Ep 22 - Dragon’s Back Race 2022 Special - Part 1

In this first episode of a two part special, Kev takes on the mighty Dragon’s Back race for the second time. This time the dragon puts up a hell of a fight that Kev takes head on!

This episode covers some of the preparation and Day’s 1 and 2.

https://www.dragonsbackrace.com/thinking-of-entering

Aid Station website where you can find the episodes or leave comment https://www.aidstation.co.uk/

Please feel free to give the show some feedback on Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/aid-station/id1549735359

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:13

I can't say it.

SPEAKER_00 1:15

Hello and welcome to episode 22 of the AIDStation podcast. This is the first of a two-part special on the Dragonsback Race 2022 and my journey along it. As you many of you will know, last year I did a whole series on the Dragonsbacks race around my entry into it and my ultimate failure of completing it. And there were seven of them last year. And this year I decided that I would just approach it with a one-off episode because a lot of the material was already on there, including recis of days one through to four. This year I'd intended to recie day five and six and include those in episodes, but uh because of various uh reasons of uh injury and ill health that never happened. And so I was uh just going in with just the one episode and I'd intended to record along the way my journey, the whole excitement of the event, going through all of the support points, interviewing people along the way, doing stuff in camp in the evenings, and of course all that was pure fantasy because when you get into the reality of this event, it is just a uh literally a war against the dragon uh and a battle for survival, and as you will find out as this episode unwinds, that's very much the type of uh race that I ended up having. So, without further ado, here are the cowbells of inspiration. Well, it's uh Thursday the first of September 2022, and I am three and a half days away from the Dragons Back race. Uh I am all packed, I've done all the usual uh carry on with the 15 kilo um kit bag, camp bag, overnight bag, uh two and a half kilo drop bag, and my race pack and some clothing uh to take before and after. So all that's prepped, but mentally and my mind isn't I've had a really bad build-up to this race. Um if you listen to the podcast, uh back in January I had a knee injury at uh our running clubs training camp, uh, which took quite a long time to get over. Uh I've actually got a frayed meniscus in my right knee. Um I got back to running on it uh around about just before May, before the great Lakeland 3 day. I've since had a reasonable spell of training leading up to the Lakeland 100. And uh then, as you'll know, if you listen to that episode, I had this strange term which t I think has turned out to be some sort of virus. I haven't tested positive for COVID over five different tests, but uh the doctor seems to think it'll be a COVID-related, long COVID-related virus, which I've now had uh for five weeks. Um and it meant that the pret build-up to this has been a three-week taper into the Lakeland 100, then a 14 miler at the Lakeland 100, which is all I got done of it, and then five weeks of being pretty wiped out. Um about two weeks ago I couldn't lift my head off the settee, spent most of the time for about three days just laying around really out of it. Um I didn't lose my little sense of smell or taste or anything, but just really woozy all the time, um, and got quite down about it because of this uh build-up for this Dragons Bat race. I've been right on the verge a number of times of uh actually pulling out and kept putting it off. Um in fact I actually packed my 15 kilo uh camp bag about three weeks ago for the first time, trying to be positive. Um I actually sat on the floor of our spare room with all the energy that I could muster and slowly got all my gear together trying to think that I would get through it. Uh one thing that's picked me up recently, um Hannah Hall said a friend of hers who was doing a big uh Iron Man triathlon and he got COVID about two weeks before or three weeks before, and he thought his uh race was not gonna happen. Um and miraculously about a day or two before he seemed to come round and actually smashed it when he did it. So that was quite an encouraging uh thing from Hannah. Yesterday I played golf with my uh one of my grandsons just a little on a shipping pot course and an adventure golf course, uh Ethan, and uh I had a I didn't tell anybody, but I had a bit of a funny spell uh in the heat. It was quite hot and sunny. I did I was wearing a um sun cap and that but it still uh sort of sent a message to me that it's still in there somewhere, and so I'm not in a great place really going into it. So I've got no great expectations. I'm looking forward to actually being there on the start line. I just love the start of races in the atmosphere, and especially this one. So we're just gonna go with it. Um, at least I'm not I know I haven't got a head cold like I had last year, um, and the breeding seems to be okay. I've been on a few runs. I did a a two-hour sort of test run a few um days ago, and I've done two runs on sort of controlled heart rate running over about two hours, where I once my heart rate gets to 120 beats a minute, I walk until it's 105 beats a minute and then run again and just kept repeating that process. Um, and I seem to get through. I mean, I admittedly it's nothing like running for 16 hours in the mountains in Wales, but um at least I wasn't getting any breathlessness or dizziness from doing that, so it's just gonna be a case of suck it and see and get up there and uh see what happens. So it's all just last-minute prep. I'm off to um Hereford with my wife uh Friday, and then she's dropping me into Cardiff on Sunday to catch the coach up to Conway. So we'll see how it goes. There were two coach loads that went up. Well, our the coach I was on only had about twenty-five people on it, but that was quite nice because we all had a plenty of room to stretch out. And uh the coach journey this year went up the M5M6 route. Last year it went right up through almost uh the journey that we would be travelling down through Wales and stopped in Delgethlay, which was rather nice actually, and a lovely trip. But this year we had a bit of um less interesting journey and a little bit of traffic on the M6, had a stop at Keel Services, which I is where I met Sophie Bennett for the first time properly, and Jane Gold, who I'd never met before, a friend of Sophie's. Uh but Sophie's been a long time follower of the podcast, and she was um had a a really disappointing uh race last year. I think she got completed five of the days and got timed out on one of the days. Um so she was back to get revenge, and it was really nice to catch up with her, she's a lovely lady, and um we uh then arrived into Conway, uh checked in all our bags, got through that. It was lovely to see the nice thing about when you arrive at the registration there is a lot of the volunteers are all uh on hand to get you through all the kit checks and everything. So I saw everybody that I'd known and a lot of people that were on the event last year who were there volunteering this year to maybe have another go in 2023, people like Russell Mather, um, and of course uh Stuart Smith, who's always there, ever present. Love Stuart, really great guy, and um oh loads of others. I also saw uh Nicola McNally, she's also sort of returning this year. Last year she had to move on to the volunteer team with a last-minute injury, which was really sad for her, but she was back hoping to um uh complete and get her baby dragon trophy. Um also caught up with Paul Telford and his lovely wife Fran, uh, who I was sharing a tent with Paul. So that was all good. Got registered, went off to the Erskine Hotel. I stayed in the Erskine Hotel this year, which is couldn't be any better situated for the car, so it's right next to it. You literally fall out of bed in the morning uh and get to the start. Um, and they all the hotel rooms were all named, and mine the name of my room was Crib Gogh. So I thought, oh this is good um Omen and uh was quite excited about the prospect. Uh had quite a good night's sleep, not too bad. I probably got about five hours, but I'm always happy with that. The hotel provided a uh bag full of breakfast, if you like, because we were all um everybody in the hotel apparently was doing the Dragon's Back race. Um and as the race started at six, everybody was gonna be up early and having their breakfast in the room. So we all had those um pot porridge mixes, a cereal, bar, banana, uh, and various bits and pieces, tea and coffee, obviously. And some juice. And so that was it. So all the prep was done, ready to go, and it was off out to the castle at about half past five in the morning. All set to go for yet another attempt at the Dragonsback race. Can't believe a year has gone by already, but here we are, people are gathering, putting in their camp bags. The last ones I did mine yesterday, all weighed in and sorted, everything was fine. I have to say, I haven't got the normal excitement about the event because I've had such a bad build-up with this what looks like long COVID, so I've no idea how this is all gonna go. Don't seem to get here with much luck. But um I'm here, which is good. We're gonna give it a go, and hopefully, I'll get all the way to Cardiff this year and get to talk to quite a few people along the way, I'm hoping. Do a few interviews and get you all a feel of what the event is like. I'm normally uh all excited at this point, and I don't get pre-race nerves, I just love to get on with it and get involved with a race, but I've had nothing really, I'm not up about it, and I'm not nervous about it, I'm just uh not expecting great things, I think. So we'll see how it goes from here. Anyway, I'm just gonna go in the castle now, which is incredible. It's it's night time still, it's 22 um six, the race starts at six, and people are inside the castle in the keep. Uh so that's where I'm heading. The last ones are just using the loose, the last ones are putting their drop bags in and suitcases, especially the um following morning. And uh we're going in, as you heard, a few mornings there from the great volunteers there are on this event. Good morning. Good morning, morning. Hi Kevin. Hiya, how are you doing? All right, you yeah, thanks. So I'm inside the Castle Keek now. I've come away from all the hubbub of noise that's going on. There's about 15 minutes to start. Uh, we had a lot of overnight rain. It's been fairly dry up here, I think, recently, but the forecast two a week ago was horrendous, like storm-force winds 80 miles an hour on the top of Snowden uh torrential rain. But luckily that seems to have uh drifted away in the forecast. Um, and I think the best the highest we're looking at is about 40 miles an hour wind now crossing Crib Gogh, which should make it interesting. And I think the rocks are going to be slippery, probably gonna get some sort of drizzly stuff later on, but at the moment I can see stars, it's a clear sky looking up out of the Castle Keep. There's a lot of uh the usual nervous noise and excitement going on uh before we get going. There's people waving Welsh flags up on the battlements, there's lots of international flags up there because it's I think there's about 38 different nations in it this year. There's 322 on the start sheet. Hopefully, they've all made it. And I'm looking around for some people I know that aren't here yet, my tent mates aren't here, but it won't be long before they show up, and we can get going. And it now says 1456 on the countdown, so we're not far away now. So as you can hear, one of the main features of the whole start of this event is that the Welsh choir here this year, which is absolutely brilliant, and the atmosphere is incredible, and I guess they're gonna sing the Welsh National Anthem on the way out. So it's all really building. Um and out to the first dib-in point outside the castle. It takes about 15 minutes, depending where you are in the the pack, to get out off the castle battlements. Um there is real no rush unless you're really going to be uh struggling at the cutoff. And uh I took my time, uh, didn't want to get all stressed out about it, and uh took me from the dibbing point up to the first checkpoint at the top of the Conway Mountain about 25 minutes, which was somewhere around the same time as I took the year before with the head cold. So I was quite pleased that I was just keeping it all under control um and keeping it together, and I just went out that way for some time. I took the little shortcut route up the gully to check point three um and uh carried on out towards the carnids, and everything was going really fine. And you rejoined me off of uh Carnid Daffid, I think it is, uh, which was just after checkpoint five. I don't know if you're gonna get any of this. I just dipped into checkpoint five, which is one of the carnids, I can't remember which one, it's far too windy to get the map out, but I've got through there in just over uh half an hour before the guide time, and the guide time I think is about an hour ahead of uh cutoff. So it's a sort of it's a time that you need to be on if you're gonna make it across the whole course. So I think there's about an hour to spend, so I've probably got an hour and a half going alright, enjoying it. It's really windy and uh quite a battle because it's sunny and uh it's sapping, but I'm doing alright managing myself well, not pushing at all at any time, eating. Well if I got that on the recording, you just had a really spectacular fall on very rocky ground. In fact, there was nothing else there but rock. I've torn the skin off the palm of my hand on the right hand and bashed up the knees a bit. My elbow, right elbow, not much. Not much blood, need to patch up the hand though. Uh nice guy stopped. Make sure it's alright, give me a lift up because it kept me off the ground as well. For a while, it was a bit of a shock of taking a tumble, but I seem to have escaped without anything too bad, so. Going along much steadier now than I was just to uh get back into it and keep moving so I don't get stiff and cold up here because it's windy, but uh trying to get back into the swing of it. So there it was, the first fall of quite a few. In fact, you could probably have called this race for me three falls and no submission, but this set the theme for the rest of my race. Anyway, we move on to Triffon. I've just come out of Lynogwin check uh support point, checkpoint seven, and I'm out in six hours 15, which is five minutes ahead of my schedule. Well pleased with that. Only had a 15-minute turnaround, which included uh hand bandaging by the first AT. It's only a surface wing, but I just like to make sure it's not gonna get set to and now we're on the steps on the approach of the triffle, which is gonna be really interesting, and uh see what we can do up here, see if we can go better than last year. It was awful up here last year, took an hour and a half. So I'm hoping that it can go a bit better. Still not pushing it though, nice and easy, and uh the weather's great still, uh it's not too hot, sort of uh hazy sun. It was really windy out on the top of the Garneidi, but uh it's uh it'll be howling up the top of here as well when we get up there, but at the moment we're in the lee of the wind overlooking clean old wing and uh pressing on. I'm actually with Steve Jones by pure didn't see him at all, and we just met at the checkpoint and he's just up ahead of me. So I'm trying to keep up with the legend now. Steve finished it in 2019, and now he's trying for the six day rather than the five. Oh, we'll see how we go. Get back. I doubt when I talk to it at the top because it'd be too windy, but maybe in the valley between here and uh first of the glitters. Keep going, Steve, you're setting the pace. Yeah, at least you get a little bit of recovery down off of here. It's just gonna go really easy down there. Sorry, Steve. I do Yeah, I just wasn't concentrated, anyway. Yeah, I know, it's not you can't run it, can you? But that's probably a good thing for me. Just get some recovery. So that was a recording um that I discovered of Steve Jones and I climbing Triffin, which I didn't know was on there because I'd left my audio mic that I carry on my pack on without knowing, um, and it turned out to be quite prophetic because we reached the top in about an hour and seven minutes, which was about a good 20 minutes quicker than I'd done the previous year, so I was pleased with that. But coming down the other side, I took what uh is probably my worst ever a fall in a mountain ultra and has probably set the shape and tone of the rest of my race. I basically tripped forward, um, hit my face on a sharp, sharp edge linear rock, um, and ended up with my head hanging over about a 10-foot drop. Uh Steve was behind me, um and I I didn't hit my head or anything, but I could just see a trail of blood drifting off in the uh wind in droplets below, and my calves immediately cramped up, and I had more pain from the um cramps in my calves uh than I did from my face. Um, but when I rolled over because of the way I'd been lying, Steve said that you know there was blood everywhere in all directions on my face, and he thought I'd actually smashed my face open. Um, and after the event, I saw him um on day six at the finish line, and he actually told me that he his first reaction was just to immediately press the emergency button on my uh GPS tracker. Um, and I'm so glad he didn't, although it probably would have been the sensible thing to do if I had smashed my face open. But I sat on the ground for a while, regathered myself. Um, Steve was just a constant, he asked all the right questions. He's such an experienced guy, he's actually uh done the Yukon Arctic Ultra, so he knows a thing or two about these things. He's done loads and loads of ultras, and he ensured that I was compass mentors, and I knew who I was and who he was and what we were doing and what we were trying to do, and uh eventually he helped me to my feet and we got on with it with the continued descent down Triffan. Uh just about down all any decent size step down. He put his arm out, made sure he was secure. I used his arm to get down. He ensured that we didn't travel at any sort of pace or make any dangerous moves that would cause any further issues. But we then trekked up the other side onto the glitters. I got passed by a few walkers with horrified looks on their faces. I had no idea what I looked like, to be honest. I just kept going on. Uh, one group of walkers said that they had first aid kit. Did I need help? And I said, No, we carry all this stuff ourselves, we have to, it's compulsory. Um, and basically we just made our way across to uh the Penny Pass Youth Hostel. Um, Steve last year descended, I think he had something like the 34th or 38th quickest time across from the last checkpoint at the top of the glitters down to the youth hostel. And I was worried that um I'd never keep up with that sort of pace, but obviously Steve wasn't gonna go off like that with me um in the state I was in. So when we got down near to the base, he went on ahead when he knew I was okay, uh, alerted the uh mountain rescue team that are stationed there that there was a runner coming in in a bit of a state. And I don't know what he actually said to them and what my condition was, um, but I didn't realise in my head, all I was thinking, well, this is great, we're gonna be through the um Penny Pass checkpoint with an hour to spare, and I'm gonna get this home this year easily on day one. When I was getting very close to the uh Penny Pass Youth Hostel, uh there was I'm so sorry I cut I don't know this guy's name. I seen him on the event before I saw him last year because I was last off the mountain last year. He looked quite concerned and got me to sit down at Penny Pass and said that it would need a medical assessment. I said to him that uh does this mean my race is over? Because I really thought they would just pull me straight out of the race when all I wanted to do was cross the road, hit the checkpoint out, dib out and get going. So they took photographs, those photographs were relayed down to the medical team at the HQ, right uh camp one, and some discussions took place between the medical team and Shane Ole directly, I believe. And meanwhile, I went off to the toilets in the uh uh Penny Pise Youth Hostel. I had to clean myself up. Um, once I did and I took a look in the mirror, I then realised that uh, yeah, actually, the medical team are right, and this needs some serious um work done it, done on it. They told me the management rescue team told me it would need uh you know, proper facial surgery stitching, and it wasn't just like butterfly stitches or any smaller thing, there'd need to be some deep stitching. So it was relayed back from Shane that um my options were that I could continue on, but then I would have to go to A on straight away as I'd finished, and that would wipe out day two anyway. Um, or I could go to A and E immediately, taken off the mountain down to the camp, and then driven to uh the necessary hospital, um, which as ever the medical team were correct, um, and in these situations, always the same. When you get driven runners who just like all they wanted to do all year was complete this race, that's all they're gonna do, unless they've like literally broken something, they're gonna get it done. And so I was uh taken down to the camp. I had my tracker taken off of me because they weren't sure whether they'd see me again. Um, I saw the again, I can't remember her name, but the head of the medical team, just wonderful people, all of them. Uh, she knew exactly what needed doing, told it I needed a Max Fax specialist surgeon, um, knew exactly where that surgeon would be found at a hospital in Rill. Um, and that I had to take all my kit with me, which is the 15 kilo bag, a two and a half kilo um drop bag, and my race pack with me. So I had everything and left camp. And uh a wonderful fella called Guy, I don't know Guy's surname, he was just could not do enough for me. He got me a bowl of chips, a cup of tea, because we didn't know whether I'd ever get any food again. And I got loaded into the van with another chap who'd had a heart arrhythmia, um, and he was off to banger hospital, and he had another volunteer with him, so we were on the hospital run, and so we went off to banger and then on to Rill, and Guy got me into the AE department at Rill with all my kit. Um, and oh my word, remembering that this is a Monday night, there were 65 people because I counted them in the AE. Thought, oh, I'm gonna be here for days potentially. What a way to spend all that money on the dragons back race and spend at least a day, a night and a day in this AE department. Guy made sure that I was okay and that everything was fine and headed off and left me there, and the uh there were announcements coming over the Tanoi that um the waiting times were eight hours, uh, but that triage patients would get priority, which gave me some hope. Anyway, after about 40 minutes, I was actually seen by a wonderful uh nurse, very experienced nurse called Christine, who amazingly uh had trained at Frimley Park Hospital in Hampshire, which is where my uh second son was born. So she knew something of the area, and we had a chat about that, and uh she went through all the thorough examinations. I'd also got quite a sprain on my hand from the first fall. Um, she cleaned up the dressing, checked the sprain, checked all my finger movements in both hands. I had a complete uh test on cognitive test, uh concussion test, and also um I was then taken down for an x-ray, had a full jaw x-ray, um, and then saw the Max Fax specialist who told me that she would stitch my face up. Um, and in dental terms, I mean I'd lost a tooth as well. The tooth was actually a crown, so it wasn't as if I was in like pain from smashing a tooth. I don't know how I didn't lose any more teeth. I must have hit literally just on that one spot, but I had split my upper lip completely up towards my nose, and uh I then went through what is the most the second painful most thing I've ever had, uh, which was eight numbing injections into my mouth in various parts of the mouth. Um, but as it was explained to me that the most of the most sensitive nerves in your body are in your lips, um, and that was so that was quite painful. And I laid there tensed up the whole time while she put these eight small injections in, but soon the uh anaesthetic did its stuff, she cleaned out the wound, stitched deep stitches inside, and then surface stitches outside, and basically by about 11 o'clock, I in the evening I was free to go, which I was absolutely delighted with. I mean, that was an amazing turnaround. Um, I went out to reception, they called me a cab, and I got a cab back to camp. I arrived into camp at 12:50 uh 120 quid lighter for the cab fare. But you know, this I spent all this money on this race and I wasn't gonna let it up. I'd I deliberately, you know, all the way through, even sitting in the AE waiting area, I was planning how I was gonna get back into this race as quickly as possible. So all the way along I was trying to factor it in of how I could do it. Anyway, I got back to our tent. Um, and uh, of course, when I got there, I hadn't met the guys before other than Paul Telford. They were all fast asleep, and I didn't want to do anything to disturb them, so I slept in the communal area in the middle of the tent. But uh, of course, with a mouth like I had, there was no way I could blow up my inflatable mattress, so I had to lay directly on top of a flat mattress on the floor in my sleeping bag. Uh, got about two hours sleep before all the alarms went off for the four o'clock because all of them had got through day one. I mean, I obviously I didn't know that, but they were all getting up ready to go, and they were all looking at a six o'clock start, which is sensible, especially on day two, because it was a long day. So I, along with them, uh prepared myself to go out onto day two, and I just thought, well, I may as well do it now. I've to got it turned round, I've got it back here, I'm feeling okay. All my assessments were okay. Um, and the hospital said I was good to go, so I went to see the race medics in the morning. Um, I got my uh GPS tracker back and um adibber and got back in to the event. I got started at 6 15 because I had to do all these things and get clearance to go, so I'd lost 15 minutes on a difficult day anyway, day two. The main target was um Kumbukian support point uh to get there inside the checkoff time, and that is at checkpoint seven, so it's quite a way through, it's about two-thirds of the way through, I think, the actual whole day. So to head out up connect uh and into the mole winds, and a bit of bum sliding descending. Um, I saw Gutto Evans go down in front of me that way, who was in my tent, um, and gave that a go as well, and uh everything seemed to be going fine. Anyway, having got over the uh mole winds, I was going along quite nicely, dropped down into the first water support point of the day. Um my spirits were really lifted by the uh team of volunteers that you get there. Uh, some wonderful, wonderful people. Um, they were really surprised to see me, a lot of people. The boost I got out of them, their faces seeing me still in the race and the encouragement they gave me was was really great. And uh I saw Stuart Smith as well, who wanted just to have a look at my face, see the mess. He said he'd seen the pictures already, and uh it was really encouraging. I I was really really lifted by the whole thing to the fact that people um had recognised what I was uh trying to do and in keeping going. Um, and this was just before Mantrarog, uh, which is a small village that uh is on a main road that you cross before you go up onto the next section of the race. And I was passed at this point by um Simon Roberts last year's winner, and he was lying third at the time, and I really uh screamed at him to um smash it, sigh, and told him that I thought he'd got it, and he was really motoring. I couldn't believe it. I don't normally talk about the front end of the race on this podcast, but he is one really nice guy um and a superb athlete, so it was really great to encourage him at that time. And it also gave me even though he stormed past me running up the steep road of the hill, it was uh still a great feeling. Um, after this time, I spent a long time on my own actually. Uh, there's quite a desolate bit after a dam where there used to be a nuclear plant there years ago. Um, and you trek out for quite a long way out till you get past the lake just before Kumbukian. Um, and uh I spent a lot of time drifting along on my own out there, just trying to keep the pace steady and keep within the timings. Um, and I ended up with uh quite a battle into the Kumbukian point. There's a steep downhill into it, which I absolutely tore down. I think a lot of people did trying to make the cutoff, got in by well, I got to it by 15 minutes and got out the other side with seven minutes to spare. I was screaming at Mike Patrick. He Mike was um stationed out front calling in the numbers for the drop bags um so that the drop bags were there to be collected immediately when you came in. And he's a great guy, Mike. I only met him at the um Great Aitland 3 day back in May. But I actually he said as I was coming down that hill, how much effing time do I have? Just tell me the effing time, and he shouted back 15 minutes, and I was really losing it by then because I just wanted to know I could hear everybody shouting, come on, you know, to everybody screaming them in. But I wanted to know exactly how much time I had, so that was really useful. Had a really quick turn round and got out the other side. I was pretty tight on time, and with all that had gone on, wasn't in that good a position to complete it with going through the Rhinogs, but I carried on um and not long after on the Roman steps, my watch died, and I thought, okay, that's okay, we just switched the map and um I got OS maps uh on my phone and I'd switch over to that. I took my phone out and my phone was dead, and it was then that I realized that um I hadn't been able to charge my electrical equipment uh overnight, and now it was also pouring with rain, um, and I was literally down to the map. Um, and on top of all that, because I'd been so pushed to get through Kambukian checkpoint, I needed the loo of number two and And uh so I had to go off the trail and do what the bears do, or the cows do, or the sheep do, and uh I'd lost any contact with the people I was following, so I was now completely on my own, and duly got myself lost. I took the wrong turn um to get towards there's a a lake below the uh first of the Rinogs, and uh I I missed that turn out to that lake, so I turned round and got myself back on the roof. I came across a Japanese runner, Fumiaki Imimura, uh his race number 199. He was battling on on his own, he wanted to keep going, and I told him my situation uh nav wise and with the weather conditions and he was ashore and what my pace was like, and he wanted to keep going and he was happy to travel with me. Um, so we did for about another 40 minutes before his phone died, and I hadn't realised that he wasn't travelling on a watch at all. And remembering all this time it was absolutely pouring down, and I think in my mind we just lost too much time to actually complete anyway, and with both the Rhinogs to do, it just seemed pointless to carry on. So we both turned round and headed back to Kumbuchian, which we'd probably got about I don't know, an hour and a half away from, and returned there to the checkpoint where we found Paul Telford, my mucker and tent mate, and I was really surprised to see Paul there. Um, and he'd done a similar thing, uh, tried to carry on, and for some reason had turned round, and uh also Mark Griffin, uh, a great guy from Seattle in the USA. Um, and so the four of us were taken back to the camp, and during that time I'd sort of reset my mindset now that uh I had time, we were back in camp, it was daylight. Get organized, get your camp admin done properly, reset your mindset, and get all the next four days done. And so that was my target to rescue my race was to complete uh from here on in, which is what I continued on with on day three. This was the first time I'd been able to collect my Dragon Mail, and this is a fantastic uh service that uh you can get on the site because of the remoteness of the site. Um, Aurea events bring in their own satellite system to ensure that we can all get some sort of communication with the outside world. Um, and people can leave this dragon mail online while they're watching the race. So and it's brilliant, it's it gives you so much um heart and motivation when you can get it in the evening, sit down with your meal, take your time to get your meal down and digest it, and uh read some of the lovely messages. I got one that printed out like a toilet roll because I hadn't picked it up for two days, and I thought I'd just read you some of the messages to give you an idea of the flavour of what you get. Dentist, I'm watching you. Um that was from a man issue remained nameless, Peter Riley. My sister, who says go Kev, and she always tells me she loves me, which is lovely. Um, my grandson, there's stuff on here from um and all sorts of people saying I hope you're okay and that you know you're still going. I'm amazing to see that you're still in there. Sylvie, you're an absolute legend, Kev. Keep smiling. Pete Jones, keep it up, old chap. We're all rooting for you. Lizzie Gatherer, I'm thinking the missing tooth and section of your lip might make you a bit more streamlined around Cadaridris today. Keep up the good work. I've cancelled my morning plan so I can dot watch you and make sure you're keeping out of mischief. So there's all sorts of stuff like this. A lovely one from Matthew Port, who's a young guy at our running club. He says, Hey Kev, you're absolutely smashing it out there. I'm following on the app and Instagram. It's an inspiration to me as a young runner to see you going this distance with in these conditions. Maybe I can do the same someday, especially amazing with your injury. Keep going, and I can't wait to hear about it on the AidStation podcast, which you're now doing, Matt. But thanks to everybody who gave me and sent me uh dragon mail over the course of the whole race. Um, it's just such a lovely thing to get, and it really did motivate me and keep me going. Um, and it really reminds you that everybody is watching that dot out there.