Mental Feat - ultra running explored

Once again I found myself waking up at 5.30am in the middle of the Namib desert on the day of the Namibian 24h ultra marathon. I was amongst the first people to wake up and the camp looked almost deserted, except for Faan’s cooks who were busy preparing breakfast. The evening before I had been [...]

The Namibian 24h Ultramarathon in 2010 is now under my belt and I made it… The relief to have come to the end for a second time was great, and this year I felt strong throughout the race. I managed the race like I wanted and almost everything went according to plan. I will post [...]

I thought I should take the advantage of the scheduling tool with my blog. Today the Namibia 24 Ultra marathon started in the morning. In about 45 degree C heat we are running 126km (78 miles) in less than 24h. In 2008 I made the race in about 22h. In 2009 I collapsed after 61km. [...]

With a few single day ultras under my belt I am heading off to once more tackle the Namibia 24h ultra marathon. 126km / 78miles through the Namib desert lies ahead of me. It is a self sufficiency race, so I will be carrying food, water, and equipment with me, in total about 10-12kg. In [...]

I am about to get on the plane to Namibia again. After a few days acclimatisation it will be time to step up to the start line of the 3rd Namibian 24h Ultra Marathon. I hope that some 20h-24h later I will be as happy as on the photo above again. Namibia 1 – Joakim [...]

Why did I choose to drink both Sauterne and Port after dinner last night? The question was banging my head on my way to swimming this morning. The rain was beating down and gone was the spring sun that had been kind to me on yesterday’s 30km run. After 1h40min in the pool it was [...]

5 weeks to go to Namibia 24h ultra and I am stepping up the pace. Last week I managed to do 193km in total. Most of it was during the weekend on my bike, I was part of Across the Divide’s team that managed the SPW Triathlon in Hyde Park on Sunday (18 April). We [...]

Not sure how much my week skiing will help me in my ultra races, but for piece of mind it worked a treat! Not to forget that to get off piste I had to walk 45 minutes with the skis on my back up deep snow

There were some Tough geese at the Tough Guy in 2010! Having completed the race three years running it was time for me to pay back some of the support that I had got in my three races and I went along without participating this year. The weather threw in some interesting challenges and the [...]

I cannot believe the level of my fitness! I ran home from work today and within minutes I had an asthma attack brewing deep down in my lungs. I was not going to go for a long run, only five or six km, but I don’t think I have ever struggled as much with such [...]