Last weekend I 'enjoyed' (I say that very loosely) my first foray into the world of ultra running. 100miles along the South Downs Way isn’t everyone’s cup of tea for sure. But would it be mine? I finished the votwo South Downs Challenge and it was, well, bloody hard!I’ve been running my entire life and can even remember that first competitive race at my local running (cinder!) track some 30 years ago. It was an inter schools 100m. I tripped and fell finishing grazed, crying and last. Despite that first unsettling experience running has continued to be part of my life as I’ve ran my way through a track racing, road racing, marathon, cross country, trail and fell, duathlon, and triathlon career. In recent years I’ve become more aware of the ultra running community and fellow runners have been banging on about how great an ultra race is to participate in and badgering me to have a crack at one.
I was regretting this decision some 70miles into the event when my blisters were killing me and my left foot was swollen due to the internal bleed from a torn anterior tibialis muscle.
The South Downs Way starts in Winchester and finishes in Eastbourne. There are 13600 feet of ascent and descent along the trail that follows the old routes and droveways along the chalk escarpment and ridges of the South Downs. Flat it wasn’t. Long, undulating and hard it was.
Day 1- 36miles : Winchester to Cocking. 36miles. Getting into it and getting lost.
I’d made my mind up that my strategy for the event was going to be based on completion and certainly no heroics on day 1. I needed to keep that firmly in my mind as the majority of the field sped off down the trail. My thinking was go to slower than I thought I needed to, to take my time, to ensure I kept adequately hydrated and fuelled and to finish the first day not totally in bits and confident I could complete Days 2 and 3. I’d read that a run:walk strategy was best for ultra’s and opted for the run 30mins-walk 3 to 4 mins and walk all the up hills (and any steep downhills) as a start point plan. This was harder to stick to than I thought as progress was slow and as soon as I’d caught people up, I stopped and let them go again. This didn’t sit comfortably with my former competitive racing brain but I knew I had to be disciplined and hold back for long term survival.
100miles is a long way!
Having never run further than a marathon I knew that once the 26.2 miles point was reached I’d be into the unknown. On leaving the final check point at Hartling Down car park some 26.8miles in I could feel the onset of friction on the outside of both of my little toes and the start of blisters. So early in the run? With 70miles to go this could be a significant problem. I actually found the final 4miles of the first day very tough. This was compounded by a loss of concentration at around mile 31 and a wrong turn taking us down a steep hillside into Treyford and off course.
I’d decided today to run in different shoes to change the pressure points and hopefully reduce the prospect of even bigger blisters in the same places. At least more blisters was better than bigger blisters! After being bussed back to the finish point at the Cocking car park I questioned for the first time (but certainly not the last) my own sanity for wanting to complete such a hard event. Who
would choose to do this? It really hurts.
Day 2- 34miles : Cocking to Pyecombe. :
As day 2 progressed I found that once the pain subsided from the blisters (the foot just goes numb after a while!) that I was able to settle into a solid rhythm. It was great to be running with a few guys (Phil, Pete and Darryl) and together we were helping each other along the trail. That was one of the great overriding experiences across the 3 days. That despite spending a considerable amount of time in your own headspace, sometimes alone, you always knew that there were others out there on the trail experiencing the same feelings, driving themselves forwards, silently through the pain.
This entire journey was really one of self preservation. It was about dealing with the waves of pain that frequently swept over my body, getting my head down and keeping going. Sometimes the pain would be in my knee, my blisters, my shoulders from my backpack, my old Achilles injury, my new foot injury. As soon the pain disappeared in one area it reappeared in another. But it never really hurt, it wasn’t ‘deep pain’, it was all superficial, just my body telling me it was probably a good idea to stop before things got any worse. But stopping wasn’t the answer. That wouldn’t get me to Beachy Head. Stopping was never an option. So, the pain was pushed out and the running pushed on.
As we approached The Beeding Hill checkpoint at mile 25.8 I’d noticed the pain on the top of my left foot had got significantly worse. It was actually now hurting to foot strike and I was unable to dorsiflex at all. This made running quite difficult and changed my natural gait. Yet again, for the second day in a row we mistook a bridleway sign for a SDW ‘acorn’ and threw in a curve ball wrong turn at between the final checkpoint and the finish. This isn’t good for the already battered spirit. Shorter than yesterday’s mistake (and flatter) we quickly retraced our steps and finished the final few miles to Pyecombe windmill car park at a steady clip in a group of 4.
Day 3 – 30miles. Pyecombe to Beachy Head. The final push.
Starting the 3rd day was somewhat strange. I’ve trained hard before and pushed both training and racing to the edge, but this was different. It was a relentless application of effort. Like a pain valve being slowly released over a long time. Normally in hard training this is the time at which I’d back off and take an easy day but this clearly wasn’t an option. The test today was all about keeping going and making the finish. The shoe swap had helped with the blisters but made the muscle pain around my left foot and ankle much, much worse. This final day from Pyecombe to Beachy Head was really going to hurt. The first check point some 7 miles in passed quite quickly. The second checkpoint was a further 10miles on and because we were on the final day I think it was easier to push out pain and carry on.
The end was in sight (relatively of course) and we had ‘only’ 14miles to Beach Head. The next 6 miles to Windover Hill car park were probably physically the toughest of the 3 days. My left foot was now hurting considerably each time it hit the ground and the swelling had increased. I knew that the pain wasn’t in a hurry to go so it was just a case of head down and keep going. For the next 12 miles I shuffled in silence along the trail. Even being overtaken on a steep downhill by an elderly couple walking to catch a bus at one point! It struck me that for much of my time on the South Downs Way I hadn’t actually managed to ‘enjoy’ the trail. Too much time was spent with my head down focusing on the path ahead. We’d run on chalk, clay, grass, mud, shingle, concrete, tarmac and flint and spotting the finest, smoothest trail routes had become something of an obsession.
Finally, after nearly 6hrs running (and 21 in total) we saw the welcome wooden post of our entire journey. Beachy Head 2miles. We kicked in a searing final 2miles (probably about 9min miling!) and closed in on the votwo crew welcoming finish line.
South Downs Way Challenge. DONE. Do I have plans to do another one? No way!
