A skeleton walked into a bar...

...and asked for a pint of lager and a mop.

Time for a review of my first full month of training for the Severn Challenge. While I may not yet be skeletal in build, I have lost 5lb this month, my current weight being 13st dead. I gained 1/4 of a pound in the last week; I'd like to think it was muscle glycogen from easy week, but 'twas more likely the cream tea, pasties, Chinese, bottle of wine and several pints of Rattler consumed during a long weekend in Cornwall. We did manage some training, including failing to locate the castle at Castledore; kind of a shame really as the castle is the main point of the place.

I completed my now traditional fourteen mile long run in the dark today...on Halloween. I failed dismally to spot any ghosties or hobgoblins, though there was that woman with the dog. 'Which woman?' I hear you ask. No, just a neighbour.

I shaved over 24 seconds a mile off from my previous run round the same loop wearing the rucksack three weeks ago, so something is working, but my pace is still slowing during the final five miles for the same heartrate; not scarily good, but not frightful either. And I've been out and held the pads for Squish to do some boxing, so I don't feel like the living dead either.

142 miles run this month and 38 walked; no serious niggles or injuries. As long as I can avoid my daughter's projectile vomiting bug, I should be fine for another good month of training. I expect that with the ground now getting wetter, my cross country times will get no better, but the workouts will get harder. I enjoy runs when I come back looking like a swamp creature, so it should be a real treat.

And Dave and Dave have entered, but Dave is still resisting. You know what to do...

Bags for life

Today I was at the trade show for the day job; as ever, unless you're after something specific (and I wasn't) it's just a case of wandering round, nattering to the reps and acquiring some freebies...most of which seemed to be jute bags/linen bags/bags for life.

Just how long do they think I'm going to live?

Surely by now, every household in the developed world must possess at least a dozen of the damn things, making them little more environmentally friendly than the good old carrier bag.

Some days it's worth getting out of bed

It's a fantastic feeling when the numbers tell you that training works.

Today I set out with Squish for the first 2.25 miles of my multi-terrain 6.25 mile route, before she took the shorter path, leaving me to go the long way round. We had a nice chat, my heart rate stayed low and I was perhaps a couple of minutes slower than usual to that point; I then allowed my HR to rise to my standard training rate of 150 or below for the rest of the run, which was decidedly claggy after the first serious rain for weeks. I caught Squish again a couple of tenths from home and we jogged in together.

It was a 45 sec PB for the route at an average of 6BPM lower than the previous PB.

Wednesday is also home to the Wednesday Whale Weigh (done at the Whaleweigh Station of course.)

I've just about cracked 13st at 12st 13 and three quarters. It's tenuous, but I'll take it; psychological milestone achieved.

I still have an awful long way to go to be back to where I was (I need to be running 9 min miles on road for an average HR of <150 for 20 miles and be 12st 7 or below) but it's looking ever more possible that I'll be there by the new year. After that, I can work on being better than I used to be!

Dave

Now that picture at the top of the page is Dave and me at the Transalpine Run (you can see some Alpines in the background.)

The Severn Challenge has already been entered by at least two Daves to my knowledge; it is an event for Daves; the sort of race where a Dave would feel at home; an ultra designed to be rewarding to Daves.

As I type, Dave hasn't entered.

I'm sure you've all heard of Anglo-Israeli mentallist Uri Geller, who employs supernatural forces to influence events in the real world. In the spirit of Uri, I'd like you to place your index finger atop Dave's head in the photo (he's the handsome chap on the left) close your eyes and chant 'enter, enter' in the most mystical voice you can manage. Thanks for your help.

Sofa...

soooooooo good! It's easy week after three weeks of hard work (103.4 miles running and 45.5 miles walking to date) and I'm glad of the rest. I've been surprisingly tired considering no running has been at high intensity; I guess getting up to near 50 mile weeks has been tough.

The results, however have been excellent; on today's long run, I covered 8.66 miles at 10:09 min miling; when I started, I was at 12:29 min miling; something's working.

I've taken 10 minutes off my standard walk time and currently weigh in at 13st 1 (and a quarter if you can believe that scales can be that accurate)...it's all looking good.

I'm not going to do anything radically different for the next three hard weeks; just going to do much the same again only finish feeling fresher; for the next week, however, it's feet up!

I have a plan so cunning...

...that you could pin a tail etc etc. Barring the intervention of tribes of pygmies with blowpipes and poison darts (not common on the banks of the Severn in early June) I'm unlikely to be winning the race. Other people have entered, which has blown my most realistic chance of coming first.

So I must look at completing the course, collecting the medals and T-shirts (four of each, it seems) and impressing the gullible with my tales of being 'only 24 hours behind the winner.' I need to work on:

• being thinner. At 2 sec/lb lost/mile faster, there's plenty of free speed to be had by stepping away from the pies
• keeping my heart rate down, so that I burn fat rather than glycogen for fuel
• walking. I doubt I'll run every step of the way, so I should train my walking muscles; also low HR walking sessions should improve my fat-burning capability.
• mileage; I'll need to do a lot of it for endurance
• strength. Abs and buns of steel will help support my core

This is all based on some of Hadd's theories as taken to their logical conclusion by that nutter Andy Collier. I believe them both to be right, but I'm not fit enough for 50 miles a week or three 30 mile runs, so I've needed to find an easy way to get the benefits. My plan looks like this:

• three runs of about an hour with an average heartrate of no more than 150 (which is 75% of my maximum) but lower if possible
• a long run of about 14 miles/3 hours max. with a rucksack and water bladder, again at 150 or lower if possible. This was carefully chosen as the doc's is 7 miles away and I needed to pick up a prescription
• one two hour walk, wearing a heartrate monitor so that it counts as training; the idea is to walk as fast as possible, with a rucksack on, to push average HR as high as possible
• a walk with the children on a Sunday; not training as such, but a valuable way of adding a few more miles

This has been enough at present, but I will add a weights/core session and dust off my old Powerbreathe to give my intercostal muscles and lungs a bit of a stretch.

I'm currently on week 3 of the plan and all is going well; 14 miles killed me and I had to walk on day 1 week1, I was a few minutes quicker in week 2 then ran all the way at a lower HR in week 3. Admittedly this was 10:43 min miling at an average HR of 147, which won't set the world aflame, but it's improvement. Hadd reckons that improvement comes in 6 week cycles, so I'll devote 21 weeks to the current plan (19 to go), before introducing some higher heartrate stuff for the final 12 weeks/two cycles then a two week taper. What can possibly go wrong?

I started back to exercise after my PE at a pound shy of 14st. I lost the first half stone while I was exercising rather than training, so cycle 1 day 1 saw me at 13st 7; last week's Wednesday weigh-in was 13st 2.5. I'm not trying anything more fancy than portion control and picking some healthier options; we'll see, shall we?

Finally, roadworks have lead to the closure of a local dead-end road; they've erected a sign which reads 'Access to frontages only.' Surely, that was the case even before the roadworks..?

My friend the Reaper

...or 'Grim' as I call him as we're on first name terms, nearly caught up with me at the end of last year's Transalpine Run. It's not the time to re-hash the whole sorry saga, but suffice to say that I became 14st-style fat and extremely lazy during my recovery from pulmonary emboli. I really needed to sort it out.

I'm quite happy to exercise, but I won't train unless I'm frightened, so I needed to find an event that scared the living bejaysus out of me. This arrived in the form of The Severn Challenge, a multi-day ultra-marathon (or 'gaylord stage race') from the source of the Severn to the sea. It's 214 miles over 5 days and largely gently downhill.

I've never run more than 45 miles in one go; I've certainly never done those kinds of distances on consecutive days. If I don't train, I won't finish. I've entered, I've started training; game on.