After a 24 hour trip consisting of 3 planes, 2 airport trains and a bashed up 1970s bus, I arrived in San Pedro de Atacama. I was immediately in awe at the landscape; it is so vast!!

I had booked an air bnb 5km outside of San Pedro to ensure complete peace and quiet, as proper rest and sleep is so important in the lead up to the race. The air bnb has an on-site bookstore, and both are run by the lovely Diego, Valentina and their little girl Sophia.

And so the time has come! After months of training, hard work and focus; lots of ups, and lots of downs (with the odd panic frenzy!), it's finally time to head off to Chile!

For the last few weeks, I have tapered back my running. I know from previous experiences, and lots of trial and error, that my body performs at its best when I'm very well rested. I also wanted to make sure and get rid of the few niggles that have popped up during heavy training periods.

Training has been a couple of shorter runs (15-21km) during the week before work. The summer is certainly over in Ireland (did we ever really have one!?), so the 5/5.30am starts have been in pitch darkness; but so worth it when you get to see the sun rising on a crisp morning along the quiet trails in Phoenix Park.

It's been an up and down few weeks. I've had some absolutely beautiful runs, including a 32km early morning country run, where I met all sorts of animals and even ended up doing some impromptu sheep herding!! (Picture above).

?I then picked up a few sniffles and colds, which culminated in a chest infection earlier this week. I took a trip to the doctor and got a course of antibiotics, something I haven't taken in years! The doctor also did some blood tests, just to check everything was ok. The results came back and everything was perfect; she said I was the healthiest person she's seen in a long time! I think the chest infection was just a not-so-subtle reminder to myself that I'm only one person and can only do so much, and sometimes I just need to rest.

I felt great all week, and my energy was at a high, but I wanted to give my chest infection a chance to clear, so I just did some bikram yoga and had only one lovely run home through Phoenix Park this week (pic below).


I had entered in Lap of the Gap Marathon in Wicklow; a marathon covering the popular cycling route from Laragh, up the Sallygap and down past Lough Tay. Once again, the night before the race I slept awfully, and only managed about 3 hours sleep. I got up at 5.30am, had some oat&seed pancakes and a cup of coffee, and headed to Laragh.

It had been a while since I had been out running with the Mud, Sweat & Runners crew, so I joined them on a gloriously sunny Sunday morning for a 45km mountain run.

We set off at a nice pace warming up along St Kevin's Way. Our first climb was Tonelagee; all on wet, mucky open mountains; who likes to have dry feet anyway!! At the top we had the most spectacular view of the heart shaped lake

What a fortnight it has been! As I mentioned in my last blog post, my training has been focused on increasing the frequency of my runs, to get my body used to consistently running. Hence, I have ran 13 out of the last 14 days.

It's been an exciting, productive and progressive two weeks. Thanks to the good folk at

My training is becoming a lot more focused since our Atacama entry has been accepted. I have cut back on the amount of miles I'm doing on my bike every week as I find it can make my hamstrings a tad tight, which can hinder my running. So even though I love spending time on my beloved Bentini bike, I'm only cycling 2 days a week as opposed to 5-6.