Time to think and do big?

Its now almost two months since I returned from the Moroccan Saharan Desert, a trip which was the culmination of my transformation from sedentary, overweight couch potato to ultra-marathon runner; The Marathon Des Sables is slowly fading, the memories and emotions there to draw on but no longer front and foremost as they have been for the two years prior, ten days during and a month following the event.

There is absolutely no doubt The Marathon Des Sables leaves a large hole in my mind and heart, a hole I have, or so it seems, been filling with crisps, sweets wine and beer. I have run, a forty mile ultra and fifty-eight as a pacer however I have not trained, a strange lethargy seems to have infected me. I ran today yet struggled to maintain what was a very reasonable pace over a short distance, deciding ultimately to drop-off from the group I was with and take a short-cut back to my car.

Has the Marathon Des Sables quenched my thirst for running? Quite the opposite, its effect on my running, I believe will be to drive me on to longer and harder runs, first though I need to become the runner I want to be. The Sahara and proximity to so many outstanding athletes served to remind me that whilst I have come a long way many are achieving so much more. In short I feel the need to get fitter and faster, whilst not expecting to compete at the front of the pack, I do want to challenge those runners I so admire in my circle of friends.

So here I am in a funny place, there is a disquieting lethargy to my running; where I had expected and there should be confidence and vigour; I always anticipated the Marathon Des Sables would be a springboard for the rest of this year’s running.

Time certainly for action, short-term that simply means getting back to running regularly, I like to run six times a week and always feel much stronger when I do. I want to be faster, which will require a greater variety of training and crucially I want to pitch myself against another goal of real substance, I always expected to finish the Marathon Des Sables my next challenge, I hope, should be right out there just beyond the limit of what I can currently perceive.

The short-list:

The Spine 268 miles, non-stop, UK

JOGLE, 50 miles per day for seventeen days John O'Groats to Land’s End, UK

Badwater, 135 miles, non-stop, Death Valley, America

A sub 1:30 half marathon

A sub 3:00 marathon

Whilst The Spine is an awesome race, it really does feel closer to an expedition and jars a little with my focus on running faster, the length, weather, mandatory kit and terrain make this more of a fast hike, for all but an elite runner.

JOGLE, hits the mark as a challenge, it really does sit beyond what I feel capable of and Brother Braithwaite tells me he is right there next to me should I commit to doing it, making JOGLE very compelling, it does though lack the harsh environmental element I so enjoyed about my time in the Sahara.

Hardmoors 160, I suspect my friends Jon and Shirley the race directors and Phil and Tim, veterans of the Hardmoors 110 will insist whether I like it or not that I run at least the Hardmoors 110 thus I feel an almost childish urge to take their 110’s and raise them to a 160, neither looked very keen during or after their 110’s to go back and do them again (which as they are both better runners than me, should act as a firm warning but strangely isn’t?) so putting some pressure on them to face the 160, has merit. Brother Braithwaite of tent 126 tells me he will be there which only adds to the allure.

Badwater, hits on three counts, it completes the trio of races I read about before becoming a runner and saw as impossible (the other two are already notches on my trainers; the West Highland Way Race and the Marathon Des Sables), it has sufficient challenge being significantly further than my longest run to date and of course is staged in the hottest and therefore one of the harshest environments on Earth.

A sub 1:30 half-marathon, really isn’t my idea of fun however the challenge of averaging sub-seven minute miles over this distance will be an incredible achievement. Running a sub 3:00 marathon takes that challenge, pleasingly to the next level.

Conclusion

The Spine is not for now, I will make sure my diary is free and instead go and support the race as a volunteer, as I did this year.

JOGLE, is the top priority, there is an organised race pretty much on the anniversary of my completion of the Marathon Des Sables, to know that Brother Braithwaite would enter also reaffirms this as my target. I therefore need to find the twenty days or so leave, save the two-thousand two-hundred pounds entry fee and crucially get lean and fast, to attempt to grind my way through seventeen consecutive fifty-mile ultra-marathons at my current weight and fitness would be folly. Oh and just the small matter of getting the plan approved by the ‘minister of war and finance’ …. ….

Hardmoors 160, much will depend on an entry to JOGLE which would take precedent over anything else, if entered and completed I would hope to be in shape to have a good go at the Hardmoors 160, were I not to enter the JOGLE then the Hardmoors 160 would become my 2015 target race.

Badwater, the race controversially was banned this year at least on its historic route an alternative is mooted. The costs thought to be on average ten-thousand American dollars plus flights and the uncertainty about its future make this, number three of three, on my original and most emotionally routed running to do list, a race for another year.

Sub 1:30 half-marathon and sub 3:00 marathons nestle nicely in the process of getting lean and fit to the degree to which I believe is needed to complete the JOGLE and Hardmoors 160 races, therefore, my think and do big list is complete at:

2014 - Sub-1:30 and sub 3:00 marathons

2015 - JOGLE and Hardmoors 160

There is no doubt all of these will require a new level of commitment to diet, training, cross training, training variety and intensity. Each though will represent a step in my journey commensurate with that taken to move from the sofa to the Sahara.