Tempus is most definitely fugiting and at a fair rate of knots too. In the blink of an eye, 5 weeks has passed since my last blog entry during which time my race number has been confirmed. A combination of massive amount of "work" work, doing my share with the ankle biters and using the remaining time to train whenever I can means that the days just fly by. Indeed at this time in 9 weeks competitor #399 will have completed Stage 1 and will be sat somewhere in the desert experiencing any one of a range of emotions. In fact in just 4 weeks on Wednesday, Steph and I fly out to Marrakech for a bit of environment familiarisation and hopefully some acclimation.
Training (for the above reasons) has been sporadic but still of a decent enough quality. Unfortunately I'm not as confident of a top 50 place as I was 18 months ago as now realise that to achieve that level requires the kind of full time commitment that your average family man just cannot manage. Top 50 will still be the goal and I will approach the start of each stage with that in mind but won't be overly disappointed if I don't achieve. Better to go with that approach than to lower the target and lower my effort exponentially.
One thing that is going particularly well is the admin side of things. I've now procured all my kit with just a matter of stitching a row of velcro to my shoes. I've decided that I'm going with the MdS' own gaiters. I've read mixed reviews of both gaiter options but a couple of clinchers are that I can remove the chosen option when not required and at the end of the day the Sandbaggers just look so ridiculous!! Sorry Sandbaggers! I just hope I'm not left with egg on my face.
My menu is complete and, apart from some Pepperami that I will need to buy fresh, is now sat in the garage in an Exped dry bag. I've gone for a quite boring selection in that it's noodles every day. Noodles are something that I eat a lot of at home and have been able to try them out at home without having to spend a fortune on the like of Expedition freeze drieds. The noodles option hadn't occurred to me until middle of last year when I was in comms with Tobias Mews, the top placed Briton of last year. If they're good enough for him then they're good enough for me. I'm going to supplement these with the aforementioned Pepperami and also chilli flakes plus I've also got lots of mini boxes of raisins and geo bars for energy plus Complan shakes for post race recovery. I've managed to pack 17500 KCals into 3.5kg so overall I'm pretty satisfied with my menu.
I can't close this post without mentioning fundraising. Things had been going well until November 2011 but since then pledges have dried up. Admittedly I haven't been pushing it so I do need to pull my finger out over the next 9 weeks. I hope I'm wrong but there seems to be a feeling that I am fundraising for my own ends. This is not something that I need to raise so much to enter like one of those Kilimanjaro jaunts (no dig intended at anyone who has done Kilimanjaro). I have spent over £4000 of my own money entering, buying kit and the trip to Marrakech. Every penny raised fundraising goes directly to Army Benevolent Fund. I will try to get this message through and push on to raising the £5000 target. If you are reading this and haven't yet dug deep then please do so using the link on the right or inbox me with a pledge.
Cheers, Danny
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