I came into this race in pretty good form. Monday I ran a hard 10 miles and Tuesday I head down the track for 6pm and turned out 11 miles in 1hr13, working on sub 3hr marathon pace for Washington in March. Wednesday 5km at pace and some hills in the gym plus 8 miles of bike, Thursday 16 miles of bike, Friday rest.
Saturday morning I woke up and felt lethargic, I didn't really have the urgency to race but I knew Id be fine once I got going. We started down at Streatham Common and there was a good crowd of people. Patrick Bauer, the race director for the MdS had been invited by Rory Coleman the RD here and he stood on top of a car at the start and gave us a typical send off speech ala MdS and it actually made me feel a bit sick inside, as it reminded me of each morning in the desert in Morocco 4 years ago. It struck me only half an hour later that actually if it wasn't specifically for Patrick I wouldn't be where I am now ie. it was his event that first captured our imagination 5 years ago and set me on this path to ultra running.
The atmosphere was pretty good at this race. I had a look at my map and it seemed relatively straight forward but I did have concerns about drifting off course again. Id set my Virtual Pace guide on my Garmin watch for 8 minute mile pace figuring that I could push a bit at the end and come in under 4 hours total. We kicked off, ran down the hill to the A23 and instantly took the wrong turn left across the way to Tooting. It was clear that most people were hoping not to have to look at the map all day and realised within 400 yds that we were all in trouble.
I went from being at the front to being in the middle of the pack and then having to go around people to get back into clearer air. I ran the first 10km hard, almost as if it were a road race as it was pavement and tarmac to that point. I came through 10km in 41 minutes, stopping to go wrong once. I threw in a 5 25 mile and a 5 49 mile on the downhill sections so was moving pretty close to the limit without quite stepping over it. Through checkpoint 1 I felt I was still in touch with the guys at the front, we cruised along following the capital ring signs and not worrying too much about getting lost whilst the sign posting was so good. I kept a good pace until CP2 here but went totally wrong coming into it and went through the wrong exit out of Richmond Park, down Star and Garter Hill before having to come back up again. I think I lost somewhere between 10 and 15 minutes and once Id backtracked with another young guy back to the last point on the route we'd been correct for sure, we saw the runners off in the distance and went across to rejoin the route. I was pissed off, I wanted to run well all day and get somewhere near the front and Id pretty much thrown it away right there. Instead of being through 13 miles in 1 25 I went through in 1 40 and was suddenly in and amongst a bunch of guys wearing packs and clearly doing the event as a training exercise for bigger things. I spent the next 10km overtaking people probably passing between 20 and 30 over the course of 6 miles. At CP3 I was starting to claw some time back but not enough to make the difference. 30km to 40km I ran a very strong leg. At CP3 I was in roughly 25th position and by CP4 id just come through a group of people who were moving well together, around 8 of them all in a bunch. At CP4 I was back in the top 15 and kept on pushing up and over Harrow Hill and down into the grounds of Harrow School. I overtook 5 guys coming into the park here and promptly went wrong again. By the time we were back on course Id had enough of racing I figured there was no point as id blown it by getting badly lost twice. In the end I ran with a group of about 6 who were all quite strong, including a guy called Alex entered for UTMB in the summer so I just spent the last 7km cruising and enjoying chatting for the first time all race. As we came to the last 3 km there were about 10 of us all running together, a short steep climb split us open again and it did strike me to blow up and over the hill as I still had plenty in my legs but I just took my time, jogged it but took my time with Alex again. we cruised down the other side and into Wembley where we had a crappy run down the high street and past the stadium into the plaza hotel, nipping round a guy just at the end.
My GPS registered 32.79 miles, the guy in front had 31.6 miles so I knew Id gone badly awry compared with others. 4 hours 24 as a finishing time was almost half an hour slower than id anticpated and actually 3 47 won it with 4 hours dead good enough for second. If id stayed on course throughout i would have been at around 4 05 I think so a real shame that it all went a but wrong. Ran hard enough to really feel whacked at the end. Finished in 14th. 200 starters.
