Race report: XNRG Chiltern Challenge Ultra 50km

The fun started early today. Up at 5am to get fed and up and about for today's run. First up, the 5:58 tube to Edgware Road. Train info was broken at Wimbledon, two trains were in and ready to go. Sign said "Take the first train and change at Earl's Court". One train was unlabelled, one said Edgware Road. I sat on the Edgware Road train, hopefully. The other one pulled out.

Already 15 minutes behind schedule, I got to Edgware Road at 6:50 - ten minutes to panic jog to Marylebone for the 7:00 to Princes Risborough - start and finish of the race. I collapsed onto the train - 06:58, made it!

At 07:35 when the two following trains to Princes Risborough had left, they finally announced to my train (which had gone nowhere) that there had been a problem with one of the carriages - which was fixed! and then  problem with the radio - which was fixed! and then a problem I could hear over the sound of polite(ish) complaining from the passengers. Train was cancelled.

There were around a dozen runners on my train, so we filed over to the 07:48. Very late now. Thankfully we were met at the station by a nice person from XNRG who gave us a lift to the school - venue for race control.

Race briefing for the 9am starters

Just got there in time to dump my kit bag for later, and get outside for the race briefing. Before I knew it  - we were off.

This is a 50km race around the Chilterns - and whilst there are none of the Lake District style peaks and valleys, there's no shortage of ups and downs. We set off in a big group along a fairly narrow track, spirits were high and just like the start of every ultra, most people were going to fast. Unfortunately I probably was too - being swept along in the rush.

Thankfully we hit a climb soon and everyone slowed to a walk - and from then on there was enough room to run/jog/walk as each of us saw fit.

Aid stations were at roughly 10km intervals. The first came round in just over an hour, and I was feeling good. The second arrived another hour and a bit later, and I was still feeling good - even better after a square of marmite sandwich. More aid stations should have savoury foods! (what I really fancied was a square of cheese - having breakfasted on the train of a bag pork scratchings  but no chance of cheese!).

The third 10km section was a bit longer, with more walking. The nice thing about ultras is you can go at your own pace, it's all about getting to the end - the time is secondary (unless you're in it for the win). For this one, there was a walking option, with walkers starting at 8am, then the masses at 9am, and elites at 10am. During the third 10km section I was overtaken by the lead elite - he'd made an hour on me in just two and a half hours - wow!

The third aid station was particularly welcome as they had mini cocktail sausages - hurrah! Annoyingly, by now my feet were getting a bit sore and I decided to do some more walking. This section, from aid station three to four, was the longest in time, distance, and effort.

I'd been out to the area a couple of times to look at the route, but there were some big changes from the previous years, in particular here - so most of it was unfamiliar. Thankfully aid station four finally arrived, at 41.5km a little later than expected.

I stopped here for a few minutes, and had a little sit down too. My feet were quite painful on the heel - the lack of sleep over the previous week (very busy work week) had left me tired and not keeping good form - I'd fallen into a more heel-first step than I'm used to, and it was getting painful.

The final stretch followed, just 8.5km to go. I walked most of it, with some jogging when I felt like it. After averaging around 8km/hour for the first four hours I'd slowed down and knew I was going to miss my notional 6 hour target, but I knew I'd get to the end.

Nice touch - a print out of the race telemetry

I finally passed under the finishing gantry back at the school in 6:54 - slower than intended, but without any injuries. This is the furthest I've run without my old knee/ITB issue kicking in. For me, that's a winning day.

I was planning on a quick shower, but the nice people at XNRG were giving lifts back to the station, so I didn't - my apologies to anyone who was within 10 feet of me during my journey home.

Couldn't smile much more than this by the end!

Total time 06:54:25

107th out of 217 finishers, 81st male finisher
Time Start to CP1 (approx 10km) 01:08:21
Time CP1 to CP2 (approx 10km) 01:08:22
Time CP2 to CP3 (approx 10km) 01:12:58
Time CP3 to CP4 (approx 12km) 01:56:26
Time CP4 to Finish (approx 8km) 01:28:18

Full results are here

Thanks to Mrs for buying me a hoodie when she signed me up - super comfy, fits perfectly

Juneathon 2016 - week 2

Links: Week 1 (01-05) / Week 2 (06-12) / Week 3 (13-19) / Week 4 (20-26) / Week 5 (27-30)

Last year I completed Juneathon - a fun challenge for no reason whatsoever where participants run (or some other kind of exercise) and blog every day in June. I decided to do it again this year, but rather than blog every day for a month (which gets a bit tiresome, as you may remember from last year) I'll just do a weekly summary. Like last year I'm going to try and run every day, with a 5km minimum for it to "count".

Monday 6th June

On any normal Monday after the hills of the weekend I'd take a day off, but as it's June I decided on jogging very very slowly round my MVR (minimum viable run). It's the return of the 5km local loop.

Monday plod

Tuesday 7th June

5km local loop day two, legs felt like they'd welcome a bit of a shake out, so I added some strides. Strides are a gradual increase in speed until you're almost sprinting but not losing form, and then a "float" of 20m or so and then freewheel back down to jogging.

Six faster sections clearly visible

Each stride only takes about 30s in total, and the aim is that you don't get as tired as the lag between output and heart rate is such that your legs and neuromuscular system get a good work out, but it doesn't spike your heart rate so much - therefore the recovery required after the session is lessened.

Tuesday strides

Wednesday 8th June

5km local loop day three. Tired. Set out to jog round at even pace. Uneventful. Nothing to report.

It's that loop again...

Thursday 9th June

Guess where I ran today? Yup, 5km loop day four.  This route is functional: I need a run, I have no imagination, let's plod round the block. This time I decided to go for a "Royal Flush". This is a Marathon Talk term to mean each mile or kilometre faster than the one before.

Starting to wonder why I didn't just use the same screenshot four times over

I set out slowly with this in mind and ramped it up - I didn't feel fully recovered from the weekend yet so started very slow. I've got it wrong when trying this before, if kilometre 3 is a bit fast, then kilometre 4 has to be even faster, leaving kilometre 5 to be an all out sprint - OK if you're ready for it, but today I wasn't!

The ramp up in pace is obvious, kilometre splits are 6:58, 6:19, 5:52, 5:20, and 4:57

Friday 10th June

A change of scenery for today. After cycle commuting to work and back, I drove down to Lainston House near Winchester after work where Mrs and I were spending the night. Asked reception if they had a running route - there were several to choose form, all clearly marked.

A 5.5km road loop

I set off to get my daily minimum 5km in and didn't see a single route marker, so I just made it up. Coincidentally, was passed by Mrs in a taxi from the station while I was out! A bit more hilly than I was aiming for, but I felt good.

Lainston House

Saturday 11th June

Saturday = parkrunday. We headed down to Eastleigh, one of the older parkrun courses which this week was holding it's 311th event.

The course wasn't the most inspiring to be honest, loops up the side of a shallow hill in the beautifully named Dragonfly Trail Park, then returning round to the start. 3 laps. The support was good from the locals, including an older chap in a deck chair with a school playground hand bell - every time he rang it I thought it was time to come in from morning break. Almost drowned out the sound of the M3 :)

A 3-lapper parkrun

It wasn't the best run for me, it was incredibly humid and all on grass - not good weather for me. I sweated heavily all the way round, which never puts me in a good mood.

After the run, we had a reverse panic drive. Normally the stress is getting to parkrun on time, today it was trying to get back to the hotel by 10am to catch breakfast service! We made it (well, we were 2 minutes late but it didn't matter) and had a glorious cooked breakfast. I'll definitely be returning to Lainston House for a longer stay, it's beautiful.


Sunday 12th June

The main run of the week, and an early start to get out to Wendover. I was running on the Chiltern Challenge Ultra route again. It was raining but not cold, a t-shirt and arm warmers plus waterproof shell layer kept me perfectly comfortable.

Today's route

My legs are very aware of the now 12-day run streak. I remember this from last year, fatigue bulls up over the first two weeks and then you just kind of get used to it - as long as you're not going hard every day.

This was a reconnaissance mission, so no intention on going hard or fast, quite the opposite. I jogged along, and walked a lot. I gave myself permission to do this, and it felt good. Normally walking means a hill or you've overcooked it in the early stages - but in the longer distances walking (hiking at a reasonable pace rather than strolling along) is an important race technique.

I may have misjudged a muddy spot

Apparently, this is a path

I was planning on looping round back to Wendover, but decided after nearly four hours for 25km I'd call it a day at Great Missenden. I grabbed a coffee and headed for the train.

It was a good run today, nice to see a bit more of the ultra course - five weeks until race day! Eeeep!!

Motivation creation

Recently I realised that not having a race to target means that although I go running for fun (which was the point of not having a formal plan), I also eat like a pig and drink like a fish. Oops. Consumed way too many carbs, and way too many units of loopy-juice lately. The remedy? Enter a race or two and get a goal to target.

Mrs, rocking the North Downs Way 50 last weekend

So - fast or far? Competent athletes have to cope with a trade off - they have these challenging decisions to make like “should I be a sub-10s 100m sprinter, a sub-13 minute 5km middle distance athlete, or a 2-hour marathoner?”. If you go super fast, you can’t do it for long; and if you go long, you lose top speed (although Mo Farah appears not to have got the memo on that one). Thankfully, 13 stone 40-year old desk-bound office workers rarely face such a conundrum.

I said a while go I didn’t see the need to enter a road marathon again, right? Didn’t say anything about trail ultras though did I. Therefore - today I entered a couple of trail ultra-marathons.

First up, on July 16th  I’ll take on the X-NRG Chiltern Challenge 2016 - a pretty 31-mile trail race through the Chilterns.

Chiltern Challenge route, 31 miles

But maybe I need bit more motivation?...

How about 50 miles worth of motivation?...

In 122 days, on September 17th, I'll have a bash at the Centurion Running Chiltern Wonderland 50. I’ve let Mrs take on the long races until now (apart form my one painful ultra experience) but watching her ace the North Downs Way 50 last weekend was (and I’m not sorry for using this word) inspirational. I saw her at 31 miles, and at the end. She looked amazing, she was running wonderfully, and was so full of happy at the end. I want that!

Chiltern Wonderland, 50 miles

I really enjoyed a run out on the North Downs Way recently, a 10 mile out and back, and would love to race on that terrain. I say “race”, really I mean “get from A to B without exploding” but that’s really the goal of ultras - to get to the end, ideally in one piece and smiling a bit.

In the mean time I seem to have swelled a little and currently tip the scales at very nearly 90kg. I feel heavy and my clothes are unflatteringly snug. There's plenty of time to fix that, so... game on!

*nervous gulp*