SPRINT Issue 59

I know at one aid station around midnight the temperature had dropped a bit
more, so I dug my fleece out of my race vest and put it on. When we went
back outside it was immediately apparent that the fleece was now absolutely
essential. To think I only stuck it in the drop box at the last minute based on
advice from Centurion in the last TP100 mail sent out just a few days
before. At Henley I didn’t believe I’d need it, by 0600 on Sunday I was pretty
convinced that having my fleece with me was the difference between
finishing and a DNF – it was that cold overnight!
We crossed noisy weirs (really noisy and a bit freaky after the peace of the
night!). Dave laughed as I got trapped in a sort-of cage that came to a dead
end as I’d missed the side gate. We saw lots of trains (I find them quite
comforting!). And we went through a few pretty creepy areas – wooded
areas with lots of rubbish in, and one raised wooden walkway that went
under a big brick arch bridge that felt like you were entering some monsters
lair!
There was a hill, somewhere around miles 67-71. This was the main hill of
the whole event, and although Dave had built it up (regularly comparing it to
parts of Everest!) it was again actually quite nice to be going on something
other than flat. And besides, when you go up, you get to come down again
and it was a (now rare) moment of trotting along at something faster than
walking pace which felt nice for the legs.
At some point we saw a meteorite as well. This has been confirmed by
several other people, so it wasn’t one of those middle-of-the-night-in-andultra
hallucinations. It was the best one I’ve ever seen – not one of those
piddly whizzing points of light that last a second, but something that looked
more like a mini comet, taking a good 5-10 seconds to drift across the bit of
sky that I could see. It disappeared down behind a wall, and I half expected a
boom as it hit the ground but nothing came.
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