There is no way to say this without sounding crazy; I have entered a 100 mile running race.

The North Downs Way 100 goes from Farnham in Surrey to Ashford in Kent at the beginning of August with a cut-off of 36 hours.

It seemed like the natural progression after completing 100k last year but for some reason, I’ve found it much harder to get my head round it, let alone mentioning it to other people.

Maybe because it is miles, not kilometres? Maybe because as children, anything 100 or higher was “a big number”?

Well whatever the case, it is happening. And I’m finding it tough to talk about.

There is no way to make it sound normal when asked “got any races coming up?” and responding with “yes I am running 100 miles”.

Usually at that point there is a moment of silence followed by “why” or “how”.

Both of these are actually very tough questions to answer, especially in a succinct way so I just say “why not” or “very slowly”.

A little obtuse but also quite accurate.

I am aiming to complete the course in under 24 hours (23:59:59 to be precise) which will then earn me on of these:

(it’s a belt buckle)

Maybe I am crazy.