If it wasn’t for the fact that I have a 2 month old child who would be, let’s see, 8 months old at the time then I would seriously consider applying to be the third person in Ben Fogle and James Cracknell’s attempt to reach the South Pole in December this year.

No, seriously.

I mean how often does a chance like this actually come along? A free place (worth a fuck of a lot of money) in the inaugral Amundsen Omega3 South Pole Race. Okay, the chances of me actually being selected are quite slim mainly down to my fitness levels which aren’t as high as they should be at the moment (although there is 6 months to train for it) not to mention the fact that challenges I’ve undertaken to date are nowhere near the scale of this. But the question I really have to ask myself is “Do I want to spend my daughter’s first christmas away from home in one of the bleakest places on the planet?” Also “How pissed off is my wife going to be if I happen to die?”

It’s just that, well, you know - it’d be a hell of a thing to do.

Disappointingly, I’ve had to pull out of the Rat Race next weekend. I am gutted but I have other priorities which, um, take priority. There is always next year.

However, I will be putting what little free time I might have to good use by working on a pitch document for a feature film idea. But that, as they say (well, they don’t actually but I do) is another post.

I’m not doing the Dublin marathon. The online website I booked through eventually came back with an apology for the delay and a message that they had refunded my entry. I’m a little disappointed but it solves my quandary. I should point out, while I’m at it, that the quandary wasn’t so much about not having the funds but more that if I’m going to take a day off work and spend that amount of money then I should probably spend it on something that I can do with my family and not just spend it on myself. I’m nice like that.

Anyway, there’s always another time for the Dublin Marathon. Or the New York Marathon. Or, well, you get the idea.

What it all did confirm to me, however, is that I’m mentally ready to attempt that 26.2 mile distance. So instead, I’m going to enter the Luton Marathon. That is, I’m probably going to enter it. There’s one or two things holding me back at the moment. You see, the plus side to going to Luton is that it’s cheaper (under 20 quid for an entry - a bargain for these things), it’s at the beginning of December so I have longer to train (15 weeks this coming sunday), it’s geographically closer and it’s on a sunday. (What is with that Dublin Marathon being on a monday anyway? Is it an Irish bank holiday or just a fucked up day to have an event?)

The downside to the Luton race is that rather than being a single lap race, it’s 3 laps of a 9 mile course (just under 3 laps - whatever!), half of which goes through the city centre. And it’s in Luton. I always thought my first marathon would be a little more, I don’t know, exotic.

It does also have a strict time limit of five hours to complete the race which is a useful target and one that I should achieve. While it’s not overly ambitious, I would be aiming for 10 minute miles - at the very minimum - which would mean a time of somewhere around 4 hours and 20 minutes. I wouldn’t necessarily rule out getting closer to the 4 hour mark either but at this stage, the goal is simply to finish and to finish in under 5 hours.

There’s no question about it really - I’m going to do it.

I’ve just got to remember that I’ve got another event in London at the end of September which I need to get ready for. (Follow the link and watch the video and then watch this one and you’ll get a good idea of what my team is going to be doing.) After the run I did today, I have got a lot of work to do! :/

Got some pictures back. Enjoy (and click for biggies)

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“We’re 76th out of 130.”
“What?” I said, although it came out more like “Gwoah?” as I was busy shovelling supernoodles into my mouth like they were going out of fashion.
“We finished in 76th place today, out of 130 who finished so far,” elaborated Blue.
I did some hasty mental arithmetic. “That’s nearly in the top half.”
“Yes, it is.”
“If we pushed it tomorrow, we could get into the top half.”
“Yes, we could.”
“Finishing in the top half would be good.”
“Yes, it would.”
We mused on this some more while boilng up water for our couscous and slurping away at our student feast of noodles.
“But the important thing,” I said, “is that we finish the course.”
“True,” said Blue.
“Place doesn’t matter. We just need to finish.”
“True,” said Blue again.
“But top half…”

No matter how much we tried to ignore it, the strings on the guitar of our competitive nature had been plucked by the mariachi of temptation. If all 130 teams finished (at this point we didn’t know that there were still 9 more to come in) then we need to gain 11 places to get in the top half. On a trip to get some more drinking water from the river next to the camp site, I stole another look at the results that had been posted on the side of the event van. The team currently in 65th place was only 8 minutes ahead of us. It seemed doable. It also distracted us from our primary objective which was to get around the course and finish.

At about 9pm, after washing our legs and gear in the nearby river, having a hearty carbo-centric dinner, we sat in the tent too exhausted to talk. Around us, all the other teams were chatting away as if they were just out for a weekends amble in the hills. We wondered if it would be bad form to climb into our sleeping bags and pass out but at that moment, the heavens opened and the rain came down and gave us good excuse to disappear. I think I was asleep before my head hit my makeshift pillow. We were woken up at about 3am by the sound of someone in a neighbouring tent with a buzzsaw snore. I slept fitfully after that - no matter what side I lay on it felt like rocks were jabbing to my hips. At 6am the bastard with the bagpipes came back to do his bit.

A cup of coffee and a large bowl of muesli later, we packed up our stuff and were ready to go. Surprisingly, we both felt okay - not too much stiffness in the muscles and not too tired either. We weren’t part of the chasing start which included any team that finished within 90 minutes of the class leaders, so had no specific time to set out. The course would be shorter that day and as the weather had clouded over, wouldn’t be as hot or as draining. In fact, the conditions were almost perfect.

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The fact that I’m sitting here writing this is a damn good indication that I survived my weekend adventure. What you can’t see is that, two days later, I’m still basking in the warm glow of success. Actually, that’s probably still the effect of having caught the sun on Saturday not to mention the fact that my metabolism still seems to be in overdrive but regardless, unlike our disastrous attempt at the OMM back in October which was curtailed after a massive navigation failure, we successfully completed our first full Mountain Marathon.

On Friday we flew up to Glasgow airport and caught the event bus up to the base camp at the Strathfillan Wigwam Village and Agricultural College in Auchtertyre near Tyndrum. We set up the tent, one amongst hundreds of others and wondered off to investigate the event centre, register and grab a bowl of Wilf’s finest veggie chili. We chatted for a bit before I suddenly realised it was nearly midnight. I was deceived into thinking that it was earlier than that because it was still pretty light. I’ve never been that far North during the summer so wasn’t aware that it never really properly gets dark. We retired to the tent and grabbed a few hours sleep.

Reveille was at 6am, courtesy of some fucker with a set of bagpipes. Apparently it’s traditional. Personally I find tradition and culture is best appreciated later in the day. Opening the tent, we were greeted by local midge population who had obviously called around all their friends and relatives and invited them over to say hello to us. Apparently that’s traditional too. The only thing that wasn’t tradtional, so I was informed, was the cloudless blue sky and blazing sun. With an energy unbecoming of me in an uncaffeinated state, I bounded out of the tent and up to the fenced off area reserved for more pressing engagements with nature.

I can’t quite bring myself to talk about that experience now. Maybe later.

After a leisurely breakfast of bacon rolls, muesli, coffee and a couple of bottles of lucozade sport, we sorted our kit out and got changed, ready for the off. Our start was at 10am and, having been given our map of the event area, the C, D, and Novice teams were going by coach to their joint start point, a couple of miles north of the camp at the Bridge of Orchy. Once at the start point, we got given our list of checkpoints, punched our timecard and started the race.

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The location for this years LAMM has now been confirmed as being at Glen Lochay - not a million miles away from Endie’s suggestion of Pitlochry, just a little further to the south west. We’ll be going out of Auchtertyre and our guess is that the course will take us to the south west of that location into the area that’s circled off by the A82, A83 and A85 roads. Of course, it could be heading NE into the Forest of Fangorn Mamlorn and the area around Loch Lyon. It doesn’t matter. Blue knows the area fairly well having done a considerable amount of walking around there before. We might not get lost this time!

My kit is just about sorted:

This is more or less everything I’m going to be taking. I feel a list coming on!

• Tent (Vango Ultralite 200) - 1450g
• Sleeping Bag (Gelert Ultralite 600) - 600g
• OMM Duo sleeping mat - 150g
• Snacks (Quaker Oat bars, Nutrigrain Oat bars, 1 pk Jelly babies) - 650g
• Dinner (Supernoodles, Couscous, Snickers) - 440g
• Breakfast (Muesli, tea + assorted bits) - 300g
• Mug, plate + spork - 125g
• Compass, headtorch - 120g
• Survival Bag (Lifesystems Thermal Bag) - 225g
• OMM Kamleika Jacket - 450g
• OMM Kamleika Overtrousers - 250g
• Hat & gloves - 75g
• Ron Hill Tracksters - 275g
• Snow & Rock mid layer fleece - 300g
• Helly Hansen base layer - 200g
• Spare socks & shorts - 200g
• Emergency Rations (Kendal Mint Cake - bleugh!) - 45g
• OMM Lightweight Pack - ~700g

Add a water proof disposable camera at 150g and that brings the entire weight up to 6.5kg (plus some extras like vaseline, sun cream, avon skin-so-soft - hey, it’s good anti insect repellent apparently!) I might be able to get Blue to carry the tent poles and pegs and may ditch some food which will reduce the weight by about 700g or so which will take it under 6kg. In my mind, that’s damned good for a newbie! The decision tomorrow will be whether or not to take a litre of water with me (adding another kilo) or just use my mug in nearby streams!

All packed, it looks like this:

The stuff on the side is what I’m going to be wearing, before any smart ass comments that it’s not all packed! So it’s all looking good. Weather forecast is favourable (as in no rain!) and the evenings are going to be 12/13 degrees celsius which is comfortable and makes me glad I’m only taking a light sleeping bag. Hopefully I’ll be so knackered that I’ll just pass out!

See you on Sunday!

It’s only ten days or so until I embark on my little adventure north of the border for the LAMM. At this point I should be fit and raring to go. Except that I’m not. Fit that is. I am actually looking forward to it quite a lot but I am shitting myself about my fitness levels. It doesn’t help that I was laid waste to by a bad bout of sinusitis which took nearly three weeks out of my training plan. I’ve recovered well, though, and quite happily went out for a 5/6 mile run on Sunday.

However, come Tuesday and my legs were still aching. This is not a good sign. A week on saturday I will be doing about 3 times that distance and the same again on the Sunday, carrying all my gear and doing considerably more in terms of ascents and off-off-road running (i.e. not on roads, footpaths or any type of recognisable track). Still, I have a couple of days left before the weekend and time to at least get a couple of 10+ mile runs in, with perhaps a long run carrying gear.
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At the end of October last year, I took part in the Original Mountain Marathon that took place in Galloway Forest Park, Dumfrieshire. The lengthy story of that weekend is still to be told but the short version is this:

We got lost and didn’t finish.

While the experience was useful and it was quite an adventure, it doesn’t detract from the fact that we failed. Then again, so did Ranulph Fiennes although to be fair, he made it to the second day and was taking part in the Elite class but still, he didn’t finish it either.

My running mate, Dan, and I have finally decided that we’re going to have a crack at the Lowe Alpine Mountain Marathon (LAMM) which is also going to be in Scotland, although we won’t know the exact location until we turn up. I say finally but we actually decided to do it a couple of months ago. The event itself takes place in 4 weeks. That’s 28 days. In fact, this time in 28 days we’ll hopefully be finished and hopefully have managed to complete the whole course this time. The fact that it’s in June and the days are longer and hopefully drier and hopefully warmer should also help. Hopefully I’ll be back to a level of fitness that will see me over the two days.

Obviously I’m hoping for quite a lot.

I don’t feel particularly ready for the event at the moment. My fitness level isn’t that bad - I got my fastest time ever for a particular race a couple of weeks ago which I wasn’t expecting so that’s been quite encouraging. However, I haven’t even looked at the kit list or thought about food and preparation. I could do with doing some long runs in preparation too.

I need to get my mind switched on or I’m going to fuck this one up too.

A rather full weekend culminated in me heading to the military town of Aldershot to join nearly 1500 other foolhardy individuals for the annual “Grim” challenge.

The course was 8 miles over rough terrain at the Army Driver Training ground in Aldershot which is commonly used to teach drivers how to get their jeeps, trucks and tanks over a variety of natural obstacles. Ideal place for a gentle jog on a sunday morning. Although the sun was out, it was bitterly cold and the puddles at the start of the course were covered in ice.

The puddles were only the start of it though. The first major obstacle was a narrow gulley, filled with freezing mud. Coming out of the other end, it felt like I had left my feet in the mud and was running on stumps. And that wasn’t the worst of it either. The puddles became big puddles and then stopped being big puddles in favour of being even bigger puddles. Every now and then there would be a long stretch of undulating track where you could recover and hope that your feet warmed up again. But there was always going to be more.

After 5 miles we came to the rather disappointing camoflauge net which we had get under. It was only a couple of metres long though and it wasn’t so much a case of crawling as crouching and getting under it quickly. The masochistic side of me hoped there would be more like this but there wasn’t. Not that it became any easier. Shortly afterwards there were the biggest puddles of all, waist deep on some people who tried to navigate through the middle and thigh deep even on the likes of your friendly, neighbourhood 6′2″ Dragon.

From there on in it was a long slog to get through the last couple of miles, made up mainly of a long, energy draining incline and the only thing that kept me going was the knowledge that in under ten minutes it would all be over. But there was one last challenge - a narrow track with the deepest puddles of the lot. Most people attempted to go down the edges, avoiding the centre of the water and with good reason. The centre got very deep and more than one person stumbled and went into the water, up to their chests.

Falling into that water was a total system shock! The word “cold” does not even begin to describe the sensation. Half a mile from the finish line and I’d had enough. I couldn’t catch my breath and I struggled trying to put one foot in front of another. But spurred on by the crowd and unwilling to give up that close to the end, I pushed on and finished in under 65 minutes for the 8 mile course, 20 minutes behind the winners and in the top half of the finishers. Not bad for a fat chuffa dragon!

I really enjoyed it (as testified by the “official” picture of me I found on the web today in which I look like I’m having a good time, despite the fact that it was taken after about 5.5 miles) and am looking forward to next years already. Although I think there are a couple of races that I might think about doing in between now and then. Anyone want to join me?