I’ve been talking about my first ultra trail run in Sussex a few times, but I don’t think I’ve ever told you when and why I signed up.
The reason why I didn’t tell you, is a simple one. I signed up on August 5. That was 5 days before I wrote my first blog post for this new trail running blog. So you kind of just missed it. The reason I signed up, is because I thought I should test myself, before running 55 kilometers in the Dolomites.
I mean the Dolimiti Extreme Trail (DXT) has 3.800 meters of altitude. That’s not a normal 55 kilometers ultra trail run. That’s a hard one. A serious hard one. So I thought I should run at least 50 kilometers before I even try to do the DXT.
Escape work
I told you before, Sara and I work too much. I think that’s normal when you have your own company. To give you an idea, Sara hopes to be able not to work between Christmas and New Year. That would be the first time in 10 years. To make it easier not to work, we like to go away for a couple of days. What better way to do that then with a run.
We like nature, we like rough and wild. The south of England is still a place we want to visit. We even thought of moving there, when we wanted to leave Spain. But then Brexit happened, and we were not welcome in England anymore. Successful company or not. Luckily we’re allowed to visit England. So this coming Spring we will. To run.
August 5 I had one of those days, where I was surfing online, looking at trail run races around the world. One of those days I was daydreaming of running a beautiful trail run, when I stumbled upon the race in Sussex. It’s organised by Endurance Life. They organize a whole bunch of races, but this one is around the Seven Sisters, the famous chalk cliffs near Seaford. We still wanted to see those.
Lots of altitude
It’s not going to be easy for my first ultra. It still has 1600 meters of altitude, and Endurance Life emphasizes that the race is not a walk, but a run. Interestingly enough, looking at the cut-off times, as an ultra runner you have to run faster than those who will do the marathon. The ultra runners have to run at least 6 kilometers/hour, where the marathon runners only have to do 5 kilometers an hour.
6 kilometers/hour is something I’m able to do. The question is, can I do it for 52 kilometers? March 18 2023 we will know.
