Friday, 10 May 2013

South Downs Way 100 Preparation

It's 36 days from now (15 June) that the South Downs Way 100 starts. For those of you not in the know, this is a trail / path between Winchester and Eastbourne in the South of England and is 100 miles (160 km) long. The event organised by Centurion Running and the intention is to finish it within 30 hours.
It starts the 15th June at 0600 so you should be done by the 16th of June 1200. If you finish within 24 hours you will get the buckle that proofs you did it in one day. Which is what I am aiming for, but if I finish in 29 hours and 59 minutes I will be equally happy.
Why do I want to finish in 24 hours? This would enable me to register for Badwater Ultra and/or Spartathlon.
The above picture is courtesy of http://www.britainexpress.com/countryside/national-trails/south-downs.htm

I believe that I have secured a pacer for the last 30 miles. Thank you Wayde.
I also believe I've secured a sleeping place the night before. Thank you Jackie and Ollie.
I now need to work out how many dropsbags and what to put in them.

Despite it's going to be hard, it's going to be different from the MdS. It's a one day event, I don't really have to carry food, just water. There are about 15 aid stations with different distances. So it will be a case of running aid station to aid station. A good indicator will be going through aid station 2 which is 22.6 miles in and about 12 miles from aid station 1. So getting through that will mean less than 80 miles to go.

Tomorrow the Transvulcania starts in Las Palmas and like from last weeks runners in the Giant's Causeway I will draw motivation from that. As well as all the stories that you can leave on my Facebook page or in comment of this blog. Or twitter them if you are a person of few words.

Twitter Michiel
Facebook Michiel

Interestingly is that finishing the SDW100 would give me 4 UTMB points, together with the 3 from the MdS I can actually enter the ballot. Which I may do. UTMB, despite being iconic it is not really on my list at this moment in time.

So as it's called preparation, what am I doing:
I've so far secured a pacer from mile 70. Which is important as it's 50K to go through the dark.
I've been running on the South Downs Way, Winchester side twice now c.10 mile in. So that part I'm comfortable with.
I hope that I can actually do some running at the Clayton Windmills area as that is the last 30 miles, which means when it's dark and it's the where people get lost part.
I've been running in the hilliest (not very really) parts of Richmond Park, but if you run up and down them enough, it will start to hurt. And it's around the corner, Clayton Windmills is 70 miles and Winchester is about 40 miles so quite a distance for a run. But very beautiful, so it's worthwhile going there.
And I just run, or swim or go to the gym. Whatever, makes me get up and move.

For the rest there isn't much I can do. But I'm drawing motivation from others, as I said.

So for now, going to watch some tv and rest.

Speak soon



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