Tuesday 7th

am: 30 minutes. great morning again.

pm: 1 hour 10. 30 minutes down to Blackfriars with Rusty and back up the Thames Path to Battersea.

Total: 12 miles.

Todays revelation is that there is still a race on this planet I'm not qualified to get in too. over the years more and more races have put strict entry criteria probably to limit the number of applicants in a vastly growing sport but also to make sure people are qualified for what they're getting themselves in to. Examples: Most 100s you need to have finished a 50 mile race or longer in under the cut off. Badwater you need to have run 2 x 100 mile nonstop races in under the cut offs.

My race plans next year are all sorted apart from 2 US 100's which have lotteries because they are so oversubscribed. Last year I missed out on one of them in the lottery, so did Frank. The other race is the Hardrock 100. With 68,000ft of elevation change over the 100 mile course and an average elevation above the treeline at 8000ft+ it is probably the hardest 100 miler in the world (bar Barkley maybe). Anyway there is a list of about 10 races you must have completed one of, to be eligible to apply for entry even in to the lottery. UTMB is one of those and my plan was to finish that and go for a spot at Hardrock next year. Well thats out of the window. I wrote to the Race Director and he needs to see a 500 word document explaining why I feel Im qualified to compete, given that 8 of the 10 qualifiers are in the States and aren't very accesible to me. This is the option open to international runners. We'll see how it turns out but I think my chances are slim. I love that there are still so many monumental challenges out there, my only fear is that I may wait years and years to get to have a crack at some of them. Still I fully endorse Hardrocks entry procedure. Frankly its more like a 48 hour mountain climb than a run. In fact I might start hiking instead.

Bestival in 3 days. Wow the training is going down the pan for a while.