Preface

After more than a week of reflection, reviews and recovery, it’s time to write something about this incredible event. The challenge was to run 320km, from the base of New Zealand’s highest mountain, Mount Cook, all the way down to Oamaru, on the east coast between Christchurch and Dunedin.

Before I start, I need to make an admission, I run for sport, and people would say I’m quite competitive 🙂. I went in to this event treating it as a race, with an ambition to finish in the top 10 if not higher. As it turned out, injuries meant it didn’t end up as I had hoped, but as the result became more irrelevant, my understanding of the event and the people doing it became so much stronger.

To be honest, I only entered because my partner of three years Ingrid had entered, and Ingrid only knew about it because her great friend Jaime Stevenson had entered. After meeting Ingrid (and Jaime) at the finish line of Marathon des Sables and the Lost Island Ultra in Fiji the past two years, I thought this time I might as well join in.

Photo – the finish line in Fiji 2018…

Those experiences gave me a good idea of what I was in for, and I knew I would need to train hard to be ‘ready’. I have had an average past couple of years, with a few ‘old man’ lower-leg niggles caused by speed-work, so I decided I would purely focus on big weeks of long, slow runs with lots of hills.

This resulted in 10 consecutive weeks of 100k or more leading up to Christmas, far more than I’d ever done before. I got through it without an issue, and completed the training program with a successful race in the Two Bays Trail Run (56k) in mid-January. In this race I finished 15 minutes behind my great mate and soon-to-be fellow A2O competitor Jason Rawlings. I knew we were both on the right track.

Introduction

As the date of departure to NZ got closer, Ingrid and I spent a lot of time packing, re-packing, sorting out food and just making sure we had everything. Facebook posts, talking about what we could and couldn’t bring in to NZ forced a few changes, but Ingrid the compulsive shopper ❤ had so much dehydrated food left over from her past two multi-stage ultras that there was enough for both of us, some for Jason, and even some non-importable chicken ones left over!

So we eventually got packed (borderline 16kg which was the limit allowed by the race rules), and we were on our way.

An overnight flight on the Wednesday night had the three of us (Ingrid, Jason and I) in Christchurch very early on Thursday morning. A two-hour wait for the Atomic bus, followed by a 4-hour trip south to Oamaru, saw us arrive around midday for registration. On the way we passed the Phar Lap Raceway at Timaru, a tribute marking the birthplace of the most famous racehorse of all.

On arrival at Oamaru, we found our way to the Opera House (yep, it has one 😜) where check-in and race package pickup was taking place. We immediately bumped into Jaime and also Jan Taylor, another friend and survivor from MdS two years ago. We also met Ange, who had very kindly arranged to have souvenir race shirts made up for us, with our names printed and our country’s flag on the sleeve.

We picked up our packs, signed our medical waivers, and proceeded to the pub to meet some fellow crazies, I mean participants.

Victorian Ultra Runners group photo …

We stayed just up the road at the Alpine Motel, where a room for the 5 of us had been kindly organised by Jan. For dinner that night, Jan had also organised a table at a local restaurant Riverstone Kitchen, which just happens to be attached to Riverstone Castle. This is a magnificent looking residence built by a local farming couple Neil and Dot Smith, just because Dot wanted to live in a ‘nice’ house. Unfortunately the castle wasn’t open when we were there for dinner, but we were able to walk around the massive fruit and vegetable garden (which serviced the restaurant), where we, sure enough, came across Dot on her knees pulling out weeds!

We were fortunate that Jan, who lives down the bottom of the South Island near Invercargill, had her car with her, so we were able, after our early dinner, to race back into town to see the penguin parade! The little buggers were somewhat sporadic returning to their nest-boxes that evening, but we stayed long enough to see more than half of the expected 50 or so come in.

The following day we were back to reality, with race organisers doing bag checks to make sure we had the minimum requirement of food (2,200 calories x 7 days = 15,400 calories), plus all of the mandatory gear for the race. First stop, the scales, where we were weighed in our running gear. 79.9kg – tick. The gear check then went something like this… sleeping bag rated at zero degrees or less? – check; rain and puffer jackets? – check; space blanket, signal mirror and whistle? – check. Wait! Where’s your whistle? Attached to my backpack. Where is it? Couldn’t find it!! Two head torches with spare batteries! Oh no!! No spare batteries! Off to the nearby sporting goods shop to buy a whistle and spare batteries. Back to the Opera House, passed the gear check this time! Jaime has no spare batteries. Here you go, I say, I have plenty! 😂

We all had loads of food, but struggled to fit under the maximum bag weight of 16kg. With a few things put in and taken out at the last minute, my bag ended up weighing 15.99kg. Perfect!

In the afternoon we were called back to the Opera House for the Opening Ceremony and briefing.

That night, the race organisers put on dinner for us all, at a venue near the penguin parade. To get there we boarded the local steam train.

The dinner was great, loads of seafood, meat and salads. We met Ven-nice, who told us she was a volunteer. We learnt what that meant, at a checkpoint, in a hurricane, at the top of a hill called Bog Roy, late on Day 3!

Final Preparations – Day 0

Saturday – early departure by bus from our Oamaru base, all the way up to the start line, 323km away. After a couple of stops to enjoy the scenery, including a detour to see the Tasman Glacier, we arrived at the Mount Cook Village.

In our race packs there was a list of tent allocations, 6 or 7 people per tent. On arrival at the village, the first task was to find our tent for the first night of camping. Ingrid and I had been allocated to the ‘Aoraki’ tent. We soon met our tent-mates for the duration of the event. Fred from England, Ben, a local lad from Oamaru, Kirsty from the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, and Kiwis Amy and Mark. We settled in to our tents, then went for a walk up to the village centre to pass some time while we waited for our last pre-race dinner to be prepared.

It had been a beautiful, sunny day and we were all looking forward to getting under way the following morning in near-perfect conditions. Little did we know!!

The Race – Day 1

Sunday Day 1 Stage 1 (42k adjusted) – So… during the night a massive storm arrived. Gale-force winds alternated with teeming rain, constantly waking us up, wondering whether we would get blown away or drown first. Thankfully the tents stayed put, and we were able to get some sleep. At 5.00am, which was to become our regular wake-up time, we were woken by Race Director Michael telling us all to stay asleep for another couple of hours, the start was going to be delayed!

Thank God, I thought to myself. It was still bucketing but the consensus seemed to be that it would stop soon. We had been wondering how compassionate the organisers would be, and they were off to a good start 🙂

Once we were all up and ready, we gathered for the pre-race briefing. The first day was supposed to consist of a 6k run down to the airport, a helicopter ride across the kilometre-wide Tasman River, then a 50k stage to the first night’s camp.

On our walk to the village the previous afternoon, we had seen part of the first stage course down the middle of a steep, rocky riverbed. Michael’s announcement that the first, short stage to the airport would be abandoned was met by many sighs of relief. The river bed was now a river and was no longer runnable. Instead we would be trucked down to the airport and when the weather was clear enough we would still be able to helicopter across.

Photo – the riverbed that was supposed to be Stage 1, but by the following morning was awash, so stage abandoned. Note the pink marker flags where we would have had to run…

The race would now start from Checkpoint 1 (CP1) due to the weather. This meant the first day would be around 42km instead of the published 55km (6 + 49). This was good news.

Eventually my first ever helicopter ride 😱 got off the ground and across to the other side. I don’t think the chopper got more than 30 metres off the ground because of the low clouds, but it safely delivered me and my four fellow passengers to the start line, where the other runners from the first set of flights huddled waiting.

The decision had been made to start each group of four helicopter loads as we arrived, so that no one had to wait for ages for everyone to arrive. The staggered start worked well, although I barely had time to get my pack on and have a bit of a stretch before we were under way.

We’re off!!

So without having a clue how fast I should be going, I watched Jason disappear off into the distance in the company of another runner who I didn’t know. I was in third place as we trotted along a flat, gravel road. Soon I was fourth as a guy with the name Paul on his back edged past. I was cruising along at around 4:45/km pace, which I suspected might be a bit fast with 300km to go, but what the hell was Jason doing?!! 😜

After about 10k, we turned off the gravel road and headed into a paddock and up a steepish hill. I quickly realised that this race was not going to be a road-runner’s run. It was going to be tough. The overnight rain had turned what were already rough, cow-dung filled paddocks, into a swamp! It was tough going just finding a way though the slop, but no one was passing me so I figured I was going ok. Eventually a guy I had met at the gear check on Friday caught and passed me. Chris from Canada had done the famous Grand To Grand multi-stage ultra in the US recently (I now know he finished 12th in that event!) and was now lining up for this one on the other side of the world. I tried to stay with him for a while and caught up to him a couple of times as he struggled to open some of the farm gates we had to go through. At one stage he climbed up and around one of the deer-fence gates, muttering something about ‘these bloody gates!’ (Note – Chris was to unfortunately suffer a knee injury during the early stages and despite battling on, had to withdraw during Stage 3).

So anyway, eventually we got down out of the paddocks and back onto the gravel road alongside the lake where I could actually run again. The next 10 or so kms were easy running, and just when I thought this was too good to be true, bang! Those little pink marker flags suddenly turned down to the rocky lake-front beach, and the last 12km that day saw us regularly switching from the rocky beach up onto recently logged paddocks, where we had to step through fields of sticks and roots to stay on the course.

At one stage around the 36km mark the flags suddenly disappeared. I had been alone for ages and as I went backwards and forwards looking for the right path, I wondered what the hell was going on. Eventually Tim caught up to me, then Helmut and Curly Jacobs, the well-known serious ultra-running kiwi. I knew from last year’s results that Curly had finished in the top few, but this year A2O was just a training run for his upcoming main event, an attempt to break the record for running the full distance from the south of NZ all the way to the north. 2100km to be done in 18 days. Incredible.

So as the four of us searched for the path, eventually Helmut spotted a flag in the distance and we were back on course. Tim ran away from me as we got to the finish but after thinking I had come in sixth, I later found out that Seth had also passed me while I was searching for a flag. I had lost around 15 minutes but knew that others had lost time as well so it wasn’t really a problem. We found out later that 25 flags had been “removed” by an unknown person, but no one had lost too much time so we put it behind us.

Michael was there at the finish line to say well done and shake my hand. He did this for everyone who came in, no matter how long they took. It was a huge effort and greatly appreciated.

I waited for Ingrid to arrive, which she did a short time later alongside Jaime. They also had an ok day and were both in the top dozen or so females to finish the stage.

We found our tent (Aoraki) somewhere in the scrub (locating the right tent was an exercise in itself at times!), and unpacked our bags.

The post-run ritual consisted of a protein shake, rest, then dinner. What become a ritual of hot water service provided by volunteer whose name I later learned was Lyndon (not Linton, he was a different vollie… so confusing 😜), was in its embryonic stages. Lyndon brilliantly manned the drum of hot water, skilfully measuring quantities to the exact millilitre, to rehydrate our poor, dry, packaged food to make it edible. It worked.

The night on the southern shores of Lake Pukaki was cold, and everyone was in bed early. I used to think 11pm was early to bed, 7pm became a very welcome habit as the days went by.

I hadn’t actually met many fellow runners at this stage. I had my ‘gang’, and most people seemed to be keeping to themselves. The first night I guess people were still settling in and trying to work out what the hell was going on. Despite all the experience in my small group of friends, I was one of those people.

The Race – Day 2

Monday Day 2 Stage 2 (50k) – I must have slept well. When that classic piece of Aussie rock culture, Run To Paradise by The Choirboys, started blaring from the speakers at 5.00am, I was ready to go. The standard porridge breakfast was consumed, the hydration bladder was filled of electrolytes, and the 50k mostly flattish stage was under way. The three leaders from day 1, Keith, Jason and Paul, shot off like a flurry from a machine gun. I settled into 4th place, where I stayed for the rest of the day. It was a very smooth run and I was happy to have a course that was runnable the whole way. That is until the 48k mark where we suddenly turned onto the lake front where we traversed a stretch of rocky beach similar to the day before, but then hit a rocky, watery section where we had to virtually step from rock to rock to avoid going knee deep in water. It was a slightly annoying end to a good day but I got to the finish safely. I found out later that my 4th place had moved me up to 5th overall.

Since the front three runners seemed to be set in concrete already, I decided to find out a bit more about them. Keith had won both stages, and I discovered he was a very humble but very fast 44yo from England. Keith was doing his first multi-stage, but as a competitive runner who has run sub-2:50 marathons recently, he harboured the same doubts we all did… “am I going too fast?” 😁

Jason had swapped 2nd and 3rd placings the first two days with Paul, who I found out was a 55yo from Wellington. He seemed keen to improve on his 6th placing from last year. I could tell that he saw himself as the underdog against the other two younger guys (Keith and Jason), and would be doing everything he could over the remaining days to reel them in.

The camp location that night had the tents all in a row right on front of the finish line. We could see everyone come in, and gave them all a cheer as they arrived. Well after it got dark, and therefore way past my bedtime, we heard that Jan was approaching the finish. She would be the last to arrive. After Jan crossed the line she went straight to the medical tent where we found out that she had been suffering from severe stomach issues for most of the two days so far. She was unfortunately forced to withdraw at this point, which I’m sure was very disappointing for her after suffering a similar fate, although later in the event, at Marathon des Sables two years ago. Nothing if not a trooper, is Jan.

Given that the next day was the ‘long’ day, we needed to get to sleep. Everything was good and I was looking forward to taking on the challenge of 89k, knowing there was a massive hill to get up, over and down, near the end of tomorrow’s stage. Little did I know…

The Race – Day 3

Tuesday Day 3 Stage 3 (89k) – On the long day, the 20 leaders in the race start the stage 2 hours later than the others. At 7.00am I sent Ingrid on her way, in two minds as to whether I wanted to see her out on course. Pace and timing was the great unknown, so I really didn’t have a clue whether I would catch up to her or not.

At 9.00am the leading 20 were under way. Again I set off behind the three leaders, trying not to go too fast in the early stages. The pace concerns were immediately alleviated in the worst possible way… pain on the outside of my left knee. I had felt nothing until I actually started running, but knew immediately that it could be a problem. After 4k along the road, hoping the knee would warm up, we got on to the A2O cycle trail, and had a 10k uphill run to get us going. I noticed there was no pain going up the hill, but as soon as we got a down, no matter how small the slope, the pain immediately hit. I struggled to the first checkpoint at 20k, along a path which included a deviation through a woolshed, just for fun. Unfortunately I wasn’t in the mood to appreciate it, although the vollies at the checkpoint did their best to cheer me up. I got going again but along the next few flat kilometres, my pace was terrible.

Gradually I was passed by runner after runner, all of them checking on my welfare. That’s one of the great things about these events, everyone realises that it’s really only luck that stops them from being in the same position. The concern was palpable, and much appreciated.

I staggered on, finding my way through paddocks full of gorse and thistles, farm gates, cow dung and even herds of cows. Curly caught up to me and I let him shoo the herd away so we could proceed safely. At 40k my tentmate Mark cruised past. I knew he was in fourth place in the Unsupported category behind Chris, Seth and Tim, and appeared to have found his groove. We wished each other well and he went on his way.

After the 40k checkpoint we climbed a steep, grassy hill up yet another cow paddock. At this stage I had slipped to 12th and knew there was another bunch of six or so gaining on me fast. Care factor was out the window at this stage as I struggled to get down the slippery long grass on the other side of the hill. A few more ups and downs later, at around 50k, I was caught by the group which included Kelly S, Kerryn, Aaron, Marshall and a couple of others. I had done 4k in 59 minutes. As Kelly (who I had met on the helicopter flight) drew alongside, I asked if she had any paracetamol. Thankfully she did, so I popped a couple and pressed on.

A short time later Ingrid appeared in the distance. Given my reduced speed, I was surprised and concerned that I had caught her already. She was also struggling, with a sore ankle tendon which had just started to hurt. She had basically resigned herself to walking the rest of the day if she had to. We tried to calculate our expected finishing times. I had been going took 6 hours and she for 8. We had 34k to go which included the big hill. We guessed 6 to 8 hours, not really knowing how big the hill was. I wanted to finish before dark, which would have been around 9.00pm, but I suspected that dream was out the window already.

I needed to keep going, on the off chance that the physio could do something miraculous with my knee that night and the following day which would be a rest day. I bade Ingrid farewell after walking with her for a while, and was on my way.

Soon I re-caught Kerryn’s group and ran-walked with them for a while. At the next checkpoint at around 62k Kerryn decided to stop for an extended break. I didn’t know what was wrong but she seemed philosophical and is always cheery and encouraging. I ran with her entourage briefly but they disappeared from sight quickly. I was struggling to get along a flat stretch at around 8 – 9 minute per km pace at this stage, and didn’t see anyone until I arrived at the next checkpoint, the one at the base of the last big hill, at 75k.

My tentmate Kirsty was there, along with Allan who I ended up pretty much together with for the remainder of the stage. Allan had done the event last year, and he told me he was in such bad shape at the end of this stage, the last 14k took him 4 or 5 hours. He was hoping for a significant improvement this time.

After downing another couple of paracetamol tablets at the checkpoint, we set off up the hill, just as dusk closed in. The track was a rough, rarely used vehicle track which zig-zagged its way up the mountain. Parts of it were so steep I couldn’t imagine anything other than maybe a quad-bike getting up there. There was no runnable part for around 5k, until we reached what we soon learned was the first of two ‘false peaks’. As it turned out, the downs were not runnable anyway, being so steep and slippery from loose gravel that we had to virtually pick our way down step by step.

It got dark very quickly, just as we reached the eventual top. It was blowing a hurricane and we just wanted to get down as soon as we could. Darkness made it difficult, but the luminous flags marking the course were excellent. There were places where if you looked left or right you couldn’t see anything due to the drop-off. You needed your wits about you!

I had got a little ahead of Allan, and arrived at the mountain-top checkpoint first. Given the gale-force wind that was blowing, I was surprised that the vollies were even there, let alone to be greeted by the ever-cheery face of Ven-nice and her co-vollie whose name I unfortunately didn’t catch. Absolutely massive kudos and credit to these two for spending God knows how many hours up there in the wind.

The descent was in parts even slower than the ascent. Eventually I arrived at the finish line after thirteen and a half hours out there. It was 10.30pm, and sure enough Michael was there to shake my hand and give me a hug as I crossed the line. Whatever thoughts I had earlier about the best way to murder him (assuming I got in first which I was thinking could be problematic) were quickly dispelled by the mood at camp. A lot of the early starters had finished, and I knew that just about all of my fellow late starters had also finished. Most of them were in bed, but a few other recent arrivals were sitting at the finish line eating, chatting and cheering the runners as they came in. Allan arrived a minute or two after me, and was happy to have smashed his previous year’s time for the stage.

I found my tent, and ate my rehydrated dinner while I waited for Ingrid to come in. I managed to score one of the few camp chairs at the finish line, and made myself relatively comfortable. I had no idea how long I would be there.

Ingrid arrived with a group of 5 or 6 at 1.00am. Kerryn was with her along with Bruce from Pakenham near Melbourne. They had completed the last section together, which took them over four hours from the 75k checkpoint. Allan and I had taken 3 hours, so it wasn’t hard to work out how much of a struggle it had been for that group of injured warriors.

I guessed that my 13.5 hours would have put me around 50th fastest for the stage, and who knows where in the overall standings. I found it later that I was actually 22nd fastest on the day and had dropped to 12th overall. My knee was sore (ITB), and all the walking I had done that day had also strained the tendon on the front of my ankle. I was falling apart, but thankfully my right leg was still intact!

Keith, Jason and Paul were still going strong in the overall lead and Male-Supported category, and Seth, Tim and Mark had Male-Unsupported between them after the unfortunate withdrawal of Chris from Canada who was not able to compete the day’s stage.

The female categories were also close, but with consistent results each day. Katy led the Female- Supported category from Kelly, and Emily led Sarah and Jaime in the Unsupported placings. But having done 190k in three days, it was fair to say there was still a loooong way to go!

The Race – Day 4

Wednesday Day 4 Rest Day – The following day was a rest day. Well it was for most of us. Upon waking, we learned that there were still a few out on course. They had been going all day yesterday, all night in the dark, and now, 24 hours after starting, they were still going. Ingrid and I waited at the finish line to cheer home our Aoraki tent-mates Amy and Ben, who competed the stage just before 11.00am. Highlight of the morning – as Amy crossed the line after 27 hours and 45 minutes, Michael approached her for the mandatory hug. She cheekily aimed her walking poles at him with a look on her face that said “don’t you come near me!”. Grins and hugs soon followed. It was a funny moment. A few minutes later Ben arrived. They had been out there nearly 28 hours. An incredible effort.

The remainder of the day involved three things, eating, resting and sitting in the river. The weather was sunny with some clouds passing from time to time. When the sun was out it was warm and when it wasn’t it was almost cold. Puffer jackets were on and off like yoyos thought the day, and we had to time our river visits carefully so we didn’t freeze to death!

Late in the afternoon, Michael called us all in for an announcement. There were ice creams!! The event’s main sponsor Anchor Dairy had provided us with several boxes of ice creams as a special treat. Oh boy they went down well! Seconds and thirds were put away rapidly by most of us and kicked a bit of life into what had been a quiet, restful day in camp.

The Race – Day 5

Thursday Day 5 Stage 4 (45k) – After a rest day and a couple of physio sessions which involved needles and lots of tape, I was ready to get going again.

I optimistically started out drug-free, but within a couple of hundred metres I knew I would need to deaden the knee pain. I, was carrying paracetamol for the first time so popped a couple and got going.

I knew that this stage had a lot of elevation, around 1100m according to the race manual. The profile showed that it was mainly in the first and last sections with a long flat stretch in the middle. Early on, going up was fine, but as soon as we started any kind of down, the shooting pain came back. After about 3k I heard a scrape and thud behind me, and turned back to see Jaime on the ground. She had tripped on a rock just as we crested a steep hill and resumed running. I went back to pick her up and we got going again.

After the second descent, we were going down a gravel road and I could see that it crossed a dry, rocky creek bed and continued on out the other side. Oh good, I thought to myself, looks like some nice flat running comng up. But no, the course planners (evil plotters?) suddenly turned us off the road and into a paddock. I looked up ahead and for as far as I could see was a line of runners heading skyward. It was the steepest, rockiest, grassiest, thistliest, gorsiest piece of land I had ever seen. Even mountain goats would struggle to stay upright, I thought. Eventually I hauled my way to the top, and started the descent. No pain! How could this be?! I didn’t ask too many questions, just ran, freely, for the first time since day 2. It felt great.

After 5k of gradual downs, past the 18k checkpoint, there was a 10k stretch of bitumen. I needed to make the most of this small piece of my favourite (yeah, sorry) terrain. I passed a few runners and arrived at the 28k checkpoint feeling good. I looked at the check list and saw that I was the 12th to arrive. Not bad, I thought to myself, but I wonder how long it will last?

Well I managed to stay in the same position until the end, briefly swapping places with Emily, Curly and Douglas from Brazil along the way. The last big hill was ok, but again the descent was excruciating.

I finished just in time to join Katy and Mark for an unexpected jetboat ride to the campsite. It was great, and the camp was abuzz as more and more runners arrived back.

I have to say I was quite surprised with my run that day. My knee still hurt a lot on the downhills, but I was optimistic that I would be able to get through the last two mainly flat stages to compete the race.

Photo – the medical tent with a few odd types lurking out the front…

The Race – Day 6

Friday Day 6 Stage 5 (55k) – How wrong I was. My ‘race’ was over 200m into the stage. I couldn’t run at all, and sadly neither could Ingrid. We walked the entire 55k together. And we’re still together!

It was hard. Kudos to everyone who walked for longer than 11 hours on any stage. I was absolutely knackered by the end.

Highlights – Wine and cheese tasting about 6k in (yep, 8.00am!), abseiling (weeeee!!), the first stage in 3 days that didn’t have a massive downhill finish, and the paracetamol incident*

*Have to tell this story 😂 Ingrid and I are struggling along at I think around the 40k mark. Just past the abseiling station where I slid down the rope and Ingrid took the alternate route. Anyway, Ingrid felt another sharp pain in her leg so I suggested she pop another couple of paracetamols. She has trouble swallowing pills at the best of times, and while I’m standing there laughing she’s half choking and suddenly something flew from her mouth. I look down and see our second-last painkiller on the grass. She makes no move so I naturally say ‘pick it up and have another go’! She was horrified and we both cracked up laughing. She got it down and on we went. After 11 hours, we got our hugs from Michael.

The Race – Day 7

Saturday Day 7 Stage 6 (29k) – The finish line beckoned from what, by this event’s standard, was ‘not that far away’. Only 29 kilometres! We were set to start in 3 separate groups… the ‘slowest’ 30 at 7am, the middle 40 at 8am and the leading 30 at 8.30am. Michael wanted us to all finish as close together as possible, and hopefully the race leaders would finish first. It was a very optimistic plan.

Following our 11 hour walk the day before, neither Ingrid nor I were in any fit state to run. Walking had made the lower leg issues worse, so it was going to be another long, painful day.

Because of this, Ingrid asked (the night before) if she could be moved to the early group. She also asked Michael if I could move too, but Michael was skeptical. I came out of the physio tent around the time this exchange was taking place, and actually felt great. I told Michael I’d better stay where I was, just in case.

The next morning I’m at the start line at 7.00am to see off Ingrid and the other early risers. Fully expecting Ingrid to walk, I was quite surprised to see her line up at the front of the pack. I was even more surprised to see her run from the start. Surprise turned to bemused horror an hour or so later when I overheard Michael exclaiming “there’s a bolter!”, meaning someone had gone out faster than expected and might get to finish line too early. I wryly quipped to him “I hope it’s not Ingrid 😂”, to which he replied “It had better not be Ingrid!”. Thankfully, I found out later, it wasn’t Ingrid!

At 8.30am, the leaders were off! As per the previous day, I ran comfortably for the first 200m. Then the gravel road turned downhill, and the knee pain was back 😫 Within a minute the whole field had passed me, and only the sweepers remained behind. They caught me soon after, and very kindly sympathised with my situation. I tried running again as the road flattened out, and found I was able to implement a kind of geriatric shuffle, alternating with walking. As always, I was conscious of pace, and thought if I could maintain 7.5km per hour (8:00/km pace), I might not be the last to finish. I did not want to be the last to finish!

Thankfully the course for the final day was mainly flat, so the shuffle eventually got me there. I think I passed around 4 earlier starters along the way, so at least I knew I wouldn’t be the last to arrive. Around 2k from the finish, Ingrid suddenly appeared, looking fresh and rested, although limping. She was worried as I was taking so long, so came out to find me. I don’t know how far she was going to go, looking for me 😂 ❤

Eventually I made it, after more than 4 and a half hours. The race leaders had done it in just over two hours. Keith had held on for the overall win, smashing the previous record. Unfortunately for Jason, Paul had had another blinder, winning his third stage in a row. In doing so, he had overtaken Jason for second place overall. Massive kudos to Keith for setting an incredibly hot pace early on, and hanging on, but also credit to both Paul and Jason for their efforts chasing him all week.

At the finish line, I got my final hug from Michael, and a bigger one from Ingrid. She had made some sort of miraculous recovery and had run most of ths way. She hasn’t mentioned it yet, but she beat me by just over an hour that day 😜

Onto the scales, which showed that I had lost 4.6kg during the week. Seems I might have been burning more than 2,200 calories per day.

Epilogue

It was done. Never have I run so slowly, for so long, in so much pain. But I was never not going to finish it, especially after Ingrid said she would crawl to the finish line if she had to. I’m glad I persisted.

It didn’t end how I initially had hoped, but I knew days out that this was my fate. I don’t know what it means for my future ultra-running ambitions… was it character building? Who knows. I’m too pragmatic to think about. I will mend and move on to the next challenge.

Congratulations to everyone who started, commiserations to those who were unable to finish. Extra congrats to the podium achievers, you all did something that I could not do, finish the race on your own terms.

But having said all that, I can also honestly say it was a blast, I thank Ingrid for luring me in, I thank all of the competitors for being lovely, courageous, generous and encouraging people, and I thank the race organiser Michael and his team, and the team of volunteers for being completely awesome, going above and beyond every step of the way.

I might just be back.

Statistics

315km over 6 stages.

Total time 45:10

Average pace 7.0 kmh / 8:35 per km 😱

110 starters, 98 finishers

Range of finishers’ times – 30:44 to 79:30

My fastest km – Day 1 km 3: 4:41

My slowest moving km Day 3 km 46 (steep downhill on slippery long grass winding a path between gorse bushes): 18:07

32nd overall, 15th Supported male

Daily placings – 7th, 4th, 22nd, 12th, 75th, 72nd 😂