Day 4 (Atacama Crossing)

Day 4 09-Mar-2011
Atacama Crossing (Chile) 2011
I felt rotten last night. Had the most surreal night. It felt as though my body was eating itself, searching for calories, fat stores, muscle fibre to burn. I was burning up and it almost seemed like my body was fizzing - weird. Anyway, suffice to say I didn't get a cracking nights sleep!

Race strategy for today: Be defensive or attack as before. I decided it would be smart to hold something back for the 'big un' - that's Thursday's stage, not Tom's!! Stick or twist if you will?!?

I'd ran with my body and heart for the first 3 days, now time to go with the head! Today was going to be my recovery day, in a kinda marathon across the desert sort of recovery day.

The defensive mindset really didn't get me off to a good start, it was really tough to shake of a negative mindset and I never really got going. It was an extraordinaryily tough un.

James Elson (a guy I met on the Country to Capital in Jan. Now this guy has run every desert multi stage ultra going and plenty of 100 mile single stage races - I think he knows what he's doing and is someone I followed over the last 2 months and have considerable respect for) said to me - 'if you're going through hell, keep running'. Well, I descended into hell today. The Salar de Atacama (salt flats) experience has been seared onto my memory for life. It is not something I want to experience again and don't particularly want to talk about it. It was dark, very very dark! I have enormous respect for anyone who puts themselves through that.

I no longer recognise my feet, they used to be pretty, now they don't belong to me. I just leave them outside the tent at night and pick them up in the morning. My legs may as well have steel rods strapped to them - the darn pain.

So, today was not my day. I've had 3 pretty good ones and a day off. Time to reset the clock, refocus the mind, get positive and give myself a good talking to. Time to develop a positive, winning strategy for tomorrow. It's going to be a big day. I feel as though I may have lost touch with the top 3 and may have even slid out of the top 5 but I just had to do it. If I gambled today, the wheels may well have come off.

Big respect to the guys ahead of me to day, esp Eric, Derren and Matias who chased the top 2 all day long. How anyone runs across those salt flats I will never know! Another great perf from Tom and Chris. Tom is being really consistent and just ploughing on - he's damn tough. Unfort Chris has been suffering with bad feet and now a muscle strain, so fingers crossed for him tomorrow.

I feel better for my 7 hour, 100 degree, salt flat staggering, lip burning (they're falling off), blood curdling, foot swelling rest day. Back in the game now. Tomorrow is going to be a game of chess and I'm ready for action. Bring it on.

This is utterly mental!