Life is an ultramarathon

I eventually signed up for Tough Guy (c) (*), "Year of the Bended Arm", to be held next January. As a member of Team Stench, I'll raise money for Cancer Research.

In a nutshell Tough Guy (c) is a tough assault course to be undertaken in winter (the summer event, Nettle Warrior, is for wimps ). It starts by a long, although not explicitely defined cross-country run up and down the hills, followed by cargo nets, jumps over walls, tunnels, bogs, ropes crossings, crawling uder barbed wires in the mud, etc. But my two favourites are the jump over straw on fire and the underwater tunnel, which may be rather cold in winter ...

Ultra tough.

(*) Yes, they really insist on the copyright.

Yesterday I bought a cheap running heart rate monitor. Let's make it clear: I won't use it as a training tool. I'm just being curious and a bit geek. I'd like to see my heart rate range under various conditions from time to time. I really can't be bother to wear the chest belt every time I run.

Ultra ?

On Saturday night I ate a dodgy Chinese take away that gave me food poisoning. I thought this would never happen to me... It was a sort of boiled duck full of fat and skin, and over salted, probably to overcome a rotten taste. On Sunday I was stuck in bed all day not even able to drink a glass of water in the morning. I leave you the details.

On Monday I managed to eat, moderately though. It's amazing how my energy storage took a while to recover. Yesterday I was still not very performant whilst running upstairs. This afternoon I tried a run, and I was half in hypoglycemia after 5 minutes for the entire run! That's a bit annoying, I'll have to stick to pasta every night, and better twice than once...

Ultra sick.

As detailed in an earlier post, I found out that the Crème de Marrons (chestnut spread) is one of my favourite running fuel. Unfortunately, I can't find it anymore in small pouches. They now sell them online (*), but apparently they don't ship abroad. That's annoying... Does anyone know where to find these in London or online?

Ultra embarrassing.

(*) for 0.73€ each = £0.50 - half price compared to Partridges...

Update (14/04/2007):
They're available again at Partridges ! I mean they were available, as I bought all 12 of them At £1.10 each now, that's more than twice as much as in France ...

Update (18/04/2007):
They're definitively not available anymore at Partridges. I must have bought their whole stock at once

Scott Jurek is again on the list of the runners registers for the UTMB. Last year, he mysteriously disapeared from the list before the start. Will he try to run it this year ? Will he finish ? Will he set a new race record ?

Ultra vegan runner.