15 weeks, 57 miles and my first King of the Hill attempt.
This week’s motivation has been split very clearly between trying to maintain a 72-75 miles per week average for the month of March, and being well rested enough to run the 6 hours today taking into account the level of elevation for each 10k.
I did 2 laps of the 5.4 mile route on Wednesday and then just one loop of the 7.5 mile route on Thursday and Friday. Apart from being appalled at how cold I was on the last of these, the rest of it was pretty uneventful.
This balancing act paid off based on today’s race, I had set out aiming for 5 laps of the 10km route which averaged out to 1hr 12 minds per lap. I was able to start at a fast pace and finished the first lap in just over an hour. Since the first 5k felt virtually all uphill, I was happy with this. I was very conscious of the time for reaching the top of the hill on each lap and then getting back to the start. Apart from a horrific 4th ascent taking around 46 minutes, I was able to remain under the average pace needed for each lap.
The race organiser had said we could start a lap and finish outside of the 6 hours but it wouldn’t count towards the total in the race. I was very keen to have every hour of running count! For my 5th lap I had 1hr 20min to get in under the cutoff. Luckily I managed the ascent in under 40 minutes so could relax a bit on the last descent knowing I could get back in time. I finished with 6 minutes to spare and my energy levels crashed virtually instantly. I spent most of the presentation part resting my hands on my knees and slowly making my way through a 2L bottle of coke. I think the near 4000ft of elevation must have taken more out of me than I expected. The crowns they had for King of the Hill and Queen of the Hill were ace and all of us took part in a group photo which was nice.
My main motivation for this week came from a rather unusual source, I had spent a very worthwhile couple of hours watching the film adaptation of the ‘I Kill Giants’ comic book. I read the digital edition of the comic a while back which was incredible and this week was genuinely one of very few times where a movie is more than just a lobotomised version of the original material. It is a fantastic story and the cast really manage to carry the messages and themes from the comic book well.
It is as good an example of an escapism story with a resilience underlining, I think I’ve ever seen. There isn’t really any quotes I can lift from it without spoiling a big part of the plot. Hopefully the quote below will show what I got from it without spoiling it for anyone.
