Great Strides 65km Ultra

One of those magic moments with Cam

I take running too seriously…..seriously! I pick my races, I train hard, I dream big. And when it all comes down to it I manage my expectations as best I can and learn. It’s all about learning right? If we always had perfect races we’d never learn, we’d never grow as athletes or indeed people.

Only running isn’t serious – we aren’t exactly out there saving lives are we? Yeah it provides fulfilment, fitness and wellbeing. But it isn’t a critical illness, famine or terrorism, those things are serious.

With this in mind I was recently offered an opportunity to run another event in aid of charity. I haven’t done this since the Lakeland 100 back in 2015 when I ran in aid of Cancer Research. This worked twofold: I got to help in some small way for something serious, and I got to do it while taking part in my favourite pastime ie running around the countryside utilising bad navigation to completely screw up my races.

A friends daughter suffers with Cystic Fibrosis, and she’d asked if I’d be willing to run an event and raise money for the charity. I was honoured and humbled to help so immediately agreed. The race was to be held in Surrey and all I needed to do was try and raise some money and turn up.  This helped my perspective entering into this race. I didn’t need to take it seriously, other than to finish to give credibility to the £1000 that had been raised. But other than that there was no pressure, this wasn’t an ‘A’ race for me. More a family weekend away with some camping and a bit of running. 

Stood with my excellent support crew x

The course is 65 kilometres long with just shy of 4000ft of ascent, run along parts of the North Downs Way and the surrounding countryside. So for me on the short and flatter side I guess. Still it would make a great training run and I’d get to meet some cool people. Win - Win as far as I could see. 

The night before the race was a complete waste of time, I just laid awake in my tent for no good reason and waited for the sun to rise. Still don’t know why that happened as I wasn’t stressed about the race at all???

The start / finish area

Once I was up I had a couple of hours to potter about near the start line (we’d camped right on the start/finish field). The sun was coming up and things were heating up nicely…

The runners assembled at the start line just before 10:30 where we had our safety brief and met actress Jenny Agutter (credits such as Avengers and An American Werewolf in London, no less) who was to 

send us on our way. Side note – nice lady but after chatting to her for 10 minutes not realising who she was I think she thought I was a bit of a nutter.

Jenny Agutter getting in the spirit of things

At the start we climbed a short distance up a field before we joined the North Downs Way. I immediately looked to head in the wrong direction – literally 50 metres from the start line! This was going to be a long day. I got on the right trail and started jogging along at what felt a sensible pace. This naturally put me at the front of the race which was a little unexpected. Luckily a nice guy called David dropped in alongside me and we had a good little natter over the next couple of miles.

This early part was pretty much what I expected running alongside open fields with a couple of woodland sections interspersed. Great to get the legs spinning and quickly led me to running comfortably in the low 7min/miles. I thought I’d be in for a day of good company with David but it wasn’t long before he dropped back and when we hit a short road section he completely vanished. And that was it for the rest of the day. I was a lonely runner with nobody for company. :0(

About 5 miles in a runner came careering by at what looked to be a good minute a mile quicker. I even had to side step on the trail so he didn’t run into me. I was initially shell shocked by this appearance, however my fears of inadequacy were quickly allayed by a 10k race sign around the corner, which was clearly being run on the same day as ours! Phew, crapped me sen there! This followed with another comedy Nav moment as a young volunteer marshal attempted to send me the wrong way onto the 10k route. What ensued was a comical argument about who knows best in relation to the direction I was meant to be travelling. In all fairness at any other time I would have trusted the young lad know better than my natural north (that must generally point somewhere south-west). At this point though my GPX-loaded-fandagled-super-future-running-watch (Suunto Spartan Ultra #shamelessplug) knew best, so after giving the young fellow some worldly wise advise I charged on.

It wasn’t too long till I started to get a few decent climbs in, albeit fairly short ones compared to what I’m used to. But this nicely changed up the pace and the running gait. Well it was until I discovered the inherent joys of running on sand. 

Lesson number 1. so I learnt my first lesson of the day; Kirki can’t run in sand.

I tried to alter my form to no avail, flatter footed, shorter stride, nothing worked. I basically just slid around like a spider on roller-skates, losing all and any energy with every step. The end of this sandy section couldn’t come soon enough and I even took to running through the ferns along the edge of the trail to escape my grainy hell.

The aid stations were generously spaced something like every 3 miles on average, which was a real treat for me being used to much bigger gaps. I actually ran straight through several aid stations, but equally liked the idea of having a little finger buffet every 20 minutes or so. This was a double edged sword because my 'fat-guy hiding in a skinny body' got the better of me and I think I over ate early on causing me some undue problems later on.

I loved the climb up to the Devils Punchbowl at around 10 miles in. With nearly 3 miles of steady climbing I ran every step, enjoying some of the more technical sections running up narrow single track ‘canyons’ in the woods. As I crested the top of the bowl I soaked up the view and immediately felt the searing heat. The temperature was getting up into the mid 20’s, which normally wouldn’t be horrendous, but honestly I didn’t feel acclimatised to it at all. I was sweating pretty heavily so I just kept throwing water and Mountain Fuel down my neck.

I ran straight through the next aid (while throwing out my best smile for the cameras) before traversing, then descending from the Devils Punchbowl. The descent was smooth and fast with me knocking out a sub7 somewhere down there. Probably too quick for the hot conditions but I didn’t care because I wasn’t taking it seriously, right?

Somewhere around the next 10 miles the organisers decided an ultra-marathon in itself wasn’t enough of a challenge. So in order to keep the stakes high they threw in some obstacle racing – such is the de rigueur these days. In the case of the Great Strides organisation this came in the form of a field of nettles. For about a quarter of a mile! This might have been funny, but for those that know me, they’ll be aware of my penchant for wearing heinously short shorts. This means a light nettling on the calf for the average ultra-runner, was for me to become a full body experience.

Lesson number 2. Sometimes it’s appropriate to wear longer shorts Kirk!

After much cursing and crying I finally broke free from my sado-masochistic trail of pain. Licking my wounds I realised I needed to push on as I’d lost a bit of time mincing about in the nettles.

Dotted around the course there was the odd sign or taping to try and keep runners on course. Of course I knew better than these so after a particularly steep and lengthy ascent a marked left turn was ignored in favour of a sweet looking descent down a techy trail. Only when I reached the bottom of said single track did I realise my mistake. After some running up and down a nearby road I finally figured I needed to re-climb the elevation I’d given up to the next checkpoint up at a school. I was obviously still in good spirits because I was just laughing at what a navigational muppet I am.

In the aid I realised I didn’t want anything else to eat – my wife was surprised and a little concerned. She does know me well by now, enduring these events with me as the ‘Best Support Crew In The World’ (Copyright). So when my stomach starts to go South, Emma is usually the first to notice the signs. Once again I knew better and refused any food before moving on.

Lesson number 3. The wife always knows best.

With the ever increasing heat and the effort required to leg it around 40 miles of hilly trails, it was somewhere between mile 25 and 30 the wheels well and truly fell off. It started with a sickly feeling. Then after an excessive forced meal of banana, strawberry and mango from an aid combined to create an eruption from my belly. So much so, the projectile covered several feet in front of me. Bad because it meant I was ill. Good because the vomit flew beyond my rather sexy looking Salomon Slab Sense Ultra’s (#secondshamelessproductplug). The hope of a handy reset of the stomach was quickly negated as everything, up to and including water wouldn't stay down. All I could do was plod on and await the inevitable slow down associated with zero calories in the system.

Where ever I could I tried to turn the legs over just to keep a decent pace. It seemed to work so I took to counting down the aid stations to the finish. At 32 miles the course gets a handy climb called Martha's Hill. A steep and technical ascent that I was hoping to run every step prior to running the race. However in my pathetically weakened state I took to a wobbly hike to get me up there. The heat was becoming more oppressive and I was worried that the lack of water could cause me serious problems. As I summited I was greeted with the aid station in front of an idyllic church and well known local beauty spot. Such a stunning spot with tourists and aid staff enjoying the panoramic views. All seemed right in the world till I chucked some more bile from my stomach over the Church wall. With that blasphemous act I decided it was best to move on down a lovely smooth runnable trail. So I skulked off feeling ever sorry for myself.

This torture dragged on what seemed like forever. I used the beautiful countryside and amazing trails to distract myself from the agony. I literally concentrated on putting down as high a cadence as I could muster and soldiered on. Rejoining the North Downs Way, I knew this death march would end soon enough so stumbled on in a laughable weave.

Travelling through small villages, by gorgeous riversides and winding up pretty woodland I reflected on my journey and current position. I couldn't help but enjoy the experience, as painful as a finish it was. I soon arrived at the final aid station and just collapsed onto the dirt in front of the food table. The bewildered staff asked if I was okay, to which I mumbled some unintelligible reply about this being normal. I reached back behind my head and my hand found a bowl of jelly babies. With one last ditch effort to salvage a strong finish I threw a couple of the little sugar filled adolescents in my mouth. I hadn't even realised but a black labrador was frantically licking the sweat off my arms and face. At least the dog was getting his electrolytes in...

I stood up with one last effort and start wobbling off in a slow jog. I rounded the corner, out of sight of the aid staff and promptly vomited yet again.

Nothing for it now but the run in to the finish and try to hold this first place. It felt truly pathetic, but looking back I really was running everything, which however slow was meaning solid progress. 

What followed was probably the most enjoyable and memorable moments in my running life. Running up a steep climb somewhere within reach of the finish I heard a shout from behind. Looking back I could see my family running desperately trying to catch up and see me into the finish. With maybe 800 metres to the end we all ran in together. It is a moment in my life I'll never forget, it genuinely brought a tear to my eye. Luckily I still had my sunglasses on to protect my manhood, so nobody will ever know.

Video of the race filmed by my little boy Cameron

As we emerged from the woods the organisers erupted in applause, making the whole thing even more overwhelming. I ran down the hill with the kids (although too shy to receive the attention Ava broke off just short of the end). As it was me and Cam broke the finishers tape together = joy.

Breaking the tape with Cam

I promptly collapsed, puked for a further 3 hours, eventually had bread and milk, got a trophy, finally had some champagne, slept like a log for several hours, life went on.

See - runnings not serious! All that calamity and effort for a small glass trophy. But do you know what, I had a day I'll never forget and enjoyed every high and low throughout. Okay so maybe I'll take it a little more seriously after all...

Trophy time - thanks to the Cystic Fibrosis Trust, and Salomon, Suunto and Mountain Fuel for the support.