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Thames Trot 50 Training
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touie2: I just did the calculations again. Relax. 11 hours allows for 12-minute miles throughout, plus 10 minutes per checkpoint (being really generous - I usually allow five mins per checkpoint in my calculations), plus 10 minutes to spare! Yes, the footing is going to be atrocious - wet and slippery - but we should manage faster than that for some of it, at least.
I was aiming for at least another four B2Bs of 25+/10-12 , and a good number of 50-mile+ weeks myself, but we do what we can. My ankle is definitely improving, but still not 100% - but there's another week for it to be sorted out before I hammer it on TT50. At least I have 10 weeks from TT50 to SDW50 - should be time to let it settle before building up again, I hope.
niceirondad thanks for asking - i deferred and still off my running feet unfortunately though the upside is it has got me back in the pool and doing lots of core work which must be good for me in the end, right? However i plan to be at the finish handing out whatever this is to hand out... and plan to consolidate marathons this year and try an ultra next year, or maybe a 50k off road somewhere... I will be the one with a big grin looking slightly envious of you finishers...
jog on... as my son says.... and hope the weather is decent... pack some spare socks!!
debra if you are there, i havent heard back, did you make a plan? can you email me, i think i PM'd you my email address...
Hi Laura, can't find your e-mail address so just sent you a message via RW, including MY e-mail address and number. Hopingyour offer is still open!
Had a right result! E-mailed Guy from go beyond and got a place in this after my C2C deferral.
Roll on next weekend
Dear Dill - it's my place - hope you have a fantastic day! I was worried noone else would be able to take part at this notice. I'm out sadly; circumstances beyond my control rather than injury. I am gutted, having worked so hard on the training. I'm not sure I can get to this point again easily, as I've had to wilfully put work, husband & children second in a way that you will all understand, but they do not!! Feeling somewhat despondent
, but cheering at thought of Bath Beat 26.7, Manchester Marathon and Richmond Park Trail Marathon all in the next few months.
Good luck all of you, I will be thinking of you and cheering so loudly from here that you might be able to hear me........
Ran from Benson to Clifton Hampden and back this morning. The river is high and very close to the top of its banks - about a foot below.
The terrain:
Clifton hampden to shillingford is mostly wet to waterlogged grass with a few unavoidable ankle deep puddles / ponds (I turned just before Clifton Hampden as it would have meant wading in knee deep water to get to the field before the bridge)
Shillingford to Benson - wet sticky mud, slippery in places.
V grateful for having waterproof shoes, but the mud in places took the traction control system on my Adidas Kanadia's to the limit so now looking at whether spikes are a realistic option (I suspect not because of the frequent road sections).
Knowing the path from Benson to Streatley quite well, I'd expect that it's much the same down there.
My kit choice was about right - Under Armour top + T Shirt and shorts but could have done with gloves running into the wind.
If it stops raining then hopefully the fields will clear and the paths will dry, but looking at the forecast I would expect it to be much the same if not slightly worse next Saturday.
PK
Thanks for that, very useful report, Peter, I have now accepted the fact that this is going to be a very boggy 50 miles, innov8 mudclaws for me I think.
On an even more pessimistic note, I haven't been able to run this weekend due to a pain in my right foot. Hopefully it's just a niggle which will ease off with some rest, but it could be something worse ...
Not just wet and muddy but flooded and muddy. Great! *Sigh*. Really hope my ankle is feeling good by then (it's improving day by day).
I'll be wearing my VB Neo trails - don't see there's any advantage in trying the Inov8 Trailrocs for this. I think they're both going to give the same sort of level of grip in mud and both are going to get clogged up - and the mesh upper on the Trailrocs is going to make it harder to wipe mud off the uppers than with the Neo trails.
Wondering whether it might be good to see if my wonderful husband can meet me at CP 3 or 4 with the second pair of VB trails for me to chenge into (dry socks I can carry; a second pair of shoes, not so much - it was great last Sunday changing into dry footwear at the 20-mile mark of my 30-mile run.
I did run this last year but i can't remember much of the course. I'm resigned to having to wear my Inov-8's but i may change later in the race.
Am I right in thinking the first 15/20 miles will be extremely muddy and the last 30 not as bad? Also how much road is there?
It's just the thought of running 50 mile in my old inov-8s doesn't feel me with glee
Ps thanks Larny sorry you had to drop but happy i got in
PeterKing12,
I'm glad to see you're in Addidas Kanadias. They're not the choice of pros but they're what I have. I have a good run through the woods in mine yesterday and were great apart from the seriously clogged sections.
This is my first ultra and I'm planning on having my hubby meet me at 36 miles with my lovely, comfy road shoes. Ahh.. bliss... can't wait.
*Dill*, my description of the route from CP3 to the end (Streatley to Henley) is in a long post on page 9 of this thread - TL;DR version: very muddy and slippery with claggy mud, but mostly not actually underwater at the time I ran it (13th Jan).
There's some road, but it's in sections of a few miles at a time with very muddy sections between - I'm NOT intending to change into road shoes, personally.
Thanks Debra i was hoping to change into my Hokas for the second half not quite roadies but close. Looks like that won't be happening and i'll have to suffer the Inov-8s. What joy blisters and sore feet
I've considered wearing my old waterproof hiking socks (used to wear them with Teva sandles in almost all weathers in the Lakes), but I've never run in them, so I think trying them out on the day of a 50-mile race would be a bad idea
. I'll just have to go with my tried-and-tested method of Vaselineing my feet and wearing twin-skins - it worked for Greater Manchester Marathon! Also, I suppose, carry some wetwipes so if I do need to put a blister plaster on I can remove the Vaseline so the blister thing will stick. And I must put the KT tape for this post. tib. tendon on BEFORE the Vaseline...
Thanks for the vaseline tip Debra; I might try that. However, I'm limping this morning and worried about a possible stress fracture in my right foot. Does anyone know whether I can just turn up at A&E to get an x-ray, or whether there's some other way to get it checked out quickly? I don't want to miss the race because of a minor niggle, but running 50 miles with a stress fracture would probably put me out of action for months.
Lemony - I had a similar concern a few weeks ago and went to an NHS minor injuries clinic (on the advice of NHS direct phone line). Some of them have x-ray facilities. In my case I was in and out in half an hour and it was great.
Lemony: A&E/minor injuries unit is a good idea for a clinical examination - when I had a foot stress fracture (second metatarsal) in 2011, my clinical exam gave a classical reaction - the GP pressed over the point of pain and I hit the ceiling... Note, however, that if it IS a new stress fracture it may not show up on x-ray (so if it shows up, it's a positive diagnosis, but if it doesn't, its not definite that you've not got a stress fracture/stress reaction), and a good proportion of stress fractures never do show on ordinary x-ray (mine didn't but the radiographer and I agreed that the periosteal reaction (new bone growth along the outside of the bone) was clearly visible at six weeks and hadn't been there at the time of the original x-ray, confirming the stress fracture/stress reaction diagnosis (even though the report came back "no acute bony change detected"). More show up on MRI but they're unlikely to send you for that 'cos ££££.
My top differential diagnoses for top-of-foot pain, other than stress fracture/stress reaction:
1) extensor tendonitis (I had that at the same time as the stress fracture - oh joy!)
2) Pressure point (once you've upset the nerves by excess pressure e.g. from lacing your shoes too tightly it can take AGES for everything to settle down, sometimes.
3) If it's more towards the outside, then peroneal tendonitis is another possibility.
However if you e.g. search this site for "top of foot pain" you'll find other suggestions as well...
My symptoms were quite similar. The nurse I saw thought it was a bit of tendonitis of the metatarsal tendons (given that the x-ray showed no stress fracture and the pain was not severe). She recommended running within the pain tolerance as best I could and a max dosage of ibruprofen for 10 days (which of course we don't have). It seemed to work in my case - mind you I've been eating little other than ibruprofen for the last few weeks
I drove over Sonning bridge this morning and the Thames Path on the other side of the river heading to Henley is ankle deep in water.
Oh well, last year it was frozen over!
Weather forecast is now for heavy rain on Friday, followed by "Saturday, much colder in strong northerly winds and a few wintry showers." Temperatures likely to be 2-3 C and no doubt feeling colder in the wind. So, COLD wet feet. Wish I'd had a proper chance to try wearing my old waterproof walking socks for running, but I don't think I dare trying them out on the day, so Vaseline and twin skins will have to do - worked for Manchester...
I didn't make it to the MIU, but the pain in my foot is now minimal and I've stopped limping (though my right calf is a bit tense from having been limping). So, depending on how it goes for the next couple of days, I think I'm going to risk doing the race. I'll probably avoid taking ibuprofen though, just so that if it starts to get painful again I'll be more likely to do the sensible thing and pull out.
The mud, on the other hand, is getting worse. There are already 'large puddly patches' between Oxford and Abingdon (reported from one of my running friends) and more rain could lead to localised flooding in areas (though this shouldn't be anywhere near as bad as it got in December).
So my time expectations are being constantly revised downwards from an original estimate (when I entered) of eight hours to a please-just-let-me-finish-within-the-cut-off-time. I'll be wearing lots of warm clothes to cope with the cold and relatively slow pace and I'll get one change of shoes at Culham. But I am prepared for very wet feet!
I think with all the rain we can assume that at some point we'll be wading through water. Hope all the training has gone well for everyone, I've got that nervous excited feeling about Saturday and can't wait to get out there. Debra, I second the vaseline and twin skins, haven't had any problems with blisters since I started doing this. Best of luck to all! See you on Saturday.
Cheers all. I picked up a few twinges over the last few weeks but the tapering is helping those. Not looking forward to wet feet for +8 hours! At least the weather forecast for the day itself is fine. Can't wait...
Thanks for all the route updates.
Getting excited now, I hope peoples niggles calm down for Saturday.
Hoping to have my husband meet me at CP3 with dry trainers and socks.
Good luck!