South Downs Way 100

First off for anyone reading this this post is more a reminder for me than an informative article for you!

Writing this a few hours after I finished I'm still basking in the post ultra, pleasantly tired and aching glow of a good result.  So whilst it's still fresh here's a bit of an analysis of my run.

This was only my 2nd 100 miler and while I'll always be immensely proud of finishing the Lakeland100 after the race I felt I'd 'survived' it rather than 'run' it.  This was totally different.

I'd set myself a few aims before the race mainly:

Overall 

• Pace well 
• Feed well 
• Don't take too long at CPs 

Time aims for the race

• Main target                              sub-24 hours  
• Really Good Day Target         sub-20 hours  
• Not So Good Day Target        finish within the cutoff  

So how did I get on:

Pace Well

With the exception of the last 5 miles when it felt like the wheels fell off a bit I thought this went quite well.  I was still running what felt like a reasonable speed for most of the last quarter which suggests I got it pretty much on track.  The gradient on the climbs/descents meant that they were comfortable to walk up at a fast pace and I could run the downhills quite fast without smashing my quads.  Although I ran some of the gentle climbs early on by the second quarter I was already walking pretty much anything that felt like a slope but I think this helped me keep my overall pace higher than if I'd tried running them for longer and tiring myself out. Timings for each quarter were:

• 25 miles    3:47
• 50 miles    4:32 (+ 45 mins)
• 75 miles    5:09 (+37 mins)
• 100 miles   6:10 (+ 61 mins)

Part of the reason for the longer last 25 miles was:

Don't Take Too Long At CPs

I was in and out for the majority of the checkpoints up until Saddlescombe Farm at 66.6 miles.  I was carrying a zip lock bag and picking stuff up and then moving on - eating it whilst walking until it was gone and then picking the pace up again.  This worked well until I started having a few stomach problems which fed into:

Feed Well

I started off trying to get some solid savoury food down but even quite early on this was proving difficult - with it taking me about 3 minutes to chew a savoury egg ball enough to swallow it.  I was happy to see a lot of fruit at the checkpoints and must have eaten about a half a water melon during the race.  I think most of my calories came from flat Coke which towards the latter stages of the race my stomach took a real dislike to.  I didn't really get any energy lows though and even when I was struggling for the last 5 miles this seemed to be more due to a loss of leg strength than any real energy dip.  During the latter stages of the race I was spending longer at the CPs trying to get some solids down which had something to do with the longer split for that quarter.

Time Aims

My finishing time of 19:36 was more than I could have hoped for.  When I started to fade towards the end I became quite conservative to make sure of the sub-20 hour rather than push for something faster.  I don't think this was the wrong choice but maybe psychologically it made me slow down and walk at times when I could have run.  On the last road section I was run/walking between lamp posts when I could possibly have run the whole way in. This was one of the main reasons for dropping from 12th at Southease (83 miles) to 20th at the finish with about 5 of these places going in the last 7 miles.  It was never really about the places though and to go 24 minutes under a time I didn't think I could do is something I'm really happy with.

Motivation

Overall this never really dropped - I didn't go to a 'bad place' once which isn't necessarily a good thing.  I certainly need to be careful of this going into my next big event as undoubtedly it will happen at some point and forgetting how to deal with the dips is risky.  Even when I felt a bit wobbly towards the end it was so close to the finish and I was easily going to go sub-20hrs that it wasn't an issue.

So What Did I Learn?

• I can run a sub-20 hour 100 miler - although I think the variety of the course and the gradients helped a lot with this.
• I still need to work on my nutrition a bit and try to find someway to eat a few more solids.
• I need to be careful about treating this as 'typical' I reckon I'll get a lot more lows in future events. 

South Downs Way 100 - Aims

I think it's quite useful to set down what you hope to achieve from a big event.  For me it's a bit of a commitment to what you want to do and if it all goes horribly wrong it can stop you trying to reinvent what you wanted to do to fit events.

So general aims for the race:

• Pace well - I'm a bit of a believer in Stuart Mills mantra of bag the miles while you feel good but I got this wrong on the Lakeland 100 last year and it led to me being really slow on the second half of the race.  I know I'll be tempted to run too fast to start off with and I need to watch this.  I'll be happier if I run a slower well paced race than if I run too fast at the start and end up walking a lot.
• Feed well - I'm getting better at this but I still didn't get it quite right at Peddar's Way and the last few miles were pretty grim as a result.  I want to try to have a 'little and often' approach this time which feeds into my next aim...
• Don't take too long at CPs - definitely been guilty of this in the past, partly because the CPs tend to be staffed by such nice people who make a fuss of you.  I kept it short and sweet on Peddar's Way and want to do the same.

Time aims for the race:

• Main target - sub-24 hours.  I think this is achievable.  I felt really comfortable at the end of my last long training run which was 40 miles in 8:38.
• Really Good Day Target - sub-20 hours.  Really don't think I've got this in me yet, particularly as I don't know the course but then I surprised myself at Peddar's Way.
• Not So Good Day Target - finish within the cutoff.  

Le Grande Ultra Tour De Luton

The idea for Le Grande Ultra Tour came out of a post to the Ultra Running Community facebook site. I'm running the Chiltern Way 200k race later in the year and looking at the route online I'd noticed that the top section looked a bit like a cat's head - or many other things according to some of the comments on the site.

I doubt I'll get to recce the full route before the race but the 'cat's head' was close to home, about 40 miles and could be made into a circular route with only a small deviation from the Chiltern Way.

The name came from the idea that the route circumnavigated Luton and I figured the idea of looking at Luton all day was at least as challenging as doing the UTMB race.

I'd posted it as an event on the Social Ultra website but with the race calendar getting pretty busy I'd never really expected much response.  In the end 3 of us ended up doing - Scott and Chris were friends outside of Social Ultra as well as being members of the group

Aims
Although I'm not using a structured training programme at the minute I do try and consciously set myself aims for some of my training runs. Le Grande Tour was going to be my last long run before the South Downs Way 100 so my aims were:

• run at a similar pace to that I planned at SDW100
• work on my feeding. I still struggle to get this right and end up having big energy dips at points on long runs.
• carry my race kit for the SDW100

I picked Chris up and we met Scott at the Lilley Arms at 9am. It didn't get off to an auspicious start as I left my phone in the car and ended up turning round almost straight away.

The Chiltern Way is fairly well signposted in this part of the world although at this time of year signs are easily covered by vegetation. I'd run the first mile or so of the route which was lucky as we nearly ran past the first turn off in Lilley.

Although the route crosses some major roads and passes built up areas you very rarely feel like you are in an urban environment.  The route wends it's way through the rolling countryside - if you'd never run in this area you might be surprised how hilly this area is.  We were soon off the stretch I knew which made the navigation more interesting. We made one minor error when a finger post seemed to point across a field. We fairly quickly recognised our error and got back on track.

I don't normally run with other people and it probably helped me to slow down. Chris had run 70 miles a few weeks before and was still in recovery mode. The rape seed growing in many of the fields made life interesting and after cutting through one field we looked like we'd done a colour run. 

We hit 'civilisation' again at Harpenden and then had the delights of crossing a major junction under the M1.  Pretty soon it was back to the countryside though and until we hit Dunstable Downs Luton was lost to us.

We stopped at the Downs visitor centre for a coffee and cake (highly recommended if you are ever in the area) and from there on in I knew the route back to Lilley.  There's a major link road being built between the M1 and the A5 which crosses the route and will be interesting when I'm back there for the race later in the year.

Overall it was a great day out.  Superb weather, fantastic countryside and very very few glimpses of Luton.  I managed to hit my main aims although I got lazy with my feeding near the end.  Legs felt great at the finish but I was running low on energy.

I'll quite probably run this again next year after some interest on the Social Ultra site.  It's just difficult finding a space in the ultra calendar these days.