But on Saturday 11th January, 2014, I was about to do that very same run, from Wendover in Buckinghamshire to Paddington, west London. To make sure I actually did it, I had invited friends and family to meet me at the finish. This not only gave me something to look forward to, but also forced me to think about pacing. 

 

I factored in that the first half was definitely hilly and almost certainly muddy, and that after I reached the Grand Union Canal for the last 20 miles I'd be a bit tired and came up with the following timetable.

 

 

How close I'd be able to get to this I didn't know. I am in the shape of my life thanks to Robbie Britton's training plan, but since the Gatliff 50k, I hadn't actually run further than 14 miles so three times that amount felt a bit much.

 

So, I did all I could do and laid out my kit on my bed and took a photo of it.

 

 

I didn't end up taking all of the food, or even eating half of what I carried but it was a good way to check I hadn't forgotten anything.

To get to the start, I took the train from Marylebone, known as the 'C2C Express'. The 7:12 to Wendover was packed with Country to Capital runners, chatting, queuing up for the toilet, or in my case listening to Rebecca Cox's tales of her adventures at the Marathon des Sables. I won't go into detail but needless to say I got more information than I bargained for before 8 o'clock in the morning.

 

I also saw a few other familiar faces - James, Martin, Cat, and Ed Catmur, who I don't know personally but won Greensand marathon last autumn and several 100-milers last year. As soon as I saw him there I guessed he'd win this event too. More on that later.

 

Once I'd collected my race number and chip to check in at the checkpoints, I hung around near the start and said hello to Cat who seemed more nervous than me, which certainly helped me feel better since she's won an ultra event before. In my excitement, and as we were standing together, I had this vague notion that we might run together for a bit but within 20 seconds of the start she was off and I suppressed the urge to catch up - Cat can do sub-3:30 marathons when she's not really trying and I know my limits.

 

So this was a good thing. It was a long way to London and the worst thing I could do was bomb off and burn out. Luckily, the first half is largely the Chiltern Way - trails, hills, mud, fields, and the odd country lane - so going slowly is really the only option. Well, for us humans anyway. The superhumans at the front are a different matter.

 

One of my main concerns about this race was the navigation element. At Gatliff, I'd selflessly let someone else do the map reading but this time I was on my own. Unless I followed the crowd. Which is fine if they know where they're going...

 

I reached CP1 in 1h15m, ahead of schedule and feeling good. On Robbie's advice, I was planning to have food at least every hour and here I had a quarter of a peanut butter and chocolate spread sandwich. I call this The Snickers. In this instance, I'm actually glad it's no longer called a Marathon because that could be confusing.

 

"What's that you're a eating?"

"I call it The Marathon."

"Eh? Why not the ultramarathon?"

"No, it's because... oh, never mind."

 

Anyway, after saying hello to Kelvin of Ealing Half fame (a great event, by the way) who was there supporting, I followed some runners and plodded through Chesham until we hit the trails again. It was a bit up and down and fairly muddy in places but nothing too demanding. So when I started feeling lethargic at about 10 miles I briefly got worried. With more than 30 miles to go, it wasn't what I wanted to feel. I also idly, pointlessly, wondered how I'd ever complete a 100-miler if this was what I was like now but managed to focus on the job in hand. I remembered James's advice not to panic and Robbie's about lows usually being overcome by eating, drinking or walking so I had a Clif ShotBlok and pressed on. 

 

Sure enough, within half a mile I was feeling fine again, although now I couldn't really see many other runners ahead of me. Finding your way when you haven't been following a map is pretty hard so I was hoping to see someone soon. Luckily, I caught sight of someone in green over a hill so I chased him down and eventually got close enough to talk to a friendly Irish guy called Tom. He admitted that he was also just following the bloke in front and within minutes that guy had stopped and we knew we'd gone the wrong way. As if by magic, a postman appeared and with his local knowledge were back on track, having lost only a couple of hundred yards and a couple of minutes at most. Very lucky.

 

The next time I stopped was at the checkpoint where I had another sandwich, filled up my Camelbak with water and bumped into Prich, the boyfriend of someone I work with. He was in good spirits and spent less time faffing around than me so was gone before long.

 

At more than 17 miles in, I was still ahead of schedule and making good progress, although I had lost my sunglasses by this stage, and been through an ankle deep puddle. I don't mind getting wet as such, but I wasn't sure how my feet would react to another marathon's worth of dampness. I don't normally get blisters but it definitely wasn't ideal. I had packed spare socks but with more trail to contend with I wasn't going to put them on until I reached the canal.

 

For some reason, I had in my mind that CP3 - where savoury snacks were being served - was at 22.5 miles. I even told someone this at about 20 miles so if you're reading this, I'm sorry for misleading you and I hope you got your bacon sandwich (although unless someone brought you one, you would have been disappointed on that front too). As a result - and I think this just goes to show how much of running and pain is in the mind - the tops of my legs started to complain at 23 miles, possibly because the checkpoint wasn't arriving. Having said that, it's probably acceptable to start aching a bit after four hours of running.

 

Finally, at more than 25 miles, the pork pies, scotch eggs and cocktail sausages hove (actually - little joke for my sister there) into view. I grabbed a handful and stuffed my face while trying to find somewhere to sit down. It was a good job I was still ahead of schedule as it took me a good 10 minutes to change my socks, have a Nurofen and gulp down the porky goodies. Writing this now, a part of me is thinking how much time I wasted, not just here, but at all the checkpoints. On the other hand, without dry socks, a painkiller-induced high and my music going on, I'm not sure I would have left that CP feeling anything like as good as I did.

 

As it was, I couldn't wait to storm off down the canal path, although 'storm' is all relative at this point. Still, I was overtaking people on a regular basis and far sooner than I expected it, saw the 'Paddington 131/2 miles' sign. It was here that I caught up with Tom again and he told me that we had more than two and a half hours to finish under eight hours. Given that that was my target, this gave me a huge boost. Things would have to go pretty badly for me to fail to make that, surely?

 

I chatted with Tom briefly but was feeling good and enjoying the music so much that I pressed on. I wanted to make the most of my energy while I still had it. So I was quite annoyed when CP4 appeared - I wanted to keep going until I ran out of steam. Reluctantly I checked in and realised I had probably better eat something or risk a crash further down the line. I ran with Tom and a girl called Ali for a while before pushing on again. I think it was around this point that Coxy sprinted past me in what I believe is known as 'beast mode'. She was out of sight in no time having clearly not been trying hard enough in the first half/paced herself brilliantly.

 

The last checkpoint meant there was about six miles left. We were supposed to be paired up at this stage for safety reasons, but it wasn't dark, Tom was with Ali and I needed some more food so I let them go ahead. My pace had dropped and as much as I wanted to finish quickly, my legs weren't listening. It wasn't even that it hurt that much, they just weren't responding. Still, I reckoned I could catch the two in front and while I wasn't really racing anything but my own expectations, it was good to have a target while I plodded along.

 

With three miles left, I gave myself a walk break. It was only a minute but I needed it and immediately felt better, catching the two in front. Not long after that, Tom overtook me, very graciously saying that I was flying and that we were nearly there. A couple of short but steep footbridges gave me another chance to walk and I caught up with a guy called Max. I asked if he was all right and he said yes but was also finding it hard work. I told him there was less than two miles to go and this helped me as well - less than a parkrun, just a few songs more, and I'd be there.

 

 

Max thanked me for keeping him going, and then Ali arrived and Tom got one of the volunteers to take our photo. I don't know about the others but by this stage I felt as blurry as I look.

 

 

Speaking of the volunteers, they were great at all the checkpoints and I think I thanked at least one of them each time, despite my increasing fatigue. They really are amazing, and I'll be doing some volunteering myself this year. I should also mention the cake, which I only sampled at the last checkpoint and the end but was every bit as good as billed.

 

As I predicted (in my head) Ed Catmur won in a frankly incredible time of 4:48, although it was close run thing, with Danny Kendall just 11 minutes behind him. In third place was Stephen Hodges some half an hour later, followed closely by first lady, Edwina Sutton, whose blog post on her race shows how the proper athletes do it. Mindblowing stuff.

 

Just outside the medals, I placed 120th place out of 304 finishers in a time of 7 hours 42 minutes and 3 seconds. So far under my target time in fact, that some of my friends missed me finishing. 

 

Given that my longest run in training was only 14 miles (based on Robbie's assertion that training hard is better than training long), I am still quite amazed at how well it all went. I wished I'd been faster towards the end, but that would have probably meant that I hadn't given it enough earlier on. For a first proper ultra, I will absolutely take that result. The weather was perfect, I met some lovely people and ran one hell of a long way. I don't think I proved anyone wrong, but I certainly proved to myself that I'm capable of doing this sort of thing again, and hopefully even better. Most importantly, I really enjoyed it.