It's that time of year again - signed up to do it again

As the summer days start to shorten again, it is time (as always) to think about signing up for next year's RR. After my first time, I didn't do it the following year, and so found it harder when I did my second. My third was done without a year off and I decided that it is best to keep going year after year.

Doing it for the third time was the most enjoyable so far - there are a number of people who did it for the first time the same year that I did and find themselves back most years like myself. I am no longer the crazy English guy, but one of the usual suspects.

I now have a target to aim for - on the 10th time, you receive an award of "master skier", so I have to keep going. No English skier has received this, and to the best of my knowledge, I am the only Brit who has completed the RR three times.

My skiing is not stylish, but this year it didn't hurt when I fell. I still have to find a way to strengthen some of my leg muscles for cross country skiing so that they don't swell up as much. It doesn't bother me for most of the trip - only for a part of the last day where trying to control the skis in a plough on some narrow downhill sections through the forest does it become clear that I don't have the control I normally have.

Fortunately, I think I have a solution to this. My running club (Burnham on Sea Harriers) has started a weekly session for youngsters at which I help out. Kevin has us doing more general fitness exercises, and the agony I felt after the first session showed that I really do need some more general training.

I also have some plans to try other things to try and prepare for the cross country skiing. My wife is having an arena built for horse training and I plan to see if it is possible to at least walk round it on an old pair of cross country skis.

So here is my countdown to RR1 for 2014

• Increase my training - more is needed as I get older. So I do 16km on Saturdays; target times consistently under 1:30:00. Plus running club 6-7km on Tuesdays
• This year there is the training on Thursdays
• Do more cycling and time on the rowing machine compared to last year; + treadmill.
• Need to get up to around 6 hours general fitness training per week
• Milestone events
• Bristol half marathon 2013 - 15 September. Target time = under 2 hours - slightly better than last year, but anything under 2 hours 5 mins is a good fitness marker, unless it is a particularly hot day. It will be slower if I am in the second wave start.
• Burnham on Sea half marathon - 6 October. Target time 2 hours. This is absolutely flat, passes my house (which is the first water station) and should be cooler.
  With these two events, I can compare to previous years for general level of fitness as a base starting point
• Brent Knoll run - 24 November. This is a race to the top of a hill and back and is usually extremely muddy. This year I want to do it under 1 hour, but it will depend on the conditions
• Ski training - with no real options in the UK, a week in Norway 15-22 February 2014 will be the only skiing I get done prior to arriving a few days early in Kuusamo for the RR itself. As I am going to be in Lillehammer, maybe a trip round the Birkebeiner course towards the end of the week will be a good guide to how ready I am
• Around 1 or 2 March, I will arrive in Kuusamo, giving myself 2.5 days final training

In comparison to this year, I have worked out that I need to

1. Try and increase my endurance e.g. extending my Saturday run beyond 16km - maybe to 23km or so. This is to try to increase the base level so that the training load on my Polar heart monitor watch is lower for my normal run. A day of the RR is about 2x my Saturday run.
2. During the last few weeks, increase the training e.g. on the treadmill to get more used to significant effort on a daily basis.
3. Find exercises to strengthen my legs generally, especially any lateral/rotational strength

I also need to do a bit more work on nutrition. One of the things I tried last year was perfect - a sachet with 3 get shots in it, but it doesn't seem to be available any longer - only single shots. If you read the literature, I would need to carry rather a lot of them. I may also try Oxo cubes for making hot drinks. The real problem is finding things that work at temperatures between +3C and -30C - this year it was sufficiently cold that at least one person broke  tooth on a piece of chocolate. I might have to resort to making my own energy bars and putting them in the freezer; I know this is only about -18 to -22C but it should be an indicator. You need an insulated flask even for cold drinks on the RR.

If anyone reading this has ideas on training that doesn't require snow (I have tried roller skis without much success; same goes for a cross country ski trainer machine) then I would be interested.