Kielder Countdown

I have just returned from a short break in the lovely Polish city of Krakow. Had a great time but I am not sure it was ideal final preparation for the Kielder Marathon on Sunday.

Too much eating and not enough running but that might not be a bad thing the week before a marathon. I managed two easy 6k runs around Krakow Old Town - it was very cold first thing in the morning.

I now have to turn my attention to Sunday's race and I am not sure what I am letting myself in for! This will be a significant challenge for me for a number of reasons, I have never run two marathons in a year, I have never run an off-road marathon and most importantly, I have not trained anywhere near as much as I normally do for London Marathon. Running a trail marathon will be very different from my annual run around the streets of London and as this is the first ever Kielder Marathon I am not sure what to expect. From what I can find out the course is undulating but I don't think there is much steep climbing.

If nothing else, it will be good to be part of a new race and an interesting challenge but it is difficult to know what my target should be time wise. The course will be a lot slower than London and some chat on the Runners World forum suggests it could be about 20 minutes or more slower than a road race. I will need to have a think about my race plan over the next 24 hours!