Preamble
So it’s been what? 10 years since my last 24hr race (on a 400m track) and 9 since my last serious ultra. I entered this 14 weeks out having struggled to get back into the swing of things since IM CPH last August.
I knew this didn’t give me much time to build up the running mileage so it was a trade off between a sensible ramp up rate and getting a good amount of time on my feet into the equation. Combine that with near weekly trips to Germany and the usual busy weekends made getting to my maximum planned 80mile running week slightly challenging. Aware that previously that I’d have been pushing for a few consecutive 90+mile weeks (and the old adage that you can run in a day what you train in a week) and with something rather longer than 20miles as a long run I wasn’t too sure how this would go.
The plan got pencilled in at the same time as the training plan and only got tweaked a couple of times, uncertainty about my fitness, zero knowledge of the course (10km trail laps), knowing just quite how slow the night section can be and that I would be running on this occasion with no crew meant I didn’t have great expectations.
That said of course, a race is a race so naturally I planned for a PB. Ambitious? yes.
(right here I’m gonna give you a read more tag cos this may go on a bit)