Changing Perceptions

Have you ever heard that such and such a supermodel won't get out of bed for less than £50,000 or some other preposterous amount? I used to be like that. Unfortunately, however, it was not great wads of cash that were used to entice me from my pit of slumber. A quick glance at the profile photo will more than serve to illustrate that no one is about to throw money at me anytime soon/ever!

In my case, it was medals.

Run 6.2 miles? There had better be a medal at the end of that; and it had better be a good one. None of your cheap plastic medals. And while you are at it, best throw in a t-shirt for my efforts; not one of those heavy cotton T-shirts either as I melt in them! I want a nice, practical technical t-shirt; and when the label says XL, can you please ensure that's a real XL and not some boy sized XL!

Didn't ask for much did I! Ahem!

It's funny how things change, and all in the space of a few years.

These days challenge, experience, achievement & friendship all rank way above medals. Don't get me wrong, I still love a good technical t-shirt and medal. The difference is that my expectations have changed considerably. Especially since I started running ultramarathons, I have come to appreciate that running and training for ultramarathons offers all of these things in abundance.

There is a fairly small, though steadily growing, ultra community in Scotland, with the same faces appearing at most events. Over the past couple of years I have developed a number of friendships with like minded individuals and we all strive to meet the challenges and experiences of ultramarathons, looking to complete the event for the sense of achievement that finishing brings, regardless of race position or time.

Looking back, as I moved up in distance, from 10k through to 55 miles (and hopefully 95 miles by the end of June!), my expectations shifted accordingly. Training for a half marathon would be somewhat incomplete without, for example, at least a 10 mile run in the build up to the event and, at least the last time I checked, there were no medals given out for training runs! At each and every stage in the journey from 10ks to 1/2 marathons, from 1/2 marathons to marathons and then, finally, from marathons to ultramarathons, how I felt at each point changed, shaped by the demands of the new distance.

So, from expecting a medal for merely rolling out of bed a few years back, I now rise at ungodly hours when even the birds are still asleep and set off on long runs so that I can return at a time that still leaves time for family, something that I am sure many of you are all too familiar with.

At one point in my 2011 training schedule, I ran three consecutive weekends consisting of a 28 mile run on the Saturday followed by 10 to 15 miles on the Sunday. The only 'prize' was a good soak in the bath and, of course, miles in the legs to help me attain my goals. 

In March 2010 I ran my first ultramarathon, the inaugural D33 race, from Aberdeen to Banchory and back. All finishers of this 33 mile race received Chocolate medals and a specially produced bottle of Brewdog Beer, embellished with the sound advice to 'Train Hard, Pee Clear'! In 2011 the medals were slate, crafted by a local company, CraftRocks, and were again accompanied with a specially labelled bottle of Brewdog Beer. In 2012 the medals will apparently be made of something reclaimed from Hurricane Bawbag! (and no doubt accompanied by a bottle of Brewdog Beer).

I cherish those medals (the chocolate has been 'removed') and have them stored alongside all of my other medals.

It probably helps if you have met Race Director George Reid to truly appreciate the sense of humour but, to give you an idea, the rules of the D33 are simple...

• If you get half way and find you can't, phone registration with your race number, tell them you are a loser and take the bus home
• Support, there is none required but if you want your mum to meet you half way with a jam sandwich then thats ok with us
• Only one checkpoint that is at half way turn around point
• You get water at checkpoint, anything else you need to carry yourself or get from your Mum
• http://deesidewayultra.webnode.com/

It's approximately 7 weeks until the D33, the first of my planned 7 ultramarathons in 2012 and I can't wait! Until then, I will embark upon a great many runs most likely up to and including the distance. There will likely be a lot of weekends of double runs. My rewards in all of these weeks will, at best, be a good soak in the bath... but it will be worth it in the end!

Hopefully, come 17th March, I will add another medal to the collection. It will be cherished as much as all of my other medals. However, there is much, much more to look forward to, both in training and on the day. Four words pretty much sums it up: challenge, experience, achievement & friendship

Tip 1

Just a tip for any of you who do like to keep your well earned medals - I thought keeping them all together in a nice box was a great way of preserving them. At least, that was, until I returned to the box and found that the various medals of the past few years had started reacting with each other, resulting in varying degrees of corrosion. I was gutted. Regardless, I set about cleaning them up as best as I could and now keep them all in individual freezer bags which should (he hopes!) prevent any further reactions.

Tip 2

At this time of year, there will no doubt still be a large number of you relying on head torches to light the way on those early morning or late evening runs. Thanks to the guys over at Hope Technology, I now have a greater knowledge when it comes to batteries. Those of you who have read my previous posts may have noticed that I invested in a Hope Vision 1 Adventure head torch (capable of a powerful 240 lumens on max power) after a run in with a tree stump that left both the front and back of my entire lower right leg bruised for over a month. Eager to avoid a repeat performance and with the 95 mile West Highland Way Race on the horizon, with a potential for two nights of running, I decided to aim for maximum brightness!

Now, as far as I was aware, AA batteries were all pretty much the same. The guys over at Hope put me straight on this one and advised me how to get the maximum performance out of my head torch. Rechargeable batteries would definitely appear to be the way to go, and most likely using some of the more well known brands, something that I would typically do. However, choosing a battery with a high enough mAh was something that was entirely knew to me. The torch performs better when using an mAh battery in the regions of 2650 - 2700 but even as low as 2100. I will leave it to Wikipedia to provide more detailed information:

• http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAh

The summary is 'the higher the mAh, the longer the battery will last.' Armed with this knowledge I am looking forward to getting even more out of the head torch and, as such, am much obliged to the guys over at Hope. Hopefully this will be of use to fellow runners.