Looking forward to the Fling

Well not long to go now to the Highland Fling, a cracker of a race from Milngavie to Tyndrum. I'm going to try to beat my PB of 9:56 by as much as I can manage. Quite how much will, as ever in an ultra, depend partly on training so far (I'm feeling strong) and partly on the day (for how long can I push myself to continue at 09:30 pace or thereabouts?). Let's see. I'll employ the strategy of going out reasonably fast and trying not to slow down, and will be interested to see how my pace changes over the course of the race.

I've got a 10 mile hilly trail run today, a hill repeat session tomorrow, a 13 mile canal / trail run on Friday and an 8 mile 6:45 pace tempo run on Sunday left to do this week. I'll then taper next week with a speed session on Monday and a 7 mile trail run on Wednesday.

Woohoo, getting excited about stoating down this hill already!

Thoughts on pace at Compton 40

This year I decided back in January that I'd try to run at between 9 and 9:30 min miles except when climbing, and largely I've been successful. I've been toying with running faster at the start of a race for a few years now having noticed that I tended to slow down after about the same time running, so thought, why not run faster at the start. Now that I've been running ultras for 4 years I am noticing that I can keep the faster pace up for longer and so have decided to increase my pace a bit, and run the start of races faster - at somewhere under 9 min miles depending on how I am feeling. This strategy has been put forward by Stuart Mills too in an interesting post. John Kynaston is toying with varying his pace too so it will be interesting to see if a common pattern emerges in terms of successful race strategy.

I thought I'd start logging some graph data to see how my pace is decreasing over the distance of a run, so that I can (i) determine if I get slower in a linear manner or (ii) start to slow after a particular distance or (iii) something else. I'll plot elevation on these graphs too as climbing and descending is an obvious determinant of pace.

Compton 40 pace by distance, and elevation plot

At the Compton 40 my pace gradually and fairly linearly decreased from ~8 min miles to just below 10 min miles, ignoring the various climbs / descends and obvious stops / slow downs for food and navigation. I ran the last 4 or 5 miles easily so they don't represent an accurate picture of the pace I could have achieved if I'd pushed it. But the first 30-35 miles I was going at pretty much my maximum sustainable pace I think (but then again this will be a function of psychology on the day I suspect).

Let's see how my pace in the Fling compares.

Compton 40 race report

I ran my 3rd ultra this year on Saturday, making a total of 16 so far, ranging in distance from 31 to 103 miles, and from fairly flat (2500' +/-) to not flat at all (31,000' +/-). This one was the Compton 40, a local race for me, being in Berkshire just a little bit south of Oxford and only a few miles off the A34. I'd never heard of it before so am thankful to Drew Sheffield for suggesting it as a nice complement to the HM55 and the forthcoming Highland Fling.

My verdict? A superbly well organised race over nice runnable chalky downland terrain. A fair amount of sticky mud in places, quite some potential for navigational errors going into and out of small villages en route, but overall a good, nicely undulating course.


View across Compton Downs (from http://www.geograph.org.uk/)


Race profile (my Garmin gave 2429' +/- rather than the advertised 3900' +/-)

The race is combined with a 20 mile option so has a fast start and you never quite know who is running what race until the peel off point back at Compton for the 40 milers. I had decided before the race started to stick to my run fast at the start plan, and ended up doing round about 8:30 min / miles at the start. I ran along by myself, chatting to the odd person until somewhere around mile 10ish Drew caught up wth me.


My pace against total elevation change for each mile

Drew, along with Mark Cobain and a lad called Steve from Northampton's Wootton running club had done the 78 mile ~16,000' +/- ONER race along the jurassic coast the weekend before so I assumed they'd all be creaking round together, just getting the miles done. But no, they all gave it a great shot. I ran with Drew until around mile 14 and gradually peeled away as his legs just didn't have anywhere near his normal strength on the ascents. Not suprising really - 16,000' of climbing 1 week previously. Superb effort by all 3 of them, and all finished the race in under 7 hours. Don't think I'd have been capable of that.


Lough Down, one of the hills we climbed and descended in the first half (from http://www.geograph.org.uk/)

I chatted to a few other folk and gradually fell in around miles 20-25 with a Bob Graham club member called Pete who is running the WHWR this year, and David, a chap who, along with Mark and Steve is running the JOGLE on 30th April - 16 days back to back of ~50 miles each day, what a challenge. David was struggling a bit with a sore back but was relatively easily running alongside me. I kept my pace as near to 9:30 as I could except when climbing, when wading through oozing mud or when reading my map. We stayed together chatting until we reached the top of the last big ascent when I stopped to put on my gloves (yes, memories of the HM55 DNF were fresh) and windproof as the weather coldly closed in. He peeled away and had a good run down into West Ilsley where I caught him after overtaking a few other folk, and we ambled our way out, Pete joining us and helping with the navigation.

I wasn't really fussed about putting in the best time I could, and neither of them seemed to be either so we trotted along chatting at a reasonably relaxed pace up and then down the slope into East Ilsley (where Pete fell back) then up and out of the village, up and down a few last downs and onto the finish. I could have ran the last 4 miles a good bit faster, and I suspect David could have too, but there seemed to be no rush as we ran along sharing stories and views. If you are reading this David then thanks for the company and all the best for the JOGLE (same to you Mark, Steve and Robert).

So, how'd I do? I came in 22nd out of 105 finishers with a time of 6:38:51 so pleased about that. I kept a reasonable average pace of 9:58 min/miles so also pleased about that. My legs were stiff yesterday and a little sore today but not bad. I'll take this week easyish then have a more intense week next week before tapering off a bit for the Fling where I'm out to beat my PB of 9:56, hopefully by a decent 10-15 minutes or so.