Thames Path 50 Mile

I decided to rest the three weeks left in December after the Last Desert, drank a lot, got ill and started again at the beginning of January. I started winding it back up and ran the Thames Path 50 to London on the 17th Jan. Its a good training event for anything longer as its flat. This year I wanted to run slowly as there were only 3 weeks until the 100. The start of the race is in a disused field next to a car park in Reading. This year I got to the start 5 minutes before the 'gun' in freezing torrential rain and found all the runners huddled in a flock under a red bull hoarding which had seen better days. Someone came over and asked if I had a light and a space blanket so I said yes and he told me to go over to join the others. 50% of competitors hadn't bothered to show, exactly the same as last year when the Thames burst its banks and I had to actually swim a 20 yard section with my bag over my head because the water was so deep, so something like 150 of us went off together.I honestly tried to pace myself as until now I hadn't done much training at all but I couldn't do it and I finished the first 30 miles in a little over 4 hours. Go Hard or Go Home was clearly the choice and I was determined to run every step so i just grit my teeth, tried not to think about the recovery time before the 100 and stuck it. I finished in 7:49 stood at the finish line and turned around, thinking to myself could you now run back? The answer was NO WAY and it then dawned on me that actually I was going to have to FORCE myself to pace Rocky Raccoon otherwise I was going to really screw it up.