Another 24-hour Race

Why?! 

One of my aims at my 24-hour race in June was to beat my Personal Best of 130km. That race turned out to be ridiculously hot, so I moderated my plans and whilst I won the race I didn’t increase my PB.

I had said before, and during, that race that I wasn’t going to do a 24-hour race next year, but with my objective unmet, I resigned myself to having another stab. Then it occurred to me that it would be easier to maintain my fitness and endurance, than to rebuild it next year, which is what saw me enter this event taking place just 3 months later.

Weather

The weather forecast two weeks out was for wall-to-wall sunshine and 18 degrees. By two days out it was wall-to-wall rain. Two hours before the start, we were down to just two hours of rain and one of showers in the afternoon, with a middling probability of a couple of hours of showers overnight.

Given that forecast, we were unlucky with what we actually got. Somehow, with no suggestion of any remarkable windspeeds in the lead up, mid-afternoon the Met Office suddenly issued a severe weather warning for high winds, effective immediately until the early hours of the morning. It was as if someone had said “You do know that it’s jolly windy out there, don’t you?” and the Met Person said “Blimey, best get on and warn people about what’s currently happening!”.

As much as I like hot weather, I have to concede that the wet and windy conditions were more comfortable than 30+ degrees. But, oh, the mud! There were sections of the course that became pure comedy mud-baths, through which slow teetering was the only option. It was going through one of these in the pissing rain in the middle of the night that I suggested to the person slip-sliding next to me that we had made an odd choice of a fun way to spend a Saturday night out!

How it went

I know it sounds silly to say that I ‘only’ managed 120km, but that wasn’t my goal and it feels like I put in an awful lot of effort, and endured some pretty grim weather, only to fail in my objective. Relatively, I did reasonably well, coming 2^nd out of 89 in my age category and 11^th out of 297 solo women, but a good placing also wasn’t my objective.

It would be easy to blame being poorly in the week leading up to the event for my failure, but as I felt fine (if I overlook the persistent indigestion) for the first 10 laps, I really don’t think that was the problem.

It would also be easy to blame the weather – and certainly the solo winners’ distances were down on previous years – but as I was still on target when the sky cleared and the sun came up, I can’t blame that either. 

I think the reality is that I didn’t eat enough, I lost focus on what I was trying to achieve and somehow convinced myself, with 5 hours to go, that I couldn’t fit 3 more laps in when, in reality, I clearly had time (this event works on the basis of ‘if you’ve started you can finish’ on any lap started before the noon cut-off).

It was in Lap 11 that the wheels fell off. I felt awful and really tired. Thank goodness for a woman called Jayne who distracted me nicely, and undoubtedly sped me up, for the second half of the lap.

Somehow between Lap 11 and Lap 12, I spent 2 hours and 14 minutes in camp. How? What was I doing? I know I ate a bowl of porridge and a can of soup, but I cannot now account for the other two hours. And, yes, I felt pretty rough, but that’s hardly surprising in the circumstances, and it wasn’t a good reason not to carry on.

I did eventually drag myself back out, and felt pretty good for the first 4km of Lap 12, but then off came the wheels again. I felt so bad, seemingly unable to maintain a straight line, that I gave serious consideration to declaring myself unfit to continue at the second Marshal Point. I’d heard someone at the water station mention that they had water and sugar and thinking that a bit of pure sugar might sort me out, I continued on, and at the water station I asked if I’d heard correctly. They pointed me to some cups, where I expected to find a few teaspoons of sugar, but instead found four fizzy cola bottles.

I put the first one in my mouth, it tasted absolutely fantastic and before I’d even swallowed it, I felt so very much better, thus demonstrating that the ‘I can’t do this’ was entirely in my head. I stormed down the next hill (the steep one) passing people inching down sideways, and managed a power-march back up the other side (okay, that was more to do with the photographer at the top). The pep in my step lasted for most of the rest of the lap.  

Finishing Lap 12 with an hour still available to get back out for a final lap, I could undoubtedly have managed to equal my PB of 130km, but I couldn’t see the point. I was going to make my right shin worse, and having already had the experience of covering 70k on a painful shin back in June I wasn’t in the market for doing the same again when it wasn’t going to net me even a PB.

So, with time to spare, I called it a day.

In hindsight, it was a sensible decision to stop … it might have even been the right one!

That’s it, I’m done with 24-hour races…

It’s amusing to now read the messages I sent to a friend about 3 hours after the race, in which I was still sure that I wasn’t going to be doing another 24-hour race any time soon.

Three hours later Ali & I were plotting to return next year.

I’ve since decided that I need the opportunity to have two stabs next year (as I’m still convinced that I have 140km in me) so I may well be doing both June and September again. 

Photos:

Lap 1:

Lap 2:

Lap 3:

Above: Lap 4 (Blogger won't let me insert anything above it); Below: Lap 5

Laps 6, 7 and 8 (yep, Blogger won't let me insert text between the next 3 either):

Lap 9:

 I got so very cold on Lap 8 and shivered my way around. 

Lap 10: 

On this lap I set out in a long-sleeved base layer, fleece, two waterproof jackets, hat, gloves and buff. I must have gone 7 or 8k before took off the hat and gloves and opened some zips.  

Lap 11:
 

Final lap, about 2km from the finish, after the weather had belatedly come good