Got in from the long day last night. I had a very poor start to this race and felt awful for day 2 improving only slightly for day 3 when the temperatures allegedly hit 46 degrees. Day 4 i decided to stay with team trifecta the whole way and it was a delight to work with them pacing through the 40km. As a result i felt pretty good the orning of the long day 54 miles. The first lot started at 6am when it was nice and cool, and the top 15 whih apparently included me started at 9am. When we kicked off i found my pacing pretty close to that of the leading lady Eria from south africa and in the end we knocke out the first 50 kilometres in 6 hours or so. Erica is a very experienced adventure racer and the paing was so good when we got to 50km i just felt fantastic. I ran the whole way in from there as it got dark the heaedlamps came out and you just followed the trail of glow sticks across this massive desert into the horizon it really made the race worthwhile jut for those few hours because the rest of it has been GOD DAMN AWFUL. I have some major feet issues happening now with an open heel wound and two missing toe nails covered with blisters. After 12:20 of running yesterday i got in not too bad for the 54 miles, team trifecta boys already back in the tent having started a few hours earlier in the orning. Bocquet just in at 8 30am this morning looking glorious. Just waiting it out in the heat today for the final stage tomorrow and those preious 4 deserts medal will be ours. Love to all thank for messages as always.

Only a short blog because the keyoad on this laptop is 4 inches across and ive got sand all over my fingers. I should have seen the signs for this race when I got a taxi from the airport to the hotel and the driver smashed it into the back of a truck and wrote off the bonnet. Luckily no one was hurt including me and we got to the hotel limping along at around 2a. Pete bocquet was already in bed but there was a massive diso going on outside and it was impossible to drop off so not the best there either. The next morning we checked in then we embarked on a 7 hr bus ride to the desert which ending up taking 12 because the bus broke down. So we got to camp 1 at 1am and kicked off the next morning at 9am. It was unbelievably hot i mean i went through the first 9km in 45 minutes in 3rd place and hit the wall straight away. keeping your body cool out here is so hard. At the end of the stage me and a canadian guy got lost and we ended up running down a sand runway for 10 minutes until someone came along in a car. it took 20 more to get back to the correct course so a bit demoralising. I felt shocking yesterday i guess i forgot how hard this stuff is but managed to finish inside the top 10 i think.
 
Today was much better. There was a small amount of intermittent cloud cover so that helped the temps. In the end i finished in 6 hours something so i think about 12th place. I am fine tonight and feel 50% better than yesterday. May have something to do with the fact that we all went to bed at 6 30pm and got up 12 hours later. Same again tonight. Cannot wait to knock this series onthe head. Mary announced  to all competitors on day 1 that i would be the youngest ever to finish all 4 so thats all im now thinking about, getting to the end.  Dreaming of those margharitas and steaks at the finish its going to be magnificent.
 
Love to all and thanks for all the emails as always.
 
Dave Egypt

The last two months have been a rollercoaster of ups and downs and whilst I guess I am out of the other side of this patch now I can't help but feeling all in all my training has not gone well despite being in as good a shape I think as pre-Atacama. At the beginning of August I started adding some hills into my training in order to build up strength for the Mont Blanc 100. Whilst on holiday in Italy I found a particularly good training route out of the Tuscan hill town of Montalcino which involved a sharp descent over 7 miles back to to the main road & therefore a nice climb back from that point. Unfortunately before we set off I wasn't able to get hold of a new pair of road shoes and my old ones were wrecked so I opted to travel with just my innov8 heavy duty trail shoes which I used in Antarctica. The hill repeats up and down the climb felt ok, i was quick descending but had to hold back a little because I could feel the extra impact caused by the lack of cushion in the soles and turning round coming back up the hill felt heavy and was putting a lot of additional strain on my achilles. In the end I destroyed my tendon and got horrendous shin splints. On getting home I went out for an hour and I was in a world of trouble. I ran home from work the next day and really pushed the pace, its about 6km and I was really flying as its mostly downhill on the way back and by the time I got in to Battersea Park for the last mile to the house I was hobbling along. My foot had lost all of its flex and the achilles felt swollen and my shins were screaming at me. I gave it a week off with ice and rest jogging only intermittently and it seemed to improve a little but as soon as i upped the pace again I went back to square one. In the end I went to see a physio and he stated the obvious, that I had both chronic shin splints which had been lurking in the background for some time plus achilles tendonitis and advised me not to run for 6 weeks. When I told him I was still considering racing UTMB the next weekend he looked at me as if to say 'well if you do that you aren't going to be running the Sahara' so I spoke to Frank and made the call not to run. In the end it was the right decision. I crewed Frank & Alex around the 103 mile course which took them 42 hours and whilst I can't say I enjoyed driving round France, Italy and Switzerland non-stop for 36 hours, I got a lot out of it. It was the first time I had seen an ultra up close and personal and watched people struggling when I wasn't in it myself. I was early at the first CP and had the pleasure of seeing Killian Jornet & Scott Jurek come steaming through and later in the race to see the carnage unfolding at Champex-Lac 122km in. The scenery looked out of this world and while i was awaiting Frank and Alex's arrival at Arnuvra, took the time to run up to the top of the mountain pass coming out of that aid station and then across to another peak which was utterly deserted and had a marked trail leading up to it which defied belief. It was so steep i used hands and knees for over a quarter of an hour, dropping my handheld bottle in the meantime and watching it fall about 200 metres down a ravine. Coming back down was shocklingly hard and I slid down most of it hanging to tufts of grass in the process and thought to myself most of the way, my god if the physio had any idea I was out doing that right now he'd give up on me. After seeing Frank and Alex through Champex I drove back to the start finish, had a few hours sleep and ended up seeing them in to the finish that morning. The afternoon I ran from the end of the race backwards up to the Tete Aux Vents, the last of the climbs and descent into town and it was breathtaking. i made it on to the course as the last 3 runners were finishing so that the markings were still out, ran backwards past the guys jogging down the mountain picking up the markers, risked it for another half an hour or so and then followed what I knew back down the hill into town picking up the marker collectors near the end. It was great to see two of the climbs and get a sense of what was involved for next year, but most importantly my foot held up. On return I went back to the physio and reported good things but acknowledged that to have taken on 100 miles with a niggling problem would have been a guaranteed DNF and longer lasting issue. In the end I signed up for and raced a marathon the following weekend pacing a friend around trying to break 3:30. It went well for the first half which we covered in 1:42 and got a fist pump from Barry Mcguigan on the way past. Unfortunately Pete had consumed 3 litres of water before the start unbeknownst to me and therefore at Mile 17 threw up everything he had in him and had to walk to 22 in order to get going again. I walked from 17 to 20 with him and then ran the rest ahead at a good pace ending up finishing in 3 37 (the 4th time Ive run 3:37) and Pete came through a quarter of an hour later. I started building the training back up again then on a daily basis and actually dared to pull out the training program I used for the Atacama and started following that which I knew would do me well. It was ambitious to start with and I wasn't ready for the pack yet but with a couple more physio sessions I felt like i was returning to strength. In the end I opted to run London to Brighton on the 21st September and took a decent weight pack (about 4.5 kgs) in order to get a feel for how far Id come in that 3 weeks since kicking it up again. At 56 miles and with no course markings its not an easy race. They set a 13 hour cut off this year after the 12 hours allowed only 15% of people to finish in time in 2008 the inaugural event. I ran 11:40 last year having spent litterally hours walking around a patch of woodland called Lavender Platt in the middle of the course after I got disorientated and totally lost with another racer. Last year I recorded the distance at 62 miles and this year at 60.1 so I did better with the new track this time around. I got a cab to the start in South East London at 4:45am, got a new race number handwritten as Id lost mine and started at a fairly relaxed pace at 6am. For the first couple of miles or so there were only about 4 people ahead of me (I think about 200 started?) and I wasn't pushing plus I had a lot of weight on compared to the most others who had only a waist packs or just bottles so I was a bit confused by that but I kept moving anyway. I went through 10 miles in 1hr22, last year I was there at 1:38 (with two toilet stops totalling ten minutes which carried on all day) so a good start. I didn't stop and went straight through onto CP2 at 19 miles which I reached at about 2:46. By this stage I was running with a couple of other lads from South Africa who'd both run 7:11 for the 90km course in May & another Brit who's marathon best was 2:42 and was planning to run from Lands End to John O Groats next year so I was out of my depth actually. In the end we made a few wrong turnings at 30 miles or so and wasted a lot of time looking at the map so a couple of groups of 4 came past us. I ended up splitting off at this point as we were all running different paces by now but really started to struggle with the map. I was also starting to rue the amount of weight Id chosen to carry as to be honest over that distance its already hard enough without trying to add to the equation to challenge yourself even more. The sh*t really hit the fan at 35 miles though. I went through the aid station and spilt PSP Energy drink all over my pack, arms and legs and that stuff is STICKY. Ive always felt it tastes a little like chicken if you blend a lot of powder in and at this stage the chicken smell started to come out. I arrived at a road crossing at Chailey 40 miles in and no doubt because of its attraction to the energy drink a wasp flew straight up the right leg of my shorts and stung me about a quarter of an inch from my nuts. I went crazy. By this stage Id run out of water and had another 5 to go to the next aid station, had bad chaffing anyway from the salt and sticky drink but now the wasp sting just started to rub with every step. I did wonder at that point what i was doing but just kept moving albeit on a parrallel course to the one I should have been taking. Eventually I got the next checkpoint and got enough water to wash myself down, changed my shirt (the beauty of carrying extra stuff...) and plodded on. I ran to the bottom of the beacon again getting lost in the process and knew that I was still in or around the top 10. Just before you come to that point there is a huge open field around a mile across at which point you can see the spectators in the distance cheering runners on to the big climb and look behind you to see the competition. As I got to the bottom of the climb I turned around and saw literally 15 people emerging out of the woods together and out on to the field. They'd obviously joined up with someone who knew the course and had used them through the tricky section. I climbed well and caught 2 guys but as I got onto the downs my pace went from under me. Eventually people started passing me at around 50 miles as I jogged along they flew past and none of them had any kit with them, only 1 carrying a pack. I guessed a lot of people had met others and given them excess baggage for the final section etc and some weren't bothering with anything at all. I dropped down into Brighton and finished in around 11:01 for 41st place in the end & Id counted 22 people go past me in the last 6 miles. A little dissapointing as a finish but to be expected. I felt on a good day with training and no pack I could easily have covered it in under 10 hours and if they keep the course next year I'll be better equiped to race it properly and see. Ive loved training again for this race, I loved the previous 2 also and will miss not doing similar for next year but there are other things out there higher up the list. I am entering Western States, Badwater and UTMB that will be the crux of the year June, July and August. All 3 in one summer would seem to be crazy but Im guaranteed not to get in to one of them , most likely WS given that 1000 people are already in the lottery hat with 10 days left to sign up for 400 places! Im thinking about Rocky Raccoon in Feb again. Id love to break 20 hours for 100 miles there but it clashes with the Vuelta 3 day/ 375 mile bike tour of Puerto Rico which will be hard to turn down.... Its hard to stay focused on just one race when there's a whole world of adventures out there waiting

Over the past 4 years Jim and I have found many ways of raising money for ClicSargent, our chosen charity whose primary function is caring for young children going through cancer treatment. We have held 2 enormous fundraisers/ live concerts in support of the MdS in 2006 and then the Gobi March in 2007. We have lobbied friends, family, colleagues, corporations and two willing sponsors on ClicSargents behalf with every penny raised going directly to the charity. It becomes a little hard to work out exactly what we have raised sometimes, but we certainly managed to accrue

With Rocky Raccoon finished I wanted to enter another 100 miler, firstly because I wanted the experience of running that distance in one go again but also to prep for the UTMB in August. Old Dominion worked pretty well into the schedule so I flew out 2 weekends ago on Thursday night. Frank the Tank picked me up from the airport and we went back to his place in Arlington, Virginia. Frank cooked us some hotdogs and we had a chat with Michael Hull (Elite Athlete & Endurance Hero) on Skype. I slept pretty well that night which was good as I knew I was way too tired from the past few weeks really to be taking this run on. 

The next day I drove out to Woodstock and checked in to the Holiday Inn then went to the Fairgrounds where the race started to register for the race. They weighed me in (if you lose or gain too much during the race they pull you out) and I loaded up 7 drop bags with packets of cheese and bread rolls. I put things like burgers and cheese in drop bags gels and energy bars taste like sh*t and I need the real food. I ended up talking at length with a guy called David Snipes who had run OD 4 times before and really knew his stuff. After the course briefing we drove out to the 3 mile to go checkpoint, at the bottom of Woodstock Mountain where you emerge back into civilisation after 97 miles of running and then back into the Fairgrounds so that we could double check the route, which although marked, regularly gets removed by vandals. I didn't want to go wrong at 97 miles so was grateful that we did it. After that I went to Pizza Hut and got involved and then went back to the hotel for some sleep.

Alarm went at 3:15 for the 4am start and put my stuff on and went down there. There weren't that many of us starting which I found suprising as the run is heralded as extremely good by all those who take part each year, plus it is the 2nd oldest 100 in the States, oldest on the East Coast & hence has some prestige. Talking to Ray the Race Director afterwards he blames a lack of finances for marketing and therefore word of mouth which inevitably leads to low numbers. I agree with him but I think what puts most people off is the course profile and cut off. 28 hours is tight for any 100 miler and with 14,000+ feet of climbing I think 28 hours alienates a lot of would be runners. Its not hard enough to go up against Hardrock/ Leadville or Massanutten on the East Coast but its also not flat enough to run fast times. 

They had spray painted a pink line on the ground outside the main stable at the fairgrounds and we all lined up behind it in the dark, most without headlamps including me as i had stuck it in the drop bag to pick up at 75 miles. The gun went and some really odd music started coming out of someones car speakers, something you might hear at the end of an old Western and off we went. One circle of the fairground track and then out onto the roads. A police cruiser led us through the town to protect us from all the traffic and I quickly got into stride with David from the day before. The course went 3.1 miles before aid station 1, then more flat until we went over the huge Shenandoah River and to the bottom of Woodstock Mountain. I walked pretty much the whole climb up the 14 switchbacks and at the top the first signs of dawn were appearing 7.2 miles in. Down the otherside on a gravel path David pushed on ahead with a friend of his and I got into just running my 100 mile pace, steady roughly 10 minute miles. Aid Station 3 was Ray in his truck with some water and all until now had been on road/ gravel road so despite the climb & descent real easy pacing. 

The pattern for the day was set in the next  4.5 miles however. The course markings disappeared off of the road left into a wood and straight up a long rocky ascent. Nice trail but totally unrunnable as a climb, then back down the other side on nice dropping wooded trail and back on the road to the next Checkpoint. The whole of Old Dominion is road, gravel road, road nothing too serious and then WHAM off you go out of nowhere on a massive off road trail climb and technical descent back to nice easy road again. It makes for interesting running but pretty hard to get any rhythm going. Nevertheless the course meandered down into Fort Valley and between 16 and 32 miles there were just rolling hills and road through farms and quiet Virginia Country. The only distraction were dogs in cages which went insane each time we ran by. 

When I got to 32 I felt tired. It was hot probably 80ish and I knew it wasn't going to be an easy day. The next 15 miles were supposed to be hard back to the 47 mile aid station which was also the 32 mile station so a loop within a loop here. We climbed another long hill and trail then dropped down into what they called Duncan Hollow. Essentially it was just a shit up hill climb for about 5 miles on rocky trail that was totally flooded. I passed about 7 people on this stretch all trying to keep their feet dry as I went straight up the middle of the 'river' wading the whole way Im never bothered about getting wet feet it defies belief how long some people spend changing shoes and socks to keep dry feet your gonna get blisters anyway may as well just SUCK IT UP!!!! 

Anyway back at 47 I started getting in trouble. Id been drinking loads until now in the oppresive heat but I didn't take on what I needed in the next 4 miles all uphill road into the 51 aid station called Mountain Top. When I got in there I was staggering about and when Ron and Andrew the two guys I ran a lot of this section with asked me a question the words just came out in totally the wrong order. As a result I knew I had to start consuming food and drink straight away or id be in big trouble shortly after. In the end after around 20 minutes of trying to recover the 6 miles down to Edinburgh Gap at 57 miles flew by I really started running strong.

I blew up my own race on the next 8 miles though. I left the aid station at 57 with Ron & head up onto the ATV Trail which was an absolute bitch. Serious sand climbs and descents around a water and wet sand soaked path and it was really hot. Flies everywhere and only one aid station with water (a guy in his truck) in the middle so I pushed on here and actually burnt up a lot of the energy reserves I had left. When I got into Little Fort at 64 I sat in the chair and some guys brought me a burger and some soup which was great but I knew it was slowly but surely all going a bit wrong. Another long climb and then some rolling road brought us into Mudhole Gap which was again full of so many flies I just got water and carried on. Mentally I was shaky on this section but the guy at the aid told me I was the last one on the course still on for sub 24 time, with 13 in front of me. That was good to hear.

I went on the 6 mile trail to Elizabeth Furnace Mile 75 and it was really nice trail running, smooth compacted but despite that I was all over the place. My mind was playing the old tricks you naturally suffer ie. You've got 30 miles left with the 2 monster climbs still to come and you're already totally cooked. You've been running 16 hours and you've definitely got 8 left minimum.

Still when I got to Elizabeth Furnace at 75 miles it was still light. Id been told that the next 8 miles up Sherman Gap and down were awful. I'd read a pre race report from a guy called Jay Finkle 5 time sub 24 hour finisher outlining that Sherman Gap was by far and a way the worst part of the course and that you should try to do as much of it in daylight as possible because its long and technical. Id known this all day and I think having this in the back of my mind had maybe caused me to push too hard earlier on when I knew I was tired. 

Anyway in that Aid Station the Volunteers told me I could have a pacer. I said thanks but I didn't have a crew with me, but a 16 year old kid called Cole from the local school was there headtorch on, food in hand ready to go over the mountain with a runner. He offered to go with me and I was absolutely stunned. I said yeah sure that would be great but bear in mind there won't be any running involved until we get over the mountain as I was feeling pretty wrecked. He said cool and in hindsight I think he saved my race.

It took almost 3 hours to cover the next 8  miles up and over Sherman. The top was so steep I passed another runner literally panting and panicking because at 80 miles the massive climb had sent his Heart Rate through the roof. He recovered but I thought for a minute he was going to collapse which would have been a really bad idea up there. Talking to Cole took my mind of the run. We talked films, facebook, running all that American High School stuff that he was into and I knew by the end he'd end up running this race himself one day he was loving the pain!

When we got to the Aid Station at 83 i shook his hand and told him if I broke 24 id send him the buckle you get for beating the 1 day clock. I then caught up with Ron again and we climbed up and over the 2nd bastard climb called Veach Gap. Down the other side into Veach West at 87 wasn't as long as Sherman but again we were wading through the river and it was absolutley pitch black. I hadn't replaced my headtorch batteries (idiot) so i was tripping everywhere in the half light. At Veach I felt close to the edge. With 13 left I knew id be ok but i was absolutely gone. No energy left at all. The next 4 were back on open road and it was so dark the black top road looked like a magic carpet. I went delirious here imagining peoples mail boxes were animals and people and stuff but I kept moving forward until close to the 91 mile aid station. I was looking for anywhere to lie down at that point. I almost lay on the road I was so tired. I knew i was going to finish  but that to break 24 hours id have to run most of the remaining 10 miles and that was looking very hard to do. Instead I hobbled into the 91 mile aid station and sat in the chair again. The guys there kind of went 'don't stop you're nearly there' and i couldn't be bothered to tell them 'look lads there's still 9 miles left and im not sure i can go 9 metres' but they could tell thats what I was thinking. I shut my eyes for a few seconds and then got annoyed with myself for being a pussy and stood up to move off. I sort of stumbled forward back onto the road but realised i wasn't going anywhere. In fact a car had come up the road & I had almost stepped out in front of it. The aid station captain was holding me by my collar to stop  me walking into its path. When it went by he released me with a kind of 'off you go now' in the way you would talk to a 3 year old which I guess was about my mental age at that point.

From 91 there was a 2 mile climb to the top of Woodstock Mountain. The racebook mentions this point when you enter as follows:

'There are fancier ways to spend Saturday night in America. None better than to stake your claim at a spot on the top of Woodstock mountain, about seven miles from the finish. Some look like the survivors of a battle. They are the victors who have actually been in the arena.'

Ron and I had some coke at the 93 aid station and took absolutely ages descending the 14 switchbacks down to the bottom of the road we had run up in the morning because our quads were screaming at us. We tried to run little bits and then just hobbled a bit acknowledging that it just wasn't going to happen. 

We got into the 97.36 aid station with 24 hours 30 on the clock and ran the last 2.7 miles in 27 minutes. The last lap round the fairground again we were picking up some good pace still. No ties allowed in this event so I let Ron cross first and then followed him in 24 hours 58 minutes and 34 seconds. 

The finish was just a small banner and a man under a gazebo with a watch who signed us in. We said thanks and went on our way. All that running to be witnessed by only one person at the end of such a journey. Ron and I exchanged a quick hug and I grabbed the car and went back to the hotel. 

Sleep is a beatiful thing....

Footnote: 1 of the runners Dan Brenden who has finished the Grand Slam and Last Great Race multiple times went wrong at 47 and ran 9 miles to another aid station before they told him what he'd done. Instead of dropping he turned around and ran the 9 miles back and then finished the rest of the 100 miles totalling 118 miles in 26 hours. I will remember than any time I make a mistake in course reading or add unnecessary distance to a race as the mental strength it must have taken not to quit at the point he realised he was going to have to have run an extra 18 to finish must have been absolutely enormous. 

A couple of days before the race I booked a hire car from Houston airport and a hotel just off of the side of the I-45 freeway, packed a lot of mars bars and flew to Texas. It felt strange going off to take on a big race knowing that I wouldn't be meeting up with the rest of the Endurance Heroes. RR100 is widely renowned as one of the easier 100's as it takes in only 5500 feet of climb and is largely on nice soft woodland trail around Huntsville State Park. I've got to say that the scenery was stunning but I doubt i'll ever run a race with 5 x 20 mile loops again. This time it made sense, I had no crew, no pacers and had to drive straight back to the airport after the race so needed to be back at the car immediately at the end, not 100 miles away from it. 

I got to Texas on the Thursday night had a Mcdonalds which was just great. The nuggets were good & the burger was dripping grease much more so than in the UK. The next morning I went to Wal Mart, bought some food and drove to the park to give in my drop bag which was going to be taken out to the aid station at the 6.4 mile and 12.4 mile point. This was a waste of time as I actually never got anything out of it and had to leave so soon after the end of the race that I didn't have time to get it back! I tried not to change my body clock for this race as it was a 6am start on the Saturday so I went to bed at 7pm and got up at 3am, ate a lasagne and then spaghetti with Meat Balls from the microwave, got in the car and drove down to the start line. I put my bag behind a tree near the finish line tent and lined up with everyone else. Before the start I looked at the 10 people around me and thought to myself 'at least 3 of us aren't gonna finish this' and told myself there was no way I would come all this way and DNF.... 

The first hour we jogged around in the woods following each others headlamps. The light came through around 7 30 and most of the trail was good. The 6 mile out and back section at the top of the course was long, undulating and littered with thick roots and was going to be difficult to negotiate in the dark of the night but it was good in the daylight. I managed to cover the first 20 miles in 3:34 which was right on for the schedule I had written across the front of my pack. The next 20 were mentally the hardest. I was enjoying running but had that slightly sickening sensation that 80 miles to the finish line was a long way. There were around 250 x 100 milers and 200 x 50 milers so with the loop format you saw people all the way around. Loop 3 luckily went like a dream. Haruki Makayami writes in his book 'What I talk about when I talk about running' which describes ruising through some miles, how I felt for this middle 20: 'As I run I tell myself to think of a river. But essentially I am not thinking of a thing. All I do is keep on running in my cozy, homemade void, my own nostalgic silence. And this is a pretty wonderful thing. No matter what anybody else says.' I came back to the start finish in 11:36 & that is where it all started going wrong.

I went for a sit down on the loo near my bag and for want a nicer way of describing this, ended up wiping half of the skin of my rear end off in the process. When i came out every step felt like someone had been rubbing at it with sandpaper for an hour. I tried to address the issue with vaseline but it was barely covering the problem. The next three miles it got dark and i started tripping over the roots. There seemed a lot in the day time but now they were everywhere. I went down quite hard twice and with the pain of my rear end, the slowly depleting energy reserves and lack of daylight I got a bit low. In the end I got to the turn around aid station and sat in a chair for 1 minute. Frank had spoken at length to me before hand about how he had not sat down, not stopped, not changed clothes in the entire of his journey through the 2008 Leadville Trail 100, and I liked that. Very impressive. It seemed that i needed 60 seconds of 'personal time' here though just to remind myself that this was all a good experience & relatively speaking I was still fine. I stood up again and pressed on up the hill with short but quick steps and two guys coming the other way doing the last stretch of the 50 stopped and give me a round of applause with the comment of 'nice peppy step brother very inspirational.' This made me burst out laughing & helped me to start to refocus. I got back round to 80 miles in 16 something and with my rear end still on fire reapplied a large amount of vaseline. It was at this point that the winner Andy Jones Wilkins carried himself over the line, just a massive performance, but I had for the first time EVER succesfully paced myself to within my target time of sub 24 hours and felt reasonably comfortable on the last loop. I ran out of the aid station and pushed through it as best i could hitting mars bars every 30 minutes, stumbling a lot, falling a bit but always moving forward. In the end I got round the last lap in a horrible time but crossed the 100 mile mark in 22:54. I was delighted but knew that I had to focus on the other endurance element of the trip, getting home. 

I drove to the hotel got my stuff and drove straight to the airport. I was in such a rush a didn't have time to properly tend to the chaffed areas which therefore remained fairly exposed. I must have heard 'good job' 1000 times on the run but I was now making a decidedly POOR job of conducting myself in an honourable fashion. My legs were locking up so I was shuffling around and wincing. People were staring and i felt paranoid that they were trying to move away from me. I found a diner and waded into a cheese and bacon burger with fries and onion rings. Then I made my way to the Seafood restaurant next to our departure gate and had some pasta. I was so hungry it was unreal. I basically ate 20 mars bars on the run, a couple of small cups of pasta at the aid stations but that was it. I had to sit cramped up next to the window for 10 hours, got off the other end and literally couldn't walk. When I got home Monday lunchtime I found a gas man in the road outside and all of the pavement around the front door dug up. I knew what he was going to say before I even asked and I was pretty annoyed about it. No gas. No Heating. No Cooker. No Hot Water. I bought 3 packs of sandwiches from the shop over the road got in a sleeping bag, got under the duvet, ate all the sandwiches and went to sleep until it was time for work the next morning. Still I am now the proud owner of a sub 24 buckle for a 100 mile race. I am happy about that. 

Pain is Temporary, Glory Lasts Forever!

I decided to rest the three weeks left in December after the Last Desert, drank a lot, got ill and started again at the beginning of January. I started winding it back up and ran the Thames Path 50 to London on the 17th Jan. Its a good training event for anything longer as its flat. This year I wanted to run slowly as there were only 3 weeks until the 100. The start of the race is in a disused field next to a car park in Reading. This year I got to the start 5 minutes before the 'gun' in freezing torrential rain and found all the runners huddled in a flock under a red bull hoarding which had seen better days. Someone came over and asked if I had a light and a space blanket so I said yes and he told me to go over to join the others. 50% of competitors hadn't bothered to show, exactly the same as last year when the Thames burst its banks and I had to actually swim a 20 yard section with my bag over my head because the water was so deep, so something like 150 of us went off together.

I honestly tried to pace myself as until now I hadn't done much training at all but I couldn't do it. One look at the guy at the front flying up the path in sub 7 minute miles set me off. Subsequently I finished the first 30 miles in a little over 4 hours. Go Hard or Go Home was clearly the choice and I was determined to run every step so i just grit my teeth, tried not to think about the recovery time before the 100 and stuck it. I finished in 7:49 stood at the finish line and turned around, thinking to myself could you now run back? The answer was NO WAY and it then dawned on me that actually I was going to have to FORCE myself to pace Rocky Raccoon otherwise I was going to really screw it up....

8 months out is pretty early to be starting this but i'm going to try and make notes on here as we go so that when it comes to ever getting around to writing the book I can just pull out the ones that I can bear re-reading from the blogs and string them together. Makes for an easier ride than sitting at a desk trying to remember. I finally put the first chapter on the 21e MdS onto paper in the last few weeks which felt DAMN good! 

I feel I should probably put a little bit down about the last desert first as to be perfectly frank I was pretty worn out from the drinking on the boat and the 5 days of travelling to get home and didn't bother tidying the blog up with a rousing finishing speech of rough seas, pristine white mountains and intense camaraderie. Antarctica gave us all three in abundance. 

The third chapter in the tale of the 4 deserts finished at the perfect time for me. When the 5th and final stage of the Last Desert got cancelled it was actually a relief. When Mary told us that there was just no way we could risk a landing in the horrendous conditions of the Drake Passage I don't mind admitting that Paul & I exhaled heavily, slapped each other on the back and sat at the bar for 3 days. Most were more than happy to pack away the gear, accept that mother nature (and the good grace of god) had at least granted the opportunity to race 4 stages in the white wilderness. A medal is a medal after all and not a soul on board would have doubt that each one of us fully deserved to wear them with pride. I think the thought in the back of both our minds come the end of stage 4 were 'oh no, dean and evgeniy are getting stronger' and whilst neither of us would shy away from a hard race I think 4 deserts in one year for him and 12 months of solid racing for me including 3 big international trips had taken its toll. So we got back to dry land and it took around 30 minutes to come up with the next idea, Rocky Raccoon 100 in Texas on the 7th Feb. I signed up the day I got & back booked some flights. Frank then e mailed us stating that whether we were in or not he would be going into the lottery for the UTMB in August a 100 miler through France, Switzerland and Italy, so stop messing about and get involved after all 46 hour cut off is easily do-able. Bocket and I duly signed up after all how can you turn down a race which has been classed alongside and has the same elevation gains and losses (30,000 feet) as Hardrock. We all got in. Looking forward to a great year. 

Don't the best of them bleed it out, while the rest of them peter out (D. Grohl)