Round Ripon Ultra 2014 Race Report

Category: report

Written by James Jack Kassapian - http://2015mds.blogspot.co.uk

The Event

To basically steal a lot from the Round Ripon Ultra website, the race is,

 "one of the few Northern Ultras East of the Pennines which combines a relaxed village start, well stocked checkpoints, stunning scenery, free refreshments and a testing 35 mile run for an individual runner.The course takes a circular route following the northern section of the Ripon Rowel providing a very scenic 35 mile route which includes a world heritage site, pretty Yorkshire villages, woodland tracks & open moorland, with a wonderful downhill run through Studley Royal deer park and back into Studley Roger. "

 The Plan 

 This was to be my first ultrarun done as a part of the training Marathon Des Sables. I had earlier this year done the first half of The Wall Run (my first ever DNF, a story for another day) a distance of about 50km but that was with someone else and had been 'run' at a very slow pace. (I'd completed the Wall Run back in 2012) The intention was to use the Round Ripon Ultra as a  distance test event to see how the training was working out. When I was put together the Training Plan for the MdS I realised that the more organised events I could do as a part of the training the better. An organised event means that a) I've paid to do it so I'd bloody better well do it rather than put it off until another day and b) takes the pressure off myself for getting the route details and support arranged. This was one of the first events I booked mainly because it very close to where I live and work during the week. Unfortunately it came slightly earlier in my training schedule than I would have ideally wanted but such is life. To that end I came up with a plan to take it nice and slowly. I was going to try and run it, aiming to complete the 35 miles course in under seven and half hours, or an average pace of around 7.5 kph. To that end I worked out the following crib sheet for the day, so I could know if I was behind or ahead of schedule.

Yes, my hand writing really is this bad

There were 4 checkpoints on the route. The times in green were the times I had to be at the checkpoints by in order to have a quick break before moving on with the run, if I was to complete it in the race organisers allotted 10 hours. Next to the times in green were the overall distance a given Checkpoint was at. The bold number in black was the average speed I wanted to keep over all at a given part of the race to make my 7.5 hour goal, with the time in red being the time I wanted to get to a given checkpoint to keep up with that goal. The race started at 0900 and I had to be finished one way or the other by 1900. So much then for the plan.

The Event

Waking up on the Saturday morning of the race a quick look out of the window confirmed it was raining and bloody windy. I decided to go with my OMM running trousers and base layer, along with the OMM Kamleika Jacket as a waterproof and windproof layer. I was carrying OMM waterproof trousers in my pack (as ever for this sort of distance the Salomon Advanced S Lab Skin 12, once again it more than proved its worth) but it didn't seem to be raining enough to justify wearing them at this stage. (As it turned out they never came out of the pack.) On my feet as I was expecting it to be muddy I wore a base layer of injinji inners with medium weight sealskinz on top. I was running in Hoka Mafate Speeds.
 
The directions to the start point were easy enough to follow and when I got there the parking was clearly marked. The race was being run out of a small village hall and Go Beyond Ultra, the company running the event gave a friendly welcome, which included a cup of tea or coffee, a very nice touch. (The rule that the smaller an event is, in this case around 100 starters, the more friendly it is, seemed to hold true.)
Desert Runner 2015
Just before the briefing in the village hall.

There was a quick pre race briefing, apparently the course was a lot dryer than in previous years, and then we were outside for the off.

 
The start line of Ultra's always makes me giggle a little. The variety of far too much kit (myself) right down to just shorts and a t-shirt always makes me wonder if we are all doing the same race. Also the fact that no one, and I do mean no one, was doing any kind of warm up for a 35 mile event, though understandable, seems a little strange. (Last week I volunteered at a 10km night walk for Sue Ryder, where everyone did a Zumba session as a warm up before their walk!) The race started dead on 0900 as promised.
The Start Line

The run to Checkpoint 1 was about 12km and went quickly. The route was out through Ripon and then up along the river, mainly along hard track. The organisers had provided us all with some nice High Definition print outs of the route, in a 10 page booklet, as well as some route notes. They had also produced a GPX file which I downloaded to my watch (the Sunnto Ambit 2) which gave me an arrow and a black line to follow. This made my life an  awful lot easier than those who were just following the maps. Though the maps were great I had the major advantage of being able to just look at my wrist and know which way I had to go. (Great as this is, its awful preparation for the OMM at the end of this month where all GPS equipment is banned.) The weather improved throughout this first leg with the rain all but stopping, however I decided to keep my jacket on for a bit to keep the wind off. I got to the first checkpoint in good order, grabbed a bite of the famous Go Beyond Fruitcake and pushed on for the next leg. (Throughout the race the checkpoint staff were all friendly encouraging and helpful)

Checkpoint One Selfie. Note the jacket is still on.

About half way to the second checkpoint I thought it was probably about time I took my jacket off. I had left this far too long. Under the jacket I was completely soaked in sweat. (To the extent I actually checked my water bottles to make sure I didn't have a leak.) Though not a disaster on what turned out to be a mild day if the weather had been much worse a bigger wind chill factor could have really messed me up at this point. As it was within half an hour I had dried up and none the worse for wear. This frankly amateur error by myself is fairly inexcusable. I know how the layering system works and I know what I need to do to keep it working. The only defence I will put up is that I had thought that the jacket was a lot more breathable than it turned out to be. The actual route for the second stage was really very pretty. Running through the woodland trail on the way up to Masham was lovely (though would have been much harder work if the paths had been a bit more muddy.)

 
A view halfway through Stage 2.


I pushed through the 2nd Checkpoint as quickly as possible, knowing that Checkpoint 3 was the lunch stop. This was the shortest of the legs, around 7km and was made up of mainly farmers paths and road. The stop at Checkpoint 3 I tried to keep as short as possible, stuffing down a few pork pies and sausage rolls and from there ran down the hill which kicked off the 4th stage. At this point I was well ahead of my target time of 7 hours 30 min. It was also at this stage I started to have a few foot issues. After about 2km of stage 4 I knew that the hotspot on the back if my right foot had to be looked at (having stupidly ignored it for the past 5km or so). The skin was just starting to rub but hadn't yet blistered, so I rubbed on some body glide to the spot and swopped from Sealskinz to normal compression socks. I kept on the injinji inners. When I started running again the rubbing had gone away and I pressed on. It was about now I teamed up with Chris and Paul who were to run with me for pretty much the rest of the route. They benefited from the fact I had a GPS watch on and knew where I was going, I benefited from the fact they kept me running at points when I probably otherwise would have walked or walked far slower than I did.

 
Stage 4 Landscape

The route was definitely out in the moors for this stage and navigation without the GPS was hard. (At one stage I decided I couldn't keep up with Paul and Chris so told them to push on without me. They ran off, I walked and promptly caught up with them 20 min later after they had taken a slight 'detour.') The scenery though was spectacular. By the time I got to the final checkpoint with just 11km to go I was tired but still feeling OK. (And just about on for a seven hour finish)

 
It was at this stage I started to have some serious issues with my feet. My legs muscles and knees were all feeling fine, but the Hoka on my right foot was started to dig into the right hand side of my ankle so painfully I was doing a sort of limping run when I did run. This was annoying because I honestly think if this hadn't have happened I would have been running a chunk more than I was walking. It was also annoying because it distracted me so much I didn't notice the hot spots which were building up on the base of my feet. I ended the race with two blisters on the soles of my feet, caused I think by too much heat and sweat from having two layers of socks on for 55km plus. If I had taken off the injinji inners when I had swopped to compression socks I think this could have been avoided. 
 

The final leg was stunning, ending up running through Studley Park (where Deer literally ran out in front of us)  and all nicely downhill (Paul who had been promising us a downhill finish since about 35km in was very happy with this!) to the end. (The sun had also come out by this point, it turned out leaving my sunglasses in the car was a mistake.) The finish line was quiet (it was a field of about 100 runners so not that surprising) but again well staffed with tea/coffee and more fruit cake freely available.


Kassapian Marathon Des Sables
The Finish Line
Conclusion
 
This was a well organised friendly race through stunning countryside. I would happily do another Go Beyond Ultra event again without question. I finished in 7 hours and 17 min, within the time I had aimed to complete the event, largely because of the help of my adopted co-runners, Paul and Christopher. Chaps, if you read this, thanks again! Kitwise I learnt a bit about layering (which to be honest I already knew but should have known better) and a lot about foot care (these are my first real blisters since I was in the scouts!) The next event is the OMM. Before then I am going to try and break in some new trainers in order to avoid the issues I had yesterday.  For those thinking of doing the event next year, do. Its great fun, though I highly recommend taking along a GPS watch!

(A link to the moves count page for this event can be found by clicking on the Saturday of week six on The Training Diary Page)
 
Postscript

 

The race was over and I was hobbling back to my car to head for home. (It turned out that the sprint finish on blisters had probably been a mistake.) On what had been in the morning a short walk back to the car, but by that afternoon seemed like a bloody long way I got talking to a couple who were out for a Saturday afternoon walk. They lived locally (he was a headmaster at a local school) and they seemed genuinely interested in the race. They even asked me about the course. As a part of my preparation for the route I had marked up a 50,000 OS map with the route and laminated it, but never, because of the GPS needed to use it during the race. I had however taken it into work with me so I could do some route study during some quiet moments. I got this map out of my bag and passed it to them to show them the route. As I did so I noticed, too late to do anything about it, that someone at work had added a small phallic symbol on to the route which the couple duly noticed. I returned to my car somewhat embarrassed. 
 
The laminated map. Phallic Symbol removed.