This weekend I did the Cradle Mountain Run. It is an encompassing 3 day weekend event. On Friday morning Damien and I flew to Launceston,Tasmania. We were picked up at the airport by one of the other runners. He took us into town and we went shopping for our last minute race supplies(food). At noon the race bus pick us as well as about 40 other runners up to go to Cradle mountain. After a bathroom and fudge stop, we got in at about 5pm. We quickly threw our bags in our room before the race briefing at the lodge where we had a bag check and dinner. A little bit of race packing and then early to bed.
The 80km race across the overland track started at 6am so we were up at 5 to get our bags to the bus and back to the start by 5:50. The first 10km is the hardest but then it doesn't really get easier. By the second hut we realised that we needed to speed up. We pushed the next 23km into the first check point. We needed to make it by noon and we made it by 11:30 since my Garmin was a bit off. After than we slowed down a bit. All of the adrenalin of getting to the check point started to wear off and I was starting to feel all the bumps and scrapes I had picked up in the morning. We slowed down considerable and by the time we made it to Kia ora we realised that we were not going to make the second cut-off. We started out taking our time but soon the sweepers started prodding us to go faster. We had missed the cut off but we still had a time schedule to keep. I tried my hardest but it was rough under foot and I was still feeling exhausted. We made it to Bert Nicoles hut about 40 minutes slower than intended but after that I picked it up. One of the support staff took my pack on the last leg and we made the last 11km in less than an hour and a half. We were so happy to see the ferry at Narcissis that we didn't care that we were pulling out 17km early. There were a few support staff that we needed to wait for so we had about 40 minutes at Narcissis. When I went to get up I was so stiff that I needed a strong hand up and about 10 minutes to make it to the peir. When we got back ate a pizza then slowly made my way the 200m to the cabin. After a shower I feel right asleep at about 8:30.
Sunday we were at the bus at 6:50 to get to the awards ceremony. No awards for people who don't finish :( We took a group photo which I'm sure that I will see soon. Then grabbed the bus back to the airport and were home at 5pm. We played a bit of ticket to ride interspersed with house work.
63km cradle mountain run. Not a bad weekend.
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