Saturday the 10th of July started like most Saturdays over the previous 5 months - up early and making porridge. The difference this time around was that it was ever-so-slightly earlier (5am rather than 7.30am) and with a pot of porridge made with boiling water (rather than heating up with milk). There was still the nervous feeling of not really wanting to go out and run at all.
Except this time, I had too. I mean, I had to the other times, but I really had to this time because the day had finally arrived, the day I had been training for on and off for the best part of 18 months - the 106km Isle of Wight Ultra Challenge.
Having first entered the Salomon Serpent Trail in July 2019, which got delayed to September 2020, which I couldn't make because of another event that had not yet got delayed, I switched to the Action Challenge ultra series to do the Isle of Wight full 106km challenge - their longest challenge (the other ultras they put on top out at 100km) due to happen in September 2020. Unsurprisingly it got put back to May 2021, a hefty but sensible delay in the hope COVID would be done, if not dusted, which of course it wasn't as it was then scheduled for July 2021. To add to the drama, this event was no longer 106km! Due to an issue on the route, it had to be diverted near the end so was now 107km!
Standing on the start line (and I was on the start line, being far too keen when our start time wave was called forward) I was nervous ahead of my first (and likely last) ultra marathon. My longest run before now had been about 31 miles and 41 miles across two runs in a weekend, what seemed far too few training miles to complete this challenge. But also, I knew I wasn't going to run the whole thing and that I'm too bloody-minded to just drop out short of an actual injury that would force retirement.
Setting off from Newport and the county showground at 6.45am on the dot, complete with a rousing 10-second countdown, I set off at a surprising pace of under 10 minutes a mile, a pace I knew I would be unlikely to revisit once the early miles were behind me. We headed out through some houses and into a small woodland which had held on to a lot of the moisture the clouds had sent down in the days prior - I was certainly glad to be at the front of the pack, not the back of an 800-strong field which would only soften and churn up the mud further!
Once out of the woodland it was onto the lanes and back roads as we headed down to the coastal path and on to the Needles. I had decided weeks ago that I would choose my battles - not running up the long or steep hills but to run all the downhills. Leaving the coastal path was one of those battles - a sharp climb of around 300 feet in the space of a mile had me walking earlier than expected but once the climb started to level off I was back running again.
Terrified I'd missed a checkpoint (you have to scan in at every checkpoint to verify you're doing the course) as I started to pass people on a different challenge (the Southern 50) I pressed on determined not to be beaten but to complete the course regardless. It later turned out that those challengers started not at a checkpoint but at a point off our full challenge course so I arrived at the 32km checkpoint very much relieved. This was a steep climb down into a dell to be scanned, presumably set up there due to the road links and then a higher climb up to the Tennyson monument. Stretching ahead from there was around 2 miles of descent which I couldn't wait to get going on. Sadly, the left-to-right slope of the ground put paid to that as I couldn't run comfortably as my left ankle and knee started to struggle with the slope. Walking it was but it was only short-term - not injury-inducing.
With this section behind me it was back on to the coastal path for the long trek down to Chale, the halfway point and, more importantly, Rosie. 54km in was now officially my longest ever run and I was starting to feel it. I'd been taking on water, Lucozade and SIS carb gels along the way, as well as the well-catered rest stops where I would grab a Freddo, a banana and a small bag of Haribo, but there were just such long stretches without seeing anyone else, or there may be a single person whom I overtook or overtook me but it was a quick exchange of "well done, doing great, keep going!" and that could be it for another 30-40 minutes. Seeing Rosie just outside the halfway point gave me an enormous lift and we walked to the checkpoint together before she went to the supporters area and I got scanned.
I'd decided that a full kit change would be needed - fresh Lucozade in my pouches, fresh carb gels, fresh clothes - even down to my underwear and shoes! I also had a quick video call with my mum (and the extended family as she and dad were at a family do I'd obviously had to duck out of). I was tired and a little emotional and between seeing Rosie, my mum and my family all cheering me on to keep going I almost lost it as I sat on the phone! Rosie and I sat together for a while and she told me what she's been up to and her plans for the rest of the day, but eventually, after about 45 minutes of catching my breath, it was time to get going again.
I'd read that there was a particularly cruel climb just outside Chale that led up to the route's highest point so on I pressed, knowing that whatever came after that, on average I'd be heading downhill!
Once off the coastal path we were heading through some little villages, always with the sight of other challenges just disappearing round the bend ahead and the sound of someone coming down a hill behind me. The islanders must be used to this as so many were aware of it that almost all cheered me on and the people around me. They don't know who you are or how far you've run, and I certainly don't know them, but it's so uplifting when someone cheers you on when you're so tired and wonder how much further you can go.
Before long we were in a woodland that I would hate to have to go through at night - it was quite dark for the daytime but at night you can't be able to see your hand in front of your face! The path was uneven, rocky, muddy, steep up, steep down, stairs to climb. I really felt that mile or so heading towards Ventnor was the worst. But once out you're back on the coastal path and side roads and then along the promenade all the way into Shanklin and on to Sandown where, just in the distance on top of the hill on the other side of the seaside town, you can just about make out the feather flags fluttering in the wind. There was the 76km checkpoint and almost three-quarters done.
And I was done - I was going to try and run the downhills if I could but after that it would be walking, one step in front of the other and just try to keep going. Out of the checkpoint was a downhill stretch so I set off running again, and the hill didn't really stop so neither did I. I'd asked how far it was to the next checkpoint and the next and final one was 12km away. So now I had three small races to go: 12km to the checkpoint, 12 km to 100km and then the final 7km to the finish. I could do this. So I ran and I just kept on running - while the path was down or flat I just kept going until I hit a field that was so uneven I lost momentum trying to dodge the lumps and bumps and went back to a walk. On the next downhill section I tried to run again but my ankle was sore and I was getting shin splints. My race was run but I could still finish by walking.
Each kilometre marker was a step closer to the next checkpoint until 88km came and went and I'd started to think I'd missed a checkpoint again. 89km came and then so did the checkpoint. The medic could see I was struggling and asked if I needed anything, at which point I realised I had some painkillers with me which could ease the pain in my shin and ankle. So I knocked back some Anadin, had another banana, another Freddo and a vegan apple danish (surprisingly, not bad) and off I went again.
I walked for about 6 or 7km and then I stopped walking. I got to a downhill stretch and decided I'd try and run a little in the vague hope of finishing some time before 1am. So I started running, and I kept on running and the pain in my leg and ankle were gone and on I went, step after step. I'd already got my headtorch on as we were now mostly in the dark and maybe without being able to see the towns or villages or the scenery with no distractions I could just focus on keeping going. For 5 miles I ran at a pace as quick as when I started until I even overtook three people who had overtaken me. "Keep going!" we'd exchange, "Only a park run to go and we're done!". Because that's what you do at this point - it's fooling yourself into running a shorter race. 5km is so much easier to run than the last five kilometres of a 107km run. On and on I went, somehow feeling stronger than I had in the previous 70 or 80km. My legs felt strange - almost like I had dead legs but not - they weren't a part of me, just doing their thing, ticking over and over.
I think what also spurred me on was my Garmin watch had warned me its battery was low and I was terrified it would die before I could log the run (fellow runners - you understand, right?). So I pushed on and finished the race in an event time of 16h 44m 14s and 51st overall. I was astounded - I'd done it, I was finished and I'd left everything on the course with nothing left to give. I'd succeeded where so many had failed, and that's to take nothing away from what they had achieved before retiring with injuries or fatigue. Of the various formats available this weekend I joined the hardest, being 107km in one day rather than over two days; a format where less than 75% of those starting were able to finish.
Have a thought for poor Rosie though - for the final 25km or so she'd try to follow me on the tracking map and always got to a point where I had just left, hoping I'd be walking and we could walk together for a while. Not only that, my spurt of energy at the end completely caught her off-guard (it did me, to be honest!) and she missed me crossing the finish line!
And I've already been asked "what's next??". Well Rosie and I are doing the South Coast Challenge which is done by the same organisers, except we're walking the first half only. As for me, I don't know. This was a bucket list goal which I've achieved and I've no desire to do another. It took everything I had to complete this and it was such a physical, emotional and time commitment to train for it that to maintain this level of fitness just to do it again is just too much so to move on to the next level (which would likely be 100 miles), just isn't feasible - I don't want that lifestyle. I'd happily consider a marathon again, in fact I hope to do London for the fourth time next year, but anything beyond that wouldn't be fair on me and it wouldn't be fair on Rosie either.
Would I change anything about this year? No. The weather started cool but wasn't cold, with a light drizzle that wasn't wet. The weather improved and it got warmer to the point I should have re-applied the sun cream but I didn't and now I have tanlines but not really sunburnt and the evening was dry. My hydration and nutrition strategy I think worked perfectly with the pièce de résistance being a full kit change at halfway. My training, while at the time left me feeling woefully ill-prepared turned out to be absolutely spot on, with the right mix of walking, running, high mileage, speed training, hill training and weight training.
I wouldn't want to change anything about the day and I don't want to see if I could improve my performance - I have nothing left to prove!
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