Running

So I made it through the Round Reading Ultra Marathon 50k. My Final time was 8:24:06 which was only good for 83/93 runners but at this point my focus is on covering the distance, as my weight goes down and my training goes up I will focus on knocking hours off my current times.

Most importantly though I had an absolute blast. The organisation while a little sparse was very well handled and covered all the necessary bases, the course was a fantastic mix of every kind of terrain (except mountain and sand) you could think to run on. Minor points knocked off for the recycliing plant (they refused to take my spare tyre off my hands) and the dairy farm (was an eye opener for me that obviously dairy farms full of cows will stink of cow shit). there was a stretch just after white swan and black swan lake that was super narrow and the recent rain had turned the top layer of mud into a slick wet-clay like consistency, with a rock hard layer underneath, so there was enough mud to gum up the tread in your trainers and stop you getting any purchase on the ground underneath, the entire stretch was covered in slide marks that showed no one had managed to keep their feet underneath them, at the 38ish kilometre mark this was enough to have me swearing like a trooper. beyond that point my feet were getting sore and I wanted to finish quickly but any further running was out of the question but i somehow managed to march my way to the finish at over 4mph walking speed and even finished with some running once I could see the finish line.

a quick clothes change and my first ever post-race sports massage I was feeling surprisingly human again, so I set about waiting for my friend to finish his 100km 'any time now' given his target goal.

3.5 instant coffee fuelled hours later I get word from the final checkpoint he just made his way through as last man and had been suffering from nausea and unable to keep any liquids or food down for the past 30km and was slowly making his way along the final 6km of the course with the slightly concerned blessing of the medics.

finally 4.5 hours after I had finished myself, the race organizers and I clapped him home and I even found enough in the legs to jog him in for the final 100m. he collapsed into a chair a hollow shell of his usual self. we got him into a semblance of composure then I helped him to his car to go sleep until he felt capable of driving back to london. then I walked back into town (taking a much longer route avoiding the canal as I was limping along in my post race sliders and didn't fancy hanging out with the ne'erdowells i'd seen hanging about the night before when I went to pick up my race bib.

having left the hotel at 7am, I made it back at 10.30pm was finally able to have my first (and only celebratory pint) too tired to even stop off to get a kebab I ended up eating the chicken caesar wrap I'd bought over 24 hours before that had been sitting in my room and then getting to bed.

now have 7 weeks to get myself in shape to be able to finish an extra 10km plus 2000m in climb within an extra 3.5hrs. it feels more doable now but i definitely need to get as much time in on the hills as possible.

https://www.strava.com/activities/1118651948/overview#