So my first attempt at an ultra marathon is this Saturday when I take part in the Round Ripon Ultra and i’m not sure whether i’m more excited or nervous to be honest.

I keep getting told that I must be mad and that 35miles is a long way but to be fair it’s only a baby in ultra marathon terms and not much more than the standard marathon so i’m hoping that my training for other events in the year will help

To be honest i’ve not trained as much as I would have liked in September due to various other commitments but I trained hard for the Man v Mountain up Snowdon in September so i’m hoping the training I did for this will put me in a good place for my first ultra.

What training I have been doing since MvM has consisted of lots of off road hills on the roughest terrain I can find in and around Nidd Gorge in Harroagte which I think has been great for this event.

I got a new running pack to replace the useless Salomon Skin Pro 3 set I used to run up Snowdon which I’ve put a fair amount of miles in since I got it and I couldn’t be happier with the Salomon Advanced Skin Hydro S-Lab 5 Set that replaces it. You hardly notice it being there whilst running and it has plenty of easy access pockets for gels and snacks.

The only thing I changed is to swap the bottles out for a bladder as I prefer this method of taking on fluids and I use the front pockets for food now which i find much better.The only downer is that it cost another £30 to get the bladder. Salomon really should give people the option of buying it with bladder or bottles.

I’ve set myself a target time of sub 6 hours which I think is achievable if the conditions stay nice and dry as they are now, although the forecast is saying rain on Saturday.

Now all I have to do is find my new compass that I put away for safe keeping and can’t remember where – bloody typical!

Anyway wish me luck and i’ll post a full report as soon as I can function again.