Well this time next week, all being well, I’ll have finished my second official ultra marathon, The Peddars Way Ultra. This is an important race for me, as it was a late entry onto my 2014(+) schedule to replace the cancelled race I’d hoped to celebrate my 40th year with.

I’ve had a good build up and am happy with the training I’ve put in. As the start approaches I’ve gone back and reviewed my lessons learnt from last years Grimreaper Ultra and decided to lay down some personal objectives for next weekends race.

As always, the main objective will be to have fun, enjoy the challenge and finish. I will run by feel and if all goes well then I will start to focus on more race oriented objectives.

My Race Objectives

In order of priority:
1. Have fun!
2. Finish!
3. Avoid the nutrition issues I experienced in my last ultra – stick to the nutrition plan this time!
4. Less faff at checkpoints, again stick to the plan!
5. Finish before its completely dark (5pm or in 9 hours)
6. Finish with a 6:30 per km average pace, which would result in a finish around 8:22:00
7. Finish as close to 8 hours as possible

So there they are, all laid out for the world to see. I realise there is nothing about overall placing but at this stage in my ultra career it would be presumptuous of me to make any estimations here. I’ll worry about that after I cross the line.

The focus this week is to rest and complete my taper effectively, with enough exercise to keep the legs turning over but not enough to cause additional fatigue. When the race begins at 8am next Saturday, we’ll see how things develop but hopefully I’ll be able to tick a few of these off before the day closes.