A very busy week so for Team Sichel… A quick update hopefully with more to follow.

William, Alan Young (William’s chief crewman) and myself (Shaun Brassfield-Thorpe) started off on Monday with a press conference held at the Kirkwall Hotel, later in the afternoon we were given a tour of the excellent sport & leisure facilities at the Pickaquouy Centre in Kirkwall, and then the three of us gave a talk in the evening to the Orkney Athletics Club – Alan speaking about the “joys” (and difficulties…) of crewing during ultra-distance races, I spoke about many of the more unusual methods I have developed to torture train William, and William himself spoke about some of the highlights of his career, including competing in Badwater, the Spartathlon and setting 60 Ultra-Distance records (so far).

Today the more physical side of things began (at 4am) with William starting a 72hr training run.

This will be on a mixture of tarmac paths around Kirkwall and on the athletics track at the Pickaquouy Centre (or “Picky Centre” as it is generally known locally).

Currently (as I type) William is having an “early” night before returning to run in the wee small hours.

The plan is for him to spend roughly 20hrs per day running over a 72hr period as part of his race rehearsal.  William will get some useful experience by testing changes to his nutrition, pacing, race strategy (etc) under near-race conditions (he’s gone into this training camp pre-fatigued as he hasn’t tapered from an extended period of some very tough training).

Earlier this evening William was joined on his laps around “The Paths” by members of the Orkney Athletics Club and other keen local runners. It was really nice to see many young athletes come out to run  a few laps with William, and also very good to have a few more experienced runners spend a bit longer chatting to him and clocking up a fair distance as the evening wore on. We are expecting a few people to come out and run with William again tomorrow (Wednesday) – although as the weather is likely to get wet and windy we’ll see what happens…

More updates when time (and internet access) allows,

Shaun