Wednesday 19 January 2011

Excited about the 90 miler.....

Well, did my final run on Saturday morning, now resting legs and eating up ready for the 90 miler on Sat/Sun.  Run went well - just pottered around an 8.5 mile route, fairly flat.  Legs felt good!  Was going to do more, but the rain was horrendous, the wind was awful, and the motivation was fairly lacking.  It was just a leg turn, and I did it, and I enjoyed it.  Enough said.  Managed to lose 5lb this week, so that's a bit less to be carrying round!

I've got all my ultra-foods packed up and ready to go, just got to pack my kit bag.  In my food bag I have the following items (remember, I won't take them ALL with me on the day, I'll never be able to carry!): crisps, pretzels, gels, sports beans (energy sweets with electrolytes), fruit pastilles, penguins, custard creams, ginger biscuits (for nausea), toffees, smoothies and chia seeds.  On the morning I'll pack a selection of each into my back.  On the route there are checkpoints with water and '9 Bar' every 9 miles, but I usually want something sweet.  Ginger biscs are fab if you get nauseous too!

I'm leaving straight from school and going to the hotel in Northampton where the race starts from.  I've met a girl called Helen on the UltraRace forum and we're sharing a room to keep costs down.  Once we're met and checked in, we'll register (the organisers will be in the bar 7-9) and get some food.  Then it's an early night ready for a 8am start. 

We'll run from the Hotel all the way to another hotel in Tring where we're planning on showering and getting a taxi to a more affordable pub in the town where we'll eat for England (legitimately this time!).  Then it's early night because we've asked for an earlier start in the morning - so that means breakfast at 6am, run at 7am! 

Once I've finished (however long that takes on the 2nd day!) it's straight into the car and drive the 3 hours home before I either fall asleep or stiffen up beyond control.  Then bed (probably get home about 10pm) and work in the morning!  Nightmare.... goodness knows what state I'll be in!!!  I'll do a full race report in the week - but it may take some recovery time before I get chance to do it!

My aim is to run the first day steady so I am able to complete the second.  I don't want to whiz round day one, then have nothing left/injury for day two.  I'd rather run them slower and complete, even if I then say "I could have done that quicker".  I've never run two long runs back to back before, so it should be a steep learning curve!

Other news.... received the Housman 100 map, but not looked at in detail yet; and managed to find a couple of spare days to go and reccy the Fellsman route - we want to look at the night sections!

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