#sdw100

Two years ago, Sarah and I decided to finally do something we had been talking about for ages and run from our house in Brighton to my parent's house in Westbourne (near Chichester) via the South Downs Way. Prior to the actual running of it we did a few recce's of bits of the route, and one of these we decided to do on the same day of a crazy race we'd heard about, the Centurion Running SDW100.

The run to my parent's house was to be our first-ever foray into running ultra distances. We'd run a reasonable amount (albeit sporadically) over the years, but nothing beyond 26.2 miles. The thought of covering 45 miles to my parent's house seemed utterly daunting at that point - we had to buy three OS maps to just cover the whole route! - and so the thought that there was a race going on covering over twice that distance just seemed insane.

On the day of our recce we ran westwards, hoping to still be on the Downs when the race leaders came past so we could see how people looked about halfway into a 100 mile race. And sure enough, on the top of the Downs between Washington and Amberley we crossed paths with the race leader who I later found out to be Ryan Brown. He looked unreasonably fresh for someone who had just run 50 miles or so, more than double the distance we were aiming to cover on our recce. We soon came across more runners (one of which I later found out must have been Sam Robson although all these now familiar ultra names and faces were unknown to us then!) before we dropped down to Amberley from where we were getting the train home.

Since that day I've very badly wanted to run the whole length of the beautiful South Downs Way national trail. And so it's impossible to overstate how surreal it felt when last Saturday, two years after that recce, I ran past the point where we had passed Ryan - and this time I was leading the 2014 edition of the very same race.

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Prior to race day I had felt incredibly calm about running what would be my second 100 mile event. My run at the North Downs Way 100 last year had not quite gone to plan, with early GI distress causing 70 miles of vomiting and dehydration, but I felt like I'd learnt a lot from that race and had a plan in place to hopefully make sure that I wasn't going to repeat the experience this time round. I also know at least the second 50 miles of the SDW like the back of my hand - I train on it every week, have run the SDW50 twice and I could probably do every step of it blindfolded. So I felt very relaxed about the whole event, even after Centurion Race Director James tried to throw a spanner in my zen by naming me as his tip for the win in his customary pre-race preview.

My parents and Sarah were going to be crewing me on the day, and I'd spent a long time planning the whole race beforehand (for those who are interested in that sort of thing you can have a look at my race plan spreadsheet here) so that they would know where and roughly when to meet me. Putting together the plan, figuring out where my crew should be, estimating aid station arrival times (calculated using a logarithmic decay in pace, fancy but probably totally useless) and so on really helped me get my mind into the race before it began. However I didn't intend to actually try and hit any of my aid station splits - my plan was simply to set off at just under 5min/km pace, try and keep that up as best as possible over the faster (I believe) first 50 miles of the course, and then just try to slow down as little as possible over the last, hillier 50 miles.

I knew that there was going to be some tough, speedy people doing the race and I swore to myself that whatever happened I was going to ignore everyone at the start and just run my own race - something I've not been too good at doing in the past. So at 6:00am Saturday morning when the hooter went off to start the race and Stuart Mills went absolutely flying off into the distance I didn't let it bother me and just concentrated on sticking to my plan, knocking out some comfortable miles and hoping that he'd come back to me later on in the race.

[All race pics courtesy of Pete Aylward unless noted otherwise]

Right from the start, my legs felt good. I knew I was fit for the race after having an unexpectedly good day at the Three Forts Challenge in May but I'd been having a few knee issues and in fact had taken the week before the race off running entirely in a last ditch attempt to resolve the problem. I'd strapped it up with tape the day before and it didn't seem to be giving me any bother in the first few miles so I put it out of my mind and just concentrated on enjoying running in the beautiful scenery. I was so happy to finally be running the route and the miles just seemed to be sliding by quite effortlessly. The only slight issue I had in the early section of the race was that for some reason (perhaps because my feet got quite wet in the puddles from the previous night's thunderstorm) the insoles in my Nike Terra Kigers kept on working their way up and out of the back of the shoe by my achilles. I stopped to take my shoes off and put them back in once but the second time I just pulled them out and ran with them in my hand until I could give them to Sarah at the next aid station.

Stuart had 10 minutes on me already at the first checkpoint, but I really didn't care - I'd promised myself that I was not going to even think about 'racing' until at least the last 30 miles and so put out all thoughts of who was in front and behind me and just concentrated on myself, focusing on running the best I could at each particular moment and ignoring everything else. Previously in races I've been prone to stressing myself with thoughts of who is around me but I'm slowly coming to realise that this is just totally counterproductive - you can only run as well as you can and if you are doing that then there is no point tying yourself in knots worrying about other people. In the SDW50 this year I saw Rick Ashton coming up the climb out of Alfriston behind me, panicked a bit and pushed too hard up the hill which led to me cramping up massively and effectively putting myself on a platter for him to come cruising past me. This was to be a long race and any sort of behaviour like that would make it even longer for me, so instead I just concentrated on pushing when I felt good and backing off when I didn't, and generally just keeping things simple.

Now I did a lot of puking at the NDW100 2013, and my theory was that this was because of three things: Minor early dehydration (due to me stubbornly refusing to fill up the bladder in my pack at the first few aid stations to 'save time'), trying to eat mostly gels as opposed to 'real' food and eating citrus fruit (and orange) from my crew - the straw that broke the camel's back I think. So for this race I decided to run with bottles in an Inov-8 race vest so I could quickly refill them and keep an eye on water levels; eat real food (using a couple of recipes from the excellent Feedzone Portables book) and bars with no gels unless I really needed one and no coke/sugary drinks until halfway or later; and not touch any citrus fruits!

As it turned out this strategy seemed to work perfectly for me, my stomach felt rock-solid all day and I didn't experience any of the seesawing energy levels that you get when slamming gels or other very high-sugar products into your system. It was really a huge relief to realise that I wasn't going to spend every single 100 mile race throwing up into the bushes - something which I was genuinely afraid of after my experience last year.

With my stomach holding together nicely I was just quietly working through the miles when just before the Cocking aid station I spotted a runner in the distance. Squinting a bit I thought it looked like Stuart which gave me a bit of a shock as I'd not expected to be catching him up for some time yet, if ever! At the pace I was running at I realised that I'd soon be coming past him which was not actually a thought that I relished - on a good day Stuart can beat absolutely anyone on the Downs (and has done many times), and the thought of him behind me, potentially hunting me down later on was not one I enjoyed. But I was still moving at a comfortable pace and so it was just something I thought I'd have to deal with later. Pulling up alongside him I think I gave him a bit of a shock, but we ran down into the Cocking aid station together a mile or so further on. At Cocking my crew quickly sorted me out with full water bottles and some food (despite me taking them bit by surprise too!) and I managed to get back onto the trail before Stuart did. I tried to capitalise on this slight advantage by chugging as quickly as I could up the hill out of the CP, hoping to put at least a little clear air between myself and him.

From then on I just got my head down and kept on doing what I had been doing: always running 'within' myself, eating and drinking as much as I could without pushing my stomach too far and generally trying to enjoy having the special opportunity to cover so much distance on such an iconic national trail. 

I went through the 50 mile mark at about 6hrs 40mins or thereabouts, and when I stopped to quickly swap bottles and pick up food from my crew at Washington I remarked that I didn't know if that was incredibly encouraging or if it meant I would totally blow up later on in the race! But I still felt good and left the aid station with my friend James Box's words "it's your manor now mate" echoing in my ears. I knew that getting onto home turf would be a great mental boost for me and so it proved to be, letting me concentrate on myself and not worry at all about navigation or what hill was round the next corner. I also knew that I was going to pick up Sarah as my pacer just before Clayton Windmills and that was something I was really looking forward to as well. Despite the poor state I was in at the end of the NDW100 I really enjoyed her company then and was looking forward to spending a little time with her, especially as I was in much better shape this time round!

Obviously when you are out in the lead your thoughts occasionally turn to winning the race, thinking about the finish and so on. But every time this happened I gave myself a stern talking to (often out loud!), telling myself that unless I concentrated on the here and the now there would be no win. At the Three Forts Challenge just a few weeks earlier I let my mind wander to the win and stopped concentrating on the trail, with the result that I ended up seriously stacking it on a fast chalky/flinty downhill, smashing myself up and then had to basically just watch (the then-second placed runner) Robin as he cruised past me and took the win. I didn't want a repeat of that so gave myself a mental slapping every time I stopped thinking about only what I was doing at that particular moment.

I picked up Sarah at Pyecombe Golf Club, said goodbye to the kids who were going back home with my Mum and together we pressed on to the Jack and Jill windmills and then onwards again towards Housedean Farm and Southease. I was genuinely amazed to find that my legs still seemed to have plenty of running in them going up the hills, and although I had little dips in how good I was feeling (only natural after 70-odd miles I guess) for the most part I was very mentally steady, which was very exciting and I'm sure fed back into how I was feeling, creating a good positive feedback loop in my head.

On getting to Southease we found out from my Dad that the second placed runner behind us was now Richard La Cock, and he left the last aid station about 50 minutes after us. I knew that it was about 27km from Southease to the finish, and that provided I didn't majorly crash and burn I could afford to just relax and enjoy the last section running with Sarah. So we pushed on up the climb out of Southease, not stressing and just trying to keep everything as comfortable as is possible after 11 and a bit hours of running. By the time we got to Alfriston a few rather large blisters on my feet had burst and were starting to give me some grief, my quads had also decided to make their complaints known but I knew there was only a couple of climbs left before the beautiful sight of the trig point after Jevington that signals that it's just a few miles to the finish. When we got there we took it very easy down the 'chute' that leads from the SDW to the road - this was another place that I'd gone over face first at the end of the SDW50 2012 and I didn't want to repeat that either - but soon we were down on the roads of Eastbourne and into the final section.

At this point Sarah and I were both having a bit of tough time figuring out what time I'd be finishing in. We initially (correctly) thought that it was looking to be around the 14 hour mark, but this was so far beyond my comprehension that I was sure our maths was wrong. We had swapped watches when the battery on the one I was using had run out, and I was convinced that the time on the other one must have been an hour out, as I've been abroad in Copenhagen for a fair bit recently and so I thought it must still be running on Danish time. Which would make the finish time 15 hours, something that sounded much more likely to me.

I pushed on through Eastbourne as fast as my now-cramping legs would take me, and soon arrived at that most beautiful of sights, the athletics track that means you only have 400m left to run. A quick high-five to Drew Sheffield on the way round and suddenly it was all over. The first thing I asked RD James was whether my time was 14 or 15 hours and was totally blown away to realise that we had actually been right all along. What I considered my stretch 'A' goal for the race was 15:30 so to have come through the finish in 14:03:54 (around 1hr 40mins off of the old course record) was just unbelievable to me.

Sometimes everything just comes together, sometimes you just get those special days where nothing goes wrong, your body treats you like you are actually in charge of it for a change and you manage to extract out of yourself far more than you ever thought possible. I've no idea whether I can ever or will ever run that sort of time over a 100 miles again but to be honest I don't really care - it really was such a fantastic day and I'm just fortunate to have had it all come good for me on the day of the race I most wanted to run and win.

My crew of my parents, kids and Sarah were awesome and I'm very lucky to have had them there helping me out. And the Centurion team and volunteers were once again flawless, even when they had to open aid stations early as I was running a bit ahead of schedule. Many thanks to you all!

I'll finish with a quick mention of Richard La Cock who ran an awesome 15:11 for second place (also smashing the old course record in the process) and the legendary Dave Ross, who just two weeks after running a crazy fast time Comrades also dipped under the 16hr mark for third place. Dave is also apparently running the Picnic Marathon this weekend... the man is a machine, serious respect due.