Project Unicorn - The Running Channel’s Quarantine To Qualifier

We’re delighted to be working with Anna from The Running Channel (if you’re a runner and you don’t follow The Running Channel you should!) on her challenge - ‘Project Unicorn’:

Hi everyone, I’m Anna and I’m a runner! I’ve been presenting on The Running Channel on YouTube for a couple of years now and I’m always up for a challenge. So far these have included (but are not limited to) a marathon in my 10m back garden during lockdown, running a mile every hour on the hour for 24 hours, a 260km ultra in the Azores plus a few other marathons along the way.

Project Unicorn

My next challenge will be a little longer in the making. It’s a challenge we are affectionately calling ‘Project Unicorn’. My next challenge is to qualify for the Boston Marathon.

I’ll be training for the next few months up until Autumn 2021, when I’ll take on a marathon to get that time. For me, it’s 3 hours 30 mins. Well, it’ll be a few minutes under that actually to guarantee qualification. To give you an idea of what that means for me, my marathon PB, set at Amsterdam Marathon 2019 is 3:53:06. So just a casual 25ish minutes to shave off.

The BIG difference this time though, is that we’re treating this as a bit of an experiment. We’re building ‘Team Anna’ to get me to that finish line. We’ve put together the best of the best when it comes to a coach, sports psychologist and, of course, physiotherapist. Paul Martin is going to be an integral part of Team Anna - he’s already helped me with my first hurdle of injuring my calf on a rather overzealous speed session!

Training

The real training will start 16 weeks out from race day, which hasn’t been 100% set in stone yet because of the uncertainty with coronavirus, but it’ll be around May that I need to step it up a notch. Until then, it’s cross training on the bike for me, calf raises, Paul’s infamous glute circuit and a bit of core work to get me in top shape ready for the mileage to increase.

Watch this space over on YouTube for Paul’s first appearance in the Quarantine To Qualifier series in episode 2. You can find out more about the challenge in episode 1 now:

We are superchuffed to be part of Team Anna and we’re looking forward to following her journey to Boston!

Words by Anna Harding from The Running Channel.