The 10th edition of the Tortola Torture saw a day of lots of ups and downs, and that wasn’t just the hills.
Jermaine “JJ” Johnson and Sam Thompson had a good start to the beginning of the race running neck and neck in the early dark stage of the race. By the time JJ reached the first checkpoint at West End, 10 miles into the race, he was 6 minutes ahead of Sam and looking strong. JJ was still 3 minutes ahead of Sam coming into the Sage Mountain checkpoint. Sam was in a very bad way, cramping and hollering for salt from the water stop crew and anyone else unlucky enough to be within earshot. However, he got fixed up by his support crew and his stormy demeanour dissipated to more of a light drizzle for the rest of the race.
On the descent from Sage Mountain to Brewers Bay, JJ started to suffer the same problem with major cramping too. He spent a good 15-20 minutes at Brewer’s Bay somewhat dejectedly trying to get his legs back to life.
Salt was hard to come by, but the race crew managed to find some Adobo seasoning in a neighbourhood store which JJ thoroughly enjoyed as he got some salt back into the system. As he departed the Brewer’s Bay water stop he smelled faintly like a crispy roast chicken and was being pursued by the local dogs.
By this stage, Sam had overtaken JJ and pulled well ahead. He was on his way to setting a personal best in the Tortola Torture. He crossed the line at Jeremy’s Kitchen in Trellis Bay with a time of 5:24:58 – taking a whopping 47 minutes off his winning time of 6:11:37 on 2021.
This was the second time that Sam has raced the Torture competitively. In other editions he has done multiple loops of the course to raise money for animal charity PAW BVI.
Reece “Vance” De-Vaney, who had been only 5 minutes behind JJ at Sage Mountain, overhauled him in Brewer’s Bay while he was basted with Adobo. By the George’s North Side water stop JJ was 30 minutes behind Reece.
Suffering no issues and with a cheer squad that could not be disappointed, Reece finished second (06:19:34) while JJ (06:43:34) came in third having clawed back 10 minutes in the finishing stages of the race.
Rose Johnson won the ladies with a time of 7 hours and 50 minutes with little challenge. Andrea Henchey (08:49:05) was second but had a sufferfest in the first half of the course. However, she managed to pull it together and with grit and determination got to the finish line achieving her goal of getting her first Tortola Torture done.
Tash Ruscheinski, in her tenth Torture entry and with very little training, also pushed her way through the race and was seriously overheated by the time she got to the Little Mountain loop. She spent a little time there cooling off with the help of the water station captain Anna Kinkaid and then headed onto the finish. She ran the race with Haley Parker, who was visiting from the US to do her first to Torture, and they crossed the line together achieving a joint third place with a time of nine hours and 17 minutes.
Shout out to Ray “Raymundo The Magnificent” who completed his ninth Tortola Torture and is current record holder for this achievement.
The two person team of Sergio Dantas and Sarah Latham put in a good performance finishing in five hours and 42 minutes. They both looked pretty fresh and probably could’ve competed individually. Sarah claimed not enough time for training while Sergio is training for the 90km Comrades Marathon in South Africa and this year’s event was at the wrong stage of his training cycle.
The team of Sergio Dantas, Shane Donovan and Rhys Warwick won the three person team category with the time of 6 hours and 37 minutes.
The race was moved a month earlier than previous years in a bid to offset increasingly hotter Aprils. It also started 30 minutes earlier giving the runners a good solid hour of running in the dark and then a reasonably cool sunrise leg from West End to Sage Mountain.
Despite the mostly overcast and windy conditions, it was still a very hot finish to the race. Two runners didn’t manage to complete the course and that can be put down to gastric distress in trying to keep hydrated and fed during the race.
The race finish saw people enjoying beers and burgers together with some taking restorative sea soaks to finish off the event.
