MdS, Its Real

We, the MdS 2013 group, received the official dates for the race. It has now dawned on me that it is real. We will be flying out of London to Morocco on Thursday the 4^th of April and will return to London on Monday the 15^th of April 2013. This means that there are only 45 weeks and 6 days left until the race starts.

For many 45 weeks may sound like a long way off but when one prepares to run a multi-stage race of 250km’s this is not a lot of preparation time, and if you have a torn calve muscle that is healing slower than you think it should, as is the case with me, every day lost feels like a week.

Here are some of the things that I will be doing in preparation over the next 45 weeks?

(1)    Increase my weekly running total to 200km’s: this will consist of a long run of 48km’s per week and five 30km runs per week. The long run will be a single run on a Saturday while the shorter runs will be a combination of 10km, 15km and 20km distances split into morning and evening runs,

(2)    I will spend 10 to 20% of the weekly distance practicing to walk at between 6,5 and 7,5km/h,

(3)    I will increase my race-pack weight to between 10 and 12kg’s,

(4)    There is the matter of finalizing my race diet, getting used to eating the specific foods in the correct quantities and at the appropriate intervals,

(5)    Optimizing my running kit consisting of, shoes, clothes, race pack, technology, sleeping bag, sleeping mat, walking poles, medical kit etc.

But above everything else, I now have to get my calf muscle sorted. I need to be able to get back on the road logging some serious miles.

The next major event will be the Washie 100 miler which takes place at the end of July 2012. My aim with this race is (1) to carry a 10kg race pack, (2) experiment with in-race nutrition, (3) experiment with run / walk combination strategies and (4) measure various physiological responses such as heart rate, blood pressure and body temperature at regular intervals. I am not running the Washie as a race, but participating in it as an organised experiment. The real question is whether I will be able to complete 161km’s within the allotted 26hours with a 10kg pack on my back. To be able to do it I will have to average 6.19km/h which under normal conditions is not too difficult to do.

However, there is a rule of thumb to predict marathon running times with weight. The rule is that a 4kg weight will make you run 1.4 times longer. Any weight over 4kg’s will add an additional 25 minutes per kg to your running time. My marathon pace is around 7 min 51 sec per km, with 4kg’s it is predicted to be in the order of 10 min 59 sec per km plus 3 min 34 sec per km for the additional weight. With the 10kg weight I am predicted to take 14 min and 33 sec per km or run at an average of 4.13km/h. The prediction, therefore, says that I will only be able to complete about 107 km’s of the 161 km’s in the allotted time. Part of the Washie experiment is to challenge this rule of thumb by applying various strategies and to plot an accurate prediction curve that applies to me.

There is less than 10 weeks left until the Washie takes place, and hopefully, my calf muscle is totally healed by the end of May so that I can add the training distance required.

Thanks for visiting my blog.

Genis