Blimey. It seems like such a long time ago since I've had anything to blog about. I have not done any races in the past month to write about. Actually that's a lie. I did a 10 mile race on the Thames a couple of weeks ago. My PB was fairly soft (1.10) and I thought about having a go at it, even though nowadays I am just a long slow plodder. I ran without a watch which is great because it means that the finish line is the first time you know how well you are doing, it's like a present at the end of a race and I got quite a good one, 1.07.40. Still some speed in the slow dog yet.
Anyway the past month has seen me change my priorities a bit. I so want to finish Barkley and to do so I need three things. To become insanely fit, to become a demon hill climber and a good navigator. Basically I need to become as good as this guy.
Easy.
Oh and I ran a 5k dressed as a badger. It was a fancy dress race. Well fancy dress was the week before so I just looked like an idiot in a badger costume. It was nice overtaking people dressed as a badger though, you could tell it hurt people.My little 9 year old brother ran his first 5k that do too which was cool.
I also ran the EHT NOHTARAM with about 12 Serpies which was pretty cool. Starting at 4am at Big Ben we ran the London Marathon route in reverse, ending at the start and then getting to mock people for being lazy and having not run a marathon yet. We did get a bit lost though, it's hard following it backwards. Not sure where I feel more intimidated, being in the rattle snake infested wilderness of the Frozen Head Park in Tennessee or on the wrong street in Deptford at 6am on a Sunday morning.
Other news I am now an ambassador for Endurance Life. I am really pleased about this as I love their races and events and they are getting bigger and better each year. I was fortunate enough to do one of their talks earlier in the year and am really excited about being more involved with their races and spreading the word of coastal and trail running in the UK.
And on that note I have decided to not do the GUCR this year and instead do the Endurance Life South West Path 100, an awesome looking race over the really tough hills of the coast.
I spent this weekend following the JOGLE ultra and catching up (metaphorically at least) with Rainer who I got to know well from the LANY run. He won that with easy and I think the people following the race here are genuinely amazed with just how easy he is making it look. He can run 10 hour 100k's day after day after day. It was amazing to see him again. He is a truly world class runner, I don't think there is anyone else out there who can do what he can do.
Oh and there is a great new ultra running emag in the UK which I have written a few race reports for. It looks really good and loads of great articles from lots of the characters in the running scene in the UK. Download it here (45m pdf) and get it touch with the editor if you have any contributions.
SO that's about it from me for now, back to racing (well medal collecting) again soon. Starting with the Endurance Life Festival next weekend. I get to learn how to make fire. What could go wrong?
