I don’t do many road or big city marathons, but this one was local so it was a little easier to choke down the £45 entry fee, and the prospect of beer at the end made up for having seen all the scenery en route a thousand times before. I didn’t really have a plan, other than to make it a decent tempo run, enjoy the day, and get to the pub early enough to get a seat.

It started pretty badly, less than a mile in I got a shooting pain in my left shin, stabbing me with every stride. I eased off the pace, tried to alter my gait, but it was killing me. At about 4 miles I had to stop and take a couple of minutes to stretch it out, and I really thought about dropping. With the South Downs Way 100 in 3 weeks I didn’t want to do any damage that would rule me out.  I plodded very gently for a bit and it eased off a little, although I didn’t especially enjoy being passed by about 500 people at the time. 

I hit 10k in Stanley Park and started to feel a bit better, the pain had eased, and it all started to feel easy – the way it should have done from the start.  Then just before 10 miles, the weirdest thing happened, when a couple of runners came running towards me. I thought they might’ve started really late at first, but then someone shouted and I saw the 10 mile marker on the opposite flyover. I doubled back with a group of people and ran back to the unmarshalled and unsigned fork, took the left one, and carried on past the 10m marker. We met a group of other runners about 500m further down who hadn’t noticed they’d gone the wrong (and slightly longer) way. I had quite a few nervous moments after that where I found myself pretty much on my own with no obvious signage, which threw my concentration off quite a bit. 

There was no real drama from there, I ran steady 4:50-ish kms until 5km to go and then upped the pace, running the last couple at 4:10, and finished in 3:23:07. It wasn’t easy, I had to dig in a few times and the start was a bit iffy (maybe I need to warm up better for these short races!), but the last 10km or so felt great and I had loads left at the end. Not bad for my second fastest marathon time. 

I’m not used to these kind of big races, and I have a natural aversion to the big, corporate, money making race franchise approach, so it was all in a bit of weird experience for me. There were some
good bits and some terrible bits, but I’m not sure they evened each other out. 

On the plus side the route was good, definitely a more interesting route around the city than the usual races. There were loads of water stations, all seemingly in the perfect place. The baggage drop/pickup was all really easy, and there were plenty of toilets. The race t-shirt was nice, the medal was really heavy, and I got a free beer at the end. 

On the downside, the route marking and marshalling wasn’t good enough to stop people going the wrong way, which for a marked road race is about as big a screw up as you can make once the water’s turned up. If I was being picky, the first 4-5 water bottles I was handed were still sealed so I had to bite the little tab off each time which was a pain (later on they were just taking the sports caps off altogether). 

The atmosphere was patchy at best – in a few pockets there were loads of people, but for long stretches there weren’t any at all. Pains me to say it but compared to Manchester it seemed deserted. 

There are a few things since the race that have taken the shine off even more. Waiting until the next day to get the race results is crazy for a race like this. Charging £25 for a single race photo and £50 for a few of them, is bordering on criminal.  Then there’s the massive over-stating of the numbers running by the organisers, claiming 10,000 in the 1/2 and 7,000 in the full, when it was closer to 7,000 for both.

I just can’t seem to shake the same, depressing feeling I get when I go to the football. That first and foremost, that my role in proceedings is as a customer. That my first purchase, has simply alerted someone to the fact that I might have more money to spend. That if I bought a match ticket, maybe I’ll buy a programme and a hotdog. Or sign up to a club-endorsed credit card. That if I entered the race, maybe I’ll buy a photo or pay £10 to get my medal engraved.

In that sense at least, “Rock n Roll” is probably the perfect brand. Taking something, like running, that at its heart is pure, joyful and free, and processing and commercialising it in order to maximise revenue and shift as many units as possible is what it’s all about, right?

I think it’s fair to say I underestimated this one. What should have been a nice moderate paced last long run before the South Downs Way 100,  quickly spiralled into some ultra-running inspired sequel to Withnail and I, in which I’d most definitely gone running by mistake.




The route was split into 10 mile chunks, which sort of went like this:

0- 10 miles: Ok, no drama, but was it was a bit hilly and warming up.

10-20 miles: I filled my 2 water bottles up at the first manned CP before setting off on the “Conquest” loop, where things sort of started to go wrong. I got covered in grease climbing over a fence, started too quickly up Corden Hill which went on forever and took me ages to recover from, slipped going through the woods and grabbed a barbed wire fence which sliced my finger open, and ran out of water 5km before the next CP. It wasn’t especially hot in the grand scheme of things, about 24*c at the hottest, but that was a good 10*c than anything I’d run in so far this year, and the sun kicked my ass pretty early on.

20-30 miles: Gasping, I downed a litre of water at the 10 mile CP and filled the 2 bottles on my race vest, as well as the spare handheld I’d brought. I was really dehydrated and suffering at this point, and just walked and drank for about 20 minutes until I felt a bit better. I let the small group I’d been running with go ahead which took a bit of pressure off me too.  In my head, I quit at this point, just trudging up a hill through a field of sheep. I could barely imagine getting to the next CP, never mind running another 20 miles. I mentally drafted my DNF race report, and honestly didn’t care if I ever ran or raced ever again. For about an hour. I finally got up past Brookshill Marsh to Devil’s Chair, choked down a gel, and felt a little better at the prospect of a nice flat stretch, which was stupid. Running through Stiperstones was kind of flat in a topographical sense, but it was just a rock-strewn path, melon-sized rocks, but pointy and impossible to run on. I stumbled through, ripping both my shoes on the rocks and swearing a bit, but the slower pace was making me feel much better. Things are kind of a blur from there, but all of a sudden I was at the next CP in the Red Lion beer garden.

30-40 miles: I had a cake, a sausage and some sweets at the CP and another load of water, topped up my bottles, and headed off on the “Famine” loop feeling quite a bit better. I’d caught the group I was running with before, and 4 of us ran together for quite a while, me, Michelle (who won the Women’s 100 mile) a guy called Billy, and another guy who dropped back before I could get his name. We were all doing ok relatively speaking (despite missing a self-clip CP and having to go back for it) until we hit Earls Hill. Michelle bounced up it like a mountain goat, but Billy and I really struggled. I finally got to the top and collapsed on the ground. It felt pretty good down there and I might’ve nodded off if my calves hadn’t started cramping like hell. The three of us plodded on, but Michelle was in so much better shape and cracked on ahead. Billy and I shuffled along for a bit, then perked up a bit on the descent back to the Red Lion CP.

40-50 miles: Michelle was gone before we got to the CP, and Billy was weighing up whether to drop to the 50 mile route (an option for the 100 milers at this CP). I was too sick to eat, nausea hitting me in waves, so I filled up my bottles and headed off. A short while later I was in a field being attacked by bulls. The cows and bulls along the route had been a bit inquisitive to say the least up to this point, but in this field they sort of went mental. About 1/3 the way through the field, about 12 adolescent bulls charged me. My only options were a barbed wire fence I could never have jumped, or shouting and waving my arms, so I shouted and waved my arms. The bulls stopped and backed off briefly, then charged me again. I did the same, but this time they just stopped, without backing off. I shouted and screamed at them again, but they seemed to have worked out that wasn’t going to do them any harm and charged me again. All I could do was leg it for the gate, which I made with about 3 metres to spare before they ground to a halt behind me, all snorting and angry at not having managed to gore me to death.

Once the adrenaline had worn off I carried on my shuffle, knowing there was just one more long shallow-ish climb to go before the descent back to the finish. At that point another runner caught me up. We’d chatted a bit earlier (but I’d forgotten his name), and we staggered along chatting for a few miles up to the top of Wild Moor from where we re-joined the trail we’d come up in the morning. Knowing it was only 2 miles or so of downhill to go I perked up no end, but I was deliberating the etiquette of burning off and leaving him. We’d not run for long together in the grand scheme of things, but we were quite close to the finish and I didn’t want to be a dick and burn off just for the sake of a place. Just as I was thinking that, he told me to go on as he was going to walk in from there, so I did, and I’m really glad I did. Not because I somehow in all the chaos of the day managed to come in in third place, but because the slightly technical descent down to the finish was the only part of the whole race I actually enjoyed. It felt amazing to know it was nearly over, and that I was going to make it, and that I could run knowing that it didn’t matter. It felt like I was flying down the hill for a sprint finish (despite the fact I was probably 9 minute miling), and I’d have missed that if we’d just trudged down together.

I was astonished to find I’d come third, in 11hrs 35mins. I’d thought there were loads of people in front of me, 50 and 100 mile runners, but most of them had been doing the 100 and some must have taken  wrong turns along the way in that final leg. I think I must also have inadvertently passed more people than I thought when I went through the last CP and they were resting or refuelling, but to be honest my brain was fried so god knows.

This was supposed to be the final warm-up for the SDW100 in 4 weeks, but I’m really starting to wonder if I want it badly enough. I know this route was way tougher than the SDW will be, but I got my hydration and nutrition wrong AGAIN, and made a tough race a million times harder for myself as a result.

As a race it was amazing. I think a lot of people will have been surprised by how tough it was, and I have no idea how the 100 milers got around – the winner Charlie Sharpe came in in 22:30 or thereabouts, and the finish rate for the 100 was about 30% which shows how tough it was. The organisation was fantastic though, the support at the checkpoints was great, and the organisation before and during the event was spot on. It was my first Beyond Marathon event and I’d definitely do more. Maybe not for a week or two though.

Every now and again, a race pops up that just kicks your arse. The Malvern Hills Ultra did that to me this weekend. I had a pretty rough time and didn’t enjoy much of the day, but there were some important things I learned, or was reminded of as I dragged myself up and down
the hills...



1. Malt loaf makes my guts explode: I quite like malt loaf but had never had it in a race before. What could go wrong? After a couple of pieces at CP1 and CP2, my stomach was gurgling like mad and I was convinced I was going to crap myself, possibly to death. After two poop-less toilet stops at CP3 and a public toilet shortly after, I was reassured it was “just” bloating, but that didn’t stop it feeling like I was being punched in the guts with every stride.

2. Malvern is Hilly: Ok, it was the Malvern Hills Ultra, but bloody hell. The stretch from 20 miles to the turnaround at 26 miles and back to 32 was really tough up over North Hill and Worcester Beacon.

3. However bad you think it is, it always gets better: From mile 20 to mile 32 I was in agony, but shortly after that it subsided and I was able to run a something like a normal pace again.

4. However good it gets, it usually gets worse: by the time I hit mile 40 the fact I’d eaten almost nothing due to feeling sick hit me like a sledgehammer. I choked down some gels, including a Torq one with 90mg of caffeine in it which worked for a bit, but I haven’t felt that dead on my feet since Fen Drayton last year.

5. You can always rely on the kindness of strangers: When I was struggling at mile 42 or so, a guy came out of his cottage and asked if any of us wanted some water. I was desperate for the water and the short break it’d give me, and the offer managed to shake me out of the dismal mood I was in for a bit.

6. You can always rely on the idiocy of strangers: The kind stranger had filled my bottle with fizzy water, so of course ten paces away from his cottage my water bottle was spraying water all over me like a fire hose.

7. Runners are awesome: I ran almost the whole race with a guy called Mike. He fell quite badly early on and I stuck with him to make sure he was ok, and at the 26 mile turnaround, although he’d gone ahead while I was making a pit stop, he waited for me and we set off from there together. So many times in the home stretch I told him to go ahead as I knew I was slowing him down, but he stuck with me, telling me to get on with it and shouting (mostly encouragingly) at me to keep going. I’d have been out there at least another 30 minutes if it wasn’t for him, and his wife who kept meeting us at points along the way and helping fill bottles, point us in the right direction etc.

8. Navigating well is easier than running fast: In the last 10 miles we passed the same group of walkers three times in 40 minutes, missed three turnings, and had to climb over a barbed wire fence to get back into the field we were supposed to be in. Even now with the map in front of me I have no idea what we were doing.

 9. There is no feeling in the world like ending a race that’s gone really badly: I was happier to finish this race than I was to finish the LGF 6hr that I won. That’s how bad I felt. 

10. My “bad” is getting better: After all that, I stumbled across the line in 9:56 and 6th place, after running somewhere in the region of 56 miles (against the 52 mile course) with 8,500ft of ascent. If I’d laid off the malt loaf I reckon I could have saved at least 30 minutes, and the detours in the second half cost at least the same again.

So a few things to focus on for the Apocalypse 50 in two weeks’ time. I'll be malt-loaf free and glued to my map the whole way this time for starters...