Time for a Rest

15 years ago I was doing a mixture of fell racing, adventure racing and mountain marathons. Over the summer I competed every weekend in a long race. I was fit and running well. However, I started to struggle, it was not very obvious at first but people who would usually be just behind me in a fell race were just in front. But it got gradually worse; I was working really hard but getting less good results. In adventure races and mountain marathons my team or partner started carrying a lot more of the weight so I could just about keep up. Finally my body decided it had had enough, I had overdone the racing and training. It got to the stage where I could not even run a mile and I had to get the lift up three floors to my office at work. My resting pulse was 10 beats per minute above normal but when I went to the doctors for a blood test they found nothing wrong. It took three months to recover and another three to build up my training and get fit again.

However, two years the opposite happened. Over a month I competed every weekend in a long distance Lake District fell race (about 3-4 hours of hard racing with a lot of climb). On the first one I ran really badly but then on subsequent ones I improved each time. By the end of the month I achieved some of my best performances in these races.

There is always a fine balance between getting fit from doing long hours of training and racing and overdoing it. It is very individual and I seem to be able to cope with quite a lot but after what happened 15 years ago I have been a bit more cautious not to overdo it.

By the start of this year I felt I had fully recovered from my Wainwrights run over the previous summer. I started to train hard and gradually my results improved. By the end of April I was getting close to my PB’s in races. After that I got a bit of a cold – nothing too bad but enough to take it easy for a couple of days. I thought no more of it and carried on training and racing. But as happened 15 years ago my results seem to be getting gradually worse with people beating me who are normal behind me. Over the last two races, Duddon Fell Race and Blencathra, I have done my worst ever times despite trying really hard. All the way round I have been struggling to breath and had a tight chest. Normally after races I feel brilliant but after these recent races I have felt shivery. My resting heart rate also seems about 5 beats per minute higher than normal. It is hard to know but I feel I have not fully shaken of the cold virus and it is causing me to struggle.

 So the time has come for a bit of a rest to let my body recover. It is hard to do with so many great races coming up but if I do not stop now I might end up missing the rest of the season or doing myself some long term damage. I will still go out and do a bit of cycling and running but nothing hard until I know I am back to normal again. 

Enjoying descending from Helvellyn via Swirral Edge

Keswick Mountain Festival

Last year at the Keswick Mountain Festival I gave a talk in a tipi in the Festival Village whilst at the same time Joss Naylor MBE was talking at the Theatre by the Lake. It is funny how things have changed after my Wainwrights run, I have moved up the billing, and this year I twice shared the stage with Joss at the Theatre by the Lake with two very large and enthusiastic audiences. It was a pleasure and privilege to share the stage with the legendary Joss Naylor with Claire Maxted from Trail Running magazine doing an excellent job hosting both sessions.

I had talked to Claire and Joss about the sessions beforehand and we had a rough idea that Joss would talk for 10-15 minutes about his Wainwright run, then I would talk for 10-15 minutes about mine  (highlighting the differences and similarities) and then we would answer questions from Claire and the audience. But I had no idea how it was really all going to work which made me a bit nervous on the first night. However, it all seemed to go reasonably smoothly. A lot of people commented on our different styles: I need a presentation with pictures and film to talk around and I answer questions precisely, whereas Joss is happy just to talk, tell some great stories, and go off at a tangent, for example talking about his dogs.

After we finished talking a long queue formed to see Joss and get his autograph (Joss is obviously the star of the show!!). Some people also asked for mine, which I still cannot get used to or quite understand, but it is nice that they want it. Claire did a great job collecting money for mine and Joss' charities. Also Peter Knowles from Rivers Publishing was giving Wainwrights maps away for a £10 donation. Overall Claire collected over £400 for Joss and my charities and Peter collected over £1000 for community Action Nepal (CAN). So thank you for everyone who donated.

Normally I donate to MS charities as my sister has MS. This time I will give the donations together with my speakers fee to CAN, as there is obviously considerable suffering and hardship in Nepal at the moment.

Navigation Tips

Here is a link to a Berghaus article I have written on my top ten navigation tips:

http://community.berghaus.com/athletes/steve-birkinshaws-top-10-navigation-tips/

I think I need to listen to my own advice a bit more after making lots of mistakes due to a lack of concentration at the recent JK orienteering event in the Lake District.

Favourite Wainwirght Fells

Here is a article that can be seen on the Berghaus website where I list my top 10 favourite Wainwright Fells:

http://community.berghaus.com/athletes/steve-birkinshaws-favourite-wainwright-fells/

 It is a very personnel choice. Which good ones have I missed?

Mamot Dark Mountains

The Mamot Dark Mountains (http://www.marmot-dark-mountains.com/) is a Mountain Marathon for pairs taking place overnight in January. Obviously the weather overnight in January can be really tough, but that is the beauty of the event, it is a real test of mountain ability and navigation.

Last years event was in the Peak District and I was in the winning team with Tom Gibbs. This years event was taking place in the Howgill Fells. I was running with Jim Mann and we were expecting 10 hours of hard running and navigation. With two other top teams  (Kim Collison running with Adam Perry and Tim Higginbottom running with Alex Pilkington) it was going to be hard to win again. The weather this year was actually very kind. Patches of snow, but dry and a bit windy but nothing too bad.

Kim and Adam had a storming run to easy win in a time of 8 hours 34mins for the 53 km course with 3000m of ascent. So congratulations to them. I have run with both these two at recent OMM’s and I know how talented and determined they are.

There was something strange with the map at the 3^rd control on the elite course. It was in a sheepfold and although it was in the right place the contours all seemed wrong, its altitude seemed to be around 20m higher than it was meant to be. Kim and Adam found it quite quickly, Tim and Alex looked for around 10 minutes found another bit of wall and decided it was not there, whereas me and Jim eventually found it after 35 minutes searching (including going back to three different attack points and trying again). We certainly know that slope well!

After that I started to struggle and the next three hours was really bad. Jim was brilliant and just accepted I was doing my best and carried my pack up the hills. But I am really disappointed. I thought I was running well again and it is hard to realise this is not the case. I do actually wonder if I am good enough to compete at the top any more. However, I always try to look at the positive side of a race so these are:

1. We actually finished the course with a time of 10 hours 41 minutes. I seriously felt like dropping out at times but as I have said before feeling a bit tired is not an excuse to give up (http://community.berghaus.com/athletes/running-tips-coping-pain/)
2. After feeling absolutely awful for 3 hours I picked up a bit
3. I am not injured and got round without doing myself an injury (which is probably surprising considering thenumber of times I fell over
4.  It was great being out all night with Jim, navigating around the Howgills

Thinking about it I have not done a run longer than 2 hours since the OMM at the end of October. So I guess my body was just not prepared to run this far. 

Below are the before and after photos from Ian Corless (www.iancorless.net). The photos speak for themselves.

Thanks to Shane, Charlie and the team of volunteers for putting on a great event.

100,000 Blog Views and Finally Running Well Again

According to the page statistics I am just about to reach 100,000 views of this blog. So thanks to everyone who has had a look, I hope you have enjoyed reading my adventures over the past year.

Here is a list of where people have viewed my blog are from:

Entry	Pageviews
United Kingdom	81088
United States	8985
France	1353
Germany	777
Ukraine	626
Netherlands	414
Turkey	394
Sweden	378
Moldova	303
Australia	241

I have also had 476,385 views on Google+ but I am not sure how this works!

I have decided to carry on with the blog but I have changed the title as the original one does now not make any sense. So it will now be Steve Birkinshaw’s Running blog. Changing the web address is harder so I will keep this.

After my last blog about getting back to running (http://community.berghaus.com/athletes/back-to-running/) I seemed to go backwards. I did the OMM (http://stevebirkinshaw-wainwright2014.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/omm-2014.html) and a few other longer races and felt exhausted and took ages to recover. My normal resting heart rate was also around 50 beats/minute instead of its usual 40. I rested for 4 weeks and started training again towards the end of December. After 4 good weeks of training my resting heart rate is back to around 40 and I feel like I am running much better and recovering better. I now just need to loose the 7lbs of weight I have put on.

Wainwrights DVD

The DVD of my Wainwrights run is now available to buy from Alistair Lee at Posing Productions who produced the film. To buy the DVD or download a copy go to http://www.posingproductions.com/homepage.php.

There are two versions:
1) The stand alone Wainwrights film. This has the longer version (45mins) plus:  What the Crew Got Up To (16mins) and Steve's post-run interview (7mins).
2) The Wainwrights film as part of the Brit Rock 2014. The has a 31min version plus 3 other long climbing and mountain biking films and two short films.

DVD's are £19.99 and downloads £14.99.