Royal Raid 80 Mauritius

Our first race of our 3 months running holiday. On paper, it looked ideal, running across a national park, discovering that Mauritius is not as flat as advertised.

We had 4 days prior to the race to get used to running under the hot sun and humid temperatures, not very easy after the British winter! What a nice surprise thou, our hotel (hotel Tamarin) is literally at the start of another race Dodo Trail and la Tourelle du Tamarin, a nice little peek with 600m of ascent from the beach overlooking the west of Mauritius.

Tamarin

So even without planning, we ended up having a nice little training route every morning and also discover some of the best trails of Mauritius in the Black River National Park.

The night before the race was awful, I just can't sleep!!! Very frustrating when you know you are about to run for a loooonnnng time early morning. Luckily at the start, we had some local dancers motivating runners with their dance and music.

Warm welcome!

The race starts by crossing sugar can fields to join the national park, it's early morning, sunrise is at 7 am and my headlamp is SHIT!!! But at least Michael was running with me and a few runners with their super strong headlamps illuminating like a street lamp were all around us.

My energy level was low until sunrise. This realisation scared me a little as if you are running ultras starting at night...and you are super slow for the first 8 hours...I wouldn't make the cut off ...I'll have to find a way to tackle this for the Mitic!!!

The sunrise is beautiful across the Yemen National park, the ascents and descents are easy on the legs and the eyes: taking in the surroundings. But I'm struggling to follow Mick which puts me in a terrible mood...after 21km Mick think that I may be putting too much pressure on myself and decide to let me be by running faster, disappearing in the savanna. I don't tell him then, but I'm grateful, running someone else tempo is hard work! I carry on solo and enjoy the scenery so much so I twist my ankle quite badly...but I don't want to stop, I want to reach the trail we've done together 2 days ago where the view and ascent is even better!

The checkpoint with food is not too far, so I wobble till there thinking I'll find comfort foods...how wrong! So used to the UK food feast, I expected to see cake, chips, chocolate, gels or something...but instead we are rewarded with bananas, oranges and sultanas...a bowl of salt and one of sugar...not quite what I was looking for, but heho at least I won't be running on a heavy stomach! Putting some sugar in my bladder, I carry on till the next checkpoint. Note to myself: do check beforehand that what you think is sugar IS sugar and not salt...this is going to be a long day...

Black River Ridge

 Reaching the road leading to the parking of the Black River National Park, there we have a nice ascent to the Machabee View Point, I am happy; this is the part Mick and I had reece a few days before, from there we are half way. The ascent is beautiful; the weather as well as there is a bit of refreshing rain under the hot temperature.

Reaching Jet Ranch where hot food is available, the welcome from strangers is warmer than the soup I gulp, not wasting too much time I carry on to the next fun part, Parakeet Trail! A 5km climb with 600m of ascent. Ankle is bothering and I feel I have a rock in the sock, but so worried to not make the cut-off time I just carry on.

Start of the Parakeet trail

At the top of the climb, I decide to take off my shoe to get the rocks out...nothing is coming out of the sock or shoe, but I can feel something in the damn shoe, I must be going mad! A bit frustrated to still get oranges and bananas when  all I want is solid food, I get up and run down to Bel Ombre; there is not much left to run another 12km apparently. It's funny thou, I get 4 different versions of how much kilometres there is left or descent from the runners I pass. haha.

Reaching the final sugar can field, I'm happy, I am ahead of the 12hours time we thought we would take. Thinking of Mick waiting for me, I run even a bit faster on the road leading to the Tamassa Hotel our final stop. For sure Mauritius has some very nice places to run, one week is not enough, 1 race either, we promised to come back and see more! Who's coming? 

PS: the rock in the shoe turned out to be a blister the size of 20 roupies, a nice souvenir from Mauritius ;)

Learning to let go in 90 days

Today is the start of our 3 months break, a break where we will be running around islands and mountain ranges and live without plans and expectations.
For someone dubbed as a control freak, not knowing what we are going to do from tomorrow is already a challenge, now imagine 3 months!

9 months ago, Mick decided he go contracting, 9 month ago he also decided to do the Andorra Ultra Trail, 170 kilometers of Andorra mountains trails, and he thought, how cool it would be if he could train for it while visiting family and places. And so this "little" trek around places started to take shape, we first decided to take 6 months, but then compromised to 3 as I really couldn't see myself not working for this long!!! so we would go to Reunion Island first to see my family and train on the volcanic trails to then go to Andorra with our uncle's campervan to train on the race route. Quite simple 2 mountain running destinations for a race preparation, and 9 months to plan. what more to ask for?

But when you let work gets in the way you ended up choosing between planning a 3 month break and leave work a mess or planning work and leave the "break" a "mess".Mess means: not knowing what we could miss out on!

So for the past 9 months, I've been living the work routine while thinking on how to prevent work shit hitting the fan. And for the last 3 months, I've been writing down every single thing that can possibly happen at work and how to solve it. Poor boss and team! I don't have only a plan A & B, I went through plan C, D and E and every other tangent that can happen. I've written at least 7loooong emails, 15 reminders, 5 delayed emails, 50 calendar reminders. And I have half of my staff on Facebook....Get the gist? Even now, work is at the back of my mind, trying to think what I've forgotten to say to my boss and the team. Thinking of it now, I feel bad for them! All this, and nothing about the break! Nothing but plane schedules and races sign up.

Parc National des Gorges de Rivière Noire

As 6 hours away from taking off, our first stop is not Reunion Island but Mauritius, we thought why not start the training with trekking the island and finish off with the 80km Royal Raid on Sunday,! Race is planned, but not the trekking bit, it's a challenge to plan a running adventure when all you have online is other people traces on a Google map (sorry Google) so we are going blind!  We know we will run, but exactly where is a mystery, I guess we will run wherever trails our feet follow...

Our 3 days trek Reunion Island- Open Runner

Second stop, Reunion island, where will do the Trail du Colorado and the famous 3 days trek across the island from South to North following the traces of La diagonale des fous with a Swirly twist. That one, I've at least planned the route thank tyou OpenRunner. But  who knows if we are really going to do 125 km in 3 days or 200 km haha as tracing in is about random! Thinking now about it,...it's freaking me out!

A lot of fun!

After 3ish weeks at home, we'll take the plane back to London, leave stuff and get ready for St Jean de Maurienne trails and for Mick's sister wedding. We will then take the motorhome to Andorra to train on the 170 km race route.



 After the race, we will slowly go back to Mick's mum depending on how's Mick feeling ( he is the driver hehe) and run around whatever trails we find.
Just writing it makes me want to at least check out where and what we could do. Mick says we have plenty of time to plan...if he only knew how much time I need to actually feel like it's planning haha!


So here, we are, suitcases packed, waiting for the 91 days adventure to start. I can't wait, I want to see if I can let go, I want to see if I can finally live day to day without what's the society dictated us to worry about. I'm not an open stress person, I keep a lot inside, and it's not healthy, so for 91 days, I really would like to learn to let go and just live life on a daily basis with no regret and planning on what to do next, just be contempt of what I've lived on that day. So here we come Mauritius!