The only way is up, a mere 5500ft up!

Please note you can find the post race blog report/blog here: http://fitnesswithgru.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/5500ft-of-ascent-thats-up-welsh.html

It's all getting real...

So it's Excalibur marathon week and I've got one more day in work (Tues) and then I'm off work and making the final preparations for my hardest marathon yet, the Excalibur on Sat 30th May at Mount Famau and the entire Clywdian hill/mountain range.

Preparations are mainly making sure I remain uninjured by staying away from work and taking it easy in the gym, with very light exercises to keep things loose and a fair few trips to the jacuzzi to soothe my leg muscles after months of training for this marathon.

Training so far...

I won't lie my legs have suffered over the months of hard training, and I have thrown in four long runs of 20+ miles instead of the usual one I do pre road marathons. The toughness of this event is way more than a road marathon and required me running through my favourite training ground the Sefton coastal range and sand dunes on a weekly basis for my longest runs.

I can get in a good 12-13 miles of dunes and beach in before I have to hit stretches of road when I run to Liverpool from Southport for my 20+ miles long runs, and this helps break up the boredom of running roads all the way. Likewise I often run out to Formby Point (8.5 miles) and turn round and run back,getting me a total of 17 miles of dunes which are great for strength building. My longest run was 22 miles which was from Liverpool to Southport via all the dunes between them.

Dunes around Formby.

Pinewoods around Formby.

Formby dunes.

One of the most important bits of pre marathon prep I have had to do is getting some local press and online media coverage of my 14run charity running campaign itself. I have been holding off on the local press until my first of the big runs came up, as my first two runs at 10k events were only warm up's for the year itself to get me started so were not worth trying to plug them.

Thankfully my local paper the Southport Visiter agreed to do a piece on the charity running aspect and did a nice half page article with a picture and links to my fundraising page etc. They also importantly mentioned my local business sponsors and supporters who have been very good to me this year by making a monetary contribution to help with costs of clothing, shoes and race entries in return for an advertising spot on my running top and mentions throughout my social media etc. I am eternally thankful to them for this.

Southport Visiter article.

I also got an online version of the article done by the Southport Visiter as well, which is pretty much the same article with an extra picture. This was good as it would reach a wider audience. I've provided a link to the article below if you would like a read, it also saves you having to squint at the picture above to try and read it.

http://www.southportvisiter.co.uk/news/southport-west-lancs/southport-man-run-14-races-9281220

I also got my instruction and race pack through from Claire House Events who organize the Excalibur marathon itself. Included in the pack was my race number and my actual t-shirt/top for the event which was posted out in advance so we could wear it on the day of the event if we so wished.

Official top for the event and race number.

 
The pack included a handy little map of the area which kindly pointed out how hilly/mountainous this event is, and also pointed out that we don't merely go up and around Mount Famau for 26.2 miles but rather go up and down 3 or 4 of Mount Famau's brothers or sisters as well, which would explain why we are climbing a total of 5,500ft in total during the event. Just as a comparison Snowdon the highest mountain in Wales is 3.560ft.

Final thoughts...

Well my final thoughts are, I can't wait to finish work for the week and enjoy my 'holiday' with a nice trip to Wales my second favourite country. Also I can't wait to actually start to crack on with one of the tougher events I am taking on this year to raise funds for my chosen charity, the very worthy THHN Torbay Holiday Helpers Network. You can read all about them on my fundraising page which will follow at the end of this post, and you can also find out about them in one of my older blogs which details all the events I am doing this year, just scroll down after this blog post and you will see all my previous blogs for 2015 and 2014.

Please support me and donate where you can at the link below , and I will see you all at the end of the week when I do a race/event blog after I have hopefully finished.

The fundraising page link...

https://www.justgiving.com/14runsthesequel