The Strassburg Sock

After last year's too-small smalls (emergency pants bought in a French supermarket), another in my series of irregular articles on cruel and unusual punishments masquerading as underwear. This time it's the Strassburg Sock, and it singlehandedly (though that should possibly be singlefootedly) is responsible for four nights - and counting - of broken sleep. Here's the offending item:

Sexy little beast, isn't it? And yes, that really is a strip of material connecting the toe to a band that runs round the calf, pulling the toes up into a permanent 45 degree angle.

As intimated above, it's nightwear. But why oh why are you inflicting this upon yourself, do I hear you cry? No? I'll tell you anyway. It, apparently, is an effective and natural remedy for heel pain, including the Achilles, from which I have been suffering in recent times. And I have to say I'm noticing an immediate difference.  I ran two hilly half-marathons on Saturday and yesterday, and contrary to recent experience after such exertions, my first few steps this morning were not sanctioned by the Ministry of Silly Walks.

The theory of the thing of course is that it very gradually stretches out the calf and Achilles whilst you sleep, which is supposed to accelerate healing. When I bought the thing of the interweb this time last week I naively assumed that as the thing had "sock" in its title, it would come as a pair. Wrong. Just the one appeared. I have to say I wasn't tempted to buy a second - the thing is absurdly expensive for what it is - but even if I had been there would have been no need.  The night before last I was so uncomfortable in it at 3.23am I switched it from my right leg to left leg, and that seems an ideal arrangement - both Achilles feel better.

Tis a good job Mrs Monmarduman is now in France for five weeks however, for there is much thrutching (Cheshire word I believe) and a rustling of a night-time when I swap legs, undoing and redoing two velcro straps.

So there we are. I'm managing to manage the pain while carrying on running, and hopefully there's even a recovery brewing. Anyway, it's nearly time to don the thing for another night of joy, so I'll take my leave.

The Book of Revelations

Yesterday was a day of revelations, though none biblical as it happens. Only the recent rain is that. Anyway, yesterday's were, in chronological order as the day unfolded:

- Mrs Monmarduman can get up early at the weekend for something other than a car boot sale. When I announced last week that I was going to have to leave home at 7am (on a Sunday) to get to Keswick in time to start my mountain running skills course at 10am (it doesn't take that long, but I had to add contingency and the faff factor on to journey time), I completely expected to be going alone. However, the good lady wife announced she too fancied a day out in the Lake District. So darn me if she wasn't out of bed voluntarily and with no incentives or threats at 6.30am. What a nice surprise it was too.

- I met the winner of the Nicest and Politest Man in the UK 2014 competition. His name was Dunna, a Dubliner resident in Glasgow, and was the only other participant on the course, there having been two dropouts during the week. He arrived late, apologising profusely for his tardiness, though he should have been also sorry for the dilemma he's placed me in, namely whether I can reinforce national/racial stereotyping by revealing the reason he was late. Oh sod it. We were supposed to meet in the car park at Booths supermarket in Keswick. His Celtic ear however meant that he turned up at Boots, and wondered why no one was there. It was hard not to laugh, to be sure. He was however, as I say, the most delightful and considerate running partner through the day; one of life's genuine nice guys.

- I'm not as crap at map reading as I thought I was. Though I can now take proper bearings and navigate by compass alone. Which is nice. And necessary, as it turns out that's what I'll have to do on the mountain marathon at the start of April.

- talking of which, navigational skills will probably be just as important as fitness in determining the time I manage in that event. This is quite a scary prospect, not least because I'll be doing the event alone rather than with a partner, which is how a lot of people do it apparently.

- back to Mrs Monmarduman: she walked nearly as far as we ran during the day. Whilst the miles we did were fairly extreme, being off marked paths for much of the time in bogs and on rocky fells, and were done in a screaming, freezing wind, we didn't do that many of them; 7-8 perhaps. Mrs M managed to resist the temptations of the Keswick Pencil Museum (I sh*t you not); she does have a heart condition after all, and that level of excitement could have been dangerous, so she took to the countryside too, knocking off a good few miles of walking herself. She had roses in her cheeks, as they used to say in the 1950s, when we met back up in the afternoon.

- finally, and a bit boringly, clothes matter. I had 6 layers on yesterday and was shaking with the cold at times, and was certainly colder than the other two, who each had 3/4 better quality layers on. Might have to spend some money.

So there we are. I haven't covered the stuff I learned, though contours are indeed king, and DDTT isn't a type of explosive, but it was a good day. Just need to do some more training now, of both the running and navigating kind.

Such a cliché...

...that all this running has found my Achilles heel. Literally, in this case - both of them. Yup, for the last couple of weeks after runs the right Achilles has been sore, as has the underside of the left heel, which, it seems, is just a different manifestation of an Achilles problem.

So I consulted my favourite doctor (that'd be Dr. W. W. Web), who said that Achilles pain can be brought on by any one of the following:

- front foot-landing running (that's what I do; saves lots of other problems)
- speed work (check; lots of sprints round Regent's Park recently)
- hill running (I only run in the hills at the weekend)
- not doing enough stretching of the lower legs, calves in particular (erm, yes again; oops)

So I'm now doing a new set of exercises three times a day to try to get the soreness out of the damn things. I'm still running, which perhaps isn't wise, but the discomfort is at its peak in the first couple of hundred yards of a run, and then it settles down. So whilst that's the case, I'll keep going. Which is just as well, as I'm off to Keswick this Sunday for my mountain running skills course; it's a practical course, so there'll be plenty of time on my feet.

And that's not unlike the next couple of days....I'm in London, as per usual, and there's a Tube strike over the next 48 hours, so there's four walks of two and a bit miles coming up. I don't mind actually, but I hope the weather turns out a bit kinder than the forecast.

Back to the running. Training at the moment consists of a few short runs in London during the week, and a couple of long-ish hill runs at the week. Marathon training suggests that you gradually increase the distance of your weekly run till you reach 75% of marathon distance. Training for an ultra-marathon is different. If you do 75% of an ultra, you're basically going to be knackered for several weeks afterwards, leading to reduced training that's not going to move you on; so that's to be avoided. Instead, you do two medium to long back-to-back runs at some point in the week, the theory being that on the second you've got some residual tiredness from the first. So that's what I'm doing. We'll see how successful it is in due course - but it's leading to a few Sunday afternoon snoozes at the moment, and the consumption of quite a lot of porridge - which, I've discovered, is a lot more interesting with a splash of Jack Daniel's over the top. And on that happy thought, enough for now.

Running wild

As promised, I'm going to resist the temptation to recount the busy and incident-filled week I've just had, and restrict myself to sport stuff...

...Where my main news is that I've entered one of the two big targets I've set myself for the year: a mountain ultra-marathon. It's at the start of the April, in the Lake District, an unmarked 42 mile trail that goes over the top of Helvellyn amongst other places. Am I going to have done enough miles by then to be confident of getting round? Hell no. Am I confIdent of my navigation abilities? Double hell no. Am I a little fazed at the thought of doing it and then having to drive home down the M6? Oh yes. But, you know, whatever.

I am taking one precaution however. Two weeks on Sunday I'm doing a 'Mountain Running Skills' course near Penrith, which will, I hope, help me avoid the more obvious schoolboy errors you can make. The challenge however will be remembering what you've learned when it's 7 weeks later, you're dead on your feet and lost in the mist. 

So I need to get some miles in my legs, some of them uphill ones. That's why I'm blogging on a Friday night; Saturday and Sunday will be taken up with running, sleeping and doing all the pit stop boring things (washing, ironing, blah..) between working weeks in London. Oh, and a night out involving Tiger Prawns that should be rather good...

2014: Back to Basics

This blog wandered all over the place in 2013 in terms of subject matter. I think it might be time to strip away all the superfluous stuff and get back to running and cycling. There are a couple of reasons for that. First, I'm planning on actually doing a couple of interesting things this year that will be worth writing about. And second, I'm planning on doing them in unusual ways. By that I don't mean that I'm going to do the rides on a unicycle, or the runs backwards, or anything similarly wacky, but the training and preparation may not be orthodox.

I'll say more about both the events and the training approaches I plan to use for them in the next few posts as the plans turn more concrete. Just a bit on the latter right now though. Part of the this is borne of necessity - for the next 4 weeks at a minimum I'll only be able to do short training runs during the week; certainly nothing like the 100 miles of running (plus) that ultrarunners are supposed to put in. But I don't intend that to stop me doing my first 'proper' ultra, i.e. something of 40 miles or more. I may fail of course; but I like the idea of constructing my own plan that others might be able to use in future. There will also be some dietary changes as part of that, inspired at least in part by a book I've been reading written by ultrarunner Scott Jurek.

So I intend to describe those changes, the effects they have, the events I do, and how successful I am. There may be references to other stuff that's going on, there may be fewer posts, but I'm looking forward to getting back to where this blog started 3 years ago; sporty stuff.

And just to finish on that note...amidst the crud on the telly over Christmas there have been a couple of gems. One was Clarkson's programme last night on the North Atlantic Convoys of WW2 (and one in particular), whilst another was the Guy Martin Channel 4 programme on his attempt to break the speed record for riding a regular bicycle on the flat. I won't tell you what happened in case you haven't seen it and want to (and you should; it's good), but he did it on a Rourke bike, made by Jason Rourke, who both featured in the programme, and made my bike in 2013. I think I might now have some of the explanation of why it was late. It was worth it though...

Hard Rock Hell VII

So last weekend saw the annual pilgrimage to north Wales for the Hard Rock Hell (HRH) festival, this one being the seventh edition. Mrs M and I have been going since she won tickets for HRH3, though my attendance last year was limited to 18 hours because of work commitments. The format of the weekend is a Thursday start, with a themed fancy dress night and a few bands, then two solid days of rock and metal music across three stages Friday and Saturday.

For many people, the name of the festival would be apt - hell indeed. And yet, if I were to pick a single word to describe it, many people would be appalled; some at the poverty of my vocabulary, and others (attendees) at the word itself: Nice.

Let me explain. 'Nice' probably wouldn't be the first word that sprung to mind when you were watching a lead singer bashing his head with a tin of Fosters till it exploded (Airbourne), or encouraging the mosh pit to part in the middle then come together to knock the living daylights out of each other (Airbourne), or indeed listening to music so loud my ears still feel as though they're bleeding four days later (Airbourne). However, that same lead singer also sought out and then spent at least half a song playing and singing whilst physically in the area reserved for wheelchair users. We know of at least one person for whom that was an enormous highlight, not just of the festival, but of their year. It was a nice thing to do.

'Nice' probably isn't also the first word the casual observer would choose to describe the appearance of most attendees. They are rock and metal fans, and unsurprisingly they dress as rock and metal fans tend to dress the world over. Leather, denim, tattoos, and metal, either on clothes or sticking out of bodies are de rigeur. Apart from a group of youths in hoodies and half-mast trousers it's hard to think of a collective appearance more likely to scare the horses. And yet, and yet.....they're as nice a bunch of folk as you could ever wish to meet. Most of us, I hope, have got beyond the age of judging books by their covers, but those that haven't should go to Hard Rock Hell, where instead of polishing their prejudices they'll find people looking out for each other, doors held open for them, and championship-standard witty repartee in the Gents (can't speak for the Ladies). And it's not just the behaviour that would confound them; it's the occupations of the people in denim and leather - postmen mix with pathologists, and nobody particularly knows or cares. It's nice.

My highlight of the weekend was Friday, where the four hours of music between 8pm and midnight were the best four hours I've probably ever experienced at HRH. First up was Phil Campbell (guitarist with Motorhead) and his band. It was a great set, and the mash-up of Nutbush City Limits into Born To Raise Hell was a work of genius. Next up were ostensibly the night's headliners, Black Star Riders, or basically Thin Lizzy without Phil Lynott. They did their new stuff first, and sensibly held back a lot of the Lizzy stuff till the end of their set, which meant they went out on a real high. And finally came Skindred, who Mrs M had seen a couple of times, but were new to me. They describe themselves as a punk/ska/ragga/metal band, and I'd say that just about covers it. I'd not heard anything of their like before, and spent the first song wondering if it was genius or car crash. Well, it turned out to be genius. To use an overused cliche, I suspect they're a bit of a Marmite band, love 'em, hate 'em etc, but I loved 'em, despite coming in for some criticism from a certain Mr D Harrison for waving my hands in the air like I just didn't care (it wasn't very manly apparently, which I thought was a bit rich coming from a bloke wearing nail varnish). Anyway, I got carried away; it was nice.

Three final bits of niceness. First, I found the beach on Saturday, and had a wonderful eight mile run up and down it in sunshine warm enough to have made the day a September one, rather than the last day of November. Second, the attendees of our now-traditional Super Sausage Saturday for being so generous with their gifts and company; it's good to be able to have a few minutes chewing the fat with folk away from 110dB of rock. And finally, we shared our caravan for the first time ever. We're generally a bit intolerant of having other people around if we're honest with ourselves, but Giles and Larri were fabulous to have around, and their presence really added something to the weekend.

So there we are. It was a nice weekend. I'd recommend you buy a ticket for next year if you have even a vague liking for rock and metal, but I'm pretty sure it's too late; it's sold out already. Other people must think it's pretty nice too.

Run to the hills

My more avid and/or attentive readers may recall that at the end of each August me and The Lad spend a boys' weekend walking in the Shropshire hills around the towns of Church Stretton and Craven Arms. While we have the same nominal route each year, there's always a minor variation of some variety. When I was thinking about next year's variation, I mused about the possibility of running the route, not as part of one of our weekends, but separately.

It seemed like quite a tough challenge; this year's route was 32 miles with 5000 feet of climbing. The idea to run it took hold properly early in October, when I thought that with a couple of months or so of decent running, I'd have a shot of doing it by maybe the middle of February. But then last weekend two things happened. First, I realised that Mrs M wouldn't be around in mid-February to come and bail me out if anything went wrong. And second, the weather forecast for this weekend looked pretty kind. So I decided to go for it...

...which is why I set my alarm for 5am yesterday, so I could leave by 6, and be down to and parked in Church Stretton by 7.30am, and running by 8. I had no idea how long the run was going to take, and wanted to give myself as many daylight hours as possible. I needn't have worried as it turned out.

I did, however, need to worry about the cold. It was -5c when I left home, and hadn't warmed up at all by the time I started running. Which meant that the ford that's crossed after the first mile wasn't the dribble of tepid water that it is in August, but a gushing cascade of ice cold numbing-ness. Having cold, wet feet that soon into a long run wasn't the best start, but hey ho. A few hundred yards after the ford comes the first of many climbs, but the only one you can't run up - it's a scramble up damp, slippery rocks. The reward, however, was getting to the top of the Long Mynd valley. By the time I got up there the sun was up, everything was still frosty white, there was a pack of wild horses just across the gorse, and the views were sensational - to the right, the Welsh Marches, to the left the Wenlock Hills. And me, just me, no one else. Even the early starters at the Long Mynd Gliding Club hadn't arrived.

Anyway, the run itself was reasonably straightforward. There were some hazards naturally; frozen back roads where staying upright was a challenge; not jumping out of my skin when one of the many shoots that were out yesterday fired a little close for comfort; and the deep squelchy mud on some of the uphill tracks. But I was back in Church Stretton 4 hours 50 mins after leaving, of which I'd spent 4 hrs 18 mins actually running - the Faff Factor was quite high on the run itself, what with needing to eat, photograph and add and remove layers fairly regularly. The vital stats - 28 miles (I removed a couple of this year's walk variations), 4500 feet of ascent, 1 knackered but happy man. The only disappointment was not being able to find a hot pasty, the thought of which kept me going for the last few miles.

Apart from the glory of the route itself, the best thing has been the physical aftereffects - none, apart from a tiny bit of stiffness in my hips. Well I say none - I obviously ate something that didn't agree with me yesterday. I won't add any more detail, other than to say I'm yet to make it back on to solid food.

That, however, hasn't detracted from yesterday - it's the fourth time I've run a marathon distance or more, I did it without a training programme leading up to it, and I'm not crippled today. The star of the show though was the countryside of Shropshire; it was tough, challenging, but beautiful.