My mate Andy crewed for me at the Clint Eastwood. His crewing effort, being nothing short of stellar, was the standout feature of my experience at this event.
We started the race at 1am. The fog moved in quickly so the night was cold. The day sun was, by contrast, biting hard.
I gave this race everything I got. But this time what I got was not nearly enough. The legs and back seemed fine. Pretty much all laps were completed within 41-48 minutes; that was a big positive from the race. A few things went wrong: firstly the gels caused stomach problems and led to loss of appetite, but fortunately that problem was solved successfully after two laps.
The second problem which led to me bailing out after 12 laps (~81km) was a fever developed from the ninth lap. Going into this race on antibiotics, I had expected my condition to be iffy, but it was useful to learn how the body would respond to race conditions when sick and half fit. I expect this lesson to be valuable in future events. I was quite pleased with the effort, despite having aimed for more laps if fully fit. This effort was an improvement over the performance at You Yangs a few weeks ago. Nevertheless I could not help but feel disappointed for Andy. He deserved to witness a better effort.
Anyway, I’ve signed up for this race again next year, and hopefully everything clicks then.
The race is well organised by AAA Racing & Coaching, the course pleasant to run on. It was a privilege to witness some very strong runners in action. The surviving 20-30 looked solid, but they are heading into a second cold night, right after a scorching day.
On the Facebook post, there are a few photos that Andy took of the race. It was such a pleasure to run into a few friends from past events, namely the Big Red Run, Canberra 48hr, and Coburg 24hr.
I received so much support before, during, and after the race. Thank you!
I have put together a video of The Clint Eastwood Last One Standing race using amateur footage from my GoPro and my crew. If you are a runner or simply wonder why someone would even attempt to run such a seemingly pointless distance, then put on your headphone, indulge yourself with 12 minutes of doing nothing else, and tune in!
This is a style-over-substance type of video, so make sure you have sound on and refrain from fast forwarding.
Thanks to RD Alun Davies, the team and volunteers at AAA Racing & Coaching, and the runners of 2019 for the experience. My utmost gratitude goes to supporters at home and in the running community, led by crew-in-chief Andrew Westwick.
We’ll do it all again in 2020.