Oxfam Trailwalker - 5 weeks to go

I am on a roll! Two updates in a week which will bring my training diary up to date. After this one I will try and do a general blog about the non-running side of life. Yes I do have one!



Anyway back to the small matter of 100k over the South Downs of England. Originally, I was going to go and support Steph and Lucy (my fellow avocet from Namibia) as they were putting together a formidable all girls team to run the event. However, they were struggling to get a fourth girl and then Steph had to pull out after her foot op. Lucy then texted me and asked me if I wanted to join the team. I knew of the other girl in the team, Jo, as she is a friend of Steph's, had been in Namibia and had recently done RTP Australia. Consequently, like Lucy and Steph, Jo is another very strong runner - unlike yours truly. The third member of the team was a friend of the girls from Hong Kong, Anthony, who they had run the HK Trailwalker with. Another former avocet, Rowley, sent me a message on facebook warning me to beware of AD. So I could assume he was also going to be a fairly accomplished runner too. Unfortunately, I had no excuse not to say yes and believe me I did try to think of a few! The run fell 5 weeks before UTMB and would be the perfect chance to get 100k into the legs as well as being a good physical and mental test. So I texted Lucy to say I was in and instantly regretted it!



Given that my team mates were all based in HK I would not meet Jo and Ant until the night before the race. So I spent the next few weeks getting increasingly nervous about being the slowest in the team and not being able to keep up! A couple of 25 mile runs round Richmond Park in 30 plus degrees did nothing to help my confidence as I melted in the very un-English summer weather!



On the Friday evening I met up with my team down at the registration centre in West Sussex and then Jo's parents cooked us the perfect pre-race meal. Though it was very hard not to pile into the red wine on offer sitting in the conservatory on a sunny summer's evening! Unfortunately, I had had a virus over the previous week or so and was not feeling on top condition but there was no turning back after our 5am porridge. As you can tell from the picture the girls were looking considerably perkier than me as we headed off to the start line!!





At the start the Gurkhas were playing bag pipes - a slightly incongruous image and to be honest not necessarily what I was after at 6.30am! But it made for a good atmosphere amongst the teams. We bumped into Team Gold's Jenna and Mark with support crew leader Steph which was really cool and definitely gave me a bit of a lift before setting off at 7am. Team Gold were to go on to have a great day and Steph's blog (http://ultrarunnergirl.com/) and video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_UzRRsAk7o) are well worth a look!

I won't lie the first 35k was hideous. I was white as a sheet and sweating profusely as my body and the virus had a little set-to about things. To make matters worse we were setting a 12hour pace rather than the 14hour pace I had been told we were aiming for! I was in serious trouble and luckily just as we came into CP 4 where Jo's parents were on hand with the first stint of their awesome support it seemed as if I had sweated the virus out of my system and for the first time I actually began to feel ok. Taking on amazing homemade brownies and fudge only improved things further and I can honestly say that 45k to 90k were actually pretty enjoyable. It helped that I was in great company and had Ant and Jo and Lucy to talk to during any of the low points.

Running with better runners definitely helped me raise my game and we kept up a pace which I never thought I would be capable of passing lots of teams who started at 6am.

In the end we arrived onto Brighton race course at just before 8pm and could see the finish line. A voice came over the loud speaker to say that we had 1 minute 30 seconds to cover the last few furlongs if we wanted to break 13 hours so we held hands and summoned one last effort from our legs to drag ourselves over the line with seconds to spare! Not so much a thoroughbred photo finish but unbelievably satisfying all the same! We ended up being the first fixed team over the line and only missed out on setting a new record time for a mixed team by less than 20 minutes! Massive thanks to my awesome team mates who encouraged me through out the day. I think this was the best confidence boost for UTMB and I hopefully can carry this forward for my last 4 weeks of training and into the main event!

If you are feeling generous the sponsorship page is now up and running and any donation towards Help 4 Heroes will be massively appreciated and will spur me on through the dark times out in the Alps http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/AlexHowarth

Finally, a word about my sponsors, UK Gear, they have been working on a new shoe, the PT 1000 and managed to get me out a prototype 3 weeks before this race. The shoe is super comfortable and even though I had only done 40 miles in it in training I did not blister at all and it was great for trail running and I am now very pleased that I have my shoe for Mont Blanc sorted. UK Gear work closely with the Physical Training Corps of the British Army and it is fitting for me to use their products when I am raising money and awareness for the brave service men and women who are battling to overcome horrific injuries sustained in the name of their country. If you are looking for new trail shoes they are worth a look!

Altitude Training in Chamonix

Ok so I am officially rubbish at this whole updating blog regularly thing! It's now a little over 4 weeks until the big race and lots has happened since the Jurassic Coast run I did back in March. I am going to do a couple of entries to give you the highlights and low points of the last few months. First up was a trip out to Chamonix at the end of May to go and scope out part of the course and get some good mountain and altitude training under my belt. Given that I had never trained at altitude before I was pretty keen to have a training partner for this weekend just in case I reacted badly, so I was stoked when the legendary Steph Case said she'd be keen for a long weekend of running. As she'd just got back from RTP Australia, where she'd finished 2nd woman, I was going to be in good company and was looking forward to getting the benefit of her experience. Unfortunately, Steph was due to have an op on her foot and a few days before flying the op was brought forward and she was unable to make it out. As it turned out this was just as well as the damage to Steph's foot was serious and a weekend of running up and down some mountains would almost certainly have made it worse so it was definitely for the best. However, it meant heading out to Chamonix alone which was less exciting!

Now most of my updates have been about runs but this next bit will all be about the total disaster which was getting to Chamonix at the end of May. Having arrived in Geneva airport I went straight to the information desk to ask about buses to Chamonix and was informed there were none. So I asked about trains and was told there was a train and was informed that if I waitied 2 hours there would be a train which would take 3 hours and 2 changes to do a journey which takes just over an hour in the car. If I'd opted for that I would have arrived at midnight and been unable to get into my flat. So I asked about the more expensive alpine transfer minibuses and was told that they were not running......at all! My only option was to get a cab! This cost more than my flight to Chamonix. Needless to say my mood was pretty dark as I drove up into the mountains and it did not get any better as the clouds descended and the rain started to fall. I was wondering why I had elected to spend my bank holiday running around the mountains rather than be in London enjoying the sunshine, bbq's and beers that all my friends were having!

Having made it into Chamonix and parted with a ridiculously large amount of cash I picked up the keys to my apartment and having dumped my stuff went out to get supplies. First impressions were good, despite the rain this looked like a fun town and I thought I was bound to find a few people to share a few beers with. With my spirts lifted I wolfed down some food and headed out into town in search of my new soon to be drinking buddies. Unfortunately, it now became clear why there were no buses, trains or mini buses operating; 75% of the bars and restaurants were closed! I had apparently arrived in a ghost town! I initially thought perhaps they were closed because traditionally our continental friends like to eat and drink later than we do in the UK. But no the real reason was that I had arrived in the 2 week period between the end of the ski season and the start of the summer season where everything shuts down! Having nursed a couple of drinks by myself in a hotel bar I wandered back to my flat through the rain repeating the mantra "you're here to train, that's all that matters"! Then I passed a bar with a big sign outside advertising a Beach Party the following night and once more my spirits lifted and I headed off to bed knowing that after a full day out on the mountain I could reward myself with some down time at the Chamonix Beach Party - all was not lost!

My first day training consisted of hiking as fast as I could over the first 30k or so of the course before looping back to Chamonix, I covered a good 45k and a few thousand metres of elevation. The sun was out and the mountains looked stunning. To make things better I bumped into a German chap who was training for UTMB and had last year's official route maps so we covered the ground together and made good time to St Gervais where we enjoyed a nice lunch is the town square. Having parted company out towards Les Contamines I was feeling pretty happy about things. The legs were feeling good, altitude wasn't causing any issues and I was getting a feel for the terrain and the Beach Party was only a few hours away! That put a spring in my step and after 7 hours out on the mountain I found myself tearing down the 900 metre descent from Col du Voza into Les Houches singing along to some cheesey tunes!

Having stretched and showered I headed out into town grabbed a pizza and a couple of beers from one of the few open restaurants (needed to line the stomach for the long night's boozing that lay ahead!). I then headed for the Beach Party..... I walked into the trendy looking bar and was greeted by the sound of an Englishman singing and playing guitar to an audience of about 12. I figured this must be the warm up act and took a seat at the bar in front of the 2 rather attractive French barmaids and got ready for things to pick up.....they didn't pick up.....at all. A few more people came in but as the bar capacity was probably around 150, 25 people did not really make for a great atmosphere. All the while the 2 bar girls kept half lifting their tee shirts which was a welcome distraction to the Englishman's cover version of the Chili Peppers Under the Bridge, though I was unsure whether I missing something cultural difference between English and French girls. All was shortly revealed, literally, when the bar manager appeared wearing a hideous pair of board shorts and promptly told the girls to get their tops off. Brilliant you might think, and in other circumstances I would have applauded this move. However, with 3 random guys sitting at the bar and a dozen or so other punters dotted around the place this only heightened the depressing nature of Chamonix nightlife at the end of May! I proceeded to down my beer and marched back out into the rain once again repeating my mantra!

Luckily the next 2 days training were great and I covered a lot of ground and a lot of elevation and I am sure I would have covered a lot less had the night life been better! As it was I returned to England with the best part of 100 kilometres and almost 7000 metres of elevation under my belt and I'd managed to test my kit in rain and sun. So it was not a total disaster!