The experienced mountain man, a four time finisher of the gruelling Tor des Geants in Italy, had a fantastic trip. Not just seeing the major resort areas that most confine themselves to, the race and the Tenerife No Limits and Anaga Experience showed the welshman a whole lot more of this island paradise.

Every race comes with lessons, especially in ultra running. Below are the most valuable things that Philippe took away from the heat, altitude, volcano running and entire spectacle that is the Tenerife Blue Trail.

Don’t go wild from the gun

The start is actually pretty flat and, as with many European races, it’s an electric pace. After about three kilometres it enters a river bed and the single track doesn’t allow for easy overtaking in the next two kilometres.

The temptation therefore is to fly off to get a good position at the start, but as my coach Robbie Britton always says “There’s plenty of time to overtake later on”. Yes, it might get a little frustrating to be behind a slower runner for a while, especially if they’re blocking the way past with their poles, but it’s an ultra marathon, not a sprint.

Most of the overtaking in these races is actually done at the checkpoints (CP) and the final stages. You jump up positions every time you pass through a CP as many drop out here, especially in the heat and altitude. Save those legs for the final sprint.

Photo: Tenerife Blue Trail

Know your course

It wasn’t until around 70km that I realised I’d been taking it a bit too easy on some of the runnable sections. The heat and altitude play tricks on your mind and I had walked along a relatively flat section that I could have at least run/walked.

The altitude, heat and excitement of summiting the volcano had distracted me from how tight the deadlines were. I suddenly surged in panic and hit the 72km food stop with only 23 minutes left before the timeout. I stared at the race profile poster that was stuck to the wall. My mind churned the numbers but it is always best to have a clear idea of these at the start, rather than letting a sleep and sugar deprived mind try to do complicated calculus (well, it seemed like that) in the middle of a race.

You don’t have to know every detail, but having a good idea of the profile, the water stops and what’s expected of you can really help with planning and managing a race.

Spot the runners? Photo: Tenerife Blue Trail – ilovetheworld.es

Take the time to enjoy the island

As racers we often see a lot more than most of anywhere we visit. Be it an ultra marathon or a city marathon, you can find yourself heading down streets or trails that you’d otherwise never have seen.

It’s tempting to organise your trip to fly in and out of a destination as quick as possible, trying to just get the job done. But is that what’s best for the place you’re visiting? A responsible traveller knows that they have an impact on the communities of any place that relies heavily on tourism and seeing a path less traveled is not only satisfying, but good for the whole island too.

The Anaga Experience helped me do just that and it was a great way to help bring a bit of recovery to the legs post race by visiting a few more beautiful locations in the biosphere reserve on the island.

Photo: Promocion 365

Future plans

The Tenerife Blue Trail Ultra a race for keeps. It has made it firmly into my top three events of this distance and I definitely am aiming to return. Not only to better that close call at the finish line but to see more of a fantastic island. Family are also interested. Plans are already afoot, perhaps next year, for a Roberts family visit to Anaga. Some scenic training and fun family excursions await.

Philippe is a four time Tor des Geants finisher who just keeps going back for more. The 330km mountain race circumnavigates the Aosta Valley in the Italian Alps and goes up and down a lot of hills. 

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Thanks to:

Tenerife Bluetrail – what a race!

https://www.tenerifebluetrail.com/en

Tenerife No Limits – for helping to organise the trip and for their athlete centred approach to Tenerife tourism

https://www.webtenerife.co.uk/tenerifenolimits/

Anaga Experience – for showing us the north of the island and sharing their vision for helping to invest in small communities – www.anagaexperience.com

Hotel Silken Atlántida, Santa Cruz – for a runner friendly base for the race (12mins walk from the race expo)

https://www.hoteles-silken.com/en/hotel-atlantida-santa-cruz-tenerife/

The post Tenerife Blue Trail: More than just a race appeared first on Fast Running.

When my coach suggests a new race, I tend to just trust and go with the suggestion. I might check the distance, location and elevation gain but apart from that it’s all good. So in April this year I got a message: “Do you fancy doing the Tenerife Blue Trail on 8th June?”. Why not?

We had previously discussed an alpine race in Switzerland for July so bringing the date forward made sense. I’m training for a big alpine race this September so a June 100k with plenty of climbing was a better choice. It would give three months recovery between the events so I could be fresh in September, knowing that the miles are in the legs.

I agreed but I didn’t bother to check the race details. After all it’s just another ultra right!?

Checking your race out in advance

No, it’s a volcano. A big volcano! It took a few days before I checked the race profile out of curiosity. The race starts at sea level and reaches 3500m altitude on the Teide volcano after 50k before then descending back down to sea level. Total elevation gain 6000m+ over 100k. Rather meaty.

The middle of the race has a 30km section which is continuously over 2000m altitude. After summiting the volcano there’s a 25km long, almost continuous, descent from 3500m to 500m. As if all that wasn’t enough sea level temperatures are dramatically different from temperatures at 3500m in Tenerife.

Not only is it a very challenging event in its own right but it’s also a good preparation race for the longer distance alpine ultras at the end of August or early September. You get to test your climbing, your descending, how you cope with high altitudes and all whilst enjoying new and beautiful trails.

Finding a formula that works

My current format of doing a shorter, faster race perhaps two to three months before my season’s “A” race is not something I was doing before 2014. Before then I had somehow decided that I must be Superman!

Training for me was of the “how many big races can I do in one year?” variety. That along with “as many miles in a week as possible”. You don’t have to be an ultra runner to relate to that one these days.

It was no surprise then that 2013 was my “Year of the DNF”. I failed to finish 4×100 mile events for a number of reasons. The main reason though was overtraining and lack of recovery. I pushed my knees hard in training in the June and July and ended up injuring myself so badly I had to pull out of my big “A” race in August. I was not a happy runner!

From 2014 my strategy began to change; however, it wasn’t until I got a coach in 2015 that I actually reduced my weekly mileage. One of the first things we did was reduce my weekly mileage, almost by half. My previous focus on mileage had me approaching things a little wrong. It’s not just more is better.

We built more quality and variety into my training. Hills, intervals, tempo running and keeping the easy runs easy. The variety was very different and the intervals really did hurt, but I wanted to improve and we’ve certainly made huge steps in the last few years.

Lessons from the hills

As someone who had struggled with knee issues on those long alpine descents I have found doing 4 years of weekly hill repetitions to have slowly built up my legs to the point where both my strength and technique can cope with the hours of running downhill.

Back in 2014 my descending was of the stagger, crawl and cry in agony all the way downhill variety. Saying that though hill reps are not always easy to do if you live in a flat area. Kansas is not exactly the Alps and finding any hill with more than 20-30m of elevation gain was a challenge during a visit earlier this year.

Back home in South Wales it is still impossible to find a hill with the kind of elevation differences that you get in the Alps. But with a well thought through strategy you can get a similar training effect. A shorter hill with many fast repetitions will go a long way towards building the strength you need and we have got some decent bumps in the Brecons.

Is more mileage the answer?

So, do ask yourself if doing more miles is really the answer. Spacing out your races, dialling down your mileage, increasing the intensity of your speed and hill workouts while reducing the intensity of everything else. Sprinkle into the mix some short periods of recovery and you’ll slowly find that your average pace just gets quicker.

Doing less in an intelligent way may be just the change you need. Is it mentally easier? In my experience no. I found it much easier knocking off 10 x 10k each week at roughly the same pace combined with a long run at the weekend than I do running half that mileage but having to do hills and speed work once a week each.

It just takes an extra mental effort to motivate yourself to do a short hard effort. But that is really what it takes if you want improvement. The reduction in mileage allows your body to recover so that you actually get faster instead of overtraining.

Like a fine wine…

As someone who is going to be a V2 racer from this year I don’t expect the same kind of improvements year on year as someone in their 20s or 30s but I have seen a consistent speed increase over the last 4 years. Less injury, more comfort on the downhills, faster times.

If you had suggested to me four years ago running a 3000m descent down the side of a volcano I would have probably said no. Perhaps I would have tried it? But honestly it would have been with a lot of discomfort. Can I guarantee not getting injured? Of course not. That is just the nature of the sport. But compared to four years ago I now feel that I can look forward towards each race with a reduced chance of injury and a steady improvement in my times.

Do I dream big? Of course I do! That for me is part of the mix of being a runner. At least now I can actually slowly move towards a long-term end goal. Less training of a higher quality has for me certainly meant more.

Philippe is a three time Tor des Geants finisher who just keeps going back for more. The 330km mountain race circumnavigates the Aosta Valley in the Italian Alps and goes up and down a lot of hills. 

A grand thank you to the Tenerife Tourism Board for having Fast Running over to play on their volcano. Philippe will be reporting back after the adventure too. 

Are you a fan of Fast Running? Then please support us. For as little as the price of a monthly magazine you can support Fast Running – and it only takes a minute. Thank you.

The post Lessons from a mountain ultra runner appeared first on Fast Running.

After recently enjoying the suffering of the Armagh International 5k race a few people mentioned it must have been easy as you’re used to running much further. After all, it was only 15:27 of running,  compared to 24 hours, my “favourite” discipline of ultra running. 

There’s an assumption, certainly in the running media, that ultra marathoning is only for the masochistic, that we’re super tough and ultra runners are just loads tougher than the shorter distance runners. This simply isn’t true.

Newsflash: running 5k hurts, really hurts. If it’s not a physically and mentally challenging experience then you’re not trying hard enough. You might even suggest that if an ultra feels harder than a 5k then you’re probably pacing both badly. 

The first 80 miles are easy

This is one of the quotes a friend made into a business card for me many years ago, but it still rings true. If you’re running 100 miles then at least the first 80 miles should be done at an easy effort. Yes, it will start to feel harder, become uncomfortable and you might have some blisters, but you shouldn’t be working hard. It’s just not sustainable for the time frame you need it.

So how much should a 5k hurt? In preparing for Armagh I went and did Huddersfield parkrun on Christmas Day and I’m glad I did. There was an almighty shock for me as a present that day. It hurt. About three kilometres in, all of a sudden, I was reminded just how hard running a 5k is.

Until about three kilometres I was running fast, breathing hard, mentally struggling to keep up with the two chaps ahead. Then boom. It was hurting more than I had done in an ultra. I was still catching the two runners ahead, I would briefly take the lead (although no one truly leads a parkrun) on the last bend, but then have one runner come past again before the finish. 

The same at Armagh. About 2.5-3km it goes from feeling “easy” to run the pace needed to becoming a lot harder. Whether this is down to the level of competition and one’s perception of effort, just a build up of waste products in the body or both and another multitude of factors it felt harder than ultra running.

Stopping for a cup of tea

When the going gets tough in an ultra you can stop, have some food or splash your face with water and then continue at a world record pace. Having a pee or eating a sandwich are actually necessary to run your best, whereas a cup of tea at halfway would totally destroy your 5k PB attempt.

The margin for error is much smaller with any distance below 50km. The marathon in Valencia came down to about 30 seconds to achieve my goal. Each of the final six miles really did hurt, but none hurt like a 5k or shorter race. It was more a battle with the mind than the body.

That narrow margin for error seems to heighten every little aspect, but also increases the pressure we place on ourselves. That pressure can make everything feel harder too.

The frequency one can race shorter distances events might actually help reduce that pressure a wee bit too. The fact that the pain of a 5k might be lessened in our heads just because we know you can go all out again in a short while’s time.

A thousand pinpricks

That’s not to say an ultra cannot hurt. Oh my, they can be painful. But it’s more like a thousand pinpricks, with each step in the second half being another little additional cumulative pain, than the large twat around the head that each minute of a 5k can feel like. The marathon is somewhere in between.

The coping techniques we use can still be very similar and there is a benefit for having some variety in your racing.

We’re all familiar with self talk, telling ourselves we can keep going, drive through the pain. Willing the body to give one last big push and reminding ourselves that “you can do this”. It’s a technique that works well for all distances, but as I wrote about recently, the conversation can be a lot shorter and louder for the shorter distances, whilst in an ultra it is more of a prolonged debate.

Breaking the challenge down works too. An ultra runner might try to get to the next checkpoint 10 kilometres away, whilst a 5k runner is just aiming for the next lamppost 100 metres away, before renegotiating with a suffering pair of legs.

If you can convince your body to push through the pain of a shorter distance, then it becomes easier to make the legs play ball in a marathon or ultra too. It’s like lifting bigger weights for the mind.

I’m not sure it works brilliantly the other way round though. Telling yourself that it’s “only 5k to go in a marathon” still seems shit, although it might be a little less so if you’re used to suffering for hours on end in a 100 miler. The continuous pushing of shorter distances makes it a tougher ordeal, there is just no respite in the motivational battle. 

Putting it in practice

Even this weekend past, running a trail marathon in the heat in Gran Canaria there were moments where it was only 10km to go, but knowing I could run 100 miles didn’t really make me feel any better. Crewing my friend in the bigger race when he “only had a marathon left” didn’t make him feel like it was a final push.

It’s easier to make yourself run ultra marathon pace when it hurts than it is to run 5k pace. That’s a given. Yet in the last few kilometres I was reduced to a walk for no reason other than lacking the mental drive to keep going. I thought about Armagh and how hard I had pushed then.

At Armagh it was eight or nine minutes of pushing, albeit at a much harder level, but at TransGranCanaria it felt harder to bring myself to run a sub 10 minute mile, rather than the sub five minute miles a week before. 

The pain was a whole lot less, but the motivation was certainly harder. The trail marathon was hot, rocky and I had taken a nice roly-poly down one of the hills too, but it wasn’t the pain stopping me going faster. Running too hot, empty on energy, but most importantly, empty on motivation brought me to an amble.

Will running longer help?

Will that help me in my next 5k? I wouldn’t think so. In the same way does running a 10k help an 800m runner push harder on their next double lap? It’s a totally different type of pain and I think it only really works one work and that is up.

Physiologically the combination of anaerobic and aerobic work required for a true maximum effort at 800m is the hardest thing any runner can do. My friend Andy Kett once told me his biggest dread came in the final 100m as the pain after finishing was the worst.

Until the aftermath of finishing fills you with fear, you’re not racing the hardest distance. Ultra running is easy, marathon is tough, 5k is painful but 800m running scares me away from the start line…. maybe in the summer.

Robbie is sponsored by Odlo, Profeet Sports Lab and Precision Hydration. If you want to follow his training chasing sub 2:30 you can also see it here on Strava or the highs and lows of Twitter and Instagram.

RELATED: The highs and lows of a sub 2:30 marathon 

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The post What’s tougher, 5k or an ultra marathon? appeared first on Fast Running.