Miles of Smiles...

The last weekend in February saw my own training taking a back seat as I embraced the opportunity to give something back.
Having organized the Grantham Canal Run with Rory, Saturday night was my chance to deliver a seminar on what it will take to succeed in both the Marathon des Sables and Namibian desert Ultra Marathons.
During Saturdays 29.3 miles along the Canal and Sunday's 29.3 return trip I marshaled and photographed some of the check points and took time to praise and encourage the efforts of the competitors, lifting spirits and challenging them to up the pace.

Amongst experienced runners there were also intermediate and novice runners many of them taking a reference for their very first Ultra Marathon.
Michael Shakesheff (pictured here looking fresh and strong) was one of three Namibian Desert Ultra competitors using the weekend to fine tune their training, Francis Jones and Nick Wright who are not pictured were also competing.

At 19:30 I took center stage and delivered a information packed seminar that was aimed at taking them right to the heart of the matter of surviving and succeeding in Extreme Desert Ultra Running events that are staged in some of the most challenging environments on the planet.
Amongst the subjects covered was the psychology of overcoming pain and fatigue, coping with and treating blisters in order to succeed, Hydration -"The Key to Success", in Desert Running, and of course Food and Energy replacement.

The team of Sports Scientists from Lucozade Sports Drinks delivered a scientific version of the Hydration theme, and all in all the night was a great success. At 23:45 long after the competitors were tucked up in bed, Rory and I finalized the Race Results and posted them to the web along with photographs of the event. We retired to our room for Pot Noodle snacks to boost our carb levels, and get some rest before the long Sunday ahead of us!

I didn't escape the weekend without any training benefit though... Rory was determined to subject me to some enforced Sleep Deprivation training... 2 and a half hours of snoring later at almost 3am he finally relented and I drifted off to blissful sleep until the alarm went off at 06:00. It was going to be a long day!
You can imagine my comments when I found him catching some zzz's at one of the checkpoints as Amanda checked in the runners... It must be an age thing!!! Only joking we staged this to wind up the checkpoint teams... we do like to have fun! :)

For me however the day was all about encouraging the the competitors to push themselves beyond their comfort zones and onwards towards another milestone of achievement in their race CV's.

There were smiles and tears of elation as they received their finishers medals, and shocked looks of surprise when they inspected their tired and sore feet, a few of them had new "Badges of Honour" to show their family and friends... the proof that they had earned their medals!





"When you have run 20 miles on top of having blisters... you'll never think about blisters the same way again"

more later, see you soon.