Monday 7 April at 8am UK time

The race is around the corner now! On Monday at 9am local time, or 8am UK time we set off. The environment that I am going to run through is certainly very harsh. As you can see from the satellite images below there seems to be little more than red sand, rocks and gravel…

I have my race strategy pretty much worked out. From the start of the race I will try to stick to the same rhythm. I will run 25minutes and then walk for 5, and then repeat this over, and over, and over again. This is a proven ultra marathon strategy and this combined with walking any uphill sections should mean that I limit the stress on my legs (if there is such a thing as limit the stress on my legs when I am talking about running 120km).

Every 20km there is a water station. Here I can fill up water and have a quick rest, should I want to. The water stations will also have fires so that if I want to cook food I can do that.

Running one of these races means that it quickly becomes scientific when it comes to energy intake. I expect to use about 1,000 calories every hour, so if I finish in 16 hours I will use up about 16,000 calories. At the start of the race I will have about 4,000 calories stored up, so somehow I have to cover the 12,000 calories that remains.

I don’t think I will be able to do that, but I aim to eat 500 calories an hour. I will cook twice, using the fires at the water stations, and a tin that I bring. I will do this after 40km and after 80km.

Apart from this I will get energy from energy gels, energy bars, energy drinks (powder that I mix with water) and raisins and Apricots.

Does that seem like a plan?

In less then 5 days time I will know if I made the right choices!
I CANNOT WAIT *smile*