Well of course it's not even 2 weeks since Leadville and I'm already thinking about next year. Thinking I want to do an international event. Zeroing in on a couple....these would be way harder than anything I've done, and in a foreign country. So of course how do I think about which one to do?  Well of course I start by looking at the distance....can I go that far?  Narrow the list down a little. Look at the elevation...hmm...can I  tolerate going that high?....narrow it down more. Look at…

Continue

So, last week I set out on my Cool Impossible and kind of, sort of achieved... something. I don't mean to spoil the end of this post, but I set out to run 130 miles and ended up running 75 and I'm happy with that :)

I know I've waffled on about what the plan was on here before, but just to recap, I set out to run the 130 miles between my place in Barnstaple and my brother's apartment in Bristol. It wasn't part of a race or anything too organised, just something I kind of…

Continue

Ok, so I've blogged about my race experience, and really this post has nothing to do with running, so be forewarned. ....It does however provide some interesting, or at the very least, maybe entertaining insight into the mind of 1 ultra runner post 100 mile race.



So my journey did not end at 100 miles, the end of the race was the beginning of anothter journey that would land me 15 hours later in a hotel in Anchorage Alaska wondering if I was just stuck in a dream....



I… Continue

After the race I saw this picture of me. It caused a flood of emotion.

There I was wrapped in my Cherokee blanket at the start...feeling cloaked in the love of my family, friends, colleagues, patients, and I suddenly remembered my ancestors who walked the trail. I wondered what they would think of my journey. Maybe I thought of them more because this year my race was marked by significant pain. Maybe I thought of them more because of the conversations my husband and I have had about…

Continue

Wow...where to begin....as I am 11 hours post race and sit on a flight to Alaska for work. 1 hour of very fitful sleep under my belt since before race start. I actually woke myself up with  legs trying to run. Scared the bejeebers out of me! I nearly jumped straight out of bed in a dead bolt! For about 3 days I will dream about running the Leadville trail, it's just part of me processing the race in my sleep...so here was my race....

Spent a week at altitude to try and acclimate…

Continue

Today's the day to run and I've decided I'm not going to say a lot about it; instead, here's something that George Mallory said about the eternal 'why?' of adventure:

“People ask me, 'What is the use of climbing Mount Everest?' and my answer must at once be, 'It is of no use.' There is not the slightest prospect of any gain whatsoever.

Oh, we may learn a little about the behaviour of the human body at high altitudes, and possibly medical men may turn our…

Continue

Well, months and months of training done. "Hay is in the barn" as coach would say. Race meeting over, drop bags dropped off. Now just eat sleep and run at 4am! I feel much better this year, know the course, know my plan, feel as prepared as I can be. So nice to feel like all I have to do is run. Everything else is programmed in my brain, in my crew's brain...and..well..…

Continue

Pardon? Yes, you heard right - running injuries can be a positive thing. Let me explain before you stop reading this blog altogether...

I've been suffering from an IT Band injury for about two to three months now. It doesn't prevent me getting around day-to-day, but it does mean that I've had to limit my mileage to about 20 to 25 miles per week. It’s frustrating, as any injured or previously injured runner will testify. You want to just get out there and train…

Continue

Breathing the high mountain…

Continue

     I overcame my inner slacker and kept on the program. It helped a lot that week four seemed to be a bit of a recovery week. Week five definitely was not a recovery week, with some sprinting and hills thrown in the mix, but as I've said before, after working on staying in a lower heart rate zone for a majority of the runs up to this point, I found myself looking forward to these runs where I could let my heart race. Speaking of heart rates I was shocked to see that my resting rate had…

Continue

Finally finished up my previous training plan and started Eric's plan in Cool Impossible (great book by the way...has pulled together all this experience I have floating around in my head).  Did the week one day four workout in Ocean City MD yesterday running on the beach.  I know I was supposed to be focusing on cadence, but my mind wondered to analyzing  tracks in the wet sand (I can nail a 90 cadence in my sleep).  Many people were bare footing it, but just as many in shoes.  It was…

Continue

“Every morning in Africa a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must move faster than the lion or it will not survive. Every morning a lion wakes up and it knows it must move faster than the slowest gazelle or it will starve. It doesn’t matter if you are the lion or the gazelle, when the sun comes up, you better be moving.” – Maurice Greene (attributed to Roger Bannister shortly after running the first sub-4 mile)

This is going to probably be my last blog post before I take off to run 130 miles on the 17th; my head's full of a lot of running and preparation at the moment and although I'd love to be writing about all of it, I need to concentrate on living it first!

I'm as prepared as I'm going to be and I think I've just about found the right frame of mind for it. Physically, I've run 26, 30 and 44 milers at the same sort of pace that I need to run to come close to finishing…

Continue

Avicii – Wake Me Up

Check out the song....the video is pretty cool too

Except instead of ...."They tell me I'm too young to understand..." I feel like, "They tell me I'm old enough to know better".

With 2 weeks to the race I've been training for all year, this is the point where I get pretty self absorbed, think lots about running, racing, life and everything seems too apply to what i'm thinking,…

Continue

Continue

This week I had the good fortune of being up in Acadia and decided to head out on my own for a hike/run. In the past two weeks I've been rereading Born to Run and reading for the first time Eat & Run and I was hoping to capture some of the fun in running. To be honest I get horribly bored running on the road, and I was really looking forward to being in the woods and the mountains. My plan was to run/hike Gorham Mountain, but at the last minute I decided to tack on Beehive as well- which…

Continue