Mental Feat - ultra running explored

I got to know Mark in 2009 when I did the Al Andalus Ultra in Spain. Mark is a phenomenal runner and has run in so many classical ultras: Badwater, UTMB and many more. This year he wrote a great piece on Spartathlon, it really makes me think that one day, one day I’ll be [...]

The third year running the Al Andalus proved to be a tough challange for everyone involved! The race results from the 5 days are now in, click here to see the final score. Many of my friends ran this year, Helen, Arend, Ingrid, Martine, Jeremy and Paula (who was back for the third time running [...]

The video from this year’s Jungle Marathon shows you some of the struggles we went through to finish each day. This video is from the second day, which was the day that sadly saw the end of my participation in the race. There are more videos from this year’s race on the official Jungle Marathon [...]

There are many tales to tell from this year’s Jungle Marathon. Rob, one of the competitors this year, has documented how the journey was for him. Dont miss out on this fantastic account of the Jungle Marathon 2010.

This year’s UTMB was cancelled due to a sudden change in weather resulting in a mudslide making the trail dangerous for the runners. Two of my fellow runners, Mimi Anderson and Martine Hofstede were in Switzerland at the time: “1….2…..3…U…T…M…B… we were off, the race had finally started – 166km of hard running and adventure [...]

There is an Ultra marathon on Iceland that many people have raved about. The landscape and beauty of the scenery is suppose to be extraordinary. Below is an account of the Laugavegur Mountain Ultra, posted on Running Monkey. “Laugavegur mountain Ultra marathon was my first ultra. It was the culmination of a challenge I set [...]

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 Namibia Desert Challenge is a 200km, 5 day ultra. Going through the red desert the competitors will experience the stunning scenery of the Sossusvlei, including the 300m tall “Big Daddy” dune. One of my ultra friends from the Al Andalus race in 2009, Mimi Anderson, competed in 2010. Here she tells the tale on [...]

Ahead of this year’s Namibian Ultra marathon I wanted to see if I could draw some conclusions for how to plan my race by looking at previous year’s results. I looked at each stage and the average speed, and I think I uncovered some good tips that I will take with me to the race [...]

We all met up at the Golf bar in Malaga airport on Sunday 12th July at 2pm. I looked around at the other competitors and felt very nervous; they all looked like very fit athletes. I felt a bit out of place but they were all very friendly. We were then driven to Loja where [...]