It’s been all systems go over the past month or so with yet more planning for my run across America. I’m still waking up in the early hours of the morning in a complete panic with everything that still needs to be sorted, but I’m getting there with the help of my head crew Jenny Davis. Poor Jenny has spent endless hours on Skype and the phone with me chatting through things and helping which has made a big help.
Finally I have sorted out the maps for each day so they are all ready to be printed (if anyone knows of a company that might be interested in printing them for me please get in touch) and the elevations for the route have been done. There are some big climbs in there so I had better get some more hill training in.
As you all know to take on a big challenge like this I need to have people to support me. I’m probably – no, scratch probably, I am the luckiest person in the entire world and have the best support crew anyone could wish for.
Jenny Davis, Becky and Paul George, Jan Strachen, Aaron Asaro and HWMBO
Sports Therapists – Fiona Philips, Beccy Williams and Becs Ash
They won’t all be there at the same time as it’s a big ask to get people to give up about two months of their life, so when Becky and Paul leave Sophie and HWMBO will appear then when Aaron arrives HWMBO returns home. The same with the sports therapists.
Earlier this week I pressed the button on the first 5 flights to America – now it seems very real. I can’t tell you how many times I checked the dates before I pressed Go, not something I wanted to get wrong.
Training is going well. I’m feeling much more confident in my ability, the knee is A-OK, my distances are increasing and finally I can actually breathe while running – it wasn’t my asthma either that was preventing me from getting air into my lungs, it felt as if I had a heavy weight permanently sitting on my chest squashing it down towards my backbone. My osteopath was able to release it and now I can actually run up a hill and get to the top and still be alive (that does help!!
I’m so excited about this run, it’s my dream for so long but at the same time terrified if that makes sense? My comeback after surgery has been slow which is absolutely the right way to do it but I have been rehabbing at the same time as getting ready for the biggest run of my life – no wonder I have been waking up panicking. End of May my training will go up to another level again, this is going to be tough as it will be hours out running on my own. I love the running but sometimes the training is hard as it becomes boring do the same old routes all the time. I could get into the car to go and run somewhere else (which I do occasionally) but driving somewhere takes time, then doing a long run then driving home again; much easier to run nearish the house to save time. Goodness I sound such a miserable old bag – months again I would have given my eye-teeth to be running. Note to self, stop complaining.
Hopefully people will come and run with me in America, it really would be wonderful and make such a difference to not only my but my crew as well. One of the rules of Guinness is that I can have people running beside me or behind me but no-one can run in front of me as this would be classified as “pacing”. So many rules and regulations to abide by but all good.
I’m delighted to announce that I have another sponsor on-board for the world record attempt, Keith Godden of Ultra marathon running store (http://www.ultramarathonrunningstore.com) which is absolutely marvellous, thank you Keith.
VW America are now providing me with two vehicles, this will make a big difference from the logistics point of view. It’s all coming together – now I just need to run some more!!
X-Bionic, Hoka OneOne, Suunto
Happy training.
