Viking Way

Had a bit of an adventure on Saturday morning – ran from home in Lincoln along the Viking Way just about all the way to Grantham and then got the bus home. The adventure bit was managing to get the timing just right to catch the 11:19 bus from the village of Barkston to Lincoln! Pleasant 27 mile run mainly into a headwind - nice!

You may ask why I would want to run to Grantham. Well….my next proper “adventure” is that I’ve managed to get a place in the first running of the Viking Way ultra on Easter Saturday.

“The Viking Way Ultra is a new extreme non-stop 147 mile ultra-marathon that starts in the shadow of the Humber Bridge. The route then winds its way through beautiful historic countryside across the Lincolnshire wolds and down towards the finish at Oakham near the banks of Rutland Water.
It is named the Viking Way because of the strong influence of Viking settlements and Viking trade routes in the east of England”. So there you go!

The route passes pretty close to home so I’m hoping a little local knowledge may prevent my usual trick of getting lost! I’m also planning on doing a couple more recce’s – particularly the section from Woodall Spa to Lincoln which I can do from work, and probably the section on from Saturday’s run, as these are likely to be at night.

I’ve withdrawn from the Barry 40. Due to competing in The Spine and a few calf issues, I’ve done minimal speed work this year. Since this race will be competitively fast, I just don’t feel I could it or myself justice. Plus, the thought of running round and round a track for 40 miles doesn’t particularly excite me! I started this ultra stuff as an adventure to compliment my love of the great outdoors and being in the countryside. Running round a track in Barry doesn’t really fulfill that! However, I have entered the Ultrarace Grantham event in 3 weeks time which is 29 miles on Saturday and 29 miles back on Sunday – good training miles!

I’m also planning to do the Dukeries ultra (40 miles) in May. This around Clumber Park in Nottinghamshire so again fairly local.

So my 2012 race calendar is finally taking shape. Happy days!

Jenny asked me a while back “How far is far enough?” I couldn’t provide an answer!