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Sunday, July 31, 2011

The Longest Day

Sitting at home now, the day after probably the toughest event of my life.

We met at the Yacht Club in Hout Bay on Friday night, just before eight o'clock.
The evening was cool-ish, but I think we had all dressed quite warmly and after the send off, the four of us probably got about 3 kilometers before we had to stop and take some of the layers of clothing off.
The first two legs went by without too much incident, it steadily became colder, but by the time we got off Table Mountain, it was about 2:00 and it dawned on me that Leg 3 (or leg one to the single way racers) would be tough, and it was - the slog up to Suther Peak just went on and on and you can feel the strain it takes in your legs. I think everyone was in pretty good spirits as we headed back to the harbour and the entourage that we knew was waiting for us.
We waited to be scanned, and reluctantly began the trip home (by leaving home, ironically).
I knew half way up to the Radar station that there could be a very, very likely scenario of me not finishing the race as it fully dawned on me what this undertaking REALLY entailed.

There's a little bit of humour in that when we reached Suikerbossie, most people asked if we were alright (kind of redundant consider what we were attempting to do, and what we had just done) because we looked tired and pale....

The sight of the climb up Llundadno corner is enough to make anyone pale on a good day to be honest and we took the climb really slowly. By this time we had split into Janette and Eric up front and Rob and I trailing slightly. I had gone through a nauseous patch just before the Radar station and was trying to conserve energy - oh and yes, I was f****** :)

The trip across went by ok-ish, but the new loop seems to take forever and if it weren't for a strategic Bar One consumption, it might have ended quite badly. Back at Constantia Nek, we were greeted by Chris with the food, and luckily Sonia who offered soup and egg mayo sarmies.

We heard that JT and Eric were about an hour ahead of us at this stage and so happy to hear it, Eric and JT are going to kick ass at Puffer and Tuffer respectively.

By this stage, my knees had taken strain from the descent to the Nek and all the hopping over rocks going up Vlakkenburg seemed to be accompanied by an "ow" or "oomph" sound. Vlakkenburg is never an easy climb at the best of times but was soooo relieved to get to the tar road at the top and take the path off to begin the descent to Manganese Mine.
To be honest, I am really happy with the way the run went to Manganese, it was pretty good for two guys closing in on 80km.

Of course, I had always reckoned that the trip down to canon was the final indignation of a really tough race route, but changed my mind in that once you've crossed the beach, the final indignation is actually the slog across the river before heading home to the finish line in a princely 20:43:59.

No finish line has ever seemed sweeter!!!!

As per Coach Ian's instructions, going to take a bit of a rest week this week and see how it feels this weekend.

The race would not have been possible without firstly the brilliant support of Chris and Mike, (those night sections could not have been that great) Eric (for the constant support along the route and those awesome trophies and for masterminding the snoozefest on Suther Peak) Janette for not only the support on the day, but all the support in the in between times as well) and Rob for making it another awesome run and getting me through it.