not a good year but not a bad year

to many "did not starts" and "did not finishes" in 2010, probably a little harsh but them the facts, it was not all doom and gloom i did 5 trail marathons on consecutive weekends leading up to the highlight of the year by a long way, Comrades in South Africa which was an awesome race, the finish in the packed stadium was one of the most amazing things I've ever experienced, the low point was the Beacons Ultra, very good first lap only for the wheels to fall off 9 miles from the finish, it was quite scary one minute i was tired the next i could not see properly and was uncontrollably shivering (much the the amusement of sue) but it's a lesson learnt - eat eat eat you can't run on empty, it been a tough year work wise so the yearly mileage is down quite a bit only 2300 miles, but also my intention to do less miles but make the mile count seems to have worked and the various long term injuries seem to have finally gone, just have to sort my back and i will be pain free, there was a facebook challenge to run every day in Dec, i managed 30 days having to miss a day after a heavy tumble in the snow, some people took it to a whole new level, Andy Murry for example who as part of the S2S has run 35+ miles on every day in Dec - respect, 2011 well a busy year, I'm back out helping with the 6633 Ultra in march, then its the "up" run at the Comrades Ultra, assuming i can get a support team together then we have the Glenmore 24 in Sept, and then the Kalahari Augrabies Ultra in Oct....

School boy error

School boy error at the Brecon ultra, didn't eat properly and my body run out of sugar and scary things happen when you get go that point, well you say i didn't eat properly during the race i eat everything i had and nothing different to what i normally carry during race like this, the difference was that i didn't eat properly leading up to the race so i started on half empty, add that to the fact we flew round the first lap (23 miles in 4hrs on that course is quite quick for me) anyway it's another 35 mile training run!, i have some time off leading up and over Christmas so the plan is to do the full distance (48 miles) during that time.

Marvellous Mimi

now I've done a few miles on a treadmill in my time, but can't even begin to think what it would be like to spend 7 days on one, but that is exactly what Mimi has just done in the process of setting a new world record, she beat the previous record of 395 miles early Saturday morning and after a few hours sleep went on to add a further 9 miles before the full 7 days were up, all that with a stress fracture in her foot!!, i had the privilege to watch first hand as i helped for 3 of the night during the attempt, it was truly inspirational stuff.

never really on the cards

100 miles is a long way, but it is even longer if you haven't trained properly for weeks, you calf is still causing problems and you haven't slept for a week, but i still turned up for the Ceasers Camp 100, i fully expected my calf to cause problems from the off but it was fine, which considering the hilly nature of the route was quite a surprise, what was even more of a surprise was that after 20 miles it still felt fine, 30 miles was a different story my lack of training was starting to show, my calf was begining to hurt and i was knackered, it was 30 miles further than i really expected and on that course it was a tough 30 miles.....

now that's a long way down....

Been in Chamonix for a week and what a beautiful place, as you can imagine there is some great walking/running to be done, (unintentially) i picked the steepest route up the Mont Blanc side of the valley towards the top the visibility was 10ft at best i had stopped to decide if this was a good idea when a bloke walked passed and said if walked another 30ft that way i would be at the top, i had been just 30ft from the top and could not see it!! after further discussion with various other people at the top i decided to continue following the ridge as it was a single pathway and as it dropped the cloud would clear which was the case and there were some spectacular views of the valley.

The trails on the opposite side to Mont Blanc were quite busy(!) i picked alternate route towards the top the trail became quite exposed to the point that i decided to turn around and come back down, I've noticed that over the years I've had more and more problems with height, I'm not scared as such it just un nerves me a bit, but that said was really quite a narrow wet path and it was a very long way down....

The Ridgeway

And still this one eludes me, work commitments meant that training for this event was far from ideal, but i had put the hours in and felt confident i could put up a reasonable showing, a few people at work have had heavy colds but i had done best to avoid them, felt fine during the week leading up to the race but woke up Friday with a sore throat and dodgy head and by Saturday morning i had a full on man flu, had it been a 50 miler or shorter i probably would have given it a go but at 86 miles it's a bit far to run when you are not even feeling 10%, annoying on 2 fronts, it's a great race, and it was 2 points towards my UTMB entry......

Comrades 2010

What a astonishing experience, this year was a down run so from Pietermaritzburg to Durban, 16,000 of us started at 05:30 in the dark, even at that time the supporters were out, basically there was support along the whole 56.7 mile route, everybody wants to talk to the blue running numbers as they are the international entrants of which the was about 500 of us, the finish is in the Sahara cricket stadium which was packed you do a lap of the stadium before crossing the line, it really is a quite a special finish, i finished in 10hrs 17mins which got me a Bronze medal, the international athletes had their own enclosure in the stadium were you could watch the finish, it also served unlimited beef/chicken curry and beer which was a right result!!!, next year is a up run and it would be rude not to enter, entries open on the 1st Sept 2010 and with only 16000 places up from grabs i better get my entry in early.