Racers were told to check in with a volunteer before starting Leg 5.
“Reports of a cougar on the trail between here and the river, buddy-up for this section, stick together, don’t run it alone”.
Not exactly what you want to hear as you set out into the darkness on unknown trails - but it least I had a buddy with me! We got going around 3:30am, still not sure if we could make either time cut, for the last boat (6:30), or the finish (8am).
Leg 5 turned out to be a lot more technical and hilly than I had realised. The single track was overgrown with ankle to knee height bush on both sides. Perfect for a stalking cougar.
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| ©2019 Government of Alberta 'BearSmart Guide' |
It felt claustrophobic after the heights of Mt Hamel and the wide logging roads of Leg 4. Fresh batteries in my headlamp didn’t help much, with lots of trees on both sides. I was extra conscious of the quiet and kept checking over my shoulder expecting to see a pair of eyes reflected behind me.
Tony was setting the pace and we felt like we were making good progress, although with dead watches it was hard to tell how close our perceived effort was to reality. Somewhere in the woods I lost my footing and twisted my knee in a fall, probably a mix of fatigue, terrain, and the half-turns to check for wildlife!
Tony was setting the pace and we felt like we were making good progress, although with dead watches it was hard to tell how close our perceived effort was to reality. Somewhere in the woods I lost my footing and twisted my knee in a fall, probably a mix of fatigue, terrain, and the half-turns to check for wildlife!
It took us an hour and a half to get to Hell’s Gate (just before the boat). I was so focussed on getting across the river on time that I'd forgotten about the grim reaper. Seeing 'Charon' stood silently blocking the trail, palm outstretched, stopped me in my tracks. After a panicked rummage for my coin I was in the boat and just about able to see the canyon walls in the first dawn light as we crossed.
Now we were on the home straight, although we weren't quite sure how far we had left to go. Officially Leg 5 is 22km. Each time we asked a volunteer or runner how far we were from the finish we got a different answer. Straight off the boat we were into another gruelling uphill (the finish is about 1000ft above the river) but we were determined to give it everything as the chances of finishing in under 24 hours were dwindling. When the trail flattened out we were doing a solid shuffle and were overtaking a number of other runners. Everyone was on their last energy reserves by now.
Suddenly I had a nasty blister pop and I couldn't put my weight on my foot. I was forced to sit on the trail and patch it up as the mosquitoes feasted, and all the runners we had passed in the last few km's came by. Luckily the rough strapping was ok to run on and we were able to get back to our solid shuffle pace (I'm not sure if it qualified as running at this point).
When we thought we must still have 6 or 8 km to go, someone told us we were only 4 km from the end - which meant we might finish half an hour before the deadline instead of half an hour after. The trail turned into tracks and you could tell we were getting close to town, we didn't slow down. Even as we arrived back on the side streets we could hardly believe it. Then there were residents and spectators cheering; there was the finish; there was Greg; we had done it: 23 hours and 21 minutes (just 10 and a half hours behind the winner).
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| © Raven Eye Photography |
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| Death Racer (Photo: Greg N) |
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