*Thames Path 100 update* – well I got to 90.6 miles before missing the final check point – a case of so far yet so near! But I learnt a lot and will definitely give it a go solo before the end of the year to prove that I can do it within the timescale. An article about my journey and my plans to crack it coming soon!

I’m really looking forward to this one …. I think! It’s my first 100 miler (the furthest I’ve gone up to now is 100km – Race to the Stones ) and it’s going to be an amazing challenge. I’m stringing together some reasonably long runs at the weekend – I’m trying to do a marathon a week at a little bit quicker than ultra pace but the enormity of the distance is starting to sink in. When I ran the Race to the Stones in 2014, I felt great until well over the 50km mark and ran the first 45km in less than 8 hours,  but then the heavens opened and I got wet, my kit got wet, I got 2 huge blisters and my spirits sunk. I was worried about falling over and injuring myself in the night section and that’s no way to approach an ultra. I didn’t pull myself together until the 90km mark and finished in a disappointing 20 hours+ time ….. but I did finish!

So have I learnt anything? I hope so! The first thing is to change my attitude – I’ve got a whole lot of excuses lined up why I’m not going to finish – an achilles injury, I’m running the London Marathon 6 days before, the cut off times are aggressive, I’ve run 12 marathons in the last 12 months  etc. etc. So I’m forgetting those and I’m going to give it everything and finish with some elan and remember the reasons why I am going to succeed – amazingly quick at recovering, fantastic diet, mentally tough, I know the last part of the route backwards etc. etc.

I’ve also had terrific inspiration from James Adams who has a brilliant and funny blog and has just written a book Running and Stuff – James is my kind of runner, scruffy, badly organised, a spur of the moment kind of guy but boy can he run (Badwater, UTMB, Spartathon, not to mention running from LA to NY) – I would kill to get his speed!

So watch this space and James if you pick this up can I borrow your legs please!