Week 1 of 52

For Fermin

I am now 4 fails to 1 finish

hmm not surprising as the two other long races in 2016 ended up at a similar distances, between the 100km -120 km mark.

Each one I started well and then by 100km  I really felt I did not want to go on. I always used to struggle between 30-60km  but then get over it.  Now I go 40km longer but mentally collapse.

Mark Cockbain says this is because I am weak in the head and I need to go back to basics.

True,  but there is something else I feel.

I think i have a real problem eating,  not eating per se, because I can eat anything most of the time,  but eating the right thing at the right time.

It is more than than that though... I am too heavy to keep going during a race at the speed I want to go at.

At around 70 plus kilos I am burning around ten thousand calories in one hundred kilometers.

Last year I was 67 kilos and travelled faster. For instance in 2015 I got to halkion (112km) in daylight ~7 pm. This year at 71 kilos I got there at 9pm, way slower. I was also dead in the head,

If I want a chance of finishing I need to be  67 kilos or lighter.  I need to be faster.  Most importantly I need to be  able  to run on my own and stay positive. I tend to be  ok when I run with someone, I had good phases this year running with Iris Vromanns and a bunch of American guys ( Paul and Mosi) but left on my own I fall into depression.

So the plan

1) Lose shed loads of weight.  My public declaration is to turn up with a boy band six pack,  I reckon around 62 kilos, next year.

2) Get faster, like as fast as 2013, sub 45 minute 10kms and sub 3.30 marathons like  Mark taught me

3) Run a clever race, 4:14 marathon 8:45 to Corinth 11:00 100km.

4) Most importantly sort the head.  This has two parts...
First part items 1-3 above.
Second part work out how to sort the internal critical voice...this again has two parts. 
First part mental training. I have several books and practical tasks to do.
Second part physiologically, that is to say when I am going hypoglycemic (low blood sugar) that triggers the critical voice. so the challenge is how to get glucose into my blood stream fast enough to make  me  happy and ignore the critical voice.