Thursday felt like a stressful day. We could only go and collect out bib numbers from Carcassonne at 5pm so that meant we had a whole day to fill. This meant checking our kit over and over again and just generally getting nervous. To pass the time, I also cleaned the house. My toilets have never been so sparkling and there is not a dog hair in sight. Come 5pm, we were just about the first ones to arrive at the Dome in Carcassonne, with the 165km runners having been already. A quick check of our covid pass and signing a form to say we took all responsibility for anything “bad” (I usually fall over at these things!) that happened and then we were on our way home.
Ready to Run |
I thought that I wouldn’t sleep that night but I actually surprised myself and woke up with our 6am alarm. Getting ready felt like our usual prep for our weekly long runs so we kind of did it on auto pilot. It was difficult to force myself to eat anything but managed a banana and some cheese and Bill had his usual HUGE bowl of muesli.
I had left my Garmin
charging overnight as I knew that it was going to be a struggle to have enough
battery to finish the race, so I wanted to get as much juice out of it as
possible. But…..the screen was black. What the heck!!! For some reason, it had
fully discharged overnight and there was nothing that I could do about it. The
only solution was to wear my everyday watch so at least I knew what the time
was. Bill thankfully had his Garmin and as we were planning on running
together, I would rely on him. I was still planning on using my Stryd power pod
so I hoped that would capture something at least.
We arrived in Carcassonne in good time and had just over an
hour before the 9am start in front of the main gate to the famous world
heritage site of the “Cité de Carcassonne”. We filled the time by drinking
coffee and depositing our bag change at the Dome centre. This was so we could
have a change of clothes at the halfway point at Château d’Arques. Waiting at
the start was kind of exciting and finally I felt calm. I always feel a bit out
of place though as there are usually not many females. Today there were 210
runners of which 26 were female and I was the oldest female. I did wonder if we
were mad doing this and at the age of 60 I felt I had no place to be there but
at the same time I felt why shouldn’t I.
After some instructions and a bit of working up the crowd,
we were off.
Race start - Cité de Carcassonne |
And we're off |
We couldn’t have wished for better weather, cool, no wind
and mostly cloudy. There had been a small amount of rain the night before so
the ground was soft but not boggy. We knew that the first half had to be done
at a relatively steady pace as the cut of times were quite tight but I was
surprised at how quickly everyone shot off. Of course, we followed suit but I
quickly found myself out of breath and with calves that were shouting at me to
slow down on the hills. That never happened and we kept on pushing forward with
everyone else. The normal strategy for 95% of runners in an ultra, is to run
the flats and downhills and to walk the hills. Bye bye normal strategy!
The first few km’s were quite undulating but we arrived at
the Lac de Cavayere (6km) in good time. Then we had 650m of elevation to cover and
13km until we reached the first ravitaillement (drink stop) and barrière
horaire (time barrier) at Molieres sur L’Abert (20km). I felt I was pushing
hard and there seemed no time to take a breather (or photos!). We were running
with quite a few others and the narrow paths made it difficult to pass anyone.
Once we got to the Villemaury military firing range with its wide open pistses
and scrub land, it was easier to find space. We were clocked in and out by
soldiers who obviously wanted to get on with their training but couldn’t whilst
runners were randomly scuttling about. Bill and I had run here during training
and nearly got shot at, but that is another story.
We were often running on our own |
Gradually as the race went on, people started to spread out
so it meant we could stick more to our own pace. We did find we were playing
cat and mouse with another couple who looked a similar age to us. They seemed very
relaxed as though they did ultras on a regular basis. My competitive side did not
appreciate it when they kept overtaking us but Bill kept reminding me that we
should run our own race. So true! I did wonder though if the woman was the
competition in my category as I knew that there was one other female in my age
group. Then there was BT guy who lived in Paris and worked a lot in London. He
seemed a strong runner so it was nice every now and then when we would catch
him up but then somehow he always managed to scoot past us.
Only 9 More To Go... |
The route for the first half had quite a lot of elevation (2500m) but it wasn’t too technical. It was more rolling hills with a bit of clambering at times and one section which involved using a rope. As per usual, anything remotely difficult, had me falling to my bum and slithering down like a toddler.
Thank goodness I had Bill with me as some of the drops/climbs were a very big stretch for my little legs. Sometimes we were in open fields and others running through damp forests, under bridges and through shallow streams. The organizers had done a great job with the orange markers and we only had to question the route once, apart from the last 500m (just when you need it to be easy).
Half way (50km). Château d'Arques |
We reached Château d’Arques (50km) just before 18h00 so we were easily 2 hours ahead of the barrier horaire. The last km had been a nice run in and we overtook about 8 people including the older couple and BT guy, which was a wonderful feeling. We both felt strong at this point but still decided to take our time here and eat some proper food - chicken noodle soup, ham and bread never tasted so good. We also changed our socks, got into long sleeved tops and got our head lamps ready for the long night. Our aim was to finish in 24 hours (official time limit was 27 hours) so that would be 9am. I just hoped I had bought enough batteries for my headlamp.
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Then suddenly we heard the beep of the timing mat and we were declared “100km FINISHERS”. Being 5:30am, there weren’t many people about to welcome us over the finish line but we got a nice medal and our photo taken and then we headed off to have a shower.
Hotel du Pont Vieux, Carcassonne |
One downside of arriving early was that our hotel room was not going to be ready until midday. Thankfully the hotel managed to find us a room at 8:30am so it was the end to a perfect 24 hours. Shame there was no lift though and we had to climb a long flight of stairs to our room (with difficulty)!
Not bad for a couple of 60 year olds ;)
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