Introduction

One of my goals at the start of 2016 was to run 100 miles in less than 24 hours. I'd completed a 100km running event (The Grand Union Challenge) along The Grand Union Canal between London and Milton Keynes 3 years earlier in under 11.5hrs. So the next challenge was to conquer the 100-miler.

So I Googled '100 mile Ultramarathons' at the start of 2016 and among the many events was The Hammer Trail. This fitted in with my schedule, looked like a well-organised event (judging by the website and the fact that it was sponsored by 'Salomon', and was on The Danish Island of Bornholm (somewhere that I'd never heard of yet alone visited before). With these three boxes ticked I signed up and forgot about it for a few months and focussed on another goal for 2016 - a sub-80 minute Half-Marathon. So I focussed all of my energy on road running/speed work in preparation for The Lisbon Half on 20th March. Lisbon came, and due to hot weather on race day wasn't able to hit my sub-80 target. The next challenge however awaited: The Salomon Hammer Trail.

It was a complete contrast from my 6-6.15 minute-mile fast training runs around the smooth tarmac of the Reading University Campus to suddenly running 9-minute-miles along The River Kennet canal path. I enjoyed the fact that I wasn't killing myself to hit mile-targets and was actually able to enjoy some of my surroundings and even listen to music whilst running. I ended up doing 20,30 and 40-mile training runs in successive weekends along The Kennet 5-8 weeks before The Hammer Trail. All of these were comfortably run at around 9-minute-mile average pace (meaning that if I were to run this pace, or even a fair bit slower in Bornholm I would complete the course in sub-20 hours). I also completed The Brighton Marathon twice one month prior to The Hammer Trail (starting at 4.30am at the finish line and running the course in reverse, before getting to the start by 9.15am where I ran the course with everyone else). This totalled 54.8 miles and was again well-within sub-20hr 100-mile pace. Based on these runs I set myself the goal of completing The Hammer Trail within 20 hours.