Up at 4:30. Really can't be bothered. Do a few stretches and foam rolling and out for breakfast, followed by checking my brother, Nikolas, is awake. He is. Out the door by 5:30 for the first train of the day from St Mary Cray, then a connecting tube to Marylebone for the Country to Capital express to Wendover. It's a four hour mission just to get to the start of this bugger.
Even on the tube section there are a couple of runners. When we hit Marylebone there's at least a hundred of them milling about. Not surprisingly there is a big line for the toilet on the train and it doesn't smell very nice sitting next to it. Check and change final kit pieces then off the train to register around the corner. I notice Danny Kendall and point him out to Nik as my pick to win. I've no idea who's here but I do know he's bloody quick.
It's rammed in the quaint English pub registering but there's a bonus tech tee as part of the race entry fee that I wasn't expecting so I'm already winning.
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| If you look closely we're at the back... |
Actually scratch that I'm not winning. I have secretly been hoping the trains would get cancelled and I won't have to do this race. I've barely done any training, having only been out for about three runs in as many months and they've all ended miserably. Not to mention the couple of times I've raced long last year going poorly. My mind just isn't in this. I've also had no time to prepare due to being very busy at work and, if I'm honest, just not having any motivation.
So I'm expecting not to meet the cut offs today and main aim really is just to get past marathon point. It's a shame as I entered this race on a whim while in New Zealand last year as Nik was going to be here and I wanted to show him what I've been getting up to. Plus, finishing in London I figured I could organise some friends to come to the finish as well given this trail running lark can often be quite a lonesome endeavour so would be nice to have some mates cheer me home.
Unfortunately given my level of fitness I've ended up doing my best not to tell anyone since I'm expecting not to finish at all. Am I whining enough yet for you? Yeah, I thought so.
I guess the point is, though, that I am here. I am on the start line and I am going to try to push through this mental block. To not give into self doubt and to hope for better. If we don't try to better ourselves then there's no point really, is there? We may as well just give up.
So I won't. I'll try. Even though another other part of me says not to bother.
We chat for a few minutes and then I stay at the back for the start. It's a bit of a bottleneck so it's a bit ungraceful as I say to Nik I'll see him in a few hours then walk off. Had hoped to show him a race with me sprinting off in glory. Oh well, should have pushed to the front.
So it's a quick run down the road, with all traffic confused and stopped, down to the first infamous gate. Here it becomes a real squeeze as well over three hundred runners pour into a tiny alleyway. We spill out the other side and there's a lovely little church there. My mood starts to lift a bit. Even if I do get pulled off the course at least I'm going to have a nice day out. And so we settle into a routine for a while. It's basically a mix of going around alleyways and gates for some time now.
Oh and mud. Quite a lot of mud. We go through a field and it has been properly churned up by the front runners ahead. It's slippery. It's grubby. It's going up my legs. And I love it. I've got my waterproof shoes on. It's unlikely they'll stay dry in this but I figured if I can keep my feet dry for some of the race then that's something.
The scenery is really brilliant but what I hadn't expected is the sun. The forecast wasn't amazing although wasn't anything to get worried about but I hadn't thought about the fact of direction. It now becomes starkly obvious to me I should have thought of this. Why? Because I've just put my foot down in a big old mud pie and the sun is just coming up over the horizon directly in front of me and blinds me. I can't see where to place my foot on the ground each step so it's making things quite interesting to keep my balance. I don't mind though, I'd rather this than sleeting rain. Truth be told it's actually quite fun and is adding to the challenge. An unexpected bonus, you could say.
We carry on with the muddy field, stile, muddy path between two fields, stile, short bit of road, gate and stile continuum for several miles and as they wear on people get more and more impatient and start to leap over the fences, climbing them to get over quicker and avoid all the stopping and starting. I say to another runner next to me at one of these pile ups that I actually don't mind it too much as it stops you from going off too fast at the beginning and ruining yourself later down the line having to death march the final few kilometres of the race. He agrees.
At this point there is a lot of shouting over behind me and someone points a finger at another runner calling him a filthy bastard. As a circle appears around this runner I realise that he's just dropped his guts. Charming. I then recall to the person I'm chatting to about the time at the Steyning Stinger marathon when someone was just in front of me on an uphill and let a really loud and smelly fart rip right in my face. The bumhole even had the audacity to not even turn around and apologise. I obviously passed him at that point and made sure to stay in front. I also wished I had the build up to repay the favour, but alas none was forthcoming.
The others around me start telling stories of a similar nature and I realise that trail runners are all a bunch of filthy bastards. Myself included. I won't pretend I'm not just as bad although I will put my foot down and say I wouldn't do it in someones face. Or in a crowded pile up of runners at a gate.
At this point I realise something that I probably should have thought about before. This is a self navigating race. I'd read quite a few reports of people getting lost but hadn't been paying any attention really to this upcoming race and so it isn't until right now that I realise I probably should have looked the route up previous to today. Oh well, I have uploaded the route map to my phone, which usually does the trick. I've also put the paper map given to all runners under my shoulder strap so I can get at it easily rather than right at the bottom of my bag where most of the runners seems to be so I should be alright.
We pile over the stile and make our way across another field. I'm about to start a conversation with the runner I've just come up next to and realise he has headphones in so dejectedly carry on past him. Does he not know that this is more about socialising than running? The cheek.
We soon find ourselves going along a road around a bend and up a slight incline. I've just started chatting to an older geezer and we notice there's a lot less people around going up this hill and they aren't looking incredibly confident with where they're going. I quickly whip out my phone and confirm that indeed we are going the wrong way.
We shout down the woman in front who turns around and comes back to us, thrusting an expensive Garmin eTrex or something of the sort into our eyeballs and telling us we're going the right way. I show her my phone with the tracking incorrect and she tells me I'm wrong.
She tells me that her device is using the official route. I tell her mine is a GPX also using the official route downloaded from the official site.
We look at each other. It's an awkward moment. She's obviously got a fancier device, but I whip out my wild card. Logic. I point across the field where my map is telling us to go. She looks and sees what I see. A long line of runners going the way I'm saying. I'm not particularly bothered about a device war. Possibly this is because I will lose and possibly because I'm more bothered about the fact that everyone else is going the way I'm saying. So there.
She looks at me. She looks at her vastly superior machine. She harrumphs at me and pointedly continues on the direction we were heading.
My new friend has been stood next to us watching the whole thing rather bewildered. He follows me. We head back towards the last turning point but find a gate that allows us to cut across the field and we talk about it not really being worth the risk of carrying on the way the lady did. I'd seen on the map that the road was definitely going to rejoin the route but it's just not worth the possibility if missing a checkpoint in between now and the point it rejoins.
We get back to the line and a few runners joke that we know a shortcut. I tell them we did take one but suggest they avoid following us down any further diversions...
Through a fence and up a muddy bank. I look above me and there are two runners trying to stay upright and reach the top but one guy is making hard work of it. He's actually been reduced to steps of no more than six inches and has had to double back and create a switchback that wasn't there. I'm not going to lie it's pretty funny.
For some reason I'm able to get up this slope without any worries. It's a bit tricky as it's diagonally up and the slope off to the right is a bit of a mission but still not too much of an issue. I hear the other guy behind me mixing some swearing in with some laughing.
I get to the top and start talking to a new person about the race and the usual chitter chatter malarkey. He's done a couple of the Endurancelife ones so we've got a few hints to talk about there although they're different ones to the ones I've done. Today is the longest race he's done and it strikes me that's the case for quite a few of the people here.
Then before we know it we're at checkpoint one. I comment that the woman we left behind may have cost herself a DNF and secretly thank myself for not being as stubborn as she was.
I fill up my water bottles in a bit of a rush as I don't want to lose the guy I've been running with the past ten minutes. I'm rushing so much I don't realise the bin I'm spilling water over the top of my bottles onto is not actually a bin but the box with the checkpoint staffs belongings in. The marshal is telling me something but I'm attempting to focus so I don't understand until there is a considerable note of annoyance and I understand I'm having a hand in ruining his day pouring water on all his stuff. I tell him I thought it was a bin. He looks at me even more pissed off at my frankly pathetic excuse. I bolt up the road apologising profusely.
Round the corner I see the guy I was running with eating some cake and realise I forgot to get anything to eat. We talk about nutrition and water and I'm happier that I've got a full pair of water bottles rather than a bit of cake and can't stand the thought of running out of water.
The next few miles pass pretty easily. We're keeping quite a good clip and I'm finding out all about the life of a professional sailor from my new pal. Can't say that was on the agenda to be ticked off but it's pretty interesting and much nicer than talking to someone working a boring job so at least I'm learning something. Added bonus for the day and takes my mind off the legs.
We go through a number more stiles and at one point even around several football fields with boys training who are probably wondering what the hell we're all doing muddying up the edge of their pitch.
We manage at one point to turn left up a field before getting shouted back a hundred metres later by a few guys telling us we were supposed to go straight. Self navigating. Must remember this. Really important. Don't want to end up with loads of extra miles like I did at Caesar's Camp.
Luckily we've fallen in with a bunch of about fifteen other guys so none of us really need to keep too close an eye on the map. I do check every now and again to make sure everything is still fine all the same. There's no point just following blindly if everyone goes the wrong way. I think the guy I'm running with is pleased I've got the GPX as he was going on the paper map so it makes it a bit easier.
After a few more miles we reach checkpoint two and my legs are starting to feel a bit tired. I can feel a crash coming so I make my excuses, wish him a good race then head over the road to the pub to use the facilities. I'm greeted by a god awful stench and inwardly apologise to the bar staff.
I go back to the checkpoint and realise the pub was the direction I needed to go so double back again. I check my timing and I'm looking at approximately three and a half hours for the first thirty kilometres. I feel pretty good about that as my plan, if any, was to aim for four hours for the first thirty, four hours for the next thirty and that gives me two hours for the inevitable slowing at the final twelve kilometres. It also leaves a one hour buffer before the cut offs in case anything goes wrong.
I start to think this is possible. I start to think that maybe I'm not as bad as I've been telling myself lately. That maybe I can put that self doubt aside for a day and maybe today I can enjoy this race. I remember having felt like this right before dropping from a race so it's a tempered belief but it's a positive one and I'm glad for it creeping in here. I surprise myself. I think I'm actually enjoying this.
I realise that I've lost the group of fifteen as they all shot off and I'm now on my own. I get my phone out and keep it with me so that I can keep checking the directions. I reach a path where it goes off down two sides of a fence. Hmm, that's a bit tricky. Which side do I go down? This small a detail can't even be found on an OS map usually. I take the one that looks more like a defined walkway and soon after realise I've taken the right one. The map says I just follow this in a dead straight line from here for quite a while so I settle into it.
As I'm feeling a bit tired and want to avoid a crash later on I let the pace ease off a bit here. I'm soon passed by quite a few people in the odd pair. I settle into the fact this is likely to happen for a while and realise it was all a lot easier when I was in a chatty group bouncing along the trail. It's much harder to keep positive on your own on when you ease the pace off and loads of people are passing you.
A bit of the self doubt creeps back in and I start to picture this being the beginning of the end where I burn out really quickly and just give up. I accost myself for recent lack of motivation and the fact that I've given up on nearly all of my recent training runs.
I try not to let it get me down. I try to tell myself this is normal. It's okay to hit a slump thirty odd kilometres into a race as this is usually where people hit the wall. The glucose has run out and the tank is switching over to fat burning. I know all this and I know it will pass and I'll feel better again soon...but it's hard to tell myself this with my self confidence in running being so low lately.
But I carry on. I push through. I keep trying to tell myself it will pass and I allow myself to take a few walking breaks and be okay with it. And it works. I keep moving forward. I reach a turning point and two other people are looking pretty confused here. I've still got my phone map out and ask if it's down the path to my left. The woman next to it says she doesn't know. I say I think it is then another runner comes and tells me it's further up and is pretty adamant. I've had one person being pretty adamant turn out to be incorrect but the road he wants to turn down is only twenty metres away so I agree, figuring it will lead to the same place anyway and on road so a bit nicer and faster for a few minutes. We reach a dead end and the guy accepts I was right and we should have gone the other way.
A local resident drives up and starts jovially yelling us over to the side of the dead end to a path and points us the right way. I thank her and tell her she's amazing and she cackles loudly as I run off so if nothing else achieved today I gave her a laugh.
We go under the rail bridge she was telling us about and a flicker of a notion I could just get on a train arrives but disappears just as quickly. I'm actually fine just going a bit slower and mentally not feeling as good as I could so that would actually just be laziness if I did that. So another no to the self doubt.
The other guy is shooting off. I try to keep up with him but he doesn't seem that bothered about talking to anyone anyway so I let him go. He did tell me we were near the canal though which brightens my spirits as I know that means it's flat and easy to the finish.
We go through a small town and I pass another nice church and remind myself that there are some amazing places in Britain and that I'm pretty lucky to get to see so many in the way I do, running around the countryside. It somehow seems more...real, I guess, natural even, than just getting off a train and staring at things with all the other tourists. Much more of an experience that's for sure.
Soon enough I find myself going through a gate and finding myself on the Grand Union canal. It's quite a mental boost getting to here. What I've realised through the day also is that all the training runs I did to get to Jess after work were perfect training for this race. From our house to her work it's almost an exact replica. The same distance and half hills and mud before arriving on a canal for hours. It's definitely another mental boost and also has meant that I've been able to gauge my pace and realise that I'm actually still going as fast today as I was doing those runs in the summer.
There's a lot of sore runners up ahead and it looks like the hard canal is starting to take it's toll on them. I reach one who tells me his run/walk strategy from here and we pick up another pair who aren't looking to happy either.
Soon enough we're at checkpoint three and there are some mini scotch eggs, cold sausages and other savoury food which is exactly what I've been craving for several kilometres so I shove a fair few in my mouth. I see the others I was just running with standing around having a chat but decide to press on, preferring to walk and eat rather than stand. I walk with a girl who tells me she's been having some pretty bad stomach problems. It sounds like it gets her quite a bit but she flew by my earlier so I've no doubt she'll be fine.
I finish my sausage roll and tell her I'm going to press on. I run for a while then take a walk and carry on like that for a few kilometres, basically telling myself that when I get to the next bridge I'd let myself have a walking break but most of the time when I get to said bridge I'll carry on.
I've got a little mental trick that says that if stopping at a bridge I have to start the walk at the far side to give a last little push and fool myself into thinking I've done well by not stopping a few steps before the bridge. Once clear of the bridge the rule is that I can't stop if I haven't already and press on to the next bridge, this giving myself a window of a couple of paces for stopping only and a pretty big window to make myself feel better that I've continued. It probably won't make sense to anyone else but it's just a little thing that helps me feel better about progress on a run.
At this point I notice that I'm almost exactly on fifty kilometres. During the summer, on the runs I'm today gauging my relative speed at, I was reaching the fifty mark in six hours. I've been telling myself all day that the pace from the summer had me a lot fitter and to expect to add a fair bit of time to that today to account for my untrained level of fitness.
It's around forty nine kilometres at five hours and fifty minutes. I almost jump up that I'm actually at the same pace on an unfamiliar route and feeling so crap about myself and then actually pulling it off.
I feel like I can do this.
I feel like I can probably do this in a time that isn't just inside the cut offs.
I feel like I might do this well enough that I can hold my head up high.
I feel like it was worth pushing through the mental block of late and trying all the same.
Then out of nowhere, just before a bridge we need to go over, I see a sign saying Paddington is thirteen and a half miles away. Paddington. The finish. It's so unexpected and I've been in my own world for so long that I hadn't let myself really think about it.
I'm definitely going to finish. There. I said it.
It's just gone fifty kilometres in around five hours and fifty eight minutes and you know what? I feel brilliant. I've got five hours to do a half marathon so even if things went terribly I could walk in a finish and still be well within the cut offs. I won't. But it's nice to have that DNF demon off my back and know I won't be visiting his chamber today.
Then I look around me and notice there isn't anyone else there. I'm lost. Oops. I check the GPX map and it confirms I'm lost and should have turned left three hundred metres back. I'm confused. I thought I was supposed to hit the canal and follow it all the way to Little Venice in Paddington? What's going on? I get the paper map out as I turn around and retrace my steps. I flick to the right page and it confirms that indeed I do follow the canal, just not the Grand Union canal. As I'm nearly back at the bridge a pair of runners crest it and giggle seeing me coming back.
They point down a left turn. The one I didn't see. I laugh along with them and say that yes indeed, I just figured that one out the hard way. I fall in with them and take a walk. They're mates from a running club, aiming for a sub nine finish and a bit knackered. I concur and we start running again. The pace is a bit faster than it was on my own since the last checkpoint and most certainly since the five horribly walled kilometres before that so I'm actually quite glad to be picking it up again.
The fellas and I stay together and they're using the same strategy of going to a certain bridge then stopping for a walk and each go through moments of feeling knackered. I'm picking up my mood quite a bit again; even more so now that I'm running with these guys as they're quite a happy pair, aside from the sore legs of course.
Soon after we get to checkpoint four. I fill my bottles quickly, hope for a sausage and there's only gels so I take one and pop another in my pocket just in case. The race is sponsored by GU and there's a lot of stocks at each checkpoint which has been particularly good as it's meant I've not had to faff about looking for electrolyte tabs in my bag and just fill up from the tank. But GU gels are so thick you have to chew them. It's like peanut butter smoked crack and raw sugar cane at the same time and made a baby out of it. Or maybe I should just avoid the peanut butter flavoured gels next time. They're good, don't get me wrong, but you better hope you've got water to hand for afterwards.
The checkpoint staff tell us we've got a little over twelve miles left. Six until the final checkpoint then another six until we finish. It's a little confusing as my tracking has us with far less to go, not to mention having seen the sign quite a while ago suggesting we were only a half marathon away. I'm sure we've done more than a mile since then? The other guys voice confusion also. I put it down to the bits extra that I've done and readjust my mental countdown. He then tells us that we'll be in the pub by six in the evening. I check the time. It's three. This is definitely doable.
I tell the guys I'm going to start a walk and will see them shortly when they catch me. Soon after I get a spurt of energy and manage to up the pace a bit despite now being back on my own. Things are starting to look good.
Some time later I realise I need the toilet. I figure I'll be okay but can see this fast becoming a problem. I start looking at the area beside the canal and it's definitely not suitable for the sort of activity I have in mind. My tired race face I can handle people seeing. Squeezing a mud monkey face not so much. So after a while I find a geezer on a bridge and ask him if he knows of a pub nearby. He says there's one just up the river. I question is it, say, a mile or so? He tells me it's just round the corner. I breath a sigh of relief and thankfully it is right there. Getting up again after the deed is a whole other story, though, having been on my feet for seven hours.
But I do. I carry on. I pass some runners. Others pass me. I see the guys I was running with in the distance and try to catch up to them but never quite get there and then eventually I get to the final checkpoint. That stretch wasn't too hard and I'm actually now feeling pretty good.
I touch my timing chip in and am informed I need to run the remainder of the race with the rest of the group at the checkpoint as it's getting dark and to fill up on water and food.
Something I've not come across before in a race is the compulsory buddying after dark. It's no issue but I do wonder how it's going to be enforced. If I'm with someone and he's far faster or vice versa do we still have to stick together or are we allowed to part then? What about one runner getting injured? If it's a minor pulled muscle that shouldn't ruin both peoples race should it? I presume they aren't too rigid on this rule and that does look to be the case.
A few of us are joking around getting our head torches when two things happen.
Firstly, a woman comes in and starts yelling about needing a water handed to her and then has a go at the checkpoint staff as she's not happy with how the lid is sitting on the one she is given. They do the best they can to appease her, not really sure what the issue is, then tell her the same rules everyone gets and she ignores them and runs off on her own. I comment, hopefully loud enough for both her and the checkpoint staff to hear that she should perhaps be less of a princess when she's at the back of the field.
It's not excusable from anyone, of course, but I can sort of understand someone who's winning being a bit like this but not when she's as far down the field as this. Either way I hope the marshals hear me and understand that most of us appreciate them volunteering their time.
The second thing that happens is that a man who clearly has nothing to do with the race but happens to be walking by on the canal uses the furore to his advantage and sticks his grubby mitts between two of us and thieves some gels, shoves them in his pocket whilst looking around guiltily to see if anyone has noticed. He’s got a flat cap, big jacket and looks like someone you’d see at Walthamstow market yelling about cut price bananas at a pound so is literally living up to the Del Boy stereotype. I’m so flabbergasted he’s gone with a cockney swagger before I can even say anything.
We're set up in a group of four and head off but straight away the pair in front settle into a very slow walk so myself and the American guy behind them wiggle around the canal and set off on our own. We joke for a while about Princess Rudebum and seem to be keeping a fairly good pace. I'm a little worried about whether I can keep it up or not but decide to go with it. Why not? We're ten kilometres from the end and...and you know what I've suddenly realised? I feel amazing. Absolutely brilliant.
We carry on, chatting about how hard it is to work in miles instead of kilometres and as we do they just fly by. What we also notice is that we start reeling in some other runners and are picking up quite a few places. We're both commenting on how great we feel and it actually feels to me like running on clouds. I know that's an odd thing to say but I really am enjoying myself, knowing full well that the finish is coming up around the corner.
Then out of nowhere a huge group of people start cheering and shouting 'Man Dem' 'Oh who dat?' 'Gimme love' and sticking out there hands for high fives and a huge grin spreads across my face as it's so completely unexpected but always great to get this level of support.
Turns out Jason here knows them from the Man Dem running club so they were cheering for him. Ah screw it, I'm gonna take the praise too. I'm doing the race as well so I'll take the confidence boost. He stops for a quick hello and soon we're on our way again.
Eventually we reel in the boys from before and one of them is not having such a good time. I feel brilliant and lead the way for all four of us hooting and laughing for a while and they then drop off behind us.
We check google maps and it says we have less than a kilometre to go so we give it a short walk break before a final push. We stop near the end as Jason wants the toilet and I check google to see exactly how far we are and then a distinct Kiwi accent tells me to get a move on.
I look up and there's Nik, having walked a bit up to finish with me. I give him a big grin, Jason rejoins us and we head for the finish. Another big Man Dem running club crew are there just before for Jason so he says hello to them and I cross the line in eight hours and forty four minutes.
Two hours and sixteen minutes before the cut offs. Well ahead of any of my runs of this distance in the summer. Well ahead of where I thought I'd be. Well ahead of where I dared hope to be.
So screw you, self doubt demon. Today you're my bitch.
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