Thames Path 100 revisited

If you are regular followers of this blog you will know that last year I attempted my first “100 miler” and got to mile 91 before missing the last checkpoint! (You can read the whole story here )

Well never one to give up gracefully I’ve decided to give it another go thanks to a late entry and in just a couple of weeks I will be lining up with the other 350 or so souls trying to complete one of the iconic UK 100 milers.

So what am I going to do differently this year? Well for a kick off I won’t be doing the London Marathon or the Polish marathon in the preceding weeks which probably wasn’t ideal preparation and I certainly won’t be taking one of my fellow competitors to the pub for a coke because he was feeling decidedly rough (it’s amazing how the excuses trip off the tongue isn’t it!)

I know in my mind I can run the distance, after all I recently ran 8 marathons in 8 countries in 8 days (catchup on that story here ) but my Achilles heel is the pacing – last year I was well ahead of all the cut offs (probably too far ahead) and I got cocky thinking I was going to cruise it. I got my come uppance after the pub incident and then the last stretch was incredibly muddy with the heavy rain and before I knew it the leeway that I had built into the cut off times had been eaten away.

So my full proof plan for this year is:-

  • don’t go to the pub

  • don’t waste time trying to update my social media in the aid stations

  • eat drink run, eat drink run

  • drop off some dry clothes at the specified aid stations thus avoiding hypothemia

  • don’t cry if it rains just accept it’s going to – it always does!

But above all have fun, keep laughing, don’t take it too seriously and remember just how lucky I am to be able to do all this stuff.