What an amazing experience, thank you Steven Torrington for being with me training at least 3 days a week since December 2017, it was an experience I will repeat anytime with you. Both Steven and I took advantage of a coach, Neville Beeton (CoachNeville). Neville was fantastic and I would highly recommend following a programme from an experienced coach (see First-100-Mile-TRAIL for one of Neville’s trail magazine article’s).
I did the Addo 100miler (160km +10km for getting lost) in 36hours 39minutes
Winning Gear
- New Balance 910 trail shoes – no blisters, survived the rain, mud and multiple river crossings
- Balega socks – no blisters
- Salomon running tights (Exo motion shorts) – no chaffing
- For the second half of the race I ran with first Ascent calf guards – no cramping?
Commentary at CP #1
A gentle run in the rain an a reasonably flat dirt road.
Commentary at CP #2
Rather a brutal 20km!
We followed the incorrect route (there was a MTB race the week and the signage was very similar) resulting in a 10km detour.
Note to self: next time use the GPS from the start!
Commentary at CP #5
(No CP 3 nor CP4 due to inaccessibility.)
A rather tough run in the dark from CP2 to CP5 having to dodge (rabbit) holes on the jeep track but we made good time to CP5 ~ although maybe should have written off the 2 hours lost and kept to our original running pace/chart.
Commentary at CP #6
Enjoyable night running, lots of river crossing.
Commentary at CP #7
Onward we go…
Commentary at CP #8
Tired now and some nasty hills to get us to the hippo’s.
Commentary at CP #9
Major river crossing’s done, morning has broken, onward to the first cut-off.
Commentary at CP #11
(We ran past CP10, as we were worried about making cut-off by 12pm).
Cutoff point, made with 2 hours to spare. A good rest and change of clothes (not shoes or running tights).
—ooo000ooo—
We stopped making videos from CP11, unfortunately Steven pulled out at CP13 before the valley of tears – 17km of tough climbing. I was fortunate to be given permission as the last competitor to continue.
Caught up to 2 other runners (Trish Schuin & Wayne Du Plooy) in the valley of tears and stayed with them for the remainder of the race – thank you Trish & Wayne.
We made it to CP14 (also CP5) 15 minutes before cut-off at 6:45pm. From here we did the route in reverse to CP17 (no CP 15 nor CP16 due to inaccessibility). We got to CP17 at midnight giving us 3hours to complete the remaining 17km – we crossed the finish line at 2:40am on Sunday morning.
Attached the packing list we used (based on Steven’s 2x Skyrun experiences) and an estimated time chart (we generally followed this time chart given we had a 2hour setback at the start). See AddoList.
What an awesome experience.