#Pichi richi series#

Saturday was cold with intermittent showers, but Sunday looked a whole lot worse, with likely rain all day and possible storms. The week after Barossa, so 3 weeks out from the marathon, I managed to do a solid 30, in not the greatest weather conditions. I was pretty happy with that but I was still keen to get at least one run of 30km in.

It took 5 weeks to get back up to 25km again (because I was trying to be über-conservative with increasing my mileage) – by that stage I should have been well into the 30s. I had a conversation with fellow runner Tory who has a solid record of going into marathons underprepared, and she assured me that my longest run of 25km would be more than enough, with me having run a number of marathons and ultras before. The other thing that messed up my plan (and probably a lot of other people’s plans too) was the C-word – yep our old friend the ‘Rona! Prior to my positive test I had run 25km and was well on track with my programme. No regrets about entering Barossa as it was pretty close to a PB and a good omen for Pichi 4 weeks later! I also decided to enter a few half marathons – Clare was part of my original plan but Barossa was not – hence I lost another long run day. Consequently I missed a couple of my early long runs.

#Pichi richi series#

The plan was initially disrupted by the ATR Summer Series (2 of the races in the series fell during the early part of my planned marathon programme, and I wanted to be able to run well in the races so I didn’t take the option of doing my scheduled long runs on the Saturday before the Sunday races. I even had a 20 week plan, starting in February. And I did, but my training never quite took off.

2021 was the ‘last’ running of the 6/12/24 – although it has apparently been re-incarnated, I was officially ‘done’ after last year! So pretty much as soon as that was over, I had Pichi Richi 2022 in my sights.Ĭonsidering it had been in my plan for nearly a year, you’d think I would have had ample time to train.

It was usually held 2 weeks before the 6/12/24, so the timing never worked out. I had been aware of this event for a number of years and had always intended to run it one day, but it always clashed with the 6/12/24 hour event which had been a part of my annual calendar since 2015. I have done a few ultras since then but there’s something unique about a marathon! It also blows my average marathon time way out, so maybe I won’t count that one! My last ‘road’ marathon was earlier in June 2019, the UNI Coastal on the Uni Loop. It’s been 3 years since I’ve done a marathon – my last official marathon distance was the Tower Trail Marathon in June 2019, although I’m not sure where that fits in in marathon terms – although it is a marathon distance, it also has over 1000m elevation so it is probably more like an ultra than a marathon. The Pichi Richi Marathon Facebook cover photo – I couldn’t get out of it now! According to South, it is considered the most challenging marathon in Australia. The Pichi Richi Marathon, celebrating its 40th anniversary in 2022, is a point to point marathon running from Port Augusta to Quorn, through the Pichi Richi Pass.