Day 11 - January 15 RACE DAY CUTOFF

What a day yesterday! We didn’t make rapid progress as we had hoped but steady nonetheless. And while the heat and humidity held back, once the sun went down the team start to make real progress. John got stronger through the day - on the first climb he was hyperventilating with the effort but by days end he was acclimated and going strong. We arrived in our final town of Estiva starting at 4 AM and I’m not even sure what time John arrived but we all needed to turn around to leave sharp at 7:30 AM. With a max of four hours of sleep over three days we are tired!

On top of that the room we had reserved was erroneously reserved for last night and therefore we do not have a room in the finish town tonight. Lieutenant Commander Mario has offered one of the crew rooms at the hotel which has four beds and perhaps we can put a mattress in for the five of us as a worst-case scenario. That will be interesting if all five of us arrive on four hours sleep and need to share a small space as a community…

Foxy was a champ yesterday running with us at the end of the day and then through to the morning. Whereas during the day he lays around lazily and seemingly uninterested in all of the goings around, once he gets on the trail he is animated excited and lively with everything surrounding the run. His missions include neutralizing packs of stray dogs, running forward to assess other runners and scaring them to death as a wolf like creature a sleep deprived runner sees a wolf type creature coming at them and shuttling back-and-forth between anybody who is up ahead and anybody who is in the back.

I have a possible plan to extract him from Brazil but it’s a longshot fraught with logistical uncertainties and because of all the running it has been impossible to focus on pinning down any of the details required. I am hopeful that as typical margin on the Caminho something might just happen when I need it to. We shall see.

We just left the last town before the finish and all attempted to get some calories down before the last 13 mile push over the most challenging mountain on the course. Everyone is dealing with fatigue sore feet blisters and now a little bit of heat Gastro issues where it’s hard to take in the calories. We have seven hours to complete the course for be timed out. From here on no pitstops just eat on the run and get in under the cut off.

Everyone on the team fought the rain over the mountain pass and all the other pitfalls so that on the last 5k, everyone had forgotten any little woe and were jubilant with the accomplishment. Mario welcomed us at the finish line with medals for everyone on the team and Foxy was always in the center knowing exactly how to position himself for any photo.

As we drove to the posada, we learned that there had been enough cancellations to give us all single rooms! That is huge after a race like this so you can take a long hot shower and just rest. Lucky must be looking down on us…

Now we celebrate over pizza and beers then to bed and off tomorrow to tackle the toughest stage of the Caminho - “Broken Leg” mountain.

Thank you for your support.

Cheers,

David.