Over the last few weeks, training had dropped to barely a  trundle with Duke in the mornings. The heatwave would have made much training impossible anyway, but I’m firmly in the realm of “if you’re not ready now, you won’t be!” One of the questions I’ve been asked most frequently is “how on earth do you train for the mountains while living in Cambridge?”, the answer to which is basically a combination of hutzpah (or hubris) and very long fast-walks with a 35kg backpack. That’s the best I could come up with, given budget and time available.

The training itself has been pretty boring. I much preferred the marathon training, which combined tempo runs, and even the longer runs of 25km or so could fit into a nice two hour window. Trudging around Cambridge at 5am in Zone 2, listening to hours of podcasts and audiobooks, was much less fun. The only upside, really, is that Duke has had lots of opportunities to come with me, which wasn’t really possible when I was doing the marathon training.

We arrived in Spain yesterday and I found time to nip out for a short 8km training run with Ryan. We managed 8km, with 4km straight up 600m, and 4km straight back down. It’s an amazing place to be, with some ridiculous scenery, and my main goal yesterday was to figure out how to use the poles. Uphill was fine, and downhill got better over the course of the descent, though it’s much more technical (and dangerous!). As I pointed out to Ryan, it’s quite hard to fall uphill!

The good news is that I’ll have about 11 hours to practise on Thursday. We should start 7am UK time, and it will take between 10 and 12 hours, most likely, so we’re aiming for 6pm finish. A huge thank you to all those who have made donations over the last few months. Nearly £6,000 raised is a wonderful reflection of the various communities of which I’m fortunate to be a part. For anyone still yet to take the plunge, the JustGiving link is here: https://www.justgiving.com/page/scott-annett-2

Next update, will be after the race!