One week until I travel to Madeira for a double-header - two races in two days as part of the Skyrunner Portugal series and the Sky Portugal Cup! Final preparations are underway.

I am really excited to take part in my first Vertical Kilometre race with the Santana Vertical Kilometre on the Friday, then the following day it is the Santana Sky Race - 23km over the Maderian mountains. It will also be my first visit to Madeira and I can't wait to run on the island's trails.

Both races were won by the highly talented young Portuguese, Romeu Gouveia, in 2018 with his Vertical KM time being 43 minutes.  So I think a target of under 60 minutes is reasonable :)  The Sky Race is fairly fast even though the first 8 km is climbing from 400m to +1600m, then we descend until about 14km before climbing for another kilometre.  The final 7km is downhill back into Santana.

My trail team from Lisbon, Portugal, GO! Runners, has a good contigent travelling with me and taking part in both the Sky Race and the Ultra Race.

Write up and photos will follow after the race.