A very friendly field and some new faces to the ultra scene. The run for me was about some training miles across my favourite hills in the South of England. Also, the best part of those hills. The work for the first 4 miles was fairly brutal and I twinged my high hamstring in the mist coming up to the Dyke....It was so beautiful though, running through the ether.
So after I decided to walk and then pull out of the first CP, I thought that that wasit. I felt a little better and decided to head to CP 2, by which I had resigned myself to limping to the end, whatever happened. I got into a good clip and hooked up with a fella called Neil. He went off and it was all I could do to stay running as my hamstring was going to blow. Add the worst ever gels I have ever tasted and a puke later I was really mad. So I carried on. To the next CP and the halfway turnaround up on Firle Beacon, an unforgiving 800ft climb, only to come back down again. I felt better and then began a slow but steady clip. With my hamstring earlier causing me grief, I could only see 3 other runners behind me at 4 miles. I slowly but surely overtook some runners, many of which appeared to be carrying rucksacks and kitted out really well. Coming back down off Clayton I had a wobble. I had regained a lot of ground and overtaken what felt like most of the field....I had! I met up again with Neil who donated a shot blok which was just enough to see me up the final climb. 19th place, 6 hrs 22 mins and 82 mins behind the winner. Only. A nice medal, t shirt and a chat with the RD and his wife over a pint of their recovery hot chocolate and that was #54 DONE!
