Everest Marathon

Rusty Cogs 08

T - 62 / Sunday / 12m Hills / 1:43'48" / AvP 8'39" / AvHR 143

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/15344927

Today saw me out on a pretty busy Bray Head for the first of my off road/hill runs. I walked up Bray Head with the OH to record my youtube video clip promoting the marathon and it's charity. Due to much giggling and retakes that took a good half hour (I'll link it here when it's up).

Then it was down to business, I ran across to the trig point behind Bray Head, decended down to the cliff walk, ran back towards Bray, back up to Bray Head, back to the trig point, back down to the cliff walk, back towards Bray again and then turned and ran the cliff walk back out to a friends in Greystones. A good 12 miles with a mix of all kinds. No drama with the shoes, no trips or falls so all in all, I'm happy with the run. It was nice to get out and do something different and running up Bray Head is something I would have laughed at if suggested to me not so long ago.

Then out to the OH with a couple of friends to pull tree stumps out of the ground with his Landrover Defender. A bit of spade and axe work thrown in and you can imagine that I should sleep well tonight.

Rusty Cogs 08

T - 61 / Monday / Rest Day

All of yesterday's excursions have me a little sore today but as they say, you'll have that.

When I was first accepted for this race I figured I'd be packing an extra base layer and a packet of Fishermans Friends for the hike. Then I received the 'Kit List'. This is what I've been collating over the past few weeks. As a man who's camping experience has extended to the Electric Picnic it's becoming both enlightening (and financially lightening) to track all this down but for those who fancy a + 5,000m marathon, here's what you need.

Doctor's Certificate

Insurance

Visa - Nepal

Vaccinations
Consultation
-Tetanus
-Polio
-Typhoid
-Hepatitis A
-Hepatitis B
-Rabies

Race Kit list (must carry during race)
-long sleeved thermal top and leggings
-additional top and leg coverings
-rain and windproof jacket (with hood) and trousers
-glove/mittens and balaclava/thermal head covering
-Lycra running pants
whistle on a neck cord
Polythene survival (bivvy) bag
head torch and new battery

Hygene Kit
Water purification
-liquid iodine (2% solution with dropper)
Diarrhoea treatments

First Aid Kit
-Personal Medication
-plasters/plastic skin/Compeed
-3'' crepe bandage and fastening
-painkillers
-antiseptic cream
-imodium/loperamide
-vaseline
-sunscreen (F20 - 25), lip salve and moisturising cream
-lozenges/cough sweets
-rehydration sachets
-scissors / penknife (small)
-baby wipes
-needle & cotton, safety pins
-water steriliser
-antihistamines
-Zovirax

Baggage
-Kit bag
-polythene bag liner
-combination padlock
-25 litre day pack / ruck sack
-Hotel bag w/lock
-Money belt
-# polythene bags for wrapping odds

Clothing
- Thick jersey / fleece
- Warm trousers
-Baggy / light trousers
-Shorts
-down jacket
-T-shirts (2)
-thin shirt w/sleeves
-underwear (3)
-socks, thin (3)
-socks, thick
-gloves
-sun hat wide brim
-woolen hat
-large square silk scarf
-sunglasses

Footwear
-Trekking shoes/boots
-Running shoes
-Sandles

Camping
-4 Season sleeping bag, compression straps, w/proof stuff bag
-water bottle (1 ltr)
-string/cord & pegs
-multipurpose soap
-lighter
-alcohol gel & baby wipes
-small towel & toilet kit
-handkerchiefs

Other
-Camera + memory
-Writing material

Extras
-Inflatable pillow (for tent)
-sheet liner for sleeping bag
-Thermarest mattress
-Swimming shorts
-Ipod
-Guide books & maps
-travel games

Food
Isotonic Powder
Energy food/bars/gels

I don't think I'll have room for the sweets

Krusty_Clown

Rusty Cogs 08 wrote: »

I don't think I'll have room for the sweets

Maybe if you ditch one of the packs of baby-wipes, you'll have room for some sweets!
Do you think Hillary and Norgay brought two packets of baby-wipes?

Facinating reading, and well done on the intial runs. Looking forward to the promotional video.

mithril

I have a different perspective on this.

I watched an associate of mine on the Inca trail fly 5000 miles to Peru and trek for 5 days over three 13,000 foot mountain passes.
When we got at last to the entrance of the fabled lost city of Machu Picchu, he dashed into the (surprisingly clean) toilets, spent 4 hours there and got back on the bus without seeing a thing!

The first priority is staying healthy and keeping as clean as possible under the circumstances is the best way of achieving this. There is unlikely to be a shower for 4 weeks so baby wipes or rolling in the snow are the options. Bring a toothbrush cover and lots of hand sanitizer as well.

Rusty Cogs 08

Indeed Mithril it's emphasised that making it to the start in good order should be everybodies prime objective with "meticulous" attention to hygene. I was in the Middle East last year and took a fairly relaxed approach to my diet. Sure enough, the last few days of the trip were hampered with my acute interest in the toilet facilities of any site I visited. Wet kisses from passing yaks will be kept to a minimum.

earlyevening

By far the most important thing is altitude acclimitisation. What are your plans for this? The normal routine would be to be at 3500+ for a while (a week?) before attempting anything. I think thats far more important than kit.

Rusty Cogs 08

OK, so a few consciencous minded folk have brought up the 'acclimatisation' issue. It would have been nice to have the opportunity to get 'up high' at some stage during the year but it just wasn't a runner (no pun intended).

However, the event is not a matter of 'see you at the start line'. The whole marathon group (with possible exception of the few Ghurkhas who are running) will join up in Kathmandu and then trek together to the start line. This trek has been designed to give everyone the best possible chance to reach the start line in condition to run balanced with getting in the best treking sights along the way. There is a team of doctors on the trek and during the race constantly keeping an eye on us all to ensure that we are dealing with the altitude.

So here's the timetable and altitude

Sun 15 Nov - Heathrow - 25m
Mon 16 Nov - Kathmandu - 2,175m
Thu 19 Nov - Flight to Lukla - 2,860m
Thu 19 Nov - Lukla to Phakding - 2,652m
Fri 20 Nov - Phakding to Namche Bazaar - 3,446m
Sun 22 Nov - Namche Bazaar to Khumjun - 3,780m
Mon 23 Nov - Khumjun to Dole - 4,084m
Tue 24 Nov - Dole to Machermo - 4,465m
Thu 26 Nov - Machermo to Gokyo (4,791) or Gokyo Ri (5,483) and back if fit to do so (or option to spend 2nd day in Machermo)
Fri 27 Nov - Second chance to climb Gokyo (Ri)
Sat 28 Nov - Machermo to Khumjung 3,789m
Sun 29 Nov - Khumjun to Deboche 3,757m
Mon 30 Nov - Deboche to Pheriche 4,252m
Tue 1 Dec - Pheriche to Lobuche 4,930m
Wed 2 Dec - Out and back trek to Kala Pattar 5,623m if fit
Thu 3 Dec - Lobuche to Gorak Shep 5,184
Fri 4 Dec - RACE DAY - Gorak Shep to Namche Bazaar 3,446m
Sun 6 Dec - Namche to Lukla 2,860m
Mon 7 Dec - Lukla to Kathmandu 2,175m

Now I've left out loads of the inbetween bits, excursions and what not which will bring us higher and lower than the starting and ending points of each day so you shouldn't simply look at the day to day altitude movements. It's also a fairly regimented schedule so if anyone is familiar with the area by all means point out your percieved high/low lights but I'm not at liberty to deviate from it should anyone have 'must see' suggestions.

earlyevening

That looks like a good plan. There's plenty of time at altitude there.

Rusty Cogs 08

T - 60 / Tuesday / 8m Flat / 54'55" / AvP 6'51" / AvHR 147

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/15547115#

After staring out at the rain all day I was glad that it dried up for this 'meat and potatoes' 8 mile aerobic run. I ran it as steady and 'metronomic' as possible just trying to concentrate on my breathing. You can see by the states that I was fairly successful in doing that. The muscles are still a bit sore from Sundays hill run so I wasn't going to do anything aggresive or stay out there longer than I had to.

Might reduce tomorrow nights 12 miles to 10 as mentioned earlier, I don't really need to be putting in 60 mile weeks at this stage.

Off to do a bit of study now, I don't think doing both after work is too realistic for me. I may do shorter mid week runs before work or study before work if I've a longer run in the evening. We'll see.

Rusty Cogs 08

T - 58 / Wednesday / 12m Flat / 86'22" / AvP 7'11" / AvHR 143

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/15601175#

Can't say I was desperately looking forward to 12 midweek miles. Got held up in work too so had to have a bowl of cereal before the run as I was just too hungry. Considered cutting the distance but it was such a still and cool night I kind of figured I'd take it easy and see how I got on. An enjoyable run for the most part, a lot of people out, I guess many have their DCM coming up. I felt kind of detached motoring along at a steady pace, no particular time goal to follow.

Sent my passport off to the Nepalese embassy today for my visa, looking forward to getting that back (passport geek, proud of various stamps).

Rusty Cogs 08

T - 57 / Thursday / 4m Flat / 29'01" / AvP 7'15" / AvHR 147

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/15622860

Brrrr, cold this morning for my 'recovery' four miles. The problem with recovery miles in the morning is that you want to get them over with as fast as possible (if like me, getting out of bed early to run has it's own level in Dante's seven circles of hell).

I jogged passed the striking port workers in Ringsend. We probably had similar opinions of each other.

I wanted to do this run before work to give myself the evening off (from running) and a longer recovery time prior to tomorrow nights tempo run.

Up early again tomorrow morning for the dentist (another circle of hell for RC).

Rusty Cogs 08

T - 56 / Friday / 9m Flat / 56'21" / AvP 6'14" / AvHR 156

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/15689055#

So that was a bit of a mad one. I was down for a 9 mile lactic run with 4 miles in there at 15k - half mara pace. I wondered just what is my half mara pace at the moment so I typed a 2'55" marathon into McMillan and it gave me 6'20" pace for half marathons. Sounded quick but I figured I was feeling OK, all Sunday's hill pain was gone, emptyish belly (the way I prefer it for tempo runs) so I figured I'd run the first 2m sub 7, 4 @ 6'20" and the last 3m at sub 7 again.

Well my first mile was a nervous 6'34" and the second started with a decline. I checked my pace and it was 6'17" so I figured, no point putting the breaks on, I'll just make this the first of my four 6'20"s. From then on I was finding the sub 6'20" pace pretty comfortable and despite the fact that it was pretty dark (lights on Clontarf strand are obviously not on sensors) I was enjoying it. I dodged a rogue bicycle on my fourth sub 6'20" mile and it got my blood up, result was mile 6 wasn't going to plan, ie. I wasn't really slowing down. I thought fcuk it, I'll run 5 of these magic miles, then 6, then 7 and then, sod this I'll run the lot sub 6'20".

I actually thought it was raining at one point and it took a mile to realise it was sweat off my head. Finished pretty 'up' and saw the whole thing averaged at 6'14". The brain started to go then regarding what time a 10 mile run would have come in at (about a minute faster than my PB if I kept the pace up) and what I would have had to do to come in sub 83' for the half.

The long and short of it is, a great training run, absolutely nothing to do with dodging yaks on Everest but great fun. :pac:

Slogger Jogger

You're in flying form RC. Keep it going and good luck with your continued schedule.

Rusty Cogs 08

T - 55 / Saturday / 5m Flat / 34'43" / AvP 6'56" / AvHR 133

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/15726843#

Out running before 8am on a Saturday morning. The Rusty of old wouldn't recognise the current Cogs in a fit. This mornings run was one to get out of the way, I have to laugh at my first mile in 7'02" with a HR of 89. My body obviously hadn't woken up.

Had to get out early as I joined fellow boardsies up in the Wickla' mountains for the navigation course, and very informative it was too. I'm hoping my crash course in orienteering and compass usage won't be needed in the Himalayas but as my mother would say 'education is no load to bear'.

Rusty Cogs 08

T - 54 / Sunday / 13.78m Hills / 2'09''09" / AvP 9'22" / AvHR 140

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/15889157#

Well last nights football beers meant a slow start this morning. I really can't drink anymore, cheap date these days. After a lot of faffing I got my stuff together ready to cycle up to Marly park when I realised my bike was in the city centre (doh !). So once I finally got going, getting lost on the way to MP didn't help. Turns out, the Wicklow Way route only really gets started in Killasogue (spl ?) carpark up behind the M50. I've been mountain biking from here before so I was annoyed there was so much time and energy wasted getting there. Was also a slog getting up the hill beside Stackstown GC on a single speed.

Anyway, I said I'd run for an hour on the WW, then turn and try to make it back in the 2nd hour. If you look at my elevation profile you can see it was tough from the get go with a 1,000 ft over the first 2 miles, then a bit of a crest with lots of rocky ground to negotiate and then the desent down towards Glencullen. This is where it joins the IMRA marathon course so I knew I had another long slog back up. I made it to the top in just over an hour which I was happy with because it meant I wasn't going down the far side towards Crone woods (which would leave me with two climbs to get home rather than just one).

Spent about 10 mins taking pics and then back the way I came. Got stitches on both desents which was annoying (don't normally get them on the flat) but was happy to make it back in under an hour.

Then the cycle home to Northwall. A long day all in all but a good work out and a real mix of running terrain which is what I was looking for. Not sure what I'll do next weekend, maybe give myself a break on the cycling and just head out for a few laps of Howth.

Krusty_Clown

Wow, that's a hell of a workout. Well done. I'd say you're in tatters now.

Rusty Cogs 08

The Independant State of Tatterania.
Population : Me.

scottreynolds

Nice workout there -- I saw you leaving town about 11am glowing green . Looks like a good run a certainly a good idea for our training. Is there 'signposts' from Marla park to the start of the trail?

Rusty Cogs 08

scottreynolds wrote: »

Nice workout there -- I saw you leaving town about 11am glowing green . Looks like a good run a certainly a good idea for our training. Is there 'signposts' from Marla park to the start of the trail?

If there is, I didn't see them. Nor did I want to run along the M50 in fell shoes so I cycled as far as the road would take me (those woods) and ran from there. TBH, the first mile is pretty dull as they've cut all the trees off the mountain side. Good for views but it's just a bit gravel road scar in the side of a hill atm.

That green jacket is my new ghey favourite. 138 grams, the weight of a couple of Yorkies, only slightly more expensive.

Slogger Jogger

Nice work Rusty. Keep plugging away.

Rusty Cogs 08

T - 53 / Monday / Rest Day (thankfully)

http://www.justgiving.com/Marc-Barrett/

So this is what it's all about, the only reason this race exists is to raise money for grass roots Nepalese charities. Please have a look on my (newly created) page above and if you could sponsor me for a couple of 10th's I'll do my darnest to represent Boards AC at the top of the world.

Thanks all

Marc

scottreynolds

Rusty Cogs 08 wrote: »

http://www.justgiving.com/Marc-Barrett/

I feel honoured --- to be the first . PM me if you drop out. I bags miles 25,26

Rusty Cogs 08

Jaysus Scott, that's very generous, people are going to be wondering what we got up to on that mountain navigation course Saturday.

Thanks

scottreynolds

Rusty Cogs 08 wrote: »

Jaysus Scott, that's very generous, people are going to be wondering what we got up to on that mountain navigation course Saturday.

Thanks

Don't worry my lips are sealed.

Rusty Cogs 08

T - 52 / Tuesday / 9.07m Flat - VO2 / 64'45" / AvP 7'08" / AvHR 146

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/16107754#

Charity Goal 8%

http://www.justgiving.com/Marc-Barrett/

So after yesterday's rest (which wasn't much of a rest as I went to a Nick Cave gig and was standing for two hours) I looked with some trepidation at tonights VO2 max session. My pace is still the McMillan 2'55 mara equivalent so that meant 6 x 800 @ 3'35" km / 5'47" ml pace (with 2 min jogs between). I did a 4k warm up which didn't really leave me chomping at the bit but once you press that watch, away you go. Went as follows

5'46" 152 (HR)
5'36" 161
5'44" 160
5'36" 160
5'39" 159
5'37" 160

So that looks pretty consistant and although it was tough, I wasn't too ragged. The only thing I'll say is that it's meant to be done at 5k race pace and there's no way in hell I could keep that pace for 5k so it not quite a true reflection of my condition. But anyway, Vo2 sessions are meant to be just that, tough.

Work is pretty busy atm so I'm finding it hard to get to my studies or anything else for that matter. Glad to have gotten my charity page up. Some very generous Boardsie donations have gotten me off to a great start. Gives me more motivation to stick to all my training including the especially dull physio work like balancing on one foot with your eyes closed for a minute (I've yet to make the minute, blinds closed for that one).

Rusty Cogs 08

One thing that I thought about last night was at what stage/speed of your VO2 max runs should you get off the public highways and byeways and onto a running track.

My weekday runs are mostly at dusk / darkness now and as I ran past fellow 'runners' at (5'35") pace, I wondered was it really fair/safe/optimal to be doing this on a public path.

I've never run on a track in my life and I wouldn't even know where to go to use one (I'm in Dublin 1) but I'm just wondering how fast would others feel is fast enough to warrent getting to a track ? Obviously, those in clubs with track facilities will be more prone to do so.

Slogger Jogger

Theres a track in Irishtown which wouldn't be too far from you. I've used the track in Charlesland near Greystones the odd time. Its nice to have a bit of variety to the training, so the odd visit to the track is good. The track there is as new as you'd get and free. Not sure about the Irishtown track but I daresay someone here, or on the main thread could inform you?

earlyevening

The only problem with the Irishtown track is that its E5 per visit. I jogged down there once to see if I could try out some yasso 800s or something but I wasnt happy to pay to do it.

Rusty Cogs 08

Aye, well a fiver is a fiver more than I pay to run anywhere else so you'd really have to have a real reason why you needed a track for it to be worth it IMO. I might give it a shot though just out of curiosity to see how I far on one of my longer/harder Vo2 max sessions.

earlyevening

Is there a grass track painted out around the cricket pitch in Trinity. I have a vague memory of that. Would that do? It mightn't be 400m even if its still there.