New year, new challenge

Back by popular demand...well at least one person asked me if I would restart my blog and that was enough for me!

I still have to pinch myself when I look back at my running last year, from an ultra running novice at the beginning of the year, graduating to at least a competent ultra runner by the end of the year! 5 different events all so different and challenging in their own ways, but unsurprisingly the highlight was the Fire and Ice – to run through the remote parts of such an incredible country as Iceland, many of the times with just me for company, that was something I will remember for a long time.

My last event of the year was the 3 day Druids challenge along the ridgeway in the Chiltern Hills. Somehow I managed to drag my tired, battered and bruised body through that and was shockingly happy to finish in 3rd place. After that though I knew I needed to give my body time to rest and effectively took all of December off.

Which brings us to the new year and this years challenges! I was so overwhelmed with everyone’s generosity last year helping me raise c.£5,000 for GOSH and CALM, so this year I have decided to use the challenges for my own personal goals, rather than try and tap everyone up for more money again and therefore will have no official sponsorship site this year. However I’ll put a couple of shouts outs at the bottom for a couple of guys raising money for amazing charities who are both running inspirations to me, if their stories resonate please do give.

For 2020 by Everest is Marathon Des Sables a self supported 6 day run across the Sahara desert, widely considered to be one of the toughest mass organised running races in the world! I will be doing my usual of setting myself gold, silver and bronze targets – I think this is particularly key in ultra running where so much can happen (in and out of your control) – if you just have one goal and something happens that means you are going to miss that – it could have a really bad impact on your mental state and therefore your ability to finish.

My bronze medal for MDS will be to finish, which in itself will be bloody hard! But as ever I don’t just want to survive, I would love to thrive in the toughest of conditions. So I have set myself a good training plan (more on this on my next blog) with the aim of arriving in peak condition so that I can try and run the majority of the course (the vast majority of people walk over 50% given the touch conditions).

But first up I have the Peddars Way Ultra this Saturday. It’s a 48 mile (c.72km) run up to the north coast of Norfolk, on a positive note I am hoping its fairly flat! The idea is to help prepare me for the long day in MDS by at least knowing I have ran a similar distance only a few months before. I am also running it with my good buddy Freddie – so really looking forwards to that (if I can keep up with him!).

Training has started well, a few pictures of my usual pose added below! So I feel relatively fresh and I’m ready for my first challenge of 2020 – I’ll look to give my next update next week after (hopefully) achieving my bronze medal and finishing it!