Mummy, my legs hurt

For the past few days I've been trying to process my epic weekend and get my brain back to normal.... I knew I wasn't quite caught up with reality when I tried to make a cup of tea for Richard and I, and get us some cheese and bikkies on Sunday night. I came upstairs with one cup of tea, on a plate, with a knife. No cheese or biscuits and no second cup of tea. I burst out laughing... clearly the mental recovery takes a little while after such an event! I have been using the wrong words and have been really scattered, but now four days later I finally feel almost back to my regular self, so it's time to get it all down in writing. So here goes... grab a coffee and get settled in as this is a long read! Firstly, a few pics from the race briefing and prepping back in the cabin - I felt so relaxed in the whole lead up to the event, zero start line nerves, just happy and excited! The only time I felt a little anxious was on the Monday prior to the race and I think that was to ...

All of a sudden, the big dance is nearly here! I hope everyone else's training and logistics are coming together nicely. The bulk of it is done now - we're not getting much fitter or better from here on in; it's just a matter of getting to the start line uninjured! I feel, as usual, somewhat undercooked - my longest run to date was 5.5 hours, and that was only once, as fitting in the same again plus more just seemed unnecessarily stressful with everything else going on in my life at the moment. Both my husband and I have resigned from our jobs and are about to start new ones in the coming weeks so I have been gentle on myself and just done the best I could at this crazy time! I still generally try to cover roughly 50km a week running and hiking which is probably a lot less than some, but it works for me. That sometimes includes bush walking with the kids; Holly is a boss at power hiking! Even though a lot of my recent runs have been a fairly modest 3 hours or so...

Hi everyone! It's now well under 50 days till race day and I hope everyone is hanging in there. Me? I'm mostly managing OK apart from the odd meltdown and freak out!! Some of the resources coming through on the Rapid Ascent facebook page have been a lifesaver for me. Sam's course run-throughs are brilliant for an out-of-towner like me, really helping me to get my head around the course. And David Eadie's live Q&A session in particular really helped me last week to get some perspective and acknowledge that 'it's ok not to feel good at this point in your training'. I have a few niggles but am not particularly injured - I'm just getting exhausted by the constant self-talk: am I doing the right thing, am I training too much, not enough, and what have I got myself into!? That Q&A helped put so many fears to rest and just having some validation that the seemingly excessive amount of walking I'm doing is perfectly fine and will stand me in goo...

Hi everyone! Hope your training is going really well. As I begin to write this on the 21st June, it's the shortest day of the year, which means as of tomorrow the mornings and evenings will gradually start to get less dark and miserable! I quite like the cold but getting home from work in the dark every day is a real drag. Lucky I have a top notch head lamp for early morning weekend adventures! The last few weeks have been all about... - getting my nutrition sorted - learning to pace myself better - studying the course from afar - setting up my fundraising page for One in Five This month I ventured out in some crazy cold, windy and dark conditions.,..with snow forecast above 700 metres in the mountains, I didn't venture too far up the hill, but the trail I was on at 450m elevation was still damn cold! It was one of those days where the RFS and SES advise the public to 're-think outdoor activities'... but this spot was relatively sheltered, well populated and...

100 days to go...     When I last shared my thoughts we were only a week or two out from UTA, which is now over and done with for another year! It was a magic weekend; I finished feeling strong in the 22k with a time of 3:20, but the highlight of the weekend was both volunteering and seeing off all my amazing friends competing in the 50 & 100K races. I also got to meet Sam and Anna from Rapid Ascent at the UTA expo which was awesome! So, now that I've started training for 100KM in earnest, it's beginning to come up in conversation with a few people, both runners and non-runners . The typical response from my non running friends is a combination of wow, what?! and why??? Of course my running friends invariably get it, and their response is more like where, when and woohoo! :) Numerous times I've found myself unable to answer that 'why' question concisely . Why travel 100 kilometres on foot, in a world of cars and technology and automated ever...