IT has been a heck of a week as far as planning for this big project is concerned.

Suddenly races and dates are beginning to slot together for 2007.

Gaping hopes which were appearing on the 12-month schedule are disappearing. In an instant a full picture of what is in store for the following 12 months appears fully in focus.

The biggest problem with planning a race schedule so far in advance is that right now the organisers barely know what dates they will be staging events in 2007 - if at all.

What I can't be doing is to be travelling vast distances each and every weekend.

I've got to be sensible about the schedule, picking events for their cachet, their distance, any historical or human interest angle, and also their location.

One big decision made this week was to enter the Cape Wrath Challenge which takes place next May at Durness, which is the most north-westerly point of the mainland in Scotland.

The event consists of five races over six days, finished off with a marathon.

Now I'm not foolish enough to contemplate a marathon - not a month after London - but there is the option of running the marathon as part of a two, three or five-person relay team.

So Durness it will be, and while I am travelling to the north of Scotland from Edinburgh, I will try to pick up a couple of races.

That has effectively knocked out the plan to compete at the Braemar Highland Games in September because with the nine days in Scotland and potentially seven races, that should give me a good sense of racing north of the border.

Over in Wales, there races have been piling up there too.

I posted a message on the Runner's World message board this week asking for suggestions of further races and I had some corking ideas come back to me.

One was the Merthyr Mawr Christmas Pud which takes place in December over Europe's second biggest sand dune. And then later that month, on New Year's Eve, there is the historic Nos Galan race in the Rhondda Valley.

This is a must-do race which is staged over 5km and has a great story attached to it - more another time.

The trouble is that the race starts at 7.30pm, it will take me about 20 minutes to run 5km, and then I need to get in a car to be in Derbyshire for 11.57pm and the final race of the year, the Bryan Clifton Memorial Midnight Run - the same race which will kick-start the Running Is A Mug's Game challenge.

I checked on the AA website and it says the route is 174 miles and should take three hours.

One hundred and seventy four miles in three hours on New Year's Eve. It doesn't seem possible! But we shall see.