Well pretty much everything is in place now for our inaugural races on the 13th/ 14th August.
This morning I opened up the online registration back end and saw that we had finally reached our limit of 100 x 50 milers, that being on top of the 100 x runners for the marathon which filled a few weeks ago and the 55 x 100 mile runners we have. The registrations opened in November and really only took off in February but we have had an amazing amount of support thus far.
I have found that the logistics and time spent in organisation of an event like this are beyond extensive. Whilst a lot of it is enjoyable there is a vast amount of process with it too.
It remains to be seen if anything is missing come race day but the basics behind this event and the major reasons why I decided to put this and the other Centurion races together are stronger than ever and we will deliver on them.
I went out in the week on the mountain bike with our chief course marker and was shocked at how slow our progress was. It would have been far quicker to run, due to the numerous albeit short sections of stairs and steep up and downs on slippery clay trails that make the 50/ 100 mile races the tricky proposition that they are. The elevation changes in terms of other 100s that are out there, are relatively modest at 5500ft/ 10400 ft and there are plenty of very runnable soft and well groomed trail, but the core of the race, the section from Box Hill to Reigate Hill (and vice versa) is by no means easy.
In trying to predict the winning times of both events I have drifted from one extreme to the other, but I am sure of one thing, that our last 50 mile and 100 mile finishers will need every minute of the 15/ 32 hours we have put aside for them.
Very exicted for race day and to finally get this thing off of the ground.
Saturday, 23 July 2011
Tuesday, 19 July 2011
Vermont 100 Race Report
Two warnings on this blog report, graphic description of poorly performing bodily functions and a pretty downbeat spin on things. It won't last, don't worry....
The second race in the Grand Slam did not pan out as I had hoped. As regular readers of this blog well know, I have been injured for most of the year with two stress fractures and almost no run training to speak of in the run up to Western States which I managed to get through on cycling training on a stationary bike, mental stubborness and good luck that my shin held up.
When I returned I thought long and hard about going to Vermont to run. Between the two races I managed a total of 3 miles, had a lot of trouble sleeping and was mentally and physically fatigued as a result of pushing an out of shape body through 100 hot mountain miles in 28 hours. But to not have tried would have been a sin. I was thankful I got through WS but knew if I could knock off Vermont, the 'easiest' 100 in the Slam, then I would have enough time to recover better for Leadville in August.
We left it late to fly out and for the third time in succession, BA had oversold the flight and made us wait until an hour before the plane was due to leave before confirming we had a seat! In the end we landed in Boston around 8pm (1am UK time) and drove the 2 hours out to White River Junction. Thursday night we got about 5 hrs of sleep and then hit registration at Silver Hill Meadow, hidden in the green hills and rolling dirt roads of Vermont alongside around 300 other runners and some horses who were also running the race (not joking). Below is a picture of two of the 100 mile horses wearing blinkers, except the blinkers are actually total headwrap blindfolds? This is the best thing that I have ever seen at an ultra
At registration there was a weigh in and I came in 4 lbs lighter than WS starting weight. It kind of told me what I already knew, that I wasn't over the race 3 weeks prior but I felt ok. We got back to the hotel around 7pm that evening and got off to sleep around 9 but with a 2am start, again, left short of sleep for the 30 minute drive to race HQ. I felt awful in the car before the race start and maybe should have read it as a sign of things to come but once you get started at these things all the previous issues tend to fade away.
We started at 4am and ran down some dirt roads and up some more. I have no idea why now, but I had assumed vermont was a trail race. Well don't be fooled, almost the entire thing is on roads and that was a shock to me. The going was very straight forward and the hills were short and not too steep which made hiking them at a good pace easy to do. My quads felt good on the downs too so I began to feel quietly confident that I could have a good day. Runners came and went with the ebb and flow of the early aid stations as usual and it was great catching up with other Grand Slammers and new runners alike. I got to a little stake in the trail at 26.2 miles in around 5 hours in great shape and about 5 minutes later smashed head first into a brick wall of fatigue. It is hard to put my finger on what caused it, i had been eating and drinking regularly but all of a sudden I just started projectile puking everything that went in - food and water. I knew from experience that it would likely pass so I pushed on a little slower with plenty of time to play with already and tried to bring my stomach back. The heat kicked up a bit here and on some of the exposed sections it was pretty hot and humid, I'm guessing somewhere around 85 degrees as reported. Each aid station started to feel like it was taking an eternity to get to and I was sick so many times that I stopped bothering to lean over and just hurled the bile up as i walked along. At this point my pee also started to dip from clear to dark brown/ coffee coloured and it was extremely painful to pass. The puking distressed a few runners and a couple admitted they were concerned for me that when asking how I was doing I said I felt totally out of it. I started to get a ringing sensation in my head and lost track of the mileage as I continued to hurl everything for the next 5 hours straight.
I stumbled in to Camp 10 Bear at mile 47.2 and weighed in trying to look like I wasn't in trouble. I was down 6lbs there, so now 10 lbs off of my WS weight and 14 lbs off of my WS weight at the equivalent point in the race but Im not sure about the accuracy of those scales as other people reported even more ridiculous numbers. I ushered myself through to the grass behind the aid station and a friend of mine from Virginia who had been running with me for much of the day at WS was volunteering and tried to help bring my core temperature down. It had got to the point where I was overheating so much I had started to shiver and it took an hour and a half of ice on my head and neck and a lot of fluid to get back on track. I really didn't see how I could continue but I knew that I was at a point where if I didn't push it all the way I would regret it big time. I ambled out of the aid station and crested the small hill before puking everything back up in front of a car full of people. I turned back to start walking back in to the aid and started laughing at how bad things had got. I spun on my heels and literally grit my teeth and carried on walking in the right direction. It took everything i had not to just pull it there and then. I think I knew at that point i was past the point of no return but I am not one to give up without a fight. At some point in the next stretch I got lost for over 40 minutes in some woods which did nothing to help me focus but with no food and water reaching my system I was on a big and unstoppable downhill spiral.
At about 52 miles I passed out cold and woke up with my face in some gravel in the road. I had just conked out on the move and woke up when i hit the floor so got back up steadied myself and walked on to the next aid station. I had a tiny revival here like my adrenaline had got going and I actually started running pretty fast but that didn't last and after running down the hill with another grand slammer, I pulled in to mile 57 aid station and sat with the medic. I could feel the blood had run out of my face and they looked genuinely concerned for my health. He told me I could get an IV but that he would have to take me to hospital as part of race rules. Had he been able to give me an IV there and not done that, I would have been ok and Im pretty sure I could have finished. Without it and with literally nothing in my stomach for the past 8 hrs I was totally and utterly done, there was nothing left in the tank. To say I had no energy and nothing on which to continue would be an understatement. It was an effort to stay awake. I hadn't peed in as long as i could remember and my kidneys were aching in my back. Passing out was the final straw really, I think it was at that point that I realised I was actually putting myself at risk of being in serious trouble between aid stations. Life threatening? Probably not. Potentially causing long term damage? Maybe but if the answer there is maybe you need to start asking serious questions as to whether continuing on is really that smart.
I have to analyse my DNF here as mentally it is one of the hardest things to deal with and sometimes it can be hard to look yourself in the mirror if you feel you could have gone even one more step.
Sometimes you have a bad day on the trails, sometimes you can turn a bad day around and go from feeling like you can't go on, to running 8 minute miles within the space of thirty minutes. And some days you just can't turn it around at all. Saturday was one of those days for me. For 9 hours I tried to get food and water to stay down and to get my core temperature somewhere approaching normal but to no avail. Even after an hour and a half at the aid station Camp 10 Bear, I still managed to throw everything I had consumed up less than 400 yards up the road.
A lot of people state that they have either never DNF'd or would do so only on a stretcher. The reality is at some point in their career every regular ultra runner will DNF a race. Find an ultra runner who has done 50 races or more and not DNF'd and you have found one lucky individual. It happens. There is a difference between being in pain for 10s of hours on end and actually being concerned that you are causing yourself pretty serious internal damage. In that situation your body doesn't hold back and if faced with the physical signs ie. dark brown pee, painful kidneys and failing consciousness, the ability to push through the usual pain of an ultra washes away.
Every race is different and over 100 miles a lot can go wrong and it takes kahunas to line up at the startline. There is, however, always another race. Not finishing a race because it is too hard and you are tired and the distance is too much is one thing but I know that I didn't do that here. If I did ever do that I think I would give up trying.
So being at home now without a finish sucks but it's just one more race in so many past and future. VT100 will be there in the future and if I turn up fit and rested Im pretty sure I could do alright on that course.
My hope as a Race Director is that if runners get themselves into a similar situation to mine at VT, at our Centurion races in the future, that they make similar calls to the one I made before they get into real trouble. There is a line between gruelling extreme periods of self doubt and muscle pain which are par for the course in an ultra, and signs that your body is warning you that things have gone too far.
Doesn't mean it doesn't still suck though!!!!
So the Slam is over. By not finishing Vermont I lost my conditional place at Wasatch which just leaves Leadville. 'Just' Leadville. That doesn't sound right....!!!! Having been injured or recovering from February 5th to this point, I need a break to get fit and healthy again. Whilst never achieving elite status, I have always been able to compete at races and usually finish in the top 10%. I have lost that this past year as my body has rebelled and my fitness nosedived. I want to get back to training hard and enjoying my running again and build it back up slowly before getting back in to longer harder stuff next year.
Leadville is a major race for me, it will be a slogfest because once again i'll have done little between races and with no running base to build on but I am going to give it 100% and hope to return home with the haul of WS100 and LT100 double in one summer which won't be too bad given the year behind me.
Thanks to those medics who sat with me for hours after the race feeding me fluids. My pee finally returned to normal colour on the plane home, over 48 hours after the race. For those interested in a little further reading from a much more experienced runner about why urine turns brown and what it can mean, try this from AJW. It is food for thought at future races and I would be lying if I said that having had it plus kidney pain at the past two races I didn't have concerns for future 100s. Interesting that the docs advise harder training to prevent muscle damage. Something I have been sorely lacking in the run up to this summer and would go part way to explaining why I am having such issues for the first time....
Finally congratulations to all the Slammers still going. There are some sersiously tough athletes out there doing it one race at a time, particularly Sniper (David Snipes) who is running 100 at Angeles Crest this coming weekend just 7 days after VT. Congratulations also to Pete Goldring who travelled with me for this one and who finished in an impressive 20 hours 50. Another great effort at only his second 100.
The second race in the Grand Slam did not pan out as I had hoped. As regular readers of this blog well know, I have been injured for most of the year with two stress fractures and almost no run training to speak of in the run up to Western States which I managed to get through on cycling training on a stationary bike, mental stubborness and good luck that my shin held up.
When I returned I thought long and hard about going to Vermont to run. Between the two races I managed a total of 3 miles, had a lot of trouble sleeping and was mentally and physically fatigued as a result of pushing an out of shape body through 100 hot mountain miles in 28 hours. But to not have tried would have been a sin. I was thankful I got through WS but knew if I could knock off Vermont, the 'easiest' 100 in the Slam, then I would have enough time to recover better for Leadville in August.
We left it late to fly out and for the third time in succession, BA had oversold the flight and made us wait until an hour before the plane was due to leave before confirming we had a seat! In the end we landed in Boston around 8pm (1am UK time) and drove the 2 hours out to White River Junction. Thursday night we got about 5 hrs of sleep and then hit registration at Silver Hill Meadow, hidden in the green hills and rolling dirt roads of Vermont alongside around 300 other runners and some horses who were also running the race (not joking). Below is a picture of two of the 100 mile horses wearing blinkers, except the blinkers are actually total headwrap blindfolds? This is the best thing that I have ever seen at an ultra
At registration there was a weigh in and I came in 4 lbs lighter than WS starting weight. It kind of told me what I already knew, that I wasn't over the race 3 weeks prior but I felt ok. We got back to the hotel around 7pm that evening and got off to sleep around 9 but with a 2am start, again, left short of sleep for the 30 minute drive to race HQ. I felt awful in the car before the race start and maybe should have read it as a sign of things to come but once you get started at these things all the previous issues tend to fade away.
We started at 4am and ran down some dirt roads and up some more. I have no idea why now, but I had assumed vermont was a trail race. Well don't be fooled, almost the entire thing is on roads and that was a shock to me. The going was very straight forward and the hills were short and not too steep which made hiking them at a good pace easy to do. My quads felt good on the downs too so I began to feel quietly confident that I could have a good day. Runners came and went with the ebb and flow of the early aid stations as usual and it was great catching up with other Grand Slammers and new runners alike. I got to a little stake in the trail at 26.2 miles in around 5 hours in great shape and about 5 minutes later smashed head first into a brick wall of fatigue. It is hard to put my finger on what caused it, i had been eating and drinking regularly but all of a sudden I just started projectile puking everything that went in - food and water. I knew from experience that it would likely pass so I pushed on a little slower with plenty of time to play with already and tried to bring my stomach back. The heat kicked up a bit here and on some of the exposed sections it was pretty hot and humid, I'm guessing somewhere around 85 degrees as reported. Each aid station started to feel like it was taking an eternity to get to and I was sick so many times that I stopped bothering to lean over and just hurled the bile up as i walked along. At this point my pee also started to dip from clear to dark brown/ coffee coloured and it was extremely painful to pass. The puking distressed a few runners and a couple admitted they were concerned for me that when asking how I was doing I said I felt totally out of it. I started to get a ringing sensation in my head and lost track of the mileage as I continued to hurl everything for the next 5 hours straight.
I stumbled in to Camp 10 Bear at mile 47.2 and weighed in trying to look like I wasn't in trouble. I was down 6lbs there, so now 10 lbs off of my WS weight and 14 lbs off of my WS weight at the equivalent point in the race but Im not sure about the accuracy of those scales as other people reported even more ridiculous numbers. I ushered myself through to the grass behind the aid station and a friend of mine from Virginia who had been running with me for much of the day at WS was volunteering and tried to help bring my core temperature down. It had got to the point where I was overheating so much I had started to shiver and it took an hour and a half of ice on my head and neck and a lot of fluid to get back on track. I really didn't see how I could continue but I knew that I was at a point where if I didn't push it all the way I would regret it big time. I ambled out of the aid station and crested the small hill before puking everything back up in front of a car full of people. I turned back to start walking back in to the aid and started laughing at how bad things had got. I spun on my heels and literally grit my teeth and carried on walking in the right direction. It took everything i had not to just pull it there and then. I think I knew at that point i was past the point of no return but I am not one to give up without a fight. At some point in the next stretch I got lost for over 40 minutes in some woods which did nothing to help me focus but with no food and water reaching my system I was on a big and unstoppable downhill spiral.
At about 52 miles I passed out cold and woke up with my face in some gravel in the road. I had just conked out on the move and woke up when i hit the floor so got back up steadied myself and walked on to the next aid station. I had a tiny revival here like my adrenaline had got going and I actually started running pretty fast but that didn't last and after running down the hill with another grand slammer, I pulled in to mile 57 aid station and sat with the medic. I could feel the blood had run out of my face and they looked genuinely concerned for my health. He told me I could get an IV but that he would have to take me to hospital as part of race rules. Had he been able to give me an IV there and not done that, I would have been ok and Im pretty sure I could have finished. Without it and with literally nothing in my stomach for the past 8 hrs I was totally and utterly done, there was nothing left in the tank. To say I had no energy and nothing on which to continue would be an understatement. It was an effort to stay awake. I hadn't peed in as long as i could remember and my kidneys were aching in my back. Passing out was the final straw really, I think it was at that point that I realised I was actually putting myself at risk of being in serious trouble between aid stations. Life threatening? Probably not. Potentially causing long term damage? Maybe but if the answer there is maybe you need to start asking serious questions as to whether continuing on is really that smart.
I have to analyse my DNF here as mentally it is one of the hardest things to deal with and sometimes it can be hard to look yourself in the mirror if you feel you could have gone even one more step.
Sometimes you have a bad day on the trails, sometimes you can turn a bad day around and go from feeling like you can't go on, to running 8 minute miles within the space of thirty minutes. And some days you just can't turn it around at all. Saturday was one of those days for me. For 9 hours I tried to get food and water to stay down and to get my core temperature somewhere approaching normal but to no avail. Even after an hour and a half at the aid station Camp 10 Bear, I still managed to throw everything I had consumed up less than 400 yards up the road.
A lot of people state that they have either never DNF'd or would do so only on a stretcher. The reality is at some point in their career every regular ultra runner will DNF a race. Find an ultra runner who has done 50 races or more and not DNF'd and you have found one lucky individual. It happens. There is a difference between being in pain for 10s of hours on end and actually being concerned that you are causing yourself pretty serious internal damage. In that situation your body doesn't hold back and if faced with the physical signs ie. dark brown pee, painful kidneys and failing consciousness, the ability to push through the usual pain of an ultra washes away.
Every race is different and over 100 miles a lot can go wrong and it takes kahunas to line up at the startline. There is, however, always another race. Not finishing a race because it is too hard and you are tired and the distance is too much is one thing but I know that I didn't do that here. If I did ever do that I think I would give up trying.
So being at home now without a finish sucks but it's just one more race in so many past and future. VT100 will be there in the future and if I turn up fit and rested Im pretty sure I could do alright on that course.
My hope as a Race Director is that if runners get themselves into a similar situation to mine at VT, at our Centurion races in the future, that they make similar calls to the one I made before they get into real trouble. There is a line between gruelling extreme periods of self doubt and muscle pain which are par for the course in an ultra, and signs that your body is warning you that things have gone too far.
Doesn't mean it doesn't still suck though!!!!
So the Slam is over. By not finishing Vermont I lost my conditional place at Wasatch which just leaves Leadville. 'Just' Leadville. That doesn't sound right....!!!! Having been injured or recovering from February 5th to this point, I need a break to get fit and healthy again. Whilst never achieving elite status, I have always been able to compete at races and usually finish in the top 10%. I have lost that this past year as my body has rebelled and my fitness nosedived. I want to get back to training hard and enjoying my running again and build it back up slowly before getting back in to longer harder stuff next year.
Leadville is a major race for me, it will be a slogfest because once again i'll have done little between races and with no running base to build on but I am going to give it 100% and hope to return home with the haul of WS100 and LT100 double in one summer which won't be too bad given the year behind me.
Thanks to those medics who sat with me for hours after the race feeding me fluids. My pee finally returned to normal colour on the plane home, over 48 hours after the race. For those interested in a little further reading from a much more experienced runner about why urine turns brown and what it can mean, try this from AJW. It is food for thought at future races and I would be lying if I said that having had it plus kidney pain at the past two races I didn't have concerns for future 100s. Interesting that the docs advise harder training to prevent muscle damage. Something I have been sorely lacking in the run up to this summer and would go part way to explaining why I am having such issues for the first time....
Finally congratulations to all the Slammers still going. There are some sersiously tough athletes out there doing it one race at a time, particularly Sniper (David Snipes) who is running 100 at Angeles Crest this coming weekend just 7 days after VT. Congratulations also to Pete Goldring who travelled with me for this one and who finished in an impressive 20 hours 50. Another great effort at only his second 100.
Tuesday, 12 July 2011
South Downs Way Race 2011 & 2012
This past weekend I had a blast managing the 3rd Checkpoint on the South Downs Way 103 mile trail race from Eastbourne to Winchester. I have helped out at a few races over the years but never at a 100 mile (++) event and I have to say I was pretty humbled. I like to think that as a runner I am pretty gracious to the volunteers when I come in to an aid station, taking the time to thank them for spending 2/ 12/ 24+ hours standing out in all conditions with really one simple aim, of helping runners to reach their goal of finishing. Paul, another volunteer and I, set up in Washington Car Park, mile 49 on the course, at 3pm in the sunshine and awaited our first runners to come through. We had quite a simple arrangement as there were 45 starters to worry about and not a marauding mass of 100s of 10k runners, so we put up a gazebo, a half a dozen chairs in the shade underneath and a long table across the front which we adorned with standard ultra fayre, 50 odd cups of coke and our aid station speciality cheese and ham wraps. At around 4pm Jen Jackson, the race director, arrived in the car and Paul and I went to get some extra water from the other side of the A24 where there is a tap right on the SDW trail. Then we sat around chatting and eating the aid station food waiting for our first runners.
At about 5:35pm Nicola Golunska rolled in, so a little over 8 and a half hours to around half way. It isn't exactly par for the course for a female to be leading a 100 mile race at the half way mark but clearly Nicola was on a mission and had pretty much killed her pacer in getting to us so quickly. Just as she left to carry on to Amberley, 7 miles up the track another runner Mark Collinson came through stopped and chatted for a minute whilst we filled his bottles, grabbed some food and went on his way also. And so the pattern continued. I hope and think that for our part we were pretty good at getting the runners what they needed, filling bottles, packs, grabbing food and drop bags and generally just trying to offer some encouragement but the response we got back from all 42 runners who came through Washington was fantastic. People seemed to respond well to the set up despite the fact that they had faced 49 miles of hilly terrain into a 20mph headwind and a blazing sun. In the end, 40 of the 42 made it out of the aid station and an incredible 37 of 45 starters finished the race. It made it a thoroughly rewarding experience and exemplified exactly why I got involved with ultras in the first place.
The race was only its second year and managed by Jen Jackson whom I have come to know from various trail events and from my recent appointment to the Trail Running Association Committee, which Jen also sits on. For some time, Jen has mentioned that she would like to move on from managing the SDW race in the future as it is simply too time consuming amongst the hundreds of other commitments in life. When I first decided to put on our first 100 back in August of last year, I looked at the South Downs Way as my logical first choice. It is the trail on which I have done most of my running and racing and quite frankly I just love the whole track although particularly the heart of it from Amberley up to Ditchling Beacon in daylight as well as at night. There was no way I was going to double up with Jens race however, one 100 miler on a national trail is enough after all, so I moved on to other locations and struck upon the North Downs Way and the Thames Path which we have up and running and we look forward to our first event in exactly a months time.
When Jen mentioned she wanted to hand the race over to somebody a few months ago I messaged her and explained how much I would love to take the South Downs Way Race on from 2012. To my delight, Jen has decided to hand it on to us to manage in the future.
Not much will really change as quite frankly, I didn't hear a single bad word said about the race this year and from end to end it was a resounding success. There are things that I like in 100s that I will probably look to add for 2012 but I will take nothing away. So, in short, in a few weeks time we will go live with entries for the continuation of the South Downs Way Race: 2012 Edition. I am overwhelmingly enthusiastic about this trail and I have little doubt that will end up rubbing off on the event and the communication for which I make no apologies! In the meantime, any questions can always be directed to me at racedirector@centurionrunning.com and I will post a little more when we have done a proper hand over with Jen and are ready to go.
So I guess really it's just left to say thanks to Jen for setting this race up and for throwing an unbelievable amount of time, energy and love into the race. Hopefully we will be able to continue to build on her hard work and turn this in to a long standing, well organised and significant UK 100 mile trail race.
For our part that will be 3 x 100 milers and I am not underestimating the amount of work that will be for our small team. I have a plan in my mind for a 4th 100 but not for some time yet and that will very definitely be all that we take on. As with limiting the number of runners for each event, we also want to make sure we limit the number of events themselves so that everything remains well organised, well executed and with runners safety and enjoyment at the top of the list of priorities.
Exciting times ahead but we have a very tough act to follow.
Oh and we just had our buckles for NDW100 mile finishers delivered. Pretty awesome I hope you'll agree....
At about 5:35pm Nicola Golunska rolled in, so a little over 8 and a half hours to around half way. It isn't exactly par for the course for a female to be leading a 100 mile race at the half way mark but clearly Nicola was on a mission and had pretty much killed her pacer in getting to us so quickly. Just as she left to carry on to Amberley, 7 miles up the track another runner Mark Collinson came through stopped and chatted for a minute whilst we filled his bottles, grabbed some food and went on his way also. And so the pattern continued. I hope and think that for our part we were pretty good at getting the runners what they needed, filling bottles, packs, grabbing food and drop bags and generally just trying to offer some encouragement but the response we got back from all 42 runners who came through Washington was fantastic. People seemed to respond well to the set up despite the fact that they had faced 49 miles of hilly terrain into a 20mph headwind and a blazing sun. In the end, 40 of the 42 made it out of the aid station and an incredible 37 of 45 starters finished the race. It made it a thoroughly rewarding experience and exemplified exactly why I got involved with ultras in the first place.
The race was only its second year and managed by Jen Jackson whom I have come to know from various trail events and from my recent appointment to the Trail Running Association Committee, which Jen also sits on. For some time, Jen has mentioned that she would like to move on from managing the SDW race in the future as it is simply too time consuming amongst the hundreds of other commitments in life. When I first decided to put on our first 100 back in August of last year, I looked at the South Downs Way as my logical first choice. It is the trail on which I have done most of my running and racing and quite frankly I just love the whole track although particularly the heart of it from Amberley up to Ditchling Beacon in daylight as well as at night. There was no way I was going to double up with Jens race however, one 100 miler on a national trail is enough after all, so I moved on to other locations and struck upon the North Downs Way and the Thames Path which we have up and running and we look forward to our first event in exactly a months time.
When Jen mentioned she wanted to hand the race over to somebody a few months ago I messaged her and explained how much I would love to take the South Downs Way Race on from 2012. To my delight, Jen has decided to hand it on to us to manage in the future.
Not much will really change as quite frankly, I didn't hear a single bad word said about the race this year and from end to end it was a resounding success. There are things that I like in 100s that I will probably look to add for 2012 but I will take nothing away. So, in short, in a few weeks time we will go live with entries for the continuation of the South Downs Way Race: 2012 Edition. I am overwhelmingly enthusiastic about this trail and I have little doubt that will end up rubbing off on the event and the communication for which I make no apologies! In the meantime, any questions can always be directed to me at racedirector@centurionrunning.com and I will post a little more when we have done a proper hand over with Jen and are ready to go.
So I guess really it's just left to say thanks to Jen for setting this race up and for throwing an unbelievable amount of time, energy and love into the race. Hopefully we will be able to continue to build on her hard work and turn this in to a long standing, well organised and significant UK 100 mile trail race.
For our part that will be 3 x 100 milers and I am not underestimating the amount of work that will be for our small team. I have a plan in my mind for a 4th 100 but not for some time yet and that will very definitely be all that we take on. As with limiting the number of runners for each event, we also want to make sure we limit the number of events themselves so that everything remains well organised, well executed and with runners safety and enjoyment at the top of the list of priorities.
Exciting times ahead but we have a very tough act to follow.
Oh and we just had our buckles for NDW100 mile finishers delivered. Pretty awesome I hope you'll agree....
 |
| 100 miles one day (sub 24 hour) and Finisher (sub 32 hour) Buckles |
Monday, 11 July 2011
5 Days to the next 100....
That is quite a scary thought, yet I am by no means the only one in that boat. I am always amazed by the feats of others in the ultrarunning world. I know that I am looking up from a point on the path to truly understanding ultras and how far you really can go if the mind and body are willing. Four years ago the thought of running 100 miles just once was totally alien to me. On the verge of attempting to complete a second 100, this time at Vermont, in the space of 3 weeks, I need only look at two other individuals in particular who put that effort to shame.
Firstly, Nick Clark a Brit exiled in the US has this past weekend finished in 3rd place at the Hardrock 100 in a total time of just under 28 hours. 13 days prior to that Nick finished 3rd at Western States in sub 16 hours. Hardrock makes Western States look like an afternoon stroll. With 34000 feet of climb and descent at an average altitude of around 10000ft it is easily the hardest 100 out there (Im not counting the Barkley). My quads still hurt from WS. That is an absolutely phenomenal effort and it is scary to think what Nick might have been able to do if he hadn't already stacked 100 miles in to his legs two weeks earlier!
Second, Shannon Farrar-Griefer is currently en route to Stovepipe Wells part way through Badwater, 135 miles through Death Valley. Badwater is bad enough on it's own but Shannon also finished at Western States and even more incredibly, is also attempting the Grand Slam and will therefore need to be on the startline for Vermont just 72 hours after finishing Badwater on the other side of the country. That, to me, right now, is absolutely insane.
Mentally, going in to race 2 of the Grand Slam I am in a good place and I can't wait to get started. I feel calm and relaxed and ready to take it on. I'm excited to see Vermont. I had a blast at Old Dominion a few years ago, running through the rolling Virginia countryside in a humid fog and I feel like Vermont could yield some similar scenery - pretty much the best part about racing in different locations.
Physically it's hard to know what kind of condition I am really in but I feel pretty good. I haven't slept well during the two intervening weeks but my legs have been pretty well rested so my energy reserves feel reasonable. My feet aren't healed but the blisters have gone so although I've got some weak spots where the skin is a few layers short of recovered, there shouldn't be any extra issues there. My shin and quads are the two things that are playing with me a little. The shin feels good but I still get the odd pang of pain and as for my quads, well they are still a ways from recovered. I absolutely smashed them to pieces a fortnight ago and last week playing golf, hiking around for maybe 4- 5 miles, crouching down to line up putts became almost impossible. So it's a few more ice baths another sports massage and some intensive stretching and off we go to the race on Thursday evening!!!
I am a little bit concerned about the number of people who have messaged me saying that now Western is out of the way, just enjoy Vermont it's way easier and you'll be fine!!!! Complacency isn't a particularly good thing to take into a 100 miler, I've been there once before at a 100 and come unstuck so I will go in to Saturday with respect for the distance and the not insignificant 29000 feet of elevation change and take it one aid station at a time.
I don't think there is a way to follow this one online so I'll report back from the finish (I hope). We have a 30 hour cut off here so once again I will be shooting for somewhere between 24 and 30 hours depending on how the legs hold up!!!!
Firstly, Nick Clark a Brit exiled in the US has this past weekend finished in 3rd place at the Hardrock 100 in a total time of just under 28 hours. 13 days prior to that Nick finished 3rd at Western States in sub 16 hours. Hardrock makes Western States look like an afternoon stroll. With 34000 feet of climb and descent at an average altitude of around 10000ft it is easily the hardest 100 out there (Im not counting the Barkley). My quads still hurt from WS. That is an absolutely phenomenal effort and it is scary to think what Nick might have been able to do if he hadn't already stacked 100 miles in to his legs two weeks earlier!
Second, Shannon Farrar-Griefer is currently en route to Stovepipe Wells part way through Badwater, 135 miles through Death Valley. Badwater is bad enough on it's own but Shannon also finished at Western States and even more incredibly, is also attempting the Grand Slam and will therefore need to be on the startline for Vermont just 72 hours after finishing Badwater on the other side of the country. That, to me, right now, is absolutely insane.
Mentally, going in to race 2 of the Grand Slam I am in a good place and I can't wait to get started. I feel calm and relaxed and ready to take it on. I'm excited to see Vermont. I had a blast at Old Dominion a few years ago, running through the rolling Virginia countryside in a humid fog and I feel like Vermont could yield some similar scenery - pretty much the best part about racing in different locations.
Physically it's hard to know what kind of condition I am really in but I feel pretty good. I haven't slept well during the two intervening weeks but my legs have been pretty well rested so my energy reserves feel reasonable. My feet aren't healed but the blisters have gone so although I've got some weak spots where the skin is a few layers short of recovered, there shouldn't be any extra issues there. My shin and quads are the two things that are playing with me a little. The shin feels good but I still get the odd pang of pain and as for my quads, well they are still a ways from recovered. I absolutely smashed them to pieces a fortnight ago and last week playing golf, hiking around for maybe 4- 5 miles, crouching down to line up putts became almost impossible. So it's a few more ice baths another sports massage and some intensive stretching and off we go to the race on Thursday evening!!!
I am a little bit concerned about the number of people who have messaged me saying that now Western is out of the way, just enjoy Vermont it's way easier and you'll be fine!!!! Complacency isn't a particularly good thing to take into a 100 miler, I've been there once before at a 100 and come unstuck so I will go in to Saturday with respect for the distance and the not insignificant 29000 feet of elevation change and take it one aid station at a time.
I don't think there is a way to follow this one online so I'll report back from the finish (I hope). We have a 30 hour cut off here so once again I will be shooting for somewhere between 24 and 30 hours depending on how the legs hold up!!!!
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| Aid Station Fayre? |
Sunday, 3 July 2011
WS100 + 8 days, VT100 - 13 days
I have had a rough week!!!! I am starting to recognise that the 5th major factor in my Grand Slam attempt beyond each of the 4 races is in fact going to be the traveling, mainly for the loss of resting time during the immediate post race period. Once I got back to the hotel on Sunday afternoon, having been up for 40+ hours, I spent the next 12 alternating between sleeping, eating and watching real high quality fishing programming on cable tv before taking on the journey home which was a 22 hour slog. As is the usual pattern with these things, the endorphins were still rushing around in my system as I drove back to Reno and I felt good, albeit my legs and feet were still trashed. Three flights and a lot of trekking around airports later and I felt like I'd been hit round the head with a frying pan PLUS my feet had swelled so badly that my ankles had disappeared. I spent the car ride home from the airport laid out on the back seat and keeping one eye on my vitals to make sure I wasn't suffering anything more than the after effects of a long journey and longer run.
Fast forward to Sunday and my energy is starting to return, the swelling has disappeared and my blisters have started to dry out. I lost three toe nails this morning (which is good news!) but my quads are the lingering issue with a lot of tightness and lack of strength due to the pounding of last weekend.
So with less than 2 weeks to Vermont I am planning on continuing to rest as much as possible, bring my feet back to a runnable condition and get plenty of sports massages on my legs to try and re-habilitate them in time.
Each day that goes past I get a little more confident in my returning energy reserves and in my shin which seems, unbelievably, to be ok. I am not yet 100% set on starting at Vermont. If I damage myself further I will be furious if I am not able to start at Leadville. With 14000ft of climb, no altitude to contend with and not a lot of single track it certainly represents the most straight forward proposition of the 4 Grand Slam races and whilst 100 miles is a massive deal any time, any where, this won't be anywhere near as difficult as WS or Badwater for example so I don't have a lot to prove to myself in terms of simply finishing as a one off race. The challenge is of course to finish just 3 weeks after Western States and keep the Grand Slam torch alight. Keith Kniplings altitude comparisons of the 4 races shows the differences between them
Whatever happens I am going to make the journey to Boston and continue to take each day as it comes.
This weekend is a huge one on the US ultra running calender with Hardrock taking place on Saturday and Badwater on the Monday. Hardrock is always fascinating to watch and having now properly qualified by finishing WS, my name will very definitely be in the hat for it in 2012. Good friend and double world record holder Mimi Anderson is headed to her 2nd Badwater, this time to attempt the double and break the female record in the process. The double involves a continuation beyond the finish line at Whitney Portals, to the summit of Mt Whitney before returning via the same route to the start line back at Badwater itself, a round trip of 292 miles and a true feat of human endurance. At the sharp end, it will be fascinating to see what Mike Wardian can achieve in his first attempt at the race. Mike is a phenomenal athlete recently finishing 11th at Comrades in a time of 5:51, before finishing 3rd at the NF50 miler the following Saturday and winning the associated half marathon the following day. Just 2 weeks later he ran a 2:17 marathon. Clearly recovery is not an issue for him.... He also has Ian Sharman pacing him so it will be fascinating to see how things unfold. Two other good friends are also running this year, Eberhard Frixe who crewed there for me in 2010 is going for finish number 7 and Lisa Smith Batchen my coach through this last 3 months for finish number 10. Like me, Lisa has been injured for a long time and comes in to this race with a longest run of about 20 miles. It will be a case of mind over matter for her but if anyone has the mental strength to get to the finish despite all adversity, it is Lisa.
I will be managing the Washington Aid Station at mile 49 of the SDW100 this coming Saturday and looking forward to seeing some good friends finishing a great 100 this side of the atlantic, a race that I hope to have a lot more involvement with in the future.
What a great sport this game of ultrarunning is and man have I missed it..................
(I found a couple of videos of the snow fields from last weekend as below. I am at 7:07 and gone in the blink of an eye in the first one. The second gives a better idea of how difficult it was to negotiate the terrain, particularly in ROAD SHOES!!!!!)
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Fast forward to Sunday and my energy is starting to return, the swelling has disappeared and my blisters have started to dry out. I lost three toe nails this morning (which is good news!) but my quads are the lingering issue with a lot of tightness and lack of strength due to the pounding of last weekend.
So with less than 2 weeks to Vermont I am planning on continuing to rest as much as possible, bring my feet back to a runnable condition and get plenty of sports massages on my legs to try and re-habilitate them in time.
Each day that goes past I get a little more confident in my returning energy reserves and in my shin which seems, unbelievably, to be ok. I am not yet 100% set on starting at Vermont. If I damage myself further I will be furious if I am not able to start at Leadville. With 14000ft of climb, no altitude to contend with and not a lot of single track it certainly represents the most straight forward proposition of the 4 Grand Slam races and whilst 100 miles is a massive deal any time, any where, this won't be anywhere near as difficult as WS or Badwater for example so I don't have a lot to prove to myself in terms of simply finishing as a one off race. The challenge is of course to finish just 3 weeks after Western States and keep the Grand Slam torch alight. Keith Kniplings altitude comparisons of the 4 races shows the differences between them
Whatever happens I am going to make the journey to Boston and continue to take each day as it comes.
This weekend is a huge one on the US ultra running calender with Hardrock taking place on Saturday and Badwater on the Monday. Hardrock is always fascinating to watch and having now properly qualified by finishing WS, my name will very definitely be in the hat for it in 2012. Good friend and double world record holder Mimi Anderson is headed to her 2nd Badwater, this time to attempt the double and break the female record in the process. The double involves a continuation beyond the finish line at Whitney Portals, to the summit of Mt Whitney before returning via the same route to the start line back at Badwater itself, a round trip of 292 miles and a true feat of human endurance. At the sharp end, it will be fascinating to see what Mike Wardian can achieve in his first attempt at the race. Mike is a phenomenal athlete recently finishing 11th at Comrades in a time of 5:51, before finishing 3rd at the NF50 miler the following Saturday and winning the associated half marathon the following day. Just 2 weeks later he ran a 2:17 marathon. Clearly recovery is not an issue for him.... He also has Ian Sharman pacing him so it will be fascinating to see how things unfold. Two other good friends are also running this year, Eberhard Frixe who crewed there for me in 2010 is going for finish number 7 and Lisa Smith Batchen my coach through this last 3 months for finish number 10. Like me, Lisa has been injured for a long time and comes in to this race with a longest run of about 20 miles. It will be a case of mind over matter for her but if anyone has the mental strength to get to the finish despite all adversity, it is Lisa.
I will be managing the Washington Aid Station at mile 49 of the SDW100 this coming Saturday and looking forward to seeing some good friends finishing a great 100 this side of the atlantic, a race that I hope to have a lot more involvement with in the future.
What a great sport this game of ultrarunning is and man have I missed it..................
(I found a couple of videos of the snow fields from last weekend as below. I am at 7:07 and gone in the blink of an eye in the first one. The second gives a better idea of how difficult it was to negotiate the terrain, particularly in ROAD SHOES!!!!!)
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