North Downs Way 100 - race report
Well, that was quite a weekend. My first 100 miler completed - an amazing adventure exploring the limits of my physical and mental endurance and with plenty of lessons learned along the way. One hundred miles on foot is no laughing matter, that's for sure...
I had taken the Friday before the race off work to sort out my kit, get my head around what I was about to attempt and try and relax a little bit. The kids had handily gone off to their grandparents' house in Germany a few days before so Sarah and I could get all the race stuff prepped - her and my Dad were going to be crewing for me and not knowing what I would want to eat and drink we put together a moveable feast of different foods alongside a whole pile of spare kit and clothes. We went over the aid station meeting points several times and then before I knew it I was off on my way to Farnham, where the North Downs Way begins it's winding journey towards the finish at Wye.
On arriving at Farnham I quickly registered, said hi to the RD James and then was weighed, had my height and body fat measured, saliva swabbed and blood taken. Not standard pre-race activities (as far as I'm aware) but rather because I'd volunteered to be a part of a study into the effects of ultramarathons on physiology that was being undertaken by a group from Cambridge University. The same tests would be performed at the finish to see if anything had changed.
I then slipped out to find my hotel which was about a ten minute walk away, and on arrival set about pre-taping my feet ready for the next day and eating a smallish dinner of Sarah's home-made vegetarian sushi and natural yoghurt. My stomach is often a weak point for me and I wanted to keep things plain and simple to minimise issues - although as I'd find out later the next day this didn't really seem to help me much! I then read for a bit and fell asleep sometime around midnight.
I woke up about ten minutes before my alarm went off at 4am, and boiled the kettle for a cup of tea and some instant porridge, before attending to the usual important pre-race ritual of sitting on the loo until the very last second before I have to leave. The race briefing was at 5:30am and when I got to the registration hall I kept myself to myself a little - I would normally consider myself quite a sociable person but I wanted to try and keep my head clear and focused on the day ahead and not spend too much time meeting and chatting to people before the start. Then after a thorough briefing from James we all started wandering towards the trailhead which was a few hundred meters down from where we were.
At the start line I positioned myself up front, where I met Sam Robson, David Ross and a couple of others for the first time. We waited for the clock to tick round to 6am and then with a toot on the airhorn we were off. A group of about 8-10 of us went off together at a good clip through the very runnable first section of the course, averaging somewhere just under 5 mins/km for the first 10km or so. Eventual winner Ed Catmur pushed slightly ahead pretty early on and once he was out of sight that was really the last any of us (apart from eventual second-placed Anthony Forsyth) saw of him for the rest of the day.
I'd not met Anthony before but we soon found ourselves running side by side about 5 minutes behind Ed and with Toby Froschauer and Dave Ross not far behind us. Anthony and I chatted a lot as we ran, discussing his pretty slick crewing operation (two sets of crew, alternating meeting points every 5km or so) and his kids, most of which seem to be pretty good runners themselves - and indeed half of which were part of his crew. He was also running his first 100 miler and so we had plenty to talk about, including our pace, which on doing the maths seemed a little unsustainable, even though it felt quite comfortable at the time. We ran straight through the Box Hill checkpoint (24.6 miles) in around 3:17 and pushed on towards Reigate Hill feeling pretty positive that we could close the gap Ed had opened up, especially since he was isolated up the front and we were running together, which always helps drive you on faster I find.
The Reigate Hill checkpoint (31.8 miles) was the first place that I was going to meet my crew, and I needed to stop and fill up my Salomon vest bladder. Because Anthony was meeting his crew more often he could run straight through the checkpoint. We'd agreed however that I'd catch him up a little later down the track as he felt that I was pushing the pace a little in the last section and he was going to take it down a notch for a little while. I filled up my bag, grabbed a few extra gels, had a slice of orange and then ran off to go an catch him up.
Unfortunately, this is when things started to go a bit wrong for me. I'm not sure if it was the citrus juice from the orange, or perhaps because I had eaten too many gels in my anxiousness not to fall behind on my nutrition, but within about five minutes of leaving the Reigate aid station my stomach was suddenly tying itself in knots. Another five minutes later and I found myself at the side of the trail bringing the contents of my stomach up into the bushes. What was going on?! Now obviously this is not a desirable state of affairs but I'd also read enough reports of people vomiting during 100 milers and felling much better afterwards, so I carried on down the trail feeling not too perturbed. The only problem was that I didn't actually feel better - in fact I was steadily feeling worse. And to compound my misery I started getting full-leg cramps, all the way up my calves and up into my hamstrings, whenever I got to any bit of trail that had any uphill gradient at all. Suddenly I was getting a bit worried and I realised pretty quickly that if I didn't drop my pace right down and get a grip on the cramping and stomach issues I wasn't even going to be finishing this race. So I slowed down, grabbed some GU Brew electrolytes from the Caterham aid station (38 miles) when I got there and just tried to concentrate on getting myself back on track.
The twelve miles between Caterham and Knockholt Pound were seriously tough. I was vomiting about every fifteen minutes and my cramps were not easing up at all. I couldn't believe how quickly I'd gone from feeling strong, fast and fit at Reigate to feeling like utter crap, and the thought of another fifty plus miles of this was seriously daunting. The little voice in my head was coming up with excuses to quit faster than I could shoot them down, and I was already mentally writing my DNF race report. But then I finally arrived at Knockholt Pound (at about 7:28 elapsed) where Sarah and my Dad were meeting me, which was a much needed mental boost. They looked very excited to see me but I think I knocked their spirits a little when I told them how bad I was feeling. The Centurion crew were there and helped me out with salty crisps, electrolytes and advice, and I decided I just needed to take a bit of time to get myself together and take some liquid calories (coke) on board or else I was not going to make it through the next 50 miles. James rightly pointed out that I was still 40 minutes or so up from the time that first placed (at the time) Ed came through Knockholt during last year's NDW100, and really it was better to take a few minutes regrouping than rush things and end up with a DNF.
I spent about ten minutes at Knockholt mentally and physically preparing myself for the second half of the race, and just as I was readying myself to set off again Dave Ross came into the aid station. My lead on him was gone but I didn't really care - I just needed to get myself back together. By this point Ed and Anthony were also long gone and to be honest I'd stopped even considering trying to catch them; I just wanted to be able to keep moving and not totally crumble in the next part of the race.
Sarah was due to pace me from about the 70 mile point, but I told her just before I left Knockholt that I thought I'd really need her to join me at the next checkpoint (i.e. 60 miles) as I really felt I need some positivity around me to help me keep moving on. And so I ran out and up the road feeling a little refreshed by the short breather, the sugar hit and by the fact that I'd be seeing my crew again in 10 miles instead of the 20ish between Reigate and Knockholt.
The next section of the course, up through Otford and along to Wrotham is one I knew from a couple of previous course recces, and has a really nice wooded and very runnable section along it (after the bastard of a climb up from Otford itself) which I really enjoyed running when I was there before. I found myself moving a little faster, with my head held a little higher, and started to realise that I was definitely feeling a touch better. Although attempting to eat any gels or food was still resulting in instant vomiting, water was staying down and I felt like I had a bit more energy. My cramps were also backing off a little and I felt my mood lightening - perhaps I could push through this after all. Even taking a wrong turn just before Wrotham (pretty quickly rectified thanks to the little navigation map on my watch) couldn't dent my new-found optimism, and I ran into the Wrotham aid station (60 miles) feeling much more positive. Sarah was - as instructed - ready to start running with me, but I told her that we'd stick to the original plan as I was feeling a little better and pick her up near Cuxton, at about the 70 mile point. I drank more coke, which was really the only thing I could stomach at all that had any decent calories in it, and then set off again with a bit more of a spring in my step.
Dave Ross had left the aid station a few minutes before me and after about an hour of running it was a pleasant surprise to catch up with him just outside of the Holly Hill checkpoint (65.6 miles). We ran into the aid station together but he stopped to pick up his pacer and I continued straight on as I was meeting Sarah a little while down the road. By this point I was really feeling like a totally different person to the empty shell I was just before Knockholt Pound, and was happily knocking out some enjoyable faster miles.
At Cuxton I met Dad and Sarah again, I grabbed some more coke and a bit of watermelon, and set off with Sarah over the Medway Bridge and up towards Bluebell Hill. She was quickly introduced to my now-familiar pattern of:
Drink three cups of coke at an aid station.
Vomit about two cups-worth up within about 200 yards.
Try desperately to hold onto the rest for as long as possible to get some sugar flowing into me.
Swear quite a lot.
But despite the vomiting I was really feeling quite upbeat now and it was great to have Sarah to chat to. We've done our fair share of long runs together and to be honest there is absolutely no-one else I'd rather share time on the trail with!
We went through Bluebell Hill (76.2 miles) pretty quickly and pressed on to Detling. We had recce'd the route for this last bit together a few weeks ago and knew that after Detling was a really nasty section of steep hills and steps and a few bits of moderately technical singletrack. I had assumed that I'd be doing this in the dark so it was a pretty major bonus to realise that we were going to likely still have a bit of daylight left to begin our assault on it. At the Detling aid station it was nice to meet a very helpful Paul Ali (@ultraAvon) and someone who turned out to be Israel Archuletta (@IsraelTheRunner) and I topped up on coke while readying myself for the upcoming section, which I knew was going to be a tough one.
We left Detling with about a 6 minute gap on Dave Ross and proceeded to hike our way up the steep climbs back up to the top of the Downs. The view from the top here is really stunning and the slower pace (including a brief pause to enjoy the sights) meant I could actually keep the coke down for a little longer, which was much needed by this point. We took it easy on the nasty stepped ascents and descents, and then picked our pace back up once clear of the worst of it, donning our headtorches to help us avoid the tree roots as the dusk started to settle.
From our recce we knew once we got to the Dirty Habit pub in Hollingbourne (at about the 87 mile point) the course from there to the finish was pretty flat and all on wide, runnable trails and road, which is a refreshing change after the hills of Detling. I'd been really looking forward to this section as it felt like the home straight, but unfortunately as soon as we picked the pace back up I started vomiting again, which having now affected me for about ten hours and sixty-plus miles was definitely starting to make me a little cranky. I pressed on, head down, moving as fast as I could but I was starting to feel the effects of having basically not had any food or liquid in my stomach for the majority of the race. I was feeling very dehydrated, with my contact lenses doing their best to work their way out of my dry eyes, and lightheaded from what must have been by that point pretty low blood sugar levels. Needless to say I don't think I was the best company for Sarah for the last 15 miles or so but she provided great moral support, reading out text messages from our friends and generally doing a cracking job of keeping me entertained - although one minor matrimonial incident did nearly occur when she described my current running style as "plodding along" on the phone to my Dad, despite having just told me (a barefaced lie) that I was running at a great pace. If I hadn't been so tired I'd have pushed her into the bushes!
So we plodded onwards leaving a nice little trail of regurgitated coke and water for those behind me to follow (extra course markings, bonus!), all the while expecting Dave Ross to come past me at any point. By this point I didn't really have much more to give though to be honest - I was moving as fast as I possibly could and so whatever would be would be. We went through the last two aid stations and then before we knew it we were winding our way round the back of the polyprop greenhouses that I knew marked about 1km to go. I checked the time with Sarah - I was still about 13 minutes under the old course record and so I knew then that we'd make it in time to sneak under it. I managed to squeeze a last bit of speed of of my legs as we hit the road past Wye station and up the hill to the village hall where we were greeted by the beautiful, beautiful sight of the finish line. Job done!
Somehow I had managed to hang onto third place, crossing the line in 17:45:48 and under the previous CR by about seven minutes which although somewhat meaningless was definitely the icing on the cake after such a long, hard day. A hug for Sarah and my Dad, a quick finish line photo and a handshake with the Centurion team and then finally I could sit down. Fantastic.
After being handed a much needed cup of tea I was pretty astounded to learn that Ed had managed to come in some two hours ahead of me, with Anthony only 15 minutes or so behind him. That is two absolutely unbelievable performances on a pretty damn tough course, and whilst I'm sure I could have taken a fair chunk off my time if I hadn't had the stomach issues there is no way I would have been able to touch those guys. Seriously impressive stuff - and time to go back to school for me if I ever want to get close to that I think!
The funny thing is, that despite all the vomiting and the cramping, I actually had a really amazing day - it's hard trying to explain that (especially to non-ultrarunners) but it really is true. Experiencing the highs and lows of spending that long running is really quite an emotional experience! And whilst I certainly was sick a lot I never really felt ill as such - it was just that my stomach didn't want anything inside it. But (apart from the real low point before Knockhold Pound) it didn't ever really get me down to the point where I wasn't enjoying myself. Sarah may report back differently, but that's how I remember it at least! :-)
The post-race weigh in with the Cambridge Uni crew reported that I'd lost 4kg of weight (about 7% of my body weight) and a centimetre in height. It'll be interesting to see what the blood samples show up once all the lab work is done, and how my body composition changes compare to the other participants in the test.
All-in-all it was really just an amazing privilege to be out on beautiful, testing trails for a whole day, with all the happy, friendly volunteers, my amazing crew and a race organisation that makes you feel 100% confident that whatever might go wrong for you personally, you are in good hands. I'm already looking forward to the next one!
GPS route and splits on Strava
