The West Highland Way ultra – A Training Journey (part 8)

Actually, it’s a not training journey

The last time I hit ‘publish’ on my West Highland Way ultra training blog series was 3 months ago. Since then a lot has happened. Several recurring and cumulative health issues gathered steam, and a myriad of external factors climbed aboard the choo-choo train. The details of these are not the focus of this blog post. Instead I want to talk about what it means for my training journey.

My priorities have had to shift and what was an enjoyable window-seat jaunt towards my West Highland Way ultra experience was cancelled with immediate effect mid-trip (not analogising with any particular Scottish train service 👀) in early February. I had to off-load carriages to keep my life-train trundling along at any speed, let alone full speed which would have seen me derailing with a sharp plummet and mighty crash. You know, like in those action movies – giant fireball, burned out wreckage kind of stuff. Why am I using train analogies? I have no idea, but hopefully they get the point across 🚂.

The train leaving platform 2025 is cancelled

So I hit the brakes, removed what wasn’t absolutely necessary for functioning, and let my life-train slow to a manageable pace whilst I caught my breath and recovered.

That’s not to say I didn’t try to move back into second gear (ok, third gear too 😅) a few times. I did. To change analogy tracks briefly, these shifts up led to those false summits that often appear on a weary hill runners horizon. Providing that sense of hope that I’ll shortly be coasting downhill, smiling wildly, singing ‘wheeeee’. Or hurtling wide-eyed, employing some other choice words if it’s steep and scree covered 😅. Either way, it’s fun when it happens, but it wasn’t happening!

The choice words were employed in any case as each false summit led to the realisation that the West Highland Way ultra was fast approaching and my time to train (the running kind) was disappearing with every missed session.

Running withdrawals…but not as I know it

I’m not one to go into a challenging event such as the West Highland Way ultra with fingers crossed that I don’t break my body (or spirit) because I haven’t done enough training. I don’t need to be in perfect race shape, but I do need to be trained enough that I am confident I can execute the run feeling like I did myself justice. So I decided to withdraw my entry.

I also withdrew my entry for a 12-hour ultra in May.

Although I am current female title holder for this one (not as impressive as it sounds, it’s a very small field 😅), this was only ever going to be a ‘training run’ ahead of the West Highland Way. So I have duly given the annual trophy back to draw a line under that one for 2025. Not before finally (it has lived in the loft for the past year) snapping a pic with it 👇.

Anyway, I didn’t pull up this blog post space to write a sob story. If I did, it’s a terrible one 😆. You didn’t click the link to read one either. So let’s put the West Highland Way withdrawal reasons to the side and look at what I like best…stats! What happens to a runner’s Garmin stats when they are going along scaling hills and hitting decent distance, then grind to a 3 month halt Let’s have a look below!

Running low

The decline in my monthly running distance and the accompanying steps can be seen in the images below.

Running distances 👇 Step counts 👇

I am writing this on the last day of April. My running mileage and monthly step count should still be rising due to my training. Given all that’s gone on though, I’m actually happy to have kept February and March above the 400,000 step mark! This is because I have switched several runs to walks just to maintain movement in most of my days.

By the end of today April will be above 300,000. This equates to 10,000 steps a day average for the month. It sounds alright, but it hasn’t been a linear progression across the month. Instead it is the result of peak days carrying my trough days. Not ideal for re-building consistency, nor a great approach to general wellbeing. I’m looking forward to addressing that issue and increasing the running distance again. I’m not used to lower than triple figure mileage for a month!

Run down

Unfortunately, Garmin has noticed the sharp decline in running distance and overall step counts over the last few months. The stats say it all 👇….

VO₂ Max

My VO₂ Max has dropped from 49 to 47. This is still a superior score for my age and sex. The work needed to drive this back up is high intensity intervals, speed work on hills and such like. I look forward to starting, though I’ll bemoan those sessions as I do them!

Garmin hill score

My hill score peaked at 85 (‘expert’ according to Garmin) but now fluctuates between 69 (trained) and 70 (skilled). Thank goodness I moved to a hilly place at the start of the year, as it has offset a more severe plummet of this score 😅. A mix of short hill work at speed and slower efforts on long hills to regain my endurance will improve this score again. If you’ve read my training journey blog so far, you will know that improvements in my VO₂ Max will also bump this back up.

Garmin endurance score

My endurance score is the one that has been hit the most. Newsflash: walking more just doesn’t keep the level of cardio endurance levels anywhere close to peak capacity that the hilly trail distance running does! I peaked with a Garmin score of 7,402 (‘elite’ for my age and sex). My current score is a ‘well-trained’ 5,942. Thanks, Garmin 🫠

Garmin fitness age

One score I haven’t discussed before is fitness age. I won’t dive into the details of how it is calculated, but your fitness age is an estimate of your fitness levels. A fitness age lower than your chronological age is a good sign of high fitness levels. My fitness age has always been lower than my chronological age (as long as I’ve had a Garmin, anyway). During my West Highland Way ultra training, Garmin gave me a peak (lowest) fitness age of 35. This is an excellent score, given I am in my 40’s 🤫. Right now Garmin considers my fitness age to be 37. I’ve aged 2 years in 3 months 😱! The perils of stopping training!

So, what now?

As I put my West Highland Way ultra training programme to the side, I am simply working on getting my health back to full capacity. Physical fitness plays a large part in this, so building my consistency back up is my main fitness focus right now.

I don’t have any other running races booked into my calendar, but I am keeping a side-eye on a couple happening later this year. If my health and fitness return to a level that I am happy is a consistent base to build from, then I may enter one or two events…replacement bus services 🚌 if we can bring it back to my earlier train analogy…but I won’t put pressure on myself to do this.

Sidenote: Now that I’ve freed up the weekend of 21st and 22nd June, we are hosting a virtual 269 Marathon Challenge. It’s a challenge with a twist (not your standard marathon) so check it out and join us!

The take away

The message I want to send out with this post is that it is ok to put races etc., to the side if doing so means you can get the breathing space to do whatever other work you need to. This doesn’t just mean recovering from illness or injury. It means life drops some stuff in your lap (not always ‘bad’ stuff! Sometimes it’s exciting opportunities!) that wasn’t planned. It is ok to pivot and deal with this, even if you have publicly declared a different goal.

And don’t fall foul of the sunk-cost fallacy! Unfortunately I see runners do this all the time. They keep training when sense dictates they should stop or at least slow down and reevaluate their goals for any specific race or training block. I see runners turn up to events ill/injured/undertrained only to DNF or complete the race but pay a heavier price thereafter. Back in the ‘early days’, I was one of those runners too.

As I said earlier, it’s not about being perfectly ready to race. Few of us stand on the start line knowing we’ve done everything just right and are in peak race condition. What I am mean is toeing the start line in a fitness shape that runs a real risk of making any illness or injury worse. Being well-trained to race but at the expense of having neglected the important thing(s) that popped up in your life isn’t ideal either We have to park the runners ego (we all have one!) for the sake of our running longevity (and longevity in general).

So, just because you’ve paid your entry fee, that doesn’t mean you need to do an event at all costs! Our health and wellbeing, as well as our long-term enjoyment with training, are far more valuable than the price of an entry fee.

Blog on?

I’m not sure if I should keep blogging about my training now that I’m not training for anything in specific. There’s a part of me that thinks it would be fun to blog about coming back from a 3 month hiatus as an ultra trail runner – especially given how low my Garmin scores have gone!

What do you think – to blog or not to blog? Let me know in the comments!

Did anything in this post resonate with you? Hit the comments too 👇

Thank you for following my West Highland Way ultra training journey to this point. I appreciate you 🤗.

Shari 💚