Great race, great organisation, great cameraderie and great course. It was great.
Midday on Saturday 104 runners of all abilities lined up for the start of the race in the beautiful surroundings of Castle Ward with the simple task of running as many 4.2 mile loops as possible starting on the hour every hour until there was one runner left.
It turned out to be far from simple as managing pace, terrain, nutrition and the mind-games needed to force yourself to start yet another lap caused all but one to drop before they hit the 30 loop / 126 mile mark.
Of those 104 there were experienced ultra runners, 2:30 marathonners and club runners who were out for a few hours of fun to see how far they could run. The atmosphere at the start was buzzing, with runners and spectators cheering in the 4 and 8 mile races before the main event.
As the first event that Sammy and Adrian at Atlas Running had organised, it ran without a hitch. The facilities were top class and the chip timing, music, MC-ing and banter kept the event bouncing throughought.
My own race was a mixture of fun, limping and the eventual (and inevitable) DNF medal due to a foot injury I picked up earlier in the month. But it meant I was able to spend time at the Start/Finish and watch some great performances.
As runners started to drop the 100 mile / 24 hour mark proved to be a major milestone as only 9 runners completed this lap (gaining a 100-mile medal in the process). Of these, four runners called it a day and did not go out for lap 25, leaving Helena Dornan as the only remaining female runner. She looked strong throughout and I initially thought she would continue on to contend for the overall title, but she and Peter Cromie called it a day at 26 laps, leaving Pat Staunton and Bobbie Irvine to battle it out for the overall prize.
Pat was out to win and determined to take it as far as he could, but watching the next two laps it was becoming obvious that Bobbie was the stronger runner and was speeding up from a 51 minute average to 48, whereas Pat was drifting slightly from his 55 average.
The penultimate lap 29 saw Bobbie put in a convincing 48:08. the crowd waited for Pat to round the corner to the finish as the clock counted down to the hour, but as Adrian announced 1 minute to go there was no sign of him. Finally at 5pm on Sunday we had a winner. Just the formality of the final lap to complete, which Bobbie stormed in 45:14 to claim the first ever Last One Standing title.
It was great to watch all this unfold, though next year I hope to be watching it from the pack.. I've already pre-ordered lucky number 13.