Dave Gorman

After a good day at the office - the day was finished off watching Dave Gorman live!

Very funny bloke and good to wind down and make the transition into the xmas season. However can I remember any of the clips? You betcha I can't 😄

cultural day ...

Today was a great day, gym in the morning followed by an afternoon in the Tate followed by great company and production at the National Theatre watching Behind the beautiful forevers by David Hare - great visually stimulating day ....

I do love heading into central London...

frostbite 35 😄

Today was the day to test the hill legs across the Yorkshire dales ..... at the start of the day I though it was going to be a 30 miler ... but by the end of the day - it became clear that 35 miles was the real distance 😄. This is the second race that the number of miles have increased!! Great to do even if there was a lot of climbing/walking making it slower... although my feet were and are in pieces .... my muscles had a lot more to give .... definitely time to get a made to measure/ perfect fitting trail shoe .... as it was definitely the blisters that held me back on this trot.

Blisters started forming at mile 4 .... probably the earliest that they have ever formed ... but that's ok, 4 less nails to manicure ( I wonder if I will get a discount??😄😄 ) and performing mini blister ops on the feet are now reasonably executed these days 😄😰. The first cut off point was at mile 10 with 3 hours being the cut off time (because of the hills) ... but I was really chuffed that I got in at the 2 hour mark.

The ultra was superbly organised from start to finish, food, arrows ( so even I couldn't get lost), map, a wee tiple at mile 20, ultra friendly marshals who even after a day of standing at the top of the windy hills and moors had an amazing greeting all the way 😄 , soup and cake at the finish ... definitely one to go back again to.

Sadly I didn't take my camera .... so lots of missed opportunities for scenic shots but luckily others took theirs 😄.

Oh dear .... I have just had a week off the trail, diet and gym! Not what I need so close to the 30miler trail next week. Sadly, I guess after a couple of months of hard focus - there had to be a time where life stands in the way. Hey ho, so after a couple of painful 8 mile trots in the very muddy hills over the weekend ..... I am back on it ... Luckily

Double dose needed! started with Peter and the wolf and the snowman followed by The Messiah - all three very different but great in their own right.

I always get so much from taking time out and head to the live concerts/ performances .... feeling the music is great and is always grounding.....

Sun set to sun rise 😄

 Well this is where it started (and ended) ... Moments before the shout to go ... For some (and especially the organisers) there was a very long night ahead. This race was called sun set to sun rise .... and the aim was to see how many miles you could run, in the dark, on a trail.
All I wanted was to run a marathon, taking that it was only a couple of weeks ago that I ran a half marathon and before that a 10km - anymore miles in one go was unrealistic and quite frankly 26.2 miles was a very daunting thought.

So, in great Ems preparation - I literaly skidded to the start line, had a kit explosion just before the start (much to the amusement of one on-looker) looking for the tunes and hat that had to be shown before starting off. There was one of those 'put the hair band in the mouth and then empty the bag looking for it' moments that I am unlikely to declare and don't let me start on my facial expression when we were casually told that 'of course people who wanted to do the marathon distance would of course have to do 28 miles and not the 26.2miles!!' Ahhh well in for a penny in for a pound and all that .... and quite frankly it would have been great just to do more than the half marathon a couple of weeks ago... especially as I was tuneless .... and I need my tunes at the best of times but more so in the dark with no views for 28miles!

Ok, so doom out the way, the last Ray of light disappearing... I was going to take the 28 miles. The first 13 miles were great and the sub 10 pace was there most definitely.... I was in a good place. Post 15 I was feeling it, blisters were forming and the rucksack rubbing was nicely wearing down the skin on the neck and base of back.

But I got there.....with a huge grin on my face ..... Time 5 hours 39 min.... And I coud have gone on...... Not bad for week 8 of training.
No injury, feeling strong and even without my comfort blanket of tunes (and Vaseline) .... I got to the end.

Next 30miler mountain trail in 2 weeks..... I can't wait!

Back to Brothers boot camp - great to be back and good to see the progress being made between camps.

The measure is the timed minute mile at the start .... And I actually got under the 8 min mile (7.55) - so that was good to see. Target is to get 7.40 by December so I need to do a lot more running.