Wow I’ve not written in ages. In fact my last post was about the Ironman that became a long distance duathlon due to some lovely little algae in the swimming lake.

This year I’ve signed up to a big race in August called RAS (Race across Scotland). It’s 215 miles ish with plenty of elevation and you have just 100 hours to complete it. It’s what they call a non-stop race. You can sleep but ideally only for an hour or two here or there. It would be difficult to make the cut-offs if you slept a full night.

I’ve done multi-day running before but I’ve never run further than 60km in one day and I’ve never run at night. I’ve also never run with a support crew. So a lot about this will be new for me.

I will need to cover at least 85km a day (circa). Ideally I’d prefer to cover 100km per 24 hours but we will see (it’s all new to me so it’s impossible to know what I’ll be capable of). I should mention there is at least 50% failure rate on this race. So it’s tough!

My support crew will be my lovely husband, who will be driving a camper van and stopping at various points to help me out. He will carry change of clothes, food, water etc. There are also 12 check/food points but having someone to stop either at the check points or in between is invaluable. I may prefer to nap for 30 minutes in the van, rather than at a check point.

Apart from this big goal there are a number of other races this year that I’ve entered (some with Chris together).

In May we will run the Maverick Merlin race. Chris is taking on the 28km and I’ll be doing the 55km. As he is already faster than me, he will be hanging around at the end for some time! Hopefully there is a nice pub nearby! 😉

One month later we will be doing a 100km hike together in the Peak District, starting and finishing in Bakewell. This will be my first chance to hike through the night. This will be great practice for RAS but is no small task! It will be the longest distance either of us has ever covered on foot.

One month after RAS we are going to hike the Bullock Smithy race with our friend Emma. This is about 58 miles and is also a non stop race. It’s very hilly and I’m told particularly hard.

In between all of the planned official events we intend to walk the Limestone Way (probably in May). This is just 46 miles long and we will walk it over 3 days (most likely) and camp. It’s great practice for all the other things but really a holiday and chance to enjoy the outdoors with nice pub stops on the way.

Training

This year I decided not to hire a coach. I’ve actually recently quit my job so paying out for a coach isn’t really an option anyway. I’ve learnt a lot over the years though and have developed my own training plan., which largely reflects the kind of thing I used to be given.

Since the beginning of February I’ve been building running and hiking mileage based on a 4 week plan where you build for 3 weeks, then have 1 easier week (recover week). This allows the body to absorb the training and recover ready for the next build month.

I’m doing only 4 runs a week (which is typically less than most multi day training plans) but we are also doing a long hike each week so it seems enough to me when added together. One run is short and hard (either with intervals or hill repeats). Another one is short/medium and very easy/slow. A third is medium length and easy and the last is long/getting ever longer and will include some faster intervals in places.

In addition to the running/hiking I’m doing 3 gym/strength sessions and 2 further yoga classes a week. It’s a lot, but my body seems to be handling it reasonably well so far (although I do nap a lot on the weekend 😆).

So thats it for now. I’ll update in a while on progress.