RacingThePlanet: Madagascar 2014 Blogs

First I want to say a big thank you to everyone emailing and commenting. It’s always really nice to have these to read at the end of each stage. The comments have been an awesome mix of hilarious and motivational (and only a few have mentioned the delicious food they are enjoying).

So yesterday was the long stage. I was pretty concerned about it, a bit for the distance and but more due to the heat. I knew I had about an hour gap behind me, and a half hour in front of me, so my plan was to be very conservative. I was going to push it hard off the start, just to see if I could sneak back on Andrew. Then, at about checkpoint 5 I was going to either pull off the gas or speed up based on where I stood (no use getting myself into serious trouble to make up a few minutes).

Everything in the morning was very runnable. The top 4 held together until checkpoint 1 (our usual pack). At that point, Ryan and Wataru sped off, and Andrew and I held together for a bit. We went down a long sandy/dirt path through a number of villages. This opened up to a pretty incredible valley, with a massive gray canyon wall. I lost sight of Andrew between checkpoints 3 and 4, when the heat really started to kick in. Apparently three or four people missed the tiny trail to checkpoint 4, and got themselves in a bit of hydration trouble (20K without a checkpoint at the hottest part of the day).

I was feeling pretty strong despite the heat through checkpoint 5 (48K ish in at around 4:20). The other three had a pretty good lead, so I decided to cut it way back and just make sure I got to the end without any issues. The next 30K was spent at a nice easy pace and taking cool down dunks in every river crossing (and there were plenty of them). I really loved this part, as the pressure was really off and I got to just enjoy the experience I was having. I ended up finishing a bit after 8 hours, and immediately crushed a bunch of my food (finally an appetite for the food I brought).

I ended up hanging out around the finish line area for a solid 8 hours, and was able to see most of my friends get in. Now we are just hanging out, talking about the foods we are craving, and waiting for the last 10K tomorrow. I’ll probably do one more wrap up blog after the banquet tomorrow night. Thanks again for all of the support, and I look forward to catching up with everyone when I’m back in the real world.