I managed to get 4 hours sleep which is what I need for a normal day, but this being an extraordinary day I probably could have done with a little more. After a massive bowl of porridge (oatmeal) and a last minute kit check I was on my way to Westport House.I was part of the second wave to leave this morning and when I got to the departure area the first wave participants were already boarding their buses. Everything seemed to be running smoothly and my bus to start line departed on time at 6am. Most of the journey was familiar after last night's adventure and we reached the start line a little after 7am. After a few announcements from the organisers and a trip to the open air loo for me were were lined up for a 7.35am start which, again, happened bang on time!
The race is split up into 6 stages (that's the "6" bit in Gael Force 6) and the first stage was a run to the kayak stage 12km away. We started by running off the beach which sounds lovely but the beach happens to sit a sea level which means that straight away we're running uphill. This uphill bit lasted for quite some time and I really felt tired when we reached the crest of that very, very long hill but at least the running surface was firm. As we started to descend the copious amounts of liquids consumed before the start had caught up with me and I took the first opportunity to "off load".
Massively relieved and feeling a lot lighter I rejoined the race refreshed, until I reached a bright red arrow pointing towards very high, very steep and very rough looking hill. The assent very uneven and a little wet but I reached the top without any comedy moments. The decent could have been a different story as most of the water seemed to be hiding on this side of the hill, the terrain became very rough and there were huge bog holes and muddy puddles to navigate. Initially everyone put a lot of effort into avoiding stepping into water but that soon changed as one by one everyone had slipped and slid into bog holes and streams by the time we reached the bottom. Views of Killary Fjord were stunning as we descended but I didn't get much time to enjoy them as most of my energy was focused on maintaining and upright position, unlike many of my companions who had more than their fair share of comedy moments.
Upon reaching the bottom we had a fairly firm track to run on for a few hundred meters but before we reached a paved road the track disintegrated into an obstacle course for about a kilometer. We completed the 12km of hard cross county running in 1 hour 28 minutes before we made it to the shore of Killary Harbour where our kayaks awaited.
As a non-swimmer this stage, stage 2, worried me the most but it turned out to be the easiest one, perhaps the additional buoyancy of salt water made it easier to move through when compared to the freshwater we trained in. We flew across the 1.6km harbour in a little over 10 minutes where we crossed from Co. Galway into Co. Mayo.
On this side of the harbour stage 3 began with hard work to get across more bog and rough terrain for about a kilometer or two before getting reaching a paved road where we had another couple of kilometers to run before picking up our bicycles This stage was entirely up hill which made it extra special. In all we ran the 3.5km stage in 26 minutes.
Stage 4 was the first cycling stage and I had no idea how it was going to work out as I hadn't cycled in a full year. There were two major concerns; legs and arse! My legs were well used to running but cycling uses a different set of muscles and I had no idea how they would react to 32.5km of constant and extreme use. If you've ever seen a professional road racing saddle you'll understand my rear end fears, the saddles are so tiny that sitting on it is the last thing you'd want to do with it but I'm assured that with the correct attire they're quite comfortable. We'll see...
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