Written by Andrew Woodrow
Garmin Connect incl splits etc: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/507989611
Result: 30 hours, 22 minutes. 4th overall, 110 starters, 61 finishers, fastest first time finisher.
'All clear? Follow this canal until London! 3 - 2 - 1 go!'
Dick announced before the start that he had damaged the ‘Steve Philips Trophy,’ for the fastest first-time finisher, and hence would not be able to award it at the finish, but would fix it up and send it on later. ‘That’s a shame,’ I commented jokingly to the bloke next to me on the line, ‘I was going to win that one.’ A minute or two later we were off at a ridiculously slow and comfortable pace, with 145 miles of towpath ahead of us. It wasn’t raining yet as we headed through Birmingham, a snaking route past various old warehouses and canal cuts to long-disappeared factories, under railway bridges, along narrow locks, and out along a tree-lined channel to the east. I trotted along at about 6 minutes per kilometre (10 minute miles), a few hundred metres behind a group containing Pat Robbins, the course record holder. I toyed with the idea of staying in this position right up to London and beating him in a sprint finish.
The GUCR. I first heard about this one via James Adams’ blog early in 2013, having read an article in ‘The Economist,’ of all places, that referred to it. It sounded fantastic – 145 historic miles along the HS2 of its day (1790), flat (all my other ultras have been mountainous), and very low key. I put my name into the ballot, saying I would come with a support crew, as it gives a higher chance of getting a place, hoped I would find one in time, and a week later got confirmation that I was in. My first crew member, Plums, was recruited around Christmas, my Mum and Dad reckoned they would be up for following along for the daylight bits as they live near Aylesbury, just short of the 100 mile mark, and I finally recruited Stu, my second ‘full time’ crew member a month or so before the race, meaning Plums would be able to join as a buddy runner for parts after 65 miles.
The details of my race are fairly sketchy. Unlike mountain races, there are few obvious points of reference – no summits, or long climbs, and as a supported runner even the checkpoints were not a rush of filling up water bottles and grabbing something to eat in a melee of other runners. I had agreed with Plums and Stu that stops should be kept as short as possible, with water bottles ready to be switched out, one containing plain water and the other with a couple of scoops of ‘Perpetuem’ in it. I reckoned that by drinking one of those every 2 hours, about half my food needs would be taken care of. I’d also grab something to eat – beans and noodles occasionally, or Clif bars, packets of crisps, and so on more frequently. Clothes if required ready to change. Apart from the night section stops were generally kept to under 5 minutes each, and we would try to agree at each one what would be needed at the next – and how far away that would be.
By checkpoint 1, Catherine de Barnes Bridge, it had begun to rain gently. This was not really a problem – I met my crew, ate and drank and ran on. I had envisaged a run / walk plan but this didn’t really work at the start as a steady 10km/h was just fine. Various fleeting conversations with various people in various amounts of clothing – from shorts and singlets through to all over water-proofs. Some first timers, some veterans; for a while at Leamington Spa I was with last year’s 2nd placed finisher, who advised to keep things gentle so as to be able to keep running in the night.
I called ahead before Hatton Locks, 22 miles or about 3:40 hours into the race, as I was now pretty wet – a change of shirt and something to eat would be great. My parents joined the course at this point and we all stood under a gazebo while I quickly changed, donned my waterproof jacket and left again. What it was to have a crew with everything on hand! The waterproof jacket, bought last year for the TDS but not used in the fine weather we had in the Alps, proved to be worth its weight in gold. Not that it was very heavy, but I was dry as a bone underneath it. I didn’t bother with waterproof legs but having a dry top made a huge difference.
And so things continued through the morning and into the afternoon. Every now and then it would stop raining; I would remove my waterproof and carry it to clear any condensation from the inside. A long straight section heralded Napton Junction, 38 miles or 6 hours 40 into the race, and the Oxford Canal part, at which point I texted my crew:
‘May have missed you – just past bridge 101 heading for Braunston,’
to which the reply came
‘At Admiral Nelson’.
Well thanks for that Plums, but where the **** is that? Obviously it was on the map, but I didn’t want to stop and find it in my pack, and carried on assuming it was somewhere nearby. It was. Further along this section I caught a runner, having been on my own for some time, and pulled ahead after a brief jog together. I was surprised at how quickly it felt that the field had spread out, though by this stage we were 7 or so hours into the race. Stu would keep telling me I was somewhere in the top 10 but it was early days yet, and those in the top 10 at this stage do not necessarily stay there to the end.
Up over the Braunston Tunnel and through the 50 mile mark at Whilton in just over 8 ½ hours. Very few other runners in sight ever – though a few crews hanging out at various places, including CP4 where Mimi Andersen was handing out drinks from her canal boat. I found myself on the wrong side of the canal at Gayton Junction, while my crew were on the correct (south) side – so diverted along the Northampton Arm to cross at a bridge about 100m further along, while they crossed to my side east of the Junction to meet me under a bush as the rain poured down. This continued as I trotted along to the Blisworth Tunnel and took the road over the top of it to Stoke Bruerne, a scenic village at 65 miles, and from where buddy runners were allowed to join. Plums duly joined 5 miles further along, at the famous Checkpoint 5 - Navigation Bridge – the point at which he had earlier said that if he was fed up, all he needed to do was to cross it to get me disqualified. Obviously he wasn’t yet fed up enough as we could continue. 12 and a quarter hours for 70 miles, pretty satisfactory so far.
We continued, running bits and walking bits as we felt like it. Over the notable ‘Iron Trunk Aqueduct,’ built to replace a series of locks on both sides of the River Great Ouse, and through Wolverton and Milton Keynes in daylight, nice given stories of dubious characters hanging out under bridges there by night. I sat down for the only time in the race somewhere between Wolverton and Milton Keynes to change my wet socks; the replacements were dry for a good 10 miles before it started raining again. We tip-toed past Fenny Stratford lock so as not to disturb the notoriously-disturbable neighbours and reached CP6 at Water Eaton (84 miles) at about 9pm.
At some point around the time it got dark, Plums returned to his other support duties saying he would meet me again at CP7, and I took the gentle climb up the Chilterns alone. The canal at this point feels wide and meandering, like a river, though as it was dark it was difficult to get a real idea as to how it looked. Rising up the Seabrook and Marsworth Locks, a bit of messing around at the Aylesbury Arm junction, where I could not for the life of me figure out how to get to the lock to cross it, and had to retrace my steps to cross at the previous bridge (131) and back over after the junction at bridge 132. From there it was a short mile to CP7 in Tring Cutting, 100 miles done in just over 18 hours 30 minutes, or over 6 hours faster than my previous best 100 miles. Stu met me with supplies and reported Plums was asleep in the car. Let him sleep – I was feeling good. The checkpoint crew here were particularly pleasant and set me off down the towpath in good spirits.
If racing a good ultra is a mind game, then the night is when the mind comes out to play. Stories of hallucinations and disorientation abound; I however was enjoying myself this evening. The Tring cutting by night feels as though it is hundreds of feet deep – trees overhang on both banks, their lower branches reflecting in the headlight while their top halves remain black. It was muddy too, and I slid along the towpath in my little pool of light. At one meeting point Stu pointed out the runner ahead had only just left, and sure enough I could see his torch beam bobbing along not far away. But the canal twists and turns and judging distance is tricky – it took a while to reel him in and overtake, with the customary greeting of ‘you alright?’ acknowledged by the equally customary grunt.
At some point in the night, as Plums and Stu sat in their car in yet another layby at yet another bridge, occasionally getting out, fishing about in the boot, flashing torches, checking watches, peering along the gloom of the towpath and getting back in again they found themselves boxed in by a pair of police cars. The officers approached cautiously, wielding a taser; a pair of dodgy-looking men behaving suspiciously had been reported. Fortunately their unlikely-sounding explanation was accepted – they were merely waiting to feed another tin of baked beans to a runner coming from Birmingham…adding for good measure that they may well get similar complaints over the course of the night. Plums decided that he was better off buddy-running again than risk being tasered, and joined me again for the second part of the night section.
We passed another couple of runners, or a runner and his buddy, looking in fairly poor shape. Dawn broke as we approached the M25 - never have I been happier to see it – and we ran / walked through Hunton Bridge, which apart from the last mile was the only section of the canal I had run before, when 18 months previously I had been sent on a course held in a country house in the area. Nice to see something I recognised, and Stu was waiting at the 115 mile mark with yet more noodles. Plums left me to it at this point - not far to Springwell Lock, which for some reason had always been a milestone for me – possibly as from there on it is less than a marathon to the finish.
The section running north – south down towards Denham is idyllic – in the early morning the sun was struggling to shine over the shallow hills to the east, meaning I was in shade, but there are plenty of boats and a few early-morning dogwalkers. A group greeted me with ‘hello camper’ and I realised I still had my headtorch on, well after dawn. This whole section feels rural, aside from the gentle hum of the M25 over to the right. Locks are well-spaced and all ‘downhill,’ dappled sunlight spreads across the path. I was running alternate kilometres by now, with the running ones taking about 7 minutes and the walking ones nearer 10. After a bit I dropped to alternate 500 metres, with each km taking between 7:30 and 8 minutes – or about 5mph. Good going after 200 kilometres; in previous races I’d hardly run at all after the 75 mile mark. To avoid looking at my watch the whole time I counted double strides; usually 1km is just under 300 double steps, depending on pace, but now 300 steps got me 500 metres.
At Springwell lock I was asked who I had passed in the night since Tring, as they were waiting for their first unsupported runner. A couple of people, one in particular not looking too chirpy, but I didn’t know their names. By now Plums and Stu decided to meet me at every possible point to keep an eye and top up my water, which I was drinking at a huge rate.
I carried on like this until mile 127.5, 17.5 miles short of the finish, where I declared that from here on in it would be walking only. I’d done 25 hours, so just over 5mph average so far, but I was pretty shot. It was a fine summer morning and Stu joined for a brief walk so that he could say he’d done a bit of the race, before handing back over to Plums a mile or so down the towpath. Plums and I walked the last 15 miles together at just under 4 mph, including a couple of very brief stops at CP9, where James Adams was good enough to let me proceed despite my admitting that I had not yet bought his book (‘I’m waiting for the paperback,’ was my excuse). James and Nici were very cheerful and by this stage had not managed to annoy the local swan and goose population sufficiently for them to pose a hazard to passing runners.
I was by now in a highly unexpected 3rd place as the march along the final eastward section commenced, along a surfaced towpath with increasing numbers of walkers and joggers out. At one point a rave was going on in scrubland to the north, and assorted desolate old factories and warehouses were scattered along the towpath. Aircraft lining up for Heathrow, roads, railway lines, the North Circular aqueduct, that ugly block of flats near Paddington all came into view. A final meeting with the crew at 139 miles and being overtaken by Stu Gillet on his way to third place –no way I was going with him but just so long as nobody else would have the cheek to try the same. Plums called off each mile as we passed. I got the impression that the canal was being compressed into an ever-narrower corridor; squeezed by the railway depot at Old Oak Common and winding round old gas holders. This last section was by far the ugliest part of the canal; devoid of narrowboats and surrounded for a large part by industrial wasteland. It was a real relief to get to the series of steep bridges that mark the final approach to Little Venice. Under the iron bridge which marked a mile to go; this was the limit of my recce trip the previous week, when I had found myself on a conference in London. Under the curved concrete of the Westway. I told Plums that from the corner ahead, we turned right and it was then a couple of hundred metres. We resolved to run from just before the corner – I managed 2 steps and had to walk. 4th place was assured, 30 hours 22 minutes, and I was indeed the fastest first-time finisher. Dick hung a medal around my neck – it was so large that I almost fell over - and asked me about the race. I sat down in a luxurious plastic chair. Plums looked nearly as whacked as I did. What a race. I talked rubbish to Stu Gillet, had a couple of photos taken (including one with the Hello Kitty mascot I had carried for my 3 year old along the whole course) and eventually started drifting off to sleep, swearing never again.
A week or so later I started wondering what shoes I would wear if I did it again. I wrote to Dick and said I probably wouldn’t run it next year but just in case could he please put me on the list to receive an entry form later in the year.
A week or so after that I thought that if I just took a few minutes off those night time stops, and carried on with a run/ walk combination right up to the end, I could crack 30 hours next time. I want to run through the finish line.
Then I realised that I’m going to have to return the Steve Philips trophy to Dick before next year’s race anyway. Might as well do it at registration the night beforehand.
Me, the medal, and Hello Kitty at Little Venice… about 3 seconds later I was asleep
The aftermath
It is becoming a bit of an annoying habit that I spend some time in hospital after long races. I had picked up a large blister and a blackened toe on my left foot, and a day and a half after the race, on the Monday night, my left calf started swelling up. Initially I thought it was the effect of the short flight back to Copenhagen but by Tuesday morning it was even larger. The doctor referred me to the local hospital, where another doctor sorted out the black toe by piercing the nail with a needle (surprisingly not painful, but she sounded disappointed not to be able to amputate it). Blood tests were taken which showed a minor infection and I was put on antibiotics – initially intravenously - just incase the blister / toe was infected and this was spreading.
Meanwhile further bloodtests revealed high levels of myoglobin and ‘ketase?’ – basically an indication that the body is breaking down the muscles. A normal level is up to 500 but mine was close to 100,000. This is apparently not unusual amongst people who have just run 230km, but the doctors had never seen anything like it – and amongst people who have not recently run such a distance, such levels are concerning for all sorts of reasons. I also had very low salt levels and to sort this out, as well as to flush the myoglobin out of my system, I had 8 litres of saline drip over the course of 24 hours, as well as drinking at least that amount again in water.
The last doctor to see said that while he no idea about the long term effects, the reading he has done while I was there indicated that for healthy people the body returns to normal pretty quickly. He didn’t want to encourage me but had a suspicion he may see me again. I assured him I would add ‘finish the race without having to go to A&E’ to my race goals.