The build up and training towards the Cyprus Ultra had gone well, lots of long back to back runs, shorter faster runs and of course some training in the altitude chamber. The only niggle was my left knee that was actually causing me major concerns. Annoyingly this is STILL due to my over extension injury from the Spine in January (can you believe it!) because my right leg isn’t quite straightening out 100% it’s causing my left knee cap to twist outwards – so I did virtually no running at all the week building up to the race – just panicked!
It was touch and go as to whether I was actually going to fly out to Larnaca, I really didn’t want another DNF and certainly wasn’t going to do any further damage to my knee because of my Freedom Runners Project in September – but being a Scot I decided having spent all that money I would at least fly out and see what happened.
The only other person I knew doing the race was Philip McMullan, we had raced together in the Jungle Ultra in 2012 so was looking forward to catching up with Philip again and meeting his family.
We met at breakfast the following morning and all of us drove up to the Vasa where the race was starting from – I had warned Philip to go very slowly as my rental car struggled on the hills and at one point I thought it would be quicker to get out and push! After a look round the first section of the course we headed off for a late lunch then back to our hotel to relax.
Time to get a bit of a tan so I put on my bikini and headed for the pool – fantastic. However was immediately feeling negative when I went swimming and my left knee was very sore every-time it bent – this was so not looking good but I tried to stay positive.
Friday afternoon we had the race briefing in the Londa Hotel approximately a 45 minute walk from my hotel, far easier to walk than take my car – or so I thought! Muggins headed off in completely the wrong direction and it wasn’t until I had been walking for about half an hour that it dawned on me I could be going the wrong way. The hotel was supposed to be on the beach side, no way could any hotels fit along this section of the beach – with a few naughty words I turned round now in a flap because I was going to be late! (I hate being late) Thankfully I remembered passing a taxi so just prayed that it was still there – I found the old guy chatting on his phone, I think he was rather shocked that I got into his cab and asked to be taken to the Londa hotel – bless him he took me.
After the race briefing it was an early supper with the mad Irish contingent (Philip and family) then off to bed where as usual I woke up every hour on the hour worrying I wasn’t going to hear the alarm and when the alarm finally went off all I wanted to do was sleep!
I’m not going to go into huge detail on the race as I plan to write a race report (hopefully sooner rather than Later). I had made the decision not to tell anyone that I was coming out to Cyprus – I wanted to come out quietly and just run.
With my knee strapped up we headed off towards the start, boy was I nervous, would my body hold out in this heat, how would my knee cope, all these things going through my head but finally we were off.
I was very sad to see Philip when I came into the main CP at the finish of my 2nd lap, but he had made the decision that this wasn’t the race for him for many reasons and his family kindly made the decision to stay and support me – that was such a wonderful, kind and marvellous thing for them to do, especially as they were on holiday.
The heat in this race is un-believeable, there was no shade and on the 2nd day the temperatures soared to above 50 degrees! The course is extremely tough, we were either running up or down and the ups were steep and at points covered in rocks or large holes that needed to be avoided, especially in the dark and the downs were so steep in places that after abouot 6 laps my quads were killing me! – the 217km distance was 10 x 21km laps plus a small lap at the end, so from a mental point of view it was difficult.
I just got into a zone, enormously helped by my lovely Irish crew and went on to be the only finisher of the 135 mile race (217km) setting a new course record of 41hrs 34 mins and the first female to ever finish the race, so you can imagine I came away feeling very happy and my knee had held up without any pain – RESULT!
A HUGE BIG MARVELLOUS thank you goes to Philip, Lynne and Niall McMullan and Grainne McHenry for their amazing support. I couldn’t have done it without you (and my wonderful iced coffee!) thank you from the bottom of my heart you guys were fantastic.
Last week I recovered, relaxed and had a sports massage, this week I will go back to running but only short distances to give my body a bit longer to recover before the big mileage kicks in again.
Thank you to the race organisers for putting on a great event and looking after me so well.
Happy training
