Thursday 23 July 2009

Back from Oz and the loom of the UTMB

Back to reality on Tuesday at 6am in Heathrow after 3 weeks in Australia. The flights back from Oz were good enough, the space on the A380-800s much better than normal and the Singapore airlines service great. Our daughter managed a reasonable amount of sleep on the 13 hour second leg from Singapore to Heathrow after a sleepless but good humoured 7.5 hours from Brisbane to Singapore. Our sleep rhythms are surprisingly back to normal after making ourselves stay awake on Tuesday although my head is pretty woolly. What surprises me most is the fact that our baby daughter took basically no re-adjusting at all. When we went to Australia she woke up at 3am for 2 hours for the first 4 nights which wasn't very pleasant at all.

The 103 mile, 10,000m ascent UTMB race is now looming. Previously it was a relatively distant thing but now that I have the course maps, profile and handbook I am beginning to feel some trepidation. The course involves going up and down and up and down and up and you get the idea. Not so easy to train for in rural Buckinghamshire so I am heading north this weekend to do the 76 mile 28,000' ascent Bob Graham Round in the Lake District over 2 days with Davie Bell, Jon Steele and John Millen. A builder, an ex-paratrooper, a mortgage consultant and an academic to make up a right motley crew on the fells. Should be great fun.


Profile of UTMB (note elevation is in metres, not feet ... erk)

6 comments:

"e Brutto" said...

A big le weekend for sure.
You have the right frame for it certainly.
That is my excuse for sticking at 50K.
If the PB round is OK nothing should stand in your way.
Once the pre race excitement kicks in the doubts will disappear, along with any other baggage;¬)
Try and spend a few nights at altitude say 1,800m minimum just to get the short term blood chemistry changes required to run at peak up to 3,000m.
Plenty of cheap refugees in the area some of which you can drive to.
What an achievement if you can do it.

Thomas said...

Brian, good luck with the BG round!
Something once on my todo list...
;-)
Looking forward to the UTMB (I will follow that online)!

T.

Davie said...

Piece of piss Brian. Your reps on Beinn MK will make it a doddle!

Good Luck in your prep and the race itself.

Thomas: Finish the WHW race first! ;-)

John Kynaston said...

Have a great weekend in the Lakes and hope the preparation is good for the UTMB.

John

Subversive Runner said...

Sounds like a crackin' weekend in the Lakes, mate!!

Andy Cole said...

Have a great weekend - I'm doing the same but the easy way, one section a week! Just got back from doing the Honister-Keswick bit today, now just have the Wasdale-Honister to do, probably next Tuesday. After playing about with both directions on some sections, I think it's easier anticlockwise -be interested in your views after you've been.