Most of my recent training has been in the gym, doing as
much low impact exercise – walking on a steep incline on the treadmill, or on
the elliptical cross trainer. I think it
has managed to maintain my fitness as much as I could have hoped for, though obviously
it’s not ideal. Having said that, either
way I will be doing a lot of walking in the Sahara, and the elliptical cross
trainer movement seems like a good approximation for running in sand… so
hopefully there has been a bit of a silver lining!
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It was A LOT windier than it looks! |
I've had the last two weekends up in the Lakes where I've
been doing some fast walking with a pack up mountains. The first Saturday outing was over Grisdale
Pike and behind VERY windy – I almost got blown off the top! I got some ITB twinges but they weren't bad
considering, given the wind though and me building confidence in my legs again
I decided not to stay up high for too long (the gusts were making me land in
odd positions on my legs) and not to push my luck. So I didn't go too far but got some good ascent
in and resistance against the wind over the three hours or so I was out.
The next morning I went to a local smaller hill called Barf
which is next to Bassenthwaite Lake and has some good scree up the first couple
of hundred meters which I did (almost) five reps over an hour up to a white
painted rock call the Bishop (I was running out of time and didn't want to push
my ITB). I felt very good and strong and
fitter than I had expected which was a good boost. I hand only slight ITB twinges but not bad
really considering I was actually running downhill. No problems on the uphill
at all, so hopefully I should be good at getting up things – might just be
slower than others going down.
Last weekend I drove up to the Lakes on the Saturday morning
and parked at Seathwaite and went over Styhead Pass to Wasdale Head, incorporating
two or three hundred meters of ascent on scree low down on Great Gable (I could
really feel my calfs going up the steep scree).
The cloud was low and it was very gusty so I decided it was best not to
go to high and focus on the training. I
came back via Sprinkling Tarn, being tempted to go up Scarfell Pike which felt
very close, but I was running out of time again – and best not to tempt fate
with the leg at this point! Again some
ITB twinges going downhill but not too bad really.
I did all of these sessions in my smaller pair of my Brooks
Cascadia I’m using for the MdS – so some good exercise for the ankles.
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The view was stunning! |
On my way back south on Sunday I took in a trip to Formby
beach – my last opportunity before the MdS and I wanted to test out my legs in
the dunes and test out my gaiters.
I got some (ok a lot!) very funny looks in the car park in my gaiters
with my Raidlight bottles and pack – given the location I must have looked very
strange. I would have thought I’d feel
self-conscious, but as in the gym with all my layers on, I weirdly quite like
the attention, even though everyone thinks I’m potty!
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I managed to get some poor man who was trying to enjoy the view to take this - I think he thought he should call the men white coats... |
In other news I’ve seen the Physio a couple more times and
the effect feels positive – I just need to re-build my confidence in my legs;
most of this experience is psychological after all.
I’ve started getting into the Hot Yoga properly now,
building up the number of sessions I’m doing each week (3 last week, hopefully
4-5 this week and 6 next week…). I
wouldn't really call what I’m doing proper yoga (I’m rubbish at it) but the
stretching and heat are good. The studio
I’m going to uses radiant heat panels rather than air conditioning which heat
the body rather than the surrounding air, so while the air temperature might
not be as hot as say in Bikram yoga, it does get the core body temperature well
up! I've also been combining this with
my ‘Michelin man’ sessions at the gym first to de-hydrate a bit and get the
core temperature up for a good period before going in. I certainly start sweating a lot quicker
having done the exercise beforehand! I’m
thinking of maybe extending the heat element by wearing a black long sleeve top
and maybe leggings but bit by bit! We’ll
see how that goes!