No Regrets Fitness. Find the cause - Treat It

Day 2 started in particularly funny fashion. After shooting off to find a toilet rather quickly I returned to a slightly bloodied Dave.
'What's happened Dave?!'

'Well, I love a dog as you know.....went to stroke one, turned out to be a bit frisky and as I bent down it jumped up and bit my face!'

my reply was sincere. It went something like this 'HAHAHAHAHAHA!'

The bottle neck.

The hazy warm early stages of day two came to a somewhat slow ebb. We had only been going around 1km and then suddenly there was a traffic jam that stopped 600 people in their tracks. Us in the pack became stuck on hazy hill for a good 15 minutes before the line began to move.

The cause of this was down to the track changing into a steep single file windy slog. People were pushing in, others getting annoyed and others having a merry time singing and laughing. I much preferred those people.

Problem was that the group was so mixed up that fast runners were stuck behind slow runners. When we got over the peaks, I was able to hurtle past some slower downhill peeps which in truth was great fun. As the photo shows below I was making friends a long the way. I had the Canadians behind and the Germans in front. I have always liked the fact that regardless of where you are from you are able to form bonds with guys that you will know either in just a particular moment or for the rest of your life.

Down Hill Traffic!

It was a long way down

The canyon picture above was at the point JK and Staff caught back up with me. I had been squeezed further forward in the traffic jam and just about to scramble up a climb I hear 'OI EARS!'......could only of been JK that haha.

Was good to get the band back together on the trail. Due to the big delays to the stage the organisers got rid of the cut off times for check points one and two.....not too sure if they done that for the whole stage though.

As with all alpine runs there comes another hill to climb. On this particular slope though there were cows. I never noticed as my eyes were fixed to the floor going up but as I took a look around a cow was no more than a few feet from me. In my oxygen deprived state I went in to say hello. A happy ending though (not in the thai massage sense!), gave the cow a rub on the nose which was soft & warm surprisingly and carried on my way up the slope to where the next video kicks in......

At the top of the hill is where I believe I may of started off the troubles in my left knee that affected me for the remaining stages. The track was slippy and as I took a long stride down the slope my foot slipped on a rock and put my in a very stretched and rotated position through the hip and knee joint. Although I didn't feel sore for the rest of the day I could certainly feel it through day 3.

The next pic is from the top of the climb after the video.

Staff and I made our way down a forest track that was superb. We took our time on this one due to three reasons really.

1. The down hill previous had taken quite a bit out of Staffs knee

2. Teamwork

3. Because we could.

We arrived at checkpoint two enjoying the warm sun on our backs and the knowledge that we could now top up on the high 5 energy drink and the plentiful amounts of veggies, cake, soup, fruit and did I mention cake!

It was also nice to see where you had come from on the trail map. As you can see from the below pic that the next part was a red climb which only meant one thing....this is going to be tough!!

A video to let you know what Staff and I were seeing and thinking leading from check point 2.

After what seemed like a long time after that climb we got on our way to the last high point of the day. You know when you get up to a ski lift that the only way is down!

When you come to the end of a stage the final 1km in gives you a good mental boost and the confidence going into the next stage......and you know that there is a beer tent waiting for you!

Staff and I had a really good day. Keeping each other going right until the end. The sense of teamwork with my running partner to keep us going was growing with every mile that we ran together. This is what the event was partly about. Sharing this mission with your buddies, to battle through any dark times and to enjoy the elation of achieving goals that were mere thoughts in your head throughout the training back at the start of the year.