Pewsey Expectations

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I am now two sleeps away from returning to the Pewsey Downsaround. A 35 mile run around some hills over the otherside of Bath. I completed the event last year over the eight hour mark and was hampered by issues, which included nutrition and training.

Nutrition:
At the first checkpoint I took on board food as normal, only to have it play silly buggers with me a few miles down the trail. This lead to illness, inability to hold any more food, dry heaving and wreatching... A general ruining of the day on the whole. The knock on effect being I couldn't fuel properly, which left to some real tough times. I attribute this to some homemade egg-based potato thing I was recommended at cp1. Lesson learnt.
This year I will be only eating recognised foods, foods in packaging and my gels (note to self: go buy some gels.) I am also going to take some proplus with me on the trip, so I can pop a few pills around mile 20-30 to perk up my CNS. i had originally planned to take a double espresso with me, but now I am running sans pack, I don't have the space for it.

Training.
I stumbled accross the Pewsey two weeks beforw it was taking place, with dreadfully low mileage in my legs. As it was only my second ever ultra, a combination of poor lead up training and experience (specifically mental aptitude) also were around impeding a good finish. This year I have the miles in me, (averaging around 50 a week) the mental experience of working through pain, lows and highs, as well as all the smaller details we take for granted as runners (pacing, hill pacing up and down etc) so this year you could say I'm much more prepared.

My pre-race assessment, indeed my training has had me running hills and generally trying to keep to sub 10 minute miles. Whilst a conservative time goal, when I look at this in conjuction with the results from last year, it would I am going to win the entire race! Ha! So let's watch this space as one of two things are going to happen :

- I WIN... strike a pose and start dropping work hours for running hours now I'm a pro (watch out Sir Mo)

- I learn an important lesson about route planning and preparation and never underestimating an event again.

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