Since the Caledonian challenge my mind has swung around towards the Great Glen ultra (GGU) which is coming up on July 4th. Since the fling my training has been a lot more unstructured, with my running distances reducing rather than increasing. Over the past week this has started to play on my mind with a race of 72 miles just over a week away I am questioning if I am ready or not.

If I think about it, over the past month I have ran Edinburgh Marathon and walked two very long distance walks, so I know I have some training under my belt. I also went out yesterday to fit in a good quality long run with plenty of elevation in to make it as tough as possible. I ended up doing 37.5km with almost 1300m of elevation, strava link here. I did something very similar the week before the fling, sticking two fingers up to the traditional taper approach and going for the panic reverse taper. Mentally I think this helps, I woke up this morning feeling happier about the GGU, but still concerned if I have it in my legs to take it up to such a long distance.

I also seem to have a niggle in my right leg after the caley challenge. I did a little jogging down one of the hills approaching Kinlochleven and I think that short stretch of running in my walking boots caused some ligament damage on the front of my ankle\shin. I have a physio appointment tomorrow to get it checked out and hopefully get some treatment to help it heal as fast as possible. Given I ran the fling with a sprained ankle from 10 days before the start, this appears to be an emerging trend for me in picking up injuries just before an ultra.

I’m starting to fix on my strategy for the GGU. It looks to be a course with 3 main sections from looking at the map. The first section is almost entirely flat from Fort William up to Laggan Locks. The trail follows alongside the canal to here which probably gains less than about 50m along the whole section. This is the danger section, with such a flat, solid trail the temptation will be to go out at 5min\km. I need to bring it back and really pace myself so I don’t come undone later on. The trail then meanders up and down along the side of Loch Oich through to Fort Augustus. There are no real climbs here, but I suspect the perpetual up and down will be tempting to run faster than I should be doing. My target pace for this section is 6min\km to take into account the slight up’s and downs.

From Fort Augustus the track goes along the loch side again with a little more undulation. By this time tiredness will be starting to creep in to my legs given how little distance work I’ve done recently so I need to be sensible and just get through this with my mind fixed on the CP at Invermorriston. Once I’ve refuelled here, it is then a stern climb up a tarmac road with a couple of switch backs that I found on my recent recce. Then a drop back down to Loch side for more undulating trails through to a road which leads down to Drumnadrochit and the final CP. That whole section I suspect will involve lots of slow pace shuffling. The fact I have run it in a recce is making it already feel more achievable in my mind.

From Drumnadrochit, the trail heads up another hill towards Inverness. This section is the one I am the most afraid of at the moment. It looks like a hell of a long way to be running with very tired legs and I suspect mentally it will be a real struggle. At this point I will be in “determined to finish” mode as the next point of civilisation will be the finish line. I don’t expect this to be easy or enjoyable at the time.

I think amongst the many things I’ve learned as I’ve trained to run ultras is the ability to just keep going. I think so much of this is about mental toughness and I’m still confident that, as long as my body can keep things ticking along, it will be the brain that gets me through the Glen.

In other news, I signed up to Transvulcania 2016 this week. It looks such an amazing race and an incredible challenge, getting over that huge volcanic area and in such hot conditions. Here’s a video from their official page to give you a sense for what’s to come.