PART 2 | THE RUN

LAPS 1-3 | PLAIN SAILING

I woke at 4am and forced down a TRIBE bar, banana, some almonds and a few slices of coconut. I met Maria at Apneista at 4.30am. I wasn’t nervous, just excited to get going.

Starting at 5am on the dot, the first lap was actually very comfortable and went by extremely fast, the light of my headtorch bobbing from rock-to-rock in front of me. I love running in the dark – there’s something about the silence and pallid light of the headtorch – just you and the circle of trail before your feet. Time passes unnoticed and it’s easy to turn inside yourself and allow the trail to pass naturally below you. I was back within an hour and five, I hadn’t pushed and it felt good. I grabbed some pineapple and pizza, refilled my peanut and date mix and was onto the next lap in less than two minutes.

The sun soon came up, flooding the valley with dawn light. Halfway up the hill I turned a corner to an incredible vista of Agung, standing proud in the golden light. The second lap was also very comfortable, and I floated down the trail from rock to rock, and back along the road to Apneista. I guessed residual fitness from my Lost Island Ultra training a few of months before must have been carrying me so far. Once again I was quick through the aid station, where Maria was sitting patiently reading, and back onto the winding ascent, just as the heat began to intensify. Stupidly I forgot my hat and had to wait till the following lap for its relief. 

By now I had the course pretty dialled, and the best paths through the technical sections were becoming drilled. Yet, even though I knew every switchback, both the up and down were too long and too samey to remember exactly how many or their order. I never did manage to get it completely memorised, and so, each time I ascended it became that familiar drudgery of not knowing exactly how much further. Many times I’d think I was on the final turn, only to realise I had yet another set of switchbacks and identical steep corners to complete before I reached the Warung at the top. It forced me into a mindset of acceptance – focusing on the moment and not the turns to come. It was a route of four parts: the ascent, the short top section, the descent, and the road: by far the most unpleasant section of all. They were my goals, and my mind would work with each chunk of at a time – I would look no further ahead than the current section. It’s far more manageable that way.

I started to feel it a little on the third lap – tiredness in my legs and the beginning of cramping in my quads. I staved off the latter temporarily by begging some salt from the locals at the Warung on the top of the hill – they thought I was crazy. From that point on they provided me with a little platter of table salt: I washed down a few pinches each time I paused to refill my water. Time continued to fly though and I was down the hill and back to Apneista still feeling pretty fresh and strong. The shop had opened and many people were there; their passing support gave me a boost of positivity.

LAPS 4-6 | THE LOWS

Laps four and five were where it began to really hurt. The uphill became very slow and high exertion – that heightened heart-rate of endurance effort, brought on as much by exhaustion as by the work itself. A part of me loves it. But it’s painful, especially in this heat and when you’re not conditioned for it – I had to sit or lie down in the shade for a moment from time-to-time to freshen my legs and lower my core temperature. The heat was really beginning to rise, and shade fast disappearing as the sun rose higher above the trees. Quad cramping began in earnest. I found to my surprise that I could actually run on them fairly comfortably (in relative terms) once I’d accepted the cramps were there to stay. So much of pain and our reaction to it is based on perceived anticipation of the damage it’ll cause, whether long-term injury or to the detriment of the current short-term endeavour – a kind of extension of the Central Governor. Transcend this and pain can be viewed objectively and laid aside.

Salt only gave the quads temporary relief – I think my lack of muscle conditioning was possibly a greater contributing factor overall. These laps were a bit of a blur – a physical low, but mentally robust and I met with no internal questioning or self-doubt. Local support (and confusion) was as strong as ever, and the guard dogs barked at me incessantly, skirting skittishly around me as I passed before ‘bravely’ chasing me off from behind. Still, I remember thinking, it only takes one to be a little more aggressive…

I had a longer 15min break at Apneista and got down half a smoothie bowl on top of the standard rice, chicken, fruit, nachos and pizza I was throwing down each round. Eating was going amazingly well; I’d had the calories flowing in from the beginning and had run into no stomach problems yet.

Lap 6 was the worst. I came down mentally – not massively, but enough to ponder why I was doing this. It was a painful couple of hours – the uphill in particular, though the downhill took more out of my already shaky legs. I lay down for two minutes halfway up and I think actually fell asleep – as I stared at my watch time skipped 90 seconds. On the way down I kept mistaking boulders for guard dogs – leaping aside, only to realise my mistake in the ditch afterwards. The heat was bad: even the wind was warm and gave no respite, and, as the sun passed overhead, shade had pretty much disappeared completely. I hit marathon distance at 8 hours – it showed the effect the elevation was having on me. The blaring of horns and bustle of people and vehicles along the road was really getting to me, almost eliciting tears in my emotionally-exhausted state. When the same overweight local woman on the corner asked me if ‘maybe I want lunch’ at her Warung for the 5thtime in 5 laps I almost hit her.

My fingers had also swollen a little, and since I was peeing fine I figured I’d probably overdone it on the salt in my mission to stay hydrated and regulate the quad cramps. Salt wasn’t helping anymore anyway, and by now the cramps were permanent: painful but bearable. My feet were also taking a hammering: toes slamming into the front of my oversized boots every step. But ignoring that, I could roll down fairly easily and recover a little energy before the hellish road section. I received big support at Apneista at the end of the lap and allocated myself a 6 minute stop, lying in the doorway. The Balinese staff had to be reassured by the others a number of times much to Tom's amusement.