Training #6: Dry Run With Support Crew March 21-22

First off, this blog has been long overdue but we have much, much to say about this practice hike so I'm going to write it anyway.

We had the dry run scheduled over the weekend of March 21st-22nd. This particular practice hike was important because (yaaaay!) our support crew was there! The walkers were me, Pei, Hanah, and Christine from another team. Our support crew were Tere, Raza, Rico, Jan and T.Y.

We met up at McDonalds at Komazawadaigaku Stn and Tere picked us up with her car at around 730am. Traffic was a bit heavy on the highway, so we got to Odawara at 930ish. We picked up T.Y. at the Odawara station. Rico brought his car too and we met up with him at CP0 (the starting point). We got a bit lost looking for the CP0, so we could only start hiking from a little past 10am.

I just came back then from a week-long holiday in the Philippines (which is why I missed training #5) and I carried with me all the weight of all the Filipino food I ate up to the mountains. LOL it wasn't easy! The weather was pretty warm that morning. I was literally melting, seriously! Took us about 2 hrs to do CP0 to CP1 (9 kms). We met the support crew at CP1 at around noon. We ate some polvoron (sweets from the Philippines) and took a quick break before we headed to CP1.

CP1 to CP2 (9 kms) is one of the steeper parts of the 100km trail and it took us about 2.5 hrs to finish, which was way better than our planned 3.5 hrs. That was the third time for me to do that particular trail. And I think by now we can do it even with our eyes closed. Yeah, haha. We had a very quick onigiri lunch at the trail - it was too cold to stop for too long. Towards CP2, I remember leaving my teammates and running to the end, not because I was so eager to finish- but because I needed to pee! Hahaha. We all got to CP2 at around 3pm and took a quick 10 min break. Anyway at that point it had started to get REALLY cold (about 5 to 7C , I'm guessing) so we had to put on more layers of shirts, jackets and gloves before we started towards CP3.

When we were at the trail from CP2 to CP3 (5.5 kms), which was mostly downhill, Hanah's knee started hurting, as she got injured a few days before from running. We slowed down so as not to put too much pressure on her knees. We got to CP3 at around 430pm, took a couple of pictures with the crew, and left for CP4. We hoped to finish CP4 before it got dark. CP3 to CP4 was just flat, though it was long (13 kms). The trail went around Lake Ashi and was naturally covered by trees. Wasn't too windy on the trail but when we were almost at the CP4 and we got to an open field, we felt how hard (and loud!) the wind was blowing - it was pretty scary. We got to CP4 at half past 7.

At CP4, Hanah said that she had to rest her knees so she can't join the rest of the hike anymore. At that point we were all already considering to end the night there because of the bad weather. It wasn't safe for us to hike up in the mountains where it'll be hard for our support crew to get to us in case anything happens. Anyway at around 830pm we started heading back to Tokyo.

I'm soo glad the support crew came there to, well, support us. We didn't have to carry all our stuff with us - we left our extra clothes in the car. Their smiling faces really encouraged us to go on and go faster (even though thinking about how they kept eating in between checkpoints while we slaved to hike up the mountains made me think about joining the support crew instead, hahaha). T.Y. brought a small stove so they could heat water at CP4 so when we got there, hot yakisoba noodles (with soup!) were waiting for us. Ah, heaven. Tasted pretty damn good! I have to say, having the support crew there with us made the world of a difference, no question about it. Looking forward to the next dry run!