My first 100 mile running race had been a long time
coming. In 2015
I made a casual comment to Martin White – something along the lines of
“I’ll do the marathon this year, Comrades next year, and then I’ll do a
100”
Comrades didn’t happen until the 2017 ‘up’ run.
And then I had to return to Durban to do the ‘down’ run in 2018.
But at least I had a qualifier for the 100.
And so it was in August 2019 that I entered the
South Downs Way 100 which was to take place in June 2020.
This race was postponed to November 2020 (giving it something of
a different character!) and then eventually cancelled because of the
second Covid-19 lockdown.
Luckily, before having even run the SDW100, I had
already jumped in with an entry to the 2021 Thames Path 100.
I had intended to ‘cut my teeth’ in the really quite tough SDW
race, before hopefully running quite a lot quicker beside the river.
But some things are difficult to control, and so it was on a wet
morning at Richmond upon Thames that my ‘buckle quest’ actually began.
Almost all of my ‘relevant training’ prior to this
race had been with Yvette Burton, a previous finisher of both the
Centurion ‘Autumn 100’ and the North Downs Way 100, and so someone who
has a fair idea of how to deal with such races.
I’m not much of a fan of long slow training runs, but somehow I
ended up running with Yvette as we did a sequence of 20+ mile efforts
coupled with the inevitable recce runs over bits of the Thames Path
route.
In a trick borrowed from the Comrades Marathon,
there are two types of award for finishing a Centurion 100 mile race
depending on whether you take more or less than 24 hours.
And naturally everyone wants the sub-24 version!
We had a schedule based on our recce of the first
half, which was always intended to be a race simulation.
Extrapolating the recce data gave a final time of 23h 20m, which
felt about right.
Andrea sends us to the start. Mild
anxiety from me. Centurion confidence from Yvette.
On 8th May 2021 it was raining and very
windy. A few days
earlier the forecast had been for many hours of rain, but as we crossed
the start line at 8.21am the expectation was for just one more hour of
wetness.
It wasn’t a cold day, so although we were wearing waterproof jackets, we were conscious that we didn’t want to overheat. We soon dispensed with the jackets and concentrated on our regime of “15 minutes run, 5 minutes walk”. Repeat to fade.
The walking breaks were the opportunities to eat
and drink. I had my food in
a pouch around my waist.
As I rotated the pouch into position, I managed to rip my race
number off my front.
We were able to improvise a repair which lasted until the next eating
break. Not a great
start, but luckily we could call for help.
Andrea Hendy had kindly offered to look after us over the first
50 miles – a task that began with driving us to the start and continued
by needing to source some safety pins at short notice.
Meanwhile I continued with my number in my pocket.
Luckily safety pins were available at the Walton
Aid Station, so my ragged and ripped number was re-attached to me.
By the time we saw Andrea at Staines, the first authorised
“crewing point”, we were still on schedule.
Encouragement from Olivia and Phill, just
before our arrival at the Staines Crew Point
A few miles later, near Windsor, we had the first refuel point. We took on the food and drink we would need to get us to the halfway point at Henley. This was quite a shock, as we suddenly had several more kilograms to lug around.
Windsor : First signs of leaning;
fuelled up & ready to go again. Maidenhead, trotting
past Boulters Lock.
After stocking up, we were about 5 minutes behind the plan and had surrendered 5 more minutes by Maidenhead.
At Marlow, I was starting to feel the strain.
I was also aware that we were a bit behind the plan. Yvette seemed
unflustered...
Going through Cookham, Bourne End and Marlow cost
us a few more minutes, and when we were approaching Henley we weren’t in
the best of spirits.
Not helping was the fact that we could see Henley from a long way off,
it wasn’t getting any closer, and we could tell that when we got there
our mileage was going to be higher than the official distance of 51
miles.
We reached the Henley Aid Station about 10-15
minutes later than planned.
Lisa and Mark were enthusiastically waiting for us, having taken over
crew duties from Andrea shortly before.
The keen crew await our triumphant arrival at
Henley. Feelings of blessed relief from us. Not sure about the
third pic!
Although we were showing 52 miles, it was hard to
tell whether the second part would now be 48 miles (great news!) or
whether it would still be 49, as per the course notes.
On the bright side, we were now joined by Henry (my
child#1) and he would keep us in order for the next seven miles towards
Reading. We were quite a
happy and motivated trio for this section and it was no surprise to
realise that we’d pulled back a few minutes of our deficit.
Lorraine and Nick prepare to take over pacing
at Reading (flanked by Lisa and Mark). And the moment Henry hands
over to Lorraine.
This was the point where Yvette and I became
independent. Leaving
Reading, she was to be paced by Nick Davies and I would be looked after
by my wife Lorraine.
After a quick change of clothes, Yvette and Nick set off.
I needed to use the Aid Station facilities, and so Lorraine and I
were 5 minutes behind.
I was determined not to make an effort to catch up.
We had 42 miles to go, and ‘having a little dig’ was not
something we even thought about.
We jogged along comfortably and as we approached Pangbourne (67
miles) we had made up a few minutes against the schedule.
I guess I was surprised to spot Nick waiting outside the Aid
Station, as this meant that we’d caught up with Yvette.
Suddenly now I found my tactics changing.
While before I wasn’t worried about being behind, it now seemed
terribly important to stay ahead!
So Lorraine and I scuttled over the bridge and were
quite purposeful as we climbed through Whitchurch and got back on the
trail towards Goring.
This stretch is a bit technical and twisty, with plenty of tree roots
etc. It also felt a
bit busy with lots of leap-frogging with other competitors whose
run/walk strategies were out of step with ours.
We reached Goring unscathed and set off on the
stretch to Wallingford and the 78 mile handover.
One of the risks with running beside the river is temperatures
plunging during the night, but we were fortunate in that the weather was
still quite warm.
After a particularly rough stretch of mud and
boulders we ran through a riverside restaurant at Moulsford and took the
short detour along the road.
We were making good progress and arrived in Wallingford about 15
minutes behind schedule.
After visiting the Aid Station and then getting fuelled up at the Crew
Point, I set off with Henry pacing again, about 25 minutes down.
That said, by this time the schedule wasn’t
terribly demanding if you could still trot along a bit.
After the event, I can see that some of the distances for points
on the schedule weren’t very accurate.
We had been told Clifton Hampden was 85 miles, but in real life I
measured it as 86.7. Hence,
we arrived there apparently 40 minutes behind schedule.
However, the schedule allowed something like 20 minutes per mile
at this point, and so our deficit was closer to 5 minutes.
When we arrived at the Crew Point at Culham, I was
surprised to be told that my schedule was dodgy.
I wasn’t in any position to argue, and have to admit that it
didn’t feel like we would have just made up 20 minutes against the plan
in the previous 4 miles.
Something was screwy, and I hoped it wasn’t my maths.
Roger and I set off full of optimism.
Sonja wasn't impressed with the mud after Abingdon. (and neither
was I, but didn't feel the need to record the grimness)
At this point I set off with Roger, for the final
push to the finish. We
tried to continue with the “run 15 mins, walk 5 mins” formula that I’d
been following from the start, but it didn’t take long to realise that I
wasn’t really capable of running.
Whenever I tried to adopt the ‘running dynamic’, I would get
quite a lot of pain from my lower back and core area generally.
With 10 miles remaining, we could easily have been
in trouble. But I was still
able to walk fairly purposefully, and we had well over 3 hours remaining
before the target time of 24 hours was reached.
And so we walked.
I didn’t feel great about this, because I really felt I should
have been doing some running
at least. But there
wasn’t really an option.
I was steadily getting less and less mobile, and simply keeping
moving was my best effort.
Roger did a great job of talking about anything and everything to
keep my mind positive.
We went through quite a lot of orienteering, cross-country,
mountain biking, etc stories as we kept trudging along.
We passed the final Aid Station, and we had 2 hours
to cover 5 miles. We were
going to do it, but only if I could keep moving.
As we passed Sandford Lock we had 3 miles and 90 minutes
remaining. I was getting
slower and slower, and unbelievably took over an hour for that final
stretch.
Eventually I saw Lorraine up ahead, waving
frantically. This was
it, the final few minutes.
If only I could’ve raised the pace.
I turned off the path, I crept into the finish area, and crossed
the line with a time of 23h 36m 40s.
A ragged race-number, and a smart belt-buckle.
Centurion just doesn't 'do' medals.
I received my “100 miles – One Day” buckle, without much awareness of what was going on. The photographer told me where to stand, told me how and where to hold the buckle. He then had to tell me to smile a bit. A pity he didn’t also tell me to stand up straight.
I couldn't bring myself to buy the 'leaner'
finish line photo, but I have purchased this one which was taken on
Hampton Court Bridge.
I needed to sit down.
We got a chair, and I slumped into it.
I have vague recollections of people around me asking questions
like “where does it hurt?”, but I also had a clear view of someone in a
white shirt thundering across the finish line.
Good grief, that’s Yvette.
After nearly 24 hours she was just 3 minutes behind.
The last I’d heard was that she’d been suffering a
bit and was 30-40 minutes behind.
Nobody in the support team seemed ready for her, so it looks like
that was how they saw it as well.
It would appear that while I was slowing
spectacularly, she was able to “wind it up” for the finish. Looking at
the data, it seems that at Sandford Lock there was still 35 minutes
between us.
Then she took off, leaving her pacer Sonja to try
to keep up. At the
finish, everyone was oblivious to this.
Elsewhere, those watching the tracker were aware of the pursuit
but could only sit and stare.
For that final sector, I took over an hour while
she took 30 minutes.
To the casual observer, it might look that we ran 90 miles together
before I pushed on ahead at the end.
Not the case by a long way.
Yvette loses the game of musical chairs.
L to R : Andrea, Roger, Lorraine, Henry, Mark, Lisa, Sonja.
Huge thanks go to Andrea Hendy, Lisa Emerson and
Mark Fisher for driving around and looking after us.
As mentioned, Henry, Lorraine and Roger Thetford were my pacers.
Yvette was paced by Nick Davies and Sonja Knoll with support from
Kate Ward.