Ducking Long Way E-Book

Mark Atkinson

• Herausgeber: Sandstone Press
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Seitenzahl: 408

Beschreibung

Mark Atkinson is living proof that you don't have to be 'good' at running to make it through a marathon or even further. Packed with insights and tips, pitfalls and joy, Ducking Long Way invites you to join him for a beer at mile thirty as he pushes himself as far as he can while still running for the sheer joy of it.

Leseprobe

Mark Atkinson is a husband, father and author of the award-winning Run Like Duck. After a lifetime of inactivity, he tried running which proved to be a pivotal decision in his life and he progressed from short jogs to marathons to ultras. He is often found lost on route miles from home, fighting to finish a challenging ultra, proving a sedentary life and duck-footed stance is no barrier to pushing yourself.

Also by this author

Run Like Duck: A Guide for the Unathletic

First published in Great Britain in 2021 by

Sandstone Press Ltd

PO Box 41

Muir of Ord

IV6 7YX

Scotland

www.sandstonepress.com

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form without the express written permission of the publisher.

Copyright © Mark Atkinson 2021

Editor: K.A. Farrell

The moral right of Mark Atkinson to be recognised as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

ISBN: 978-1-913207-58-8

ISBNe: 978-1-913207-59-5

Cover design by Jason Anscomb

Ebook compilation by Iolaire, Newtonmore

To Cloë for endless support and encouragement, and more midnight fast food deliveries than Uber. 

To Charlotte and Billy who see the physical and emotional collapse of their father over 100 miles as a totally normal weekend occurrence.  

Lastly, to every runner who signs up for a race they don’t expect to finish. You got this! 

Contents

Introduction

1. Something Inside So Wrong

2. Your First Ultra – Greensands Ridge Relay

3. Last Kit Check Before the 50

4. Halfway Practice – Preparing for the South Downs Way 50

5. Running at Night

6. When 100 Isn’t Enough – Building Up to 145 Miles

7. Guide for Pacers

8. Grand Union Canal Race – GUCR145

9. Let’s Try a Hard One – Building Up to Lakeland 100

10. Rose of the Shires Ultra 54

11. Pacing Your Ultra

12. Wendover Woods Night 50km

13. Lakeland 100 – Accepting You’re Not as Good as You Think You Are

14. DNF. Definitely Not Funny

Conclusion

Introduction

It’s 4am on a cold wet Sunday morning and I’m standing on the side of a mountain in the Lake District. My feet have disintegrated with each passing step and now they’re just hooves of pain. I daren’t take my socks off again for fear of what I might see, and honestly, the idea of bending down that far is laughable.

Next to me are two men I only met yesterday but with who I have since formed the sort of co-dependant relationship that will take therapy to fully understand and escape. We’re slowly moving towards the small town of Coniston, a town that has taken on the significance of Mount Doom over the past 100 miles. What started as a dream of reaching the finish line has been replaced with fantasies of hot showers and sleep.

All three of us are physically and mentally at our limits, maybe even beyond. It will be weeks, perhaps months before we recover from this ordeal, but we’ll all feel the urge to return, even though it threatens to break us.

If this sounds appealing there are several helplines you can ring. If none of them work, then you might like to try ultra running. It’s like normal running, but much worse.

1

Something Inside So Wrong

Running is a beautiful sport. It needs the simplest of equipment, can be undertaken by anyone and is a great way of keeping fit and active. Even a short 20–30 minutes of activity can be enough to mentally and physically sharpen yourself for the day ahead or forget the troubles of the day almost done. It fits around your life and makes few demands, if you keep it casual. It’s a hobby that can exist in the background. A sport that requires the least skill possible. Even darts demands more expertise and accuracy. Running is open to all. It’s amazing.

Some runners decide to take things further. Pushed either by competition or a need to challenge themselves they’ll step the running up into serious training, working towards a target race or distance. A 5k, maybe even a 10k or half marathon. Along the way they may have been lucky enough to experience the runner’s high, the elation that comes when your body finally ceases its objections and just runs as it was born to do. Feet cycle forwards, delicately kissing the ground with each step before being passed by the body and leaping back up to rejoin the party. The smooth motion is akin to cycling but without the saddle sores. Distance passes effortlessly and you realise that right now, you are where you need to be and doing what has somehow become second nature. A feeling of contentment engulfs your mind, without the help of any illicit substance or alcoholic imbibement.

Fuelled by this buzz you may progress towards a marathon and join the 1% of the population that has pushed themselves to cover the 26.2 miles on just your feet. You’ll have sacrificed work and family time to get the miles in and prepare your body, endured training runs that have left you tired beyond measure and with full-body aches. You could choose to stop there. Many do. You’ve proven yourself the equal of the soldier Pheidippides who ran the original distance from a battlefield near the town of Marathon, Greece, to Athens in 490 BC to announce the defeat of the Persians to the waiting Athenians. Arguably you’re more than his equal since he only covered 25 miles, promptly collapsed and died. I presume if you’re reading this, you’re not dead yet. Bravo. You’ve just mocked a man who died at work. Poor form.

The urge to continue can be strong. The marathon is a hard challenge, and honing yourself and your training to achieve the perfect race is as much an art as a science. It can be a lifelong goal as you repeatedly throw yourself against the distance to see how your body answers. This quest to chip away at the finish time or amass multiple finishes is unusual but not uncommon. You’ve gone beyond the 1% and into a smaller fraction, bordering on obsession.

Amongst those passionate runners you find an even smaller but growing segment. For some the mere 26.2 miles is not enough and they need more, a bigger hit to get that high. Outwardly they may seem normal but inside is a barely hidden need to break themselves for the sheer curiosity of finding what is inside.

You may make sightings of these runners on club runs. They appear from the darkness having run down to the session as a warm-up. They stick with the group, running a little slower, with a smoother, super-efficient gait and a distant look on their face. When finished, they head off home the long way around to log some more miles. The hard effort club session you psyched yourself up for all day at work is merely the meat in their sandwich while they dream of distant hills and ascents lasting many hours.

These ultra runners occupy a seemingly impenetrable microcosm of the sport, as approachable and relatable to casual joggers as space flight is to someone having a go at paper airplanes.

It needn’t be that way. The main entry requirement for ultras is supreme stupidity and the sort of single-mindedness that would get you sacked if displayed at work. Keep your job and put that pig-headed facet of your personality to good use. Run until destruction, then a little further to the finish. You too can be an ultra runner. Whether you want to or not is an eminently more sensible question and one that only you can answer.

The marathon is very much a mission to cover a set distance in a ‘decent’ time. Repeated attempts aim to complete it faster than before and set a new Personal Best (PB). An ultra steps beyond that and becomes a journey, something bigger. Completion is never certain; in fact it may be less likely than failure. It appeals to runners who want more than entertainment for a few hours, who want a (please avoid the tree-hugging phrase) voyage of self-discovery. What will you do when lost in a forest at 3am with a failing headtorch? Could you ascend a treacherous mountain pass and make it through the cloud-line emerging blinking into the sunlight at the peak with lungs on fire and quads aching, knowing this is just the first of many such summits? We want our own Stand By Me journey (although hopefully with no dead body), a Goonies adventure into unchartered territory (though unfortunately without mountains of gold and pirate ships). Races are concerts, an ultra is a week-long music festival from which you’ll emerge with suspicious chaffing, a new-found love of pineapple and a haunted look in your eyes from what you’ve seen. Still keen?

What Is an Ultra?

At the most simplistic an ultra is any race over 26.2 miles. Though running London Marathon with a wandering path and a poor GPS signal on your watch and clocking 27 miles is not an ultra – you just need to learn to run in a straighter line and stop adding on distance.

Most ultras start at 50 kilometres or 30 miles, a big enough step beyond marathon distance to be worthwhile and deemed by the running community as a ‘proper’ ultra. Beyond that the distances increase rapidly, to include round numbers or just the given distance between two interesting locations. Fifty-mile, 100-kilometre and 100-mile are the most popular distances, and high-profile events such as Western States and Leadville have cemented 100 miles as a real mark in the running history of ultra runners. It is typically the distance at which the finishers medal is replaced with a finishers buckle. Yes, a big shiny belt buckle with an overly elaborate race motif cast into it, encouraging all and sundry to stare at your crotch. Equally useless as a medal but somehow a more significant lump of metal to bore your family with. And you will bore them with it. Oh yes.

Many ultras are undertaken in a single effort: leave the start and progress to the finish without break or sleep. Some allow small periods for naps but changing into your pyjamas and sleeping bag is frowned upon. Typically, these single-stage events are up to 100 or 150 miles with some more challenging ones at 200 or even 250 miles.

Other races may not even go anywhere at all. Multiple laps or repeats of a set course to get back to where you started. It could be a 24-hour event involving laps of the standard 400-metre athletic track or in ‘The Tunnel Ultra’, organised by race director Mark Cockbain, it’s 100 out and back repeats of a straight one-mile course. Yes, 200 miles on one single course, in a tunnel. The scenery is probably delightful.

As distances increase, the races become multi-day events with given distances and routes each day, and provision for overnight stops ranging from mountain chalets to the cold unforgiving floor of a sports hall in a windswept village in the Peak District that time and mobile reception has forgotten.

Getting Started in Distance Running

Like many my own transition from marathons (a hitherto unimaginable distance) to ultras was largely by luck. Good or bad luck is a matter for discussion.

I began running almost by accident after a friend Dave invited me for a jog. The first was every bit as awful as expected. I’d never been gifted at sports and was carrying more than my fair share of cushioning, making each footfall heavy and uncomfortable. I ran at night, along deserted footpaths away from the public so as to spare them the spectacle of a tubby project manager sweating profusely while barely outrunning the snails on the wet footpaths.

Like many people I often watch the Olympics or international sports and wonder if maybe there lurks a world-class athlete deep inside of me. I could have been a gold medal javelin thrower if only I’d had the chance. Or maybe a glittering career in freestyle skiing awaits me if I even learnt to ski. Could it be possible that the reason I’ve failed to even make the heady heights of ‘average’ at school sports is purely a poor choice and lack of opportunity?

No. I’m uncoordinated and clumsy. Any sport that involves hand and eye co-ordination normally results in me poking my hand in my eye.

This, coupled with my pathetic panting perambulations along the pathways of Milton Keynes, did not make for an auspicious start to running, but for some reason I kept at it. The only advantage of starting at the bottom is there is only one way to go, and I gradually improved. Eventually I could run several lamp posts before stalling, gasping for breath. I was not getting good, but I was getting better. Or at least less shit.

I persevered and targeted a 10k race that my mate Dave was also running. In some respects I feel thankful that this decision was made in the days before Couch to 5K programmes and the success of parkrun (a free weekly, timed 5k race quickly gaining momentum in multiple countries in the world), not because I don’t love parkrun but because so many people begin and end their journey with the weekly 5k and don’t consider venturing further. Countless running clubs and fitness groups organise beginner to 5k groups but provide little support or motivation to progress. There is perhaps a perception of an invisible wall. 5k is fine for the non-athletic, bravo on reaching the target but leave the longer stuff to proper runners, off you pop to the café and get a cake while we run home like ‘real runners’. It needn’t and shouldn’t be like this. The only limit to your ambition is you. The majority of runners started running just a few metres then improved, slowly but persistently.

Having selected 10k as my first (and initially only) race, I proceeded on a trajectory that saw me complete several half marathons. All without need of an ambulance to scrape me from the course. I eventually succumbed to the inevitable and entered a full marathon, all within the first year of running. The weight fell off and my occasional insomnia and more frequent bad backs vanished with them. It was a force for good and improved my health immeasurably. It’s a double-edged sword when people announce you’ve motivated them to start running since if even you can do it, they have no excuse.

This ‘compliment’ led to me writing my first book, Run Like Duck, a beginner’s guide to running, aiming to cut through many of the barriers and seemingly impenetrable jargon of the running scene and show that literally anyone can run.

The book covered the painful (and often slow) path to completing a marathon. The former fat kid from school had somehow managed the inconceivable task of running for 26.2 miles without fatality. Many would stop there. I didn’t. On my first (and originally what I thought would be my only) marathon I was passed by a gentleman of fairly advanced years. Dressed as Superman. He smiled as he effortlessly accelerated away from what I had come to view as an almost athletic version of myself. He had an extra top on his Superman outfit. It was a running vest for the 100 Marathon Club. Unbelievably, not only did people run more than a single marathon, but there were enough of them running over 100 to warrant their own club. I’m big enough to admit it was largely wounded pride at being passed by someone’s grandad that sowed a seed in my mind that I would run more marathons and eventually join this illustrious club. For someone currently falling apart during their first, this was quite a bullish goal to adopt but even nearly being disqualified from the event due to course cut-off was not enough to dissuade me.

In hindsight a key reason for my descent into ever-increasing distance events was imposter syndrome. Speaking to other runners, this seems a common reason. As we achieve the next milestone we, by default, view it as meaningless merely because we’ve reached it and don’t yet consider ourselves to be ‘real runners’. Our own attainment degrades that which we sweated and bled to achieve. This was notable in my continually delayed plans to get a tattoo to mark my accomplishments and journey to a ‘real runner’.

The 10k passed and I finished, but then so did tens of thousands of other people. No need to get sentimental over it with some ink, surely? Three months previously I could barely run to the end of the road so if I could now run 10k that was obviously no real accomplishment. Nothing worthwhile is achieved in three months, right?

When I finished the half marathon and became only one of a handful of people I knew to have done so, I delayed again. It was ‘only’ a half marathon, not a full one. It wasn’t even important enough to warrant its own name for the distance, just a portion of something evidently more worthwhile. Nobody celebrated climbing half of Everest.

I couldn’t even accept praise or permanent marking for the marathon as, despite being a horrendous experience and only narrowly beating the cut-off, I had actually finished therefore it wasn’t hard after all. Anything the fat kid from school, the one who wished he had asthma as an excuse for his poor fitness, could finish just through sheer bloody-mindedness was ultimately a non-event. I expected a life-changing experience as when Dorothy awakes in Oz and the world has become technicolour. Food would taste better, birds would sing in the trees, I would transcend to a higher plane. None of this happened. I finished sweaty and went home for a bath. A marathon was clearly not the challenge I wanted. Maybe I needed to run one faster?

I ran some more. Even with only a few marathons under my belt I signed up for a ‘Quadzilla’ event organised by Enigma Running. Four marathons in four days would surely break me and find my limit. If I somehow managed to finish that it would be worthy of a tattoo. I completed the event and earned the finishers hoodie to prove it, but once more ignored the tattooist’s chair due to Mr Imposter.

I set my sights higher and pushed towards joining the 100 Marathon Club, with a midway plan of a 50-marathon logo on one leg, to be joined by its bigger brother on the other. Both milestones were achieved, but my skin remained blemish-free. More people have climbed Everest than run 100 marathons, but the fact I had done it devalued it in my eyes. I was still basically a fat bloke running in circles until someone shouted stop.

Ultimately, I came to the realisation that any marathon completed or milestone I achieved was by default too easy. The second realisation was that I was scared of getting a tattoo. I am basically a wimp when it comes to needles.

It was becoming clear I needed something more. Chris Brasher (co-founder of the London Marathon) is quoted as saying, ‘The Marathon has become the great suburban Everest’. Everest sounds impressive but suburban . . . less so. The point is, it’s become achievable to complete. Mass participation has rocketed since the late 1980s. Getting a place at London is now less likely than a Glastonbury ticket.

This is amazing news for fitness and general health but potentially has taken some of the allure from the event. Most people know someone who has run a marathon. They won’t be completing ‘a first’ amongst their colleagues or family. Even I had proven I could run the distance multiple times.

I and many others had a yearning for something more. London Marathon has a typical finish rate of around 95%. Almost everyone that starts it will finish it. I’ve been to poorly chosen cinema screenings which a larger proportion of people have been unable to complete (The Blair Witch Project, I’m looking at you). Maybe for some the marathon is just a bit too ‘safe’, possibly even ‘easy’ to complete.

There are two options for anyone wanting a bigger challenge. Do it Faster or Do it Further.

Doing it faster is relatively easy, at least for the first few goes. The best training for a marathon is to run a marathon. You’ve just done that. Go back through the training cycle again, avoid any pitfalls and you’re almost guaranteed to come out with a better time for your second, then your third. You’ve got it dialled in now. The times are tumbling down.

Until they’re not. Marginal gains become harder to come by. Runners are limited by their budget, both financial and time. If they hire a personal trainer, buy the latest Nike shoes, attend intensive training camps, follow gruelling 100-mile training weeks they might shave a few more minutes. If that’s not sufficient it’s time to look at diet, cross training, giving up alcohol and eating anything not 100% geared towards your athletic endeavours. Well done, you’ve become a monk. You might even beast yourself so hard around the 26.2 miles that you’re rewarded with a Good For Age time and get to do it all again next year. Another year of living the joyless life of an athlete, enduring training you don’t enjoy to undertake a race distance you pray will end as soon as possible as you ‘enter the pain cave’, climb into the ‘hurt locker’ or whatever your chosen macho phrase may be. I don’t say this to take away from those who devote everything to a single shot at achieving their full potential, of crossing the line and knowing that the time on the clock is the absolute best their body could ever achieve. It’s just not for everyone. It’s not for me.

This is where option 2 comes in: Do it Further. You can run 26.2 miles. How much further can you run? Could you manage 30 miles? 50 miles? Maybe even 100 miles?

The training for this while still time-consuming is far less odious. Ignore progression runs that leave you gasping for breath or intervals at a pace that scares you to even contemplate. Just go run. If you get tired or reach a hill then walk a bit. When hungry, have some food. Actual food like a human would eat. If thirsty have a drink – whatever you want. Coffee, Coke, maybe even a beer to help soak up the cake. Then run some more.

Pace is largely irrelevant. Many train by time only, going for three or four hours of running at whatever pace comes. Then go home and do it all again tomorrow. This time take the family on bikes, run with the dog.

This training is fun. Much of the ultra will be fun. The last few miles will monumentally suck though, but it’s different from the lung-busting, eye-weeping, heart-pounding of a fast marathon: it’s a deeper level existential sense of your own fragility and limits. Alone on a mountainside while the storm beats seven shades out of your collapsing body is living. It’s refreshing like an ice-cold plunge pool. With blisters.

Tentative Steps into a Scary New World

My first foray into ultras was accidental. I’d had a clash with a booked marathon, and the race director (David, it’s always a David) let me swap to the 30-mile ultra the following day. Being only marginally further and a lapped event, there was little change in strategy or approach needed other than to run a little slower – fortunate given I had days of notice so little chance to change anything. It felt odd to run further than 26.2 miles. I knew other people did it but at the time I couldn’t see why. You still got a medal at the end, it still only counted as one event for the 100 Marathon Club that I was working towards joining, so why run further than necessary?

My legs objected as I finished the penultimate lap and queried why we would wish to carry on. It all felt a bit disconcerting, like a dream where you’re mostly aware it isn’t real but still have to slice all the birthday cake before the sun goes down or the dragon will set fire to the tree house you had when you were 12. You wake with a start, annoyed you wasted so much time slicing cake when it didn’t really matter.

I met several ‘real’ ultra runners during club events and they seemed other-worldly. I felt like a Yorkshire terrier spotting a timber wolf on the TV, knowing there’s some connection, some similarity but it’s abstract at best. These runners who smashed out 100 miles and ran through the night were intimidating to a mere marathon runner, home by lunchtime then on to mow the lawn.

Later, I took part in a few trail ‘marathons’: long point-to-point or single-circular routes where the marathon distance was more a guide and running over 27 miles was to be expected. Something about running in the country along sun-dappled trails made the distance more appealing. I enjoyed some of the races so much that I didn’t want them to ever end. Maybe the windswept runners from the club were not so dissimilar to me after all.

I was gradually finding that my reluctant adolescent participation in family walks and camping had prepared me for events I never thought I’d be stupid enough to consider.

Fastest Known Times

Much like the marathon there’s a strong blame that can be placed at Pheidippides (530–490 BC) for this. Prior to running the 25 miles from Marathon to Athens to announce the Greek victory over Persia, he also ran 150 miles from Athens to Sparta in two days to request help to fight the Persians and unknowingly set a fastest known time (FKT) for the route. Competitors today compete in an organised race known as the Spartathlon to honour him.

FKTs are a weird sub-branch of ultras: a non-race on a sometimes only loosely prescribed route or trail, with the aim to record the fastest time for that course.

The most famous FKT in the UK is the Bob Graham Round; a 42-peak fell running challenge in the Lake District. While many runners undertake numerous attempts to cover the 66 miles (106 km) and 26,900 feet (8,200 m) of ascent within the prescribed 24-hour period, itself a challenge few could hope to complete, there are others that seek to break the overall record and set a new FKT for the round. The amazingly humble UK runner Beth Pascall set a new women’s FKT of 14h34m26s in July 2020 after a summer of Covid-19 lockdown training. The previous women’s record was set by Jasmin Paris in 2016 at 15h24m. The men’s record stood with Billy Bland for 36 years at 13h53m before falling to the Salomon runner Kilian Jornet, completing it in 12h52m. His record looks set to stand for many years to come.

Where FKTs differ from races is that many have prescribed start and end points, or mid-route targets but freedom to navigate between. Any route that encompasses the 42 peaks is suitable for the Bob Graham, although over the years the most favoured route has been honed through multiple attempts.

The attraction of FKT is the freedom to tailor the attempt to your own requirements and abilities. Hate running at night? Start at sunrise. Struggle with the heat? Run in the autumn when the temperature has dropped and the course is still dry from a hot summer. More inclined to speed than technical trail? Choose a longer route with more established trails to aid your pace. In a post-Covid age, many are discovering the freedom and simplicity of organising a race for one.

As you drill down into the details you find three types of FKT depending on how unsocial you fancy being or how bored your friends and family are with your stupid obsession:

Supported – your mates follow you around in a van and remind you to eat and drink. You just do the running while they sort everything else. Like a mobile all-inclusive holiday.Self-supported – your mates have found something better to do. You carry a lot more stuff and either buy extra from shops on route or have pre-arranged stashes of supplies on route. Unsupported – even the shops don’t like you. Everything you need for the entire trip is in your rucksack, and you get water from taps and rivers.

2

Your First Ultra – Greensands Ridge Relay

Since I’m too wizened and old to fully recollect my first ultra, I’ll instead live vicariously through my good mate Eoin. He had been my physical and emotional crutch on my attempt at the Grand Union Canal Race. As a shorter-distance runner I was worried that experience could have broken him mentally if not physically. Rather than run away and find a better hobby he began to ramp up the distance and ran his first marathon at London, which surprisingly he didn’t enjoy.

Instead he leant towards the trails and decided to tackle his first ultra. Being as I owed him one, I decided to join him and make sure he didn’t die so we both entered the Greensands Ridge Relay, an annual ultra race held every June running from Leighton Buzzard to Northill.

The event is normally run as a relay, with one runner on each of the six sections varying from 3.9 to 9.1 miles, but you can run the whole thing solo as a very cheap ultra if you’re member of a club that has a team entered. It’s very low-key. No medal, no goody bag, no Expo to collect your number, no cotton T-shirt that fits no one. Instead the race finishes at a pub where you can buy a burger and a beer while pondering how to get home. It was the opposite of London Marathon and all the better for it.

The relay approach gives a great club atmosphere and there’s fierce competition at the front for fastest team. Our club, Lakeside Runners, normally enter some teams but historically those representing our training group get so hideously lost on the unmarked route that we miss cut-offs and get disqualified. It appears to be due to a combination of lack of recce runs and sheer inability to follow a simple map. Rumour has it some of the team members from previous years are still living in the woods of Millbrook, having gone feral and surviving mostly off roadkill. They’re now too far gone to capture and attempt to rehabilitate in society. Fortunately, having run the event before, I knew the route and could ensure a similar fate didn’t befall Eoin. Otherwise his wife Alice might have objected.

An interesting quirk of the solo race is there isn’t likely to be a finish line set up before 4pm, and a target to finish of 5pm, so it’s important to estimate a suitable start time to hit this window. Clearly as this was a venture into unknown territory for Eoin’s first ultra, we had little to go on so opted for the earliest start time of 10am. It’s possibly a measure of how ambivalent I can become to my own past races that I didn’t recall I had run a 100-mile race the week before I joined him until he reminded me in his recounting and I am still unsure what event it was.

My First Ultra by Eoin, Aged 33 1/3

‘You don’t like running with people, do you?’ was Mark’s observation four miles in as we navigated along the River Ouzel. I had just started my first ultra – a solo attempt of the 34-mile-long Greensands Ridge Relay across my home county of Bedfordshire. I had just run my first marathon in April – London, after a half-hearted ballot entry the previous October had terrifyingly come good. While I enjoyed the experience, being jostled by hundreds of other runners for 26 miles and having to periodically wade through Lucozade stations like a 1990s student union bar on a Friday night had somewhat dulled the joy of the event I was supposed to feel. Maybe Mark was right and I wasn’t a people person. At least when it came to running.

In the weeks after London, I hatched a plan with club colleagues to launch my trail running ultra career. It was decided that I should join Mark on the start line in Leighton Buzzard on a sunny June day. The event sounded suitably low-key, had limited numbers, and it being a trail run would guarantee that I wouldn’t get grumpy jostling for running space. Mark had completed a 100-mile race the previous weekend and agreed to accompany me as a bit of a weekend jolly.

I was on familiar territory on the first 10 miles to the first checkpoint in Woburn, which was a good thing as the OS Map that I had carefully printed the night before had disappeared – schoolboy error. Thankfully, Mark had the route plotted in his Garmin from a previous year. We jogged along merrily, following the River Ouzel before climbing up into the woods around Stockgrove Park, with Mark occasionally curbing my enthusiasm to run ahead and increase the pace, warning I would inevitably regret this. At the Woburn checkpoint, my wife Alice and a neighbour appeared with a cool bag of cold drinks and plenty of encouragement.

We continued into the grounds of Woburn Abbey, with the Duke and Duchess perhaps regretting choosing this day to host a posh outdoor event, while a bunch of bedraggled runners hogged the footpath past their grand entrance. As the sounds of the garden quartet faded, it was a gradual downhill stumble to the picturesque landmark that is the M1. It took a little while to find the crossing footbridge deep in the brambles, but we soon left the roar of the trucks for the open country that leads to Ampthill Great Park. Running through Ampthill was going to be a challenge. I knew that the rugby club was also hosting a beer festival and we could hear the music as we ran past. It was around noon and the thought of binning this whole idea and downing a nice cool beer, maybe two, was way too tempting.

The early afternoon sun was starting to beat down and I started to struggle. The paths between Ampthill and the A6 were sparse, and sharing fields with livestock meant I inevitably felt a warm squishy sensation engulfing my foot, accompanied by the aroma of cow dung which remained for the next three miles. Arriving at the next checkpoint in a lay-by by the A6, Alice cheerfully appeared bearing ice lollies and beer. Mark has frequently waxed lyrical about the restorative powers of Calippo on runs and although I hate to admit this – he is right. However, being sensible, I declined the beer chaser that Mark also advocates, citing fear of the unknown.

Tiredness really began to settle in as I passed the 26-mile mark and my world became a walk-run drudge as Mark had predicted. The stream we were running along seemed to go on for ever. Seeing how I was fairing, Mark offered me an infamous Caffeine Bullet energy sweet. The jury are out on these – they either perk you up to achieve superhuman things, or they allegedly have you running for the nearest bush in ten minutes. Weighing my options, I declined.

Struggling up the hill, we made it to the next and final checkpoint where the relay teams had now amassed. I got a much-needed boost of encouragement from the final runners in the two teams MK Lakeside Runners had also entered.

The realisation set in that the finish was now just under 5 miles away and, combined with the cooling evening temperature, I suddenly found some energy. I don’t remember too much of this part, other than a very long gravel track, which annoyingly filled my shoes with stones. In my pre-event nervousness, keen to follow the old mantra of ‘do not use anything you haven’t tried before’, I had used my old trail shoes for the event. These included optional ‘air conditioning’ vents which had grown with time – my second error that was also to haunt me.

Suddenly the village of Northill appeared and the 30mph speed limit sign on the road sparked a sprint – why, I don’t know, it wasn’t really a race at this point. Just as suddenly, a camp table appeared, and I had finished. I hobbled to the side to hug my family and stand there in surprise that I had managed it.

Reflecting on the event some weeks later as I tended to my three purple toenails, victims of the worn-out trainers, my first ultra was definitely the highlight of my running career so far. I felt an immense sense of achievement, far greater than I had at the London Marathon, of completing the distance and running across the county I live in.

Trail running gives you space, beauty and variety that the road lacks and helps the miles pass without noticing. As it is more about the distance, not having to focus on pace and a Personal Best (PB) is liberating. Trail running now makes up more of my running, and after the impact of Covid-19 over spring and summer 2020, I am so glad to have discovered it as a way of getting out and away from it all.

Towards the final few miles of the race, Eoin needed a little pep talk to keep focused and push on. I thought it might have been the first of many. It wasn’t: he buckled down and pushed on at a pace I was worried I wouldn’t be able to keep up with. I was probably even more relieved to finish than he was. He crossed the line in 6h38m looking annoying fresh and chirpy, to be greeted by his family. His smile was infectious, and it was clear that while he had found London disappointing, this experience had been anything but. We hastened to the pub for rehydration before cheering in the remaining solo runners and teams.

Eoin is still running regularly and my covert aim is to get him on the start line of a 50-miler soon. Don’t tell Alice.

Ultra Simplicity

I’ve been told by several experienced runners the two golden rules of ultras. If you take nothing else away from this book but these two rules then you will hopefully avoid some of the hardships that occur when these are ignored:

Rule 1 – Look after your feet

Rule 2 – Look after your stomach

That’s it. If you can keep the food and fluids coming in and your feet in useable condition you WILL finish. You may not be fast, but a constant forward motion will see you well and often pass many other runners who neglected these two areas. Manage these two and you can keep going for ever. Decide to ignore that blister coming up on your heel and you might end your attempt in an aid tent after hobbling the last few miles, cold and unable to continue.

If you do struggle with food then ginger is a great natural stomach settler. I wouldn’t recommend carrying a full ginger root with you, but a couple of ginger nut biscuits would go down a treat. Nobody with biscuits is ever sad, after all.

What happens if you ignore these rules? It’s not pretty.

Also not pretty is my mate Maff. A strong and capable runner, with a good number of marathons under his belt, he was led astray by Jen, Matt and Ellie, and strong-armed into running his first ultra at the 35-mile Shires & Spires. It’s a scenic, undulating course around the Northampton countryside and should be well within the abilities of a seasoned runner. I was running the event but nursing a dodgy knee so elected to let them head off after a fast-paced first 8 miles. The pace seemed excessive for a 35-mile race and I wondered if I might see Maff again. I hoped I wouldn’t.

After stopping for a beer and a couple of ice lollies in a shop just after marathon distance, I had resigned myself to running it in on my own. The sun was shining, the beer was cold and the first lolly was perfect. I’m enjoying a long run on a beautiful course, and attending to the basics. If I could just borrow someone’s working knee I’d be in heaven.

Up ahead was a group of runners with one lying on the floor. Someone had overcooked it. As we got closer I was torn between disappointment and relief to see it was my mates. Maff was prostrate on the floor admiring the sky while the rest assembled around him. From the body language it was evident that there wasn’t an urgent medical issue. Their stance showed increasing annoyance and frustration rather than a panicked need to learn CPR via a YouTube video or call in mountain rescue.

Evidently Maff decided to get the full ultra experience on his first outing and subjected all to a full-on ultra tantrum due to lack of fuelling and an ambitious pace. If only a wise and experienced ultra runner had told them sub 8s was too fast. If only anybody listened to me. Schadenfreude is a wonderful thing.

I know the trough of ultra despair well and he was deep in it. In his best impersonation of a made-for-TV war movie he implored us to, ‘Go on without me, I’m done for, save yourselves, I don’t want to be a burden’. Evidently I’d missed the previous game of ‘poke food in his mouth and hope he doesn’t spit it out at you’, which tested their patience.

I was a little annoyed at the rest of the team. Not for failing to look after him, but if they’d only rolled him into a ditch and kept going I could have run past his contorting body in complete ignorance. Instead I needed to help and gave up my spare lolly.

Fate obviously wanted him to finish, though. His phone locked out so he couldn’t even ring anyone for a lift. He had to finish. Jen and Matt picked him up as I clearly wasn’t going to. They broke him after all.

We set off on a slow walk. Every runner that passed asked us if we needed assistance. We have all been there. Been too stupid to eat and drink. Something a toddler can manage with a sippy cup. Some offered salt tablets or water but none had the can of ‘get over yourself, you big idiot’ that we really needed. Gradually Jen coaxed him into a run with a lot of coercion. Ultra running is great, isn’t it? Like normal running but more painful.

At a pub we administered half a Guinness which completed the restoration, and he set off at a pace that I was unsure I could match. We passed clubmate Jon who was surprised we’d stopped mid-race for a pint. It’s like he’s never met me before.

Maff made a full recovery and finished looking strong if not a little annoyed with himself. The simple act of forgetting the basics and going off at marathon pace turned his first ultra into a painful, embarrassing performance. A few weeks later he made amends and set a 3h13m marathon PB in a horrendous storm, underlining his strength as a runner. Even the best Formula One car needs a little fuel.

Bewl Water Ultra – 37.5 Miles

Bewl Water was my own first attempt at a biggish ultra, although compared to the 100+ mile events it seemed barely worth the title. I’d been tempted to drop to the marathon distance in the preceding weeks but, following the advice of more experienced runners, I figured I might as well have a go. Like Maff, I am easily led astray it seems.

My hopes of a fair club turnout for the event (with options of half, full and ultra) were dashed by a clubmate’s stag do taking place the same day. There was more interest in rum than running. This left just one clubmate, James, and I to do the early morning trek to Kent’s Bewl Reservoir.

We arrived just in time for me to register for the 8:30am ultra and join the other runners shivering in the morning chill. Doubting that I’d worn enough, I looked around at the other runners’ clothing, which varied from tiny vests to full long-distance kit. I was wearing a CamelBak rucksack to hold snacks and fluids, and wearing a buff, the tubular scarf beloved of ultra runners. I’d read these were essential for distance running but wasn’t really sure why. I placed it around my ears to catch them should they fall off from the cold.

After a countdown we set off along the gravel path, rising to the lake. A previous winner had finished in 5h48m so I had hopes of placing highly. Yep, my first decent length ultra and I was already thinking of finishing times.

It’s not arrogance if you have the skills and experience to back up your aims – but I had neither, just delusions which were dashed when two runners stormed into the distance. I was in a chase group of four to five, running around a 7:30min/mile pace; marathon pace for me and far too quick to sustain. The lead pair dropped us without really trying.

We swapped places in our little group a few times until, after four miles, I decided to drop closer to my intended pace of around 8:45min/mile. By this time I had warmed up and my buff had moved from ear protection to being worn around the wrist so I looked like a sweaty, low-rent freedom fighter.

The course mostly follows an unmade footpath around the lake, but also veers along small roads and past local houses. This arrived as relief from the rutted, tree-root-filled path until we faced the steep climbs of the country lanes – runnable for those doing the half, and not too much of a challenge for the full marathon runners, but for anyone foolish enough to attempt the full three laps they were daunting. I cope poorly with hills at the best of times, Milton Keynes not being known for its mountain ranges.

I elected to power-walk and save my legs. This allowed a couple of runners to catch me, including one lady wearing so little clothing my goosebumps came out in sympathy.

Ten miles into the race I was around 9th place. Runners had spread out and the race became quite lonely for the first lap. Despite excellent route marking by Hermes Running, there were a couple of points where I started to doubt myself and was relieved when I saw marker tape ahead, confirming I hadn’t misplaced myself in the countryside. I’d seldom needed to navigate a race before, and this was clearly evidence that I was not ideally suited to such tasks.

At 11 miles in, I couldn’t help but think that, although I’d already run a fair distance, I still had over a marathon to go. A whole marathon. What sort of idiot runs a double-digit warm-up to a marathon?

On finishing the first lap around 1h40m, the marshals let me know I was in 8th place, which sounded better than the 9th I’d thought I was in, but made me wonder whether someone had dropped out already.

I knew the half marathon runners, including James, would have a ten-minute head start as I began the middle lap. With luck I might catch up with some of them. This proved to be the case and was a real boost for my enthusiasm. Most of those I caught not only moved to one side to allow me to pass, but also cheered me on. Thinking back to my first few halves, I can fully appreciate how inexplicable the choice to do nearly three times the distance would be to less experienced runners. I tried not to ask myself exactly why I was doing this and what made me think I could complete it. The other runners’ encouragement really helped me keep going. Eventually I passed some of the slower marathon runners who’d started an hour after me and that, too, helped mentally. Maybe I could do this after all?

I lost a position to a friendly runner who caught me in the woods. He’d done a practice lap of the course on a previous weekend, and I didn’t feel too badly about losing to someone who’d clearly put extra effort in. Fortunately, a few miles later I caught another runner and regained 8th place.

The second lap’s pace was very controlled. I walked the hills, took on water whenever I could and enjoyed the most relaxed long run I’d ever done. Skipping through the fields eating handfuls of chocolate brownie or flapjack, I was beginning to see the appeal of ultra running. Coming to the end of the second lap I realised the water bladder in my CamelBak rucksack was empty of water and, with only one lap to go, elected to drop it by the finish line and run with just a hand bottle.

The aid station was congested with runners, but I noticed I was next to the female ultra runner who had passed me a lap earlier. I’d slowed a lot in the intervening 14 miles but she’d evidently fared worse. We chatted briefly on the climb to the reservoir before I pushed on, slipping up to 7th.