Odyssey Day 1 the battle has begun

After much pre-race talk last night I compared Odyssey to entering a war zone…. You pretty much put yourself out there and just hope that you survive to the end. The war is not with the opponents it is with yourself – with your body, your mind and your heart… Today we won!

We started at the Old Hermanus Harbour at 12h00 it is a difficult time to start as you have had breakfast but are not quite ready for lunch. It was very exciting – I am sometimes even too excited to concentrate on all the pre-race small talk. It was great – we have come along way to get here and it was really exciting to finally be lining up with the other soldiers.

We started towards the middle of the crowd – I know what happens when I start in the front – I defend my position and try and keep up with those around me which is a big NO NO in a race like this… I did joke that if there were other girls ahead we could do the exact time and finish behind them… did I tell you we were not meant to be competitive today oops – it was tough holding back – running by our heart rates pulling the reigns in on one another from time to time.

We did this training run a while ago and I was lucky enough to get a piggy back on the water crossing – when we got to this part of the route I cheekily tried my luck and asked a fellow runner – who sweetly obliged – we arrived to the other sides with cheers and elderly ladies responding to what a gentleman he was – so that that runner who ever you are a very big thank you!!!

However the next river crossing I was not so lucky… They mentioned a river crossing as the mouth of the river had been opened due to recent rainfall. Just as we got closer I told Viv to hurry and get us a boat – we had just gained position on a ladies team and I did not want them to cross the river first (oops not meant to be competitive)Viv was laughing whilst I was trying to negotiate who would take the front of the croc – turned out they were all tied together and we had to put life jackets on and climb across about twenty… this was not easy holding running shoes in hand – however after a while I managed to put my running shoes on my hands and crawl quite quickly – note to self if the run gets tough can crawl quite well!!! Viv scraped her shin but is a real toughie and only cried for a few minutes – nah she never cried! She is tough as nails.

We then arrived to feeding zone where Viv challenged me to a burping competition after letting out a monster belch – she even threatened to do the next one over the microphone – the commentator found this quite amusing and so did our supporters!

The beach run goes on for hours so we decided to listen to music – we were probably shouting to one another by now – because as our fellow runners know – we do not shut up! We passed another ladies team – not that it matters as we were not being competitive after a while we had the next ladies team in our sights – this is where the battle started – instinctively you want to go for the kill – to hunt them down and end with a sprint finish and the glory of the day… but we were not racing instead we were warming up for four days of running afterwards. Viv was very good at checking my heart rate and slapping my wrists as I started charging a little too fast. We finished fresh and were surprised with a 5^th position and later were informed that the top 5 ladies team finished within the top 25 teams – well – we were very happy with day one.

We are being teased for having showered together at the end – there was only one cubicle and we were freezing!

Our friends Moira and John – Mojo also finished 5th mixed team. We have decided to go up a position everyday.

I am not sure when I will blog again but hope to find a computer at the campsite tomorrow… Bye everybody – we are about to face our biggest day – please think about us!!!! Viv is also being tracked by polar so you can check our speed and kilometers and her heart rate – please tell me if it goes higher than 160 cause that means she is lying to me!

Lastly a very big thank you to John Morison for allowing us as guests to his house and to Viv’s Steve for being an amazing second.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 10th, 2008 at 12:11 pm and is filed under 2008, Cape Odyssey, Cape Odyssey 2008, Nicola Lockhart, Project Wishbone, running, trail running. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.