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Matt signed up to Rat Race’s Man vs Lakes with three friends in 2019, before COVID-19 hit. To get the 1-minute sense of this epic 30-mile event, starting on the sands of Morecombe Bay and traversing the ridges and lakes of the Lake District – have a watch this summary film (55 seconds): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBja3YCA9EM

Coming off a strong Ironman training and race base, he felt confident enough to sign up for the bigger 2-day extravaganza… the ultra-distance adventure race on the Saturday, and then an ultra run up and down Scafell Pike on Sunday!

Then life intervened. A serious knee injury, a family bereavement, ongoing COVID challenges in his role as a Key Worker, a complete shutdown of the Tri Club and Judo club activities, and juggling family life through lockdown made it look like the plan was slipping away – even when the 2020 race was delayed to 2021.

Building the right plan for the goal

When he started out with coaching, with 6 months until the 2021 race, we mapped out the 9 biggest performance drivers that would get him to his goal and then did a gap analysis. Right away, it became clear that the first parts were all about the injury rehab and recovery – to then enable the mileage and the specific training to happen.

Matt says “it was a really nerve-racking time. I had been signed off by the physio, but the pain just constantly stopped me from getting any level or consistency of training in across more than one session. I was getting demoralised and worried, because time was moving on and I just didn’t seem to be progressing at all”.

Balancing the training

With very careful active recovery techniques, plus targeted strength and conditioning work, Matt was able to start to get back to some consistent training – even if the bike and the cross-trainer were being used as a cardiovascular stand-in when the knees required a little more recovery. It took so much self-control and discipline to keep to this programme.

Over time, we were able to increase the dose of duration and distance using gym work to give the strength component because speedwork caused increased rehab challenges. Juggling the loading was a constant tightrope, and challenges were increased with the various disruptions of periods of required isolation after COVID-19 positives within the family and at school, as well as physical responses to the vaccinations. One of the techniques that really worked for managing the load was the ultra-running training technique of putting back-to-back runs in on Saturday afternoon/Sunday morning, so that there was still the fatigue in the legs but without the challenge on the muscles and joints.

In the later stages of preparation, specificity included:

• dunking his feet and shoes in a bucket of water at the start of runs (to prepare for all of the running between water tasks)
• running with the backpack full of the required kit (which was not an insignificant load)
• practising with various foods to find what would stay down through such an extended period of physical exertion

Matt beat the mountain – on a very hot weekend!

The weekend itself dawned as the hottest weekend on record in a UK summer! However, all of the pacing plans, preparation and mental strength that Matt had gathered enabled him to make strong and steady progress throughout the whole day – finishing strong (even if exhausted!)

And to cap it all, he climbed and descended Scafell Pike on the Sunday, only cutting it short after his knees called time following the very challenging descent!

Matt was delighted to complete the race – especially as this was the last staging of ‘Man vs Lakes’ and reflected “it meant such a lot to be able to get out there with my mates and for all of us to succeed on a day where over a third of the field did not complete the distance. It is a really, really hard race, but I am just thrilled to have done it”.