Archive for September 2011
Update from Bristol
30/09/2011 by admin.
Had another great day today on the ante/post natal course. Have benefited from a huge amount of information over the last 2 days. Useful to have mothers (who are instructors) on the course who were willing to share their experiences. Looking forward to putting it all into practise and sharing some information with you.
Jon O’Groats to Lands End (JOGtoLE) - Follow Stuart Live
29/09/2011 by admin.
Use this link to follow Stuart Hardie’s progress live: http://www.endomondo.com/profile/2525466
His tracker didn’t work today but I have been informed that Stuart completed the run.
Please leave him a comment to give him some encouragement.
Your can sponsor Stuart via this link. www.justgiving.com/stuart-hardie
Update from Bristol
29/09/2011 by admin.
After starting my day with some yoga, in particular forward bends and twists, I attended the first day of a CPD course on Ante and Post Natal exercise.
We covered many aspects of pregnancy including:-
- Benefits of exercising during pregnancy
- The three trimesters of pregnancy
- Changes to the cardiovascular system
- Respiratory changes
- Hormonal changes
- Changes to metabolism including weight gain
- Concerns mother’s to be have over exercising
- Structural changes during pregnancy
- Types of exercise that are safe to do and not safe to do when pregnant
It’s been a very useful and informative course helped by mothers in attendance who could share their experiences first hand. It has made me realise the importance of women getting themselves in shape before pregnancy too.
Being such a nice day I decided to go for a run after the course. Will do some revision tonight in preparation for day 2 which will finish with an exam including case study.
Jon O’Groats to Lands End (JOGtoLE) Day 9
29/09/2011 by admin.
Another update from Stuart Hardie. ‘Hardie’ by name ‘hard’ by nature.
“Having recovered from yesterday, which was disappointing on so many levels, we had a super day on Day 9.
We passed the 200 mile mark, the weather was glorious and we had fabulous views of Ben Nevis with not a cloud in sight.
It was a late start this morning as my first stop was sports shop in Fort William to buy a new pair of running shoes. The three identical pairs of shoes I have so carefully worn in over the last 18 months of training in Guernsey without any problems seemed to be causing a lot of the problems with my toes. Today, the new pair was much better and I have more on order to collect in Glasgow at the weekend.
The route along the banks of Loch Lochy was quite hilly initially. At the south end of the loch, at 13 miles, Doc was waiting for me with gammon, cheese and salad sandwiches which were very welcome indeed.
My quads were playing me up again at that point, caused by running downhill on steep slopes. After some stretching I had a great run on to Banavie.
The route then went through Fort William and the finish line was about 2 miles south of the town having completed 27.2 miles including my extra mile to make up for the shortfall on Day 8. The objective over the next days is to make up the remainder of the 10 mile shortfall from yesterday.
Unfortunately I have developed infections in both of my big toes. Doc promptly put me on antibiotics and we hope we have caught the problem early.
The route tomorrow goes through Glencoe following the A82, the main link road from Glasgow to Fort William. We have decided not to run off road due to the appalling conditions underfoot following a very wet Scottish summer.”
Stuart
Saturday’s CCC Session
28/09/2011 by admin.
Saturday’s CCC will be held at Bordeaux, meeting at 9 am.
Jon O’Groats to Lands End (JOGtoLE) Day 8
28/09/2011 by admin.
Please see update from Stuart Hardie. This just goes to show what a monumental challenge this is. Stuart is as tough as they come and I am still confident he will achieve the goal. Please show your support by sponsoring Stuart http://www.justgiving.com/stuart-hardie.
Today was a very disappointing day; only 16 miles were achieved.
The day started with a steep downhill section which caused havoc with my sore feet and also gave me a quad injury. Doc has had to remove the nail from one of my little toes.
Our off road route was almost impossible to negotiate as it was so boggy. I had to walk and only managed a speed of about 2 miles an hour due to the conditions, with Alan accompanying me. As it usually is when Alan is with me, the weather was very poor!
We went onto a forest path around Invergarry and asked for directions from a forester who gave us the wrong information and sent us in the wrong direction. Fortunately we met some more foresters later in the day who told us we were walking towards a dead end and gave us a lift back to the main road where the team agreed we had no option but to conclude the day’s walk. We had been out of touch with the back-up team whilst off road as there was no mobile signal in the area.
I am very disappointed that I have not managed a marathon today, but the team are all committed to reaching the goal of Land’s End on 29 October and I will be adding an extra mile to my distance for each of the next 10 days.
We have concluded that the off road route is not possible because of its condition and the difficulty of back-up so I will not be following the West Highland Way as I had planned but will be looking at a new route closer to the road.
I may have to walk tomorrow due to condition of my feet, but I am keeping going!
Jon O’Groats to Lands End (JOGtoLE) Day 7
27/09/2011 by admin.
We were sorry to say goodbye George from the team this morning as he headed home.
We started the run at about 9.30 and Heather and I ran along the east side of Loch Ness as the team worked out that they could not support the runners from a health & safety point of view on the proposed route along the Great Glen Way.
It was a fantastic day for running. Heather ran the whole way – her first marathon. We crossed the finish line after about 6 ¼ hours.
The run went from just about sea level to about 1400ft. The scenery was stunning once again and we had wonderful views from the route. We collected donations from astounded tourist along the way.
The run fininshed just before Fort Augustus. Tonight we are staying at the Loch Ness Lodge Hotel in Drumnadrochit on the west shores of Loch Ness where, once again, the staff have been super, and we have had a great evening meal with a bottle of champagne to celebrate Heather’s success and the completion of the first week of marathons.
We will be back on the Great Glen Way again tomorrow, heading towards Fort William.
I’m still struggling with blisters, but as Doc told me ‘You are not ill Stuart, you just have sore feet’!
Jon O’Groats to Lands End (JOGtoLE) Day 6
26/09/2011 by admin.
6 completed, I’m happy to report. Feet still working tho’ we’ll need more of Doc time on them tomorrow am.
The tech expert left this am so there may be fewer photos or videos … you can see the videos on You Tube under JOG to LE.
Sally has been fantastic this past week … she’s always fantastic but on this trip especially so. Her skills included driving, map reading, shrink, therapist, dogs body, IT exec, cameraman, publicist, fund raiser, liaison officer … often also mistaken for police woman in dark trousers, high viz vest and car with a striped back,
We are staying in a Premier Inn. Good and clean with spacious rooms, adequate meals at regular times … just what we need.
Set off this am listening to Scotland come 2nd to the Argies in Wellington. But the weather was good again and I had to dig out the sun block for a second day. Heather has done another great job today running an initial 13ml before we had a break … me to have feet checked and to be given a little rub down, Heather because she had to wait for me. The she did 3 miles more taking us down and into Inverness. Disappointingly we took a couple of wrong turns trying to find the Great Glen Way …. our view on the subject “if the Glen is so Great why not get the bloney thing adequately sign posted?
But we completed the miles and got back to the hotel around 5pm.
This evening we had a look at tomorrow’s route and we’ve decided that the Great Glen Way is going to be too difficult to service. As a consequence we’ll be running down the East side of Loch Ness rather than the West. We’ll pick up the GGW at Fort Augustus.
The whole exercise is proving to be so much more than any of us anticipated from an organisational and admin perspective. As a consequence it looks as tho’ we might be minus I team member tomorrow.
Barefoot Running…..Update
25/09/2011 by admin.
I was a bit concerned last week. After putting in a good interval treadmill run wearing my shoes, two days later both my knees were hurting. So that day I ran in my normal trainers on the treadmill. I assumed the knee pain was linked to changes in my running style but it did seem odd that it occurred two days after my run rather than the next day. The knee pain went and I ran in my barefeet shoes on Friday again at a challenging pace, again on the treadmill.
Today I ran outdoors - 3 laps of the reservoir - in my normal trainers, as I am not ready to run that sort of distance in my barefeet shoes. I ran over 2 minutes quicker than I did last week. The running felt a little easier than normal. The conditions were better so that will account for some of the time gain. I need more evidence to confirm that my increased speed was due to the barefeet shoes but, whatever the reason, it is still nice to run quicker.
Jon O’Groats to Lands End (JOGtoLE) Day 5
25/09/2011 by admin.
First of all I have to correct something i said yesterday. Stuart says that people cycling from Land’s End to John O’Groats are not mad, it’s just the ones who do not wear high visibility clothing that are mad.
The day got off to a good start today with an excellent breakfast at the Invershin Hotel where we stayed last night.
Heather and Stuart did their warm up exercises in the restaurant and then ran the first 12 miles together, which included the daunting Struie Hill. The backup team collected some donations from passers-by again and the hilltop lookout points have proved fertile ground for this!
At 15 miles, Stuart had a very painful blister, so he stopped and had a 40 minute consultation with Doc who drew off the fluid and dressed the blister, but it was then very painful in his shoe, so he completed the marathon without a sock on that foot, and walked most of the remaining 11 miles.
George Blair joined us this afternoon as next week’s car driver, and i collected him from Inverness and we managed to make it back to the route in time to see Stuart cross the finish just north of Dingwall.
We had our first serious map-reading crisis and first lost driver today, but the route diversion was only a matter of a couple of hundred yards that had to be backtracked, and Alan was safely recovered at 6.30pm.
The temperature today ranged from 12C to 23C today and we had some rain this morning, but Heather got wet today instead of Alan. Alan had misfortune of cycling with Stuart when his foot started hurting so he ended up walking with Stuart and pushing the bike.
