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| The well earned finishers medal! |
Race Day! Well, I did actually try to stop referring to the Fling as a "race" and more "event" in the weeks leading up to it - I always think "race" means I should be in contention for a podium finish, when clearly that's not going to happen! However, as one of my 'motivational notes' in my drop bags said 'the only competition is with the voice in your head', so there is a bit of 'race' in there, even if only with myself!
The last few weeks leading up to the race hadn't really gone according to plan and had given me a few reasons to worry - I hurt my wrist (resulting in a visit to A&E), ripped my feet to shreds wearing new shoes on a 25 miler with Jo Rae, and then got a head cold....I was starting to think someone was conspiring against me, having been quite pleased to have done some pretty decent mileages for the year so far! But, as the cold abated, I was determined to make it to the start line, and not let all that effort go to waste!
Drop bag trauma finalised on the Friday afternoon, and it was off to Milngavie to register and get an early night (not that much sleep was expected!). Met up with the Wee Grumpies from Skye in the pub, so stayed for some extra dinner :-), and then Fiona and I went back to the hotel to meet up with Victoria who had arrived a bit later due to some family hospital trauma!
I decided to bail early and was tucked up in bed by 10pm, ready for my 4:30 alarm call, which came all too early! Leapt out of bed and kicked into action, with my porridge pots and coffee! Met up with Fiona, Vic, Darren and Dave to await the O'Gradys arriving, as they had kindly agreed to taxi all our bags to the start! We walked along to the station and arrived just in time for the race briefing.
I'd been a bit worried about the mass start, wondering how we were all going to fit on the trail, but needn't have had any fears - everyone set off based on their expected finish times, and there didn't seem to be any real congestion for the whole day. I'd done some groundwork looking at last year's results and some of my training times, and had a rough plan based on a 13 hrs 25 min finish. I wanted to start slow and steady, not getting carried away by this 'easier' section, and had a thought to try and stick with Fiona/Victoria (who shot off too fast for me) or Noanie (who I lost shortly after saying "Hello" in the station car park), but ultimately knew I had to do my own thing, as nothing is more stressful (for me) than worrying you're holding someone back, or feeling all skippy when they're having a bad section....
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| Motivational signs left on the gate by Alan Lindsay ! |
Drymen check point arrived slightly ahead of schedule (2 hrs 13 m), but I felt strong, and had eased off whenever I felt the pace was getting ahead of itself. A quick text to Clark & Bob, and straight through the town and up the detour hill (didn't like that as much as the real path, but needs must!)
Conic came around pretty quickly, aided by another encounter with Fiona/Victoria as they shot past again, with tunes playing, singing and chatting!
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| Heading to the Balmaha drop bags (by Helen Munro) |
The new path over Conic was dry and good progress was made, whilst munching on a 9Bar. I was also buoyed by a chat with a guy telling me he'd run the first 5 miles with someone whose longest training run had been 11 miles (WTF??!!), and got a wee (evil) chuckle when I found out he didn't know what to expect on the path after Inversnaid!
Daftie support was in force from the descent and into Balmaha, with David, Helen, John and Bob all on hand.
It was great to get some fresh supplies, some chat, and the first of my 'surprise' drop bag messages I'd asked Clark to put in each bag! I didn't hang about long and trotted off into the sunshine! I'm not sure I remember much of the next section, other than the hills in the part from Sallochy to Rowardennan (one of 2 small sections I'd not done in training!), and once again, it was good to see friends, a big crowd and supplies at the checkpoint (even if I did need Alan to help me get into the drop bag!)
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| Rowardennan - trying to untie the drop bag! (by Fiona Rennie) |
Noanie came into the check point just as I was about to head out, and it was great to see her looking fresh and bubbly as ever...and that didn't seem to fade (especially at Inversnaid where she shot through like Tigger on speed!). There still didn't seem to be too many drop bags left to be collected, but I think I was further up the field than expected, and was definitely still ahead of schedule at this point and feeling strong :-). I knew there was a lot of climbing out of Rowardennan and there wasn't really anyone around to chat to, so I plugged into my headphones to give me some tunes to sing along to.
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| Inversnaid (by David Ross) |
Passed quite a few walkers who all offered words of encouragement and Inversnaid came along in no time at all where David Ross was on hand with drop bag, camera and most importantly, big man hug! Even though I was expecting the next section to be the slowest, I was really looking forward to it with all the twisty, climby rocks and roots, so probably didn't eat enough in my eagerness to not lose time. I was also finding the heat getting to me a bit by now, so stuffed a handfully of jelly tots into my glove and trotted off again.
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| Leaving Beinglas..chomping on something! (by Helen Munro) |
I passed quite few folk on this section up to Beinglas - I guess that's the benefit of having practiced this path a few times, and still feeling pretty strong, even on the walking bits. Quite surprised how many people were walking down the slopes before Beinglas, but all these little overtakes seemed to give me a boost (and I don't mean any disrespect to those I passed!). I got into the checkpoint at 9 hours 7 mins.
Bob was doing his final support stint at Beinglas, and I got a big hug and words of encouragement, diet coke and snacks...and I remembered to collect my final message from Clark...and this one made me cry (in a good way), with encouragement and memories of Dario.
I took my diet coke with me for the trudge up the next wee hills and knew that, whilst the end was in sight, and there was no chance of not making it, it might take me 3+ hours to get there....and I'd not run the section from Criainlarich - Auchtertyre before (and having done it yesterday in the race, kinda wish I had...straight up / straight down!). I felt this was my slowest section, but I still moved faster than plan, power marching when the hills got the better of me! And there's quite a lot of uphill in those final 12 miles, including the killer climb from under the railway line, and the encounter with the killer cows and cowpat field!
I shed a couple more tears about 2 miles from the end (and picked up some pace when I realised I might be in for a sub-12 hour finish), and some in the finish straight, and some after the finish..... The piper was a welcome site as we entered the By The Way site, and then the chap (on my shoulder in the photo) appeared from nowhere and moaned about the uphill finish...and I thought f^ck, I'm going to get whipped in the last 100 yards......NO!!! And he didn't get me in the end! The cheers, the fantastic finish line with all the flags, and seeing Clark and Cori spurred me on and I got away from him (check determined look in second photo!!)
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| The finish straight |
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| Making sure I beat that bloke who caught me with 50 meters to go! |
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| Noanie and I (photo by David Ross) |
Big thanks to all the supporters, runners, training buddies, facebook groups, husband...without whom this wouldn't have been nearly as fun or achievable! And a big cheer to all the Fling organisation team and volunteers, who did a fantastic job, and hopefully had as good a day as I did! (oh, the prosecco is very nice too....thanks!)
