Ultra Marathon! It had to happen eventually!

I suppose I knew that I would eventually sign up for an Ultra- things were heading that way! I was just browsing Facebook yesterday, minding my own business and an ad popped up for Race to the Stones Ultra with those fateful words... 'Last Day to get Early Bird Discount'.

When I clicked on the link and discovered that it's on my birthday that was it, I booked it. My thought process was that on your birthday you can do whatever you want and no-one is allowed to complain. Also because it's my birthday I didn't book the camping because Damien likes to see me on my birthday so might like to come too and he won't camp and would probably want to treat me to a night of luxury anyway.....

The full race is 100km, I thought maybe that was a bit much for me to do in one go so I chose the 2 day option - 50km on each day. It's got brilliant reviews and I'm looking forward to it so much! Here's a link if you want to see what it entails or maybe even sign up yourself.....

I need to think about training for it now. I am happy to run/walk but I want to be able to comfortably complete it and run as much of it as I can. I put 6-7 hours for my expected time but I know I'm secretly hoping to get under 6 hours, after all, I did Kielder under 6 without much training and it's only an extra 4 miles, and repeated on the next day. No Problem!

I am concentrating on running 5 days a week at the moment, with one long run a week but listening to my body in terms of distances. I'll keep this up until Christmas and then be ready to start a proper training plan in the New Year - I'd love any advice from people who have done Ultras before.

I will also plan to do a marathon in the spring, perhaps at the end of March. Having a short term goal is important to my motivation- otherwise I think that something is ages away until suddenly it isn't!!