Hell Run 4 Nov - Done and Dusted!

D-Day minus 152… Ouch, ouch ouch… my legs hurt badly now… Yesterday was the day of The Hell Run. We couldn’t have asked for better weather for the event, sun and hardly any wind. Doing it in rain and wind would have been a different story! However I will still claim it was a pretty tough race by any standard… The length of the race was somewhere between 10 and 12 miles, all on sandy trails, and most of the race being uphill (at least that is how I remember it!)…

The race goes down as one of the tougher runs I have ever done! Me, Mo and Helen all positioned ourselves in the front of the line up, ahead of the start. Mo bravely on the front line, but since I am of more humble nature (*cough sound covering the word “bullshit”*), I stood with Helen a couple of rows back.

The race started off in a hard pace, but according to our discussion before the race, I started hard. We had discussed that that you pretty much never can catch up on a slow start. So for the first 20min I was flying, passing people left, right and centre, but then it hit me like a sledgehammer. It started to get a bit hilly and I was wondering if the hill section had started already *mental note, look at the race plan for next race*. It soon became apparent that the race was going to be going up and down a hill pretty much all the time. I had a long low between 20-60min, where I don’t think I overtook anyone and after 47min Helen passed me and soon she was way ahead. I am still pretty impressed that I managed to stay ahead of her that far into the race! The water trenches came as a blessing after about 55min… I felt fresher and could start to push ahead again and start to pass people again, rather then being passed all the time!

The hill session came towards the end of the race, and with 1h 15min in the legs, pushing up the steep banks on a training ground for tanks proved to be more then a handful. Mostly on hands and knees I pushed on and once through the hill section I reached the last water trench… Coming up from the trench I recognised where I was and I knew it was less then 5min from the end of the race!! I pushed on, passed a few people and entering the last 300m Mo was there shouting in his French accent “come on Joakim, RUN”… I pushed through and finished around 1h25min… A respectable time for me I think… Helen had finished a minute ahead of me, and Mo on 1h12min!!! Mo inside the top10 of 2,500 runners, and Helen came 7 or 8 amongst the women! Next time I’ll choose my running partners better so that I can win *smile*… No, only joking, I don’t think I could ask for better people to run with, every time I run with Mo and Helen I learn something new, a pity I cannot convince them to do the Namibian Ultramarathon with me.

The second race of the day started and I was in a hurry to catch a plane to Germany. As muddy as we were we got into the car and drove back to London and with 20min turn around time at home I was out the door with a suit on, heading for Munich and feeling very achy, but very very happy! Needless to say I slept very well on the flight…

Despite the pain I still managed to get up this morning and do 25min on the bike in the gym, just to loosen up my legs a bit and trying to loose the pain and quicken the recovery… In about 88h (or 4,5 days) it is time for Ballbuster duathlon! BRING IT ON!!!