Global Sport Stories

Last week ended with some interval sprints. Which led to an incredibly painful week ahead.

Inspired and learning teachings from Ross Edgley and other fitness related content, I had realised that consistently running as I do has been great to build my aerobic base, however I was in need of some variation. I believe it to be fairly well known within the fitness and endurance space that you don’t just run 5k everyday and magically get fitter and faster. Of course you wouldn’t be unfit, but your ability to progress would be significantly hampered. Additionally, on a simpler level, running 5k every day would just become boring. At least with these sprints, roughly 30 metres long between lampposts, I was engaging and training my anaerobic system, encouraging progression by training differently to what had become the norm. The, quite literally, freezing pavements also added some extra adrenaline to the frosty nights activity…

Monday morning marked a long day at work, and on these occasions I often endeavour to get out and active beforehand, ensuring whatever happens I have done something else with my day besides working. I continued my exploration of my new living location, resulting in a 6.5km out and back through Jesmond Dene. The route offers a few sections of elevations which is ultimately healthy for me, however almost instantly upon finishing the run I could tell my legs were abnormally heavy.

I’m putting it down to the intervals the night beforehand (and lack of recovery). Despite being in pain for more or less the rest of the week, embarrassing I know, this proved to me the power of changing how you train occasionally – as the intervals had definitely placed differing strains on differing parts of my legs…

A busy next few days ensued, which combined with my achy legs, meant for a brief pause in any activity. This was okay though, as although I wasn’t able to exercise, I was able to plan some. 

A backyard ultra marathon.

I have my YouTube algorithm to thank for this period of pre planned torture. For those that don’t know, a backyard ultra is a creative way to torture oneself, as if an ultra marathon wasn’t bad enough! All jokes aside however, I believe it to be a great way to encourage people to run further than they ever had before, not that I have done one yet of course. Anyway, enough of my opinions that are based on minimal evidence… What exactly are they? 

Participants run a lap of a 4.167 mile course, on the hour, every hour, for as long as they dare. The thought process being that runners will have run 100 miles exactly over a 24 hour period. Here’s the twisted part though, by the end of the “race” there will of course be one winner but technically every other participant has “DNF’d”, as there is no pre arranged set distance. Imagine running over 100 miles to eventually DNF the race, brutal.

Now I understand that the fact you are running laps of a course repeatedly, could well get boring and that via a normal ultra marathon, there is potential to cover great distances. However, from the YouTube videos I have watched about them, the sense of community but shared sense of adventure and essentially suffering, looks like one that is eventually so rewarding. After a certain distance, it seems that the battle stops with your body and is taken over by your mind. If you can conquer your mind, you can conquer the race – an idea which fascinates me. A lot easier said than done for sure though!

For some reason I was only just stumbling across this concept, ironically while lounging in bed with stupidly sore legs after only a 6.5km run! That being said, after chatting to a few mates I was told there was one back in my hometown in May and that was the point where the fire in my belly was lit. I’ll confess this event has set distances to achieve and there is an opportunity to run it in a relay format with friends – which looks quite appealing. One of my new year’s resolutions this year though was to enter two events before September, so honestly I think I just need to go for it – at the very least to give my runs in the meantime a little more purpose. 

Speaking of my hometown, I found myself back there for a ludicrously short period over Wednesday and Thursday. A short visit in which I was aiming to fit a long run in over the hills, but yep, of course my legs were still in agony. I realise I could and should go for a low intensity shake out run but whilst at home the opportunity to get on the hills arose anyway through a walk with my Mum and dog, Alan. The fog had rolled in again and led to yet more spectacular views across the Malvern Hills. Just peeking through the low lying cloud was the turrets of Eastnor Castle, of which the grounds would be used for the 4.167 mile loop of the Backyard event. What a place to do it, I thought.

By Saturday, the usual mental torment of whether to drag myself out of bed for ParkRun ensued. Either way I wanted to get out for a run to shake off the little fatigue that was hanging on in my legs. As it turns out, I was nice and awake despite having badly little hours of sleep over the recent days, so ParkRun it was.

Having completed the 5k route in 23 minutes 9 seconds in what was honestly perfect running conditions, of course I came away from Town Moor pleased I got up and got it done. I knew that would always be the case though, it’s just hard to focus on that when trying to drag yourself out of bed into minus temperatures.

After being inspired throughout the week by the idea of a backyard ultra, combined by my recent lack of longer runs, I wanted to get over 10k into my legs on Sunday. No pressure on time, or records, or PB’s. I simply wanted to run a significant distance. A 12k loop sufficed, and unsure whether it was due to a slower pace or the episode of High Performance podcast in my ear, I really quite enjoyed just plodding along. 

Overall, clearly this week was extremely running focussed. I think I am slowly realising how much you can/need to prioritise running if you have the aspirations of events such as a backyard ultra. I’ve felt the positives and negatives of the different types of training and as a result had a glimpse of how I could progress.

My problem is I am prone to getting bored, however I find bored to be the wrong word. What I mean is I just want to always interchange the activity I do. A run here, a swim there, a surf when I can. So I’m not going to stop that, however signing up to some events in the future could well change that. Let’s see what next week holds…