#24hourrunning

Last weekend saw my latest race, a type of race that I have never tried before. A 24 hour race. Now I didn't run for 24 hours on my own, instead I ran in a team of 8. We made up 2 teams from our running club and another local club, so had 16 of us there in total. We turned up on the Saturday morning, and the race was to start at midday. Most people had pitched tents the night before, so everything was ready to go. I was down to run first for my team, so I sat and ate a nice big chicken and bacon salad about 10am to fuel up ready. It was also about this time that the rain came.....

By midday, I had rolled, stretched, fuelled and was good to go. And the rain was still persisting. The gun went and we started, straight onto a big grassy downhill. Slippy. I gently eased my way down, and at the bottom we hit mud. The majority of this race is across fields. There is very little track, so we were all skating across the mud and splashing through all the puddles. And there were a lot of them! But to me, that kind of weather is awesome! I love to run in the rain, and it just made the whole run more amusing. By about a mile in, my t-shirt was completely plastered to me, I could hardly see for the rain pouring off my hair into my eyes, but I was having a great time. 

The whole lap was 4.8 miles, and I had chosen to do 2 laps back to back. At the end of my first lap, my team mates met me and cheered me through and gave me an orange as my fuel for the 2nd lap. At the moment I am fuelling with all natural foods. I haven't tried gels, or energy bars or drinks. And it works for me, so I’m sticking with it for now. I guess that as my distances increase I might need to start getting other things into my system but I’ll deal with that when I come across it. I gradually ate the orange over the next mile or so, giving a nice kick of refreshment with each bit. The rain had started to ease and I was running well. The second time round, the mud was more slippy, and there were more boggy patches. Thats the thing with lap races, as everyone is running round it over and over again and the same patches of ground are getting hundreds of runners churning it up constantly. It meant though that none of the laps I ran were ever the same. 

I finished my 2 laps (9.6miles) in 1hr 35 minutes giving me an average pace of around 9:30min/mile. I was very happy with that considering the conditions and the terrain. I am hoping to run my next half marathon in a 9min/mile pace which is all road, so after that performance I feel pretty confident that is doable over the distance. I passed the baton on to my next team mate and went for a nice hot shower and a rest.

I didn't run next until 12:40am. I have never before had to run with a head torch, so I got someone to run with me. I didn't care how fast I ran it, I just wanted to get round safely. I wasn't sure how I would feel about it, but once I got going I loved it. I could see head torches in the distance, so I didn't feel so alone. There were still plenty of people out there at night. The route went through a graveyard, quarry, and a small wood, so I stuck with people during that, but after those I was confident enough to cross the fields and tracks on my own. I did a much slower lap averaging 11:30 min/mile pace, but I was just glad to get round it. I would happily do more laps in the dark when I do something like this again though.

I managed about 2 hours sleep after that lap and got up again at 6am. I put in my next lap about 45 minutes later on minimal fuelling, but still averaged a 10:30 min/mile pace. Considering the lack of sleep, fuel, and all the running I had done the day before, I was happy. All in all, the whole experience was great. It was a good laugh and it was awesome training! Being able to conquer nearly 20 miles in 24 hours was something I haven't done before. Running 3 times over 24 hours was also new, and learning how to fuel and keep my body moving was good. It all made me realise that I am capable of a lot more than I thought I was, and was another big confidence booster. Our team came 4th overall, and our other team came 3rd. We had a good laugh, and I definitely want to do it again!