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| At registration with Andy & Tylana. |
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| Enjoying Narrowneck .. about 25km |
First .. a huge thankyou to Regan. At CP5 he had pulled out of the event with too much pain in his ankles and knees (I hope I got that right!)... and he offered me his hiking poles for the last section. I was hesitant at first, not wanting to carry any more weight than necessary, but those poles made the last section so much easier on my knees .. they were a godsend and I can't thank Regan enough :) ... and this is someone we had met on FB, another first-timer after having only started running about a year ago! ... and someone who I am very proud to call a friend.
Lessons learned:
1. If you don't feel like eating, you probably need to. If I heard this once I heard it a hundred times before TNF from experienced ultra runners .. but, yes I made the fatal error of not eating enough and struggled a lot with energy throughout the race. Regular drinks did pay off though .. as demonstrated by regular pit-stops :)
2. Turn a torch battery around .. or take one out .. but don't lose it! When you need your torch out there, you really do need to rely on it lasting.
3. Sour-dough bread is way too dry ... especially when it has vegemite on it! Hot salty buttered potatoes work a treat, and someone else mentioned macaroni cheese .. going to give that one a try for next year :) Milo and Sustagen are excellent!
4. If you plan to use Compede on blisters .. shave any hairy toes first - the last thing you need is more pain!!!
5. Don't change the shoe plan at the last minute .. I paid the price for this in more blisters than I have ever had - not worth it!!
6. I spent hours putting music onto my iPhone, but in the end I was too cold and tired to bother getting it out and using it. I am sure that my favourite tunes I had so painstakingly compiled would have made a huge difference to my spirits when things got really tough mentally. Going to simplify it all to a small ipod for next year and use it.
... and finally .. NEVER say NEVER .... within 12 hours of finishing TNF this year I was saying that I want to go back again. TNF2012 cannot come around quick enough now!!
The journey continues ...........
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| With Ange and Des at the finish. |
Well, My Beautiful Partner, you've done it again with putting into words what we went through. I too am proud of the three of us (You, Bec and Me), and Osbert for the last lap into the finish. Lessons learnt, mistakes made, postmortems ongoing; we'll do it again, bigger and better and faster. Why? because we know we can!! Thanks to all our friends, new and old, family and 'feel like family'. You are worth your weight in gold bullion.
ReplyDeleteDean
Great photos (but to be expected given the subjects!).
ReplyDeleteThere's always so much to learn, and by writing it here you can refer back to it before next year's race - it's amazing what you forget and how your mind dresses up the experiences in your memory. These are the sort of things you want to avoid doing twice!
You'll smash hours off your time next year for sure.
Once again it was a real pleasure to meet up with you, and I know you'll just keep getting better. You have the toolkit now!
Keep on learning :)