3 weeks until race day!

Well pretty much everything is in place now for our inaugural races on the 13th/ 14th August.

This morning I opened up the online registration back end and saw that we had finally reached our limit of 100 x 50 milers, that being on top of the 100 x runners for the marathon which filled a few weeks ago and the 55 x 100 mile runners we have. The registrations opened in November and really only took off in February but we have had an amazing amount of support thus far.

I have found that the logistics and time spent in organisation of an event like this are beyond extensive. Whilst a lot of it is enjoyable there is a vast amount of process with it too.

It remains to be seen if anything is missing come race day but the basics behind this event and the major reasons why I decided to put this and the other Centurion races together are stronger than ever and we will deliver on them.

I went out in the week on the mountain bike with our chief course marker and was shocked at how slow our progress was. It would have been far quicker to run, due to the numerous albeit short sections of stairs and steep up and downs on slippery clay trails that make the 50/ 100 mile races the tricky proposition that they are. The elevation changes in terms of other 100s that are out there, are relatively modest at 5500ft/ 10400 ft and there are plenty of very runnable soft and well groomed trail, but the core of the race, the section from Box Hill to Reigate Hill (and vice versa) is by no means easy.

In trying to predict the winning times of both events I have drifted from one extreme to the other, but I am sure of one thing, that our last 50 mile and 100 mile finishers will need every minute of the 15/ 32 hours we have put aside for them.

Very exicted for race day and to finally get this thing off of the ground.