There is no point walking away from a 24 hour endurance event, if you have learnt anything.  The Dos and Donts on what we should and shouldnt do.  Please remember is what helps us, this may not be the same for you and your overall lessons may be different.  However everyones tips are greatly appreciated and will always help for future events.

There are going to be a few items that helped with the whole experience including:

Since we got flights over, the only real option we had to get to True Grit was to hire a car.  I get corporate rates from Europcar, however there was no real benefit and found that at Sydney airport they wanted to charge you extra for everything even we had it included.  In the end to hire a car from Friday morning until Tuesday afternoon cost $433.49, this also includes the over charged petrol that cost $3.14 litre.  WARNING: We were unable to locate an easily accessible petrol station within 10km of the airport, hence the ridiculous charge.

Not having camped since school, we needed to pick up pretty much everything equipment wise to prepare us for the event.  First stop a Tent!

We picked up a cheap 4 person dome tent from Kmart $45 which did the job, but you could understand the tent envy when you compared ours.  The tent was supposed to be a 4 man tent, which would have been a stretch to sleep 4 people in it.  We did have enough room to have one sleeping bag, all our dry gear and food though, there was enough room to get changed if you crouched down.   he tent served us well, for what we needed it for, but will probably get another one for next year.  The next one  will include the vestibule, as we will be competing as solos.  

COOKING EQUIPMENT
Kmart and Aldi were our go to shops, our cooking set which was fantastic was and picked up from Kmart $7, it comprised of two little pots and a little frying pan. We also got up some thermos flasks from Aldi $7.99 each, one we had continuously filled with hot water and the other one with hot chicken soup, they worked really well and now get used for Daves work everyday!

The camping stove Dave found in a cupboard at his work and it was on its way out.  It did what it needed to do though and then we threw it away.  We now have time to invest in a descent stove that is also light weight.  We purchased a set of 4 gas canisters from Coles.  Initially we first thought that 4 would not be enough, but only used 1, so 1 pack is definitely enough.  This of course, depends on how much time you will be spending cooking, we only used it to heat up water and had some toast.

BACK UP TORCHES
Since Kmart was serving us so well, we picked up a couple of back up head torches @ $5 each (it didn't really matter if we lost or broke them, it was just good to have some sort of back up).  We didnt end up using, so cant give a review on how they worked, but they were good for 'just in case' purposes.

TENT LIGHT
At the time picking up a $5 dome light from Kmart seemed like a good idea, it would have been better to have a light that we could hang from the top of the tent (novice camping mistake - adding this to lessons learnt).  The dome light will be modified and re-used next year.

SLEEPING BAG AND MAT
Warmth was as always our biggest concern and I really do feel the cold, so we picked up a colder temp Summit sleeping bag with hood from Kmart $49, I still found myself with my thermals on, as well as a fleece blanket (Coles $10).  We also used a gore-tex sleeping bag cover that the Marines use and that has accompanied us around the world (sorry no price on this one).  The camping mat was to make it a little bit more comfortable especially with my back ($10 Kmart) worked well in insulating the body from the cold floor.

TUBS
We picked up some 60 litre tubs (again from Kmart) $10 each (had a better seal on it) to store our event gear and dry clothes.  We had already sorted the clothing into different bags for quick access (this was a tip found on the Going Long Site) and would recommend doing this again, especially if you are in a team.

GROUND SHEET
We purchased a ground sheet with the idea that we can use it outside to roll out on (we didn't think about the night dew), so didn't use it too much as it was too wet.  It we had thought about it, we would have pegged it above the tent just to have some extra covering.

HOT WATER BOTTLE
I ended up walking around everywhere with the hot water bottle underneath my top (this is were having a thermos flask comes in really handy), just having all these little things made everything a lot more comfortable and enjoyable.

CLOTHING
Aldi had a sale on winter gear, so we also picked up some warm, thick socks $7.99.  Good idea to double on socks (just to stay extra cosy).  Dave wore his Aldi Ski Compression pants $16.99 throughout the whole night while he ran the course.  It is worth just keeping an eye out on these types of Aldi sales, as unfortunately they had ran out of a lot of stuff for me. So I got some thermal plus pants from Katmandu $59.68 (I bought a pair for Dave too, but he didn't use them).  I wore them during the night, underneath another pair of my post race comfy pants.  Also happy to bring along my fake UGG boots for that extra cosiness.

We also got lucky that there was an 2XU warehouse sale happening at the town hall, were we picked up some compression socks $5 each, Tri hat $5 and a few pairs of 2XU gloves at $5 each.  Having Dave's Snowboard jacket kept us warm during our change overs, it was good to have something warm too put on straight  away.  

HEAD LAMP / STROBE LIGHT
For my birthday Dave bought me a good quality LED Lensor head torch, this would have been fantastic if it wasn't for my rookie mistake (I forgot that we had already used it for previous night events), so it ran out of battery.   We also got a smilier set for Dave to have.

We didn't realise we also needed to wear a strobe light during the night too, so we picked up a couple of dog lights from ebay $3.19 each which worked all night.  I just attached it to my wetsuit zip and Dave attached it to his hat.

MOXIE GAITORS
How I wish we had invested in some of these sooner, it would have saved my shins so much pain, bumps and bruises.  These are highly recommend and are really comfy to wear, you hardly noticed wearing them.  Also having the extra support with the compression socks underneath allowed for some additional protection.  I also think that this may have helped with minimising the amounts of cramps I usually have in my carves. Thanks goes to Clem and Alyson from the Compound for these.

SAFETY WHISTLES
We only paid a few dollars for these from Rebel Sports $2.99 and included a lanyard, I just had it around my neck underneath my wetsuit.  This was also an essential True Grit requirement.

FIRST AID BAG
Yep we had a bag with all the essentials, from pain killers, deep heat, heat packs, KT Tape, scissors and a small first aid kit which included bandages etc.  Also in there was some antiseptic powder, just in case we had a major cut and needed to get it cleaned to minimise any possibility of infections especially getting wet and muddy. Happily nothing was required!

This equipment must be carried by each individual and NOT transferred from competitor to competitor. This will be checked and you must have this gear to participate:

1. Headlamp (Between the hours of sunset & sunrise)
   
2. Saftey Whistle (securely on your person, easy to locate and loud enough to be heard from space).
   

Yep, probably as soon as it was over we wanted to do it all over again, so I have done a full breakdown of the weekends events which will come up on the post in different parts.

If I could show you what I have finished writing about this event, you would be shocked interested or bored.  I think i have managed to finish writing most of it and I will be typing up slowly just to bore the crap out of you.  However anyone that is thinking of attempting doing a 24 hour event or True Grit next year, may find it useful.  Well if you don't find it useful we certainly will.

Nutrition has to be the hardest part of any exercises and/or healthy living regime, even leading up to this event we still didn't give it 110% like we should have.  There is always room for improvement in this area (especially when it comes to sweet foods for me).  Anyway, if anyone saw our post of the food we bought for 24 hours, you could see that there was more than enough to feed the whole camp site.  We certainly didn't need what we thought we would need.  It was excuses (we wanted it rather than needed it), however at least we never found ourselves at the stage where we 'wished' we purchased something and didn't.

This is definitely a lesson learnt, with having a much smaller shopping list next year.  The lollies and biscuits (English McVitiies Digestive) helped but we certainly didnt need them.  Next year we will buy few small 25g bags of lollies, that you can carry with you on course in a pocket, camelback or runners belt.

Top of the list as a 'must have' would be SOUP, good old hearty soup.  It was so easy to be nice and cosy in the middle of the night, but it was really easy to digest and quick to make.  Having a batch ready to go in advance, so you can sip and go.

Toast and nutella, although delicious was a luxury, the camp stove 'toaster' took forever just to toast the bread, if you were a little impatient like me you could end up having warm bread with a slither of nutella.

I hope that I have got these in the correct order and surprisingly it can get quite difficult to remember what came next even after completing the course 4 times.  I think I got the cargo nets a little confused, there seemed to be a few of them and they started to blur into one by the end of the course. 

The course was estimated 10.6kms in length with 30 obstacles on varying terrain from soft marsh lands to rocky interfaces.

The obstacles were:
1. The Vaults
2. Commando Crawl
3. A Frame Cargo Net
4. Cliff Assault
5. Tyre Tread
6. Casualty Drag
7. Incline Walls
8. Sandstone Climb
9. The Tunnels
10. Balance Beams

These were easy enough to jump over, although I would have liked to have played around with running and jumping over, but this would not have been wise when you are trying to preserve your energy.  They were probably just a metre in height and as a set of three.

Next up was the commando crawl, you navigated your way around some mounds with barbed wire above you.  The sand/mud was soft on your knees.  The ground seemed to get wetter throughout the night.

Over the next few weeks I will be updating this blog with all things True Grit Enduro from the food, accommodation, support, travel and equipment.  This will be more useful for us for next year and maybe others whom are thinking about doing it.

I will be collecting photos to hopefully compliment the entries and I hope will give you a good insight on what it would have been like to compete in a 24 hour event.  To be honest, now it is over, I am actually quite sad and if you gave me another opportunity to do it all over again next weekend, I would.  Call me crazy especially with the highs, lows, pain and endurance that you go through, but the you find that it is all over.

The next thing would be updating this website, initially I set it up so our family and friends can follow us on this journey and to give them a background into what we are doing and how we are doing it.  However during this whole process, I have found other like minded people have been reading these posts, given me feedback and providing there own inspiring stories.  So I will be converting Enduro24 to all things obstacle, our journey doesn't end here, we will still be doing our training, doing additional events and trying to get fitter, healthier and stronger than ever before regardless that each day we are getting older.  

The plan is to build on what I already have and include health and lifestyle tips, as well as exercise training plans (mainly ones that I actually participate in) and include healthy recipes that I have found on the journey.   I am looking forward to continuing to build Enduro24 as a community place that I hope people will find helpful and interesting.

I cannot believe the day is finally here I think my prescription diazepam (valium) may have helped with my overall nerves otherwise I believe a lot more time would have been spent on the toilet.  We had enough time in the morning to grab a coffee, get some cash and explore the streets of Windsor before checking out of the Windsor Terrace Motel. 

Then it was time to head off to Lower Portland, we got there in good time.  This way we weren't rushing around with the tents, getting set up after being allocated our 'camping spots'  and working out what we were actually going to do.  The 3 x 3 camp spots allocation were large enough especially as we had two of them 6 x 3 (we actually struggled to fill the second allocated section).  At this point you could tell whom did it last year, as their tent set ups were quite spectacular, tent envy was happening!  Our team of four neighbours had their own kitchen, bedrooms and changing rooms all set up.  It was quite amazing especially compared to our $49 Kmart tent, ground sheet for our little camping area with its own camping stove and of course the Mace Fitness Roller.

Quite glad we did get there earlier, as:

1. If you got there too late your allocated camping spot could have been quite messy and muddy
   
2. the valium didn't squish all the nerves and a few visits to the porta loos were required. 

At 1pm we had our group briefings, outlining the course, rules, health and safety etc.  Also we got given our timing chips.  Our numbers were allocated at the registration tent, it was only because I saw people queuing that we thought we best do the same which was lucky we did so.

We had 23kgs each to check in as well as our hand luggage, a little while ago we purchased some digital luggage scales, so we had a good estimate on what the luggage would weigh, but nooooo.... One bag was 21kgs and the other just under 25kgs, so the check in girl said that we had to move 2kgs from one bag to the other.  Ok this was going to be an issue, especially is you saw us the night before actually fighting to close the suitcases.  Either that or we paid $70 for the additional 2kgs (are you serious!! This is one thing I don't understand, seriously what is the issue of distributing the weight between the two bags, instead we had to look like idiots). This was not going to be an easy task, so we ended up being 'one of those' people who gets pushed aside, holding up the queue whilst trying to decipher what should go in what bag, so we had to fight again with the bags to try and get them to close.  It would have been quite amusing to watch, as one of sat on the suitcase to try and get it closed.  Once we eventually got it closed (with a high risk of it bursting open), the check in person only then told us that we had an additional bag to check in, so we could have 3 x 23kgs bags (this would have been great to know if she told us this prior us fighting with the other bags), at least we were on our way.  

You would not thought we were only packing for technically 4 nights and 5 days, we had more luggage than what we had travelling around the world for a year!  Who would have thought at one stage would could actually fit all our lives in one rucksack, but we could not fit all our luggage for one 24 hour event in two suitcases and we still needed to do a Coles/KMart shop.

I am not going to swear as the time is quickly approaching 11pm, when I should be in bed and getting well and truly rested.  I shouldn't really think about having lack of sleep, since I won't be getting any in 48 hours.  

The last week has been mainly concentrating on resting and getting my back in good working order and ready for the weekend.  Of course we also started getting all the other elements ready too, so in true Sabrina style - I put a list together of all the stuff we have and all the stuff we will need to pick up on arrival in Sydney tomorrow.  

To be honest, I really have no idea where the time has gone, when I put the countdown on the website, we still had over 100 days to go and now we have less 1 day 15 hours and 14 minutes to go.  The good thing about being so bloody manic is that I haven't really thought about it, just concentrating on getting everything done and ready.  House clean and sorted, dog gone to his girlfriends, everything packed, checked in, food ready, everything ready.  I guess at by the time we start, it will be too bloody late if we have forgotten anything.  

Sadly I think I will do a comparison on my checklist, so hopefully we if we do happen to do this again, we will definitely be 110% prepared.  Just in case your interested, this is what we have so far ;)

Under normal circumstances I would have probably took a day off and then carried on as normal, but with Enduro this weekend, I want to make sure that I can get through the full 24 hours.  It is going to be a massive impact on my body anyway, so to minimise any potential on going injuries, I have taken my recovery very seriously.

At first I thought I hadn't really done anything except for a couple of bruises, but as it turns out, I tore a muscle in my lower back when I got hit.  I thought it was a little odd that I didn't actually feel any pain until Thursday night and when I couldn't really move on Friday, I put it down to training at the gym and not the accident.  It was only when I saw the doctor and he explained that it was caused by a direct impact from the car hitting me and it does take a few days for any pain to surface, especially with torn muscles.  The pain establishes itself during the healing process, of course my main concern was whether I could complete in the Enduro Event.  The doctor advised with some rest that is should be good to go, which is obviously great news.  I am also happy that it did happen last week rather then this week, otherwise even the thought of running, jumping, crawling and doing whatever else really was not going to happen.

I have been prescribed a bunch of painkillers (diazepam) and anti inflammatory (athrexix)  to help with the healing process, also applying warm packs.  With the amount of bed rest that I have had and being house bound, I hope it is enough to help the recovery process.

A muscle tear can happen at any time and does not necessary mean that you need to have accident for it to happen, it can also happen during exercise or doing any normal everyday activities.  It is so important to look after your back and body and to ensure that its on the best road to recovery regardless if you have an event or not.  

I am quite a stubborn person and the thought of doing nothing is seriously driving me insane, but I know that this is the best way for me to recover as quickly as possible, so I am back on track and ready for the weekend.  Its now been  few days, so will start heading to the gym again for some light non strenuous exercises concentrating on stretching and walking, as the last thing I want to do it, is make it worse.  

It was also recommended to do some hydrotherapy work, not actually swimming but just walking up and down in the pool to help with the recovery and minimise muscular atrophy which can make the pain worse and increase the risk of further injury.