I do not generally like been told what to do at even at the best of times. Back in 2020 Covid was hitting and our Government was coming out with a lot of rules. I understood most of the reasoning behind them but it was still tough to stomach.
I was classed an essential worker and still had to go to work but was locked down within 50km when at home for a time. We had it pretty easy compared to other bigger cities in Australia and around the world. But still I just like getting stuff done not hanging around at home.
I had been toying with the idea for trying to run a long event to really test myself to see what I was capable of.
Covid was going to stuff this idea. All events were cancelled but I was not going to let that stop me I would just make my own course and do it by myself.
I had started to train a bit longer and slower, probably too much as I usually do and did something to the back of my knee. It needed almost a month off before it was good enough to run again.
I should trained and built more but as there was not much else to do so I just decided to go for it one weekend.
I was underprepared but that just fired me up more. I was walking lots at work this run was still doable it might just take me a bit longer as I would probably just have to walk more.
The plan was 4x 25km loops from my house as a base into the nearby nature reserve.
The first 50 kilometers went pretty well just walking the hills and jogging the downs and flat sections.
At the end of 75km I felt cooked and could not run anymore luckily I had walking poles which really helped as my legs started to go. After a sit down and some proper food I felt better, like I could do this but that feeling soon disappeared when I got back out there.
I had started at 2am in the morning and was hoping to be done in 16 hours but as it started to get dark again and I still had lots to do with only my head lamp for company.
The last 10km was so hard I needed another break but with his all over body ache, I was worried I would just call it quits if I went back inside the house. So I started having more rests in the bush just sitting down on what ever I could find, my only motivation at this point was I if I could just finish I would not have to do this ever again.
I would love to have another try one day but I would want to train better and be fitter than back then, so until then it will just be the shorter 5km parkruns for me.
