Nathan handed the laps out on Wednesday night. He said that Leg 8 was a short ten miles and told me I was capable of doing it under the hour. As this was super-fast Nathan, I took it with a pinch of salt...
I checked the weather forecast on Saturday night to find it was going to be
a very hot start changing later to heavy rain. I was running one of the last
legs, so it sounded promising for a comfortable run. When I set out early on
Sunday morning to check out the route the sun was blazing and there wasn't a
cloud to be seen. I arrived at the start point and met up with Nathan, who
advised me to take it steady and take on plenty of water.
I took over from Mick O'Shea in third place. After about a mile I passed a female runner. Shortly after passing her a spectator handed out a sponge. I tried to take it and he looked slightly embarrassed as it was meant for the runner I had just passed. This was the lightest moment of the stage. Everything went downhill from here. Or should I say uphill?
At the next junction the Andrew family were waiting with water and
encouragement. They were there throughout the stage, and I was very grateful
for both the water and the encouragement. With the sun feeling hotter and
the stage feeling longer I would have considered pulling out if it wasn't a
team race.
As I approached the last downhill section of the leg a runner came into sight in front. I continued to run, just being content to finish and hand the baton on to Stuart, but the other runner must have been slowing down. On the final bend I managed to overtake him and hand over to Stuart in second place. After being rehydrated at the finish and comments of how awful I looked, I walked slowly back to the car to find the temperature 31°C.
No wonder it took me over the hour!
Richard Ansell.