 I missed every goal I set myself this summer, from the Lakeland 100 right the way through to the London Marathon, I failed to make the grade. So the question I have to ask is, why? What did I do wrong? And can I salvage any vestige of respectability from this summer of failure? It all started with the Lakeland 100 training series in May, which I'll link up there somewhere. It was 12 weeks of training with a 2 week taper, everything documented on the Film My Run channel and available for everyone to see on Strava. And it all went well. I slowly built up my mileage with a mix of long slow runs, treadmill workouts and track sessions. And I peaked with a 100 mile week 2 weeks before the race. If I was to change anything, it would probably be to add more hard efforts into my training block. It would quite reach the 80-20 ratio most weeks. It was probably more like 90-10, that's 90% low heart rate and 10% hard efforts. But one of the things I did in the training series was to set myself a time goal for the Lakeland 100. I'd worked out that if I could do the Arch of Attrition race in 30 hours, then I should be able to run the Lakeland 100 in under 30 hours. I was wrong. On the day with my body supposedly at peak fitness, I found the race extremely taxing. The ground was sodden and my feet were destroyed by 50 miles. I couldn't move quickly enough over the terrain. I was falling asleep on my poles during the second night and I eventually finished in 33 hours 36 minutes, more than three and a half hours over my goal time. After Lakeland in July, there was simply no time for another training block. It was just recovery and onto the TDS in Chamonix in August a month later. It takes time to recover from a 100 mile run. I certainly can't start any fast running for at least a week and more likely two weeks afterwards. Muscles need time to repair and if you start training too early, you risk injury. My hamstrings are always tight after a 100 miler. So I took a week of recovery. Then I built my mileage up for one week with a hard 5K effort as well thrown in and then we had a week of taper before heading to France. Now publicly there was no time goal set for this race. The important thing for TDS was simply to get to the end. However, we all have our own ambitions and personal targets for the races that we enter. TDS is not 100 miles, although we'll talk more about that shortly. So I set my personal targets as best case scenario, 30 hours, worst case scenario, utter failure, anything over 35 hours. Of course, I picked this fantasy of a goal time out of thin air. Although I had completed the first half of the course a couple of times over the previous three years, I'd never seen anything of the second half. This time I had absolutely no problems with my feet, it was dry on the foot and the weather was perfect, if a little hot. But what I did suffer from was a course which kept giving me extra kilometres. The official distance is 145 kilometres, but from early on I noticed my watch adding a kilometre here and another there, so every checkpoint took longer to get to. The climbs were steeper and longer than the Lake District and the terrain far more technical. Although the Lakeland 100 extended over two nights, I didn't deliberately lie down to sleep at any point during the race, whereas I had multiple catnaps on TDS. You can divide TDS into approximately three 50 kilometre sections and I'd been hoping to complete each one in around about 10 hours. However, as the course revealed itself and my condition gradually deteriorated, my time goals slipped further and further back. I eventually crossed the finish line in Chamonix, having spent 40 hours out on the trails. That's a full 10 hours longer than I was hoping. And the course distance, 157 kilometres, 12 kilometres further than officially stated. As I said earlier, my feet were fine on TDS, unlike Lakeland. They didn't get wet and the Hoca Speed Goat 5s were the perfect combination of traction and comfort on the terrain in Chamonix. I didn't run for the rest of the week in France, but I put in some mileage the week after, including a fast park run before tapering for the next adventure of the summer. The Ben Nevis Ultra was another race I'd been trying to complete for a few years without success. Again, I set no public goal other than to finish, but privately the plan was to finish anywhere between 10 and 12 hours. The Ben Nevis Ultra is 53 kilometres and as before, I knew the first half really, really well. In fact, I knew the first 40 kilometres quite well, but I knew literally nothing about the last 13km. The course is always wet and boggy, but it's a relatively short day out in comparison to TDS and Lakeland, so wet feet was never really going to be that much of an issue. The issue with Ben Nevis is the speed you have to travel in order to beat the cutoffs. There's simply no let up. When I reached the last 13km, I was a total mess, but I still had over 1000m of climbing over some of the toughest terrain yet to come. I had been on course to finish in around about 11 hours, but that last 13km almost broke me and I eventually shuffled home in 12 and a half hours. So, three mountain ultra races finished, two flat fast road marathons still to go. Problem being, the first of those, Berlin, was a week after Ben Nevis. Now I like to think I recover from races pretty well, but four days after the Ben Nevis Ultra my handstrings were still very tight and in fact it was only on the day of the Berlin marathon that my legs felt somewhat back to normal. However, legs which feel normal is very different from legs which feel race ready, especially when I'd set a public goal for this marathon of sub three hours. Now deep down I knew my body wasn't going to be able to do this, but still I had this nagging voice in my head, this persistent voice which kept saying you'll regret it if you don't give it a go. So I gave it a go for 5km. And you know that feeling you get when immediately you know that you've messed up? Well that happened around 3km into the Berlin Marathon. I struggled on for another 2km before I knew I was done for. Every kilometre after that was a painful reminder that if you want to run a flat fast road marathon then you need to train for a flat fast road marathon. You just can't litter random mountain ultra races liberally across your training and expect to get away with it. Suffice to say I didn't achieve my sub three time coming in at 3 hours and 24 minutes. By the way you know I hate to ask, it sounds so contrived a lot of the time but please if you're enjoying the video, if you're finding it interesting or useful please do click the like button and do subscribe if you haven't already. I'd really appreciate it, it really helps out the channel. Thank you so much. Having died a slow painful death in Berlin, I wanted to make sure that London one week later was a much more enjoyable and disciplined race experience. The goal was simple, good for age qualification and for me that was 3 hours and 15 minutes. Once again I knew it was probably a step too far but it would be my final chance to qualify for London 2023 so I had to give it a try. And this time I did feel a lot better the whole way round. Even when my pace started to slip at around 18 to 20 miles I still felt okay. But my pace did start to slip and for the fourth racing succession despite having a much better race experience I failed to meet the target I set for myself again. So what did go wrong? Well it's pretty easy to see really isn't it why? The GFA attempt, the good for age attempt in London and the sub three attempt in Berlin didn't go to plan. After three months of mountain races my body was tired, my legs hadn't had anything like the time needed to recover and rebuild after such gruelling adventures. For me a sub three hour marathon isn't something I can just rock up and do. I have to dedicate months of training specifically to it and whilst training for a flat fast row marathon might include some similar elements it's not the same as training for a mountain ultra. I suppose I just hoped that my miraculous powers of recovery might allow me to get away with it but it was never going to happen and in fairness plenty of people told me so beforehand. When it comes to the ultras I think it's a little bit more difficult to find a reason or reasons why particularly with the Lakeland 100 I wasn't able to achieve the target I'd set myself. Welcome along to Wednesday workout welcome along to the Zwift run channel we're here for the next hour ten kilometres of intervals live on Zwift so that's it thank you very much for joining me everyone and we'll see you for the film I run 500 tomorrow morning well done if you took part and join me again on this one. I don't know a really good training vlog leaving up to Lakeland I did that 100 mile week I was really consistent you know I did interval training I did double days I did long runs I trained on similar terrain I trained on the downhills to get my quads ready so I was ready I even did the UTS 50k in Snowdonny which is exactly the same kind of terrain I was ready for Lakeland. Perhaps the only thing I didn't do is a course recce which maybe is one place where it starts a look with regard to all three races. You see if you're aiming for a time then course knowledge and experience is invaluable. I'd never run Lakeland 100 before and apart from a few short sections I'd never even been on the course before other than my general knowledge of the Lake District I had no idea of the terrain I had no idea how the weather conditions would affect the terrain I was basically running blind and the same is true of TDS and the Ben Nevis Ultra I had literally no idea what was ahead of me. How can you plan to complete a section of a course in a certain time when you literally no idea of what that part of the course is like? I do think the weather played a role in the lakes with the wet conditions making the going more difficult than it might otherwise have been but I honestly believe that when I return to the race whenever that is I think 30 hours is a doable time given drier conditions with a little more experience and knowledge of the course I may be underestimating it but I think 30 hours is doable. I don't have any plans to do TDS again I've got plenty more events in Chamonix and the Alps to keep me occupied for the next 10 years without going back to TDS. Looking back I do think 30 hours was a little bit of an unrealistic target to set for TDS. The weather conditions were perfect I had only minor problems with nutrition and injury it was simply a much harder race than I'd anticipated. Planning for 30 hours and coming in in 40 hours I just don't think if I went back there again that I could knock that kind of time off and I think the same can be said for the Ben Nevis Ultra it's a very tough race for somebody of my ability even with the course knowledge and experience that I now have I think it would be very tough ask to take any time off the 12 and a half hours that I did in this year's race. The weather in Scotland was almost perfect I had no stomach issues no injury problems my feet were fine my legs coped with the terrain I just think I underestimated the difficulty of that second half that last 13 kilometres of the race. One thing I did do specifically for Ben Nevis was to buy new trail shoes. In previous years I had struggled with grip on some of the more muddy slippery sections of the course so I purchased my first pair of Innovate Mud Claws however while they did indeed give me more traction over the slippery parts of the course I then couldn't trust them on the wet rock I was slower this year on the exposed ridges than I was the previous year simply because I couldn't trust the mud claws on the rock so whilst the new shoes helped on one hand they were a hindrance on the other. Like TDS I have no plans to do the Ben Nevis Ultra again I finished I finished within the cutoffs and that's all I can ask for. In all three of the ultra distance races I wore my Salomon Sense Pro 10 vest this worked really well especially with the Salomon soft flasks which had filters in them so I could drink river water and mountain runoff with confidence knowing I wouldn't get unwell. In fact the only time I felt unwell in any of the races that I've done this summer was on the afternoon and the second night of TDS I was being sick or rather trying to be sick with little success and I'm fairly sure that was down to me mistiming taking some paracetamol. It could be to do with the heat TDS was particularly hot and I have suffered with sickness before in the hot weather. I tend to steer clear of sugar when running ultra races. I will have Coke or Red Bull which they had in Scotland sometimes but I don't really take gels sometimes I'll carry one with me just in case but I rarely take gels and when I get into a checkpoint I will head straight for the savory section. Sandwiches crisps cheese soup noodles and bread and perhaps some dark chocolate that's what I'll eat when I get into one of the aid stations on an ultra. I don't ever feel like fueling is an issue in any of my races. My wife will tell you otherwise she says I don't eat enough but I eat when I'm hungry I don't have sugar crashes I don't seem to bonk not being able to hold my pace in the two road marathons wasn't a case of lack of glycogen it wasn't me hitting the wall it was simply muscle fatigue muscle soreness that prevented me from continuing at the same pace for 26 miles. Although if I'm completely honest I don't eat an awful lot during marathon maybe I should maybe that's one of the things I need to experiment with with fast flat road marathons is getting some nutrition in me on the run. I generally have a little bit of coke maybe I'll carry a gel just in case but I often end up finishing the race with it in my pocket. For London and Berlin I simply carried a small bottle of coke I put it in my pocket and I drank it at around about 18 miles. Whether it did me any good I have no idea but it tasted nice. So for both road marathons I wore my original vapor flying next percent by Nike can't afford to replace them can't afford to get the latest versions I'm quite happy with them they've still got a lovely spring to them more so than the only other carbon plate shoe I own which is the Endorphin Pro 1 can't afford to replace those either I'd like to try the Metaspeed skies but for now I have to stick with the vapor flies for my marathons. So we've established what happened and why I didn't achieve any of my time goals for any of the races that I did this summer but can I salvage any vestige of respectability for my summer of failure. Well I don't really see it as a summer of failure at all I've had an absolute blast this summer I've been to places I've never been to before I've revisited some other places I've spent time with friends and family and I've taken part in some absolutely incredible races not a DNF insight not a missed cut-off insight some monkeys have been removed from my back one or two demons have been vanquished and one or two challenges laid down for the future it's been amazing and that is what it's all about for me at the end of the day yes PB's are fantastic meeting your goals is amazing getting GFA for London is superb but at the end of the day it's all about enjoying yourself having fun creating new memories having new experiences hopefully that's what it's all about for you as well so here's to next year here's to the next great adventure here's to next summer's racing to see you on the start line thank you very much for watching everyone hope you enjoyed it if you haven't subscribed please do that now and if you haven't watched the London marathon video then that's up there and the TVS video well that's there if you want to watch those take care everyone bye bye