Story
Tuesday, 21st June - 11 am. No idea where I was this time on Saturday but I'd been running for 10 hours and things were going well!
Starting at 1 am in the dark at Milngavie railway station was very surreal, and even more so given that is was already 18 degrees! - surely this was going to be the hottest day of the year.....but the next two hours running in the dark were surprisingly easy and soon the headtorches were turned off.
One of the wierd things about the day was the time. Meeting walkers out for the day, with greetings of 'good morning' (it was 9am) felt odd when you'd been runnng for 8 horus and it felt like tea time!
But the day passed pretty much without incident and with Pamela and Dad's support we reached the final check point and 14 miles to go just 10 minutes outside 24 hour pace. But then the wheels fell off!!
The next 7 miles were mostly uphill, over very rough tracks and in the increasing gloom. Fortunately for me I now had Pamela 'running' with me and she somehow managed to get me to the next meeting point with dad and the car depsite my hallucinations and drunken stagger! As we sat being devoured by midges at midnight in the forest I wasn't sure I could do the next 7 miles, the last had been such hard work. But once we decided to go for it, and started eating and drinking (toffee crisps ar miraculous!) we set out straight into an electric storm! Sheet ligting was illuminating the whole forest floor and we climbed hills, plunged down to streams in torrrents of rain and paths increasingly looking like rivers!!(behind us, and unknown to us, the race was steadily being abandoned as conditions became increasingly dangerous with paths disappering in flash floods.....). But we made it!! And, with a final sprint over the last mile once we'd hit the road we arrived at Fort Willaim leisure centre in 25 hours and 53 minutes. It was, obviously, pretty tough, and it still feels slightly unreal that anyone could run for that long. But we did it! So thank you to eveyone who has sposnered me, and massive thanks to Pamela and Dad for getting me through it. Paul. PS Next run is the Great Norht Run in September, but I think I'll be taking a bit of gardening leave for a few weeks!
Starting at 1 am in the dark at Milngavie railway station was very surreal, and even more so given that is was already 18 degrees! - surely this was going to be the hottest day of the year.....but the next two hours running in the dark were surprisingly easy and soon the headtorches were turned off.
One of the wierd things about the day was the time. Meeting walkers out for the day, with greetings of 'good morning' (it was 9am) felt odd when you'd been runnng for 8 horus and it felt like tea time!
But the day passed pretty much without incident and with Pamela and Dad's support we reached the final check point and 14 miles to go just 10 minutes outside 24 hour pace. But then the wheels fell off!!
The next 7 miles were mostly uphill, over very rough tracks and in the increasing gloom. Fortunately for me I now had Pamela 'running' with me and she somehow managed to get me to the next meeting point with dad and the car depsite my hallucinations and drunken stagger! As we sat being devoured by midges at midnight in the forest I wasn't sure I could do the next 7 miles, the last had been such hard work. But once we decided to go for it, and started eating and drinking (toffee crisps ar miraculous!) we set out straight into an electric storm! Sheet ligting was illuminating the whole forest floor and we climbed hills, plunged down to streams in torrrents of rain and paths increasingly looking like rivers!!(behind us, and unknown to us, the race was steadily being abandoned as conditions became increasingly dangerous with paths disappering in flash floods.....). But we made it!! And, with a final sprint over the last mile once we'd hit the road we arrived at Fort Willaim leisure centre in 25 hours and 53 minutes. It was, obviously, pretty tough, and it still feels slightly unreal that anyone could run for that long. But we did it! So thank you to eveyone who has sposnered me, and massive thanks to Pamela and Dad for getting me through it. Paul. PS Next run is the Great Norht Run in September, but I think I'll be taking a bit of gardening leave for a few weeks!