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| Me before the start (with Jerry just over my shoulder) |
I met up with Jerry and George in Oxford on Friday evening and we grabbed a pizza fairly late and had a good old natter about future events and past runs before going to our separate hotels for the night. I stayed in the 5* (minus 4*s) Travelodge on the outskirts of town and caught the shuttle bus to Oxford station in the morning to pick up the minibus laid on by the race organisers (nice touch) to take us to the start about 3miles away in Iffley.
Once there i quickly saw and said hello to a few familiar faces, one of the runners (Tom), and I, have run bits of races together in the past and we quickly realised we were both looking to do sub 8hrs30 for to-day so we decided to run together. After a few pictures and deciding on not wearing my gloves (thanks to Tom for the sound advice) we were gathered outside for the start. The Race Director then gave final race instructions along with directions "Run to the River Thames, turn left, see you in Henley" as with most things it is never as easy as it sounds. And we were off.
The first 9 or so miles went quite quickly with Tom and I making good progress, top 30 or so I would say, but the headwind was strong. We just grabbed a few jelly babies at the first checkpoint and carried on, the ground was a little muddy and my trail shoes seemed to clog up and not shed the mud so they soon weighed about a 1lb each. This was also the first of a few occasions I had to re-tie my shoe, and it took me about 3 to 4 miles to catch Tom back up. By the time we reached the 2nd checkpoint around 19miles we both needed to fill up our bottles/bladders and this for me took a bit longer than I would have liked as the bottled water was only 330ml so I needed 3 - 4 for my bottles, but we were soon off again. It was at this stage that Tom was having a bit of a rough patch, as is the way with Ultra's, you have rough patches, it is with experience that you learn how best to ride them out. Tom knew he needed to get some carbs on board, and he wasn't wanting to slow me down, so I slowly went ahead, but my rough patch was not far away.
Now for most of the first 20 or so miles the wind was against us so we had worked hard to keep at 8.30 to 9min miles, but this hard work was now starting to have an affect so at 24miles I decided I would adopt a 4min walk 20mins/2 mile run strategy to make sure I kept making progress.
Just before I pulled into CP3 @ about 27miles I had overtaken a runner who was now dropping out (I heard at least 3 people pulled out at this CP). There was mini pasties, crisps, jelly babies, water etc but I could only just stomach a few salted crisps, as I was feeling pretty crap, so refilled my bottles and added my energy powder, and pulled myself together and got going, but about a mile or so along the river my stomach told me I really needed to find a quiet spot in the woods (hopefully no more detail required), which I did, but as I was in the woods I saw at least 10 people go past, it would be nigh on impossible to make up the ground which was a bit dis-heartening having run pretty hard up to then. The next 7 to 8 miles to the next checkpoint were about keeping moving, as I was still not feeling great and I could feel some rubbing on my left foot (my trail shoes were fairly new, the furthest I had run in them was 18miles, so was taking a bit of a risk doing 50) but I was aware that during the walking breaks I was being overtaken by a couple of runners, but when I was running I was making the ground up (need to do less walking, more running!!!!).
By the time I hit CP4 @ 34-35miles I was starting to come back round, and it was good to see Tom running into the CP, he must of been going strong since the last CP to make up the ground, I also bumbed into Robby, who I ran London2Brighhton with in 2009, and he was looking ok, we had a quick chat and he headed out just before Tom and I. We walked about 1/3m up a bigish hill and then quick check of the map with another runner for about 30secs (better than running the wrong way for 10mins) to confirm we were going in the right direction and then on our way. Once we picked up the Thames Path again and were by the river I noticed Tom was dropping back a bit but as we entered a lovely wooded section with some hills it was nice just to run it easy together and enjoy the scenery, we did remark that if we hadn't already run 35+ miles this would be a lovely place to run. We were now heading along towards Reading and with a good view ahead I could make out other runners in the distance, I was still sticking with my run/walk strategy as this was working ok, I could see that 2 or 3 of the runners ahead were the ones that had gone past me while I was busy in the woods earlier, so they were my target, but the main thing was just to finish strongly.
I was just about to take another walk break when i saw CP5 at about 42miles, so ran on, on arrival a passer by was asking how many runners were taking part, the CP Crew said "about 210" and I joked that at least I was in the top 210, there response was, your actually in the top 50 at the moment. I was a bit surprised, so this spurred me on, and made this just a quick water top up stop and cracked on, leaving the 2 runners who arrived ahead of me at the checkpoint behind, I was on the home stretch, time to run strongly.
Once over a small bridge and back on the Thames Path I felt pretty good, not great, but confident of keeping my pace. I quickly drew alongside another runner, who said "good going, well done", friendly lot these Ultra runners, another runner comming the other way must have known what race I was running, as he congratulated me, which was nice, even though I was still a bit away from even finishing. I could now make out another runner ahead of me and just ahead of him, Robby who I last saw at CP4. Within a mile I had caught and passed the first runner, and about 3miles from home caught up with Robby. This was good as Robby is local and the last section I had been warned was a bit tricky, especially if you arrived in the dark, thankfully it was still daylight. I ran slightly ahead of Robby who kindly shouted out "keep left" or "straight on" at a couple of trick bits, including pointing out a massive house with a railway line in the front garden!! I then decided to take a 2min walk break and Robby slowly went past, as I thought we had 2.5miles to go and was readying myself for a hard last couple of miles, but a passer by said "only about a mile to the finish"!
So that was my queue to get a move on, so about half a mile across a field and onto a very long lock bridge, I quickly went past Robby, who wished me well, and I could see the Henley bandstand in the distance as well as 2 other runners. I binned the map book as soon I came off the lock bridge and onto the towpath, and was really motoring, I knew I would catch the first of the 2 runners but was the 2nd too far ahead to catch before the finish? Well, I must have caught him by surprise as I went past him about 50mtrs from the finish at about 6.30pace, and I was getting great support from some of the other runners and organisers as I came in to finish in 8hrs15mins in 42nd place of 201 starters.
All in all a good run, and good training for April especially as it was flat, also 45mins quicker than a similar race last year which was 5miles shorter, so a good sign that training is going in the right direction. Apart from a little stiffness feel surprisingly ok, so start building up again towards April. My thanks to Robby and his wife for dropping me off at Reading station after the race, and thanks to Tom for being my companion for a fair chunk of the race. My apologies to Jerry and George for shooting off at the start and then not seeing them the rest of the race, thankfully we met up and chatted the night before.
