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?....