MEET THE MAN WHO SAID YES TO 612 MILES ACROSS IRELAND!
Simon is a familiar face at URL events, having previously finished our Thames Challenge, JOGLE and Cymrun multi-stage races. We asked him to tell us about his running background and why he decided to take on MizMal, a 612-mile, 14-day run along the length of Ireland.
“I started running almost 30 years ago. My first official race was a low-key 8km village run in northern Italy. Within a few months, I had finished my first half marathon and my lifetime love of running was born.
“A few years later, I joined the Serpentine running club and ran my first marathon in London. I ran a couple of marathons a year for several years, before hitting a fallow period in my early 30s when our children came on the scene.
“On my 37th birthday, I set myself the goal of running 40 marathons by the age of 40, which seemed like a stretch target at the time. However, by the time that milestone birthday arrived, I had made it to marathon number 50. My 100th came around within five years.
“In 2017, I decided to step into the ultramarathon scene at the Comrades Marathon in South Africa. Although I struggled in the second half of the race, I surprised myself that I was able to rebound and finish strongly over the last few miles. More ultras followed, including the Marathon des Sables (my first multi-day event), various Centurion 100 milers and the Sri Chinmoy Self-Transcendence 24 Hour Track Race.
“Last year, I achieved my most satisfying and hard-earned result, completing the 860-mile JOGLE (John O’Groats to Land’s End). In my early running career, I used to hit the wall and suffer from cramping towards the end of standard marathon races, so running close to double marathon distance, day after day, for more than two weeks was something I could never have imagined doing when I first started out.
“If I’m honest, I’ve struggled to find the motivation to keep training hard since JOGLE and my fitness has plateaued. I was initially content to take it easy and give my body and mind the chance to recover, but after that I lacked the kind of goal that was big enough to inspire me to get back to doing long runs regularly.
“However, entering MizMal has changed all that. I’ve never been to Ireland before, so to have the chance to run the entire length of the country on my first visit, along its most spectacular coastline, is something I’m really looking forward to. I also know that it will be a very tough running challenge, with day 8 (at 58.2 miles) being longer than any single day of JOGLE. I’m sure we will encounter some interesting weather at some point during the event. The main challenge, of course, will be managing the body through 14 consecutive long days of running, replacing the energy each day and getting enough sleep, so I don’t break down through injury.
“It’s not an event that can be attempted without a demanding training programme and I know I have some serious work ahead of me. That will necessarily include strength and conditioning, so that I’m strong and resilient enough to manage the mileage load as the race progresses.
“The good thing is, I do love the training for an event almost as much as the race itself. There’s something very satisfying about following a plan and feeling yourself getting fitter and stronger week by week. I also find that positive feeling percolates into other areas of your life, meaning you want to eat cleaner and go to bed earlier, which in turn gives you more energy at work and at home.
“I plan to kick off my structured MizMal training in January, but I want to spend the last couple of months of this year getting back to a more regular running routine. I have entered the 43-mile Country to Capital in early January, which will give me a good indication of how things are progressing, and then I’ll pick up the miles throughout the early spring.
“By the time May comes round, I hope I’ll be at the top of my game and itching to get down to Mizen Head in County Cork for the start of another running adventure.”