Whoop

One thing that has always puzzled me during the big runs is why some days I struggle to keep moving forwards and the miles tick by so slowly while other days I’m absolutely flying. Not to mention why, for example, miles 35-41 are really quick following a very slow start. 

The image below is the tail end of my miles on day 86 of the run across the USA in 2011. You can see mile from 33 I just got quicker. The image above is me and support man Carlton running that day. That was his first day on the tour! 

This is where I get distracted and think back to my blog from that day “What a day ladies and gents! What a day! The day actually kicked off at 5 am when Shelli drove the RV to pick new support man Carlton (pictured below saying "hiiyyyaaaa") up from the bus station in Columbus. Carlton had travelled for 24 hours on 2 planes and a bus. He looked very tired not only from the travelling but also a close encounter with pepper spray in the bus station.

After just 1 hours extra sleep, I set off running towards Columbus with Carlton. He managed 10 miles before bailing out. He's actually got a few injuries so I appreciate even more all miles that he runs with me. Carlton is a very funny guy and the first 10 miles flew over with his banter. 

I made it to Columbus just in time to talk to Gary and Lisa on the Real Radio Breakfast Show. This piece will be aired on Tuesday morning. I'll be talking to them again on Thursday for Friday morning's show. I'll be on the show 3 times next week and twice on the Legends. I'm very grateful to Real Radio for all of their coverage so far. It's been brilliant. 

The miles were ticking by really quickly out of Columbus. The temperature didn't get above 88 degrees Fahrenheit which made for a quicker than usual pace. At the 18 mile point I noticed a huge black guy pushing his car to a nearby a petrol station. I crossed the busy road to help him out. The poor guy was almost passing out. At the back window were 2 vicious dogs who seemed to be very "unhappy" with me. We managed to get the car to it's final destination and I went on my way. Moments later one of the dogs, a pit bull, came racing after me. This little blighter was clearly after a bite of my ankles so I tried using my trusty finger pointing method. The dog forced me onto the busy road where I was almost hit by a car. I "politely" shouted at the dog to "go away" (my son reads this by the way!). It took no notice so I was forced to enter into the next lane of traffic. One of the drivers saw my predicament and put himself between me and the dog. The dog gave up at this point and my heart was racing. The kind stranger made sure I was ok before driving off. That was as close as I've come to a) getting knocked over and b) kicking a dog in the teeth. 

I made use of my new found rush of adrenalin by getting to the 21 mile point at a very quick pace. There waiting for me was Mike Sumich, one of my followers on Twitter. He'd brought a couple of bottles of Newcastle Brown Ale for me. I'll be drinking those in New York. Thanks Mike. 

Mike joined me for 8 miles along highway 40 and it was nice to have his company. 

Mile 29 onwards are a bit of a blur and somehow I picked up the pace even more. Carlton joined me again for a few miles and I'd asked Shelli to do mile 40 with me. As I approached her, I aksed her to start sprinting. It took me a few hundred yards to catch her. She was running flat out. This had the effect of me being able to increase my pace even further and I got to the 41.5 mile mark before finishing for the day. The time was just gone 2030. This was not only the furthest I've ever ran but also quicker than my previous best for 37 miles (a record set in 2009). 

The most pleasing thing about the finish was that I felt that I had many more miles in me. Quite a few more miles in fact. I'm certain that this record of 41.5 miles will be beaten before this run is finished. I really hope that it will be as pacy as today's too. 

There was a tough start to life on the support team today. He managed to to run 16 miles with me, drive the RV and empty the RV waste (Pictured below. I forgot to tell him there were gloves available. Oops!).”

Anyway, back to my point. Why do I sometime get quicker during the day? During these months long runs, especially on difficult days, I seem to keep something in reserve. When the hard work is done. When I’ve battled through scorching conditions. There always comes a time when I feel I can go all in. I’ve seen it from John O’Groats to Lands End, across the USA, Australia and Europe. It seems to me to be a physiological thing. I wouldn’t know where to begin describing it. It is what it is. I look forward to that feeling of “I feel the need, the need for speed” next year in the USA (hopefully).

The bigger question is “Why do I recover well some days and not others?”. In other words, why do I feel fresh? Why don’t I feel like I ran 45 miles the day before? What is so different about today that I feel much stronger and quicker and less tired? To try and answer that question, with the help of the support team we’ll be logging various bits of simple data. This will include the amount of protein, carbs, sugar and sleep. I won’t be concerning myself with the daily average and peak temperature, humidity, distance ran and elevation.Instead I’ll be looking at 1 data item called strain from a Whoop fitness tracker. This gadget is used by many fitness professionals including many pro cyclists. 

The blue line on the graph below is the strain score during the Tour de France. It has a maximum value of 21 and I’m sure you can spot the 2 rest days on the graph. The other line is recovery expressed as a percentage. 

My hope is that through the logging and monitoring of both manual and Whoop collected data we can figure out what we can do to to give me as good a recovery as possible. I’m hoping we can spot trends and patterns and the support team and myself can agree that because we did x, y and z then you recovered better than when we did a, b and c. All of this is hardly being done under laboratory conditions but should at least go some way to giving me the best chance of having more good days than bad.