Great start to the New Year

So my game face is finally on. Recently I have had some brilliant days off touring with friends and I have also been doing my usual skinning up Les Houches for fitness on lunches and evenings and on top of that I have been out running in the evenings.

My runs have not been very long. Usually about an hour and half maximum. As usual I have no set days for getting out but I just go when I feel like it and recently I have been feeling great and excited to get back out for a little jog. The running psyche comes and goes for me all winter season but it doesn't bother me too much that I am not running 5 or 6 days a week over winter as I am getting out ski touring or just skiing which also helps keep the legs strong. Okay it doesn't use the same muscle groups but in my view it ain't to bad to just keep the legs strong and it seems to work for me.

Skinning up to Loriaz chalets

I am loving my skiing again as I went through a short period of not really being bothered about getting out on my skis but recently I have been loving seeing new areas and touring around different places. Most notably myself Lorne and Sandy went for a rather long ski tour last week up to the Refuge Anterne and then skied the Couloir Chourde. Now this didn't really involve too much ascent(600m) but we(meaning I) were breaking trail for a good 6 hours through powder to get to a couloir we wanted to ski. It was a brilliant day for the fitness. The ski however wasn't up to much(crap snow) but I was happy to have worked my legs for so long that day. I have also been on little tours up to the Chalet Loriaz(good snow) and also to the Col Grand Saint Bernard(great snow) Very short skiing summaries I know but I like to keep the ski blogging to a minimal amount as there are a million blogs on Chamonix Skiing you can find on the web. Almost as many as Ultra Running!

Best view this season

Great long skinning day

Hours and hours of breaking trail
is good for the legs but a little help would
have been nice!

So back to fitness and I am feeling good. The skinning track up Les Houches is in great shape at the moment and I have been up it quite a lot recently. I am not sure exactly how much ascent it is from bottom to top but it is around 900m. I am usually around 1hr-1hr30mins on this depending how I am feeling and how much I want to beast myself but I cracked out just under 55 minutes recently so I was happy with that and I am now just hoping to keep getting that time down. I love my skinning for fitness but do not think I will ever enter into the Skimo(ski mountaineering) races. Yeah they are awesome for fitness but I think they will just be too high a tempo for me plus I cannot afford to buy the proper lightweight gear so my own little jaunts will need to do. On the running side of things the ski du fond(my running track) is also in great shape in the evenings and is hard packed but not icy so no spikes are needed. I am on the hunt for some runnable longer trails at the moment as Lauren arrives next week for a bit of skiing and running and since she has the Mont Blanc marathon and the Lake District 80k to look forward to this year I am sure she will want to hit the trails with me.

Me skiing some awesome snow in Switzerland

I think that for getting ultras finished then time on your feet is vital. You don't have to be a great runner to get them done but you do have to be able to grit your teeth and get on with it. Just being on the go for hours and hours helps so much whether it be running , hiking , skiing , ski touring etc.. Just being super active goes a long way but yeah at the end of the day the best way to train for a running race is to run , like training for a bike race you need to bike and so on... Varying it up a little just makes me more excited every time I go back to running but yeah time away from running is good also. That might all sound very confusing but I hope you know what I am getting at. If you loose a little bit of the hunger for your main sport then try other things for a while as that hunger and love for it will return. That's why I love my winters as I know that come summer and I hit the trails again I will be smiling every time I go out a run.

Through a friend of a friend I have offered my sofa to a fairly well known Scottish hill runner , Finlay Wild. He is currently crashing at my place for a few weeks as he is here to try his hand at Skimo Races and is here to train. For those of you who do not know Finlay he is the current Ben Nevis hill race champion and holds the record for the fastest Cuillin Ridge traverse on the Isle Of Skye and has many other race wins to his name so to say he is a pretty handy runner would be a massive understatement. It will be interesting when we start touring together and running as his running pace is going to be ridiculously fast as his races are all about speed whereas mine are about pacing slow. He is light years ahead of my fitness level but I am super keen to get out running with him and have him push me a bit and hopefully improve my flat running speed.

Fin , Sandy and Lorne at Col Grand St Bernard

Finally some more great news for the summer ahead. Colorado based company LARABAR who make amazing 100% fruit and nut food bars have offered to help me out with some bars to fuel me during my training and races over the summer. Just check out the ridiculous amounts of amazing flavours they do. I now have them to thank for my food supplies on trail and also NECTAR and FOR GOODNESS SHAKES who are helping me out with Gels(Orange tested today and worked a treat) , Hydro Tabs(Blackcurrant is my go to drink now on ski tours) and Recovery Shakes(Banana amazing) Absolutely delighted that these companies have taken time to reply to my emails and show a bit of support. I will continue to comment as honestly as I can on how I get on with all of these products once I use them for a bit longer.

In the mean time I am off for a run.