Off to Grantham to my Ultra

Hi again,

Its been a little while since my last post but not a lot has happened. I've stepped back from the training a bit as I have felt a little drained and a bit spluttery so a bit of rest will do me good.

That will come to a sharp finish on Saturday when I run the Grantham Canal 29.3 miler. I am really looking forward to it despite the lack of preperation. There are a few guys I spoken to on www.therunningbug.co.uk so it will be good to meet up with them. I should be running with a guy called Matt as we are both aiming for the same time.

Im looking to do it in 4 hours if everything goes well, I'll let you all know next week when i'm done.

I've got some very cheesy donk to keep me going if I need to stick the tunes on.

Until next time, have fun.

Johnny

The next two weeks

Hi,

I've had a nice and easy couple of weeks since the 40 miler and i've only done two runs. My legs felt fine by Tuesday which is great, I could clearly have pushed it harder!!

For the past 5 days I have been in Portugal visiting a good mate and running partner Joe. He is the guy I am doing all my ultras with so it was great to catch up. We did one longish 10 mile run and with the sun out and temperatures at 18 C it was a very pleasant change to the freezing UK runs.

So over the coming weeks I am going to do a couple of long runs, this weekend will be 18 miles, and next weekend 13 miles. The following weekend is the Grantham 29.3 mile run and my strategy at the moment is to run around with a guy called Matt i've met on Joe's running site http://www.therunningbug.co.uk.

I can't wait for this run. I am not going to cane it as I want to be in good shape to get straight back into my training as I really want o do well in the Bungay Marathon, I am looking for a pb in that run somewhere around 3.10 - 3.15.

I'll keep you posted on my training and how I get on at Grantham.

Cheers

Johnny.

Town to Tring - 40 miler. What a day

Hi again,

Its the day after the Town to Tring 40 mile run and I feel pretty good. My legs ache abit and knees and hips are a little stiff if I sit down for too long but overall I feel pretty good.

I had a great day and managed to get a time which I am really pleased with. I started the race running with this girl who is off to the MDS in April (very envious), so it was a nice and slow first hour which I am sure helped later on.

The first checkpoint came around after 1hr 45mins, each checkpoint was about 10 miles apart. I reached the second checkpoint, which was halfway, just after 3 hours so I made up some decent time.

The first half of the race included a Jungle CD - Hospital Mix 6.

My plan for the next 10 miles was to keep up the good pace as everything felt good and see what happened. So i stuck on Anjunbeats Vol.6 - Disc 1 which helped distract for the next hour or so.

I got to checkpoint 3 after 4.45 hours of running so I was well on track for coming in under 7 hours. I necked another viper bar, got rid of some weight out of my rucksack (thanks Meredith) and then ran on.

To help keep the pace up it was hardcore time. On came Clubland Extreme Hardcore 5 Disc 3 mixed by Breeze. Definately the best tune of the day was a banging hardcore remix of the Sugerbabes About you Now, oh yes.

I finished after 6 hours 18 minutes of running in 17th place (out of 60). Very pleased with that.

A few days off now to let my legs rebuild then on with the training for the Grantham 29 miler at the end of Feb. I reckon a sub 4 hour finish on this is the target.

Me at the end...

Cheers for all your support.

Johnny x