Saturday morning, out early, as it has been for so many Saturday – yet still exciting, still enriching, still running for more than just running.

Friends were running a marathon road race in the Winelands of Stellenbosch. I thought about the doing it. Finishing a formal marathon, chatting after, is always good.

But I stuck with my part-road, part-trail 3 hour run. Often enough I run for just being out there, in the views, but my running has an edge now

This is the third of a four week base-laying program, to check how I cope with around 50 km a week. I get an easy week after the 4th week before upping the weekly distance to around 60 km. As it stands  foresee no problems in getting through next week  – in fact am looking forward to it.

It’s all preparation building towards the 80 km  Crusader Castles Ultra in the mountains of Cyprus in May 2015. It has a 3000 m altitude gain so I know I will be heading up and down our mountain soon.