A Year's Training Enough?

The following question was posted a while back on the WHW website forum

“Hi everyone, got interested in the race and I've now been keeping an eye on the site for a number of weeks. Started doing some running and I’m now contemplating next year’s event. Question would be – Is a year’s training enough?

I’m in the fortunate position where I can run to/from work so getting miles under the belt shouldn’t be a problem in terms of time (motivation and effort is another matter!!!!) and I’m already looking at half marathons/marathons as well as some other ultras such as Devil O'The Highlands to get used to longer runs (Would it be a good idea to do this if going ahead with entry for next years WHW?). Stay in the Falkirk area so fairly easy access to various off-road trails for training and noted that there is a good “social” side with organised night runs etc.

It’s all good and well looking at the various websites that publish training plans etc, but would really appreciate feeback from those that know best.

Cheers, Chris Buchanan”

A few replies suggested that Chris should build up to the race over a few years, but I thought differently and this is my reply -

”Having read the above comments and thought you might be interested in my experience / preparations for this years race, as you sound like you are in a similar position to the one I was in last year.

By posting this I may be criticised as irresponsible for encouraging you so I must stress the caveat that everyone’s different and what worked for me may not work for you. Oh … and I won’t be held responsible if your legs fall off !

I’m 36 years old, 6’3” & 85kg and took up running in late 2006 in an effort to halt the spread which was beginning to start thank to too many beers. I’ve never been a runner but swam competitively in my youth and generally kept myself fit. In February 2007 I did my first half-marathon (Forfar multi-terrain), then did 2 more halfs and a couple of hill races during the year. Training consisted of 15 miles / week max.

In August 2007 I stumbled across the website for the WHW race and thought it looked like a challenge so I entered. As I didn’t have any experience in ultra-marathons Dario (quite rightly) informed me that if I completed the Highland Fling I would get on the waiting list, if I didn’t finish there would be no race place. This was fair as I was an unknown quantity and I planned to do the Highland Fling anyway as part of my training.

Unfortunately due to illness I couldn’t run between October to mid-December and managed no more than 5 miles a week until February. By the end of March I was up to 25-30 mile / week and during April did weekend runs of 20 ml, 30ml & finished the ‘Fling in under 10 hours, which got me my race place. I was also doing around 100 ml/week commuting on my bike.

Mid-May to early-June I was doing 50ish ml/wk consisting of 2 x 10 milers with a longer hilly run at weekends and continuing the cycling. On my longer runs I concentrated on plodding along at race pace (around 5 mph) conditioning myself not to run too fast.

Don’t know if I was lucky but I managed to avoid picking up any significant injury and stopped running about 10 days before the big event so I felt fresh on the day. The race itself went well (tip - walking down Conic Hill makes a massive difference to the quads and only slows you up by about 3 mins !) and I finished in 10th place in 19hrs 54 mins, well under my 24 hour target.

So Chris, I in answer to your post it can be done by someone without a running background but it takes a lot of discipline, good luck staying injury free and a huge amount of mental determination during the event itself.

Having completed the race I would thoroughly recommend doing it (I’m still buzzing) when you are ready. Good luck with however you choose to tackle it.

Gav”