Simon Wheatcroft a legally blind runner from the UK is attempting to finish a 100-mile (160km) ultramarathon today, and you can follow him live online.
Wheatcroft has retinitis pigmentosa, a degenerative eye disease, but that hasn’t stopped him from either training or writing about his preparation process. He’s been keeping an online diary and writing a fascinating series of articles for Wired’s Playbook.
And it all comes down to today. The race is a doozy, even by 100-miler standards, with quite a bit of up and down. As Erik Malinowski explains on Playbook:
The course starts off at a manageable 112 feet above sea level, but it’ll go as high as 1,037 feet by mile 18, a 925-foot elevation differential. That’s the high point of the race, and from there the hills will be frequent, although not too demanding. The last major obstacle will come just after Wheatcroft passes mile 80 – his own Heartbreak Hill, if you will – as he’ll experience a 400-foot-plus incline in less than three miles.
It’s pretty inspirational, and you can follow along in real time with Wheatcroft who is using Runkeeper’s Livecasting service.
Photo by Josh Janssen/Flickr