The Race (part 2)

And the rain came down.... What started as a light drizzle turned into a downpour that was the equivalent to an hour of water pouring down Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe/Zambia.

This amount of rain was not supposed to be falling in the desert and we were in for a very wet run the next day. Now anyone who has run a marathon can justify that it is hard enough in decent weather. We started day 1, 42.2km ahead of us, with the rain absolutely chucking down and very muddy terrain to contend with. A race that was hard enough to think about suddenly become a helluva lot more interesting and tougher. I for one was so nervous I got my preparation completely messed up. I forgot to loob and plaster up (essential in any weather, more so in rain), packed a whole day of food (an additional 1.2kg, so effectively ran day 1 with approx 8kg!) and more importantly, forgot to take any pain medication for my stress fracture. EISH! What was I thinking? (Range of expletives here.....). We lined up, a quick pre-stage briefing on the route, and we were off to an applause from Lodge staff and family that had come out to see their family member run.

Hard to imagine that the above pics were taken at 7am.

And off we went, at 5min20/km pace- what the hell? I was running with a Capetonian, James Frazer, whom I had met the day previously on the bus and I suppose we both just got carried away by the adrenalin rush. We chatted for a while and I simply had this nagging sense of overexerting myself too early on in the stage/race. I said 'Cheers' to Jim and pulled off the track to take my rain-jacket off.

The route was pretty flat for about 15km, however, the rutted jeep tracks played havoc with my stress fracture. Every time I landed my right foot on top of one of the ruts it pushed the stress fracture open ever so slightly and I was in some pain until we got to the flatter sections. Eating and drinking were going to plan and I felt great. We crossed a small pass between two hills, down the other side through some flatter land, met the first Check Point (CP) at 17km and proceeded to follow the route around the base of the mountain range to the next CP at about 30km. We ran through a dried river bed, which at this stage was becoming more of a mud bath but it was superb fun none the less. Clocking in a CP2 at approx 30km was very much welcomed and I proceeded to walk with the Poms, Mike and Glen, for about 4km's as we had all made good time and wanted to pace ourselves for the next four days. At the end of our fast paced walk we proceeded to hit a decent that you simply had to crawl down, definitely no running here.....

The dirt road down the bottom is where we were headed and it runs all the way for 7-8km to the stage finish. I pulled out a 7 minute lead over the Poms coming down the pass. This road was simply mind-numbing and mentally it broke me. I finished the first stage in 5hr15min, a couple of minutes behind the Poms. I was glad I had got through the first day and off we went to the race camp, sore, soaking wet and tired. Day one done, four to go. Happy days.