I can't believe it is so long since I updated you all on what I am doing here!  Please follow my facebook page 'Running For Jodi Lee' for far more frequent updates and links to articles.

I am now entered in marathon #5 - Amsterdam on October 20th, and I am entered in the Antarctic Marathon for March 2014 - I now only need to get my airfare organised so I am hoping for a little recovery in the Aussie dollar in the next few months for that!  The Caracas Marathon date has been announced and fits perfectly with the Antarctic trip, so as soon as they get their English language booking form up, I will book that and will therefore be able to finish my 7 Marathons on 7 Continents project in March 2014, less than 2.5 years after I started.  What a journey it has been!  I have managed to enjoy running for running's sake, which is a massive shift.  I have made so many new friends, and find so much inspiration in all of them - older, younger, faster, slower.  They all have a story to share, they all have varying reasons for running, but often are motivated by improving their health 9physical and mental), and I love finding out more on each group run I do.

My training is still a mixture of the group training on Tuesday nights for speed work and occasional Sunday morning trail group runs.  I do another session on Thursdays or Fridays with Ben Hockings from Yumigo, who is also helping me with my program, given my variety of events this year.  I am finding it easier having someone else help me work out how much to taper and recover from these events along the way rather than using a more generic marathon program and then feeling 'soft' as I drop sessions or modify them to a lower volume to allow for optimal preparation.  I am doing a 12 hour run this Saturday, July 13th, in a Yumigo event.  I can then get into the marathon training program for October, but am adding a little spanner in the works by wanting to do the Yurrebilla Ultra 56km 4 weeks before the Amsterdam marathon.  This can work out fine, but will mean modifying the schedule a little.  I see Amsterdam as a good opportunity to get a PB in the marathon, so long as I travel as comfrtably as I did when going to Africa earlier in the year.  This trip will be solo, which will be very different for me.  I haven't spent a week overseas on my own before.

Now, why would I run for 12 hours?  Right now, I'm not so sure!  I planned after seeing last years event.  My initial thoughts were along the lines of 'that's crazy', 'how boring', and 'why would you want to run so long on such a boring track'?  Then I realised - it is a very 'safe' and 'sensible' way to run for the longest time you have ever done.  It is a 2.2km loop.  Which means there is a toilet every 2.2km, food and water, dry shoes and socks, dry clothes, more clothes, somewhere to put too many clothes, a raincoat, a friendly face and cheering voice.  It is easy for friends to come down and say hi, and run a lap or two, easy for someone to go and collect something I forgot (I hope not!) and as such, removes a lot of the barriers to running a long way.  The main ones that remain are in my head, so they are my job to chip away at.

In training, I have spent a bit of time at the loop, running long runs there on my own, relaxing into the monotonous environment and working at not letting that bother me.  Getting good at not looking at my GPS watch too often, only checking my pace periodically to make sure I am running slow enough.  That is another of the challenges, really.  I haven't run on the flat for more than 3 hours in training, near 4 hours in an event.  The pace that I do that at is faster than I want to do his 12 hour run in, as I need to not be especially sore or tired at the 4 hour mark - I still have too far to go!  I have no idea at all what I will be feeling like at 7 hours, 9 hours, 10 hours of running.  So I have practiced running slowly and feeling completely fine at the end of a 3 hour run.  Times have changed!

I did do the Yurrebilla Ultra 56km last year in a shade under 8 hours, but that was very undulating (actually, that's not the right word at all - check out the link!  It was very hilly).  I ran 66km in 11 hours in January, through the night with a group (from Brighton neach to Mt Lofty, via the linear trail to Athelstone, then the Yurrebilla Trail to Mt Lofty).  We walked alot, stopped and waited for slower members of the group, toilet stops took ages (there were 20 or so of us), and we had fantastic food provided for us at 4 stops along the way, which made for quite long breaks.  So whilst I've done 2 longer runs, neither have actually demonstrated to me that I can run 100km in 12 hours (which is my goal).  I'll be pretty crushed to come up short, so I am working on that, whilest still wanting to get there.  These arbitrary lines in the sand we draw!  But I am getting quite nervous.

I have practiced eating when running, even though I don't need to when I do a 3 hour run - it is all about trying to get my tummy used to handling food when I run, and not getting a stitch.  On the day, there will be quite a bit of food provided - chips, sandwiches, lollies, noodles, water etc.  I will need to take in 60-90 grams of carbohydrate per hour - that's only one sandwich plus a few lollies, or a couple of bananas, so it should be manageable.  I'll be burning more than that per hour, so will carbo load for a day or two on Thursday and Friday.  That means white bread, white rice, cornflakes, fruit juice, some lollies and little fibre.  Completely not a normal healthy diet, but I means to an end of filling up the glycogen stores (which wil result in temporary weight gain as every gram of carbohydrate needs 3 grams of water to store as glycogen in the muscles and liver.  I estimate I have 1100g of glycogen storage, thus I'll be 4kg heavier than when I am glycogen depleted.  I'll run and sweat that out, however!).

For this week, I have only a couple of short runs planned, a massage, some stretching, and more of my little exercises to try to use my glutes more than my hamstrings (a little saga concerning my left hip) to keep me moving as well as possible.  Plus work and school holidays!

If you are in Adelaide on the weekend, please come down to the uni loop in North Adelaide and say hi.  I'll be the one running in a black tutu! And if you can support my fundraising of rthe Jodi Lee Foundation, please follow this link.