Coming out the back end of the Gobi March 2007, a single thought encapsulated the event for me, Striking.

Striking landscapes, running terrain, local hospitality, competitor spirit and good will.

It was in my view a fantastic event.

My

As part of the final count down I visited my local doctor to persuade him of the need to write me out a script for some serious pain killers.

On every visit my doctor feels the need to explain in lots of detail what is happening to my body and why I'm feeling sick, hung over, can't stand up, sit down etc.

How ever I feel like I'm in a good zone with training, which means I'm not meeting my goals for the month but

close enough not to be crapping myself.

OK so what I was trying to meet in goals last month was:

Feb / March objectives

1. Run 275k

2. Increase my VO2 Max to 60, Body fat %9 and BMI to 24.1

3. Sort feet & blister management out

4. Remain happily married

5. Spend time with the kids and

6. Still have a business.

What I have achieved in reality is around 200-240k, VO2 max is around the same, body fat the same, BMI around the same.

My approach was to train 5 days a week for around 20k per day over the terrain we were going to be getting in and around Kashgar, in reality I'm training 3 days in a row, having a day or two of cycling and the rest not running.

January is the month where my structured training build up to Gobi begins.

I've had around 12 months to date of training with a view to enjoying the build up events and running with friends.  My training has not been as well thought through as it could have been, but given the lead time to the race I thought it more important to mentally be in good shape by not taking at all too seriously, and having some fun.

Training set up in January.

Father Christmas left a Garmin GPS watch under the Xmas tree this year and I've now built my program around the information it can provide and my current fitness / preparation levels.

I've also taken a fitness test at my gym and had a current fired up through me to understand body fat% and BMI.

The other area that I'm concentrating on now is nutrition and hydration.

So what I am trying to achieve within my program is to increase my endurance by increasing my VO2 Max / Lactate Threshold, building body strength and fine tuning my hydration and nutrition needs.

My overall goal is still to finish the race and run as much as can be run.  I don't have position or time frame expectations.

So I'll take each one of these separately.  I'll say first off the bat that I'm not an expert in the science of running, but the theory and practice behind the metrics I'm training by are not rocket science, also if you respect them but use them as a guide then you stand a chance of benefiting from them.

Heart Rates, VO2 Max and Lactate Threshold

I've had my Max Heart Rate (MHR) set at 181 RPM, and off this, set training heart rate zones, that will deliver different results depending on what zone you train in and for how long.

I'm relating my heart rate zone to my pace per minute.  So simply you want your heart rate to go down while your pace increases (that's obvious, so apologies for stating it). 

What I need to personally achieve is the ability to run at around 5:30 to 6:00 minute kilometers, with a fully loaded pack (9.5kg) with a heart rate around 60