Welcome to a slightly updated newsletter. I’ve tried to make it a little prettier, and a little more interesting. I haven’t had huge amounts of time to get it all done though. Training is now taking me up to 3 hours each day, and I’m feeling the squeeze a bit.

I reckon that over the rest of this month, I’ll streamline the process a bit more, get a good idea of where I want all this to be going, and hopefully have a good idea of when I’ll be able to attempt the Japan run!

In the meantime, Vietnamese summer is here; I’ve just finished a run around Ho Tay at midnight tonight, and it was still 32ºC! I was a very sweaty man after 90 minutes of running around in those temperatures.

🚂 Training Summary

It’s been a good week for training, 80 km of running this week, and building up to a 100 km rolling 7-day average by Tuesday. My legs are feeling a little tired, and my pace is not so hot, but I’m happy as long as the distance is moving in the right direction. I’ll focus more on my pace once I’m comfortable running 150-200 km each week.

Today’s strength training session was a little laboured, which makes me think a bit of fatigue is setting in. One of my focuses for the month ahead will be to develop a strength routine and some sustainable workouts that I can do in 45 minutes to an hour.

🧠 Running Through My Head

This week I’ve been wondering what it is that draws us into doing difficult things. It would be far easier for me to take on some extra IT work to pay the bills rather than start ultramarathon.life. I could spend a not-unpleasant evening watching Netflix while having a takeaway. So why do some of us do these things?

I wonder if the answer lies in the difference between transient happiness and long-term fulfilment. I’m not always the happiest person for 100% of each run, but I do believe that I get more satisfaction and good feelings in my overall life for having completed them. I don’t know. 🤷‍♂️

🗓️ This Week I Have Mostly Been…

🎵 Listening to: Rusted From The Rain - Billy Talent
📚 Reading: The Rise of the Ultra Runners - Adharanand Finn - a look into a fast runner giving ultramarathons a try.
🎥 Watching: Ran To Japan - Jake Barraclough who travelled to Japan to run very far, very quickly.

📺 You Didn’t Miss It…

I didn’t get around to posting a video this week. Hopefully, normal service will be resumed next week.

This week’s training has been hard, and I’ve had neither the time nor the energy to get more done. I did manage to get an Instagram Reel posted and a blog article covering some of how that 24-hour marathon went. I’m happy with that.

🚀 Next Up

I’ve been learning about what I can and can’t do regarding getting things out to keep you all up to date with my training. I had so many things I could do, but unless someone pays me to turn this into a full-time job, I don’t have the capacity to do it all. I’ll be writing more about what you can expect on the website and social media later this week.

🏁 Finish Line

Here we are, at the end of this week’s newsletter. The format is slightly different this week, so let me know what you think.

And please do forward this to anyone who you think might be interested in following this adventure.

Thank you for reading and for your support.

Take it easy,

Phill