Sponsors, German Trails and Canal worries

Another eventful week on the running front, apart from a good weeks training after the Henley ½ Marathon, of which we received a little press (minus our Just-Giving web-site addresses, despite promises of featuring it). We also had a very good interview with Sarah Walker on BBC Berkshire - 40 minutes of chat, mainly with Alex, but covering all aspects of the illness and racing plans for the next 12 months. Sadly we were unable to air our choices of music (Voodoo Child - Jimi Hendrix and Proud - Heather Small), but what we ended up with was fine.

We also received an email from Karen King at 1000mile, who have generously given us both 4 pairs of 1000mile socks to help with our training over the next year, and which will get a good workout. I used 1000mile all-terrain socks on the MdS and found them perfect and only suffered minor blisters, due to my own stupidity rather than the design of the socks.

I also received a message from Patrick Lambertz of X-Bionic who, through the X-Bionic network has been in touch with journalist Denis Wischniewski, of Das Trail Magazin in Germany, who himself took part in this years MdS and who is interested in doing a feature on us. We have now sent over a copy of our official press release and will hopefully be able to fly out to Germany for an interview and photos in due course (we are due to be featured in the next issue of Runners World Magazine, due out end of October too)

However after all the positives there had to be a negative. Due to the current bout of postal strikes in the UK the organisers of the Grand Union Canal Race have decided to change their entry approach from being "first come-first serve" to a lottery system of names in a hat and first 120 pulled out are in. This could be disastrous for us if one or both of us fail to get in. No GUCR means no Spartathlon as the GUCR is a qualifying race. The only other way to get in would be to find a 100km race in early 2010 and do that in under 10hrs 30min, or find another 200km race in Feb or May and complete that (cant find any suitable yet). All we can do is hope that we are successful in our ballot and if not go from there. I have drawn up a list of alternatives should we fail, but I don't want to consider them until after the Ballot in Nov 5th.

Finally, for now, this weekend coming sees the Go Beyond Ultra 10km race (Ultra??) at Brentwood in Essex and I will be running in ¾ length running tights, top and head-gear that BuffWear have supplied, and its going to be wet. Hopefully I will get some decent pics to send them after the race.

More next week- until then - run with your heart as well as your feet.