Somebody said that once.  I googled it to find out who, but after a (not very thorough) search, I couldn’t pinpoint exactly who it was.  So suffice it to say ‘thanks!’ to whomever it was, and I’ve now stolen it.

The future is indeed now in a whole ‘don’t put life off because one day it won’t be there‘ sort of way.  Happily though, the future is also in the distant, well, future.  So some things you can put off because they’re not going to happen for ages and ages.  Some things like races you may have signed up for some time ago, when there are still a few months left to ponder training before the fateful day arrives.  Or holidays.  Holidays are always in the future until suddenly, almost before you realise what’s happened, they’re behind you, and you’re left with nothing but a groaning credit card and a booze-addled brain.

I must say I do like planning for the future, especially since that’s the fun part, and it’s easy to look at everything with a rosy tint, picturing the fun bits and the laughs that are sure to follow.  Of course reality then sets in and you wonder what the fuck you were thinking, but before I reach that point, I thought I’d write on here about what my future plans are, so it’s real and I can’t back out when I realise I’ve actually gone insane.

I’ve been mulling this idea about for a while, mainly because for some frightening reason the suggested posts on my FB timeline started showing me beautiful pictures of a white sandy beach with the title ‘Tiree Ultramarathon’ tagged on to it.  One hesitant click later, after reading some epic race reports and watching an amazing video (they always get you with the videos!!!) I had my heart set on running around the beautiful island next September, racking up my first ever ultra at 35 miles.  However, living in the South of England as I do, it’s a bit of a faff to get to, but probably more importantly, the date is likely to clash with next year’s Bacchus race, so I kiboshed that idea.

Of course the idea was now firmly planted in my big bawheid, so before I could utter ‘what the fuck are you thinking???’ I found myself googling ‘Scottish ultra marathons’ as I still fancied running in my homeland, having read a fabulous blog about the Glen Lyon ultra, put on by the brilliantly named ‘Bam Racing‘ (you need to be Scottish to really appreciate that).  The date for that didn’t suit my plans (I was still thinking September) but they do run the Glenmore 24, a lapped race where you complete as many 4-mile laps as you can in (you guessed it) 24 hours.  However, they also do a 12-hour race (for jessies as they put it, haha!) which seemed less insane and therefore more appealing.  Awesome, sounds good.

Until this weekend.  A bunch of my Pirate shipmates had taken it upon themselves to enter into the Equinox 24 (can you see a theme here?), some as solo runners, but most in teams.  Here you run as many 10k laps as you can in 24 hours.  Annoyingly, despite the rain at the start, a hill or two, some mud and a few comments of how hard it was getting at points, a kind of ridiculous bravado came over me and I thought SIGN ME UP!!!  The fact it’s only a couple of hours away from me too is great, and as much as I’d love to do the Glenmore race, that means more leave from work and a substantially bigger drive up the road.  One day though….

So that’s it.  Decision made.  Despite not yet actually having run the two marathons I’ve signed up for next year, and despite still having a fuck load of timber to lose, I’m officially declaring my intent to do the Equinox 24 as a solo runner next September.

Shite!  Insert terrified face smiley.

Right, I’m off for a lie down….