Good morning people. Last night I went for a little wander and found that the hotel down the road has a sauna. I have decided each day to go to the hotel and take a sauna after I have completed my 100 minutes of running in the heat. Why on earth would I do that you may be asking. Is 100 minutes of running in the midday heat not enough? Well I want to be sure that I am properly heat acclimatised, and as I mentioned it has not always been that hot here since I arrived. Despite being in the desert, there are often clouds and occasional rain showers. I would find it tough if the temperature suddenly rockets once the race starts, and all I have experienced before that are mediocre temperatures (30C so far).
The sauna is not the ideal way to acclimatise for running in the desert, but combining it with my runs on the actual terrain and in the actual solar conditions I will experience during the race, and I am guaranteed to acclimatise well. 30 minutes of sauna time should be sufficient and I can do some stretching whilst I am in there. Most of my UK compatriots are using either saunas or Bikram yoga to acclimatise. The richer ones may be able to afford sessions in a heat chamber at Silverstone, but for that price they could also have had a weekend in Egypt or Morocco running in the desert. There are also some who choose to acclimatise by dressing up like the Michelin man before going out to run. Some may even be lucky enough to get away without heat acclimatising beforehand, but a sensitive soul like me who gets headaches very easily needs to do some careful preparation to avoid feeling like crap throughout the whole race.
Tuesday, 27 March 2012
Monday, 26 March 2012
3 more days of sand dune running
Hi folks. I have only just managed to get internet access again. The tour agent was kind enough to lend me his laptop as the Wifi feature of my Iphone doesn't work anymore. As you know I am in Merzouga and came here to do some heat acclimatisation and sand dune running. True to my aim I have been out running in the dunes every single day.
The first day, which I already covered in my previous post, I ran 4.9km in the dunes. That was the 23rd of March. On the 24th of March I ran 10.61km in the dunes and then later in the day I ran another 10km on stony ground. On the 25th March I ran 10km in the dunes and then walked for 3km in the dunes. Finally today I managed to run 15km in the dunes and then I walked for 1.64km in the dunes.
As you can see from the above, I have been building up the distances gradually. Each day I have tried to go out running during the hottest part of the day to get some heat acclimatisation. The first couple of days it was not that hot, but thankfully yesterday and today it was pretty hot. That is probably the reason why I had a headache and felt nauseous after my runs yesterday and today. I drank the same amount of water that I will be supplied with during the MDS i.e. 1.5 litres every 10km, so it does worry me slightly that I am going to have a constant headache throughout the MDS. I am hoping that as my body gets used to the heat more, the headaches will cease.
Running in the sand as you can imagine is pretty tough. That is another reason for building up the distance that I run in the dunes gradually. Your ankles and knees twist and turn in all kinds of directions, and you can never predict when the sand will give way underfoot, and in which direction it will give way. When you are running fast down the dunes you have to be careful not to hyperextend your knee when the sand goes from soft to hard and you don't get the foot sinking that you had anticipated.
In terms of speed I have realised that dune running is pretty slow. I have been averaging around 5 or 6km/h at best. It obviously depends on how hard or soft the sand is, and how much up and down you have to do to get from A to B. Here in the dunes of Merzouga there is no way to get from A to B without going constantly up and down, and some of the dunes are 150 metres high. A flat route simply does not exist. When I gave my average speed above, that is a pace that I can maintain with some degree of comfort. I am sure I could cover more ground per hour if I was actually racing.
I want to try to get to the stage where I am running 21km in the dunes during the hottest part of the day. Once I achieve that I will not try to increase the distance any further, as we are within 2 weeks of the start of the MDS and I should be starting to taper for the race. The optimum amount of time performing moderate exercise in the heat to achieve good heat acclimatisation is 100 minutes according to the research I was reading. Any more than that and you do not get any additional gain.
The first day, which I already covered in my previous post, I ran 4.9km in the dunes. That was the 23rd of March. On the 24th of March I ran 10.61km in the dunes and then later in the day I ran another 10km on stony ground. On the 25th March I ran 10km in the dunes and then walked for 3km in the dunes. Finally today I managed to run 15km in the dunes and then I walked for 1.64km in the dunes.
As you can see from the above, I have been building up the distances gradually. Each day I have tried to go out running during the hottest part of the day to get some heat acclimatisation. The first couple of days it was not that hot, but thankfully yesterday and today it was pretty hot. That is probably the reason why I had a headache and felt nauseous after my runs yesterday and today. I drank the same amount of water that I will be supplied with during the MDS i.e. 1.5 litres every 10km, so it does worry me slightly that I am going to have a constant headache throughout the MDS. I am hoping that as my body gets used to the heat more, the headaches will cease.
Running in the sand as you can imagine is pretty tough. That is another reason for building up the distance that I run in the dunes gradually. Your ankles and knees twist and turn in all kinds of directions, and you can never predict when the sand will give way underfoot, and in which direction it will give way. When you are running fast down the dunes you have to be careful not to hyperextend your knee when the sand goes from soft to hard and you don't get the foot sinking that you had anticipated.
In terms of speed I have realised that dune running is pretty slow. I have been averaging around 5 or 6km/h at best. It obviously depends on how hard or soft the sand is, and how much up and down you have to do to get from A to B. Here in the dunes of Merzouga there is no way to get from A to B without going constantly up and down, and some of the dunes are 150 metres high. A flat route simply does not exist. When I gave my average speed above, that is a pace that I can maintain with some degree of comfort. I am sure I could cover more ground per hour if I was actually racing.
I want to try to get to the stage where I am running 21km in the dunes during the hottest part of the day. Once I achieve that I will not try to increase the distance any further, as we are within 2 weeks of the start of the MDS and I should be starting to taper for the race. The optimum amount of time performing moderate exercise in the heat to achieve good heat acclimatisation is 100 minutes according to the research I was reading. Any more than that and you do not get any additional gain.
Saturday, 24 March 2012
Running in the sand dunes of Erg Chebbi
Hi everyone. I am now in Merzouga, Morocco. I arrived here yesterday afternoon after one and a half days of driving through the desert on MDS like terrain. The hotel is just a few hundred metres from the Erg Chebbi sand dunes, and I had my first taste of them yesterday afternoon.
After kitting up I set off in the direction of the highest sand dune I could see on the immediate horizon. Running on the smaller sand dunes was not that tough, but as the sand dunes got higher so did the intensity of my effort. The first kilometre took me 7 minutes but the second took me much longer. As the slope increased it was one step forward and half a step back. Finally on the highest sand dune I had to use both my hands and feet to scramble to the top. I dug both hands into the sand and then moved each foot in turn.
Once at the top it was very easy to get back to the village. Running down the sand dunes was no problem. You just have to let your momentum carry you down and try not to fall over. Even running on the flat was not that difficult as the sand was fairly compact. In total I covered 4.9km in around 45 minutes. It would have been much faster had I not tackled the highest sand dune in sight.
In terms of heat acclimatisation I am not getting the chance to do that at the moment. Yesterday the weather was overcast with occasional showers, and today it is much the same. The temperature is not much above 20C at a rough guess. I really want the mercury to increase so I can experience running in the extreme heat. If the MDS experiences weather like we are experiencing here at the moment, heat exhaustion will not be an issue. Saying that I am sure it is going to get much hotter in the next 2 weeks. The ideal situation for me would be crazily high temperatures before the race and lower temperatures during the race. That way my body would be able to handle the heat with ease. So please please Lord give me some extreme heat in these coming days before the race.
After kitting up I set off in the direction of the highest sand dune I could see on the immediate horizon. Running on the smaller sand dunes was not that tough, but as the sand dunes got higher so did the intensity of my effort. The first kilometre took me 7 minutes but the second took me much longer. As the slope increased it was one step forward and half a step back. Finally on the highest sand dune I had to use both my hands and feet to scramble to the top. I dug both hands into the sand and then moved each foot in turn.
Once at the top it was very easy to get back to the village. Running down the sand dunes was no problem. You just have to let your momentum carry you down and try not to fall over. Even running on the flat was not that difficult as the sand was fairly compact. In total I covered 4.9km in around 45 minutes. It would have been much faster had I not tackled the highest sand dune in sight.
In terms of heat acclimatisation I am not getting the chance to do that at the moment. Yesterday the weather was overcast with occasional showers, and today it is much the same. The temperature is not much above 20C at a rough guess. I really want the mercury to increase so I can experience running in the extreme heat. If the MDS experiences weather like we are experiencing here at the moment, heat exhaustion will not be an issue. Saying that I am sure it is going to get much hotter in the next 2 weeks. The ideal situation for me would be crazily high temperatures before the race and lower temperatures during the race. That way my body would be able to handle the heat with ease. So please please Lord give me some extreme heat in these coming days before the race.
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