Off to Tiree

I'm currently on a plane heading up to Edinburgh on the first leg of my joinery to the isle of Tiree in the inner Hebrides. From there it's a drive, a ferry and a bike ride to my accommodation for a couple of nights. According to the Tiree Fitness website the island is "11 miles long, 6 miles wide, famed for it’s white sandy beaches, blue skies, unspoilt landscape, and no midges!" It isn't somewhere I knew existed until a few months ago. So why am I going there? I'm off to run around the island in my latest ultramarathon adventure. As usual I was talked into this, although it took minimal amount of persuasion.

My training for this has been managed by Performance Coaching, as has my training for everything this year. As such I've just sort of plodded through it, not giving it a lot of thought. It's become habit, automatic, to check Training Peaks for the sets for the week and work through them, and as such it feels a little as though I've sleep-walked up to this event.

Getting together my kit

That's not to say I don't respect the challenge and the distance, which is 35 miles across beaches, gravel tracks, dunes, sheep tracks, the occasional bog... I remember my experience of those at Gatliff! It promises to be scenic and enjoyable and I'll be happy to complete it.

My training diary for the last couple of weeks has looked like this:
Monday: Rest day
Tuesday: 45 minute run
Wednesday: 1h20 run
Thursday: 1h50 run
Friday: Rest day
Saturday: 45 minute cycle
Sunday: 30 minute run
Monday: Rest day
Tuesday: 1 hr cycle
Wednesday: 30 minute run
Thursday: 45 minute run

I've not done as much sand running as I meant to, but in general my legs have been feeling strong so I'm looking forward to seeing what I can do. You can bet there'll be a race report when I return!