July 27th will see the 11th start of the Lakeland 100 and ten years on from toeing the line on that very first edition, yours truly will be back and ready to roll the dice once again. By the time you read this the taper will have started and the hard work - begun last August - will be over. Almost inevitably I will have done less than I wanted and more than I hoped - which in theory puts it just about right.
My record at this race stands at a 4th, 2nd and 2nd - that last result in 2011 - and since then many cubic litres of water have flowed under the proverbial bridge.
Of course I have a whole host of aspirations, and comparisons with 7-8 years ago have proved very difficult to quash.
On many levels I’m in a very different place now and it’s easy to forget how different that can be.
So just for comparative purposes and to warm you up for the fun and games at the end of this month, here’s what the first Lakeland 100 felt like for me in 2008.
