I love it when a plan comes together

The first step on the road to a run around Ireland is to work out a route worth writing about

Rey walks along the cliffs at Malin Head, Ireland

As summer fades and the nights draw in I’m reminded, again, just how quickly time moves. Before we know it, it will be Christmas, and a new year with new plans, new hopes. And I’ll get a jolt when I suddenly realise I have to run 1,000 miles (at least!) around Ireland and I haven’t sorted anything out yet.

Well, hopefully that won’t be the case, but I know my own track record. Planning and organising has never been my strong point, which is part of the reason, I think, I often struggle in ultra marathons. Such long races require attention to detail, meticulous preparation, careful planning. For a 10K, or even a half marathon, you can just turn up with a pair of running shoes and a number and rely on your fitness and training. Go, run, keep running, finish.

Ultra marathons have so many more elements - the food, the head torch (with enough spare batteries!), the route planning, the gear, the sleep plan, yada yada. An epic, self-organised run like my pilgrimage through Ireland (my next book project, in case you missed it) is going to really test my powers.

So I thought maybe a little check in, right here and now, might be helpful. If I write it down, perhaps I’ll feel better about my plans, or perhaps I’ll realise how much I still haven’t done. And for you, well, you get to see this project in action - or inaction, as the case may be.

I started by plotting a rough route. My mother was born in a house in Dublin, on the east coast of Ireland, while my father was born in a house in Galway, on the west coast. My first thought was to run from one to the other, but I quickly realised that to run right across the middle of Ireland would be to miss out on most of the country’s natural beauty in favour of largely unspectacular farmland.

I found a series of trails connected to each other that would take me from Dublin to Kerry in the far south west of the country. From there I could follow the Wild Atlantic Way all the way up to Galway. Now that sounded more like it.