The final leg was all that I had left. 23km and I would be done. I had five and a half hours to do it, and I think that was what it took me to do last time. Still, I took 20 minutes in transition. I’m sure Rod passed me in that time, but I needed to regain myself. I had some delicious soup my mother made. But we also noticed a light on in my backpack. My backup light had somehow gotten itself turned on. We tried to turn it off, but it wouldn’t. I think some water may have gotten at it and the short circuit wouldn’t allow it to go dark. Oh, well, I probably won’t need it.
I hate the first 7km of Leg 5. It starts with a very steep climb. It didn’t help that 20 meters in my mother called out that I had forgotten my belt of Gatorade. I didn’t have the energy to go back down, so this leg would be electrolyte free. After the steep climb, there is a brief moment of okay trail. This is followed by a narrow six kilometre trail, with many tripping roots and stones, covered by foliage that makes it impossible to see where you will trip.
But oddly, it was easier this time. For the first time, I had put my headlamp at maximum power. I was able to see better, and that made all the difference.
Until my batteries ran out.
And when I took out my auxiliary light, it started dimming too. Fortunately, it is required to bring extra batteries. So in the middle of the dark trail, with a dimming light, I changed them. Unsuccessfully the first time, which induced a small heart attack. I had put one of the batteries in backwards. When I fixed it, I was good again. I could keep it on maximum light.
For this part, I usually don’t run, but now that I could see, I was able to. I even passed people! That had never happened before. But I still hadn’t caught up to Rod.
After the river crossing with only 15km to go, I climbed up the monster hill on the other side. I found some flat parts and I ran them. I was feeling fairly good, and I passed a lot of people. At this point, it was fairly safe to walk because you had enough time to finish. But I had a goal to finish with Mike’s time. But when I suddenly hit the sign that said there was only 5km to go, another problem showed up. I was way faster than I expected, and faster than my support team expected. If this kept up, I would cross the finish line long before they got there. I started using my walkie-talkie to report progress, but there was never any answer.
I passed a sign that said “The beef is near”. I long ago stopped trusting that kind of sign. There is never any good food at the end of the run. Only once was there actually a hamburger, but now I’m convinced I hallucinated them.
Then I was out of the woods and on to the road. An uphill road, so I walked a lot of it, reporting my progress to the empty radio waves. Then I started to pass a house. The end was really close. And then my mother started to answer the radio. She had to run to the course.
I was close, no one was ahead for quite some distance. No one was behind for quite some distance. There was a slight uphill. I walked. And then I caught up with my mother, and we walked together. The last 100 meters I ran, but I made sure to do it slowly and to regain my energy. I wanted to cross looking good. And not with the hidden pain that you can usually see in my eyes.
22:07:48
I didn’t find the exact time until later. The time shows was about 22:15, but they lopped off eight minutes due to the time to cross the river. Mike showed up in civilian clothes soon after and I heard his story. I later found out that I had left the last transition before Rod had even showed up.
I beat all of my friends.
And this should be my last time doing it. I’ve done the Death Race five times. That is enough. I have nothing more to prove with it. There are other ultras to run; better ultras.