a rucksack and I'm getting a fair bit of chafing around my middle. New pants or no pants, that is the question - but possibly not one I'll put the answer to on my blog.

Most of the other experience I gained shouldn't be an issue for the MdS. Mountain bikes, tree roots and wet dogs are obstacles I'm not expecting to have to avoid too often. I'm also not expecting to be able to buy cans of Pepsi en route through the Sahara so I'm unlikely to have to cope with running whilst burping with bubbles coming down my nose. Another unlikely hazard is nearly falling in a river whilst being distracted by bikini clad women. Bikinis don't appear to be popular as Mds race kit and if I'm running beside a cool clear stream I'm probably very lost (or hallucinating).

I will admit I have tended to highlight the 'experiences' in this ramble, actually the run was tough but OK and very instructive - however if my blog was 'went for a run, it was a bit hot, I survived' it would be quite boring. Whilst I don't pretend to have the eloquence and wit of Oscar, I do feel I should at least try and make what I write interesting - I must be doing fairly well if you've read this far...wait, come back, I've nearly finished...

I did say earlier I would explain why the Sunday run didn't happen. There were a couple of reasons, firstly Saturday's run let me know that it takes more than a fortnight for my legs to recover from the Three Peaks. However the main reason was that on Saturday night I went to one of the best party's I've ever been invited to. No, it wasn't a hangover that stopped me running, it was the Beavers! (www.thebeaversonline.co.uk) Easily the best party band I've ever seen, I danced so much that on top of 20 miles of running even getting down stairs was a challenge by Sunday!

I'm on holiday for a couple of weeks so blog updates are unlikely. I've just done some measuring on Google maps and reckon one lap of the island I'm going to is about a mile - now has there ever been a Reethi Beach Marathon I wonder?....

Home Advantage

One of the areas of the MdS that I think is going to be most difficult to prepare for is the psychological challenge - how am I going to keep motivating myself to do it day after day? There are a few reasons why I'm talking about this now, partly to do with me and partly due to some of the recent sporting events. Starting with me, I haven't trained for a few days now due to slight health scare which fortunately turned out to be nothing serious. However it did mean I had to take my first sick days off work for well over 10 years! So what relevance does this have to the mental side of the MdS? Well it's all about what makes you feel good. Obviously feeling ill isn't great but the lift from the good wishes of my friends made me feel so much better.

Some of the big sporting events over the weekend were the British Grand Prix and of course Wimbledon. Both events featured 'home' competitors. And lets not forget Brazil won the Confederations Cup in Brazil. So what is 'home advantage' and is it something I can tap into for the MdS? On the face of it, of course not, it's in Morocco - I've never even been to Morocco so I can't claim it as a 'home' event. However....

Lets look more closely at what factors come into play when you are at 'home'. For some sports there are very prosaic factors such as a knowledge of the nuances of the field of play or being acclimatised to the conditions - its probably not unreasonable to suggest that Mohamad Ahansal's MdS performances are down to the fact he is a superb athlete in an environment he knows very well.

One of the sports that seems to have a particular preoccupation with home and away is football. Its fair to say that all grounds are different and there is some variation allowed in the pitch size but is that such a significant factor? My belief is that psychological factors make a far bigger difference. When you at home you are in your environment, there are friendly faces around, you know where everything is and how it works. However I think the biggest factor is the support, when you are at home the majority of the people watching are urging you on to win. Andy Murray has commented on the importance of home support as he heads into the second week of Wimbledon.

However for the MdS there is no crowd roaring you on but there is something I hope will be almost as good - the daily emails. Technology allows competitors to make phone calls to family and friends during the event, although it is discouraged, but I want to stay true to the event and restrict my connection to the outside world to my daily email out (if I'm not too exhausted to send one!) and the daily emails sent by friends and family. For those that don't know anyone can send a message to a competitor via the MdS website, they are collated and handed out on a daily basis.

I want to feel that people at home are interested, that they care about how I do. If I want that I have to give something back - I want to feed off their energy but not drain them. That's what this blog tries to do, its why I talk about my preparations to anyone interested. I'm also planning a 50th Birthday/MdS Farewell party just before I go to try and further enthuse my friends and family. What will keep me going is those daily messages and imagining my friends and family tracking my performance on the MdS website and urging me on.

So yes, I do intend to gain 'home advantage' even if I'm a long way from home!