Pilgrims Challenge - Day 2 - 04/02/18 - 06:53:06

After finishing Day 1 of the Pilgrims Challenge at around a quarter past three in the afternoon we finish at the Warwick School in Reigate.  I take a shower, use a roller and protein recovery drink as part of my cool down, have some dinner, give the MDS Q&A session a miss (too tired) and have an early night sleeping in the schools gymnasium.  The following morning I have some breakfast and then start off again at nine o' clock.

The race route is in reverse to yesterday so instead of going from The Sands to Reigate, this route goes from Reigate to to The Sands.  The plan is the same as yesterday - not looking for a PB but just to jog at JOGLE pace and to see how I fare - jog for four miles at ten minutes per mile and then for the fifth mile power walk at fifteen minute per mile.  Any hills I don't feel capable of jogging up I'll walk it.

It soon becomes apparent that I'm feeling fresh so the plan to take it easy has gone out of the window for the time being as I find myself at the front of the starting pack.  This become apparent when comparing the first five miles of Day 2 to the last five miles of Day 1 as the Day 2 pace is one a half minutes up on Day 1 using the Grade Adjusted Pace (GAP).  Will the faster pace takes it toll later on?  The next five miles are pretty much neck and neck - with Day 2 times coming in 30 seconds quicker.  The next five miles (eleven to fifteen) sees me going quicker again as I'm nearly four minutes quicker for Day 2 which reflects the fact that I did not power walk on mile fifteen (9.51 min/mile).  If I can carry on at this pace I will certainly beat Day 1's time.  Without taking a power walking session for the last five miles, I decide to take one for miles 16 to 20 but although I'm jogging one mile each at 9, 10,11 and 12 min/mile on Day 1 I'm jogging 8 and 9 min/mile apart from the power walking session.  This five mile split is now over seven minutes slower than Day 1 which is also reflective in 'traffic'.  I was not able to pass some joggers on certain parts of the trail and when I do it's going uphill on mile 17.  The faster pace is now beginning to take it's toll.  For miles twenty-one to twenty-five I've decided once again not to take a power walking session as I'm now trying to recoup the time lost in the last five mile sector.  This makes me nearly four minutes quicker than the last five mile sector.  The early stages of the race have now taken it's toll as for miles 26 to 30 I'm down a massive twelve minutes on the previous day this is despite doing no power walking.  For the final section again (miles 31 to 33) I'm down another six minutes as I'm struggling to jog along the road to the finish.  I make it to the finish in a time of 06:53:06, 84th overall, 31st in my age category and 73rd for the men.  Time to recuperate and reflect on making sure that I stick to the plan for JOGLE, jog miles 1-4, power walk mile 5 and repeat ....

Pilgrims Challenge - Day 1 - 03/02/18 - 06:29:10

The Pilgrims Challenge is 66 miles in 2 days.  I've decided to use this race as a warm up for JOGLE:  test my equipment, see how I cope with a back-to-back run and to work on JOGLE pace - jog for 3 miles at 10 min/mile and walk one mile at 15 min/mile and then repeat.  I'm not planning on doing a PB for this distance as it's more of a training session.  Having said that the last time I did the Pilgrims Challenge was in 05/02/11 (first completed Ultra-Marathon) but I only did the first day in a time of 06:59:00.

Didn't get too much sleep and arrive on race at 07:00.  There are three starts - the walkers start at 08:00, the main group (me) start at 09:00 and the fast runners (sub 5 hours) start at 10:00.

The route is part of the NDW so having done the NDW 50 and twice done the NDW100, plus having downloaded the route onto my Garmin I should be familiar with the route.

The race starts at Sandy nr. Farnham and ends up at Redhill.

By mile 5 I power walk at 14 min/mile whilst drinking a energy drink.  Come mile 9 I power walk again at just under 15 min/mile before heading for the first checkpoint (01:34:17) where on the menu are pretzels, crisps, bananas, pieces of cake and sweets.  Mile 12 comes a hill (230 ft) so is a mixture of walking and jogging as the pace is just over 11 min/mile. 

Mile 13 is power walking again at 15 min/mile before reaching checkpoint 2 (split time 01:58:14 and total time 03:32:31) at mile 17.  Mile 21 is power walking again but the pace drops to just under 17 min/mile.  Mile 24 is Box Hill (518 ft) so no chance of jogging up this hill but power walking means it's just under 15 min/mile pace before reaching checkpoint 3 (split time 01:25:41 and total time 04:58:12).  I'm meant to be power walking for the next mile but I decide to give this a miss and spend half the time jogging and half the time walking up a hill and this means that mile 25 is just over 12 min/mile.  Mile 28 is meant to be power walking and I give this a miss and then comes mile 29 and the final checkpoint 4 (split time 01:03:55 and total time 06:02:07) at 284 ft so decide to power walk this hill at just over 15 min/mile.  Heading into Redhill for the last few miles is downhill and my quickest min/mile is the last mile at just under 8 minutes and I finish in a time of 06:29:10.  This is in line for what I planned for JOGLE as if JOGLE was the same distance this would take me 06:10 jogging and walking plus 5 minutes at each checkpoint (4).   

At the end of day 1 I finish 93rd of 244, 32nd out of 151 for the over 40's and 83rd out of 183 of all men.