Winter Training in the Frozen North

 With a foot of snow here in Glasgow, yesterday I trained at the Kelvin Hall indoor sports arena, a draughty old 'municipal' indoor track in the West End to test out if my technique is still up to scratch. Having not really run much in the last month, i decided to run without a pack, and also without any music.

The lack of music was great -music tends to drown out what your body is telling you, although the pace can pick you up when you need it. With no i-pod i could feel that im pretty out of shape (i should train more than once a month maybe?) Anyway my plan now is to use these sessions to up my tempo a bit, and see how good a pace i can keep up for 10km.

No pack also made a big difference, so much so that ill drop the pack for runs this month, and walk with it instead in the snow. It will be desperately boring so i think music is necessary here.

Im still trying to tie in running with a pack with Chi-running - they basically arent compatible and i still have a problem here- chi running is all about being light, using core muscles, not using the legs etc. but a pack automatically loads all your muscles an extra 10% of your bodyweight.

So this month i plan to continue to combine building up the miles with chi-running indoors, without a pack, and walking long walks in the snow with a pack on. It's about 5 miles to the centre of Glasgow from my home so my December training will consist of 2 times walking a week to strengthen the legs and core, and an hour and half run in the indoor track, in between days.

The great thing about being back in an English speaking country are that there are plenty other runners, and clubs and so on i can join to keep motivated, it was pretty cheering to see some fellow sufferers training in Kelvin Hall yesterday !

After this month, January and February have to be hard training months, so depending on business commitments ill maybe move to a warmer drier country to train properly so i can relax a bit in March ahead of the race. This is the slackers ultramarathon after all ;o)