At around the 5 mile mark I hear some shouts behind me of "Cyclist on the left ..." so naturally I'm looking over my left shoulder and start drifting into the cyclist path to which I then apologise. I catch the cyclist up at the gate to which then I apologise again to be asked "where are all of you heading" to which I reply "100 miles to Eastbourne". His reply is then "we've got you lot all of the way then ... " Unpreturbed I soldier on.
I arrive at Checkpoint 2 (Queen Elizabeth Country Park) in 139th place with 300 runners at the start.
By the time I reach the 11 mile mark I get a fellow runner saying to me "Nice MDS bag" to which I reply "Thanks" only for him to laugh.
Going down a hill I reach a maximum speed of 10.40 mph. It's soon after this that I take my eye of the ball and end up tripping up on a tree root going through a wood. I fall, starring head down at the ground, my left knee taking the brunt of the fall and my right shoulder and right quads take a scrape. This is the first time I've experienced an injury during a race but I pick myself up, locate my water bottle and Garmin and soldier on. My left knee doesn't feel right but after a couple of miles it seems to right itself and feels as good as new. What injury? Soon afterwards I reach Cocking checkpoint 4 and have moved upto 91st.
By the time I reach the half-way mark my Garmin doesn't want to play ball again and the touch screen options do not work. I can only assume it's still charging and keeps on recording. I'm now having to rely on how far I've run and hope that I've managed to maintain 12 minutes per mile (5 mph) by asking at each checkpoint what's the time and how many miles to the next checkpoint.
Washington (54 miles) drop-bag checkpoint arrives for a welcome break (pasta and cheese) where I've moved up to 60th position. I seem to have taken too long at this checkpoint so I decide to increase the pace. Checkpoints 8 (Botolphs), 9 (Saddlescombe Farm), 10 (Housedean Farm) and 11 (Southease) soon pass and I've found myself moving upto 36th position which is deceptive as my average pace has dropped to 4.64 mph.
From here on in I'm strugling with cramp, being sick, tiredness and a blister I've not had in ages.
My pace suffers as I seem to jogging at about 4 mph but I managed to find the strength to get to the final checkpoint 13 (Jevington) and with 5 miles to go I'm on the home straight. I make a wrong turn with a couple of miles to go (despite me having done the course before) and can't find or remember the right turn. I go one way and a fellow runner goes the other whom takes the right choice but doesn't let me know. Nevertheless I remember the right path to take and soon hunt him down with a mile to go. I'm now running with so much energy that I seem to doing about 6 mph. Coming into the finish, Eastbourne Sports Park I manage to run with confidence around the 400m track and finish in a personal best time of 21:39:50. I drop down to a overall 46th position, 17th best in my age category, elevation gain of 12'700 feet and c. 4'200 calories burnt.
