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| Sunset on the beach in Kirk Michael |
Another trip to the wonderful Isle of Man! Boy do I love it there! The people are friendly, helpful and wonderful. The island is beautiful, and the population understands endurance walking.
But of course all good things must have drama! Which started off with us arriving and our bags not. We always carry our competition gear with us, so we had our shoes and a set of racing kit, but for a race as long as 100 miles there's a LOT more equipment needed. We had packed a lot of food with us that we knew we'd want that we didn't know if we'd be able to replicate. Our wonderful and lovely hosts, James and Sarah jumped to the occasion and Sarah was just about to open her wardrobe to me when they came. Ended up I still raided her closet, but I'll get to that in a bit.
We arrived and went for a nice walk on the beach, ate some fish and chips, bought the rest of the food stuff we'd need, and went to the pre-race party and met the Mayor of Douglass.
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| Selfie with the May of Douglass |
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| A warm welcome |
The race started at noon on Saturday. We arrived and got the tent set up, which would become a lifesaver later in the night.
Started off great, nice and relaxed and easy. I went through 50K a touch over 6 hours, which is so funny when I think that I'll be working towards racing a 50K over 90 minutes faster than that. Had to take a few potty breaks, but that's expected and I had that scheduled in. I would go between race walking with my arms up and then putting them down to move things around. Being on a track I found my arms/back/neck got way tighter than on a road course, so I was working really hard on keeping them loose.
Then, about midnight it started to rain and get super windy. It didn't get really cold, but the wind and rain got nuts. I had a rain coat on, but no rain pants on. My legs and core got wet and I started to get chilled. About that time James started having some issues and Sarah was helping him. In the meantime I stopped eating and drinking and my brain started to get fuzzy. Then I don't remember too much for a while, I was just walking in circles. I started to chatter and shiver like crazy. I think people were talking to me but I'm not entirely sure. At one point Sarah grabbed my arm and swung me off the track, shoved me in the tent and put warm drink in my hand. We then spent about 20 minutes getting soaking wet clothes off me, dry stuff one and in the sleeping bag to warm up. She got me some oatmeal to eat too. I don't know what I would've done without her!
I laid down for about 30 minutes or so and contemplated life. By this time a fair amount of time had gone by. I started doing the math of what kind of pace I would have to do to finish. Before the race I started to feel like maybe I was getting sick, I ignored the feeling because it doesn't do any good at that point. But now I was starting to feel even worse. I will admit, I was thinking about having to walk another 10 hours straight with no break in the wind and rain and cold and I just didn't want to.
When I went to Paris-Alsace the only way I was going to stop was if I timed out or got injured. I didn't have that feeling before this race. I had Spain in my mind and needing to get ready for 50K training.
I was 12 laps short of 100K, so I decided I would finish off the 100K and call it a night. I would bundle myself up and, thanks to having raided Sarah's closet before the race, had enough clothes to put on after. So I got back up and trudged through 12 more laps. The first 50K took me 6 hours, the second took around 8.5, but that was with an hour and a half of not being on the track. I would love to race a 100K sometime.
I then went to the clubhouse and laid on some chairs for about an hour and ended up getting chilled again. So went to the tent and put 6 layers of long sleeves on. That finally kept me warm and dry!
Then I went to the aid table to help Dave. He was still going like a machine! Since he's got the most incredible internal combustion engine he never put any different clothes on the entire race. The wind and rain did take a toll, it's be impossible not to with the wind on the back straight, but he stayed so strong the whole time. He ended up being only a few minutes off his time from Owego last year and only about 5 minutes off the American 100 mile track record. I know he would've gotten it if it hadn't been for the weather. His goal going into this race was to get the next available Centurion number. His US number is 88. The next one up was 1188. And he did it! I'm super proud of him :)
At first I was thinking I sure felt awfully sore for only doing 100K. Then I was like, wait a minute, I did 100K!
Monday we had a nice relaxing morning and a yummy breakfast courtesy of James' awesome cooking. We went to Peel and had some Isle of Man ice cream and walked around the castle.
Tuesday we headed home after a really bad night's sleep. It was a long day and a lot of flights, but we made it. Then when we were 5 miles from home the girl who was taking care of the animals called. Someone had knocked on the door and asked if she owned the cows, the baby had gotten out. Before we left we had a flood event and the electric fence was shorting somewhere. And it was supposed to rain a bunch just after we left, so to be safe we turned the fence off. The big cows are used to it, but the baby is a little adventurer and found a spot she could squeeze through. By the time we got home, about 5 minutes later, she had already gone back in the fence. But then Dave and I spent about an hour walking the fence line to untwist wires and making sure the fence was okay. Fun stuff to come home to.
Other than that everything was good! A good night sleep was just the thing. Now it's all about getting over being sick and getting ready to race as good as I can in Malaga, Spain for World Masters. I know I won't race as well as I could have had I not done this race, but that was a choice I made and I still stand behind it.
So now it's all about rest, recovery and getting over this darned cold. Then getting as sharp as I can for Malaga. Then a bit of a break and refocus.
Huge thanks to Sarah and James! I don't know what we would've done without them. They picked up up from the airport, opened their home to us, helped us get what we needed, did aid during the race, took care of us after, cooked amazing food, and took us back to the airport. We are so lucky to have met so many wonderful people in our world of walking.
Happy walking!
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| The American Centurions participating in the race. |
