Day four has been a short day in terms of distance, but the paths went up, up, up and then down, down, down. This was repeated over and over along narrow muddy paths inside the jungle. According to Garmin, it was an average gradient of 243.51 feet per mile. For going up this was fine - I just counted 1, 2, 3, 4… until I got to the top - but the descents were far worse with lots of steep slippery sliding downhill. Most of the day was within the jungle so whilst the distance of just over fourteen miles doesn’t seem like very much at all, in practice this was hard work, and the average moving pace was less than two miles an hour.
To break up the endless up and down through the jungle there were river and stream crossings at regular intervals. The stream crossings were not big but required lots of scrambling across big rocks to get to the other side. For crossing the river there was another zip-wire system but this time, crossing alone as I was not running with anyone else. And then more up and down along the path through the trees and bushes, dealing with intermittent wet muddy sections and fallen trunks. The route was close to the main river which could be heard but was mostly out of sight. Whilst most of today was probably harder than yesterday morning, the fact that there was just one day left after today to get to the finished changed my mindset. I knew that however hard this was, I was going to finish the race. Of this I had no doubts today and this kept me going all day.
At the last checkpoint I met up with Carl who had been ahead of me the whole day. It was great to have a friendly face to run the final stage of the day. Just before we reached the end we came across an abandoned aeroplane at the sign of the path. We went and had a bit of an explore inside the plane and then finally headed off to the finish for the day.
Tonight, was the final night before the finish of the race. Just one more day to go and it will all be completed. The camp location tonight was the final camp for the whole race and tomorrow morning we will not have to pack up our hammocks. Just one more day of running to go and the race will be finished. So, I have had a quick supper and am now hanging in my hammock. Tomorrow is an early 4:30am start for the very final day of the entire race. How did the race go by so quickly?!
