At 5am on Sunday morning, in a muddy woodland in Sussex, I was
sleepwalking and weaving my way slowly round the 24 hour Ultra Trail Run
Challenge. 15 hours into the race but
still with 9 to go, we were bang on our schedule
but with no contingency whatsoever, everything was hurting, energy levels were
low, and all I wanted to do was stop and close my eyes for a few precious
minutes of sleep. My buddy James had
fallen in a pond and needed an entire change of kit, and my other buddies David
and Jamie were silently enduring their own agonies. For a while, our race and my dreams of
qualifying for Spartathlon (the others already had it in the bag) were hanging
by a thread. By 6am, we were virtually
begging for the sun to come up, knowing that we’d get an energy boost and a
rise in spirits. What we didn’t realise
was quite what a miraculous impact it would have, and oh boy were we grateful. Four quick(ish) laps of the 2.12 mile loop
later and we had a 17 minute buffer on our target, leaving us roughly a
marathon to cover in 6 hours.
As you’d expect, this had all felt so much easier a few
hours previously. A leisurely drive down
to Sussex with Rosie and the kids, arriving around 2 hours before the start,
meant plenty of time for pre-race preparation, fuelling and banter with the
lads and other competitors. The race
start was at 2pm, it was a joy to have my wife and two boys on the start line (the
little ones trying to join in with the race…. “you can do it Daddy”, “go
Daddy!!” ) and cheering us through the first couple of laps. Despite some fairly persistent rain, we
ploughed steadily through the first marathon in around 4:30 hrs, chatting to
other competitors and generally enjoying ourselves. Our main chats were with a fantastic chap by
the name of Colin Searle, who’d done Spartathlon twice and was preparing
himself for a mountain ultra called The Spine taking place in January
2015. We also made sure to give the
usual “well dones” to anyone we passed or who passed us, it’s a friendly sport
ultra running!!
The course loop felt fairly straightforward at first: flat
round a lake, ascending gently through woods to a reasonable hill which was
walking only right from the start, a little jog along a flat wooded section
then another uphill walk, turn left and crash downhill past an angry swan then
a long flat grind to the transition point.
As evening turned into night time, we kept chugging along, rarely
stopping at transition for more than a few seconds at a time to grab some food
or drinks. We were helped massively by
support from Anthony Baring late in the evening and then by Bruce Paterson in
the dead of night. Bruce ran a few laps
with us carrying bottles of electrolyte which was an absolute godsend (thanks
Bruce!!).
For the last 6 hours it was just a case of keeping moving and
trying to stick to around 30 minutes per lap.
Although we were all utterly exhausted I think we knew we had the result
in the bag for probably the last 2 hours or so.
Coming in to the penultimate lap the good feelings started to beat the
exhausted feelings… “just one more time up this hill after this etc etc”, and
for the last lap we knew we had it…. 41 minutes to do 2.12 miles, I smiled
inside every step of the way (outside it was still a grimace). Down to the home straight for the final time
and there were Rosie and the kids again….”you’ve done it Dad, you’ve got 9
minutes left!”…. I don’t think I have
ever been so pleased to finish something in my life, cue massive hugs, big
smiles and very good feelings all round.
We finished with a total of 112.36 miles, achieving the 111.8 target for
Spartathlon qualification by a tiny margin.
Big thanks to all our supporters on the day: Rosie, Sam,
Luke, Anthony, Kirsty, Bruce, Chevs, Holly, Maisie, Grace, Bailey, we couldn’t
have done it without you. Also thanks to
lots of people on facebook for the messages of encouragement and support, it
really does help us.
Finally, a special mention to the race organisers TL Sports
Events (
https://www.facebook.com/TLSportsEvents?fref=nf
) . A friendlier or more professional
bunch of people you could not hope to meet.
Everything about the organisation was first class, from the food laid on
to the timing equipment. I was
especially impressed with the constant stream of marshalls patrolling the
course making sure everyone was ok and towards the end even running alongside
us with water. Thank you Lee and the TL
Sports Team, you were great!
In transition in the dead of night with Jamie and Colin
Time to spare! with (from left), David Bone, James Ellis, Sam, Jamie Holmes, Luke, me
