Running 82km across Gran Canaria

Positivity, paella and getting a better race than I deserved at Transgrancanaria

I reached the checkpoint at Garañón a little after 6.30pm on Saturday evening. The sun was low in the sky - I had watched it set through the trees on my approach to the campsite that hosts this aid station - and I was 43km (27 miles) into the Transgrancanaria Advanced race.

“Hot food?” a marshal wearing a green raincoat asked me as I crossed the timing mat. I nodded and he directed me into one of the cabins.

I set down my poles, took off my pack and ate one plate of pasta with butter, salt and parmesan, then another. I refilled my bottles with water and electrolyte tabs, got rid of the empty packets filling my pockets and replenished them with snacks for the next leg, waited in the queue for the toilets and reapplied anti-chafe, put on my head torch and set off into what I hoped wouldn’t be too long a night.

We were a fraction over halfway at this point. One marathon down, another to go. Yet I felt as though the back of it was well and truly broken. More than 3,000 of the route’s 4,000 m…