Ultramarathon registration addiction issues and other stuff I should tell you about

It’s a day ending with -y so, naturally, I did something ridiculous.

I’ve got a new PR and quite possibly a FKT but don’t you all start congratulating me at once. This morning, and after having made a grand total of zero dollars since the day had started (#partylikeafreelancer), I signed up for two ultramarathons within five minutes. On purpose.

First I signed up for the 50km at the inaugural Tarawera Marathon and 50km event which takes place in 9 days’ time (LOL?) and then The North Face 100km race in the Blue Mountains in Australia in May. This adds to my already existing registration for the 60km at the Kepler Challenge in December and the registration for the 100km at the Tarawera Ultra in February.

All added up, it means that, as of this morning, even though I can’t currently run a half marathon without wanting to vomit a lung, I am registered for four ultramarathons within the next 7 months.

I don’t know about you but, from where I’m sitting, this whole plan looks pretty shit.

I like to ponder every decision so made this flowchart to really ensure I knew that my life choices make approximately 0.0 sense.

Now I’m freaking terrified. Scared shitless. Heart palpitations, sweaty palms and that dreaded what-the-hell-have-I-got-myself-into feeling. The genuine fear that I’m going to end up breaking myself.

I missed this.

I hadn’t had a giant scary goal since the last Tarawera Ultra earlier this year. Training for that damn thing kept me going through some of the hardest months of my life and then, just like that, it was over.

I haven’t run further than 35km in about 9 months. I’ve been lucky if I run anything close to a marathon in the space of an entire week. I don’t even know if I can run 50km in one go, let alone 60km, let alone 100km, let alone 100km again with the worst elevation profile I’ve ever seen. It’s going to be absolutely horrible and I couldn’t be more excited about it.

For the first time in a long time, I genuinely don’t know whether I can actually do this or not. But not knowing is part of the fun, right? (and I swear that’s not the motto of the university I went to).

I didn’t tell you this because I’m the world’s worst blogger (although I am currently 3rd best in New Zealand in the “Beer” category of QuizUp so it’s not like I haven’t been busy): I was in Wellington a couple of weekends ago to speak at an event about running (MUM, I’VE MADE IT!). It was genuinely the coolest thing I’ve ever done since whatever the last cool thing I did was and I promise I’ll write you a proper post about my time in Wellington very soon, now that I’ve scared myself into actually running and intend to blog my descent into madness. In any case, one of the things I rambled on at this talk in Wellington was my apparent need to do things that scare the crap out of me.

Clearly.

My running has been far too comfortable since the Tarawera Ultra last March. Sure, I’ve continued doing enough field research on running while injured to the point where I should be awarded a government grant for my contributions to science. But mostly, I’ve been running as much as little as I’ve wanted and all my marathons have been beer-drinking ones because I had nothing major to scare me into proper training.

But I guess this’ll do it.