When I entered this race last year it was with the plan to run with Katrina. We had unfinished business after last year when the race was stopped at Kildale with 10 miles to go. I also thought it would be good to do an ultra race in my build up to the Dragon’s Back.

After our 30 mile long run in January Katrina realised that her knee was not coping well and made the sensible decision to drop out of the race. This meant that I had a decision to make as to how I approached the race.

If I ran with Katrina we would be aiming for around 12hrs 30mins. Now that I’m on my own should I stick with that plan or go try and go a bit quicker.

It didn’t take me long to decide to run a bit faster.  I have run the race 5 times before (4 times on my own) with times ranging from 9:35:40 in 2015 to 11:46:10 in 2010 when the weather was pretty wild.

Two years ago I ran 10:44:33 as I used it as a build up race for the Hardmoors 160. I remember that I had a long training weekend planned two weeks later so ran strictly to a lower heart rate than normal so I could be running again pretty soon.

I do feel in decent shape and so I feel 10:30:00 is possible and that is my gold goal. I’ve worked out splits based on a sub 11hr finish as I find it more encouraging to be ahead of my splits rather than slipping behind!

So for anyone interested here is my plan for the race.

I always find it interesting to see whether I can stick to the plan! Obviously weather plays a bit part and so if the weather is bad I will adjust my goal!

Each runner has a tracker so if you want to follow the progress of the race then click on the map here ..

At the moment I have 69 guesses for my ‘Guess My Time’ competition. If you want to enter you have until 5pm on Thursday 14th March.

I hope to do a video diary of the race but it may depend on how wet it is! I will definitely be writing a race report!