New event plans
It seems as if there has been a bit of a flurry of activity here on the blog, after several months of relative quiet. That said, there is much change afoot with some significant training and event plan shifts, all in the last few days.
I reached a stage in my training where I felt sufficiently confident in progress to start to plan some more challenging outings. Earlier this year I posted a plan to travel to Andorra to fastpack the GRP. That is now back on, and I travel on 1 September 2025. I only return on the 9th so I will not only be able to complete the GRP but should then have some spare days to do some day runs on some shorter scenic trails, of which there are many in Andorra. Fingers crossed for the weather!
Here’s a reminder of the GRP route profile…..
The timing of this trip was also intended to line it up to be a solid training block for the Atlas Quest UTAT in Morocco in early October.
Just yesterday, the Atlas Quest team emailed all participants to advise of their decision to cancel the 2025 event. I had been concerned this might happen as the number of registered participants across all of distances was not growing in recent months. The team’s communication was transparent and informative, and it cannot be easy to make such a decision. They are not clear how they will deal with established entries as they have been honest about their inability to refund at this point in time. They have however undertaken to update in the next couple of months as they work out their options for 2026.
Personally, if there is to be an option to carry an entry forward to 2026, I will take that option.
This was the only event I had managed to salvage from a pretty lean year thus far and more importantly, I had already purchased my flights. Thus, I set myself the challenge of trying to identify another event this year which I could enter with low cost and logistical pain, by transferring my flights with the same budget airline to another time and destination. To cut a long story short, I have succeeded.
As of today, I have a new event, new flights, transport and accommodation booked.
I have entered the Costa Blanca Trails Gran Trail 102KM race on 14 November 2025.
102KM with roughly 6,000 metres of elevation in the hills behind Benidorm in the Costa Blanca. This is the longest race, and the event is well established. I first came across the race back in 2017 when I chose the Gran Trail Collserola in Barcelona instead. I never re-visited this race, probably due to COVID, but it perfectly fits all of the criteria for a replacement for the Morocco race. It is a very similar route profile on similar terrain and I believe there is a cap of 150 on entries which is a good number. It is even a night start like the Morocco event. I can fly in and out of Alicante which is only about 25 miles away and everything else is pretty cheap.
The bonus is that I will have six weeks more to train than I would have had for the Morocco race. I am pretty disappointed about Morocco but I think my new plan still provides much to look forward to and train for.
Aside from the Andorra trip, I am very much looking forward to training over the next couple of months and making the most of Scotland in the process. I will stay to the east of the country until after Andorra, primarily to avoid the midges. Come mid-September, the north and west will open up again and I will be able to venture further afield to train before the days really start to shorten.
