Almost Race Day

I'm not running up that!

The big race tomorrow and we are thankful that this is not the final peak that we have to climb for the  Dodo Trail Race - this is one of the views from the starting point of tomorrow morning's jaunt. The final peak is in the other direction - just as high but not as spikey. We signed in this morning at a well organised race HQ - 750 runners in total at the three distances. Last year's winner of the 50K race was Ricky Lightfoot from Cumbria and he's down on the list again. I've settled for the 25K event which has 1500 metres of climb much of it on trails covered in tree roots and other debris.

Off we go!

And by way of a warm up.on Monday we decided a bike ride was in order. This took us down to the Seven Coloured Earth site which was described earlier - here we are passing between sugar cane fields on our way back. These appear to be quiet country lanes but every so often an ancient bus with a smoking exhaust pipe or a mad Mauritian taxi will come hurtling round a corner on the wrong side of the road. So it was with a sigh of relief that we cut off the road and pulled into the service road at the back of our hotel.

Now this won't hurt.

And then disaster struck - I tried to avoid a large puddle by skirting to the side of the gravel track and my front wheel gave way sliding off to the side - I slid forward on my knees and ended up in the local clinic! The gravel of the track was collected from a stony beach and comprised small lumps of dead coral. Coral, as divers on reefs know full well, can be extremely abrasive and therefore this mishap meant that my knees were well and truly shredded. This particular doctor (who attended to me the second we came through the door!) was accompanied by a no nonsense nurse who was quite handy with a scalpel, cutting away loose skin in order to clean out gravel from underneath. All in all an interesting day we thought! The challenge now of course was to cosset the wound carefully such that I could run on Sunday, large quantities of betadene and iodine were employed to try to avoid infection and, after today's careful examination the decision is to go ahead and go for it!