Sorry this update is a few days after the finish.

The final start line came. 9.30am Saturday 10th October. From signing up almost a year ago to that start line, I had thought about this race and prepared for it in one way or another every single day. The final 8km was finally here. Let's do this.

The day starts and off goes Ben breaking ahead of the pack straightaway. The man has so much raw talent and instinct. Every step just looks a little more effortless. What an athlete.

49. it took me around 14 and a half hours but I made it in number 49 for the day. I don

I came inches to sacking it in today

Ok, day 3 done. Bosh. Brutal. but what

First of all, thank you all for your messages, they arrived today and they've put me in a better place.

The beginning of the day felt good - pack was much lighter (I ditched the front pack) and ate my day 1 ration. Stage 1 was all river crossings through a gorge. It was in the shade, the water came up to about thigh level at points and it was ice cold. It was quite slippery and technical and there were a few casualties...I passed a man from the US who twisted his ankle...when I see one of these guys in that state, I know they're in trouble. I helped him get down a rock and cross a stream to the doctors and wished him luck. I hope he's ok.

Second stage was good - we started to run downhill today to test the legs and they held up, at least for the beginning. There was a massive climb, a scramble really, up to the ridge of a mountain and a long while along the ridge. It was absolutely gorgeous and the mind took the chance to wonder a whole lot of places. Hillwalking trips at school, training for rowing back in the days and how our coach would have pushed us along now, and this one took up a bit of time - would I have stilled helped that man if it was day 5 and I was in a much worse shape. I'm usually impressed by people who win races, but I think a measure of a person is how much pain they can take, and then when they are broken, how much deeper they can dig then to help someone else...let's find out how I do.

Stage 3 and 4 was absolutely brutal. Almost 5 hours of sand and salt planes with not a single spot for shade. According to Rob's watch, it hit around 38 degrees for a good chunk of it. It was the absolute lack of change in scenery and rough terrain that really got me. We are constantly on the edge balancing amount of water we can / need to carry with shoulder pain, headache and hunger with how much we need for the ration plan. The mind game today was pretty advanced.

We all made it to the end but in a pretty rough shape. We're trying not to think about how much more we have to do but it's difficult. The anxiety at this stage is one of the more difficult things to battle - every time you feel pain, your mind projects it till the end of the week and it

Ok, so made it to the end of day 1. Good. But man, that was way worse than I thought I'd be like on the first day. Today can only be described as mental brutality. Last night's sleep in the tent was pretty cold and interrupted, which was expected. Fine. 3,000m altitude start with a climb to kick off the day making you feel dizzy right off the bat, ok, expected. Fine. 13kg bag starting to pretty much remind you of that time you reached for a heavy box in your attic and it fell on your shoulder, repeatedly, for 7 hours, expected. Good. What was a real psychological torture was the 1hr climb to Check Point 3 (CP3) -a god knows how long a hill climb at the hottest part of the day's course, with non-stop winding road giving you a false sense that the next corner will be the last, it will be the top...and then disappointing you at every turn...By the time we started the hill, we'd been going for 5.40 minutes already. Not ideal. I'll admit it, the only thing that kept me going was pure hatred for the organizers for dropping one of those on the first day, I bet they had a good giggle about it too...

The terrain is pretty tough. Don't think we hit a flat footing all day. I wish I could upload a few photos to show you all but my badly spelt typing will have to do -it changes from dirt, to rock fields with rocks the size of your fists, to dried river beds, and narrow gorges, and more rock fields. The scenery is beautiful -absolutely desolate with nothing man made in sight for miles. You see mountains and valleys in the far far distance, which you will eventually have to climb...we try to muster some courage to pick our heads up and enjoy the views once in a while but when the going gets tough, it can be hard to risk breaking the rhythm.

In case anyone's worried, all in decent shape. One or two blisters here and there, dead shoulders, tired legs, scared shi*less as to how on earth we're going to do another 5 of those, all fun and games. Tomorrow will be tough.

By the way, apparently the server is down at the moment so I can't receive your messages yet (they assure me that they are there and it's not because I don't have any friends...) but please keep checking back.

A

After nearly 24

Park and McKeown's packs