What are My Life doing for us?

My Life are a specialist personal training organisation run by a group of professional trainers trying to help many Bristolians get fitter. Here's their website: http://www.mylifept.com/

Mike and I were loking for help in training for the TransAlp and we came across MyLife helping out at one of the Nailsea Running Club events. We contacted Andy Wadsworth, who runs My Life and, after a little persuasion convincing him:

1. that we were mad enough to see this through the training for the next year,
2. that we needed his help to get through this (very easy given our levels of fitness)
3. that we were serious in raising £30,000 for St Peter's hospice

...he agreed to help us. This was fantastic for our motivation at an early stage of our training.

Then came the hard bit. He set up a meeting with a specialist to measure our fitness. This involved putting on a gas mask and jumping on a running machine:

We were then made to start walking and every minute the speed was increased to a fast running pace. Once running at 12 mph, the incline was increased 2% each minute. Here's Mike mid-test looking fresh as a daisy:

What then happens is you hit your anaerobic threshold. That's when your physiology changes completely, you stop being able to take in enough oxygen to run at the speed you have, lactic acid builds up and you suddenly feel terrible. Basically you collapse.

Here's Mike just after the test. He really looks like he enjoyed it! The problem is trying to get enough oxygen back into your lungs through the mask when you are completely shattered having just had your heart rate up to its maximum.

I have to say it was very hard work, but it will be fascinating to see how our fitness improves over the next year as our training increases and our bodies adapt to the mileage we have to put in.

We'll talk more about the results of the tests once we understand them!

What is the TransAlp?

The 2010 Gore-Tex TransAlpine Run is a footrace across the Alps. It commences in Germany and runs over the Alps through Austria into the Italian Dolomites. The 2010 event takes place over a week from 4 September to 11 September 2010. It will cover a total distance of 300km (185 miles) and will climb 14,300 metres (47,000 feet). This is equivalent to a marathon a day for a week with each marathon having 2,000 metres of ascent, or alternatively, just running up and down Mount Everest twice in one week! The first running of the race took place in 2004, the 2010 race being the sixth running of the TransAlp Run. All runners take part as teams of two, for safety reasons. Each team must pass through every checkpoint (including spot checks) within two minutes of each other. Failure to do this will result in either time penalties or disqualification. There are four different categories of teams: Men, Ladies, Masters and Mixed. We will be entering the Masters category, where the qualification is that the combined team age is over 80. With David aged 49 and Mike aged 50 at the time of the event, they (far too) easily meet this target. You can find out more on the Transalp website: http://www.transalpine-run.com/

Who are SPURT?

The St Peter's Ultra Running Team are David Smart and Mike Hutton. We are both members of Nailsea Running Club near Bristol. We have come together to try and achieve two major challenges:

• firstly to complete the Gore-Tex Transalpine Run in September 2010 and
• secondly to raise £30,000 for St Peter's Hospice.