Total Distance
395 Km
Target: 468 Km
Total Time
55:24 Hrs
Elevation
13,064m
Training log – View here
How did the month go?
July should often be peak season for races and all sorts of fun things – obviously this year is different!
Coming to back of my well planned training plan that was put in place to get me 100Km running fit by the back of July it was time to make a reevaluation of what I was going to aim for as most events have been postponed until 2021.
The Paddy Buckley Round has been on my radar for quite a while and the allure of a mega self navigation monster with less than 200 listed finishers is sadistically appealing. Taking some time with the wife to stay up in North Wales in the in laws allowed me to really get stuck in to seeing what the route looked like.
In basic terms it is about 101-105Km taking in 47 peaks of Snowdonia with around 8,700m of climbing with the aim to be doing it in one go within 24hrs. Recently Damien Hall set the new FKT at 17:31hrs which is several hours longer than the Bob Graham, the Lake District’s better known equivalent.
So over July with doing all the sections (I will put separate posts up about the recces as it deserves it’s own dedicated section but it is sure to say it is immense!) of the Paddy and my other training did clock a few less Km than planned but with a whopping 13Km of elevation gain across very difficult terrain more than made up for it.
Injuries… what month in the mountains doesn’t come with some niggles… On the decent from Tyrfan which you basically have to down climb, I hit the inside of my knee on a rock, nothing serious but then combined with lots of downhill running lead to a very painful MCL.
Luckily the MCL injury is only noticeable when I bend my legs past 30 deg at the knee so I have decided to just keep training through it as it heals. What would a physio or doctor advise, who knows, didn’t ask… if you don’t know then you can just do what feels right 🙂
August is looking to be very interesting, we have:
- Birthday mid August where I plan to clock my first 100 mile (161Km) training week as a welcome to the next year of living.
- I am supporting someone on their attempt to break the FKT on the Paddy Buckley.
- Planning to try and establish a benchmark FKT on a route near my home on the Malvern hills spine run which I do in training.
Watch this space!
Now go on, just f’ing run!