I have just done either one of the bravest things, or one of the stupidest things of my life so far (I haven’t quite made my mind up yet) – I have signed myself up for the Mudcrew 32 mile coastal ultra here in my home county of Cornwall. Do I really know what I have let myself in for? I’m not entirely sure that I do! My biggest running achievement so far was the London Marathon in 2015, which is not to be sniffed at I agree but, let’s face it, that’s got nothing on this bad boy.
Why have I decided to do it? Simply put – I want to know if I can. As a kid I used to hate long distance running with a passion. Short distance was fine, in fact I was pretty nifty on the 100m sprint, but I always used to think that I just wasn’t built for long distance running (I’m no racing whippet if you catch my drift) but over the past few years I have actually come to kind of enjoy it and started to think that maybe I could join the ranks of the crazies that can say they conquered an ultra…*queue googly eyes and day dreamy face*
So, here I am after a moment of madness and you get my drift: not a natural long distance runner, done a little bit here and there and kind of like it but never have I ever attempted anything as gargantuan as this. It also appears that I have a hole in my trainers and I need to buy some new socks after I got not one but TWO blisters on my first ‘official’ training run of the year (last weekend) and if it wasn’t for the heroic show of support from my Husband I wouldn’t have finished that day! We swapped socks because I failed to put a decent pair on – he literally swapped his comfy trail socks for my muddy, gritty, sweaty and entirely inappropriate gym socks in the middle of the woods. I love that man.
Has to be said though that I am completely out of practice and need to have a kit audit immediately as wearing one’s basic gym socks does not a trail sock make… and I need some new trail shoes. I do actually have some decent trail kit kicking about after a bit of dabbling here and there in the past, including a few brilliant pairs of wigwam trail socks, so that’s this weekend’s job as well as researching in to some good trail shoes (I have my eyes on a lovely pair of Brooks).
Anyway, I don’t know if my ramblings will be of any interest to anyone but I will be posting every couple of weeks about my adventures along the way to running my first ridiculous distance in August. I’ll share all the good bits, the funny bits and the bad bits as well as my training plan (best write one!) and kit purchases, all from a newbie’s perspective. If you want to join me and have a read, that’d be lovely. It’ll be good for a laugh if nothing else 🙂
Cheers’n’gone,
Chloë
