This morning I met Webbo down at Merstham at mile 34 on our NDW 100/ 50 route to run the last 16 miles of the course in to the 50 mile finish/ 100 mile turn around at Knockholt Pound. Running in the opposite direction to meet us was Paul Bennett, a friend of ours from previous races both home and abroad. He had parked up at the finish before 7am and armed with a headtorch and some decent trail shoes. As we left the station and hit the trail the temperature was about 3 degrees C and hovered there all morning. The ground was absolutely horrendous underfoot and made all the worse for me by the fact that I'd decided to wear road shoes. My decision was based on the fact that there are some short sections of road in amongst the trail and with mild pain still from both knees I would rather not risk any more impact through them than absolutely necessary. It was a massive error, I'm not really sure how I avoided crashing but I slid all over the place for a little over 3 hours. Paul met us at mile 2 on our run and turned around with us to head all the way back to his car.
Every time I go back to the NDW I'm amazed at how well way marked it is. Even without a map it's pretty hard to go wrong. Today gave me the chance to properly map out the last 8 miles of the track and in fact we moved the final aid station around 1.25 miles down the track to a much better spot. We also scoped out the exact finishing point in Knockholt Pound. Once again my Garmin packed up in the wet weather and gave me some crazy read outs, plus the strap has torn so it is pretty much a waste of space right now. Luckily Paul had his so I will be able to add the final piece to the puzzle and publish a full route profile of all three events early next week.
This afternoon I jogged a couple of miles but I had pain in my right knee so I went down to get a sports massage. It was an hour of agony, my back and legs were really tight. I am still in quite a lot of pain a couple of hours later and feel pretty sick. That's what you get for leaving it 8 months between sessions.
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