Dream...Struggle ...Victory... cont

Part 2, The Struggle. It’s probably fair to say that CP1 was to be the last time I felt race fit and happy with my progress.
I never saw it coming, but 5 miles into stage 2 I knew I was in for an interesting race. A burning sensation was manifesting itself in my bladder. I had emptied my bladder 2 miles short of the CP1, with a strong flow of clear urine, indicating a sound rehydration strategy. On average you want to be taking onboard 500mls of rehydration fluid per hour, I was certainly safe on my volumes, I had taken a litre prior to the race start, and taken another 1.2litres form my two front bottles, plus some from my 2ltr reserve platypus in my pack, via the bite valve on my feed tube. So I wasn’t so happy with the pain that was building. I drank some more fluid and thought I’ll check the colour of my urine when I pee next, but as events unfolded, that wasn’t about to be any time soon! Another 2 miles on I was doubled over trying to ease the discomfort, desperately trying to force urine out, but could manage not even a dribble. This wasn’t funny. My bladder was screaming that it was full and ready to burst, but I couldn’t have even wet a postage stamp! Bloody marvellous.
The burning sensation was getting worse, and the more I tried to force urine out, the more my “best mate” was burning, only this time I had a success. I was wearing a front pack attachment on my running backpack, so in order to check my urine I cupped my hand a caught the few drips that I managed to force out, success turned to hollow victory, as my hand was stained with strong dark, blood filled urine. I obviously had some sort of urine infection, and I decided to address it with pain killers and advice from the Doc at CP2. I rinsed my hand with water squirted out some antiseptic hand gel and rubbed them dry. Reduced to a trot now as the temperature reached 46.3c, I carried on. I thought to myself, "I am familiar with this place, I spend alot of time here it's the place I know as the "Struggle".

I must have fallen well off the pace, and don’t remember much other than the intense pain, and trying in vain to pee again every mile or so, but 3 miles short of CP2 Joakim caught up with me and we stuck it out together from there on in, as I relayed my predicament. The banter took my mind off it for a while, and as we rounded the bend in the dry river bed, I could see the 4x4 parked up next to a tree, and Amy and Jayne were waiving and encouraging us in.
I quickly brought Amy up to speed on my medical history, and she concluded that Cystitis was a probable cause, either bacterial or exercise induced due to the arduous nature of this event. I broke out my pain killers which she supplemented with some of hers, and advised me to keep the hydration up.
A change of socks and we were off, after Joakim finished rolling around on the ground with muscle cramps after stretching out for a rest. 1 Marathon done, let’s get the next one out of the way too I said as we set off.

The heat was just stifling, and not long after we left the checkpoint we fell into silence as we each buried ourselves in our thoughts, we marched for a good distance in silence, occasionally stopping to click a few shots off on our cameras. Then the Messum Crater had us both spell bound, some 20km in diameter, this is one of the most still and serene places I have ever had the pleasure to visit. I just couldn’t get a grasp of the vastness of this place. The satellite imagery maps that guided us along our route were difficult to interpret against the scale of this place, and CP3 seemed a very long way away on the other rim of the crater. The true scale of the distance sank in when we eventually caught sight of CP3 situated high on the rim of the crater in a saddle between two high points. A 4x4 came up from behind, and Steve and Korbus slowed to check we were ok, we waived them off and watched the route that they took. It seemed to go on forever... “Shit!” I said to Joakim, “how bloody far do you recon that is, it must be 4 miles if it's an inch”.
We both looked at each other and just put our heads down and fell into single file. CP3 marked the half way point 37 miles in, and my feet were beginning to hurt, I had made the mistake of bringing the wrong shoes, the Asics Gel 1120’s were not fit for purpose, and not providing enough cushioning to the balls of my feel, and the bruising they had suffered from the stony ground was beginning to manifest as hot spots for blisters. I knew I had made the mistake before the start, but hey! there was nothing I could do about it so the old adage “Change what you can change, Accept what you can’t change and learn the difference between the two” came into play.
continued below...