I've just finished session number five of the week and it’s only Tuesday. At 0645 this morning, a David Fairlamb Fitness Beach Bootcamp at Longsands saw a strong group put though our paces by Mark Fleming. Regular followers will know that Mark was an important member of the USA 2011 support team.
Back to yesterday and I managed two double sessions. The first lot was back to back VersaClimber classes at 0630 at David Fairlamb Fitness. On a bank holiday too! At 1630, there were two back to back circuit classes with David. I’ve got to say that I hadn’t felt so strong coming out of that afternoon session for a very long time. It just goes to show what it possible with what is now two weeks of eating very healthy food.
I’ve simply got to continue to eat in the way I have been, given how good I’m currently feeling. It feels like a fog has lifted. Oh, and there is the small matter that I’ve dropped 10 pounds of fat in that two weeks. That news from the weigh in yesterday with David was pleasantly surprising. I’m looking forward to the coming weeks and months as I build the workload up even further. As long as I continue to eat sensibly then I should be in great shape by the end of spring 2024. The summer of 2024 is a hugely important period in my preparation when I’ll start running the big miles.
To say that I feel determined is a huge understatement. There’s nothing like plotting the USA route in detail (which I finished yesterday) to focus the mind! The feeling that I had at the end of the route planning was “there’s no way I can do that!”. I haven’t helped matters by watching a lot of YouTube coverage of people running through Death Valley. Death Valley, of course, is only 153 miles of the 3141 mile route from Coney Island, New York to Huntington Beach, California. It’s a tough section that could be an event in its own right. I'll speak more about the route in more detail in the coming weeks so please watch this space.
There is a long way to go to convincing myself that running that considerable distance, over that unforgiving terrain in those harsh temperatures is actually possible. While running an average of 31.41 miles over 100 days is close to what I did in 2011, this route seems far more difficult however.
I'm not surprised that with all of the route planning, I now possess a very healthy amount of fear and trepidation. Every action that I take over the next 611 days until the run starts on May 1st 2025 is going to contribute massively to the eventual outcome. What a journey it promises to be!
