Written by Stuart Shipley

Insomnia 24 is one of the breed of 24 hour races that seem to be growing in popularity recently. They allow a good race village atmosphere with involvement from spectators on a regular basis, given the looped course nature of the run and allow both solo and relay runners. I’d never run one of these races before so when I saw this one set up only a few miles from home I thought well, its worth a go.

There were toilets, a food stall, bar and even a band and as expected the field for the 1st race was quite intimate, that meant the field spread out quite quickly so that most of the time you were on your own until the odd relay runner sped past, but I’m sure it will grow and anyway, running solo doesn’t bother me at all. On Nomad 50 in June I ran the last 19 or so miles out of 31 without seeing another runner.

I wasn’t too sure what to expect or how to run the race but that kind of excited me. Something new to work out. What I did know was that Louise would be able to be involved. She was able to park up the van next to the course and say ‘Hi’ from her sunbed every hour or so!

The race was supposed to be a 10k loop round fields close to Ashby but in the end the organisers had to cut the loop to 5.67miles.

The weather on Saturday was very hot and as usual I reckon I set off a bit too fast. The 1st lap was dreadful. My feet must have swelled up in just a couple of miles since by about ½way round the loop they were killing me on the outsides, where I seem to be developing bunions. I was also finding the route hard work too. There was no real track anywhere and most of the route was over ankletwisting grassy farmland and when I got to the van for the 1st time I stopped to take off my Sealskinz and changed into my Rapa Nuis too, which are lower stacked and better on technical stuff than the Stinson ATRs.

Then I had to stop on the 2nd lap too for a diarrhoea dump. It was at least the 3rd of the day & I was worried I’d picked up Boz’ bug. I convinced myself I was going to be sick and have to drop out, but it was probably just the heat.

I did find it hard to tell who were solo runners and who were in the relay but for the 1st couple of laps I was in the lead (solo)! After that one guy then another overtook me and it stayed like that into the dark. The heat got to me a bit and I started to have some pretty challenging ‘never again’ moments. I know by now that I will get these and that they will pass but I always forget just how strong they are. For a while I was really not enjoying it and never doing one of these long runs ever again. I felt like it was really slow going and I was having a problem with the heat. I also kept going over on my ankle on the terrain. I might have lost weight and speeded up a bit but I still have problems running in the heat and this was really getting to me.

My average speed dropped like a stone. I didn’t stop for longer than a couple of minutes per lap and I wasn’t eating anything, though I was religiously taking the Perpetuem and Succeed and fortunately that did keep me going.

One problem that made it seem worse than it was, was my watch. To make the battery last the 24hrs I had it on Ultra mode. That meant it took a fix once every minute. On a straight line route like GUCR that is fine since it reads back to the last fix and gives you a pretty accurate distance but on a really twisty/turny route like this one it reads quite a bit short since when it reads back it tends to cut off part of the loop.

Eventually I realised that this was happening but couldn’t turn off the mode since otherwise the battery would run out. Eventually, the following morning in order to check the distance I stopped the ultra-mode at about 59% battery life, and carried on in normal (1 sec fix) mode. That worked a lot more accurately and I did reassure myself that I hadn’t been as slow as I thought I’d been. The battery died on the last loop and went into default watch mode so I nearly got it right. It didn’t matter much though since all I needed was to know when the 24hrs was going to end and the watch mode told me that.

Anyway back to the race, as the day wore on the weather cooled a bit & correspondingly I started to feel a bit better in myself & as a result my mood changed & I started enjoying it and I started to eat more real food too – mainly bananas and caramel shortcake at the half-way point checkpoint, which was a really well stocked oasis of food and encouragement.

As it got dark the organisers were happy for Lucy to join in off her lead and Louise/Lucy did 3 laps (about 17miles) with me between about 9.30pm and 2am. That was good as it did give me someone to talk to, Lucy seemed to enjoy it and the marshals seemed to enjoy seeing her too.

I didn’t see too much wildlife in the race. I thought I heard a Jay and at one point a pheasant shot out of the hedge just in front of that but otherwise all I really saw were slugs, hundreds of them particularly in an area I called Slug Alley. With the slugs appearing to moonbathe on one of the few short areas of narrow grassless track on the loop It didn’t take long for this area to become slug carnage.

After Louise and Lucy left me I did another 1¾laps in the dark then as it got lighter there was a very pretty red sky. It might have heralded a shepherds warning but it looked good. So often in night-time ultras I have run, dawn is just a gradual lightening from black into grey and when you do get a good colourful dawn it is really encouraging. I had quite unusually been relatively perky overnight. There had been no hallucinations and I seemed to keep up the pace relatively well (my headtorch was good and lasted all night on one charge easily) I did slow off a bit since it was awkward to see where your feet were placing but I wasn’t as slow as I sometimes am overnight. I did slow off a bit in the lap before dawn though. I was suddenly engulfed in tiredness and couldn’t stop yawning. But it didn’t last more than about a lap. I had a rice pudding and some pasties and as it became properly light again I started to speed up again too. By this time I’d no idea where I was. I hadn’t see the other 2 runners who were ahead of me but at least they hadn’t lapped me, so I assumed I was still 3rd.

When Louise got up (about 6.30am to make me a cup of tea) she went to look and found out that one guy (the one in the lead) was way down the list, having stopped or rested overnight. I was over an hour behind the new lead runner though, but in 2nd place.

At that point, with about 5 hours to go I realised I was never going to make an hour up on him so looked at trying to maintain 2nd instead. My times actually improved though, since subconsciously I was clearly trying to see just what I could actually do. Several of the marshals asked if I was going to take a rest but I said not. I didn’t see the point really. I am used to carrying on through the night and it seems a waste of the effort put in up to that point to take a break and I am sure that had I rested for more than a couple of minutes every joint in my body would have seized up.

It was about then that another solo runner came past me. He seemed very fresh and stormed away so I was hoping he’d had a break overnight. Louise said he was on a lap less than me so I didn’t really worry too much, especially since there was only enough time for about another 3 laps by then. She also told me though that the lead runner had slowed and now he was only 25mins ahead.

Bloody hell, I thought, that’s all I needed at this stage, a reason to make a race of it! As a result I did speed up a bit more and over the next lap got the gap down to 15mins. There was probably only enough time for one more lap, and though I didn’t think I could make up another 15mins in just 5miles I gave it a go. As it was, I guess he realised I was just behind him, and getting closer, since he speeded up and did his 18th lap in 23.16. At that time he could have gone on for another loop, but chose not to, relying on me not having enough time for an extra lap, I guess. I wasn’t too clued up on the tactics of this sort of run at the end – I thought you just ran till the 24hours ended initially, but apparently as you approach the 24hour deadline you can start a last loop before the 24hrs are up but only get an hour in which to finish it, since time ends wherever you are at 1pm and if you aren’t at the finish by then, your lap doesn’t count.

Since I’d just run a 1.13 and 2x 1.19 loops loops that meant that I’d have to finish my current lap by about 23.40 to stand any chance of finishing a 19th loop. The 3rd placed runner did go on but he was on a lap less and though he thought he was 2nd he finished his 18th loop in about 24.40, and came 3rd.

I finished my lap in 23.51, meaning that I’d have had to run the 19th loop in 1.09 or less to get back before 1pm. It didn’t take long to work out that I’d never do it. Even trying really hard I’d never have any prospects of finishing in that time. I had really surprised myself by being able to pick up the pace on the 2nd day, back to times I’d been doing the previous afternoon but I knew I wouldn’t be able to knock another 10minutes off on a further loop.

Had I managed another 10mins faster somewhere on the course and got to the end of my 18th lap in say 23.40, rather than 23.51, I might have been able to do it, though to be fair I was pretty knackered by then having tried to push it over the last 2-3 laps anyway and so called it a day and settled for 2nd place, something I would easily have taken at the beginning and giving the lead runner at least 35years on me.

I have never been so close to actually winning a race since I ran the Masters fell run with the Lincoln Bounders team in 1994, 22yrs ago - the only race I have ever won but I was more than pleased enough and I really enjoyed the experience. Throughout the race the organisation was spot on. At times I wish I could have been one of the relay runners stopping off at the burger bar at the end of the loop but I really couldn’t fault the tireless support of the marshals at the various points of the loop, especially the guy at the ‘squiglly bit’ (by the end of the route I’d given all the sections different names, once of which ‘hilly loop’ became ‘pointless loop’ by the end) who stayed at that one spot for the whole of the 24hours and was unfailingly cheerful and encouraging every time I passed him. As such this may not be my last 24hour race and the run does deserve to get more popular, as I’m sure it will.

I was very stiff Sat afternoon. My R hip/back/R knee/R ankle were sore. My toes were sore too but not blistered despite having had wet feet from the grass for at least 12hrs. My bunions could have been a pain (well I guess they were for the 1st lap) but taking off my Sealskinz, which I was going to use to stop the grass wetting them and changing into my Rapa Nuis sorted that. Once again I seem to have got off pretty lightly really.

Looking at that the loop stats, my 1st 3 laps were probably a bit fast in the heat. They also show that I didn’t actually speed up when it got cooler, it clearly just felt easier but the slowest lap was the one just before dawn. On that lap I did feel very tired and demotivated and I was also slow on the next one too. My last 3 laps though were actually faster than anything from lap 9 onwards, so once again I was more than pleased with my staying power.