I’ve been trying hard this year to avoid posting boasting about my training on social media, instead leaving my workouts where they belong, on RunKeeper and Strava. But please let me indulge myself a little on my blog. 🙂
Three big races
I have some big goals this year and am doing some big runs to prepare for them. The three big races I’ve set my sights on are:
1. June 14th: “Mt. Asama to Sugadaira Trail Mountain”, a 90km race in Nagano with over 5,500m of elevation.
2. July 5th: “Utsukushigahara Trail Run & Walk”, the same 70km race I did last year. Hopefully I won’t drop out half way through this time!
3. July 20th: “OSJ Ontake Ultra Trail 100K”, a long one on rocky, mountain roads around Mt. Ontake.
I wasn’t expecting Utsukushigahara to be sandwiched between the other two, but it’s been moved from the end of August to the start of July this year, and I had already signed up for the others.
Training so far
I’ve put “running” aside for the most part and instead am concentrating on “moving”. That means running, hiking or walking, it doesn’t matter just as long as I’m moving for as long as possible. I’m not an elite athlete and can’t be expected to run for 20 hours straight! With that in mind, the big “runs” I’ve done since the KA50K in December are:
1. Jan 2nd: a 10hr, 76km run beside the Nagara River railway.
2. Feb 1st: the 2nd KA50K – 13hrs and 52km of trail running in the Kakamigahara Alps.
3. Feb 28th: a 15hr, 52km overnight run in the Kakamigahara Alps.
4. Mar. 15th: a 12hr, 86km road run from home to Tarumi station and back.
I’ll try to do something big every other week, and as the snow melts I’ll head a bit farther north in Gifu to get my legs used to hiking up mountains bigger than the 300 meter ones here in Kakamigahara.
If you like, you can find me on Twitter at @nick_ramsay. I'd love to hear from you!