Not a Good Idea....

I was chatting to a friend today. I was going to hide his identity - but I'm not really sure why. So, I was chatting to Dave today and after the subject of meeting up for a beer was mentioned he mellowed. Once we'd arranged a  time and a place he also mentioned a rather intriguing jungle marathon upper in the Titiwangsa in early May.

It's somewhere near Broga apparently. Those of you who know where Broga is will immediately appreciate that this is unlikely to be a flat run. Through the jungle, on trails, I struggle to put a good time estimate to it. 8 hours doesn't seem unreasonable. :)

The interesting thing about it is that it is 28 days before the Everest marathon on the 29th (which I have still to enter - but do have the cardiologist's all clear [that is frightening if you think about it ....]). Training for the Everest Marathon is going to be interesting anyway as I jhave a 2 week trek to get to the start and through most of that I will be losing fitness and muscle mass due to the altitude effects.

That kind of fits - or should do - tapering. The timing also puts the proposed jungle marathon 4 weeks before which is about when I should be peaking. Two weeks to repair muscle damage and recover.

The other interesting thing is how does one effectively simulate a high altitude, sub zero trail run in Malaysia. Training in Sabah is out so the next best thing is lots of long trail runs. Oh dear , I am not looking forward to this at all.

I was chatting to Paul before the start of the Salomon the other day. I can't remember exactly how the conversation went, that skill belongs to Shen, not me. However the substance was that Paul said he was nervous about the Ironman. I said he'd already done the hardest part which was signing up. For me that was true. I got the biggest adrenaline rush when I decided to do it and pressed submit. Scary. Everything after that was a little bit bureaucratic.

Bureaucratic is not the way that one usually describes training for an Ironman; but in a way that surely is the essence of it. You sign up, adopt you plan and then try, as much as circumstances allow, to follow it. Depending on how well you follow it you will either go faster or slower, and in all likelihood finish with a huge smile. Not that hard. The hard bit is in pressing submit, or licking the stamp.

At that point your hopes and fears are most in balance. You don't know that you can do it. You hope, but you have no evidence. All you have is faith. And so some press the button; other done. And every one that does is in some sense an Ironman because they have dared to dream; and then to try and make it real.