As I was going to Derby - Trad

Yes, it was a trip into Derby today from Markeaton to follow the Bonnie Prince Charlie Way into the city... only it's not that easy as ALL the signs are missing. Ring a bell with Nottingham? Anyway, we are going to mark out the route from Ashbourne and make it so that maps will not be necessary... famous last words eh? But we are signing ALL of this one.

Fitness First is now qualified as our finish point and the run in from Markeaton into the city is really lovely and such a change from the peaks of yesterday's tandem ride. (Yes my backside is still killing me!)

The different aspects of the race are coming together nicely and hopefully you are getting a clearer picture of what we are trying to create here. If you are local maybe you might have some input... let us know.

More tomorrow...

Simply The Best - Tina Turner

I vowed I would never use that song as it sends shivers down my spine every time I hear it - about 10 years ago my sister Helen and myself were on a girly 1-week holiday in Cyprus when the group we had latched onto took us into an old people's convention where they were having a karaoke night and, you guessed it, we were dragged on stage to sing and groove along to it... my sister took on the task with grace and style, I was simply mortified!

ANYWAY, it fits the bill perfectly... ULTRArace.Peaks, the title speaks for itself, but this is going to be one of our classics I can feel it. Rory and I had been sat at home studying the length and breadth of the UK on OS Maps for the best part of a day when Rory had one of his moments of pure genius - the Peak District via the High Peaks and Tissington Trails and then the Bonnie Prince Charles Way finishing at our local and very friendly Fitness First.

Our tandem was simply awesome, beautiful views, fantastic weather - we were like a couple of over-excited school kids by the end of the day:-)) You are in for a TREAT with this one (oh, and did I mention the overall elevation profile is downhill all the way)... details will be on our website in a couple of weeks' time.

Hope you all had a great weekend... Oh, and a big congrats to Libby O'Duffy for coming 9th in her race category at Snowdonia in 3:53 - awesome run with no training!

The Power - Snap

Well what can I say about today's factfinding mission on the trail out in the Derbyshire Peaks apart from IT'S F***ING AMAZING! We cycled the first 20 miles of the 40 miler today on a fabulous Tandem. An off-roader and a bit of a first for me as it's quite an usual pursuit. Jenny had been on one before and I made sure of course that I got the business end with the brakes, gears and slightly easier ride if I am honest as the person on the back gets all the gears but has no idea of how much the front person is doing.

We hit 25mph on some of the inclined planes and the route is just fantastic with views to die for... no doubt my poor butt is going to ache like hell tomorrow but who cares as this was just one of those days...

More tomorrow and from our next race recce...

Mungo Jerry - Pushbike Song

Rory says:- I am really looking forward to getting out on the trail tomorrow on a Tandem Bike! I did a lot of cycling towards the end of last year and enjoyed it immensely... hopefully with another pair of legs to help us along (Jen's) we will be able to get some good speed up on the hills on our new ULTRArace.Peak event course.

We will be walking the inclined planes at Middleton Top  as they are just too darn steep but the miles of long down hills will be a pure joy to cycle I hope...

I am thinking about running part of this bugger of a course on Sunday but will see what's left of my backside tomorrow. It's Friday night now and I'm knackered after a long old week in the PT saddle. It's still only a week after the Beachy Head so no wonder it's still taking it toll.

Anyway... tomorrow is another day... tring tring!

Hot Hot Hot - Arrow

Jen says... this week I feel ULTRArace has jumped leaps and bounds. Race entries are flooding in now, with our Entry King, Andy Chapman, submitting 6 race entries today - and he's in good shape for competing for the title with his new speed spurt - keep it up Andy!

Our ULTRAstore is already in need of replenishing... and we haven't even gone live yet! I get a real kick out of helping people get their equipment just right, and using our years of trying and testing things out to make other people's lives so much more comfortable. I am still getting to grips with having to take money from our lovely customers for the kit but we unfortunately have to make a living out of this too... if I win the lottery I'll offer everyone some freebies :-)

Hills yesterday weren't a barrel of laughs, especially after some pretty full-on intervals on Monday amongst other training - on the seventh one I nearly blew! Still, I pulled my finger out and finished the set of 10 so hopefully all is on track for a decent time at my track marathon next weekend. Fingers crossed.

A massive good luck to Maria Zubizarreta who is running at the Dublin Cross-Country Championships in Ireland whilst I am chasing 100+ laps of a track. I'm sure your run will be more painful but at least it will be much shorter lived!

On and on - The Answer

To be honest the last seven days have been a race planner's nightmare as we have been getting the last of our races in the 9bar UK ULTRArace Championship in place for next August... this was made almost impossible following our incredible Beachy Head Marathon experience of last weekend, how can you live up to that eh? Well you can't really and The Birmingham ULTRA we had planned didn't quite match up to the attractions of the South Downs and the Seven Sisters, if you know what I mean.

So we scrapped it...

Back to the drawing board and five other courses researched and carefully measured, I was nowhere nearer. These only scored a lowly 5/10 on the Salter Quality Race-O-Meter... until yesterday when I hit all the buttons and a 10/10 with a 40'ish mile ULTRArace.Peak from Cromford, along the Tisssington Trail through an amazing railway into Ashbourne along the Bonnie Prince Charlie Way into Derby, itself. We went and looked at the highlights of the course... it's brilliant.

It's still in planning and please don't ask for anymore details! They will be here and on http://www.ultrarace.co.uk/ as soon as we have them.

All I can give you is that it's 39.7 miles with 934metres ascent and 974 metres descent for you to have a go at. I have run part of this in the White Peak Marathon the other way but this way the climbs are really cruel and downhills will be real quads killers. The views are stunning and we are Tandem Cycling the route on Sunday... now there's a first.

More tomorrow and I hope you enjoy Our Newsletter coming out to you tonight...

Magic - Pilot

It's been a long day training folk today... really specialist stuff with two amazing athletes both desperately wanting to succeed in their ULTRA-running careers. Their diversity of characters was just personally fascinating for me and that is the part of the day that I must say I enjoyed the most. They were both just ACE...

Delivering teaching is most rewarding... especially when it's your specialist subject. Each if these guys went away a good inch taller... that's what confidence does and it's infectious.

Sadly it meant that I didn't get my own run in today but I am back on them there hills tomorrow.... OMG... as I have only just got over the last ones.

Bring it on?