Last Man Standing Endurance Run

It’s taken a couple of weeks to get my head around my attempt at what is The Clint Eastwood last one standing endurance run (loser).

It’s fair to say that when I entertained the idea of entering such an event it was more out of being intrigued, how far could I go? How can I discover my limits on a certain day? This event was a rare occasion to be able to push my boundaries past where the finish line normally dictates. As with this event there is no finish line until your the last one left standing.....

Arriving Thursday night, it was a matter of setting up, organising the gear, refuelling, and getting all the sleep I could before it all began. 

The piecing sound of a whistle broke the calm of the early morning. A three minute warning to signify the start of what was to be a 16 hour day on my feet. The feeling on the start line was full of anticipation of what was to come, looking around at all the smiling, fresh faces. The latter faded over time yet the smiles still remained.

With the first five laps in the cooler conditions of the early morning I found a comfortable pace and set about my work, aiming to complete each loop in 45 minutes to give myself enough time between each lap to restock hydration and reassess. 

Taking each lap at a time, the only focus was the next step and then the next. I had managed to find a consistent (all day) pace and a set the plan to walk the final 200m of each loop.

With the light of the dawn breaking through on lap six it seemed to take me a bit more effort to keep the pace controlled coming in after forty minutes to finish the lap, five minutes faster then I had been tracking throughout the night. The following few hours ticked past each one signalled the end of one lap and the beginning of another, as midday loomed the sun began to show itself through the clouds and with that the heat began to climb.

By now my pace had once again stabilised and like clockwork I was completing each lap within my target window, my folks had by this time turned up to give my partner some much needed rest and gave me a much needed boost as I headed out on lap ten. However It was about this time that my thoughts started to process my intake of nutrition, or seemingly the lack of it, it had been ten hours yet I had only consumed two single serve packets of chips, 40g of fruit puree and a small amount of oats in addition to the 90 calories of Trail Brew I was consuming during each lap..... clearly not enough. 

Coming in on lap eleven I was greeted at my camp by my coach Ben Duffus, who had sort me out to check in on my progress, discussing how I was feeling, nutrition and fluid intake as around me my crew filled my bottles, organised wet towels, rubbed my legs and fed me potato puree to try and bring the deficit back then after what only felt like seconds the whistle sounded to indicate it was time to stand on the line to begin lap twelve. The midday sun was relentless and the temperature kept climbing, I continued to step up to that line lap after lap, but by lap sixteen it was over for me, the lack of consumed nutrition and the heat of the midday sun had accumulated into a downward spiral of nausea, dizziness and what later escalated to loss of sight and hearing if only for a few seconds but it felt like minutes. 

After 16 hours, 108km on my feet my Clint Eastwood experience had come to and end. Although I missed the goal I set out to achieve I am content with the lessons I learnt during this event and the many other positives I took out of it. I will see you again in 2021.

Thank you to my amazing Fiancée and Family, my coach Ben Duffus, my Physio Mat Britton and my BTR family, Trail Brew, Inspire Athletic, the crew at fisiocrem and my brothers at MAW. The support from all of you makes this journey so much easier and fun along the way. Also a huge thank you to Alun Davies and team from AAA Racing & Coaching for a great event, especially in the circumstances that were present at the time.