The Last Secret Ultra - Day Four, Phajoding Monastery to Paro

Day Four Road Book (Credit: Global Limits)

I had more or less decided that in terms of race position Day Four would be mainly about damage limitation. Before I came to Bhutan I would have said I was reasonable at descending, however that's through the woods and hills of South-East England. The woods and mountains of Bhutan were a very different prospect and I knew from previous stages that many of the runners had infinitely better balance and confidence on the steep technical downhill than I did.
Sharon was also not very confident, partly for the same reason as me but also she had had some 'issues' during the night resulting in wet uncomfortable trips to the distant toilet - I suspect she would much rather have been in the nearer dining room sleeping area!

Today's stage was the longest so far at 38km. The first checkpoint was after the slippery downhill stuff at 11.8km. The second was supposed to be 9.8km later but around 4km was removed from the route as the rain had made a river impassable and so we had to take a short cut. As it happened one of our number would insist on running 38km this day but more of that later... The third and final checkpoint was another 7.8km on - after we had gone over a pass nearly as high as our starting point. Then it was downhill practically all the way to the finish.

Just before we started on the slippery downhill, there was the small matter of another 120 or so metres of 'up' to reach the highest point on the course. I set off fairly quickly as I knew I'd be slow on the downhill so I wanted to be sure I could be in as many people's way as possible. That wasn't the real reason, the real reason was I wanted to make up as much ground on my stronger areas to minimise my overall losses. However once we reached the downhill I did feel that I had just succeeded in being an additional obstacle to people's descent. I slipped, slithered and fell down most of the slope. The most memorable moment for me was when I slipped, slid and stumbled about 20 metres and managed to avoid falling. Jodi was right behind me and acknowledged my efforts with a cry of 'Great job!' - at which point I slipped down the hill on my backside and rather ruined the moment. I didn't take many photographs, well one in fact, looking back up through the trees. It doesn't in any way even hint at how hard I found that descent.

Looks fairly innocuous - so why did I slide down most of it?

 Unfortunately this descent was to cause John to have to retire from the race and fly home early. I saw the x-ray and can confirm there was nothing funny about the break he sustained to his humerus when he fell. Although I fell over quite a lot I sustained nothing worse than a muddy backside, a slightly bent walking pole and slightly dented pride.
Eventually I reached the first checkpoint. My recollection of it is tenuous but I think I'd taken my jacket off by then so I looked a bit less muddy.

The course may have been tricky but the views were still great

A bit more of last night's rain!

Blue skies breaking through!

After all that down it was time for some undulations leading to the next climb. Due to the slight diversion the second checkpoint arrived somewhat earlier than expected. I was working my way up through some trees when I heard a loud noise I eventually realised was a small child. As I approached the checkpoint I passed a farmhouse above me. A child was standing on the veranda shout (I think) 'Winner!, Winner!' I wasn't winning but it was nice to see another child taking such an interest in the race.
After the checkpoint it was basically straight up tot he top of the next pass. A couple of years ago a road (wide track) was cut zigzagging up the mountain. Our race, being a trail race, followed the original trail and so crossed the new 'road' several times. It was on one of these crossings I lost concentration and started following the road. Once again the lack of orange markers gave me a clue and I doubled back onto the correct route. 

Onwards and upwards - again!

 At the top of the hill there was a monastery. I should have guessed really - Bhutanese monks seem to love high places!

At the top of the pass

Fortunately the down from the second pass was much easier than the first. It didn't seem to have rained as much and the gradient was less. In fact it was very much the sort of thing I like running and suddenly I felt a bit more confident about the day.
I was running free and relaxed when I reached the final checkpoint. To my surprise Simon was just leaving as I arrived at the checkpoint. I was delighted when Kenzang informed me that it was mainly the same sort of downhill until the final couple of kilometres when we would encounter some paddy fields. I would have been even happier if it had all been trail rather than a track leading to tarmac but the main thing was I could run a fast as I liked and soon I caught Simon who later commented I seemed to be 'on a mission' when I passed him. I think it was all the pent-up nervous energy I accumulated on the first muddy downhill!

Into the valley 

As always the orange ribbons/flags/paint were leading us home. There were also some large yellow (not orange) arrows from the Paro Marathon a couple of weeks before on our route but no-one would follow those - would they?

A reassuring ribbon

After while the down gave way to our first encounter with paddy fields.  

Paddy fields

 After crossing those (on the paths, not straight through the wet bits) the course went along the side of the river until it reached the finish.

Nearly there

Day Four Finish

Some time before I finished Kurt took his fourth stage win in 4:37:59. Obviously 'my' dog from yesterday had found me too slow and decided to follow Kurt today...

Kurt closely followed by 'Dog' (Photo credit: Global Limits)

...this was obviously much harder than following me as 'Dog' crossed the finish line and promptly collapsed! Unfortunately not all the day's dogs were as friendly as 'Dog', and Jodi sustained the first dog bite anyone had ever received in all the editions of the race.

Kurt found the day much easier than 'Dog'! (Photo credit: Global Limits)

 I finished in seventh place in a time of 5:50:14.

High Five with Rodrigo (Photo credit: Global Limits)

Sharon was 20th in a time of 7:23:41.

I'm not sure this moment was quite as romantic as the picture suggests (Photo credit: Global Limits)

At the start of the blog I mentioned someone might have run the full 38km. I also commented on the Paro Marathon markers. Today was the only day I finished ahead of Loz Wong. Mainly because he decided to do some of the Paro Marathon and find the finish by following the markers for the following day backwards to today's camp. Despite that I still only beat him by 9 minutes! 

Orange markers Loz, like the one on your right... (Photo credit: Global Limits)

Not a bad place to spend the night

Every day's camp had included some memorable feature however today's resting place proved to be the most memorable by far! Firstly our hosts undertook to wash all our shoes and running clothes for us! Given that I had spent much of the earlier parts of the day sliding along on my backside this was very welcome. They even washed the mud off my jacket and my walking poles for me.

Bhutanese Legends!

The drying room

This was great but before I handed my clothes in for washing I was to have an even more unique washing experience. I knew from reading about previous editions of the Last Secret that we might be offered a traditional Bhutanese stone bath and this was the place it would happen. The baths are actually large wooded troughs. The end of the bath is divided off and hot stones are placed in this section to heat the water. The baths are used by everyone and the water isn't changed between bathers so obviously you should be clean before getting in. Enter 'Momma', her wash mitt and a big bar of red soap! I don't think I have been washed quite so thoroughly by someone else since I was a baby. it was pretty much an all over scrub and it felt great, four days of dirt and grime was vigorously scrubbed and rinsed away and then I was shown to my stone bath. This race had a lot of highlights but I'm not sure any of the others are quite so indelibly burned into my memory!

Momma's Bath House

Given how chilly and moist the day had started it seemed barely feasible that we were strolling around in bright sunshine, clean, watching our washing dry. The only thing that prevented the evening being absolutely perfect was the number of flies in the vicinity, however I'm fairly sure I was of much less interest to them now I was clean and smelling of soap than I had been when I arrived at the farmhouse. The only other lowlight was having to say goodbye to John as he was headed home to have an operation to put his arm back together.

Chilling out before dinner

Not a bad view either

At the beginning of the day I really wasn't sure that this was going to be a good day for me. By the end I had decided that it was possibly overall the best day of the race. A beer would have made it even better but as it was I was feeling refreshed and recharged. This was just as well as tomorrow was the 53.5km 'Long Day'...