Part 3 of my journey to Mordor… I mean John O’Groats. It’s now the start of my 3rd week and I’ve just made it to the Lake District. This is where things start getting a little trickier…
It’s Saturday! To many people, this means weekend. To me, it meant time to get moving again. Refreshed from a sleeping to 11am and with the rigors of yesterday behind me; I set off for the Lakes.
This morning I got up ridiculously early. It was my naïve idea to pinch an extra few miles today by sleeping a bit less; a plan I would soon learn that does NOT work.
That morning’s run was amazing! Plodding up all of the country roads, plus there was more or less zero traffic to worry about.
There may not have been as many dragons, trolls or Nazgul to contend with on this journey. There were however a great many castles, misty mountains to pass through and I swear a couple of wizards I met on route. All in all, pretty similar to my last trip out; getting shut of that pesky ring.
So I have compiled a bit of a day to day summary of my unassisted run, spanning around 1,000 miles, which as you’ll see, began as a bit of a laugh and a joke; getting things wrong constantly and somehow getting away with it. To a progressively more serious, calculated and arduous ordeal; ultimately coming together as a great experience, meeting all different kinds of people along the way and seeing a lot of the country that most people never see.
After a grueling 27 days with no rest, I finally made it back to the comfort of my own home. I’m sat here now, relaxed in my living room writing this with no immediate agenda to get back up again. It’s nice.
This is just a quick overview of my experience out there; what I’m describing as an odd combination of Forest Gump and a hobbits journey.
SO FAR……SO GOOD
This map shows Dan’s progress up to day 14 (21st March 2014) of his Lands End to John O’Groats Challenge: He is estimated to have already run over 500 miles and the chart below shows roughly where those miles were covered:
This shows us that he has passed the halfway mark and let’s hope he can keep his spirits up and face the rest of the challenge with the grit, determination and humour that he has shown thus far.
Don’t forget to visit http://my.sportrelief.com/sponsor/danmayers to donate to Sport Relief and reward Dan’s colossal effort (if you haven’t already). Your support is appreciated.
A new (additional) option for supporting Dan by donating to Sport Relief is here:-
Alternatively, use the link or copy/paste the following url into your browser:
http://my.sportrelief.com/sponsor/danmayers
THANK YOU FOR YOUR GENEROSITY AND SUPPORT
So if anyone is not aware (if not, I’m clearly not rabbiting on about it enough), next month I’m planning on running that thing that cyclists do; transporting myself from one end of the country to the other, via my legs, on their own. Here is a bit of a lowdown of how I’ve trained for it.
Go on then, run.
The first thing I thought about, was that I need to be able to be able to run for ages and not be broken after it. So all through autumn, I really upped the mileage. On occasion I would break 50 miles in one day.
I purchased this the other day, in preparation for this little run from Lands End to John O’ Groats I have planned for Sport Relief.
Backpack I’ll be using for LEJOG run.
I’d say I’m ready for the distances I need to cover; I’ve done enough marathons, ultras and hills I’d need to feel confident of that side of things.
Next up, I should probably get conditioning myself for the resistance of running with a massive backpack on my back.
Over the next few weeks I’ll be slowly increasing the weight and the distance, in the hope that things will start to get a little easier when it comes to March..
First competition of 2014, and it was a good one! This was an unmarked, 45 mile course; taking you from Wendover, to Little Venice in London.
Shoulder of Mutton pub for the start.
The timing of this race could not have been better, as it allowed for a festive and moderately intoxicated Christmas; then back to business in the New Year. I tend to NEED these events up there in the horizon, to act as beacons to a constant reminder not to slip into past lifestyle habits again. I think last Christmas continued until end of February… This gave me a good, solid week of detox and heavy training, to get myself back into fitness in time.
