Written by Andrew Woodrow
At 11pm on 23rd October 2008, I lay flat on my back on the gravel at ‘Cap Mechant’ at the south eastern corner of Reunion island. Bruno was to blame – for weeks I had had hundreds of questions – ‘are you ready for it?,’ ‘how do you think you will do?,’ ‘surely you will sleep?’ and so on. My answer to all three and more was ‘I have no idea’ – and I did not. How was I to know if I was in a fit state to race across a volcano, mostly in the dark, on a course 4 times longer than any race I had done and with the equivalent of more than an ascent and descent of Mount Everest, starting from sea level, along the way? I had no idea. I’d barely seen a mountain in training – my highest peak is all of 40 metres above sea level. I would finish, that was not in doubt in my mind – typically 40% of entrants do not - but I had 64 hours to do it and would be happy to walk the whole thing and be done in 63 and a bit. Bruno had done it before, when the course was a little shorter, in 32 hours. I asked him if he had slept on the way – ‘no, but the last 21km took 7 hours – downhill.’ How could 21km downhill take 7 hours? I can knock off that distance - a half marathon - in an hour and twenty even with a hangover. Like the other questions, I had no idea. I’d done my training over the months – 350km in September alone; over a 3 week period in September and early October I had run the equivalent of 3 marathons each week, getting out of bed, running 20km to work, running home again, laps of the airport island at weekends and so on – though admittedly my longest run had been ‘only’ 53km, and Denmark is not famous for its mountains to practice on.
And so the 3 of us ‘Phantom Raiders’ – Bruno, Gilles, and myself, lay on our backs in the gravel of the start area with an hour to go. Various things were going on – runners were gathering, the local school was putting on some kind of dance show, some idiot was playing with fire breathing, and the ‘fools’ about to start the Grand Raid mostly sat around eating things. Some pushed up to get a good starting position – I didn’t really see the point, after all what were a couple of minutes over a 2 day race? Bruno reckoned all those who had never done it before were pushing towards the barrier, while the veterans loafed around drinking sugary coffee and eating pains au chocolate. Very French. I put myself in the latter category.
15 minutes to midnight and it was time to get ready. We all stood up and donned our headlights, tightened our backpacks. In the dark with everyone wearing headlights, identical sponsored running shirts, small backpacks, etc and milling around it was going to be tricky to recognise anyone. Announcements were made in French: the favourites were brought forward and put to the front, various people marking their birthday by racing were called out. At 12:00 midnight the gun went and we were off, to the taunt of the starter shouting ‘ils sont fous’ – by the time we were out of the starting arena I had a stitch and had lost Bruno and Gilles. It was clearly going to be a long day.
Off we trotted along the road. 2.9km of nice flat tarmac, along which it is customary for the front runners to charge along as if on a 5k. Lit by 2200 headlights and reflective patches on everybody’s gear, I was moving along a little faster than the general current but not putting any great effort into it. We turned off into the sugar cane plantation and the first gentle climb; it got a little steeper as we entered the forest though still on a wide path. ‘The flat bit’ identified on the map, up to about 15km was unusually for the course actually pretty flat, and I ran most of it gently, moving up the pack between the 2 columns of runners / walkers who were following a set of tyre tracks, and wondering if I would regret this gentle running later on. The first stop came after 15km – the general advice was to eat and drink continuously so I took bananas, raisins, sugar lumps, coke – it was going to be a question of sugar and carbohydrates all the way. And after that stop the climbing really started – 3 hours up a single track path to the volcano. Little opportunity to overtake, though that was probably a good thing as it stopped the temptation to go out too hard. Best to settle into as fast a walk as possible, dodge past anyone slowing down, and push on upwards. Looking forward and back on the open sections, hundreds of headlights were visible above and below, a veritable pilgrimage of hopefuls heading up the mountain. I got stuck behind an exceptionally smelly individual for about an hour – he was moving at my pace so I couldn’t overtake. Later on the person behind me was breathing so heavily I felt like turning round and telling him to slow down as he blatently wasn’t going to make it – then at the top when it levelled out he ran past and disappeared into the distance. I next heard that same annoying breathing when I re-overtook him about 24 hours later.
Left: The stop at Foc-Foc
Shortly afterwards, around the stop at ‘Foc Foc’ on the crater, it got light enough to turn off the headlight, and I found myself running over ground that looked like the surface of the moon. The south of Reunion is an active volcano and this was a plain of sharp lava rocks, across which straggled a line of runners. It rose gently up to the first check point at ‘Volcan’ – 2320 metres altitude and 30km into the run. We crossed a section of bare rock and I arrived at the post at ten to 6 in the morning, so 6 hours for a largely uphill section, in 472nd place overall. It was the first point easily accessible and a large number of spectators had turned up in their cars.
Approaching Volcan At Volcan, 6am
I waited about 10 minutes at most of the stops, maybe a little longer at those in the second night. It had felt a long way to Volcan – looking at the course before I saw it as ‘only’ 30km – which at my usual running pace was just over 2 hours. Of course I knew it would take me 5, 6, or even 7 hours before setting off, but what was in my head was the ’30 kilometres’ bit and the posts at Foc Foc and Volcan had seemed to take an unreasonable amount of time to reach. I refilled my camelback (2 litres water) at most of the stops, unless I knew the next one was not far away, and ate sugar lumps, bananas, raisins, sandwiches when they had them, noodle soup, biscuits, cake…and drank water, heavily sugared coffee, and coke, then ate more sugar lumps and headed off again.
The 20 km from Volcan were the easiest of the course. Immediately after, we descended a little and crossed the dramatic ‘Plain des Sables’ – a flat volcanic plain, beautiful in the early morning light and easily runnable. At the other side was the ‘Rampart des Basalts’ – a climb of several hundred metres up an escarpment along a switchback path. I took a lot of photos and overtook a lot of people on the way up to the ‘Oratoire St Therese’ at the top – 2400m altitude. It really was a stunning morning with good views in all directions from the top, and I continued on the steady descent to Piton Textor.
(Left – the descent onto the Plain des Sables from Volcan)
The beginning of the ascent of the ‘Rampart des Basalts’
Climbing the up the switchback path
Runners on the path below
The Rampart conquered – at the Oratoire St Therese, 2400m altitude.
View back along Plain des Sables
At a road crossing a group of spectators had gathered by a cameraman, past whom I of course had to put a little sprint, to much applause and shouts of ‘Bravo!’ and ‘Courage!’ – then another short stop and a chat with one of the helpers as I really did not know where I was…’which stop is this?’ ‘Piton Textor’ ‘Oh, how far along the course is that?’ and so on. The next stop, Mare a Boue (‘Pond of Mud’) was 10km away and largely downhill. Off I went, putting in my only 10 kilometer hour of the entire course and arriving there at 8.20. The leg was gently downhill, through grass pastures, occasionally climbing a couple of steps over fences, with the last couple of kilometres along a farm road. I ran with another for about half of the distance, notably overtaking a couple of locals who were walking and talking very loudly. I’d covered the 20km from arriving at Volcan in 2 and a half hours, including the stops. Nice going. Shortly before Mare a Boue the fog descended and as we huddled in army tents drinking sugary coffee the nice views were completely obscured. The next stop was 12km and 900m upwards away, ‘Gite Piton Des Neiges’. Bouyed with optimism after the quick pace since Volcan, I guessed 2 hours and headed off into the mist.
This section proved to be the most gruelling – maybe others in the second night were harder, but by then I had got used to the incessant climbing and descending and they didn’t seem as bad. This was the first long climbing section where the crowd had thinned out enough that most of the time I was running or walking on my own. Like most competitors I was generally not running the uphills, unless they were gentle or short. I was pretty good at climbing by walking fast though and found I was overtaking people on the ups and being overtaken on the downs – the downs are technically very difficult, especially when they happen to be along steep rocky paths along cliffs. Better safe than sorry… anyway off I went, and the ascent went on forever. Partly misty and party clear, at one point we traversed a knife edge ridge going down a path so steep that it was actually partly on ladders, with drops of several hundred feet on both sides. Some of the sections were so steep and rocky that I would wonder if they were actually part of the path or not. The course was pretty well marked however with red and white plastic tape at frequent intervals, or red and white paint on occasional rocks, and in any case there were few options to turn off.
Onwards and upwards – towards the top of the climb, near the medical tent at Refuge Kerveguen, we bunched up a bit and trudged along. 2 hours had passed since leaving Mare a Boue and it seemed like most people had underestimated the section. Over another ridge – and you would see people dotted ever higher up the hillside, heading for the next ridge. Finally rounding a boulder and seeing the Gite Piton des Neiges, a small cheer went up. I arrived there at 11:25 – it lies at 2484 metres and I had climbed 4211m in total – so also descended 1800m already, and covered 62km in 11 hours 25 minutes. I was now 285th overall so it had been a good few hours since Volcan. I changed into my ‘racing orange’ T Shirt – we had to wear the sponsored T shirts to start and finish, and tied my old t shirt to the outside of my bag in the hope it might dry out a bit. It didn’t.
The ridge above Mare a Boue, partly traversed on ladders
A small cheer went up when Gite Piton des Neiges came into sight.
Below: at Cilaos, early afternoon
The descent to Cilaos was next. I had remarked beforehand that it looked bad – 1200m over 7km, and 1000m of that in the first 4km – an average gradient of 1:4. Bruno had confirmed it was indeed bad and also fairly dangerous – basically straight over the edge of the Cirque (crater) of Cilaos and down. For the first 4 km, imagine 4 Canary Wharf towers stacked on top of each other, and descending from the top of the top one using the stairs. Now imagine the stairs are attached to the outside of the tower, they are wet, and by the way there is no handrail…I’m not sure this is what your mother had in mind when she told you ‘not to run down the stairs’…I went down whistling the theme tune from ‘Harry Enfield’ as it seemed to fit my footsteps. I ran bits but it was largely a walk, and I was overtaken by a few more experienced and sure-footed trail runners. I got my own back on the last 3km along the road to Cilaos though and arrived in the stadium there at 13:06, 69 km covered. This is officially the half way point, though it is actually a few km short of half way, and Claire was there to meet me with a change of shorts, socks, and a plate of pasta from the canteen. I sat on the grass, inspected my feet and legs, generally felt OK, and after 45 minutes took off again. Claire was getting automatic updates on us all by text message, and Gilles and Bruno were currently about 3 hours behind. Leaving Cilaos at 13:50 I was 275th.
There were a few easy kilometres after Cilaos, along smooth gently downhill paths and I decided to make the most of them and get a bit of distance under my belt before the ascent of the ‘Col Taibit.’ I overtook a group walking; one broke off and ran with me for a bit. It was going well he said, we should be at Marla by 6pm or so, and he was enjoying his 4th Raid. Along a narrow path we squeezed past a group of school children being taken for a walk, to more calls of ‘Bravo!’ – soon after, we crossed a river above a small waterfall and began the 1300m ascent of Taibit. I quickly caught up with a group and decided to go with them for a while. It was surprising how many had mobiles with them, not silenced. From time to time one would ring. ‘Allo? Oui, je suis en train d’ ascendre Col Taibit. Non, pas au’jourd hui, merci…’ and so on. I had my phone with me too, though had it silenced, and especially during the second half like getting text messages from various people checking progress online from afar.
The ascent of Taibit was actually not all that bad, and the 1300m climb seemed to go quite quickly. Half way up, a householder was serving home made tea with various local flowers or herbs in it. It was foggy and raining lightly and it was good to stand under the roof and have a mug of sweet, steaming tea. Half way up it levelled out a bit – a false summit – before winding on up the hillside, and towards the top it was slightly disorientating as it felt like we were already on the ‘other’ side of the ridge, which sloped steeply up on the right, so it felt like we had somehow crossed it when we obviously hadn’t. Eventually we summitted and I ran down to Marla with 2 others, arriving at just after 5pm and now in 205th place. It was very foggy and I stopped for about 15 minutes – the local helpers were particularly chatty here and kept telling everyone to sit down and they would bring sandwiches, coffee, sugar lumps, etc. I changed the batteries in my headtorch so as not to have to change them in the middle of the night and set off. We were now in the ‘Cirque Mafate’ – an inhabited crater, but with no roads. Over the 40 km from here to Deux Bras the only way out of the crater was on foot or by helicopter. Not a place you would want to get injured, but the map looked like Mafate was going to be for the most part relatively straightforward, gently-ish downhill and following rivers. Good. The only major problem is the traverse of the crater was entirely in the dark, which is why this section is un-illustrated.
I promptly got injured, twisting my ankle badly just after Marla. I thought about returning to the checkpoint to get it strapped up but after a few minutes the pain went away, though it was swollen. I reasoned there were ‘only’ 70 km or so to go, which was one of the first indications that in the second half of the raid, you start to lose all sense of time and distance. 70km normally is quite a distance – my longest training run had been 53.5km, and that was on the flat. I started walking onwards – the fog got thicker and those nice ‘riverside paths’ I had in my head proved to be in my head only – the paths would drop down to the river only to climb steeply back up, twisting back on themselves, crossing the gorge on suspension bridges, and disappearing into the forest. At one open flat bit, one of the few in the area that was runnable, a spectator had pitched his tent by the path. It loomed out of the mist ‘Bravo!’ he shouted, having thoughtfully left a can of ‘Dodo’ beer by the path incase any runner felt like it. Shortly after I plunged into the forest on a steep downhill. It was dark, foggy, and my headlight basically reflected back on millions of droplets – all I could see was a giant white cloud. I could barely even see the path, I couldn’t risk running on the uneven gound on account of my ankle, and several people passed me. I couldn’t keep up with them and at that point resigned myself to walking the rest of the course. Bruno and Gilles would probably catch up at some point and we could carry on together, if they didn’t mind slowing down. It was maybe 65km to go.
Coming out of the forest the path bore right and levelled out. A runner with a dim headtorch overtook and I saw he was going pretty gently. His dim headtorch did not have the same problem in the mist as my over-bright one, and I realised I could probably keep up here. I tucked in behind him and we proceeded to the re-fueling point at Trois Roches. He was running nicely, very short strides and picking his way over the rough patches. I just looked at where he put his feet and followed in his footsteps – seemingly the best way to avoid ankle problems. At Trois Roches I thanked him – he was only stopping very briefly there, and I thought I might as well carry on with him. We set off after only a couple of minutes rest, with the same arrangement. It was great. The path twisted and turned, went up and down, and I spent the hour or so to Roche Plate simply looking at William’s feet and placing mine exactly in his footsteps. We overtook several people; several times one or more people would in turn try to follow in our footsteps but would invariably fall behind. I realised that if I could keep this up overnight, or at least to Deux Bras, then things did not look quite so bleak. We had a couple of short conversations – he was from mainland France, and had done the raid before. He was not going to sleep at Deux Bras, just stop and get something to eat, and carry on. At the stop at Roche Plate, despite having made good progress for an hour, I had slipped to 220th – though this must have been entirely during the tortuous hour or so in the dark and fog after Marla, before falling in with William.
The stop at Roche Plate, like that at Trois Roches, was lit up – a beacon in the crater, the hum of a generator, bright lights, and those green ‘glow sticks’ to guide the last few hundred metres to the check point, and the tables of sugar, coffee, and noodle soup. ‘Bienvenue’ they all shouted, and applauded whenever a runner appeared out of the gloom. One helper was explaining to a runner how the next bit was tough – a steep descent, ascent back up to the same level, and descent again. ‘Just for a change’ joked the runner, ‘we are getting used to that.’ The 13km from Marla had taken me 3 hours, so I was inclined to agree.
However the 7.5km stage to Grande Place was indeed tough – the toughest of the course. I had originally not noticed it – it was part of the general ‘Mafate is the easy bit’ pigeonhole, however I’d seen the violent down / up / down part of the profile at the previous stop and was changing my mind. In the event, nothing could have prepared me for it. We left Roche Plate and William and I quickly overtook a large group before the descent started. Down we went into the abyss – a steep, partly stepped section down the side of a cliff. In places there was a wire attached to the cliff face that you could hold on to. Far below, the winking headlights of others were visible; and receding behind and above us, the lights of the group we had overtaken. And on the opposite side of the valley, above and below our own level, you would occasionally see a light through the trees. This was clearly going to be a serious stage. The descent was incessant, down, down, down. If we went much further we would get to the sea surely? Down. From Roche Plat at 1110m we descended. We crossed the very top of a waterfall on stepping stones – looking over the edge a tent with a bright light was visible a couple of hundred metres below. Did nobody end up going over the edge? We picked our way over the rocks to the tent with the light – was this a stop? No, it was merely a medical tent with a light to show the stepping stones over the river. At least we were at the river – bottom of the descent surely? Up we went…though it turned out to be a false bottom. We crested a ridge after a few minutes and resumed our downward drive into a parallel valley, separated from the first by a thin, steep volcanic ridge, eventually crossing yet another stream at 520m. 600 metres of descent over a couple of kilometres – and now it was time to climb back to 1120m up the other side of the valley. The path this side was only marked at the turning – it was obviously too steep for anyone to have gone out and marked it beforehand, and besides if you got the turning right there were no options. I questioned William on it and might well have checked one of the alternatives if we hadn’t caught someone else on the ascent. Around this section we met the first ‘bodies’ – people who had got as far as they were going to go for the time being and had wrapped themselves up in their survival blankets and were sleeping where they fell – on rocks, propped against trees. It was getting on for 24 hours into the race and this was undeniably a tough section. The climb didn’t seem as harsh as the descent, so to make sure we were truly destroyed by this stage there immediately followed a descent from 1120m to the check point at Grand Place – back down at 540m. I was somehow still on William’s tail as we stumbled into the light; the 7.5km section had included 1200m of descent and 600m of ascent, and had taken us almost 3 hours. I had advanced from 220th to 178th. So most people took even longer – some were flaked out on the camp beds at the stop.
We then took the 9km section to Aurere. I had again slightly misjusdged it, thinking it was a climb followed by a descent – in the event it turned out to be a climb, with the descent on the next stage. 2 others joined William and I – it was an easier section, with a more gentle climb up to almost 1000m, followed by several descents and climbs of a few hundred metres each. However about half way along I could not keep up with William anymore and walked the entire leg – even the downhills. At one point a group of medics were standing around a suspension bridge over an impossibly deep ravine; their role seemed to be to make sure people didn’t mind crossing the dark void on such a structure. The area was thickly forested and for most of it no others were visible in the trees. I had a good walk in anycase and got to Aurere after 2 and a half hours – in my highest position of 158th, 25 hours and 38 minutes after starting.
Aurere was tough. I had expected to arrive at it after a steep descent; instead I had been climbing steadily. I sat on a chair drinking heavily sugared coffee, barely able to keep my eyes open and often almost falling off the chair. At the previous stop I’d had a text message from Dad, to which I’d replied saying I was going to rest at Deux Bras – only 7km beyond Aurere. In a marathon that is less than half an hour. Sitting at Aurere, it took every effort to stand up, ignore the sleepers in the hut and the one wrapped in a blanket looking like a ghost, and get out onto the path again. I no longer had William to follow and walked off into the dark on my own. I thought I’d walk this whole section too.
I stumbled along the track to start with, almost falling a number of times due to tiredness. There were some sleepers within a few hundred metres of Aurere, who had obviously started out for Deux Bras and not got very far. I came steep downhill section and it was here, solo in the dark after 26 hours, that I first started seeing things. The most common in the dark was groups of people – often 5 or 10 – further down the path. They were generally standing around, looking like they were chatting or relaxing. As I got closer they would disappear, turning out to be rocks with lichen patterns on them or even nothing at all. Every now and again it would be a genuine sleeper of course. It was not in the least bit creepy – it was all part of the general disorientation, the loss of any concept of time or speed. It did not feel at all odd to be walking through a forest at 2 am, having been racing for over 24 hours, in the dark, seeing things, with over a marathon distance and several hills remaining.
The path flattened out and finally the riverside path through Mafate appeared after a section along the top of a cliff, which for once had barriers to stop you falling off. I followed the river, now maybe 30 metres wide, crossing it 4 times on reasonably stable sets of stepping stones. A camp of followers was established by the first one, and they directed runners across to the other side, where green glow sticks showed where to pick up the path. So after a couple of fairly flat and runnable kilometres, I reached the second major stop at Deux Bras (121km) after 27 hours and 49 minutes, now 172nd. I no longer felt like sleeping, though went to the medic to finally get my ankle strapped up. It did not seem at all unreasonable to me that I had carried on with it for 40 kilometres and I told the doctor I was certainly not pulling out. He made me move it in all directions and prodded it to find it if it hurt. I don’t think it did, but I was really not in a fit state to say if anything hurt or not at that stage. My stopwatch had given up so I had even less concept of time that previously. The doctor went off to find a bandage and I saw William on the table opposite me getting a massage. He asked what was up and I showed him my ankle. He just made the motion of winding tape round it. ‘Yes,’ I said…the Doctor came back muttering, and William told him I had run with him for 7 hours and was going better than most people out there. The strapping was applied, rather too tight I thought, and I went off for a plate of pasta. William left just ahead of me; I ate, drank, and started the final ascent at 04:33, now in 175th place, 100 places up on my position after Cilaos.
(Left: Half way up the climb from Deux Bras up to Dos d’Ane)
It was 750m vertical to Dos D’Ane (Donkey’s back), over 7km. Half way up the initial climb out of the valley it got light, so at the check point I put my headtorch away. 2 people were in the process of withdrawing – they looked wrecked. From here it was only 19km, the final section of climb was only 3 kilometres and 450m vertical. I carried on, there was no way I would stop here.
It was not a difficult ascent but I was beginning to feel a distinct lack of energy. I passed a group of people manhandling a disabled carriage type thing, complete with a disabled person in it, over the boulders – later I heard this was part of a charity event in conjunction with the Raid. Seeing the next section of the course, the final ridge up to Piton Bâtard, which was a narrow knife edge with drops of several hundred metres on both sides, I would not have like to be in that carriage. I stopped on the ridge and took some pictures looking south towards Piton des Neiges over the Cirque du Mafate – seeing the peaks and ridges that I had crossed in the night for the first time made me think it would be nice to do it in the daytime. The view was stunning, with volcanic blocks, ridges, and deep valleys jumbled across the landscape. The ridge itself in places was just wide enough for a single track footpath.
Going up the final climb I had no energy in my legs. I knew it was 15km or so to the finish from the top, and had 2 energy gels left. I would have one at the top, and one half way down. I didn’t think there were any more checkpoints. In a marathon when you are tired you can walk for a couple of minutes and then carry on running. Here you could walk as much as you liked and you would just get slower and slower. For the first time, people were overtaking me on the climb. I guessed 4 hours from the top, stopped to take a couple of photos, eat my second last energy gel, and put on some sun cream. It was a beautiful morning.
Heading down the path – muddy and undulating downwards – I fell in behind a couple of fast runners and tucked in behind them. Someone had said there was actually a stop in 20 minutes; if this was the case then I needn’t worry about conserving energy, and the brief hit from the energy gel at the top would be enough to get me to the checkpoint. We fairly hurtled down this section, overtaking everyone who had passed me on the climb from Dos D’Ane and others too, and emerged out of the trees at the ‘Kiosque D’Affouches’ where I had a coffee and sugar binge. 13km to go, downhill, it didn’t matter anymore. Pile in the energy and off we go….even better the Kiosque was at the top of a nicely downhill sloping road. Easy kilometres! I started running and overtook people again, though found I could not run continuously. I counted steps – run 400 double steps, walk 100. That was working quite well and I started to hope that road would take us all the way down to the stadium. I should have learnt not to get my hopes up – after 3 or 4 km we were back on a narrow forest track, in some places so narrow that I brushed the bushes on both sides, in some places so steep I had to hold the trees to stop myself sliding down – though maybe that would have been easier. People out for a walk coming up squeezed into the side of the path, saying ‘Courage!’ or ‘C’est formidable!’ I heard a scream and a minute later caught up with a man who had severe cramp. I had nothing for him – I’d even eaten my last energy bar. A little while later as I walked an uphill bit he caught up again, recovered, though shortly afterward it happened again. I ran with him the last 2km to ‘Colarado’ – the final checkpoint 800 metres above and 5km short of St Denis. Every step he took he grunted in pain, even the sweep down the open grass field to the checkpoint. He stopped for a massage; I took a quick drink and departed.
Left: The gorge leading to St. Denis. We ran along the left hand edge. (Photo: Bruno)
5km to go. This is it, nearly there, all downhill. It wouldn’t take long. I ran the first 2.5 or so km, on a gently downhill path. At this rate it would be half an hour from the last check point – it couldn’t last. The path deteriorated into a rocky, steep single track. I could see the bridge where the path ended, from where it was only 500m to go. It wasn’t getting any closer. Now at 11am, in broad daylight, I started seeing dogs and cats by the side of the path. Like the ‘people’ in the night, they turned out to be treestumps, or nothing at all. On one occasion turning a corner I saw a runner a few metres behind me, wearing the official Grand Raid T shirt we all had to finish in. I looked again and there was nobody there. Like the scenes in the night it was not in the least bit spooky. I had by now completely and utterly lost track of time – I had no idea what time of day it was. It felt like late afternoon. On down the singletrack, running from time to time, walking sections. I could see no other runners, though every now and then caught a glimpse of someone in the trees. An illusion or for real? I could never be sure, but just before the bridge the path came onto open ground, and as I arrived at the road I was suddenly with a group. Where had they come from? I had seen nobody but illusions for almost an hour. One real person set off at a fast pace towards the stadium, now easily visible just down the road. I went with him. He was going for a sprint finish after 35 hours? Well, so was I. 300 metres to go. We sped up. 200 metres to go. I felt him weaken and drop off. I could have carried on fast but crossed the road with him – we were moving quickly in any case and the rest of the group that had appeared by the bridge were already 200 or more metres behind us as we entered the stadium. Half a lap around the dusty track. I lifted my sun hat off as I crossed the line at a near sprint, 35 hours and 14 minutes after starting, and in 168th place overall – 81st in the ‘Senior Men’ category (Men 20 – 39 years, 550 in the category). In total there had been 2200 starters, 1409 would finish before the time bar at 4pm on Sunday.
A medal was produced and hung round my neck. Claire called me over but I was unable to speak. This was the biggest surprise of the entire race – at the finish I just felt like bursting into tears. I was not in pain and the tiredness did not hit me for a few minutes, but I suddenly felt that for a day and a half, all I had been doing was focussing on getting to the next point, the next climb, the descent, with the stadium as the end goal. Often over the months leading up to the Raid I’d found myself in idle moments thinking about it, about its distant impossibility. Had I done enough? How would I do? Would I sleep? Now I had arrived and the release was kicking in. I was lost for a while. In a daze I tried to eat some lunch and couldn’t. Claire went to get the car – I waited at the gate to the stadium. It was hot and sunny and I could not stand up. My head span and lacking any chairs, I sat on the gravel and downed water in the dust while other raiders came by on their final couple of hundred metres. Bruno and Gilles were still at Grand Place apparently. They finally crossed the line 22 hours later. I went back to the hotel and apart from waking for a small dinner, slept for 18 hours.
The finish – not bad considering I’d been going for 35 hours. We’ll be back! (With apologies / thanks to the
Port Harcourt Phantom Hash House Harriers)