Tag Archives: fitness

Quarry rock slider

Little Welsh Girl V Big Mountain

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I have signed up for Rat Race Man V Mountain. For those who don’t know what it is, it’s an endurance race that will find me running from Caerarfon (at sea level) to the top of Snowdon (3,560 ft), and back down again to Llanberis. During this grueling 20-mile race, I will have to run up a ‘vertical’ kilometre and abseil down again; navigate an aquatic obstacle course, and swim across a river that links Llyn Peris and Llyn Padarn.

You may think, as I am the co-creator of a magazine for extreme sports and the outdoors, that I am very fit. Well, you are wrong – I have had a very lazy winter, and in all honesty I’ve barely hiked, ran or cycled for months.(This is due to most hiking routes being closed in the winter in Vancouver) The most exercise I have done is a handful of snowboarding sessions, and the odd guilt-motivated jog of about 1k. The longest I’ve ever ran is six miles (10k) which I did once, last year, at the Vancouver Sun Run. So Man V Mountain – or as I have dubbed it in my head: Little Welsh Girl V Big Mountain – is going to be a quite a challenge.

Why have I signed up for this? Well, my lazy winter means I have gone up a dress size – I blame the cider, wine, meat and bread (the best sandwich shop in Vancouver), and my own laziness. I do want to get fit again. I felt so much better, and I was much happier with my body.

Also, the race is taking place in Snowdonia (Eryri) – where my family lives, and have done for many generations. No matter where in the world I live, Eryri is always home, and after living abroad for two years it will be nice to reconnect with the land of my fathers and mothers again.

So – to training! Getting motivated to start has not been easy, and to be fair to my co-founder and partner, Robert McCrimmon, he has had to put up with me moaning about my lack of motivation. To break the cycle, I needed to do something hard. I persuaded Rob, to drive me to Deep Cove, a beautiful suburb of Vancouver.

corry rock

Rob and I currently live in Vancouver but are emigrating back to the UK soon. The aim of going to Deep Cove  is to run up Quarry Rock. According to the Vancouver Trails, this is an easy hike. It is easier than others, as its short – just 3.8K – but it has steep sections and many steep staircases. All the hills and mountains in the Vancouver area are steep, so it makes for a perfect training ground.

Quarry Rock is not however easy to run up – especially with a hangover. As I pick my way over rocks and roots in a slow jog, Rob is walking not far behind telling me to go faster. He ran parts of the route with me and didn’t even break into a sweat – the guy never works out…

I didn’t manage to run the whole trail. I walked some parts and ran others, and my lungs still felt like they were going to burst. My legs felt incredibly heavy, and I failed to get up any real speed going uphill. I have a long way to go to be ready for Man V Mountain.

corry rock slider

The view at the top of Quarry rock, however, is worth every lung-bursting step. As hard as it was, I was glad I did it, as it did the job – it has given me the motivation to start taking this challenge seriously and train a harder. No more 1k jogs.

Full disclosure: I was invited to do the race by the outdoor brand Merrell who are covering my race fee. 

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firefly

Firefly – recover, improve, excel

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Firefly is a “sports recovery device for serious athletes across all sports.” It is a small battery powered device that an athlete wares behind the knee after strenuous activity. The idea is to increase the blood circulation to your legs to remove the metabolic waste left by exercise, helping your muscles recover faster and taking care of any stiffness in the legs.

The Firefly device uses OnPulse neuromuscular electrostimulation technology to trigger the body’s built-in mechanisms by delivering electrical impulses to a nerve just below the knee called the common peroneal nerve.

That’s the technical stuff out the way with. I tried out the Firefly on day two of a five day snowboarding trip to Whistler, B.C. I was a little fatigued after the first day but held out until the second to try to test the true benefits of the device. Once back to the chalet, I de-kitted, showered and found a spot on the couch in front of the T.V. My calves were sore and starting to tense up a little bit so I thought this was the time to it out.

I took the devices out of there little jiffy bag along with its velcro straps that helps hold it in place, and peeled of the backs to reveal a very sticky, blue/green gel, and proceeded to stick them to my legs, just under my knee towards the outer-side. I then wrapped the black straps around the devices. After about an hour of thinking it wasn’t doing much…Then I turned it on.

The Firefly reminds me a little of the electric ab stimulators you see advertised on late/early T.V. It sends a small electric shock through your muscle, I’m saying that it has the same effect but I think there is a similar science behind it. I wore the Firefly for about 4-5 hours, I even went to bed with it on, it wasn’t painful or irritating at all. Once the power was failing I took it off. In the morning my carves were loose and relaxed, with no stiffness to be felt anywhere in my legs.

Now would I go out and buy them? One pack of Firefly (with a 2 devices in) costs £29.00, a pack of 4 is £99.00. So for a general ‘I’ve been out on the mountain for a day or so’, no I wouldn’t. They did definitely help my recovery but I definitely could of carried on without them without too much difficulty. However, if I was going backcounty boarding that required me to hike or if I was to play my first game of football of the season or run a half/full marathon, where I am going to experience Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS), then these devices are worth every penny. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to test the Firefly under these conditions yet because of a ‘hyper extended’ knee injury I picked up in football practice, so an update of the device may well be written in the future.

To get some more information about the Firefly check out their website www.fireflyrecovery.com. I think it’s a very clever device and really great piece of sports science.

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