Finding the chase and cutting to it

The route last year may be seen here.

Last year’s route

Most of the profile (the layout of the route against sea level) is mostly easy running for the first 40 miles.  Quite East Anglican.

The second 40 miles is “rolling hills” and some “more physically demanding” sets.

The last 20 is much easier, not quite downhill all the way but not too bad.

Following James Fletcher’s advice, energy management is the key – hence my long training period.

It would be easy to say do the first 40 miles as quickly as possible as it’s mostly flat.  But we’re down to physical limitations.  My heart recovers from exercise very easy but I never get close to the 174 beats per minute I could probably do.  I generally top out at 160 bmp.

If I could do that first set at 15mph average rather than my planned 12.5mph, I could do that first 40miles in 2 hour 40minutes instead of 3 hours 12minutes.   Lets do something similar for the last 20miles, which is 1hour 20minutes.   Out of 8 hours that gives me 5 of the hard stuff.  That would allow me to drop my average to 12mph.  Uphill.

Mmm, plenty of dedicated hill training should see me through…