5 days and counting
to a mountain adventure, Coronallacs in Andorra.
It’s 5 days until our adventure in Andorra. Along with two friends, Matt and Tom, we’ll run the Coronallacs trail over two and a half days with two nights spent in the mountain huts along the way.
It’s always hard to feel like you’ve trained enough for these things. I started the year with an injury which prevented any serious running for a few months, lifes been busy and no matter what you’ve done you probbaly never feel you’ve done enough.
It was going to be taper week but I’ll be honest I haven’t earned a taper… last week was 10 miles and 2,200ft of elevation running and a bike ride of about 10 miles. So it worked out well that my buddy Paul suggested a hill session last night.
We met up in Shere for 12x up and down of “Shere Drop” - about 400ft a go. I was hoping Paul would arrive earlier than me and had a couple of laps in the bank like last time so I could do a little less. We arrived together and in for a penny…
Paul was a little easier to keep up with than last time. I’d like to credit it to my fitness having improved, which it may be in part but I think it was largely more balanced between us due the fact he had a recent 53mile / 21,345 ft Snowdon adventure in his legs.
The first half of the run we were cruising up and down with a good catch up on the events of weeks that had past since we saw each other last.
It was mid twenties in temperature and I’d been a bit slap dash with throwing drinks in my van before leaving - luckily Paul had some extra water spare and a bottle of coke for me.
Once we got to 8 laps I was fully committed for the 12, having found the rythym and still not exhaused our catching up but most importantly only a few more to go.
The last 3 laps I was no longer just hot and with a thirst no river could quench but the legs were burning too. I suppose I did well that they gave me no jip to this point. Chatting with Paul about it he confirmed my suspicions. This it the bit he does it for - laps 9/10/11 where you’re really doing the work - the rest is the warm up, 2+hours as it may be, but warm up it is.
Repeats 11 and 12 the coke was repeating on me. What you dream of during a lap, the idea of getting back to our car aid stations for a guzzle of coke/water is a fine balance of replenishment and avoiding overindulgence.
During the final ascents my concern was flipping between avoiding totally overheating and the suggestions from my body I was about to vomit. Meanwhile Paul had stowed his poles to maximise the sessions impact on his legs. The man is a beast.
We made it and vomit free. Celebrating wth the lemon lucky saint’s we’d been dreaming of for a few hours…
Job done. Strong, final session in the bank ahead of Andorra next week for me and Colorado for Paul. Good times! I’ve earned a rest now.