Ultraben
  • Home
  • Races and stuff

foxton 24

25/5/2015

0 Comments

 
Picture
I had a few reasons for doing this. There were the usual "because it's there" and "why not?" reasons, plus it was close, just down the road in Preston so the logistics were easy. But the main reason was to see if under near-perfect conditions I could improve significantly on my last two 100 mile performances. 

The short answer is, I couldn't. 

Before the midday start on Saturday it was all pretty exciting. I knew loads of people there, and Gill, David, Michael, Matt and Gina were all racing so there was a really good buzz early on as we all got set up. The first few hours passed pretty quickly as we all trotted around happily enough in the sunshine. One guy Nick was hammering it a bit early on, but other than that we were all just coming off the track at various points and chatting with each other as we went along. David's wife Jan turned up in the afternoon (and again later on) with Callipos which was awesome, and we all ordered pizza from Dominos at about 8pm which was neat. 

My goal had involved running 1 hour 10ks pretty much until I fell apart, and rely on having a strong walk to get me through the last few hours, but I was behind that by quite a bit after 8 hours, and by midnight I was following the same pattern as my last two 100s, slowing down, and with the growing sense that I had a lot of walking and pain ahead of me. 

By 2am a few of the runners had gone to sleep in their tents - I hadn't brought one, and nor had Nick, who at this point was bloody miles ahead of me, so we just kept going. We didn't really chat much though, as he was stopping, resting, and then running a fast lap in the time it was taking me to run 2 slowly without stopping. Despite the fact he was suffering from his quick start, there was no way I was catching him. My legs were fine, but I was just knackered and struggling to stay awake, or eat anything. If I'd had any sense (or crew) this is the point I'd have switched from drinking water to drinking the high-5 carb drink I brought with me for exactly that situation, but I'd run about 120km at that point and wasn't especially sharp.

So I just kept trudging, shuffling, trudging and shuffling, and edging my way closer to my main target of 100 miles. 

At about 8am Sunday morning I perked up a bit, had a bacon and egg roll and a caffeine gel, and felt a whole lot better. I started running again, and was soon knocking off laps in groups of five with short walking breaks in between. All of a sudden I hit 100 miles with an hour and twenty minutes to go (a PB by 35 minutes) and all was looking ok. A bit more running and shuffling along and I eventually hit 104.5 miles when the horn sounded for us to stop.

I was happy enough with that, and pleased that I'd made my main goals of still being on the track at the end, and hitting 100 miles. I came second too which was kind of neat, although the gaps between us all were so big in the last few hours there wasn't much drama on that score. Me and David won the team competition too, by about 70km in the end I think!

At the end of the race everyone was buzzing, and pretty much everyone had met or smashed the target they came with, and it was great to properly be able to thank the amazing volunteers from the local Scout group who had been looking after and encouraging us for the whole race. There was a bit of wait afterwards while they got our certificates ready, and we all hobbled around to one of the sports halls for the presentation where I picked up a certificate, whisky and glass set and £10 Waterstones voucher for 2nd place, and another certificate and a bottle of wine for mine and David's team win.

On reflection I'm a bit disappointed that the night stage whacked me out so badly again. It'll be a while before I go for anything that long again, but when I do I think I'm going to try and get some help crewing or pacing. I had everything there to get me out of the doldrums during the night (caffeine gels, carb drink for when I didn't feel like eating etc.), I was just too knackered to realise and use it.




0 Comments

windermere marathon

25/5/2015

0 Comments

 
Picture
Third time at Windermere, just a steady one before the Foxton 24. Ran with Gill and Adam for the first hour or so which was cool, and then just plodded on at 4 hour pace. Stopped for an ice-cream at 20 miles which was nice, and then finished in 4:00:16, no drama.
0 Comments

stroud trails marathon

25/5/2015

0 Comments

 
Awesome race, had a great time, despite it nearly killing me. Only 2,500ft of ascent, but most of it's at the end in a hilarious "bet you thought that was the last hill didn't you?" finish. Route was sparsely marked and the maps they gave out were shit - not surprised a lot of people got lost, I only survived by following people who knew the route from last year. There was sod all to eat at the CPs too, just jelly babies at some of them which wasn't great. 
0 Comments

milton keynes marathon

25/5/2015

0 Comments

 
Really good fun, nice sunny day, top marshals all the way round and a stadium finish, top race! 
0 Comments

blackpool marathon

3/5/2015

0 Comments

 
Picture
Good bits: Lovely weather, ran well, nice even splits and a strong finish for 3:27, and a nice medal.


Bad bits: Another shockingly organised event from Fylde Coast Running. Loads of people's chips didn't work, and as I was about to turn onto the prom for the last km a marshal shouted me up onto the main road and directed me the wrong way. Checked with the next two marshals who all said it was the right way , and then another marshal who said it wasn't and directed me back, and up the finish chute the wrong way. Loads of people were told the same, and even after I'd finished, told them what had happened and had a chat with a few of the finishers people were still being sent the wrong way. There's only three things you need to not screw up in a race like that, water, route and times, and apparently people towards the back were missing water as some of the aid stations had packed up. Not doing any of their races again, way too expensive for the fun-run organisation.
0 Comments

Dark Skies Marathon

3/5/2015

0 Comments

 
Picture
Gorgeous scenery, fucking miles away though. Set a new PB for running a marathon with explosive diarrhoea, and managed (somehow) to come fourth.
0 Comments

Calderdale hike

3/5/2015

0 Comments

 
Hilly as a bastard. Came fourth in like 5:25 or something.
0 Comments

round reservoir marathon

3/5/2015

0 Comments

 
Picture
Was a lovely day, should've worn road shoes tho. No drama, 3:40 or something.
0 Comments
    Tweets by @ben_wittenberg

    RSS Feed

    Archives

    November 2017
    May 2016
    April 2016
    November 2015
    October 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.