Training diary update – August 2020

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I mean can you even do a run without the obligatory crap on the floor shot?! Preparing to support @ultrarunnerliam tomorrow for a 4am start in #llanberis for an attempt on the #paddybuckleyround. I am going to be running stages 1 & 2 with him from Llanberis to Capel Curig covering about 35Km and 3,400m of climbing over some very tough terrain. Weather is definitely not in our favour for Liams record attempt with wind reaching 60Km/h on the peaks but shall be an adventure 🤘 #paddybuckley #ultrarunning #ultrarunner #ultrarunningteam #ultrarunners #ultrarunnersofinstagram #trailrunninglife #trailrunning #trailrunners #trailrunner @inov_8 @salomonrunning @garminuk @altrarunning @petzl_official @petzlrunning @injinji @tailwindnutrition @tailwindnutritionuk @newbalance @newbalancerunning

A post shared by Charles Smith (@justfingrun) on Aug 21, 2020 at 7:40am PDT

Training log – View here

How did the month go?

After a busy July in North Wales starting to get to grips with the scale of the Paddy Buckley route August had some nice stuff in it:

• Supporting Liam Mills on his FKT attempt on the Paddy.
• Birthday week – The aim was to do my first Imperial Tonne training week (100miles / 165Km).
• Attempt my own FKT on home turf in the Malvern Hills.

Let’s go through these in reverse order…

Malvern End to End FKT

This didn’t happen for a couple of reasons, 1 someone else got their first and did a time I couldn’t get close too (though there is still some argument about what constitutes the whole line of peaks but the attempt done was excellent and no questions from me about it’s validity!). Guess there is no other reason on this one!!

Birthday Week

I work in Km’s but there was always an appeal to have that 100mile training week badge so I decided that it was my birthday on the Friday and I wanted to do it on Monday – Friday that week.

To add a bit of extra “fun” I decided on 04:30 starts to really embrace the challenge and to be honest come back from my morning Half Marathon when others were just getting up was really nice. I mostly split in to 20Km in the morning and a 10Km in the afternoon which worked really nicely. Did the challenge with great satisfaction and no adverse injuries – which is a bonus.

Liam’s Paddy Buckley

I could wax lyrical about the Paddy Buckley and it’s brutal beauty but I will leave that for now. I followed Liam Mills on Instagram for a while and noticed he made an attempt in July but had some issues. Undeterred he was going back in late August for another crack at Damian Halls record and needed some support people.

I have never done this before for someone but wanted to help and thought it would be a good opportunity to meet some really top end runners and see what they were like.

After some discussions with Liam I would join him on leg 1 and 2 from Llanberis to Capel Curig as much as I could but which his projected pace I would likely be dropped so I would then use some navigation skills to alter my route and meet him at key places. The aim was to help with some water / food support, bit of moral support and to help with the complex task of people logistics moving the other support crew from their cars to start / finish points.

105Km/h wind on top of Snowdon the day before! 65Km/h on the day… It was always going to be tricky and Snowdonia didn’t let up at any point. On and off pace until well up Moel Siabod but unfortunately the route took it’s toll and no record was broken. But most importantly Liam completed the route in a respectable time which is an awesome achievement, glad I could be a small part of the equation as well as spending some time with some great runners and great people.

Big lesson out of this – I have now run with fast mountain runners and I am a VERY LONG way from being fast, in fact I am long way from being comparatively slow. This might sound strange but I am very glad to have had the opportunity to get my Ego checked and kicked back in to touch

Now go on, just f’ing run!