I ran an ULTRA with a twisted ankle – Marathon du grand ballon 80K
On July 29th i participated in the event Marathon du grand ballon.
The name hints that it’s a marathon, but i participated in the 80K course.
We started from a small ski town called Oderen in the Alsace area in France.
The race started at 5am, in the dark!
This was my first race that i needed to start in the dark.
This also meant that we needed to run with a headlight.
At around 5,5K i twisted my ankle.
Not just a slight twist so i knew i was in trouble, but i didn’t wanted to stop the race! yes i’m very stubborn 🙂
The first aid station was at KM 14, i decided to continue to the first aid station and evaluate from there.
Since the pain was still under control (not reached a 9/10), i decided to continue to the next aid station, which was at KM 32.
The paces were really slow and there was a lot of walking going on.
I was also closely watching the cut off times to see if it was still possible to reach the finish.
The final cut off time was 16 hours for the entire 80K, but there were also cut off times for each aid station.
I reached the 2nd aid station just in time and the pain was also still acceptable, so i continued towards the 3rd aid station at KM 53.
This took a really long time and the terrain was rough.
The pain also started to get a lot worse, causing me to slow down quite a bit.
Eventually i reached the 3rd aid station around the 10 hours mark.
This was 1h15 past the cut off time.
To my surprise i still got the green light from the organisation to continue, but at the next aid station, the cut off time was non negotiable.
Since i was in a lot of pain (reaching that 9/10) and the foot was swollen a lot plus i only would have had 2h30 to complete 14Km on a very rough terrain with big bolders, i took the most sensible decision to stop the race.
In the end i completed ONLY 53Km out of the 80K.
I was very disappointed that i didn’t reached the finish line.
In the end, this experience is an important life lesson.
This is the first race that i didn’t managed to finish.
I received my medal but still it was a DNF.
For me this medal is the most important of all the medals that i have!
This will always remind me that in a matter of seconds anything can happen and that you always need to take that into account!
I’m not going to blame myself for what happened, nor am i going to further think a lot about it.
It happened, there is nothing i can change about that.
Now it’s time to look forward and make sure i heal up properly and that i can make sure i get ready for the marathon in Amsterdam in October!
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