World and European 24 hour Championships, Brive, France

I’m flying to Brive, France soon (volcano permitting!) to do Pauline’s support in the 24 hour World and European Championships. Running for Great Britain is an immense privilege and Pauline has been focussing on this for a while and needs someone doing support she can depend on totally, that will be me then! This is Pauline’s fourth British vest and I’ve been there for her during all her other races. I pride myself that when Pauline is running I will have everything under control and Pauline knows it, so she can concentrate purely on running, she has no doubt that I’ll be able to deal with whatever problems arise. It is a double edge sword pushing and supporting someone you love when they’re doing something emotionally, mentally and physically tough but I think twins do have an advantage over other siblings, spouses or friends; we’ve been poking each other in the eye since before we were born and she’ll be getting no sympathy from me! I will do my utmost to get the best from her.

I have the inspiration sorted, there has been many a truly inspiring word spoken by the WHW family and there’s a couple in particular that work for me, one from my favourite pirate to his lady love during a pep talk while she was doing her leg of the Fling relay and the other from my favourite Aussie. Dress code for Team GB is standard tracksuit etc. and I was given a warm sweatshirt last year for Bergamo, Italy and I’ll be wearing it in the wee sma’ hours to keep me cosy but with a wee personal touch, well, I don’t want my neck to get cold now do I. Also I’ll slip into this cheeky wee number at some point during the proceedings.
If you’re interested here a couple of websites that should be doing updates during the race.
http://www.24h-brive.fr/index.php?lang=en
http://www.iau-ultramarathon.org/news_detail.php?Id=561

The race starts 9.00am UK time on Thursday, if you would like me to pass on a message to Pauline and the rest of the team during the race, here’s my mobile No. 07510270113. Please don’t be offended when I don’t reply, I’ll be a tad busy since I’ll be supporting Stephen Mason as well but he’s easy to look after, he doesn’t do diva demands. Pauline does admit that it’s just me that gets both barrels when she’s not a happy bunny, she’s loads more polite when others are doing her support but she knows I won’t take the huff and if it helps her release anxieties and relax I’m doing my job! Besides I get to shout back… but I don’t have to, I’ll just make her read my t-shirt!