Running a marathon!

I discovered that I would be running in the race at the beginning of June, which left 4 months of training, as the race begins on 4th October. Although I'd been staying reasonably fit by going to the gym, my last competitive marathon was back in 2007 and so there was a lot of catching up to do in a short space of time. As the race will be self-sufficient (I'll be carrying all my food and equipment on my back), I decided that I would do all my training with a back pack in preparation. There will also be lots of water crossings and so it's important that i get used to running with wet feet. I will therefore wet my feet wherever possible during runs.

I set myself the challenge of getting up to marathon distance as quickly as possible. After building up my training over the first few weeks, I managed to run my first marathon on July 5th and then another the following weekend in 3 hours 20 minutes.

Although well short of my personal best, it was a huge confidence boost to have built up to a marathon in just 4 weeks. Here's a photo from mile 22. I'm wearing prototype UVU jungle gear that's been specifically designed to suit the jungle conditions. I'm fortunate enough to be one of the first athletes to run the Jungle Marathon in such specialised gear.

As you can see I'm stood in water to get used to training with wet feet!