MY 100 ULTRAS CHALLENGE - 2025 PROGRAMME

I have two fundraising pages at the moment - my personal one: Wonderful 

And one with my Running on Plants team. Both Fundraisers are in favour of Viva!, which is such a wonderful charity, working as it does for the animals!

Thanks for stopping by my blog.👍

I meet and talk to lots of different people on my adventures (training, really). If we only met recently, please check out this link for Early Childhood Development and, for plant-based nutrition for dogs and cats, put 'plant-based nutrition for dogs' in the search box.

I've done all my actual ultras - as opposed to my virtual ones - through https://www.actionchallenge.com

They are a wonderful company who cannot do too much for you. Highly recommended. 

This year - 2025, I've entered 3 events again - the Bath50, London Summer Walk (again a 50k) and the 2nd half of the Thames Path challenge.

Last year I did 3 events with them:

The London Winter Walk at the end of January (accompanied by my two granddaughters and one of their boyfriends!); Easter50 Challenge; and the Thames Path100 Challenge  (continuous). Read further down to see why I feel the need to do the 2nd half of this challenge again! 🙂

Here I try and detail all my ultra adventures - don't always succeed, as I'm not the most disciplined bloke in the world - both for my own amusement, and for anyone who is interested. I do ultra marathons for two reasons - one because they're bloody good fun, and, more importantly, they are also a means of fundraising for charities which are dear to my heart, and benefit the animals. 

I appreciate that times are hard - but these are also difficult times for charities, as I'm sure you'll appreciate. Through my ultras, I'm fundraising for Viva! who have been very active rescuing animals from Ukraine - and have an animal sanctuary in Poland. They also do sterling work exposing the horrors of animal abuse in farms and slaughterhouses. Here's a link for anyone who is in a position to donate, Wonderful * (whose services are completely free). Many, many thanks for the awesome support my efforts are receiving! And the animals thank you, also.

*If you have any trouble with this link, please email me at paulwyoud(at)gmail.com.

I have several people to whom I look for inspiration - and I found most of these on Rich Roll's podcast. Rich Roll himself, of course, is one of my heroes, being a vegan ultra runner and ironman extraordinaire. Through his podcasts I've been introduced to a whole range of endurance athletes and positive thinkers. David Goggins and Fiona Oakes, stand out - two of the most inspirational athletes around today.

Chocolate and banana delight - a guilt-free treat

Depending how thick it turns out, it may take longer than an hour in your fridge to firm up. 

Chopped into pieces and frozen, it lasts longer. But every bite is a guilt-free treat!

Ingredients:

200g good dark chocolate - 70% or more, and;

300g ripe bananas 

Method:

Melt the chocolate in a bowl over hot water (don't let the bowl come in contact with the hot water

Break up the bananas, and add  to the melted chocolate, then blitz with a stick blender. 

Once blended, pour into a flat dish, lined with parchment, and place in the fridge for an hour or so.

And that's it! It solidifies to a sort of fudge-like mousse, which you can chop into pieces you can offer around. 

I’ve found it best to divide it into bite-size pieces and freeze. 

Couple of variations - but really you can play around with this recipe!

I'm a great fan of chilli chocolate, so I added a pinch of cayenne pepper to my last batch.

My granddaughter likes to pour the mix over a loaf of raspberries