After a nice meal and hotel stay, Phil and I were up at 5 am to get to the start for a 7.30 off. The weather forecast was pretty good but there was a lot of mist which would make visibility on the high points somewhat tricky. I felt incredibly nervous as i was running on my own and i was also unsure of how my knee would fare. I set off at the start with my usual Mantra " run as fast as you can for as long as you can!" So i set off with the front runners chatting away as normal. The navigating on the first high point was a little tricky as the mist was making it very tough to see the flags i ran with another competitor and we fund our route ok. Coming down off the hill we were joined by anther three males and as we ran into a yard a horse bolted and a little old man was knocked over! What can you do but stay and try and help so the 5 of us remained to help the man and get him up, wake his wife up so I hope he is ok.
Anyway we continued with our run and hit Checkpoint One. Up again over the moor on one of my favourite parts of this route.Then came the lovely river crossing, well what is the point trying to keep your feet dry?
This next section is beautiful as you meander round the reservoirs and follow a wonderful footpath by the side of the dam where i was completely alone and was really touched once again by the beauty of this place.
It is quite diffilcult to explain how i feel during ultra races and i go through strange thoughts! Initially i enjoy just running and taking time out, then i start to think about how i am doing based on my "plan" for the race, then of course there are the thoughts of "this is tough" and this hurts or that hurts etc.
Anyway all was going well so far and i was feeling good, i was ahead of schedule and this meant Phil had missed me at a checkpoint he was going to sa hello at. At about 14 miles in on Ultras i seem to have a low point where i feel rubbish! So i have a gel and try and talk some sense into myself and just get on with it and that seems to work well.
The marshalls at each checkpoint as always were lovely and cheerful and always encouraging. I had a lovely section at about 30 miles where Phil and Blizzard jogged with me for a way and gave me a botle of coke! Thanks Phil. The. Came the section that i think is brutal. Stage seven of the route is awful a huge climb out of Builth wells that goes on and on and then up onto the moors, i think i walked it all! I even tried to put my ipod on here to take my mind off things and was appaled to find that Phil''s computer had overwritten all of my music andreplaced it with "Aha" well you can't run to that! Gutted!
Anyway i was tired now and finding things tough but with only ten miles to go i just had to keep going! The last section of the route had some super changes making the route more off roadwhich made me very happy indeed! The last three miles as always were a killer. But we made it one hour and 5 mins faster than last year, 1st lady and 5th overall. Have forotten about the pain alreay!
