Written by Sonny Peart - http://son966.wix.com

In the American sitcom Parks & Recreation, Rob Lowe plays an impossibly positive state auditor called Chris Traeger, who runs 10 miles every single day. He is a caricature of the kind of intimidatingly healthy executive who stereotypically pulls off boardroom coups during the week and knocks off marathons and triathlons for fun at the weekend. As I stood for a photo against the backdrop of one of Avebury’s standing stones on the afternoon of July 12th, having run beyond marathon distance for the second day in a row, I realised that I was beginning to resemble that stereotype. I had already returned to work on a Monday morning three times this year, having run a marathon the day before. On this occasion, I would be regaling co-workers with tales of back to back 50km runs. I have not before thought of my running hobby as intimidating, but it occurs to me now that for the vast majority of people, running 100km over a weekend is so unlikely as to be incomprehensible. Even for most regular runners, ultra-running is a special kind of crazy. Yet I, who took up regular running less than three years ago, am apparently now an ultra-runner. I scare myself.

I first considered entering an ultra-marathon after completing Edinburgh marathon in 2014. My sub-4hr time convinced me I was a half-decent endurance runner, while at the same time prompting me to look for a challenge beyond a big city marathon. Triathlons are pretty much beyond the pale, as my swimming is at best beach-ready. Mud-runs and the like are, well, too muddy for my taste. I had been inspired by a clubmate’s Comrades performance in 2014, and began looking for an ultra that didn’t involve having to cross two continents to reach the start line. My first choice was The Wall coast to coast ultra along the route of Hadrian’s Wall from Carlisle to Newcastle – 69 miles in all. I was tempted by the two day option, imagining that would provide a more gentle introduction to ultra running. Sadly, organisers Rat Race decided not to offer the two day option in 2015, so I was left looking around for an alternative.

Despite, or perhaps because of, the fact I have studied, practised and taught marketing, I am a sucker for well executed marketing communications. So it was with the Race to the Stones. One visit to the RTTS website, with its video highlights of 2014, including tracking shots of solo runners traversing fields of bright yellow rapeseed crops, accompanied by One Republic’s Counting Stars, was enough to have me registering my interest and waiting with baited breath for entries to open. When they finally did open in November, I already had my training plan in place, and signed up immediately.

As I have written elsewhere, my running ambitions for 2015 were straightforward: a marathon PB and my first ultra. Yes, I would run club races, run familiar local 10ks and half marathons, and clock up more parkruns, but these would all form part of the training for my two main events.

I bagged my marathon PB at Manchester, and after a few days of rest I started ultra training in earnest. I had imagined that it would consist of more of the same, running five or six times a week, including a long run each weekend (accompanying another clubmate who otherwise might have been left training for Edinburgh on her own) and perhaps throwing in a couple of back to back long runs. Then I happened to start reading Relentless Forward Progress: A Guide to Running Ultra Marathons by Bryon Powell. He writes that ideal training for a first ultra would include a number of marathon-length training runs over similar terrain. This was a new thought for me. It had never occurred to me to run a marathon as training, and even if it had, where would I have found 26 miles of trails in Harrow, or the will-power to run them on my own? A few hours and several web-searches later, I had signed up for two  trail marathons on the Sussex Downs, which I intended to treat as training runs, and which I have written about in earlier articles.

When I signed up for RTTS, I had not imagined anything other than competing on my own, but the idea of running with a club mate grew in its appeal, and I posted – without much hope, it must be said – an invitation to join me via my running club’s Google+ group. Responses ranged from supportive to incredulous, but no volunteers were forthcoming. Until I happened to be chatting to a clubmate at a party, and he expressed enthusiasm for the idea. When he confirmed he had signed up, RTTS ceased being a solo challenge.

We had both opted for the two day 100km version of the race, with overnight camping provided as part of the package. We could either run together, or run at our own pace and meet up at the end of each day. As it transpired,

he picked up an injury in the Brighton marathon, and subsequently missed most of his planned ultra training, meaning we ran only a mile of the 63 miles together.

I had run over 900 miles between January and July, when the time came to taper. I had a much better training base than the previous year, and although my short distance speed appeared to have vanished, I seemed to have developed the ultra-runner’s relentless plod. As ever, though, tapering was a nervous affair. Every misstep seemed to presage injury, and every niggle was magnified to race-threatening proportions.

Ultra-running comes with its own particular equipment, from hydration systems to salt tablets. RTTS provided a compulsory kit list – water, change of clothes, first aid kit, etc – but it was difficult not to fill my pack with supplies for every eventuality. It’s hard to prepare for a race that covers several counties and lasts more than a day. After numerous visits to Runners World, Cotswold and Ultrarunner.com, I packed and re-packed my bag several times. In the event, I could have foregone all but water and High 5 tablets, as the weather was warm but benign, and the race organisers met every need a runner could have. 

The race started at an Oxfordshire farm, forty minutes along the M40, early on Saturday morning. My clubmate and I joined nearly 2000 runners and walkers to pick up numbers and chips, drop off our overnight bags and make last minute kit adjustments. After the obligatory selfie, I started with the runners, and was thankful both for the early start – as the temperature quickly began to climb – and for the early congestion on the route – as it prevented any chance of my going off too quickly.

The race runs along the Ridgeway, an ancient footpath. Around 90% of the distance is off-road, offering stunning views that tempt one to stop for photos every few hundred yards. Underfoot, there was a mixture of dirt tracks, chalk paths, grass, woodland paths, ploughed fields, tow-paths and pavements, all clearly signed, so there was little chance of getting lost.

They say one of the tricks to ultra-running is to break the distance down into manageable chunks. It’s much more sustainable psychologically to run the next of five 10ks than to run 50k in one ‘go’. Happily, RTTS provided aid stations approximately every 10km along the route, with plentiful supplies of food and drink of many kinds, as well as toilets, medical staff, and enormous vats of water. As the temperature climbed into the high 20s, the need to stay hydrated became paramount. As did the danger of hyponatremia – over-hydration and sodium depletion. I was grateful for my supply of S-Cap tablets, a tip I’d picked up online. I was also grateful I had run in similar conditions in the Weald Marathon, and knew that my stomach could cope with litres of water and cola in the latter part of a long run.

I was running with a GoPro camera, occasionally pausing to put it on my head or hold it on a selfie-stick. There was plenty of inspiring scenery to record – just as the marketing video had promised. I also made sure to record the point at which I passed 26.2 miles, marathon distance, and 27 miles, passing into the realm of my longest ever run. There were still five more Day 1 miles to go after that point, and I was very pleased to see the half-way point as the campsite hove into view at the top of one final hill. As I crossed the timing mat, in a little under 7 hours and 20 minutes, I tried not to think about the fact I would be doing it all over again the following day.

RTTS is organised by Threshold Sports, a company set up by former Olympic rower James Cracknell to hold epic running and cycling events. Cracknell has undertaken a number of endurance events since retiring from rowing, and if you have seen the film of his Marathon des Sables adventure, you’ll know that he is someone who does not contemplate failure, and does not leave anything to chance. Unsurprisingly, RTTS is meticulously organised. Five minutes after arriving at the halfway camp, I was allocated my own two man tent and handed a self-inflating sleeping mat. My overnight bag was waiting for me, and a few minutes later I was unpacking my sleeping bag and fresh clothes and looking out across miles of Oxfordshire countryside while getting down to rehydration and protein boosting. By the time I’d released my feet from their trail-shoe tyranny, peeled off my sweat-soaked running gear and checked into Facebook, my clubmate was unzipping his tent a few rows along. He’d had a much better day than he expected, and had come in around 40 minutes behind me.

A couple of hours later, after fantastic hot showers, massages from some sports therapy students, a three course hot meal while our phones joined hundreds of others at the charging point, we were relaxing on beanbags in the chill-out zone, reading newspapers, resting our weary legs, reminiscing about the day’s journey and contemplating another day’s running. In the meantime, I’d also had a visit from my wife and daughter, who had been at a friend’s party that afternoon, a stone’s throw from the race start. It is definitely a different kind of ‘racing’ when one can sit down for coffee with one’s family at the halfway point. It brought home to me how remarkable an event this was, as the women in my life have not come to a single race of mine before. At the same time it provided a sense of normality; all these people running stupid distances were just regular people with families and friends and ‘normal’ lives outside of ultra-running, and running 100km is something virtually anyone can do if they choose to.

Some overnight runners were taking advantage of the bar. Some non-stop walkers and runners were arriving into camp, grabbing a hot meal, then heading out again for another 50k in the gathering darkness. Knowing we had an early start on Sunday, I got an early night. I settled down into my rucksack just as the predicted overnight rain began to make itself heard on my tent.

Sunday dawned fair, after a brief but restful slumber. The rain had passed during the night, leaving behind it a crisp morning, considerably cooler than the previous day. More rain was promised, but it was possible we might be able to out-run it. By 6.30am we were outside of a cooked breakfast, and by 7am we had our waterproofs on, and were setting off at a jog for Avebury.

I don’t think there is any particular way to adjust one’s mind to running the morning after running 50km. Up to the point at which one starts moving, it seems like a ludicrous undertaking. But once I started putting one foot in front of the other, it was surprisingly easy. As with many aspects of endurance running, much of the challenge is mental rather than physical. After a mile or so, it became clear that waterproofs were superfluous. I stopped to peel off the layers, then told my clubmate I felt good so would run on ahead. I reeled off my fastest three or four miles of my race so far, taking advantage of the cooler temperature. As the only people on the route were overnight campers and Day 2 only runners – the non-stop runners having mostly finished – the course was much more sparsely populated. On Day 1 I had often been caught up in large groups of runners, and was rarely out of sight of at least one other runner. On Day 2, after the first couple of miles, and except at aid stations, runners were mostly in ones and twos, and for long stretches I was running entirely on my own. I was feeling strong, and was counting walkers and runners as I overtook them. I lost count somewhere above 100, and got a sense that I was well up in the field, at least by my own expectation. I was running quicker than those around me on the downhills, and run/walking past others on the uphills. It didn’t take long to get back into the routine of mentally running a series of 10ks between aid stations. I must have been pretty focussed on the task, as I completely missed the Uffington White Horse, one of the sights of the route. I did see the Neolithic barrow, Wayland’s Smithy, and couldn’t miss Barbury Castle, a vast iron age fort through the middle of which the Ridgeway runs.

For the second day in a row, I noted the point at which I ran past 26.2 miles, recording the fact that I had effectively run marathon numbers six and seven of my life on consecutive days, and was still running.

In the latter stages I caught up with a runner I knew from TheRunningBug.com. Nina Bradburn was running RTTS as part of a series of endurance challenges to raise money for children’s charities in thanks for the help given to her daughter Olivia who is celebrating 10 years since her infant liver transplant. She has raised many thousands of pounds, and her enthusiasm was pretty infectious, helping the final miles pass with remarkably little anguish and a growing sense of fulfilment.

The Race to the Stones does what it says on the tin, and runners actually run into the ancient stone circle at Avebury, where official photographers were waiting to take ‘runner standing in front of standing stone’ shots. What it didn’t say on the tin was that this was part of a final soul-sapping loop, and the course doubled back on itself to begin a final two kilometres to the finish, which was at the end of a long straight farm road, so that spectators could clap runners in individually from several hundred yards away – which felt pretty inspirational to me. I crossed the line with a smile on my face in a little over 6 hours 20 minutes, nearly an hour quicker than on Day 1. A print-out of my overall finish time, 13 hours 42 minutes, showed that I was 65th in the overnight 100km overall, which was way beyond what I expected as a first time ultra-runner.

I had managed to beat the rain, but soon after I had scoffed my customary post-run hot dog, it came down with a vengeance. The runners still out on the course got a soaking. Family, friends, and early finishers gathered under umbrellas and in farm buildings at the finish, where there was many an emotional reunion.

My clubmate came in under 8 hours, his dodgy hip having made its presence felt, but still rather faster than he could reasonably have expected a couple of weeks before. After posing for selfies and changing into dry clothes, we found somewhere to lie down among dozens of other tired runners, numbers growing as more and more finishers emerged out of the rain. After more than 120,000 steps in two days, lying down was an achievement. Getting back up again, to catch our pre-booked coach back to the start, was a major production. The weight of our medals didn’t help, but there was no way we were taking them off any time that day. We were ultra-runners, and we didn’t care who knew it.

I have read more than one online comment regarding the cost of RTTS. There is no doubt that it is an expensive race, in absolute terms and on a per-mile basis. But I would say it is certainly a price worth paying. As a competitor, I wanted for nothing, whether it was apple crumble and custard for desert on Saturday night, or the knowledge that if I developed blisters there was a fully kitted medical tent at every aid station. Sometimes one gets what one pays for, and I felt this was the case here. I’ve stayed in so-called luxury hotels with showers not half as good as those at the RTTS base camp. I won’t speculate here about the motivations of those who criticise the RTTS pricing strategy. It is true that there are cheaper races along much the same route, but for me RTTS provides peace of mind for first time ultra-runners, who know that if something goes wrong, all the back-up they need is at hand. I would happily pay the same again, would recommend the race to anyone thinking of stepping up to ultra distance, and will be happy to pay a similar price to enter Threshold’s newest event, the 52 mile Race to the King.

RTTS is then an ideal race for those new to ultra-running. It provides a serious distance and terrain challenge, while ensuring every runner is supported if the challenge becomes too much. But the field was not simply made up of ultra novices like myself; there were plenty of hardcore ultra-runners, earning their UTMB points. Ultra-running legend Rory Coleman was there, offering advice to fellow runners as he went. The winner of the 100km non-stop race completed it in under 8hrs 30mins. I recognised one runner as Rebecca Bryant, whose styledynamo.com blog I follow. Earlier in the year she completed the Marathon des Sables, and followed it up with a London Marathon run. On day one of RTTS she fell and fractured her arm. After a medic put her arm in a sling and told her to wait for a lift to hospital, she made it known she planned to complete the race, which she did in 19hrs 43mins.

I’m not sure I plan to run any races with my arm in a sling, but I’m happy, having completed RTTS, to number myself among that group of people who call themselves ultra-runners. Even a year ago, I had no understanding of what made people even contemplate running distances beyond the marathon. Now that I am one of those people, I’m still not sure I understand. Perhaps being an ultra-runner is not a thing. Perhaps it is ultra-running that is a thing, a thing that some people do, something that I have done and will probably do again.

Even while I was tapering for RTTS, I knew that after the event I would feel somewhat bereft. I had been training for it for more than six months, and I anticipated missing the motivation it provided to maintain a running schedule and a strict-ish diet. I know there are many non-running challenges in life, most of them more important than foot-races: how to be a better husband and parent; how to maintain a healthy body and mind; how to be a better person. But I cannot help looking for the next running challenge. This may be vicarious, as I have signed up to take a Coach in Running Fitness course and would like to coach club-mates who want structured help to run further and faster. But I suspect even now that I’ll want to coach myself too, to run further, faster and better. The New York Marathon is on my bucket list and my London-ballot back-up is the Halstead & Essex marathon. The calendar is full of possible ultras, and this week for the first time I began seriously to think about Comrades. It coincides with a half-term holiday in 2016, if I understand the entry criteria correctly I have a qualifying time, and I have friends and family based in South Africa. I wonder how much flights are…