As I headed down Pen y Fan eager to get down and see my crew I started to stitch for the first time. This slowed me down and I was aware my stomach may be starting to feel it. However I listened to my body and slowed for ten minutes and eventually made it down, still well ahead of schedule.
As I reached the bottom of Pen y Fan I spotted my team and instantly felt my mood lift. As I said hi, my uncle and cousin jumped out, along with my mother and brother in law. An unbelievable emotion came over me, one hard to describe. My uncle and cousin live in Devon, no short trip and I hadn’t seen them for almost a year, and my mother in-law and brother in-law travelling up here at 7pm on a Saturday evening.
I couldn’t believe how lucky I was to have this many people caring about me, invested in my journey. I almost felt guilty — like why are they doing all this for me? But they reminded me it was their choice and they wanted to. I felt unbelievably grateful and it reset my mind. My first negative thoughts had slipped in over the last hour, but now I felt like I couldn’t fail. I was not going to let all of these people down. They had given up their time to support me. I was not going to quit no matter what.
The energy at checkpoints is hard, seeing your crew becomes a focus thats gets you to the checkpoint, but once there, you need to eat, pea, hydrate, change clothes and then leave them again. That’s hard. But…
I left with renewed energy, confidence and positivity. The night was creeping in but I was confident that I could reach the next checkpoint before dark fell. That I did, moving well up until the last 2km where the path disappeared and my GPS was leading me over tracks that didn’t exist. Exasperated and annoyed I swore to myself and decided to go off route and follow the arrow.
I met another runner feeling the same way; we worked together and in half an hour we were down. I arrived beat up from wading through brambles and rocks, my feet wet and my mood sullen. I slumped down, happy to see everyone but once more my confidence had taken a hit. I was 106km in. There was 60km to go. In my head that felt like nothing — which I knew was ridiculous.
I gave myself ten minutes, layered up as night had fallen. I ate a cookie and some porridge, turned on my head torch and prepared for the night shift. I was deep in Beacons, when it gets dark, It’s DARK. My uncle and cousin left here, it was such a boost seeing them, I thanked them greatly and once again I left my crew feeling like I had to do this.
The next section was uneventful, the most runnable for a while even in the dark and mostly straightforward. I caught up with two runners, and was clinging onto them for a while as I could see they knew what they were doing. Eventually we got chatting and they told me they had done this race twice before.
They were a great help and chatting helped distract me from the pain that had really started to elevate at this point. I was unable to eat while I was moving, only consuming water. My right knee and left ankle were swollen and running was becoming hard and slow work. As we neared the end of the section they told me the next part was the hardest of the entire race: up in the Black Mountains, two huge climbs that were technical and we would be crossing them in the dark.
I asked them if I could stick with them and they obliged. We rolled into the 8th checkpoint. I was anxious for what was to come, and silly questions like “what if I reach the top of the mountain and I can’t come down?” started to creep in. I shut that voice down instantly and told the two boys that we would link up in ten minutes when we were ready to go.
I sat down next to my crew’s car, ate as much as I could and reminded myself that I could do hard things. It was now 11.30pm, I layered up, fresh socks, checked my batteries and hoped to see my crew before sunrise. The next checkpoint was ‘no crew allowed’ so I knew I was on my own. I kissed my mam goodbye, met up with the boys and we headed off. The hardest section of the entire race. Get through this and you’re there, I told myself.
