OK so I’m sitting here thinking how the hell am I going to make this interesting, this event was the first of its kind in Ireland so I signed up after being talked into it by a fellow RUNKIES as ultra-distance runners like to call themselves, the training involved long days split into 2 or 3 long runs or a marathon plus long evenings walk/ run and another early morning, was the way I decided to prepare my body.
This went OK until 3 weeks out and I had a bad marathon in Clontarf. Rain, wind, got soaked, then went out again that afternoon. Picked up a nasty chest cold 🤧, that never really cleared. Still headed up determined to do at least the marathon. It was for charity and I knew a lot pulled out. So simply put we started at 6 pm Friday around a 400mt track timing mat laid out changing direction every 2 hours, you could stop as often as you want but had to keep the chip on throughout, whoever covered the most distance wins.
We had drizzle, to begin with then it lashed heavily into the late evening. I changed clothes shoes twice and was already feeling sore on this concrete track, still, the time passed and in the marquee that was set up, we had music throughout. The local cafe, the main sponsor, provided lovely cakes bread etc. We were lucky we had the camper parked right beside the track the others had tents, so only a few joined in Friday evening as there were options 1, 6,12, 24 hours, it got very cold during the night and had a cough and high temperature didn’t help, so I took a few hours rest, got hot food, changed. Saturday morning was at least dry and more runners joined in. It was great to see old friends as I was making new ones. Saturday went by slowly I needed a few painkillers, got the terra gun out, the hip flexors were very sore at this stage I was doing more walking than I hoped for. Saturday night we had a yellow wind warning for around 9 pm so chatting amongst ourselves we decided this would be our long rest time, I knew when I nodded off in the portaloo.,😉 however this happened earlier than expected about 6 pm rain hail and high winds greeted us, and so I was called in, to warm up with hot soup & toasties, took a while to get warm I tried to sleep, only the 2 hours.
The eventual winners remained outside. Eventually, after half a sleeping tablet and 2 hot😔 toddies I slept until 7 am Sunday and so after a good breakfast I stepped back out onto the track and started again feeling all the better for the sleep, I was very stiff this was the hard part of this challenge mentally to get yourself going again. Of course, this long break was not in the plan so I knew my millage would be low, I jogged when I could get to 100miles at least.
