Caboolture Dusk to Dawn

This is just going to be a quick post. I'm feeling a little on the lathargic side right now, can't be bothered writing too much. Then again, how do you summarise a 12 hour race into a quick post!

What can I say, what an absolutely unbelievable night. I arrived up there just before 4.30pm to set up camp, and within half an hour the place was rockin'! There were so many CRs out there, running, lap scoring, supporting. Several times I wished we were just there for a party :-)

Taking on all the advice from fellow CRs who've done this sort of thing before, not just what to do but probably more importantly what not to do, it was hard to go wrong really. I had sooooo much food and sooooo many drinks, and back came home with soooo much food and sooooo many drinks. But I wasn't wanting for anything.

For the race my A goal was 100k, my B goal 90k. As I commented to someone I was running with, 100k is 'pie in the sky' and 90k is 'sausage roll in the sky' :-) I figured if I could get through 57k in the first six hours then 100k was possible. At six hours (midnight) I'd run exactly 57k. So now just a little more than a marathon to go. Still, you never know.

At 2am it was 74 1/2 km, and at 3am 83k. I knew then I might do it, even if I had to walk ... though it would be a fast walk! 4am was 91 1/2k. I think that's the first time I was confident. Half an hour later I realised I'd not just crack the 100k but I might be able to do it under 11hrs - it was good mentally to have a new goal. I upped the pace slightly and crossed for my 100k in 10hrs 58mins :-)

I ran the next couple of laps but then got a bit lazy and started walking. I probably could have run a few more but once I'd walked two or three I couldn't be bothered getting going again. To be honest this was the hardest hour, the time went so slow, I was tempted just to sit down. I even had a toilet break at 10 to 6 to kill time!

I must say there is no way in the world I could've done what I did without all the support. Biggest thanks must go to Clairie, dunno where she gets the energy from. She even made bit signs, one of them with a message I had received from the lovely 2P. She kept me going in those last few hours. I honestly could not have done it without her. Its hard to find the words to describe her other than to say this girl really is one in a million. And to Matty as well, with his hourly updates of placings, that really helped me stay motivated and certainly stopped my slacking off. Not just that but his enthusiasm and encouragement and help etc etc was priceless.

Then of course there's all the other CRs. I'll talk about that in my long, ok, longer post, because if I do it now I'm bound to forget somebody and they were all fantastic.

Thanks so very much to all for your good luck wishes - they worked :-)


Clairie's signs



Mmmm... donuts :-)