I've started so I'll finish

At the start of the race at midday on Saturday.

The perfect start to a 24 hr race is a fabulous and restful night's sleep the night before the event and solid 6 months of training, sensible diet and no alcohol. The weather must be cool with a slight tail wind and no rain and certainly no sun.

So let's look at it, we had 2 hrs sleep the night before the event, training did happen for 6 months but due to life getting in the way for both of us we didn't really meet our weekly mileage target. ( When I say " didn't really meet " I mean I was so off target that my iphone coaching app thought I was training for tiddlywinks not an endurance event). I gave up alcohol and lasted 2 weeks and my diet was shit. Oh and as for the weather for race day. it was 25 degrees of searing heat with no wind and this was at the start. Oh excellent.. we knew we were in for a challenge and a half.

None of this stopped us being giddy, the atmosphere in the crowds was amazing, we all knew there was a large job to be done and everyone was bouncing up and down and sharing jokes and banter. Some ran it like we did in a team of two ( Team Idiot as we have since been named), some did it in teams of five ( slightly more sensible, though still bonkers), some did it in teams of 8 ( normal sane people ).. mind you there were some people doing the whole 24 hours solo and if that wasn't bad enough, one solo guy was doing it in a red white and blue full body suit zipped over his head....!!!


So here we are at the start in and amongst the crowds. Apologies to my FaceBook friends on Blip who have already seen this but I really really like this as it sums up how happy me and Ziggy were even when facing death by running.

5 minutes later I was off on the 1st leg of the event.

( More write up on the blip from July 31st )

xx