The only time you should look back, is to see how far you have come.
Monday – Rest Day
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Tuesday – Slow Taper
Distance – 5 km
Shoes – Salomon X Series
Nutrition – Nothing
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Wednesday – Nothing
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Thursday – Tokyo!!!
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Friday – check in at UTMB!
Rob Krar!
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Saturday – Race Day
Gear
Jacket – Berghaus Vaporlite
Mid Layer – Berghaus Hypotherm
Shirt – Raidlight
Tights – ladies
Trousers – Montaine Minimus
Socks – Inov8 Ultra Mid
Shoes – New Balance 1210 Leadville
Bag – Salomon SLAB 12
Nutrition – Tailwind
Gloves – Montaine Via
Hat – Berghaus
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Route
What happened?
Start – A5
Got to the start around an hour before. Dr be from hotel with Nic, Kerensa, Dave, Etienne, Nia, Michceala, and Nik. Slept a little on the drive and focused on the task at hand. Felt ready. Felt comfortable. Felt happy.
Bumped into Vlad at the start, wished him well and got ready. Tense waiting. Had a laugh with Etienne. Wished him well and off we went.
First 2 km was a comfortable slow up hill on a road section. Realised was going too hard and slowed down. Had a slight niggle on the top of my left thigh but that slowly disappeared as the run went on. Power hiked all the hills and ran the flats. Wanted to conserve as much energy as possible for later in the day. There was a long way to go and no need to be stupid in the first 10 km. Came off the trail onto a short road section. Was surprised at how wet everywhere was so slowed on the downhills. Ran through some lavender fields into A5 Mount Fuji Museum.
Into the checkpoint and hadn’t used much water or Tailwind. Queued for the toilet and left quickly. I was five minutes behind my estimated time. Based on the weather, this was pretty good going.
A5 – A6
Came out of the check point and started to head back up though the lavender fields. Took this easy as I knew there were some tricky climbs ahead. A short road section before going back on some runnable trail. Very comfortable pace and was enjoying it. A short flat section before starting to head up. Reached the first short climb realising this was going to be a long hard day. Inches deep in mud making the climbs tricky and the descends treacherous. Started the first short descend, when a guy lost his footing behind me and took me out. Not his fault. Landed on the left arm quite heavily. No significant pain but got up and continued. The next ascend again was tricky. The 1210s were useless and I’m sure any shoe I would have used would have been the same. Started the second descend and slipped this time landing on something hard. Agony. I was around 8km from the check point and only two out of the last. I continued over these steep climbs and descends. Becoming trickier as I couldn’t use one arm to balance. Took some painkillers and continued on.
Got to a final descend and slipped again landing heavily. I had around 64km to go and knowing the dreaded rope section in A8, I had to make a call. Go and not finish. Or make the call now and go and crew my friends.
I sat down with some marshals and thought about what to do. An hour later I pulled from the race. In tears. This was my goal race. This was the dream. This was everything.
To be honest I was and still am heartbroken. I planned this race meticulously. My training was the best it could have been. I couldn’t have done anymore. It just wasn’t my day. Mount Fuji just didn’t want me to run round her today. I’ll come back next year and see if she does then.
Photos from the walk back to the emergency route.
Distance: 16.7
Pace 9.09/km
Place DNF
Sunday
Went to the Avid Barbeque and met Gary Robbins who Race Directs the Squamish 50/50. A race I would love to do and have one similar in Hong Kong. A brilliant conversation.
Karaoke!
The Trail To 100 Miles 