Having completed lap one I went to grab some supplies from the tent and had a quick stop at the loo then back to the start for lap two. I hadn't mucked about and yet I found myself looking at my watch and seeing that I had lost four or five minutes. I knew I had to cut back on those stops, and so over the course of the 24 hours I did a number of back to back laps. Through the finish line arch, round the corner and through the start line arch. It perked me up to know I had saved myself that time. At 11 minutes a kilometre I could be 500 metres up the road in the time I was spending back at base.
Lap two was 1:13 on the official splits, lose 5 minutes for the stop it was more a 1:08. It is difficult to differentiate each lap, they all merge into one long summery walk. I was still running for good amounts of those first laps. The time off the course makes proper split comparisons difficult but they do show that the running was becoming less frequent.
Lap 1 - 56:28
Lap 2 - 01:13:44
Lap 3 - 01:17:14
Lap 4 - 01:26.08
That gradual slowing had to be halted and I managed to do so on lap 5 with a 01:13:56.
I have managed to piece this all together with the official split timings which were great, and almost instanteous in getting updated, along with my Garmin Forerunner 255 that i got for Christmas. It is a lovely looking thing and capable of triathlon if that is your bag. The thing that attracted me to it was the long battery life, 24 hours as advertised if used as a running watch. It can last a week as a conventional watch and step counter. I wasn't totally convinced it would last the entire event and prior to the race Roman and I were trying to turn off the phone alerts that appear on the watch in an effort to save battery. Alas, we failed and so that along with me wanting to have splits every km meant that at some stage we were going to need to have a recharge plan.
My Garmin and I made it through 7 laps, 35 miles and a little over 9 hours when I opted to have a break. I had really hoped I could grab some free laps by not sleeping at all but after working hard through the heat of the day I started to crave a stop. I had made it through till 11pm last year and did a lap with the headtorch before hitting the hay. This time it was 9pm and I had completed 7 laps in the daylight.
I had been so adament that I wouldn't sleep that I hadn't bothered to pack a sleeping bag, so I lay in my touch too small tent, fully clothed, socks and shoes remaining on with my head on my bag attempting to sleep. Why did you keep your shoes and socks on I hear you ask? I was really fortunate not to suffer with blisters the entire event and so I didn't want to upset the applecart by changing anything. My three pairs of spare trainers remained untouched, as did my post race flip flops.
I got some sleep I think, then spoke to the girls and Lauren after they had finished their show. Sending them off to bed, I crawled out of my tent with headtorch on ready for my first night lap. The garmin has me starting it at a little before 11pm and taking 1:27 for my five mile loop. My tent was calling me again and so I headed back after the one lap.
It all gets a little fuzzy at this point. 40 miles into a race, in the middle of the night, with the heat, my brain is far from it's best. I set my alarm for 3am and attempted a second block of sleep. My alarm went off, or what I thought was my alarm at 1:40, I think it must have been someone in a neighbouring tent. I was all ready to head out when I saw the time and decided to grab a little more shut eye. I eventually roused myself a little before 3am and was on the trails ready to move on through to the end.
The night laps were very much walked. Even at that pace I managed to give a tree root a good kick. But once the sun came up about 5am I was able to run parts of the course. My garmin has me doing 15 miles and 3 loops in 4 1/2 hours between 3 and 7:30 in the morning. Getting me up to 11 laps and equalling last years total. That was a really nice boost to reach breakfast time having matched last year. 4.5 hours to go, 1 lap to beat it, 2 laps to go over 100km and 3 laps looking just out of reach.
Come back for the final instalment to find out how many I did.
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