Dusk ’til Dawn marathon

My intention for the Dusk ’til Dawn event this year was to have another crack at the ultra distance (50 miles). I’ve been on the start line for this event three times already. First in 2013 when I won a place through Operation Ultra in Women’s Running Magazine. Next in 2014 when I returned with friends Kev, Tracey and Tom. Finally in 2015 when Tom and I returned to attempt the distance (with friends also running ahead). The 2016 event fell a few weeks after I first came home from hospital after having Oscar, then the event didn’t take place last year and here we are, already in 2018…

Although I knew that a half marathon and marathon event were now also on offer alongside the ultra distance, I really wanted to prove that I was able to complete the 50 mile ultra event within the time allowance. The race is called ‘Dusk ’til Dawn’ due to it’s start time coinciding with nightfall on the Saturday night and the cut-off for the event at the point the sun rises the following morning. As Richard, the Race Director’s Father had sadly passed away this year, the race began one hour before dusk, to be known as ‘Eddie’s hour’. The extra hour was another reason I felt like I was meant to enter the ultra distance this year.

However, when I first entered the event months ago, Tom had also signed up for the ultra and we had planned to run it together. I had fully intended on completing my 100 mile ultra journey at the South Downs Way 100 in June earlier in the year. I hadn’t planned on stopping at mile 78 of the SDW, continuing to train and then eventually completing my 100 mile event three months later in the middle of September, just six weeks before the 50 mile Dusk ’til Dawn ultramarathon.

My feet hadn’t fully recovered from the 100 by the time the week of Dusk ’til Dawn arrived, and Tom also informed me that he would be pulling from the event due to injury/lack of training/a house move. With five other runners from my club running the marathon event I decided to make the switch down to the marathon distance and knew that this was the sensible choice, although one day I will be back to prove myself at the 50 miles!

I hadn’t had the best week leading up to the marathon. That Wednesday afternoon Oscar had been incredibly grouchy and tearful when we returned from the baby group in town. He refused most of his tea, asked for a glass of warm milk and disappeared to bed very early in the evening. I put it down to being overtired, but he was back up and crying for me by 9pm with bright red cheeks and a very high fever. He wanted to do nothing but lay on my chest and cuddle. He had a hacking cough which developed further over the next few days and despite maximum doses of Calpol that evening his temperature never stayed down for long. Needless to say, the next few days were spent with Oscar laying across me feeling rather sorry for himself on the sofa downstairs. By Friday afternoon I was still relying on Calpol to get his temperature down. The bottle states that a child shouldn’t be taking maximum doses of Calpol for more than 3 days in a row, and I worried that I wouldn’t be able to get a doctor appointment for him over the weekend if his temperature remained high by the following day. So I booked him a last minute appointment at the doctors in town for Friday afternoon. Once seen by our doctor, he was referred straight to Kettering hospital with suspected pneumonia. A quick google on my way to hospital revealed some alarming pneumonia facts, but also cleared up for me that he had most likely caught it from another child, rather than just gotten cold because I had let him run around in the garden without his coat on. Luckily, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been and after being observed in hospital Oscar was sent home with a course of antibiotics to take which cleared things up really quickly. It was rather worrying when we were first referred though.

Dan was home all day on the Saturday so could take over from me as head rest and medicine-giver for Oscar. I needed to get out of the house after spending the last two and a half days cooped up on the sofa. Packing for the race was done last minute and I was rather blase about the whole thing. Meh, it’s just a marathon, right?…Turns out I ended up missing the printed instructions from the list of race essential equipment, so had to borrow a set from a friend when we arrived.

The weather was pretty rubbish the whole journey over. The windscreen wipers were on most of the time and we knew it was due to be pretty cold that night. Lots of layers were absolutely necessary!

The race is known for the ‘Grim Sweeper’ who runs at the back of the pack, picking off runners who don’t make the cut-offs in time. I’ve met the sweeper once before, back in 2013 when I ran with Charlie Sharpe, the sweeper for that race, having won the event the year before. Rather fitting that the sweeper head was covering the defibrillator as we lined up for our race briefing before setting off!

I was in two minds whether to run alone or as part of the group, but in the end the six of us from Wellingborough ran together and I realised how much I missed being out there running long distances with friends! Having not run the marathon course before (or read the directions for the marathon distance beforehand, initially thinking that I would be running the ultra) it was probably for the best that I stayed part of the group anyway to be honest!

We nearly missed the start, leaving it to the last possible minute to sneak back to our cars to change out of jeans, boots and oversized hoodies and into our running gear for the night. The six of us were casually waltzing over to the start line, my phone in hand – getting ready for a pre-race club photo when we realised that the countdown to the start had already begun! As everybody crossed the line for the start of the race I was still busy trying to zip away my phone and pull the headtorch from my bag for the run!

Even then, we had gone more than half a mile when Gary turned back, declaring that he thought he had probably left his headtorch in the boot of his car as he had just realised it wasn’t on his head! What an organised bunch we were!

The first few miles of the course were the same as the start of the ultra route and I recognised long sections of the trail. There are some tough, technical climbs (and descents) on the course. I am fairly confident at picking my way up steep, rocky ascents. I don’t have quite so much confidence with my downhill running but I have definitely improved since the first year I headed over to the Peak District for the race.

Because we had the extra hour this year, it meant we were running in daylight for the first few climbs and got a chance to appreciate our view. As I waited for others in our little group to navigate to the top of the climbs I pulled out my camera for a few photos.

You can see the extent of the climbs we were making. The above photo is the majority of the way up the first big hill. You can see the drop in the distance to the left of the photo.

Some sections were more technical than others. This first climb wasn’t too bad, but later climbs involved more careful placing of feet on the rocks that were jutting out. I worried that the rocks would be slippy from the rain we’d had earlier in the day but they ended up not being too bad.

The sunset was a really pretty one from so high up.

After that we just trotted around the remaining miles. Strava tells me I ran 26.56 miles in total, so fairly accurate for a trail marathon distance!

I recognised the point where my parents and Dan had sat on the side of the road in a car at the first checkpoint (now several miles into the course) back in 2013. I had been the last person to come into that checkpoint then, but not the last to leave and I started picking other runners off from that point back then. It felt like so long ago!

Navigation was fairly straight forward this year. Gary had run some of the ultra course in 2015 and Kev had run some of the ultra course back in 2014, so between us we barely needed to check directions for which way to go, although took along paper instructions with us just in case. Gary had run the marathon course with Tom back at the 2016 event, which was held just a few weeks after I had Oscar, so Gary was fairly confident in how to navigate the marathon course once we turned off for the shorter distance.

I didn’t enjoy the race as much from the point we split off from the ultra route. The majority of the marathon route was run along roads, whereas the ultra had been almost entirely on the trails. The roads on the marathon course were fairly flat and long and runnable and not what I had expected having run the majority of the ultra route before. I like the challenge of technical terrain!

There was a really eerie section along an old railway line where we ran through a couple of large tunnels. I ran in the middle of the pack here, with some runners from our group speeding off ahead and some falling behind. Everybody’s voices were echoing all around the tunnel as we ran and it made it really hard to locate whether someone was ahead of you or behind. I was glad to be running with the others as we ran through this section, and I was very glad when we turned off and began our next climb!

There was another really eerie section where we ran alongside a field of sheep…or the field of red eyes, as the sheep all clustered into the corner nearest to the path. As our headtorches reflected on their eyes they glowed red like demons.

I didn’t really eat much out on the course, choosing just to pick at a couple of bits on offer at the checkpoints. We weren’t moving particularly fast and I didn’t feel like my body needed any more to keep it going so I kept my snacks in my bag for the race.

The last mile or so was run all on road. Gary ran ahead to beat us to the finish, but the rest of us all trotted over the line together and headed into the hall for hot drinks and pasties. That cheese and onion pasty and hot tea at the finish were the best things I’ve been handed at a finish line for a long while! It had been super cold out there on the hills, and at any point we had stopped we all really began to feel the chill. We were all ready for something warm at the end!

I changed back into my boots, jeans and a hoodie fairly quickly afterwards, babywiping as much mud from my legs as I could spot in the toilets! The medal is a nice one.

Official time: 7h 18m 57s
Position: 13/20
Gender position: 4/7

I traveled back from the race with Gary, who has heated seats in his car. I had those seats heated to the max for the whole journey home to warm up!

Have you run a race at night before?
What was the nicest food you received at the finish of a race?

Poor planning

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Lack of blogging

November 16, 2018 MaryLeave a comment

October 11, 2018 Mary6 Comments

Squeaky Bone Relay race

The Squeaky Bone Relay is an event really well attended by members of my running club every year.

Hosted by Olney Runners, the event is a four-person off-road relay with each legs of either 3.5 or 2.3miles and usually falls in October, having always clashed with other things in my calendar, so I’ve never been able to attend before.

This year though for whatever reason, the race fell at the end of September and I was so excited to be running on a team with Tom, Steph and Laura.

It was my first hard run back after running the Robin Hood 100 two weeks earlier, and only my fourth run since I’d finished the ultra. I wasn’t too hopeful of winning any prizes and made sure the others weren’t expecting miracles too!

Although I was the Team Captain for our group, having signed us up for the 3.5 mile option online, I hadn’t realised the order I put us onto the system when signing up was the order we would be required to run in on the day, otherwise I would never have put myself first! The running order went Me, Tom, Steph and then Laura last. At least my leg would be over and done with and then I would be able to enjoy a hot drink when I finished while I waited for the others to run their section!

We arrived fairly early in order to collect our race numbers and baton, complete with squeaky dog toy attached! It was rather chilly hanging around in the shade at the start, although I was glad that I’d chosen to wear a t-shirt when we did begin running as the sun out on the course made it really warm out there.

We started with a bang, and my first mile came in at 8m 47s. The elevation was fairly flat for the majority of the course, with just a small rutted section at the beginning alongside the car parking area. The route was a nice one though – around the edges of fields and through a small wood. Other than that first small section, the rest of the ground was fairly solid without any uneven bits which made for easy going.

My second mile remained under 9mm pace, but I started to slow down after that. Although physically I seemed to have recovered from the ultra I had found during my runs since that my body wouldn’t maintain the same pace for as long as it had been doing prior to running the 100 and I would tire as a run went on.

At the end of each leg, the course ran onto the edge of the field where the handover took place and up to the top of the field before turning, running underneath the finish gantry and towards the next member of your team for handover. I did have a small panic when I couldn’t spot Tom on my approach but as I crossed the line ready for handover, he seemed to step across from nowhere to grab the baton (with squeaky bone attached!) from me and continue the relay for leg number two.

(Photo shared on the Squeaky Bone Relay Facebook page).

We were the Wellingborough Warriors and ended up coming 65th out of 122 teams running the 3.5 mile distance. (Which we all clocked at around 3.6 miles(!) )

Our splits were as follows:
Me – 33m 18s (65th pos)
Tom – 30m 13s (66th pos)
Steph – 29m 41s (59th pos)
Laura – 30m 42s (65th pos)

Which gave us a total time of 2h 3m 54s. We’d estimated that we would probably take about 2 hours to complete the event, so we weren’t far off our estimation!

I really enjoyed the atmosphere of the event and will definitely be looking to give it another go again next year!

Have you run any relay events before?

My #1 fan

Countdown to the Rio 2016 Olympics

Late night reading #1

October 11, 2018 Mary6 Comments

October 9, 2018 Mary6 Comments

The London Marathon ballot reveal

This week the ballot results for the 2019 Virgin Money London Marathon (VMLM) have been announced. Unlucky ballot entrants receive either a rejection magazine…

(Here’s mine from last year)

…or a rejection email. (Becoming more and more likely with the higher numbers of hopeful people applying for a place each year.)

Personally, I received my eighth marathon rejection earlier today, which wasn’t too much of a shock. Apparently 414,168 people applied for the ballot this year. The race only has approximately 35,000ish finishers, and that includes elites, championship/GFA entries and those running for charity. That’s a whole lot of people that are going to end up disappointed this week!

Whilst I know so, so many people will have been disappointed over the past couple of days when they received their rejection message, it is rather frustrating to see many turn to social media to complain about the ballot being an unfair system.

In fact, surely the opposite is true?

Everybody that enters for a place in the London Marathon through the public ballot has an equal shot at being selected for one of the places on offer.

Yeah it might be rather sucky that this is your ninth rejection (No more than nine rejections are possible!), but it’s also probably pretty sucky that you haven’t won the lottery in the past nine years either!

If you don’t win the lottery but are still desperate to become a millionaire, then there is the option to go out and work hard to make it happen. The same applies when it comes to wanting to run the London Marathon. If you are desperate to run the event, there are other ways to gain a place.

Applying for a charity place

London Marathon is known for the hoards of charity runners who line the street on race day. In fact, the official VMLM website states that accounting for everything that was fundraised using their online Virgin Money Giving system for the 2018 race, £24,593,020.00 has been raised to date!
Often, charity places open for applications not long after the main ballot opens. Some of the more well known charities will not be able to guarantee you a place though and will be asking questions such as how much money you are hoping to raise for them and reasons why you want to run for their charity. If you are not too choosy about the charity you want to run for though, you will usually still be able to secure a charity marathon place a couple of months out from race day.
Charities tend to ask that you raise a minimum of £1500, with most asking for £2000 or more. Although this can sound like a lot of money, the charity themselves has to fork out £300 for your entry and as long as you begin fundraising early on and don’t leave it all to the last minute raising the money is probably more of an achievable target than you initially thought. In fact, if by now, you already know that you are running for a charity, you still have a good couple of months before the main bulk of marathon training needs to begin and you should be able to hopefully put most of your focus into fundraising, and then later on into the training, rather than having to try and juggle everything all at once in the weeks leading up to race day.

Good For Age (GFA)/Championship qualified

The Good For Age requirements have changed from the 2019 race, which you can read about in my blog post here. If you have run a time deemed as ‘good’ for your age at a previous marathon event as listed by the team at VMLM then you will be offered a place in the race the following year. Although this used to be a guaranteed way to gain entry to the marathon, this is no longer the case. There are now a maximum of 3,000 female GFA spots and 3,000 male GFA spots available for the 2019 event. If more than 6,000 runners applied for a GFA position, then ‘the qualifying time will be reduced evenly across the age group categories listed above until 3,000 runners of that gender are accepted’. Meaning that you may have worked super hard to achieve a 3:44 qualifying marathon time as a senior female runner, only for the goalposts to be moved after you have submitted your entry, due to high numbers of other runners also applying for a place and you may not actually end up with a race place at all.
It’s too late to enter the 2019 event using this method as places needed to be applied for at the start of the Summer, but it could be something to work towards ready for the 2020 race. For many people though, it may be necessary to put a lot more time, hard work and dedication into their training in order to achieve the stated times.

Club places

All England Athletic clubs offer a number of VMLM places to their members (dependent upon the size of the club. The majority of clubs then host their own ballot to determine who runs to represent their club at the marathon the following April. Clubs may have their own prerequisites when it comes to entering. For example, to enter the VMLM club ballot for one of two places as held by my running club you have to provide your rejection email/magazine from the main ballot. You can then gain further entries into the club ballot if you marshaled the club race that Summer or ran a certain number of club-targeted races throughout the year. I have only run the London marathon once before, in 2014 and this was the way in which I gained my place.

Competitions

This option requires the least work but the most luck! There are always lots of competitions offering marathon places in the weeks and months following the ballot results. Keep an eye on the official London Marathon social media accounts and also any of their official sponsors, as they often post about last minute marathon places up for grabs!

It hasn’t been very nice to read some nasty comments today on social media about runners who ‘shouldn’t get a place’ as they’ve already run the race or ‘aren’t fast enough to be classed as a runner’. I’ve seen lots of comments about people criticising current non-runners for entering the ballot and then gaining a place, even though once upon a time they themselves would have been non-runners and potentially in the same situation. Everybody who enters the ballot knows how incredibly slim the chances of getting a place are. Don’t make others scared to announce their good fortune because of your jealousy!

London Marathon is what it is. It’s an incredibly iconic and well supported event, but it’s not a fast course due to the sheer volume of runners out there and it can actually be rather stressful feeling so boxed in along many areas of the course. I’ve run the race before and I did really enjoy it, but there are so many fantastic other marathons to try out as well!

I wanted to raise money for Cancer Research this year following the death of my Mum , Aunts, Godmother and cousins of my Dad. We’ve had a lot of cancer related death in our family since the end of last November and I want to help work towards preventing cancer in the future, albeit in a very small way through raising much needed funds. I applied for a London Marathon place through Cancer Research several months ago now and after initially hearing that I hadn’t been successful, I received an email a fortnight ago offering me a place.

I’m really excited to say that I will be running at London in 2019 and more importantly, raising money for a cause that means a lot to me and my family right now. I’m really looking forward to being part of the Cancer Research team on the day and in the build up to the day. There are a couple of large events which I have in mind to hopefully make up the bulk of my fundraising. (I’m hoping to raise a minimum of £3000) and I’ll share them on the blog when I have more details.

Good luck to all runners preparing for the 2019 event, first timers and 6-time-lucky-ballot-enterers alike!

Do you have a place for London 2019? Did you enter the ballot this year?
Have you run the race before?
Any successful fundraising suggestions you can share with me?

Running thoughts post-baby

An active hendo

Do NOT underestimate the cross-trainer

October 9, 2018 Mary6 Comments

September 28, 2018September 28, 2018 Mary3 Comments

I ran 100 miles! (Part 3)

(You can find the first two parts of my Robin Hood 100 mile recap here… Part one * Part two)

Knowing that I had arrived at mile 84.28 (every point 2-8 counted after 24 hours of running!) was a nice boost.

Seeing Dan and Oscar and knowing that they would be following me round the course until the end now was nice to know, and by now I had heard word that Kev and Amanda who had run 50 miles at the Centurion Chiltern Wonderland race (160 miles South!) on Saturday were at the finish line, grabbing a quick sleep before coming out on the course to see me finish.

Hitting the canal path on the return leg of the route was hard going. I’d forgotten how rough the terrain had been. Tufts of grass sticking up everywhere and really uneven ground underneath on such a narrow path at times. I was glad that I wasn’t one of the faster runners who would have had to complete this section at nighttime in the dark. Although it was bad enough running it after 12 minutes sleep in the past 26 hours or so. I felt rather bad for Guy here as so much of this section I had to walk. My feet were in tatters by now. The small stones I had accumulated in my trainers earlier on had rubbed slightly and the bottoms of my feet were very tender. Every footfall that wasn’t on flat ground was agony and at times I couldn’t stop a whimper from sneaking out of my mouth.

We had a brief panic as we headed up over a bridge that crossed the road and could no longer see reflective tape marking the way back down and along the canal the other side. I knew that I had come following the canal, and was sure that the route followed the path in reverse until we nearly reached the finish, but I doubted myself on such little sleep. Guy jogged up the road to see if he could see any tape in either direction but there was none, so nervously we agreed to follow the canal path in reverse of the way I had run out. I texted Gary to see if he could check on the tracker that we were still on course and after a few minutes, he confirmed that we were. A kilometre or so up the track we came across some reflective tape and I could relax again!

When I had last seen Gary and Dan they had both told me that they would be at the next checkpoint. They both misspoke. For a good two miles before the aid station I was eagerly coming round every turn expecting to see Gary with pasta pot in hand and Oscar running up to me. What felt like hours later Guy and I turned the corner to come across the checkpoint, only for nobody to be there waiting for us. I slumped down into a deckchair shouting really dejectedly “Gary! Gary! Where are you?!” Apparently one of the marshals at the checkpoint was called Gary, but he wasn’t the Gary I was after! Another volunteer told me that he hadn’t seen my toddler at this checkpoint…my crew weren’t here. I spent a good minute or so feeling sorry for myself before shovelling in some ready salted crisps and announcing to Guy that we had to get going again. I needed to find where Gary and my pasta were…I wasn’t stopping! Afterwards we worked out my crew had meant to say that they would be at the next CREW station, not checkpoint. This checkpoint was one of two where crews could not attend due to the lack of parking in the surrounding area.

We traipsed on and a brief glimmer of hope began to grow as I remembered that I had seen Helen, Grant and Val somewhere near to this point on the way out at the start of the race. Perhaps everybody would be at this point on the return instead? The race course is twenty miles out, two thirty mile loops and then twenty miles back again to the start/finish, so each section of the course is run twice which is reassuring as you cover the same paths twice. Although, on that towpath I swear every turn looked the same!

Eventually, at 93 miles I heard shouts of my name and I looked to see Kev and Dan with Oscar all shouting at me in the distance. That got me to pick up my pace and as I got closer I also spotted Amanda. Kev hurriedly rushed off to heat up a Pot Noodle for me, which I demolished, absolutely starving by now! Gary had set off for home, as his son had a football match later that afternoon, but he had passed over my bag to Kev and Amanda who were going to crew me for the final ten miles of the race.

The Pot Noodle went down easily, although I decided I needed to get moving again so took the remainder with me as I headed off in the direction of the finish along the towpath. Seeing everybody here had given me the big boost I needed to get going and after dropping my empty Pot Noodle cup in a nearby bin and passing my fork to Guy I managed to get some more running in again in short bursts.

The last aid station and crew point was at 97 miles and those four miles went on for what felt like forever. The sun had really picked up by now and I was regretting not packing my running cap – feeling the sun burning down on the top of my head. With nearly a mile still to go to the aid station, Amanda came walking along back along the path declaring that there were only three bridges left for me to walk under before coming across the checkpoint. I really needed to get another sleep by now. All I could think about was sleeping. Although Amanda was carrying a plastic pint cup and when she mentioned that her and Kev had been waiting in the pub for me to arrive, my thoughts changed to what lovely beer garden weather it was that day and how much I would like a nice cool cider…why hadn’t they brought me a cider?!

Turns out Amanda lied (although she swears she just miscounted!) but there were actually four bridges. I may have had a minor melt down when I realised that the third bridge I counted wasn’t in fact where the aid station was! Finally though we did arrive and I ran over to Kev to say I really needed to sleep in his van for just 10 minutes. Kev took me by the shoulders and very matter-of-fact told me that I could sleep for five minutes – no longer – on the floor of the aid station. Then they would be moving me on. I agreed and quickly clambered down onto the floor for a brief sleep. The last thing I remember was the heat of the sun on my bare legs sticking out from under the aid tent and worrying that I had no suncream on them!

I don’t remember anybody waking me, but I do remember leaving the checkpoint and checking repeatedly with the marshal that it was no more than three miles now until the finish. (Another lie which I was told!)

We had a steepish climb up from this checkpoint but I knew the finish would soon be in sight now. With just over an hour to go I knew all I had to do was to keep moving until the end and I would finish it. In the bag!

My watch battery had grown low around mile 60 the night before. Following the battery death of my watch at the South Downs Way in June I had been told that I could continue to run whilst charging my watch from a battery pack, so had come prepared this time. On leaving the aid station at mile 62 I had attached the battery pack to my watch and hooked this into my bag. I realised after about a mile that the display on my watch was now blank though. Had the battery died completely? James had suggested turning it on again and my watch flashed something on the display and beeped. I realised later though, that by pressing the on/off button I had actually been turning my watch OFF and stopping the recording annoyingly! I removed the battery pack at mile 77 and turned the now fully-charged watch back on to record the final section of my race, but have no watch data from those middle miles unfortunately.

As my watch now showed mileage that was really out with how many miles I had actually run I made a mental note of the mileage it showed as I left the final checkpoint the moment the marshal confirmed with me for the second time that it was no further than three miles until the end. Perfect. Three miles. I can cover three miles in that time. Easy!

Guy and I passed two runners sat on the floor at mile 98. Guy had a few words and reported back to me that they had decided to pull at mile 98 of the race. How gutted would you be?! Things must be bad though if there isn’t enough in you to walk the final two miles of a 100 mile race.

We crossed back over the horrible, horrible ploughed field. It thought it was bad at mile 5…it was a million times worse at mile 98. I couldn’t stop the whimpers of pain escaping with almost every footfall now. My feet were so sore and every time they fell on the really uneven ground I was in agony!

Finally we made it out on the other side though and it wasn’t long before in the far, far distance I could see the building which I was sure we had come from! The end was in sight! Only, my watch said that there was only a mile to go. That building was still much further than a mile away. I suddenly began to panic. Time was ticking down to the finish and I realised that the ‘three miles to the finish’ had been incorrect. It was clearly further. I started to pick the pace up again, panic creeping into my voice as I told Guy ‘We have to make it to the finish. I can’t finish in over 30 hours. I can’t run the distance and not be given a time because I didn’t make cut-off!’ I began to jog. I could see Kev and Amanda again. They had run back along the course to meet me. Were they running to me because I was going to miss the cut-off? My jog turned into a run, momentarily forgetting about the pain in my feet and allowing me to pass a number of other runners who had all been reduced to a walk for the final few miles. Kev told me that I needed to run. Not to panic, but to carry on running. They wouldn’t let me miss the cut-off. I would get there in time. It was so hard not to look at my watch, although I knew it wouldn’t do any good. The numbers made no sense anymore anyway. I had no idea how many miles I’d run now or how far there was to go. Kev’s declaration that it wasn’t far meant nothing and to tell the truth I didn’t trust anyone by this point now anyway!

I ran and ran and ran. A few cries came from my mouth when I hit particularly hard stones with my now very-blistered feet but I was getting to that finish! As I ran down into the village hall car park I couldn’t spot a finisher gantry and realised that I had no idea where I needed to go! I shouted to Kev who told me that I needed to run inside the building. I threw a wave to Dan who was getting Oscar out of the car, and to John and Lynn who stood near the entrance to the building and pushed on through the doorway. Now where?! It wasn’t obvious! Somebody shouted that I needed to run through the door to the right and so I continued, bursting into a small room to instant applause. I could see rows of chairs around the room where those who had finished before me now sat, drinking hot drinks and relaxing with family. Somebody appeared from nowhere to hand me my finisher t-shirt, engraved medal (such a nice touch!) and to pass Dan a bottle of beer.

They asked if I would like a hot drink and I started to make my way to a seat, although for some reason I no longer had the urge to sit down. More runners burst into the room and I joined everyone in clapping. It was several minutes later before a woman came up and asked if I had handed in my timing chip and given my name to a guy with a board. I hadn’t and hadn’t realised I needed to do so, so I think my official time is probably a few minutes out. The provisional results show that I finished at the same time as two other runners (which I didn’t) in 77th place with 29:48:11 for my time. I would imagine that my time was actually closer to 29:45, but what is three minutes when I know that I made it before cut-off?! And besides, it will just make it easier to beat my time when it comes to running my next 100 mile race, right?! 😉

113 runners started the race, and 79 runners made the finish within cut-off, with a further two runners completing the distance 52 minutes past the 30 allowed hours.

My race absolutely wouldn’t have been the success that it was if it wasn’t for the following people though…
* John and Lynn for agreeing to house Oscar and Dan for the weekend and for filling my belly with pizza the night before the race and cider at the end!
* James for coming out on early morning training runs with me during the few months leading up to the race and then running the dark scary miles from 52-82 with me during the race. For putting up with my panicking when I totally miscalculated the amount of time I had left at 1am on Sunday morning and for letting me have a little kip on his space blanket when I got tired.
* Guy for crewing me up to mile 82 where he took over from James as pacer and put up with all my shrieks as the stones destroyed the blisters on my feet!
* Helen for organising a superb team of support and for popping up at several of the crew points along the way.
* Grant for his support out on the course.
* Gary for crewing the majority of my race, taking my sock and shoe off to shake the stones out and heading out to buy a much needed Pot Noodle for me mid race. Hopefully I didn’t make too much of a mess in his car!
* Laura for helping crew a large section of the race and for sharing the buggy pushing with Dan at Clumber Park parkrun!
* Kevin and Amanda for running me into the finish despite having run their own 50 mile race on the Saturday, then driving 160 miles up to Nottingham on Saturday night to see me run mine! For putting up with me when I sobbed that I just wanted to nap and when I had a melt down because Amanda had miscounted the number of bridges to the next checkpoint!
* Dan for putting up with months and months of 5am alarms and numerous evenings when I was out running instead of staying home. Also for chasing me round the course with Oscar over the weekend.
* Everybody that wished me good luck or gave me advice in the build up to race day. I felt so supported and honoured to have such lovely friends and family who were willing to do so much to help me achieve my goal. I still cannot get over the fact that so many people went out of their way on so many levels to help ensure I completed my 100 miles. I am so grateful to all of my friends for their support.

I took nine days off completely after the Robin Hood 100, and did feel a little lost with what to aim for next, although I have started to construct a plan for 2019 this week. More to follow soon…!

0-50 in 6 months

Chilling by the water

Four things Friday

September 28, 2018September 28, 2018 Mary3 Comments