Font Romeu - 9 Weeks Out
This week didn’t start out as well as the last.
We woke at 4am to Lemmy having a very violent, 5 min plus, seizure. If you’ve never observed a full blown seizure before, let me assure you that it’s quite traumatising to witness. I’ve dealt with both animal fits and multiple human fits (that have ended with a few days hospitalisation). Lemmy’s seizures seem to be getting longer and the recovery stage - where he’s stopped fitting but is totally rigid, unable to move and with eyes wide open whilst he draws large breaths, feels like an eternity. The following stage is an hour plus of manic behaviour. Temporarily blind, he finds us by scent and sniffs our faces to know that he’s safe. This is followed by ravenous hunger and thirst. He paces back and forth, banging into tables and doors until finally, he settles.
It’s hard. For those who think ‘It’s just a bloody animal’, imagine this happening to one of your kids and then listen when I tell you that I’ve had it happen to both, and neither is easier to witness than the other.
We decided to train separately so that Lem wouldn’t be left alone. I went out early to the lake and ran just over 10 recovery miles. HR 130, pace 5:18. I think I’m slowly starting to acclimatise. A good start to the training week at the very least.
Tuesday: Here’s a turn up for the books… we’re out of here…
I’ll be totally honest, Font Romeu hasn’t been great for a few reasons, although training definitely isn’t one of them.
Yes, I’ve had a blast to be training at altitude - it’s something I’ve imagined doing for a long time and, for me, I don’t really care where I am as long as I’m able to train effectively. But this 4 week stint in the Pyrenees has been largely about me and my goals. Holly has done her time with fast road running and the place we’re in doesn’t play to both our needs. Construction work taking place, people in very close proximity and random dogs walking into the garden to drive Lemmy mad have made what looked to be a quiet, chilled time in amongst the pines, more akin to being back home. And frankly, the chalet isn’t a patch on the van for being able to relax.
The final nail in the coffin is the fact that Font Romeu itself just isn’t our jam. We miss being in the van and we miss the Alps. So we’re leaving. Life is too short to stay somewhere we’re not happy when we can simply pack up and go to a place we love.
We made the decision during an 8 mile run this morning. We’re going to do our last HIDEOUS looking session around the lake tomorrow and then pack up and leave after Thursday mornings run. It’ll take 7 hours to arrive in Chamonix and then we’ll head 5 minutes up and out of town to our favourite park up in Argentiere, Le Planet.
Sure, we won’t get the altitude benefits that were basically the entire point of this trip, but I will feel better knowing Holly is happier and also that we get to visit Moody’s coffee on a daily basis and watch UTMB live - how spoilt are we?
**CHANGE OF PLANS**
Just as we were confirming routes for our long run on Sunday from Valorcine to Chamonix, Holly looked up at me..
“I’ve got an idea” She said with a smile.
We both love UTMB but we don’t love being surrounded by crowds of influencers or the people who are solely interested in jogging around town in full trail gear, vibing, but have absolutely no intention of going for an actual trail run. It’s weird but it’s definitely a thing. And we both agreed last year that we wanted to come to Chamonix after UTMB, when it’s quieter. So, let’s stay one more week and spend a few nights camping by the lake. That way we step right out onto the trail and we get to sleep in the van in the pine forest. We can then travel to the Alps for our final 8 days before returning to the Uk. Sound good?”
“Now you’re talking” was my reply. The perfect compromise.
This idea has us both feeling much better about the next couple of weeks.
Melodrama aside, let’s move on to
Wednesdays session
This was a big one.
2 miles at Marathon pulse (not pace) 3 mins recovery. 12x1 min fast/1 min easy. 3 mins recovery. 8 miles at 10 beats lower than marathon heart rate.
The weather was heating up rapidly and, stupidly, I decided to perform my 2 miles and reps on the barrage, totally exposed to the baking sun and a flat, but concrete, surface to run on.
The 2 miles at marathon pulse yielded a 4:11 average pace. This would have been very depressing at sea level, but at altitude and in heat, I was pretty happy. The reps were better, ranging from 3:18 to 3:25. The 8 miles at 150bpm resulted in a 4:42 split. At home, my HR would have been around 132-133 on the flat. I really hope that when we do return to sea level things return to normal! It doesn’t bother me massively tbh. At altitude you run to HR, not pace. You accept that you’re going to be slower.
15 miles done. We finished with a dip in the lake, which feels like a total reset for aching muscles. I enjoy it so much I might have to get one of those ice bins for the back garden, although having already bought a pair of Pulse Recovery Boots, this might be one step too far for Holly.
We spent the rest of the day feeling incredibly tired and lazy. We had pizza for dinner followed by some birthday cake.
Thursday was a double day. 7 miles in the morning followed by a gym session and a 5k run in the afternoon. We took a rest day on Friday, opting instead to work all day. Online coaching is becoming a real passion for me - something I never thought I’d say. Most endurance athletes who come to us just need to get stronger in the gym environment, which takes time to build. But once we’re satisfied they’re strong enough for their purposes, we can start becoming more specific with things like hold/push isometrics and appropriate plyo’s outside of drills and strides and I simply love programming more advanced training.
Saturday was session number two. 8 x 5 mins at MRP off 3 mins jog recovery.
We took our first trip to the track in Font, situated a couple of hundred meters higher than the lake. It’s a beautiful place. The rugby guys were training in the middle, but we had the track pretty much to ourselves. We began with a mile warm up. It’s a concern when your respiration is audible jogging 6 min k’s and I mentioned to Holly that holding anything close to 4 mins per k was going to push my heart rate to its max. Neither of us felt good about what was to come. It was hot and we really felt the additional 200m of elevation. My goal was to hit 4 minutes per k and Hollys was, well, faster.
It turns out this was the first session to let us know training at altitude might just be working. The reps became more and more comfortable. My first was 3:55 but I completed my eighth in 3:51. HR went as high as 165 but averaged out at 154bpm. This was a great result considering the altitude conversion makes these reps quite a bit faster at sea level. Holly absolutely nailed her reps. Based off the times she did today, the Vdot calculator predicts a 2:35 marathon… which is unlikely but still, not bad considering we’d had no sleep. We made the decision to kip in the van on the driveway of our airbnb last night (yes, we’re clearly out of our minds) and Lemmy was a total fidget, making sleep impossible. He spooned up against me the other night and pressed his nose into my neck, breathing loudly and making funny sighs (a sign he’s happy apparently), which is lovely but damn it, we need to get some decent shut eye.
Our long run isn’t until Monday since we’re not on a seven day schedule and so the 70 mile week I was hoping to hit will become 62 miles after our easy 10 miler tomorrow. I know I shouldn’t get hung up on mileage, but I am and I want to do my first 70 mile week whilst not at work!
Sunday 10 miles sucked. HR was fine (125 avg) but it just felt hard. To be expected I guess but it felt as though it took forever - boo hoo, right?