Me and this Site.

Another late thirties dude starting his own blog. Snooooore, right? Sorry.

That’s me. Based in the Inner-Inner-West of Sydney, Australia, I’m a parochial Melbournian trying (unsuccessfully) to spread the good word of black skinny-leg jeans, the Hoddle grid and why cold weather is ‘great’.

I’ve been running for a little over ten years now. Originally, I was a bit heavier than I wanted to be and just wanted to be able to make the 5km home from the office without stopping. Then I ran a 12km event. Then a half mara. Then I decided it’d be good to tick off a marathon before I turned 30. Then a few more marathons. Then I met Doug (it’s all Doug’s fault) who told me about trail running. Then I went and started running trails. Then I started doing Ultras. And now I’m here, loving every second of it (but I still blame Doug). I’m not winning any of these races. I’m not trying to. I’m in the middle of the pack; maybe slightly toward the front of it (if I say so myself). I’m usually smiling.

There’s a few things I want to achieve from this site:

  • Document my training toward UTMB - CCC. I’m planning to provide a weekly update on how things are progressing. Whilst I’ll be stoaked to just finish this race, I want to use whatever opportunity I have to finish it as strongly as my capabilities will allow (whatever that means).

  • Trails library. I’ll use my weekly long runs to build up a list of (hopefully) fun trail running locations that you can try yourself! I’ve always found it tricky to find new and exciting runs, and I’d hope that some of these can save you all some of that trial and error in the future.

  • Running tips. I’ve learnt a bit along my running journey. Whilst I’m sure 30% of it is incorrect (at best), enough of it must be right-enough given I’m still going. All I hope is that it helps a few people either start running, keep at it, or enjoy it a bit more.

My Training

For UTMB - CCC I’m rehashing a training plan that I used the first time I ran UTA100. It’s not a massive commitment, but I need to juggle being a good parent and partner, have a demanding job, and try to squeeze in a social life somewhere in between too (ie, I want to have a beer or two on a weekend night). The training plan is an 80/20 plan, based around heart-rate zones, that ordinarily requires two intensive workouts (eg, Fartleks, Hill sprints), three easy runs, one rest day and one long run over a week.

I run in ASICS Kayanos on the roads, and HOKA Speedgoats on the trails, and I’m almost entirely kitted out in LuluLemon (it feels dirty to write that out, but it’s good gear - and you can’t beat that phone-pocket on the thigh). I track my runs on a Garmin Fenix 6s that I picked up off eBay - I hope it’s not stolen, and I hope it’s not fake - either way I love it to bits. Used to ride with the AllSorts but those early starts are too much for me now. Fuck what a group though - check them out if you need a running, riding, swimming, tri, drinking, chatting, coffee swilling etc crew.

The Race

Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc is one of the go to global trail runs. Thousands of runners will decent on the small town of Chamonix in the French Alps to tackle one of a handful of races up and around Mont Blanc. I'll be taking on the 'CCC'. CCC is a 100km race with 6156m of climbing, named for the three towns it takes you through: Courmayeur, Italy; Champex, Switzerland; and Chamonix, France. It's known as the 'little sister' to UTMB, the 171km marque event.

Entries to these distances are by lottery. You tally up 'running stones' from participating in other events and can use those to go into the running (*ahem*). I tackled the UTA100, UTK100 (DNF - more on that another day) and TUM100 over the past year for my entries and, against the odds, managed to get into CCC first time around. Extremely lucky.

There's so much written about these races - go out and have a look - I'll hopefully be contributing my own race report and photos in 5 months time!