Global Limits The Ancient Khmer Path 2016: Stage 4 – Paradise Has Pringles

Wednesday 30 November 2016

Stage 3 is no doubt the hardest of the 6 stages of Global Limit’s Ancient Khmer Path foot race and Stage 4 starts all too soon. For any future competitors, no matter how hard it is, do not quit on Stage 3 (easier said . . .)!

I wish I’d known in 2015 . . . Stage 4 has an incredible finish: the Kulen waterfalls, fried bananas, coconut sellers, fried rice and chicken. Oh, and BBQ Pringles. And having not long finished running for 39 miles, Stage 4’s 18 miles would be a doddle (!). After a swim and a wash in the waterfalls you’d be refreshed enough to leap out and immediately do Stage 3 all over again.

(That’s a massive exaggeration.)

Global Limits Ancient Khmer Path 2016: Stage 3 – The Dreaded Long One With Muddy Bits

Tuesday 29 November 2016

What does one think waking from a deep slumber to be hit with the realisation . . . after those first two tough days you’re going to run 39 miles (62.2km) in 90%-plus humidity in temperatures in the 40Cs?!

You don’t. It gets filed somewhere in the back of the mind, but it still sits there simmering quietly and marinading in the juices of not knowing what’s coming up. It was an early start and time to eat. Time to pack. Think only of the first 5 miles or so. Break it down, piece by piece. Eventually the end will inevitably appear.

Global Limits Ancient Khmer Path 2016: Stage 2 – Cow Bells & Privilege

Monday 28 November 2016

Hot. Very hot.

Long (very long) straight tracks looking out onto long-distant horizons. Very long.

But before I get onto that . . . My ear-plugs and herbal sleeping tablet saw to it that I didn’t hear the dogs reported to have started battling at somewhere between 3 and 4am. Or the cockerel. Still, a 4.30am start is early enough. Then I heard them!

Global Limits Ancient Khmer Path 2016: Stage 1 – Bhuddist Monks, Laughing Kids & TV War

Sunday 27 November 2016

It’s somewhere around 7am-ish. I’ve already been up since around 4.30 after a good night’s sleep, albeit it was too warm. I’ve been chugging down plenty of water, with electrolyte to prevent dilution of my body’s minerals, to fully rehydrate before the off.

Global Limits Ancient Khmer Path 2016: The Bit Before The Race Started, Part II

Saturday 26 November 2016

I didn’t fancy eating tarantulas today on the journey to The Middle of Nowhere and pre-Stage 1 camp, so a slap-up breakfast was in order. And before long, with a comforting familiarity from the previous year, it was all-aboard the bus to begin several hours of gazing out of the window as we passed from city, to town, to village, to hamlet, via well-paved roads which gave way to huge pot holes: recent heavy rains had done some serious damage to compacted red mud that served as roads in more remote parts.

Global Limits Ancient Khmer Path 2016: The Bit Before The Race Started, Part I

Where have I been?! Other stuff has called: a curtain pole and baton needed putting up; room redecoration; Christmas 2016 arrived; stuff; things; busy-ness . . . Now I’m back, unfit, but recovered from injury (groan) . . . On with what I said I’d do: report on the Global Limits Ancient Khmer Path 2016!

Late-November 2016 (UK: cold, wet, freezing, dark; south-east Asia: the complete opposite)

This year I was flying out to Cambodia far fitter than the previous year with 2016’s autumnal food poisoning (which happened close to the race in 2015) having struck a few weeks beforehand and cleared my system.