The Journey so far ..

14th September Purbeck Marathon

Stayed overnight in my Camper in Swanage, beautiful morning and venue, race was really enjoyable until the last 5 miles when cramp set in and I had to run walk the last 3 miles - top priority to fix this..

Love the Purbecks, looking forward to Dorset CTS running the western end.

Speedo Open Water training week 24th September -> Cross training in Lanzarote

Before the tragic event at the end of the summer I had planned to enter a triathlon with James in 2015; my weakness was the swimming phase, only able to struggle though 200 metres - at the end the excellent course was able to complete the half ironman course within the time.

Dan Bullock (swimfortri.com)was a fantastic coach, working miracles with all of us, great crowd to train with...

5th October - Bournemouth Half Marathon

Stayed overnight in Murv (my Camper), fantastic view from the carpark behind the conference centre; nearly uprooted by the warden, despite paying an overnight fee, apparently not supposed to say overnight in Bournemouth carparks (no notices) due to complaints from the residents about ladies of the night, compromised by extinguishing all lights..

Missed the bus to the start due to a misunderstanding, entertaining time running though all the fancy dress runners not a good plan, a sprint start, painful finish inevitable, at least I was wearing my shades..

12th October - more cross training, Wiggle 100 mile New Forest (cycling) Sportive

Thought that the New Forest was flat until I road it on my bike. Finished in 'Bronze' time without incident until I crossed the finish line, a cyclist stopped suddenly in front of me, forgot to unclip my shoes and fell embarrassingly sideways - uninjured as so tired..

Enjoyed The Stickler (Dorset's 3 Peak challenge) and Cross Country in Queen Elizabeth Country Park with my club Stubbington Green RAC in November

30th November travelled to Spain to race the San Sebastian Marathon 

With my second claim club Barking Road Runners. Achieved a personal best on the flat road course, smoothed out by my newly acquired Hoka Cliftons. Great weekend including a trip to the spar afterwards and a post race recovery run along the bay....

6th December (the next weekend) ran the Dorset endurancelife CTS marathon from Lulworth Cove 

Seemed a good idea as a 'back to back' training run however it is described as 'exteme' and lived up to it's reputation with multiple brutal climbs and descents along the coast. At least I finished with no cramps and able to run at the end (thanks to a few changes in my training and nutrition strategy).

Weekly interval training, Parkruns and twice weekly Pilates classes continued, with a short break over Christmas

17th January travelled to Anglesea to run the CTS marathon. 

Rugged scenery in the Northwest of the island where the race started and finished with a 300ft scramble up and down Hollywell rock - good hiking practice..

Medic with the defibrillator at the top... wonderful view!

Travelled to London that evening to run the Benfleet 15Miler on 18th January

Ok, so I can run 41 miles in a weekend! Muddy hilly course with a long flat section along the sea wall..

Hard graft up the final hill ... love Salomon Speedcross 3s!

The journey continues ....

Ultra Tour Monte Rosa Challenge August 2015 - by David Langrish

Ultra Tour Monte Rosa 20th - 22nd August 2015

UTMR is a new 3 day, multistage, mountain ultra race this year conceived and presented by Lizzy Hawker, 5 time winner of The North Face Ultra Trail Mont Blanc and an Athlete on the North Face Global Team.

A beautiful mountain ultra marathon circling Monte Rosa massif. From Cervinia at the foot of the Matterhorn to Grachen, high on an alp above Matter Vispa, a tributary of the Rhone via Gressoney and Macugnaga on high wild trails, a host of 4000m summits will be my companions. Total distance 110km, total ascent/descent 6000m, average altitude 2,000m from Italy to Switzerland. ultratourmonterosa.com/route-information-2015

I am a keen runner by the end of last summer I had completed 9 marathons, including The Swissalpine Davos K42 and C42, London and New York, since 2009, together with many half marathons, mainly in the endurancelife coastal trail series http://www.endurancelife.com/event-new.asp?series=85   and many shorter races. I am a reluctant road runner enjoying being in the mountains and other wild areas where I can chill out and be part of the environment.

On 22nd August my son James was killed in a road traffic accident 1 mile from my home; like me he enjoyed the outdoor life and as part of my coping and recovery, from what has probably been the most devastating event in my life, I decided to apply for entry into the UTMR, which would finish on the anniversary of his death. A maximum of 150 runners would be selected for the race, I decided to run a marathon a month, together with the appropriate training, so far I have run 4 marathons, Purbeck, San Sebastian, Dorset CTS, Anglesea CTS and 2 half marathons, Bournemouth and Benfleet 15 since September and have entered Northumberland CTS, Barcelona and Exmoor CTS marathons and The Classic Quarter 44m Ultra (Lizard Point to Lands End, Cornwall along the coastal path). The time on my own, in some beautiful environments, is helping me to come to terms with his loss and I can imagine that he is there with me enjoying the experience.

James had been accepted for a place at Sussex university to study Psychology; he was interested in helping people with autism and other disorders so I believe that he would have approved of my choice of https://supportdogs.org.uk/ , a national charity dedicated to increasing independence and quality of life for people with various medical conditions by providing, training and supporting specialist assistance dogs to achieve this, as one of his charities and also he shared my great love of horses so I will also be supporting http://spana.org an animal welfare charity for working animals of the world. In due course I will setup links to justgiving pages for these charities so that you can, should you wish to, make a contribution in memory of James.

Donating to Support Dogs  is easy - just follow this link and click Donate:

http://www.justgiving.com/owner-email/pleasesponsor/David-Langrish1

JustGiving sends your donation straight to Support Dogs Ltd so it’s a quick and safe way to donate.

or to SPANA:

http://www.justgiving.com/owner-email/pleasesponsor/David-Langrish2

JustGiving sends your donation straight to SPANA so it’s a quick and safe way to donate.

Thank you for your donation

This is the story of my journey; I have started to write this blog in February having learnt last week that I have been accepted for the race so all I have to now is up the training, without breaking my body, keep climbing and running and enjoy the journey...