The Lark Stoke Quad Challenge 2021

There are many occasions when you’ll arrive on the start line and wonder whether everyone is participating in the same event, such are the differences between the kit worn by the different participants. When I arrive at a road event, this doesn’t phase me anymore – I’ve done enough Marathons, Half Marathons, 10k’s and 5k’s to know what I need to be wearing. But today, I did have a few doubts. The event was over mixed surfaces, and whilst I was wearing road shoes, many others had opted for trail shoes. Many were also wearing hydration packs, where as I was carrying a single bottle of Lucozade, though I did manage to carry two gels and a Kendal Mint Cake bar in my shorts. Had I underestimated the challenge of the event?

One of the intriguing aspects of the event was that whilst the start/finish line was in a fixed point, we had choices in terms of how to get there. Once we got to the top of the hill for the first time, we could turn back and head for the finish, turn left, turn right or continue straight on. Each ascent of the hill followed a signed route, and when you got to the bottom of each approach to the hill, you were issued with a wristband to show that you had done the full hill.

The organiser suggested that there was potentially a fastest option, but having never seen any of the ascents before, I was going in blind. Well, almost blind. I knew that going left or right involved off-road sections, but straight on was purely on the road. There was the possibility of rain during the latter stages of the run, and whilst that ultimately didn’t arrive, I knew that it would be far easier running on wet roads than wet trails in road shoes, so I wanted to get the two trail sections out of the way before any rain potentially arrived.

The only question was whether to go left first or right. I took the left turn, though I couldn’t tell you why. Thankfully it turned out to be a pretty good choice, as there was a stretch of about 500m where even single file was tricky. Two way traffic would have meant a lot of standing and waiting, but I lucked out, passing nobody on the downhill and only having to briefly step aside for two runners on the downhill whilst I was on the uphill.

The challenge of the first ascent had been not knowing what was up the road. There were some very steep sections (the first kilometre had 88m of elevation gain), and even though I was obviously fresh, I played it conservatively and walked all the steep sections. Thankfully after the first ascent, planning my efforts was a little easier because we did the descents first before turning round and going uphill. That meant that I got a sense of what I would be up against, sighting the sections where I would need to walk, where I could run if I was feeling fresh enough to do so and where I could open up and push the pace a little bit.

The race format also meant that it was near-impossible to get a sense of where I was in relation to others. On the second descent (right from the top of the hill), I saw lots of runners approaching the top of the hill. Were they ahead of me or behind? There was no way of knowing, and to be honest, that was nice. It created a particularly friendly atmosphere, and allowed me just to stick to a pace I was comfortable with.

It was only when I was coming up the final ascent that I could get some perspective in terms of where I was. There were a few runners coming down the hill as I went up, so I knew at least I wouldn’t be the last finisher. I had hoped to run all the way up the final ascent and whilst that proved beyond me, I was able to settle into a decent pace on the false flat before the top, before attacking the descent for the first time.

I reached the finish line still unsure how I’d done. I wasn’t first, wasn’t last, but I had completed all four ascents, 650m of elevation across 23.77km in 2:14:19. The 1km walk back to the car park gave me the opportunity to chat to one of the other runners and find out that the Winter Series event is held on a shorter, slightly different course, and if they fit into my schedule I will definitely check that out. Before then though I get to enjoy the ciders we were rewarded with for each ascent of the hill!

Looking Ahead to the Lark Stoke Quad Challenge

This Saturday I will be taking part in my second running event of the year, and it promises to be something a little bit different. For a start, it’s not a traditional distance or even a set distance, as I’ll have the choice on the day of how far I go, up to a maximum distance of around 15 miles. Quirky distances tend to appeal to me anyway, but there is a very specific reason why this event is 15 miles – it adds up to four ascents and four descents of Lark Stoke, the biggest hill in Warwickshire, with each ascent approached from a different direction (broadly speaking North, South, East and West).

I’ve been describing this event as a hill race, and although it remains to be seen how much racing is involved, the hill part is indisputable. If I complete all four ascents, that will be approximately 660 metres of climbing during the run. To put that into context, the Sheffield Half Marathon is easily the hilliest road Half Marathon I have ever attempted, and that was less than 300 metres of climbing. Even adjusting for the fact that the full distance on Saturday is around 2 miles longer than a Half Marathon, it’s still more than twice as hilly.

I have done one even hillier Half Marathon, the Howgills Trail Half, which came in at 940 metres, and although I’ve never seen the Lark Stoke hill in person, that experience helps inform my game plan for Saturday. There’s no sense in trying to convince myself that I can run the whole way. Whilst the total distance might be 15 miles, half of that is descending so the 660 metres of ascents are actually across 7.5 miles. This means that each ascent will be roughly 165 metres across 1.9 miles or almost exactly 3km, so that’s 55 metres of climbing per kilometre as an average, meaning an average gradient of 5.5%. a gradient of 5.5% is right on the limit of what I can run whilst maintaining decent form whilst I’m fresh, and that’s the average so there will be plenty of sections which are even steeper.

Walking is therefore not only going to be the more sensible option at points, it would be the faster option too, at least in terms of overall time. Whilst you can pick up speed on a steep descent, it doesn’t offer you a lot of respite, and each of the uphill sections will be long efforts. 3km on the flat would take me around 12 minutes, but with gradients like this, each ascent will probably take more than 20 minutes. That would mean more than 80 minutes of uphill in total with only partial recoveries on the downhills, so if I can use the steepest slopes to walk, where I would be running slowly anyway and hence not losing a lot of time comparatively speaking, then that should in theory help ensure a slightly more consistent and therefore faster pace overall.

The key will be picking the right moments to walk. During the Howgills Trail Half, I started near to the front and tried to run up some very steep slopes early on, thinking I could match those around me. It quickly became apparent that I couldn’t, though equally there have been Marathons where I could have continued running, but felt encouragement to walk from the mere fact that others around me were walking. I need to be single minded, identify the right moments to walk and trust the overall process.

That would be an easier proposition if I knew the hill. Knowing the numbers is one thing, but there’s nothing like the knowledge of having run a hill a few times. Long hills can play all manner of tricks, from blind corners to false summits to deceptively long straight sections. It is at least the same hill four times, albeit approached from different directions, so the first ascent should give me some idea about what the remaining ascents will be like. Taking things easy early in a long run is always a good thing, but on Saturday, it will be even more important to go steady until I know what the challenges of the hill are.

I’ve spent all this time talking about the uphills, but during the Howgills and Sheffield Halfs, it was the downhills that my body really struggled with. Hopefully I’ve learnt from those experiences. Hopefully…

ASICS Hyper Speed: First Impressions

The majority of new running shoes I buy aren’t really new at all. They aren’t pre-owned, but rather a new model of a shoe I’ve previously owned. Very occasionally a big update will come along, but often the tweaks from one version to the next feel quite subtle and not really worth commenting on. And if I like a pair of shoes, I’ll often replace them with the exact same model in a different colour. Sticking to the familiar makes working out your training plan so much easier, because you’ll know exact how long you need to wear them in and what type of runs you can do during that process. But occasionally I’ll buy something completely new, and the anticipation of that first run is considerable.

So considerable in fact that it was enough to get me to commit to the session I had pencilled in last week. That was before I’d taken on the 5k Time Trial to round off my 6 week training plan, a run that really left me wondering what might have been. It was my fastest run on the Warwick Racecourse parkrun course, only a second outside of my overall parkrun PB, but I couldn’t get under 20 minutes. That of itself was frustrating, but what was even more frustrating was the fact that had I not missed three sessions due to injury in week 5, I might have been that little bit sharper come the final TT. But how my legs felt for the following two days confirmed that I’d given it plenty, and the prospect of hill sprints today wouldn’t have been at all appealing without new shoes.

I bought the ASICS Hyper Speed shoes without trying them on first on the basis that recent ASICS models have fit me perfectly, and that is especially the case here. I should point out at this stage that I have relatively narrow feet, but the fact they were a struggle to put on whilst wearing cricket socks on Saturday was a good sign, because it meant that when I put on thinner running socks today, the fit was snug but comfortable. I ran down some pretty steep downhill paths today, and if your shoes are slightly too big you can find your toes being jammed against the front of the shoe, but I had absolutely no movement inside the shoe today.

In fact, it was the downhills where I was most impressed by the shoes. I’ve tried on a few pairs of shoes that try to force you onto your toes, and as someone who naturally runs on my toes (okay, not quite naturally, my gait transformed so I could continue running with a bruised heel and never reverted back after that healed), I’ve found that sensation disconcerting. With these shoes, it’s more of a mild encouragement to get onto your toes due to the shape of the shoe and the minimal tread on the heel, and on the downhills I stayed on my toes even more than I usually do and was able to travel faster without expending extra effort, which is exactly what you want.

If there was a slight disappointment, it was, somewhat ironically given the name of the shoes, when I tried a sprint on the flat. I managed to reach more than 21kph which is a decent pace for me, but it didn’t feel that quick compared to some of my previous race shoes.

I’ll wear the shoes a few more times to see whether that is correct, because I certainly wasn’t fresh when I tried that sprint. Which of itself is a good sign in terms of the quality of these shoes. There are some interval sessions where you deliberately run slightly within yourself, but I’ve also run interval sessions where I’ve felt like I needed to hold back as I didn’t have full confidence in the shoes I was wearing. The conditions today weren’t especially challenging, given is was completely dry, relatively smooth paths and roads throughout, but I definitely felt like I could push as hard as my body could deliver and felt like I’d pretty much emptied the tank by the end of my final effort.

The biggest surprise the shoes delivered were in terms of comfort. Occasionally you can get away with very aggressive shoes, if you can warm up and warm down in different shoes and give yourself full rests between efforts. Today however I had to run the whole session in the same shoes, which meant warm up, 12 hill sprints with jog recoveries to get back down to the bottom of the hill each time, followed by a warm down. The shoes felt as good during the slow running as the faster stuff, leading me to suspect that even if they don’t turn out to be quite the fastest in a straight line, over the duration of a race or an interval session they would probably still be the fastest shoes I have owned.

It won’t be too long before I’m able to put that to the test. I probably won’t wear them this Saturday for the hill race I am doing as there are already plenty of unknowns going into that, so I need to stick to tried and tested with my shoes, but the following Saturday I’m running parkrun for the first time since it returned, and I’m really hopefully that the shoes, combined with running alongside others, will get me back under 20 minutes.