The race itself started at 6am in St Helier and it was a beautiful sunny day. My goal for the race was to improve on the time of 9hours 25 I had set last year and if nothing else to finish due to the precarious nature of knee! I set off and made good progress but quickly realised my knee was going to be an issue. I had prepared for this and took ibuprofen which seemed to dull the pain and made good progress to the 25 mile mark and check point 2. I had a drop bag here and decided to wear a knee support which seemed to take the pressure off the IT band however I did find that if I stopped at check points for too long the knee seized up and took a while to get going again. I had an embarrassing moment at checkpoint 3 where I was running into the checkpoint tripped over a stone and faceplanted into the floor, cutting my hands open all in front of about 40 or so people!! I managed to carry on and whilst it was hot I managed to finish the race in 8 hours 26 and come 19th place, which was an hours improvement on last years time. The legendary Daniel Doherty won the race in 6 hours 15 which is amazing and he said he had had a tough day!
So next for me now is my fundraising for Jersey Hospice for the Marathon des Sables in April of next year. I am not sure where all the time has gone but it seems scarily close! I am running this Saturday on a treadmill with a friend in the local M&S in St Helier to raise funds for Hospice as well as other events planned over the next few
months to achieve my target of £5000.
My Just giving page is http://www.justgiving.com/Paulsdesertrun if you would like to donate, and it tells you a little more about the charity I am raising money for.
Great blog!!If you like, come back and visit mine: http://www.albumdeestampillas.blogspot.comThanks,Pablo from Argentina