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4 Deserts, 4 Song Saa Foundation: The Sahara Race

Public fundraising event page

Allen's Update

W. McCallum
W. McCallum wrote on 28-03-2016

4 DESERTS 4 SONG SAA 

Allen offers up the latest news on his preparation for his run across a Namibian desert, raising money for the sea projects of the Song Saa Foundation

In 5 weeks’ time I’ll be leaving for Namibia, via Australia and South Africa, to commence the first of my 4 Deserts challenges. I’m planning to taper (rest) for 2 weeks before The Sahara Race starts, which leaves me with the sobering thought that I’ve only got 3 weeks of last minute training left.

Juggling work and training is never easy and the last few weeks have been particularly challenging, trying to squeeze in my target 75 – 100k’s per week while travelling through Australia, New Zealand, Thailand and Vietnam. I spent last weekend in Singapore, with a 25k run on Saturday morning, followed by a 35k forest trail run on Sunday morning, accompanied by an 8kg bag of wet sand in my backpack. Not sure what happened, but I tripped on a rock in the early morning half-light and went absolutely flying. I was lucky to have got away with just a sore elbow……..I’m thinking that there must be more relaxing ways to spend a weekend, but with only a few weeks until I’m in The Namib Desert, now’s not the time for thoughts like that.

Other than the last minute training, there are quite a few other things to think about and finalise before I get to the starting line in Namibia. The list is long………medical (done last week), Velcro for sand gaiters being sewn onto my running shoes (in progress), flight to Namibia booking (done), deciding what to carry in my backpack – target weight without water = 9kg (a work in progress), deciding what snacks to bring (definitely a work in progress), buying duct tape, to tape my feet with, for blister protection (this weekend). The list goes on, but I think I’ll stop here.

Hopefully my last few weeks of training will be injury free, as it’s always a fine line between not training enough and training too much for an ultra-race.

Allen Kerton

28 March 2016