One of the 7 races held as part of the UTMB European major, based in the Val D’Aran region in the Pyrenees. The PDA is normally a 55k race, with 3300m ascent and 3600m descent. Due to the thunder storms that had rolled in pre-race week the race was shortened to 52k with 2900m of elevation, reducing the last challenging climb to the summit of Tuc de Meddia.
I’d chosen to run the race mainly to try and see what I could learn from my DNF at the UTS 100k last year. The race offered steep ascents/descents on challenging technical trail, all of which mirrored much of what I found so hard last year.
The 3 areas that I struggled with were:
- Fuelling.
- Lack of strength, specifically quads giving way and unable to manage descents.
- Sore feet from Salomon SLab trail shoes, especially when comparing to road running (super) shoes. .
I also found the training I did last year frustrating, not really what I wanted to be doing leaving me conflicted with both myself and love of running.
With all of above in mind, back in February I suffered a coupe of injuries when training for the London marathon. These forced me to make a choice about what I really wanted to run, as best I could. By early March it was clear my achilles niggle wouldn’t get race fit for London, so I decided to focus on getting ready for the PDA July 4th.
This started with putting in the time to specifically rehab my achilles, maintain an aerobic base on Zwift cycling and begin to strengthen my body. I went back and reviewed the training I’d done for Snowdon last year, reflecting on this I could see the gaps and how unsuited it had been for what I had needed.
I drew up a plan that ran from 10 weeks out that followed the structure of:
3 week build, 1 week down, 3 week specific work, 2 weeks taper, race week.
Each week then followed the same pattern, with the specifics of each training session changing depending on where I was in the training cycle. I also gave a lot of thought as to when in the day I wanted to train. I’d be running doubles and moved away from a morning routine that I favoured and seemed to thrive under. So I decided to shift away from what I had been doing and back to Mon-Fri no exercise first thing, rather a cold shower, meditate and mobility exercises to wake my body up gently.
The rest of then followed this structure:
Mon – rest
Tues – easy hills, end with 5x uphill strides @ marathon effort, 70 mins S&C session post run – 60mins
Weds – speed session – 70 to 80mins
Thursday- easy hills, End with 5x downhill hard effort – 90mins
Friday – S&C session – 60mins, potentially cycle commute
Sat / Sun – this was the time to do an easy long run coup”d with something more intense to condition me.
During the build part: 1 hard session Sat (2 hours) , 1 long easy trail run Sun up to 2 hours
During specific part W1 – Sat a hard 2 hour marathon style session, Sun 4hr trail easy run
W2 Sun – 3 hours trail in Wales, looking for elevation, Monday – 3 hours of 3x up/ down for 1500m
W3 Sat – trail marathon to get me tired (4hr 15m) Sun 8x 1k hard downhill repeats on a 12% trail to try and mimic end of PDA.
The other change I made here was to replace both my normal easy runs, with using the only hills we have near me and running repeats. So as opposed to running 12k out and back, then doing 5 hill strides, Tuesday I used 6x 1km climb, that had around 90m of ascent & descent, so getting in 600m of both ascent & descent. Thursdays I used a 500m climb of 35m. 14 reps of this + 5x downhill sprints gave me 500m ascent / descent & more importantly really, really helped condition my legs. This was inspired by a local guy near me who was training for the Snowdon 100mile race. I think this change made a huge difference to building a base for everything else.
I had decided that strength 2x a week was non negotiable and to manage fatigue I decided to run 5 days a week not 6.
Strength sessions in the first 3 week block were lifting as heavy as I could manage for 8 reps, but only lifting 6.
3x 6 reps of back squat, deadlift, Drop jumps, Bulgarian split squats, step downs, medball slams, calf raises, tip toe carries & TRX pull ups.
In the specific block I wanted to dial in the needs of the race, but also use lifting weights to cover areas I wasn’t able to train when running – with this in mind I needed to continue with low reps and heavy weights. I changed to:
3x 6 deep back squats, deadlifts, 3x 10 squat jumps, 3x 4 sets of walking up then down stairs at home, 3x 10 split squat jumps, 3x 5m tip toe carries, 3x 6/TRX pull ups.
Here I found the shift in lifting really worked – notably changing the squats to deep squats I could feel the change in demands on my quads through increasing the range of motion I moved my joints through.
All of above worked well, I could feel myself getting stronger & more conditioned for the race, most importantly I was able to train consistently. Dropping a days running worked, lifting twice a week helped strengthen & shifting the easy runs to easy hills conditioned me. This in turn meant when I came to the specific block of work I was in a good place to start. One of the things I really hadn’t enjoyed last year was training with a pack on, regularly. This time I only wore once a week on the longer easy runs. Other than that no pack.
So it seemed I was in a good place strength/condition wise. Fuelling was planned into the all of the above 10 week training. I’d begun to experiment with taking on board a lot more fuel, on all runs, to acclimatise to higher carb intake. Massively helpful here was advice from @PauliusPeciura who shared his recipes and this meant I could make up high carb fuel mixes + electrolyte mixes for a fraction of the price. I begun to practice with 90g an hour, found it manageable and stuck with that pretty much from April onwards.
Finally the shoes. Honestly the Salomon Slab trail shoes left my feet pretty sore & I suspect this was magnified during UTS by other factors, alongside which regularly doing harder running in supershoes made me want to try out something new. This led me to the Adidas Agravix speed ultra, which were so much better. I also had a pair of rarely used Nike Trail ultrafly, which were again great for comfort on my longer easy runs.
Outside of that any road running speed / weekend sessions I ran in super shoes. So much better.
Running wise I topped out at 112km, 12 hours, 3500m Ascent/descent for the week in the last week of the specific block.
Taper wise I decided to give myself nearly 3 weeks (again longer than I would normally use). Dropped the S/C to once a week & dropped all the weight I lifted to 75% of what it had been.
I then saw that the weather forecast for the race was low 30’s high 20’s. I’m comfortable running in the heat, but felt it wouldn’t hurt to try something new, so integrated passive heat work the week before. With my running dropping off I booked 4 days in a local sauna, doing 30min broken sessions. Whether it worked or not who can say. I used my heart rate as a guide, not letting it get above what it would be for an easy run (so mid 130’s tops)
The race itself I decided not to rely on any fuelling from the aid stations, rather carry everything myself. I gauged it would take me around 8 hours, based off the training runs in Wales and what I managed at the beginning of Snowdon last year. So split this with 2x 300g precision fuel pouches (decanted into silicon flasks), 4x precision 30g caff gels + 8 PF1000 electrolyte tablets, with a view to drink 500ml of water every hour. To be certain I would fuel properly I set my watch to go off at 20 minute intervals, with the plan to have a caff gel at 1, 3, 5 & 7 hours. So regardless of where I was in the race I would stop or walk and fuel at that point.
Kit wise I used the following: Adidas Agravix Speed Ultra shoes, soar crew socks, runner wear pants, Satisfy Justice half tights, Soar trail zip top, Arc’teryx norvan cap, District Vision shades.
Pack wise a Salomon 12l Adv skin, Leki Ultra trail poles.
Aside from the 2 flasks with the pack I also took another silicon flask with a water filter.
The day before the race 2 hugely valuable things happened. Firstly I got some wonderful advice from @Joe_Warne re. downhill running, which I am awful at:
“Totally relax the upper body and hang loose from the hips, you need to not fight every step to slow down”
This proved to be priceless.
The second was a nagging niggle about what pace to run, should I race – all of which consciously I knew was pointless, as I am so far from being competitive in this However I also knew that if this feeling was unresolved I was in danger of pushing too hard too early, due to this sub-conscious desire to race which would be massively counter productive. So I started to write down what this felt like, where I thought it came from. I came to the conclusion it was some kind of childhood need to prove myself, and this realisation was enough. I knew that I didn’t need to go any deeper and I had nothing to prove and a sense of peace prevailed over me that left me content to run and not race.
The day of the race arrived. 5am start, bus to Salardu (where I was cold for the first time since I had arrived, so was glad for my warm layer & rain jacket to wear).
7am was the first wave/elites start, mine at 7:30.
I had decided to use HR as a guide/checkpoint to cross reference with how I felt, ensuring and check it was around 140-145, but not shifting over 150 until I was within sight of the end. This in line with what it sits at when running at around 80% of my marathon pace, manageable steady.
The first 18km of the race is a long climb up to Tuc do Podo. The race is known as the race of the lakes due to how many small lakes you run past in the first half.
The first 4-5k was nice, runnable gentle climbing and I was happy with how it all started. The first aid station at 8k and initially, everything going to plan. The next section is where things didn’t go to plan at all. Whilst I had a looked at the altitude, I hadn’t really engaged with what this would mean in real terms. The first really aggressive climb was around 12k, which I was very glad for poles. This at just over 2000m, for the next 6k things continued to be hard & this slowed my pace considerably. It first occurred to me the altitude may be playing a part, around 2 hours in when I begun to feel in a slightly dissociative or outer body state. Having experienced this working hard at altitude before (hiking out of bowls I’d fallen over in snowboarding) I knew what it was and knew that slowing down was the solution. Being at peace with finishing, above any need for a time pre-race, really helped here. I was happy for people to go past me and carry on at a pace that was comfortable and within my HR guidelines. However I also was now a little concerned about fuelling. Getting to 18k in 3.5 hours had me concerned the race would now take me over 10 hours and I hadn’t brought enough fuelling for 10 hours, so I’d need to use aid stations. Equally at this point I was still 5k from the next aid station and nearly out of water – this where my spare filter flask came in, filling up from the lakes and that proved a godsend as I could relax about water.
Up until this point the terrain was hard work, I was finding not suited for me to run, but I was determined and not feeling any problems with my body. Equally the mountains were beautiful & being in those surroundings was wonderful.
There was now a descent to Colomers, the second aid station & brutally hard second climb to Tuc du Salerna. The top of the descent of Salerna was too steep/rocky/technical for me to move quickly, but this soon dropped down into runnable trail, which was just below 2000m of altitude. This suited me perfectly and I got into a nice running rhythm and begun to move past runners. This was around the 30k mark, which it pretty much where I came unstuck at Snowdon the previous year. Now I felt strong and full of running. This section to the next aid station at Arties was excellent, I really enjoyed moving and during the downhills into Arties discovered just how well I could put Joe’s downhill running advice into practice. Coupled with quads that felt strong this filled me with confidence,
Reaching Arties I knew it was 12km, 1 climb and then a descent to open up on and run. The climb out of Arties had been cut from 1100m to 600m, but was very hard. 2 sections of 25%/22% grade after 42km of running was hard. At this point I was still going strong and passing people. My internal mantra “just one foot in front of the other”. I also got an insight post race in how altitude had affected me.
Climb @ 16km. 2h 12m into race, 15.8% grade 18:33 pace HR 141bpm Alt: 2395m-2457m
Climb @ 43km. 7h 48m into race, 22% grade. 18:27 pace HR 136bpm Alt:1446m – 1660m
Over 5.5 hours later in the race I climbed a slope 7% steeper, at a lower heart rate, 6 seconds faster. This really hit home just how much of a difference the altitude had on me.
Reaching the top of what I thought was all the climbing felt brilliant. It had started to rain around 42-43k in, but nothing like the torrential storms we had experienced earlier in the week. I’d also relaxed about my fuelling, dropping one 20minute interval of taking fuel, substituting for fruit in an aid station and was now confident of having everything I needed to reach the finish.
The last descent was amazing, descending fast, moving past people on the forest trails. The only fly in the ointment was an unexpected, really steep 300m climb. Once up this I could let go and ran hard to the finish. Jen (my wife) was there with a big smile. I got under the finish arch, rang the bell
Then had the moment where your body suddenly realises it has stopped running & wobbled a lot. Smiling broadly, I gently wandered over to a chair and sat down. Slightly dazed and a Little overwhelmed with the experience, very, very proud and exceptionally happy.
My finishing stats were:
Position: 476 / 1621
Men’s 50-54: 27 / 138
I also like the positional guide where you can see lost / gained positions at each check point.
Up to half way – 667 & lost 371 places from 1st check point
By the end back finished 476 & gained back 191 places
Time: 8h 56m 27 s
Dis: 51.39km
Asc: 2759m
Dec: 3042m
Avg HR 135bpm
Avg pace 10:26/km
Whilst tired, my body held up excellently. 1 blister under my left big toe, that I felt around 40k, but didn’t want to take my shoes off as seemed to be due to dirt in my shoe. Some aching in my back from my pack.
Friday / Sat my quads feel used, but walking around has been fine.
What I learned:
Pros –
Reflecting on the experience it seems that I struck upon a training balance that was sustainable & successful. It resolved the 3 issues I had pre race and allowed me to finish strong and come out of the race in a reasonably good condition.
Making peace with the need to push when it was totally counter productive, pre-race.
Being present in my surroundings and absorbing the beauty of the mountains.
To work on / found hard:
Altitude – this had a big impact on me, possibly 30-40 mins across the 16km over 2000m. The solution is to spend more time, pre race at altitude if I race something else that high
Use proper food for longer events. Post race I was talking to my wife about this, in terms of how long you can just take on gels. I reckon about 10 hours, as had no gut distress and felt good during the race, but equally I felt completely sugared out by the end and don’ think I had much more left in me for gels. This then corresponded with watching Killian Jornet’s WSER video, where he talks about just this as he’s making up his more food based fuel.
All in all it was a wholly opposite experience to last year’s DNF, but one that would have been impossible without the experience of last year.
BreatheToMove 