The mornings are bright early and running, and life I guess, seems to be going well for now. It’s so much easier to do a 4am run when the birds are chirping and the sun is rising. Absolutely love it! Best part of the day! I don’t do too many really early workouts but I do enjoy them. 

Training in general seems to be going well. The major change I’ve made is more speed work. 400m repeats, mile repeats, etc. at 10km race pace have been hard but fun. They are definitely impacting my fitness as well. I’ve always avoided these workouts for fear of injury and I never was racing short distances. However they increase your economy at slower speeds so pretty much mandatory. Yes, they are hard, but this is the sexy running that makes you feel like a bad ass. They also have a quick response to your fitness where as slow running and building a base is a long slow process. Within  5 weeks or so these runs will need to change to more race specific work which obviously means hills. 

Bluebells

St. Leonard’s Church

Hills. My one worry about UTMB. I’m easily hitting my distance goals for training but the vert is extremely difficult. It’s not super important now but will be within 8-10 weeks of the race. I’ll NEED to get bigger vert in to be properly prepared. My strength routine will help once I dial it in, I’m still adding weight each week to find the sweet spot, but actual running up and down a lot is what is really needed. I’ve got some ideas though so will work with what I’ve got.

Hedgehog

We’ve booked a place to stay in Argentiere France just up the road from Chamonix. A good spot for the family to relax but close enough for convenient access to Chamonix, it’s also on the course I believe. Now just need to sort out passports and flights. We’re in the process of getting a new passport for my son. We really can’t get flights before we get it back. On a positive note flights to Geneva don’t ever really change price and are readily available. One other logistical thing is I need mountain rescue insurance. Looks to be some easy options through the British Mountaineering Council and also the International Trail Running Association so just need to commit to it so it’s done.

Bluebells

White flowers are wild garlic

 

We’re off to Scotland in a few weeks to visit family so I’m hoping to tie in with some local runners there for a long run,  maybe two, fingers crossed. I’ve been lurking in a Facebook group and also follow a Scottish guy who is similar in ability to me so could be fun to not only run with someone but somewhere new, and hopefully with lots of vert!

Still volunteering at the Junior ParkRun. I’m the guy with the annoying cowbell breaking the peaceful silence of an early Sunday morning at the Wyre Forest!

In my second life as a martial artist all gradings have been moved to June. So, I’ll have an escrima grading during the week and on the weekend I’ll have my second degree Jeet Kune Do grading which will be a big deal. I feel fairly prepared at this time for both with obviously some time to get better until then. Meeting up once a week with my friend to train has made a big difference in training.