TIME MANAGEMENT SKILLS
Our annoyingly cheerful ultrarunner Damian Hall had some familiar and unfamiliar issues with time, at Italy’s Lavaredo Ultra Trail
TOKEN BLOKE
I’ ve always been hopelessly overoptimistic with time. My wife knows from bitter experience that if I say I’ll be finished in the bathroom in “one minute, tops!”, it means 10-15. If something is, “only about five minutes” walk away – it’s 20. If I’ve promised I’ll clean up the cat sick in “just a few minutes”, it’ll definitely be done by next week… I don’t know why I do this. But my mum’s the same so I blame her.
I was in trouble with my overoptimistic time predictions again recently. This time in Italy, in a taxi from Venice airport to Cortina d’Ampezzo, host of two Winter Olympics, the setting for several scenes in For Your Eyes Only and, more importantly, where the Lavaredo Ultra Trail starts and finishes. “How many hours will the race take you?” asked the driver. I hadn’t given it any thought really. If I ever have time targets for ultra races they’re normally vague, like less than three days… or before Christmas. I knew the course record for the 75-mile mountain race with 5,800m of vertical gain, set by my GB team mate Andy Symonds last year, was about 12-and-a-half-hours. And I know I’m not nearly as good as him. So, “Erm, 14 hours?” I offer.