Hi…I’m Jamie.Thanks for coming to read my blog. This is my first post and I’ve been putting it off for a long time but after some friendly peer pressure, I’m excited to start writing so I hope you enjoy it!
Until last June I worked in a bank and and have done for about 20 years. With the massive changes in the industry, I finally became a casualty of the constant restructures. For me, as with many others, this was just a push to start my own business that I really needed. It’s a very exciting but uncertain time right now. I’ve looked back at all the aspects of work that I have enjoyed over the last 20 years and have also had a lot of time to focus on what I really enjoy doing in life. Through all the deliberation, I’ve decided to launch my own business bringing together my 20 years of accumulated business experience and my love of ultra-running, adventuring, the outdoors and everything that goes with it.
This site is really focussed on building a community of like-minded individuals who enjoy being outdoors, adventuring and endurance events such as ultra-running. I’ve found over many years of running and more recently, through running many ultra-marathons, that there’s a lot more involved than just turning up and running: Training; nutrition; kit choice; event planning and most importantly, mind space and a positive outlook.
Over the last 18 months I’ve run in 10 events, all off-road – mountains, trails and desert ranging from 21km single-stage to 250km multi-stage races and have enjoyed all of it! I’ve met some amazing people, many of whom I’ve run with at several events and who’ve become like family. It doesn’t matter what event’s on these days, there’s always someone saying..”Why don’t you come and do this one?…It’s only….”. These people and friendships really confirmed for me that I wanted to do something in this community and this site is what I came up with.
In May this year I’m travelling to Australia’s Northern Territory to run an event called The Track, a self-supported 520km race from Alice Springs to Uluru. There are 29 participants from 16 different countries running over 9 stages ranging from 31km to 127km in length. We’re going to travel through the stunning scenery of the West MacDonnell Ranges, Finke Gorge National Park, past Mt Connor and finally to the base of Uluru. I’ll use this blog to send updates on how my training’s going, thoughts on kit, nutrition and how I’m feeling/preparing mentally for the run and of course how, the race goes.
I’d love to hear your comments, thoughts and suggestions of things that I could do differently, ideas that have worked for you and positive messages of support….I’m going to need all the help I can get!! Most importantly, I’d love to hear about your adventures, plans and experiences. Hopefully this will grow into a supportive and sharing community of fun-loving adventurers!
I’ve also uploaded all of the entries from my previous blog about the 2016 Big Red Run. Hope you enjoy reading about that adventure while I get ready for more posts.
Bye for now Jamie