OK if you had asked how many miles i would be happy with in the Glenmore 24h race i probably would have said 75 miles, if you had asked my after about 5 laps i would have said 150 miles (i felt that good) if you then asked me after 6 laps i probably would have said 30 miles such was the dip of energy, but after some advice from Doc Murry and some food i picked up a little and plodded on, 6hrs in and the midges came out (I had vowed never to race in Scotland because of these pesky beasts) i very much enjoyed the night time hours sneaking around in what was called by some stealth mode (lights off) i never felt tired and did not stop except for some food, by the time the sun came up i was still going strong, but when the sun came up the midges came out to play (did i mention how much i hate the midges), now for some strange reason i had got it in my head that i would stop at 92miles, when i said this to Mimi she looked at me very oddly i now realise why, i felt great, i had plenty of time and why would you stop 8 miles short of the holy grail of 24hrs running 100 miles, anyway i kept at it and finally after about 23.5hrs i reached 100 miles, Martin who had been crewing me told me to do another lap, al had also done 100 miles and decided to do the extra lap i stuck firm on my 100 miles, his extra lap got him the 3rd place, note to self listen to Mr Likey....i ended up with 4th place.
It really was a great event, Mike and Bill did and excellent job, it was great to catch up with the likes of Rab, Sharky, Mimi, Mike, David and Martin and Sue were superb as my unofficial support crew...
Injury update, my back hurt for the first few hours and then just stopped hurting, apart from that i was fine, my left ankle swelled up after the race and was sore for a day but then was fine, i have run since and all is still good.
So like Brecon last year i went from fine to feeling pretty rough in an alarmingly short period of time, i caught it this time but could have ended the same way as Brecon, i think the trick is to eat and i just don't eat enough, Coventry university were doing various monitoring on athletes and i apparently used some 15000 calories during the 24hrs!!
On reflection i could have run a lot more i stuck with the walking the first 2 miles or so and then running the last 2 miles, my strength was that when others were resting i just kept going, i didn't sit down during the 24hrs, and got stronger the long the race went on and my reward was 100 miles!!!
