TNF100 2012

Another 100km race ticked off. Some races go to plan other races you need to change your plan as the race develops.

All was going great in the training for this until 2 weeks ago when I develped some nerve pain in my left hammy. I was fine running but it did slow me down. I just stopped all the speed work.

In the week leading into this I just did 4x10km runs on the Tues, Wed, Thurs and Fri.

The morning of the race I got up at about 4am. Breakfast was toast, coffee, powerade and a V and at 6:55am the gun goes off and off we go!

The course pretty much goes like this
Hilly road, trails/steps, road, steps, climbing rocks, trails, steep steps, trails, first checkpoint, firetrails, ladders, technical downhill trails, fire trails with lots of climbing hills, steep descends, checkpoint 2, uphill firetrails, uphill steep steep (yes steep) technical trails, technical rocks, steep technical downhill, crossing rivers, up and down fire trails, checkpoint 3, fire trails, Nellies Glenn (a crazy climb of about 2km of steps straight up!) technical trails/steps road, checkpoint 4, road, grass, road, ovals, steps, steps, steps, steps, steps, dodging asian tourists down the giant stairway (over 800 steps) boardwalks, fire trails, steep downhill fire trails, uphill fire trails, downhill fire trails then 7km climb straight up on fire trails, checkpoint 5, uphill road (2km?) downhill road, technical single trails in the dark with a mixture of trails, steps, a few more steps, a couple of more steps, the some more, up one last more of a steep set of stairs, on the property of the Fairmont resort.....FINISH!

For me I was running a great race feeling strong and fit until going up Nellies Glen when I noticed my left knee getting quite sore. Once up the top it came good.
Down Kedumba hill still feeling strong then as soon as the 7km hill started the pain in the knee was too intence to keep running. I got to the last checkpoint and got Denise to spray some cold spray on it and that seemed to settle it. Last 11km and I'm feeling great again. Saw the sign 5km to go and starting to think I'll get a sub 12hr in. 4km to go and still cruising along, 3km to go and my watch says 11hrs35min, still on track then about 1min later I trip, go flying mid air land on my quad/ITB first on a wooden step then my shoulder then I slide down the set of stairs feeling my legs pounding each step. I yell out F**K!!!!! Get up took 1 step and nearly fell over again. Tried to run but after about 300m I was forced into a walk. I get to the 2km to go sign and my watch now says 11hrs47min. All I could do was let about 6 other runners pass me and walk into the finish.

I finished in 32nd place in 12hrs16min32sec (1000 runners started about 600 finished. About 400 people DNF'd!)

Denise was once again there to make sure I kept going, didn't sook, kick my butt into gear, buy me coke, have everything at my ready. Pretty much the best crew one could ask for!

Time to let the wounds heal