London Marathon 2021 – Part One: Not a Sprint!

Just about every article I read nowadays starts off by jumping in at the deep end, opening in the midst of a particularly perilous situation near the end of the race – a suspected injury, tales of exhaustion or even just negative thoughts of giving up – hooking the readers with a cliff-hanger before rewinding to the start line for the rest of the story, before resolving said difficult situation with a twist involving say crowd support or a generous passer, finishing off by collapsing over the finish line. I thought about doing the same here, and came up with plenty of scenarios from last weekend which would have worked well enough, but it feels like I would be cutting out the much bigger story, of a near two year build up to actually get to the race in the first place: never has the phrase “It’s a marathon not a sprint” been more appropriate!

Along with maybe the Olympics, the London Marathon must be one of my oldest sporting memories, going back to primary school days when newspapers used to publish competitors times (pre-GPS!) and my school would pin them to the noticeboard. One year my uncle took part and I remember searching through pages to find his finish time. At that age a marathon seemed an impossibly long distance, and being honest for much of the next 35 years things remained the same, until I finally got around to completing one myself in Birmingham in 2017. Whilst it was well supported and more importantly close to home, it has never quite held the same kudos as a major event: I have lost count of the “oh’s” I get when people ask if I have ‘done’ a marathon before, usually followed (not unjustifiably) by “I didn’t know there was a Birmingham marathon”!

This one however is different – so well known that for most non-runners it is simply ‘The Marathon’, whilst for other regular runners it is just ‘London’ – as in “Have you done London?” as if it is the holy grail of running. After year of small and medium sized events this was something I had to experience for myself, but with huge demand to take part, reaching the start line is a challenge in itself. The ballot system gives odds getting in of something like 35-1, and whilst I now have a good collection of ‘sorry’ jackets from years of failed attempts, this time around I decided to push for one of the equally competitive charity places, and in summer 2019 was fortunate enough to be chosen to run for the Bobby Moore Fund, part of Cancer Research UK, with a target of raising £1966 to go towards Bowel Cancer causes, something particularly close to my heart.

I immediately began training with what looked like plenty of time until April 2020 to get up to strength from fairly comfortable half marathon distance to full, this being more of a one off opportunity I could not waste, not to mention the fact it would be on international TV! Winter training was tough – you can always spot those training for a Spring event during December snowstorms wearing full thermals whilst others just turn up the heating and put their feet up – and with my grey Rocky tracksuit I was more than happy to be one of them!

But then Covid struck, and the world stopped. It seems almost funny now to look back at the ‘will they or won’t they’ conversations with friends about re-scheduling but of course it was, firstly to October 2020 which allowed me to maintain my training through Lockdown and Summer holidays, and then when it became clear things were not going away it moved again to October 2021, meaning it would be almost exactly two years between getting my place and taking part – if it actually went ahead at all!

The next 12 months brought even more complexity, from The Good: a new baby in the family, fantastic for motivation but putting a bit of a dent in my to training plans – to The Bad: the ongoing lockdowns all but confining me to my hometown and really testing the limits of how many times I could do the same run again and again – and of course The Ugly: a foot injury and rehab plan that kept me out of trainers for nearly two months during what would have been peak training season.

Fundraising was equally tough, having to ask people for support during difficult times for everyone, for a race that I was not even sure when – or if – it would actually go ahead. Fortunately I had huge support, from both my large family, friends and work colleagues, and particularly from a certain anonymous donor (you know who you are!) and I am pleased to say that at time of writing I have surpassed my target, with my employer even matching the first £500 of funds, meaning the charity will receive vital support, which ultimately is what the event is all about.

Choosing and packing kit for an event like this alone could take up a whole other blog, with months spent reading reviews, buying and testing the most comfortable, least painful and best priced equipment. Trainers were already in the bag, having settled on a decent set of Sauconys at running show last year, although the lockdown extensions meant I was now on my second pair. Likewise my ‘lucky’ running shorts and faithful Garmin were already tried and tested. Non-runners might find it odd that socks turned out to be one of the most important tests, but I found a really good, if expensive pair of blister free compression socks with fancy raised dots which I never quite understood, but after extensive testing actually did work well, more than making up for the £20 price tag. The toughest though was my choice of top, and fortunately my sponsors sent me a lovely Cancer Research running vest at the last minute, with lettering for my name to make me feel like a real celebrity, which alongside my running backpack turned out to be both the best and worst parts of the day… but more on them next time.

Even headphones were not straightforward, as with more than a few hours in the build up plus half a day of running I had severe battery life anxiety for both my Powerbeats and phone, which not only led me to panic buy a second pair of wireless headphones as backup, but a power bank and even to dust off an old iPod shuffle for the warm up to conserve power. The question of ‘to music or not to music’ during a major race like this is a whole other topic, which again I will discuss next time, but either way I wanted to be ready.

Fortunately nutrition was the one area I was comfortable on, having completed plenty of longer races including three half-iron distance triathlons and two 100 mile bike sportives, so after a bit of a play about in my warm up race in Worcester last month, I was happy with my choices of Hi Five & SIS gels, USN cookies, Lucozade drinks and good old malt loaf slices, all of which I knew would keep me going through the distance without any major dramas.

Then just two weeks before the race date, my Dad sadly passed away – ironically due in part to the very illness I was fundraising for. I can’t really put into words here how this affected me as I am quite a private person, but suffice to say that after initially questioning whether I should even go ahead with the race, it ended up motivating me even more to get there and continue fundraising for him – a really tough decision in the situation, but one I know he would have been proud of me for, and the thought of him supporting me along the way definitely kept me going.

Back to the race, the final matter was the logistics involved with actually getting to one of the largest races in the world, taking place over 100 miles away. To make it harder I needed to be there the day before to register, meaning at least two nights away from my family. Fortunately I know the locations well from work, and after moving my original hotel booking twice I got a room just minutes from the expo, and a few miles from the start line. But of course that was not everything, as the week before the race we had a national fuel crisis, which meant even more back up plans of how to actually get there in the event I could not drive, so emergency plans were put in place involving multiple trains right up to the last minute, until I stumbled on a fuel station which actually had some diesel the evening before I needed to go down.

After all that planning, things could not have gone any more smoothly in the build up: the roads were fairly empty (partly due to the ongoing shortages!), the hotel check-in was fine, as was the expo despite the fact I did not manage to find any good running merch or kit to blow my cash on (probably for the best as a golden rule is never wear new kit in a race), and I even found time for a pre-race pizza carb fest before relaxing in the cinema to the new Bond film: the perfect build up to the race – but more on that next time!

Into Perspective

We are living in strange times and 2020 has definitely been the strangest year yet.

The last decade has seen some real extremes in this country, from the highs of sports events like the 2012 Olympics & Cricket World Cup, to the political lows of the Credit Crunch & Brexit. People have been brought together and fallen apart, but I don’t think any of us were prepared for what we are going through now.

The last week alone has seen travel bans, curfews, self-isolation and sadly there will still be more to come. It is times like this when you just want to spend time with your loved ones, but in many cases even that is not even possible at the moment. For me personally things are very different this year, with a new baby to look after and family members to worry about. Sport should not have even entered the equation, but for some reason it did.

For many people sport is of course a luxury, a hobby, and low down the list of important things. Most UK sports events in the coming months have now been cancelled, including International Rugby, Cricket, and even football (you know it must be bad when the footie is off). Sure, we can do with a break from sport for a while, although for many it is a big part of their lives – something to get excited about, something to escape with, something to guide your social activities. There was a great piece on BBC News this week on this and I know exactly what they are getting at.

This of course brings me onto the postponement of the London Marathon, the driving force behind restarting this website. For many runners it is the pinnacle of their career, ad it is with true British irony that after a decade of trying to get a place in the darn thing, the year I finally manage it and the world turns upside down!

For the first week of March as the news started spiraling and Covid reached Europe I wondered if it might even affect the race – hoping this might come and go by the end of the month like many other stories, forgotten moments later – but clearly things were different as other races, events and matches began to be cancelled by the day.

Lots of questions, both selfish and practical: If the Marathon is cancelled will they honour my place next year? Could they really reschedule such a complex closed roads event? What about the funds I had raised so far? How long could I maintain my running fitness? What about the hotel I had booked before and after?

By the time the inevitable announcement came it was actually a massive relief. The race was still taking place but postponed until October. I would keep my place, and have the luxury of summer training to look forward to (more irony after months of cold, wet training through winter!). I even managed to defer my hotel say until the new race weekend.

It feels like a massive weight had been lifted. Having waited all this time, I can manage another few months waiting. Clearly there will be a lot of disappointed athletes, who maybe cant make the new date or cannot cancel their travel plans as easilly, but ultimately you have to look at the positives. The actions now will reduce pressure on the health service and ultimately save lives, and with luck the crowds will be back in full strength again by the Autumn, ensuring that special atmosphere everyone wants for the this race. And hey, how many people will get to say they took part in the only London Marathon to have ever taken place in October…

Even better, you lucky readers will get an extra six months of these ramblings to read in the meantime!

 

 

Flashback to 2018

With two years to catch up on since the last review, now seems as good as any to catch up on what has been happening in the meantime. First up 2018, which was mainly about two new things: Family Running and Obstacle Races.

As with most crazy ideas, our first was probably concocted following a few Christmas drinks, after we discovered the Wolf Running team were launching a new event in the South East. Being fairly close to much of my family we thought it would be a good plan to enter our own ‘Wolf Pack’, and the next thing we knew six of us were lined up for the inaugural Spring event in Sussex on a chilly April weekend.

So what memories of the event nearly two years on? Mud, mud and more mud. This was the first obstacle race any of us had done before, and it did not disappoint. Wolf is actually a (possibly reverse engineered) acronym for Woods Obstacles Lakes & Fields, with an emphasis on natural features where possible, and the lakes in particular being an unexpected delight after a particularly freezing winter (some readers might who remember the ‘Beast from the East’ just a few weeks earlier), with the initial swim (trainers and all) hidden behind a slide which landed you right underwater with no time to back out, to the extent the subsequent mud baths were almost a relief to warm the bones, with a good bit of cross country to stretch it out over 10 km.

As an added bonus, we were lucky enough to be joined by three real England Rugby legends and World Cup winners, Mike Tindall, Will Greenwood and Neil Back, who were part of the race sponsorship. Running even part of the course with them is one of the biggest honours I have ever had, and my youngest sister particularly enjoyed them hauling her out of the rope climb. And yes, that is genuine royalty Mike Tindall doing my drinks round below!

Although this was my wife’s first major race, for some reason she liked it enough that before we knew it, we had entered all four seasons of the wolf: Spring & Autumn down south with the wider family, and Summer & Winter closer to home in the Midlands. The good thing is the courses naturally changed with the seasons, the Summer one being a pretty scorching event where you were always hoping for a dunk, through to Winter requiring multiple layers of clothing and ideally a portable radiator. It was all worth it though as we did feel we had really earned our Alpha Medals!

Having a new found taste for mud, I also decided to check off another legendary event: Tough Mudder. Right from the kick off you could tell this was something special, walking in with AC/DC blaring out, all of the entrants kneeling together to say a Prayer (not a joke, “I will uphold the Tough Mudder values of teamwork and camaraderie…)” and even fireworks and flares going off as we crossed the start line.

Despite both being OCRs (Obstacle Races to the uninitiated) it could not have been more different to the Wolf, with the obstacles mainly man-made but much more challenging and many requiring teamwork to get past. The legendary ice-dives, barbed wire and ‘Mud Mile’ still give me shudders some 18 months later, as does the sight of a guy I had been running with getting thrown about 3 metres by the electric eel tentacles!

The final climb was pretty cool, requiring contestants to literally create a human pyramid on each other’s shoulders to reach the summit (see below pic) before crossing the finish line and reviving a well-earned orange headband.

Between all these races we also managed to fit in another local one, Gung Ho, which was more of a bit of fun at 5k with inflatable obstacles, a massive hill in the middle, but most importantly another new headband (seeing a theme here!)

As part of the training for the Alpha Wolfs, I also managed to talk my wife into joining me in some outdoor run training, perhaps helped by some more exotic locations in the Dominican Republic and Mallorca, and even managed to persuade / trick her into a couple of out and out running races. The first was the Birmingham 10k on a baking hot summer’s day in May (that Caribbean training coming in useful) followed by an even more impressive Birmingham Half Marathon on the polar opposite, an October morning with bucket-loads of rain (spot the difference below). Oh yeah, and for the half she was two month’s pregnant… but more on that in the 2019 review!

2018 was not all running about in fields and ice lakes though, the other massive part of that summer was becoming a PADI Divemaster! This involved a number of weekends dealing with increasingly stressful teaching situations, beginning with learning how to manage newer divers underwater and boost their confidence, culminating in escorting some genuine first timers around the bottom of a lovely flooded quarry in Tamworth (not a million miles away from an ice lake but at least with a dry-suit on this time)! On top of that we had to spend numerous evenings at the bottom of a pool practicing skills like mask removal, equipment changeovers and rescue lifts again and again to get them up to demo standard.

Being honest the only bit I really felt I smashed was the various timed swims, some of them in full kit and others regular front crawl, much more like my normal training. After a month of full on training and another month or so to draw up a ludicrous underwater map of the quarry, I finally ‘got my stripes’ and graduated as DM, ready to be let loose in the world of scuba training. But as it turned out things went in a slightly different direction in 2019, but more on that next time…

 

A Muppet Chile Challenge

It’s that time of year again where, just like Michael Caine in the Muppet Christmas Carol, we can look back over the past, present and future of the Chile Challenge. Ok ok, I realise revisiting 2016 is probably fairly low down man people’s lists of priorities with the year we all had, and that talking about Christmas in January is about as welcome as turning up at an Ironman with a bike as cheap as mine, but I have been meaning to get around to writing an update for a while now, so please bear with me for a bit…

The Ghost of Chile Challenge Past

It is almost 3 years to the day since I started the Chile Challenge, and a lot has changed since then. For those who joined late, the original point of this blog was to give me somewhere to both track my progress whilst I Swam, Rode and Ran 4,270 km across Chile from the comfort of my own county, and also as an outlet to spot the many random thoughts that entered my head during all that long distance training.

The centrepiece was to be the Avenger Triathlon, my first half-iron distance race (110 km in a shade under 8 hours on the hottest day of the year!) as well as a number of other smaller triathlons. Looking back over the photos, even at the time of the Avenger I must have been at least a stone heavier and a lot less fit than I am now, and still have no idea how I reached the finish line on my own and in that heat.

After successfully knocking off the last few kilometres of the challenge in late December, I had to decide what to do next, and with the usual psychology of a long distance amateur (forgetting the 90% of the race where you were in so much pain your limbs wanted to shut down and only remembering the finish line endorphins) I decided to go all out and entered Ironman Staffs.

Ironman was my ‘A Race’ around which the rest of 2015 was planned, and to this day is still the event I am most proud of completing, finishing in just over 7 hours. Although it was not the longest (the bike leg was 3 km shorter than the Avenger) or even the toughest (see the Isoman below), it was definitely the most memorable, and I will never forget lining up against Javier Gomez et al in transition, even if that was as close as I got to them for the rest of the race!

Whilst the rest of the year involved more new triathlons and runs to pad it out, I also began to get into Group Exercise at my gym, starting off with Body Combat and RPM, and stepping up into, well Body Step Body Attack, Body Pump and whatever else Les Mills could come up with, culminating with a weekend at One Live in Manchester involving 6 back to back classes, an indoor Ironman in itself! This more intensive training gave me a new focus on exercise, and helped me shift that spare few kilos as well as meeting some great people and learning that fitness does not necessarily have to be a solitary activity.

So onto the ghost of 2016 past, and what happened over the last 12 months. My main race last summer was the Isoman in Redditch, an Ironman with a twist, with the swim nearly doubling to 5 km (2 hours 20 minutes!), a potentially lethal non-closed road ride around the North Worcestershire countryside, finishing in a rain-soaked run around my regular Park Run venue (actually it was 5 park runs, but starting off already knackered!).

What else? Well six of the first twelve weeks of last year were spent on the move in various chain hotels around the country, with highlights including early morning runs around Canary Wharf and a new experience of Aqua Cycling, as well as a lot of time on the same old dodgy machinery in the various hotel gyms. Les Mills Live made a return, well two actually, one down in London (pretty good) and the other back in Manchester (a lot better), as did our work football tournaments, where we seized defeat from the jaws of victory at home in April, before recovering to a win in Leicester in October.

After planning to do one for years, last year was also my first ever (proper) obstacle race, organised brilliantly by my wife. Rough Runner saw a team of us yomping around the Cotswolds and navigating a series of Takeshi’s Castle inspired obstacles, giant inflatables and the like, although in the end it was the hills and rabbit holes that proved more deadly for more people than any of the equipment. It also allowed us to achieve  lifetime dream for most kids of the 90’s with a run up a travelator straight out of Gladiators to finish up with!

NOVATEK CAMERA

NOVATEK CAMERA

Away from physical training, I managed to get in some great Scuba last year, including visiting wrecks in Cuba and cave diving in Greece, as well as managing to get my first sports related injury in over a decade when I managed to rupture my ear drum due to pressure changes. Who would have thought after all those challenges it would be the slowest moving one which would catch me out?

The Summer rounded off with my third Birmingham Half Marathon, where I managed to knock another 5 minutes or so off my PB but still could not quite crack that two hour mark: who knows, maybe there will be a chance to do it next year…

The Ghost Christmas Present

Right, time to live in the now, and cover what has happened since I last wrote at the end of October. Well… actually not that much to write home about (which is basically what this is as I am fairly sure only my parents read this far into my scrawlings). Most of my time (and I mean most – I wonder at what point I can start claiming overtime!) over the last few months of 2016 has been spent at the gym getting in as much training as possible to avoid losing my fitness over winter and piling on those extra Christmas pounds.

A fortnight in charming Gatwick was a lovely way to spend early December, although I did manage a great night run around the town of Crawley (proudly showing off my luminous tights), the constant expectation of mugging adding at least a few extra mph to my legs. As for my work Christmas party, does bowling count as exercise (and offset all that drinking)? Well have you seen the Big Lebowski?!

After a year involving some pretty exotic travels, I was fortunate enough to end 2016 in the fantastic city of New York, and whilst there was little opportunity for intensive training (particularly in sub-zero temperatures) we did manage a heck of a lot of walking all over town, from Downtown (Wall Street, One World Trade Centre and the Statue of Liberty), Uptown (an incredibly long walk through Central Park to find the Home Alone 2 house!) and all over Midtown (Top of the Rock and Empire State – by lift not steps! – as well as up and down Fifth Avenue and Broadway). In fact the closest I got to physical exercise was probably cheering on the Knicks to victory at Madison Square Gardens, another ambition completed!

With everything back to reality now, the last few weeks have been gym, gym, and more gym, seeing progressively more New Year’s Resolutioners appearing in classes, and basically getting back into the normal routine of daily training. So what is planned for 2017?

The Ghost of Chile Challenge’s Future

Right, this is most scary ghost in the film, so I will need to keep things brief (and go for Marley and Marley instead – I think I need to end the Muppet theme now). I have already hinted at my main goals for this year in earlier posts, but essentially I am going to be taking some time off from multi-sport racing (i.e. triathlons) to focus on individual events.

First up in the current plan is the Silverstone Half Marathon, a race around the famous racing circuit which is home to the British F1 Grand Prix, where I am hoping a nice flat(ish) circuit will finally help me break the 2 hour barrier so I can stop banging on about it. The event takes place in early March though, which is going to prove tough for someone who is does not usually start training outdoors until the clocks go forward and it warms up a bit, although that is the whole point of starting things early this year.

There is a bit of a gap until my next booked race, which I will look at filling in with something or other soon, but September kicks off the first ever 100 mile Velo bike event in Birmingham, a ride I could not turn down given how beautiful the route looks, going right through Northern Worcestershire & Herefordshire and almost past my front door. With 15,000 riders it will be by far the largest event I have ever taken part in, and being 50% further than I have ever ridden I know it is going to be a killer (although not bookmarking it with a swim and run will help) so it looks like a lot of time in the saddle in late Summer.

It is the last race of the year that looks the biggie though, the new Birmingham Marathon in October, another lifetime ambition to be fulfilled. At this stage it still seems a long way off, but like much of this year, I can imagine it will come about pretty quickly!

Race Preparation

Things are really heating up now with just two weeks to go until Ironman 70.3 Staffs!

After months of hard training I am now at the point where things are starting to calm down with a bit of tapering before the big day (although six separate gym sessions in the last four days might argue with that statement). It is funny that having been through this before with the Avenger last summer I now have slightly different concerns. Whilst previously my main concern was whether I could actually finish a race this long, I now know I can go the distance, and by accounts Ironman Staffs is supposed to have a slightly easier / flatter course (we will see…) which should mean that will take care of itself.

Also unless the weather changes a lot in the next fortnight it is unlikely to be pushing 30 degrees C during the race which will make nutrition a little more realistic and help avoid near collapses on the bike due to dehydration. Finally the cut off time is a bit longer than the 8 hours I previously had (8.30 this time) which I assume has been done especially for me and more importantly might mean I actually finish ahead of someone!

So assuming I can actually finish the course, my attention has turned to the admin side, and I honestly never thought I would have more concerns on this side of the race then actually getting around it!

First up is the location. When I booked the race (which was a mission in itself – see my post from last year on the perils of online race entry) it was because it was less than an hour away from home, which fulfils most of my criteria of being able to get to easily by car and not having to spend money on a hotel the night before. Unfortunately it is the other side of Birmingham in an area I have never been to before, so spent most of yesterday afternoon location scouting in the car, firstly driving around trying to find the venue, which was severely hampered by a load of road closures which confused the sat-nav and the fact that in general it is in the middle of bloody nowhere (I am sure there should be a question mark in the picture below!). Once we actually found it this added to my confusion as the first thing on site is a huge great petting zoo, which is definitely a first for me, although I guess being chased by an angry goat will probably ensure people achieve their PBs!

Next up is parking, and funnily enough writing this blog has made me find another issue. I was just searching for the name of the venue which I keep forgetting and noticed that car parking needed to be booked in advance ‘if you want to park there on the day’. Now bearing in mind I have already highlighted the remote location there is not really a realistic alternative available, as parking miles away and biking in with all my kit is not going to work. So another £14 (yes £14!!) to grudgingly pay on top of the massive entry fees, has at least ensured I will actually be able to park at the race and get home afterwards, assuming I can find it first.

The next, and potentially most complicated part of the day, is that the race actually takes place over two sites. So here you go: You start off at the finish.Yes, although you park up at Shugborough, that is not actually the start location. That is around 15 miles away at a place called Chasewater, where you do your swim and then ride (via a convoluted 90 km bike route) back to the start / finish place. This also means that not only do I need to go along the day before to set up on multiple sites, but on the race day itself you have to get a shuttle bus from the finish to the start. To be honest it is giving me a headache just thinking about it, so hopefully it will all just work out!

Oh, I forgot to mention that one other thing that makes this so complicated. I need to be there at bloody 5 am! So as if it was not hard enough finding the place in the day time, I am going to have to leave the house at around 4 am and find it in the dark, whilst managing to actually stay awake. This is because of this complicated set up, as I will need to get to the finish / start and check my running gear is all ok, then jump on the shuttle bus to the start / finish and again check on my bike stuff. I then need to be in my wetsuit and ready to go in the water around 7ish, for my 7.10 wave start.

That said I am actually really glad I have this start time, as my age group (30-34) is the first ‘normal’ start time, meaning some others won’t even begin until I am halfway around the bike course, which should mean I have some companions during the run, rather than the lonely, painful struggle I experienced on my last lap in the Avenger.

Finally, there is just the small matter of the ‘elite’ competitors taking part. As this is such a high-profile Ironman event (televised and everything) there are some big names in the mix, and none more so than the current ITU World Champion and Olympic Silver medallist Javier Gomez, who is in the first swim wave of the day starting just ten minutes before me. That’s right, I will be hot on the heels of one of the fastest triathletes on the planet! Well, that is probably the closest I will come to him unless his bike falls apart (although I expect he can run faster than I can ride anyway), but it is an amazing thought that I will be that close. I wonder if he will give me any encouragement before the start? That’s if I can work out where the hell it is!!

Gomez

August Round Up: 126 km

After seven pretty intensive months so far this year, August was something of a rest & recovery time for the Chile Challenge.

The main reason of course, was a certain 2000 km road trip through Chile, and with long days spent driving and a lack of baggage allowance for training kit there was not a huge amount of scope to train, and as a result mileage was well down on usual (As an aside from there, what do people with the metric system say for mileage, as kilometerage does not really flow?)

But anyway, training first. I managed to get in at least one session of each discipline during the month: a 50 km bike ride, a great early morning 10 km run over the weekend, and even a quick dip in the (freezing cold) pool in the Chilean desert. As mentioned I did also get in a lot of walking / hiking too (including another Rocky III run on the beach) which made up the rest, but suffice to say it was a good thing I had been expecting this and had a few extra miles in the bag from previous months to still be on track.

I had been a bit worried about loosing too much fitness from this lack of training, but having had a few training sessions since returning things seem to be ok so far…

In terms of where this places me year-to-date: well after leaving Vina & Valpo the next stage was to head north up the coast to the seaside town of La Serena, and then real subtle-like turn right, towards the Andes and in particular the Elqui Valley. Although slightly out the way, this is a worthy detour for anyone traveling through the country – not only for the spectacular scenery, stargazing and temperate climate – but chiefly for Pisco!

For anyone who has not come across this before, Pisco is the national drink of Chile, a brandy of sorts produced from grapes which are grown in this part of the country. It tastes awesome, and during our time here we managed to visit 4 distilleries in 24 hours – quite possible another reason for the lower volume of training…

So we are not two-thirds through the challenge, and the same distance through this longest of nations. Next month will see training pick up, and the final triathlon of the season, and the next exciting stop along the way in Chile!