Due to a seemingly random series of events, the wiser and more benevolent side of Andy’s internal self has acquiesced with the over inquisitive and but danger-to-itself “curious child” part of his brain and managed to sign the whole of Andy up for the Xtreme Everest expedition; a medical study aiming to see how the human body reacts at altitude.

Expedition

The expedition are hoping to help understand the effect of hypoxia (low blood oxygen) on supposedly healthy adults. This is relevant in the field of intensive care as patients almost universally suffer from hypoxia so understanding how to get more oxygen into people’s bloodstream is how you keep them alive. Or so the doctors on the project say anyway.

The upshot is 3 weeks trekking at altitude, interspersed with tests involving needles, physical jerks, general prodding, putting different shaped blocks in holes (apparently you get stupid at altitude) and whatever other weird things the doctors can dream up.

Carbon Gilt

For some reason, Andy decided that just a single act of (uncharacteristic) philanthropy wasn’t enough and figured that he might as well raise some money for a good cause while he was up there; and decided to offset the guilt of flying long haul to Nepal by choosing a charity dedicated to the environment – namely Friends of the Earth.

He then asked me to “use my colossal internet presence to spread the word and put forth the metaphorical cap of pleading for donations to this cause“. How could I refuse? Donate, donate, donate! Now, now now!

Turn the screw

If anyone thinks of any tests that might inspire the doctors to find inventive, painful or (preferably) embarrassing ways to prod Andy in the name of medical science, do speak up!

I’m wondering if hypoxia affects the time taken for a tongue to become stuck to a frozen metal pole.

Credentially speaking, Rick’s amply bedecked with two wheeled experience. To say he’s not one of your 30-minutes-a-week cyclists is an understatement, given that his prior record includes journeys such as “San Francisco to Los Angeles”.

Rick’s blog is was published by the Petaluma Argus Courier.
Rick’s blog is now published by Petaluma360.

Roger’s chalet (where we stayed) is very nice indeed and location-wise it’s almost perfect. Set back from the (very quiet) main road it’s a 2 minute walk in the morning down to the Ski-Hire shop (called “Sports Evasion”), who have an awesome boot-drying machine which ensures total comfort every day. After switching footwear the base of the Linga lift is only 60 seconds away, across the road.

The snow was passable, though a little thin even on the first day, and we only had one snowfall of about 6cm in the time we were there. I recognize from this how spoiled we were last year in Courchevel when it was dumping around 12cm per day.

The other downside of going in early January (low season) is that it can be difficult to get a free-ride lesson due to low-interest. If there’s fewer than four people who want to go along, the ESF refuse to run the classes – consequently I was riding without a guide this time, which limited the off-piste potential.

Notwithstanding this we made ample use of the Port-du-Soleil skiing area, travelling through several of the nearby valleys and trying out the snowpark and halfpipe in Avoriaz.

For food we split our time between cooking and eating out – we visited the “Cutty Pub” on the first night because it was the first open place we came to. A lucky break that, because it turned out to be rather good. Over the course of the week we tried their meat fondu, the cheese fondu (with charcuterie) and the pierrade, where they bring out a plate of uncooked meats and a slab of fantastically hot granite. very nice indeed – go try it.

The Tunnel Bar was as good as it ever is (or bad, depending on your POV). We went up on Wednesday because that’s the chalet staff’s night off – so they and their guests all tend to go out or fend for themselves. In the off season this means that the village gets lively. In the high season it means that everywhere is wedged. band-du-Jour was a beatles loving duo (Sexy Sadie) who rattled off quite a few of the more popular tracks to the amusement of the crowd – worth catching if you like beer and Beatles.

Previously we’d stayed in a TravelLodge outside the city, and in a small B&B in Whitley Bay, and each time we’d found the time taken to get back to the digs after the run to be a little longer than we’d have liked. This time we decided to try Newcastle town centre, so we booked early.

Central we asked for, and central we got, the piccy of the Tyne Bridge is taken from our hotel room, so the walk to the start on Sunday morning took us less than 20 minutes. This also meant that we were able to have breakfast at a sensible time, not rush it, and therefore have the best fuelling we could hope for during the race.

I catch myself at this point, and note that I have now called it a race on two occasions – this is a mental shift from calling it “a run” or some other euphamism for lolloping around 13 miles.

The GNR has a good numbering system, where the colour of your number can be used to identify the type of run you’re aiming to do. Red numbers are people who’ve done it 10 times or more. Blue numbers are the elite, white numbers are the riff raff (i.e. us) and orange numbers are people who have a predicted time of under 1 hour and 40 mins. At the start of the race (which is over 1/2 a mile deep) the blue and red runners go at the front, the the oranges, then the rest. Along the mile 1/2 mile that stretches back from the start are predicted time markers so you can go and stand (and run) with people who should be running at the same speed as you. this is good for several reasons; fun-runners are less tempted to go off too fast in the first few miles (a common mistake) and more serious runners don’t have slower runners ahead of them, so there are fewer injuries and the serious runners can get a good time.

What happens (in reality) is that you still get fun-runners overestimating their ability, and going way too far forward. this year, I was at the front of the white pack, and really, in amongst the tail end of the orange-numbered runners, yet I still spent the first two miles absolutely wedged in amongst people who were running slower than me, and who had a shorter stride and all of us were having to negotiate people who were stopping or barging.

Anyhow, a slow first couple of miles is not too bad a thing, since over 13 miles it’s possible to up the pace a little in the remaining miles and still end up on the same time. With the right fuelling strategy, and the right training means a strong finish is much more important than a strong start.

The thing that surprised me most was the difference in attitude up front. Noticable by the reduced amount of hollering as we went through the early underpasses – further back (as we have been twice before) you get a lot of oggy-oggy-oggy going on, but not up front, people seem to be more race focussed.

At mile 8, I asked someone nearby for a time check and they told me it was 64 minutes, so we’d approximated 8 minute miles to that point (though because of the time taken to cross the start it was really start it was more like 7:45. this was an unofficial time, but it gave me a fair indication that if I could keep my pace up, I was on for a pb. At mile 10, there was an official clock, 1:23:ish. If I could keep 10 minute mile pace then I’d finish in an official time of 1:53, two mins over my pb – and since it took me over 2 mins to get over the start I was still on for a good time.

With only three miles to go I knew I had enough left in me, so I started to increase the pace – I wasn’t really sure by how much, but I lengthened my stride, stretched out the leg muscles a bit, and started to drive a little more. Around this time I’d also finished off the energy drink I’d carried so I grabbed an ice-pop and a couple of boiled sweets that the spectators were handing out. It may be psychological, but slowly trickling the sugar from a boiled sweet as you’re running along really helps with the “not getting too sapped of energy” and I found that I could keep up the faster pace.

There was a clock at the start of the last mile, but I don’t recall what it said, is just remember going down the hill onto the seafront as carefully and as quickly as I could and then turning for the last mile and pushing. I crossed the line in 1:44:29.

My previous PB was 1:51:51 with a 30 second start latency, so the unofficial time was 1:51:31. I know it took me more than 2 minutes to cross the line, so my new pb is (at worst 1:44.29-00:2:00) 1:42:29. nine minutes faster, and I know I can beat that with a smaller field. This means that next year, if I train just a little harder and I can ask for an orange number. The other comforting thing is that the first time we ran the GNR, our time was 2:29, so I’m now completing the time a full 45 minutes faster than previously – it’s true that I didn’t run flat out on the first run, but I was still completely knackered and could barely walk the next day. This year, both Em & I were pretty much right as rain the next day.

After finishing and changing, I went up to the meeting area just in time for Em to get in – she too had broken her pb by three minutes, coming in a 2:08, and was extremely happy – she’d started further forward this year and it had made a significant difference to her race. Two PB’s in 2 weeks, Em’s on a roll and is starting to think like a runner.

Getting away from South Shields is not the easiest thing in the world, and I think our plan of last year was the best (find a pub and sit it out in comfort, with a meal) whereas this year’s metro-based travel was more tiring since it involved walking and queuing. We stopped off in an franchised burger restaurant and had a snack to see if the queue would go down – it didn’t, but it did move a lot – with approximately 600 people leaving every 5 minutes credit has to go to the police and the organizers who do very good job – they even had a local DJ pulling people out of the queue and doing little competitions so at least it was entertaining.

Next year, the plan is probably to get a place in South Shields, or to camp on the seafront.

Lisa came down tonight to give us a guaranteed-pain-free massage. Very relaxing, but oddly, somewhat lacking. When you’re used to “pain + gain” deep massage, the common (or garden) Swedish massage, aimed purely at comfort is just dull.

The benefit is still there, blood flow to the muscles is stimulated, fat deposits (what little there is left) are jiggled and made more accessible, and the body is quietly primed for action – but it’s just not the same without the demonic “oh! what have I found here?” as Lisa discovers and then mercilessly attacks knots and other muscular oddities.

But hey, I can’t complain, I’m too relaxed

In other news, I spoke to Guy from the Portsmouth evening newspaper today. Guy’s running the Marathon in a rhino suit, and is also writing a piece about other Portsmouth runners, so we’ll hopefully be meeting a photographer tomorrow and thus get the MSRC a mention in the local paper. Raising awareness of the MSRC is as important as direct fundraising, so this is fantastic news.

This was to be the last session before the marathon, and with two weeks before the big day there was still time for any bruising to heal, so Lisa was kind enough to really get stuck into my muscles with a deep pressure-point workout.

I know I mentioned this before, but it’s worth saying it again; this is not like a Swedish massage, this is like mild torture, the kind which a movie bad-guy with a conscience would use on the hero in order to prove that their pain-giver really does have the potential to inflict proper pain, thereby forcing the hero to tell all, without actually causing them too much damage so that they can still save the day at the end of the movie. It’s the kind of thing that makes you squirm to watch.

We had a nice curry afterwards, and I (honestly) accidentally ordered a hot one for Lisa. HA HA HA HA HA HA.

Lisa the physio is around later too – so I have to do lots of stretching today to help keep the pain down tonight!

Extra! A big thanks to everyone who’s sponsored us so far – we’ve just broken the £1000 barrier! If we weren’t in training for a marathon this would be worth cracking open a bottle of fizz… we’ll have a drink to your health in late April.

Circuits first, then the run immediately after. Most enjoyable. This evening we have Lisa the physio popping around too, so it’s a full day.

Lisa the Fizz has now been and as a result I’m considering inverting the colour scheme for this page so that normal training days show up in green and physio days show up in red – red for warning, red for danger.

Sports therapy hurts! Some say it’s good pain; I say it’s [a] just pain. In this case the justification is a long forecast bet that I can avoid more pain in future by having it in little bits now. It seems I’ve not fully imparted the “little bits” part of that message to Lisa yet.

The main outcome, apart from the pain & resulting benefits, is a few extra stretches that we should be doing post exercise in order to keep the muscles supple. What surprised me most was the back stretches which involve what I’d have thought would be a back compression, but which apparently stretch it – I’ll give a more full report after the next circuit class when I’ve had a chance to try them out properly.