I'm not sure what odds I would have given myself 8 weeks ago when i started this of completing the run but i'm pretty sure they were no better than 50 / 50. And the optimism i did feel was based on ignorance.
But sometimes ignorance works. I've been on a recovery week since Saturday and that obviously has included blogging as well as running but let me fill you in a little now.
Sean and I had a bit of a debate in the run up to the day as to what time we should start our journey. I felt that his 0515 start time was earlier than strictly necessary and had more than my share of grumbles about it. For the record, he was right. Not only did we not have loads of time to spare up there but also i couldn't sleep anyway and was up from about 0330. From his point of view he was only half right though because apparently he was having a lovely dream about getting everything ready right up to the point where he sprung out of bed just before five and had to rush like mad. He, he. ;o)
So, we got there in the dark, with some rather large ominous shadows of mountains accompanying our journey. The weather forecast was pretty bad. Bad in that it was forecast to be pretty hot, 25 degrees centigrade when all my training had been in the sub 20's.
At the briefing my first thought was that everybody looked fitter than me, bugger. Slowly though i found around half a dozen people who could accompany me at the back. Because of my dodgy knee my plan was to start slowly and walk the majority of the initial mile and a half of asphalt so i was pretty sure i'd be attacking the race from the rear.
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| I think i look scared. :oS |
Things got better though. I'm normally pretty good at executing my race plan and to the most part that saw me through. My strategy was not to go too far into the red at any point on the basis that 30 miles is a pretty long way and i managed to stick to that. I also managed to not get fazed by the fact that the hills were a little more brutal than i'd expected. Even having grown up in the mountains I was still surprised that the race course was quite as steep as it was in both directions. I didn't let it get to me though and this helped a lot because some people around were really struggling mentally.
I was pretty strong from about 8 miles to mile 20, passing probably a dozen people and eating and drinking well. At mile 20 things started to get a bit harder, i'd drunk well all race but had obviously been overdoing it as i had to stop to pee around every 45 minutes for the rest of the race. It was really frustrating to keep having to pass the same people over and again because of pee stops. In my defence it was hot and it's better to be safe than sorry.
I also at this point mistimed my painkillers. I'd planned all along to drop 2 paracetamol and 2 ibuprofen at this point but just clean forgot it. It was only whilst moaning to a fellow runner about my sore feet that he asked did i have ibuprofen? Bugger, of course i did, the strategy has served me well in all my other endurance events yet here i'd forgotten all about it. Thanks Neil. :o)
It just got harder and harder from on though, the painkillers were behind the pain curve in the soles of my feet and were fighting a losing battle. A short brutal uphill at 28 miles was a tentative battle against cramp the whole way up and the few miles road drag down the valley were a frustrating battle between feeling relatively good overall and really sore feet.
In the end i finished in 8 hours 40, which was an hour and 10 minutes slower than i'd have liked. Mitigating this though was the fact that the course was 33 miles long not 30 and the weather really was unusual. The hottest UK October day on record even!
In the end i finished 65th out of 86 starters which means I was relatively comfortably out of the bottom 20%. The winning time was just over 5 hours, so again i'm happy with my performance in that perspective and it's given me the urge to carry on with some targetted training.
But not until i've really enjoyed this week of doing nothing first.
