A friend of mine has been training for a half marathon, using an extremely detailed and scientific training plan. It seems to be working as her times get faster and faster, so I asked her what it was about a training plan that she liked? “It gives me focus” she said “so all I have to do is run!”

Many people ask me for training plans for the various endurance events we run at North Ridge Adventure, whether it’s for the Sleepwalker Night Race, the Welsh 3000s, or one of the military style challenge events such as the Fan Dance or Ultimate Endurance - Long Drag, so what I thought I’d start to do is to publish some training advice on this blog to give everyone who wants it a good heads-up on the training required.

Now before all the sports scientists get to grips with what I’m going to give you, let me just say that if anyone wants a BESPOKE training plan, then contact us and we’ll get that sorted out PDQ through Cathy , our fitness advisor. She’s the one with the Sports Science degree and the wall full of trophies! Having said that though, the rest of us have more than a passing interest in fitness and performance so as long as you don’t automatically believe everything we say, and use the advice as a general indicator which may or may not be suitable for you, then we’ll be good to go!

If it seems unusual to be advising against believing everything we/I say, then let me explain…

1st - we’re not out to make any money from giving out training advice - if it encourages people to come on a course, and because they turn up fit and ready, they have a great time and tell all their friends how much fun it was….that’s what we want.

2nd - everyone is different and it is IMPOSSIBLE to give specific detailed advice without meeting the person. Let me give you an example from my old climbing club..

We were sitting around in the bar one evening, after training on the local climbing wall, and big Charles (a caver - I know its wrong but its true) was telling someone about another lad’s Everest training which included walking up and down steep hills with 2 big paving slabs on an old frame rucksac! A fairly new recruit, who was a fit guy and well into the gym, took exception to this and was explaining how wrong this training method was, and why…to which he eventually got the response “well how may f****** 8000ers have you climbed then?” The point is, if it works for someone, it works, but it might not be for you - but it could give you a good idea for adapting to your own circumstances?

On similar note, when I ran the West Highland Way, I did so with a pulled hamstring - reason being my domestic situation meant I couldn’t train in the week so what I did instead was run 15 to 25 miles off road, virtually every Saturday for 5 months! Try find that one at www.runnersworld.co.uk (and while you’re there have a look at the Sleepwalker Night Race - it’s open for entries now)

I imagine most folks will find their own happy medium, involving a sensible bit of structure and hopefully, a bit of good old grit - at the end of the day it’s as important to train your head as your body, but we’ll discuss more of that later!

Dunc