Marathon T
So, as I arrived on Blackheath at just after 5am for the start of the London to Brighton run I took a sneaky check on the other athletes and felt immediately out of my depth. It’s bad enough at the start of a marathon, but in this company – as everyone lined up with their professional looking adventure racing gear – I felt very concerned I was undercooked for the challenge.
The weekend had not begun well – after a brief look at one of the stops my partner (and designated weekend support crew) would meet me at – we made a beeline for the hotel (via Bluewater – she wasn’t going to miss that opportunity!), with the idea of spending the day with our feet up. However, as I did a final kit check in the room I realised I didn’t have my Garmin Forerunner with me, despite double checking at home it was nowhere to be found. So, after some deliberation, another race down to Bluewater enabled me to buy the latest Garmin 310XT model at an eye-watering cost. As I had spent a number of hours researching the route and marking up the map book to include all mile markers I could not face the prospect of running for 13 hours without knowing exactly how much distance I had covered.
Back to the hotel we finally crashed out at 18:00 with some room service and dreadful Saturday evening TV. Not the relaxing day I was hoping for – but still not too bad.
My (official) alarm went off at 04:00 - we had been woken by several unofficial alarms through the night as guests of the wedding taking part in the hotel crashed about the corridors in a state of advanced merriment. I got up and set about making my expedition breakfast – it was a cereal and mango concoction in a bag that just needed boiling water.
So, as my partner slept on, I sat in a small hotel chair illuminated by a dim bedside light and tucked into 800 calories of nauseating sludge. As I sat contemplating how I had got myself to this point – I thought about all of the 5am mornings I had seen over the summer, and all of the evenings out I had missed – anyone who believes ultra running is just about connecting with nature, fresh air, adventure and personal highs – should try my breakfast….
I got my gear together and roused my partner – heading out of the hotel and across the road to the official registration for 5am. After queuing and getting final race instructions and my GPS tracker (for family and friends to track my progress on the day) I made my way to the start line and waved goodbye to my other half.
Bang on 6am we were off.
I have to say that I was fairly staggered by the starting pace – I had settled on a 9:45/mile start pace and I was very quickly at the back of the field. I jogged along for the first couple of hours – eventually catching up to a number of runners as they settled back from the start. I was amazed that anyone attempting 56 miles would start off this quick; as one of the runners near me said “It’s not a sprint, it’s not even a marathon!”
The first couple of checkpoints passed without incident and before I knew it I was arriving at my first ‘support team’ catch up point at 22 miles. I took the opportunity to get some food, change my socks and footwear (Asics road shoes off, North Face trail shoes on), fill up my hydration pack and relax for two minutes before starting on the real trail sections.
As I started off again full of carbs I felt great but quickly realised something wasn’t quite right. I laboured on for another 6 miles, before I had to stop on a major uphill section to vomit. After the unpleasantness I trudged up the rest of the hill feeling like death and considering where I could drop out of the race. I met a guy called Andy at the top of this hill sitting on the verge and chatting together we ambled along for the next few miles to the 30 mile checkpoint – comfortably under the 6 hour cutoff.
At the 30 miles checkpoint I dumped a few cups of water over my head and got some fluid and oranges inside and immediately felt much better. I resolved to try to make it to the next check at 36.5 miles then think about dropping at that one (or at my next aid stop at 39 miles)….
Teaming up with Andy we cajoled each other along and shared a lot of the map reading – which by this time had got difficult. We covered the next 6 miles easily and arrived at the next checkpoint in good spirits. More water on the head and more snacks followed, as we left we also teamed up with a lady called Andi from Washington DC (which helped me no end as remembering two names by that point would have been a struggle).
As we left this checkpoint I felt much stronger and by the time I had got to the 39 mile meeting point with my ‘support team’ all thoughts of abandoning the run had gone and I felt superb. I had climbed my wall and was now flying (relatively speaking). After a quick stop we were off again.
We got to the final checkpoint at 46 miles in the shadow of the South Downs beacons in decent time and now knew we had over 3 hours to complete the final 10 miles. The problem we had was that several miles earlier Andi had suffered a problem with her knee which reduced her to a walk, this was now getting worse and she couldn’t run at all downhill and only very slowly on the flat. We walked along together for a number of miles and agreed that as we had now come so far we would finish as a team.
By the time we had covered another 5 miles and despite the assurances of the marshals that we only had 3-4 miles to go, I knew that we had over 5.5 miles to go into Brighton and only 90 mins to do it. We dragged each other on with encouragement and by the time we got in sight of Brighton we were down to the wire in terms of time. Finally we agreed that we would have to go for it and try to run as much of the final few miles as possible – so very quietly and with some hobbling we started the final descent into Brighton.
As we made our way across the racecourse and towards the seafront, we all dug in and following the route of least resistance made a beeline for the sea. The few supporters left on the course pointed us towards the finishing straight and with a final challenge of 100m of loose stones (very hard on the legs) we crossed the line in 12hours and 53 mins – a whole 7 minutes to spare.
Of the 250+ starters at Blackheath, 157 officially finished the course under the 13 hour cut-off (11 of those after us in the last 7 mins). Although, a number of runners were still going after 16 hours which is a Herculean effort as far as I am concerned. The winners are incredible athletes (8hrs 42mins for the first person home), but anyone who is still going on the route after 16 hours and in the dark gets my utmost respect.
After basking (briefly) in the adulation of the crowd, thanking Andy & Andi, and picking up a very hard won T-Shirt, I headed for the sanctuary of the Hilton hotel bar. Several of the most delicious beers of my life followed but all too soon I needed a wash and rest – so said goodbye to Oli (cheers again fella for coming to support, and for supplying the drinks at the finish) – and headed to the room for a long hot bath and fluffy bathrobes…
The next day didn’t prove too bad – I was a bit sore but managed to wander around Brighton for the morning, had a great sushi lunch in ‘Moshi Moshi’ (cheers again for the recommendation Oli) then packed up and headed for Gatwick.
The last few weeks have been punctuated by low mileage, recovery runs which have been enjoyable. I am now getting a plan together for my next run in December – another trail Ultra across the South Downs. I need more hill training before I get there….If you need me I’ll be on the north coast…
UltraMarathon T
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
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