24 Days to Go

No running this morning. Depressing. Spent all day icing my leg, stretching etc it's so boring. I literally spent all day gettin psyched up about trying to run 4 miles home without my leg collapsing from under me. I was supposed to be running 15 - 17 each day this week. Oh dear.

Anyway I made it home, totally pain free. More importantly my leg felt strong, not 100% but some of my confidence came back within the first few minutes. It was unbelievably difficult to just reign it in and call it quits after half an hour but common sense sort of prevailed.... I couldn't resist going out and doing another half an hour after dinner just to see. It's fine. So fingers crossed I can get a couple of sessions in tomorrow again, a short on on Friday and then C2C 45 miles on Saturday. One day at a time.

Back to the subject of Rocky Raccoon, I saw this evening that Zach Gingerich has put his name down against the 100. Zach won Badwater in 2010 beating me by a paltry 15 hours, coming in 24:44 and change. He had a great year in 2010, winning pretty much everything he entered and with his course record at Arrowhead 135 mile, pretty much the coldest race out there, he gets the title of Fire and Ice Champion for '10. It's still not clear whether Anton Krupicka is racing. Reading his blog, Karl Meltzer seems to think so (karl is also running) but who knows. If those two both turn up then it's quite possible that Eric Cliftons CR of 13:16 could go down. I exchanged a couple of messages with Ian Sharman tonight. For those that don't know him, Ian has begun to establish himself as one of the best, if not the best, British Ultra Runner. Whilst performances like Jez Braggs at the UTMB-lite in 2010 put him right up there, Ian managed a 6:01 at the 89km Comrades Marathon in May 2010 and strung together a top 10 finish at Western States on his first attempt, only his second at 100 miles. With his leg speed proven in his marathon PB but more so in Comrades and his ability to hold it together over longer distances (WS) I can't wait to see if he can cause a stir at RR. I don't want to put him under too much pressure as he had and maybe still has no intention of racing for a win but personally I hope he does. Look out for the final standings come midnight on February 6th.