Written by Jon Aston

Seven months of anticipation, training and preparation finally came to an end last weekend with my arrival at the start line of the Grand Union Canal Race. I took most of the week prior to the race off work in order to get some rest and finish my final bits of organisation; I must have packed and repacked my race kit, equipment and food five times over. I of course overdid it and ended up taking far more than I ever would need. Things really started to seem real in the two days prior to the start, I engaged in probably too much last minute shopping, then on Thursday evening fellow Wrekin Road Runner and support crew team member Ross Weston turned up with the camper van kindly being lent to us by his uncle which was to be our crew vehicle. I spent most of Friday packing and unpacking the van and then repacking it again, with hindsight I maybe should have left Sarah and Ross to pack so that they would know what I was taking and where I had put it. I also checked the race pack that I had put together for the support crew with details of the route, instruction on how to find each of the planned 31 meeting points, key phone numbers etc. Later on Friday Liz Tunna arrived at the
house, Sarah and I crewed for Liz on her successful first attempt at the race last year. This year Liz was running again and we were sharing a support crew, with a plan to run as much of the race together as possible. After my wonderful wife and support crew member Sarah cooked us a great last meal of pizza, pasta and bread Liz and I travelled to the other side of Telford where we spent the night at Denzil Martin's place. Denzil was kindly taking us to the start the following morning and crewing for us for the first four meeting points. We went for a quick pint at the pub near Denzil’s, a pre race nerve calmer or something like that, and were entertained on the way back by a very inebriated woman sitting in the beer garden having a blazing row with someone over her mobile telephone which she was using‘apprentice style’ i.e. flat on her palm in front of her face with the device switched to loud speaker mode, the language used would have made Gordon Ramsay blush. So it was to bed at about 11 pm to enjoy a few hours fitful hours before being woken by the alarm at 3:50 on Saturday morning.
The alarm rang and the countdown timer on my phone read 0 days until GUCR, got up, dressed into my race kit, jumped into Denzil’s van with a mug of coffee and off at 4:15. We arrived at Gas Street, Birmingham at 5:20, registered, had a coffee, visited the toilets in the nearby Hyatt Hotel, made last minute adjustments to kit, said hello to many of our friends also taking part or supporting the race then at about 5 mnutes to 6 made our down onto the canal towpath at Gas Street Basin.
Race organiser Dick Kearne gave his pre-race briefing and at 6:00 exactly we were set on our way. Liz and I set off at the back of the pack not wanting to get carried away with too fast a pace that would certainly result in a major blow up later in the day. Having done little in the way of running over the previous couple of weeks I felt pretty good on fresh legs. I was enjoying the early minutes and chatting to fellow canal runners, including the amazing Mimi Anderson who was starting the second leg of her incredible double GUCR having left London to run to Birmingham on Thursday in time to start the official race back. Then BANG, I wasn’t watching where I was going and bashed the side of my head against the archway of a bridge, the impact knocked me to the ground, other runners kindly stopped to assist me back to my feet. I rubbed the sore part of the side of my head to discover blood
covering my hand, I couldn’t believe it and when one runner suggested I would need stitches I thought my race was over before it had even started. I
placed a clean handkerchief over the wound secured it in position with my cap and started to run again. I spent most of the day with a thick head and stiffness in my shoulders which I am sure is from the fall, but I was running. Shortly after my head butting the bridge incident we reached 2.5 miles point and the only place over the entire race where we were not sure of our route, we waited for some runners behind us to catch up to make sure we were going the correct way. At this point we were able to see the Birmingham city skyline with the iconic Selfridges Building and Rotunda clearly in view.
The next few miles were through largely industrial areas but were familiar to us from the annual Birmingham Canal Canter event. We reached checkpoint 1 at 10.7 miles 35 minutes ahead of its closing time at 8:05, grabbed a drink and food from Denzil and carried on, meeting him again at 14.5 miles and 18.1 miles, we had been running for 3 hours and 40 minutes, the sun had been shining all morning and it was starting to warm up nicely.
The next few miles seemed to fly by, I was eager to reach to the next meeting point with the support crew as I knew Sarah and Ross would be there as they were taking over from Denzil, and also that my daughter Clare and her fiancé Matt were planning to be there to give some support. As I walked
towards to second official checkpoint at Hatton Top Locks (I was walking to allow Liz who has taking a toilet break to catch up) I was told I looked crap
by Henk one of the GUCR stalwarts, now I know I had bashed my head but to be given news after only 22 miles is pretty devastating. I later learnt that he employs this type of reverse macabre psychology with most runners to spur them on. He is apparently famous for offering to save runners a seat on his ‘death bus’,for those who drop out. We got to our next meeting point at Hatton Locks Bottom 24 miles in at 11:08. Denzil had reported to Sarah
that I wasn’t eating enough but I now had my chief coach and motivator to bully me into taking on board enough food and drink. We said goodbye and thank you to Denzil, had a quick word with Clare and Matt and were off again. We met Sarah, Ross, Clare and Matt again nearly an hour and a half later at the 30 mile point it had taken us just over 6 and a half hours to reach this point. I was starting to get concerned that we were falling off the pace as I was not aware of many runners behind us but knew there were some ahead who I thought would be running at a similar pace to us, who were apparently over an hour ahead. I was also becoming concerned by the lack of signs of the race taking place, I was expecting to see other support crews along the route, but of course when you are running at the back of the pack all the other support crews will be gone.
Liz had told me that the first day and night are about getting the miles in, getting to dawn on day two and having enough energy in reserve to make it to the finish. She is right but I could not help thinking about the distance left to travel and this started to cause me to doubt my ability to finish, why were we alone seeing no signs of other runners around us. We had passed no one and no one had passed us for several hours. We made the third official checkpoint, Birdingbury Bridge at mile 36 with 35 minutes to spare before the cut off point, by this point my stomach was feeling really bloated and I felt nauseous and really did not want to eat or drink much, thankfully Sarah bullied me into eating although I reckon I was probably taking enough fuel on board. At mile 42 my Garmin battery ran out, and then we reached Braunston.
Braunston Junction 44 miles after leaving Birmingham, is where the Grand Union and Oxford Canals meet and is said to be the busiest junction on the British Canal System. I had been looking forward to getting an ice cream at Braunston and was disappointed to discover the narrow boat cafe closed at 2
pm. Another good thing about reaching this point is that from this point all the way from here until mile 132 when we will turn off onto the Paddington Arm
of the canal, there are signs showing the distance back to Braunston every mile. These markers really helped me keep track of distance and pace.
Shortly after departing the Junction we reached Braunston Tunnel, where we left the towpath for the first time in 10 hours to climb and descend the hill through which the canal burrowed to rejoin it a mile and a quarter later. At Welford Marina we found a shop that sold ice cream, I had a Calippo figuring that if they were good enough for Eddie Izzard when he did 43 marathons in 51 days then they were good enough for me.
We met Sarah and Ross at New Inn Norton Junction; I was feeling pretty low at this point. I had not been eating or drinking enough and convinced being only half an hour or so ahead of cut off time schedule for the next checkpoint that we would not make it. I had asked Sarah to get me some rehydration salt replacement tablets a bit earlier and started to use these in my water, maybe this would help. We got to the next official checkpoint at Weedon at 18:55 it was due to close at 19:00, Sarah had brought some chips from the local fish and chip shop for us to eat, I didn’t much fancy them but forced some down, my stomach was still not feeling at its best.
A few miles after leaving Weedon I reached a personal milestone when passing the ‘Braunston 12 Mile’ sign. I had equalled my furthest ever distance run in one go 56 miles; although this time I had done it four and a half hours faster than at the Bullock Smithy in 2010. You would think that running along canal towpaths is pretty straight forward, just follow the canal, no hills except slight inclines whilst running up and down the side of flights of locks however there are junctions where if not careful it would be possible to head off in the wrong direction along the wrong canal. We successfully avoided one potential pitfall by avoiding heading along the Northampton Arm of the GUCR at Gayton Junction. Conditions underfoot also vary along the towpath, sometimes we ran on cobbles, sometimes bricks at other times on grass and at others on stony paths, the worse for me was the miles of towpath along this section when the trail was a track worn into grass, it was easy for the foot to roll from one side to another and attention was needed to avoid going over on an ankle.
It was now 21:30, fifteen and a half hours into the run and we reached the 100K mark and the north entrance to Blisworth Tunnel where we again met our support crew. At this point we changed into our night time kit, donned our head torches and headed into the dusk, again leaving the tow path for a mile and half as it continued through the tunnel.
By this point my stomach was feeling better, I think that Sarah bullying me into eating was paying off, for the first time in several hours I started to believe that I would finish. I was by now running less but when walking, walking strongly and as fast as I could, in fact over the night time section I am sure that we actually increased our average pace a little. At 15 minutes to midnight we passed the Navigation Inn and 70 miles, 75 minutes ahead of cut off time. It seemed to take forever to pass through Milton Keynes, by this point I was pulling ahead of Liz when walking for her to catch me when she ran. At a couple of points I waited for her to catch me up firstly when I came across a group of young men who were throwing bottles onto the towpath and secondly when I came upon a narrow boat from which very loud reggae music was playing. I wrongly assumed there was a party taking place it however the boat had a sole occupant.
It was a great feeling as dawn broke the dawn chorus already in full song. We passed the official checkpoint at Water Eaton just over two hours ahead of the cut off time and passed the 90 mile mark just after 6 am and 24 hours on our feet. Over the previous evening and during the night we passed about five runners, I was now feeling confident of completing the race within the time allowed and knew that I could even slow down if needed. As the sun
came up things started to warm up quickly, we were in as Liz would say for a ‘toasty’ day. The Grand Union Arms pub near Tring was the site of
the next checkpoint, by now we were over two hours in front of the cut off time, a few minutes after leaving this point and after some 30 hours on the
move we passed a sign reading ‘Braunston 56 miles’, for the first time ever in my life I had travelled 100 miles on foot in one go. I was happy.
At some point on Sunday I guess around lunchtime we came across some runners who had taken part in a race for Cancer Research that had also
followed the canal towpath for a while, as they proudly walked passed us wearing their race t shirts and medals I overheard one comment on the fact that
we were walking and saying that ‘it can hardly can be a race then’, I didn’t have the heart to tell him we had just run over 100 miles and still had a long way to go.
Well before this point in the race Sarah had stopped asking me what I wanted to eat, realising that I was even more unable than usual to make decisions she simply presented me with food and made me eat it. The importance of a good support crew cannot be understated, they have to keep their runners supplied with food and drink, medicinal supplies, fresh kit, provide morale boosts and enhance motivation. My crew Sarah and Ross did all this whilst staying awake for as long as I did as well as negotiating unknown roads to find meeting points along the canal. They were amazing and without them and Denzil who crewed for the first for few hours there is no way that I would have done this. My hat goes off big style to the runners who take part in this event unsupported. My determination and motivation to continue was also fed by receiving messages from followers that were relayed to me by Sarah and Ross via text message or Facebook.
I can’t remember too much about Sunday afternoon, other than it being warm and seeing more people as we got nearer to the capital. By this point I was focussing on keeping moving and walking as strongly as I could. Liz and I had caught up with Carl Miles who was trying to complete the event at his third attempt, he was suffering with achilles problems and I think Liz was starting to get problems with blisters, we all seemed to leap frog one another for several miles. I think Liz and Carl were running a bit, walking a bit and needing to take occasional rest stops, whereas the only way I could progress was to keep walking as fast as I could manage. I tried to block stuff out and just think about walking every step taking me that little bit closer. I remember passing under the M25 and thinking to myself not too far to go then, wrong. I got to checkpoint 7 at 16:10 two hours fifty minutes ahead of the cut off time. A few miles later I remember somebody telling me ‘well done, you only have a marathon to go, ‘this is going to be one of the slowest
marathons ever’I thought to myself. After what seemed an age I arrived at Bulls Bridge Junction and the finger post directing me down the Paddington Arm of the canal, a mile and half later I was at the last check point Hambrough Tavern to be greeted by a flock of Swans the towpath immediately before the checkpoint being caked in their guano. I was still two and a half hours ahead of cut off with only 12 miles left to cover. I quickly donned a long sleeve top and put my head torch on, ate whilst catching a power nap, all whilst standing and I was off on what I have since learnt is known by experienced canal runners as the ‘death march’.
With about 11 miles to go I came across a group of young people sitting on the canal bank beside their rather dilapidated narrow boat. They were drinking lager and wine and smoking very sweet smelling aromatic cigarettes, all very mellow. They politely enquired about my journey and in response to my answer exclaimed ‘wow, would you like something to sniff?’ I also recall suddenly becoming aware of noise, I could hear heavy traffic on a nearby trunk route, trains, planes, sirens and people, it was a bit overwhelming especially after the peace and quiet of the miles and hours spent in the countryside. I found it really difficult once the sun went down again; all I wanted to do was shut my eyes and sleep, at one point I caught myself standing still on the towpath with my eyes closed. I made it to the last meeting point with Sarah in Alperton where she plied me with pro plus tablets and plugged me into an i-pod with some music to listen to.
The last six miles seemed to take forever. I started to have hallucinations seeing a National Express coach coming down the canal towards me and a man dressed as a Guinness Can sitting on a bench. Some distraction was provided by hearing and seeing all the Inter-City 125 High Speed Trains parking up at Old Oak Common railway maintenance depot, ready for overnight cleaning, refuelling and rest before their next journeys the following day, stupidly I envied these trains. I was so tempted to stop and curl up on one of the many benches along this stretch.
Shortly after midnight I saw Sarah walking along the towpath towards me, with just a mile to go she kept me company, it was wonderful to spend the last section of the race with my wife and soul mate. Then it was there the finish banner, which I crossed after 42 hours and 40 minutes at 00:40 on Monday 27th May. Race organiser Dick Kearne shook my hand and placed the most wonderful medal I have ever received around my neck, it was great to be
greeted by Pam Storey and Ross and fellow Wrekin Road Runner Caroline Beresford. I had done it, realised my dream and I hope honoured the memory of one of running heroes Pat Adams. I was relieved to sit down in the knowledge that I did not have to walk or run anymore and enjoy the mini bottle of cava that Sarah had brought for me.
My support crew however were still not finished and did a great job of getting back home to Telford sometime after dawn on Monday morning. I really cannot remember anything about this journey. I am so happy and excited to have finished this event at my first try and indebted and eternally grateful to my support crew. Liz finished just over half an hour after me and Carl not long after her.
The Grand Union Canal Race is a very special event. Thank you to Dick and his team for putting the event on. Will I be back? Definitely YES but only to crew or volunteer, I have no current intention or desire to run it again; I have well and truly scratched that itch. My next challenge, well I have an idea, but more on that later.