Four WRC members take on a hilly 50 miler – Ryan, Justin, David and Dan. Dan reports, asking the eternal runner’s question: could I have gone faster?
A misty morning in a wet field near Aylesbury is the inauspicious start location for my first 50 mile attempt, The Wendover Woods 50 organised by Centurion Running. Having managed a 50km race last winter this feels like the next step up, and a chance to step outside my comfort zone, worry less about pace and focus on completing not competing. The phrase ‘comfort zone’ won’t be needed again in this review.
With 5 circuits of a compact 10 mile loop around the Wendover Woods complex in the Chiltern hills, with an aid station at halfway and access to a drop bag at the end of each loop, this provides a relatively accessible first 50 miler without the need for crew, carrying too much gear, or an overnight stay. There’s just the small matter of 10,000ft (3050m) of elevation to factor in. This comes through a series of short but brutally steep hills throughout the course, interspersed with short flats and runnable downhills.
After a good autumn training block, including the hilly Clarendon Marathon 6 weeks earlier, I piled on the hill reps over the last month, including practicing with running poles for the first time on St Catherine’s Hill. All of which brought me to the start line prepared, but nervous, in my Winchester Running Club vest.
A 9:30 start makes it a straightforward drive up that morning to check-in at about 8am; the elite team of Ryan, Justin and Dave even find time for some last-minute carb-loading beneath the local golden arches on the way.
Coffee queue entertainment is provided by watching subsequent arrivals wheelspin slowly sideways through the muddy gate entrance, but attentive volunteers help everyone get parked up with only some cosmetic mud splatter to show for it. There’ll be more of that to come later.
It was good to see a pretty diverse field lining up at the start, a sign of the broadening appeal of ultras and Centurion Running’s excellent work to make races accessible and welcoming. After a short race briefing and a walk to the start to avoid a pinchpoint at the gate, we get underway on a tree-lined track and are rapidly spreading out as we climb into the woods.
Loop 1: Steady on. Try not to go out too fast. Ryan sticks to his plan of starting slow, I immediately fail in my intention to stay with him, and drift off ahead into the middle of the pack. Trails are pretty good underfoot, though everything is covered in wet leaves and my feet are rapidly wet. The climbs are short and sharp, few more than 100m but very slippery on mud and wet chalk. I’m glad of my poles but waste time faffing to collapse and stow them in a waist belt – by loop 3 I’ll just be carrying them the whole way. A bit of chatting but everyone needs all their breath for the hills.
I finish the first 10 miles in 1hr 47, feeling good, spend 90 seconds at the aid station to top up fluids and grab some watermelon before heading back out.
Loop 2: Ooh this is fun. I know the route now, but want to save energy for later, so hold back on some of the downhills, including the tangled tree-roots of the ‘Powerline’ descent which others are complaining about but I really enjoy. I can see Justin ahead on most of the climbs, seemingly just relying on a ‘hands on hips’ power hike rather than poles – but I never catch him and by loop 3 he’ll be pulling away. WRC team chat shares that Dave is in 3rd place. Back to base in 1 hr 54 for loop 2, and a 10 minute stop to change out of wet socks, top up gels and fluids.
Loop 3: Plumbing the depths. Headtorch into the bag as the light will soon fade. Try to ignore going past marathon distance, but the psychology of the loop course is kicking in now: legs feel incredibly tired, I’m struggling and the idea of having to do some of these hills twice more is making me doubt my ability and commitment. Why did I think I would enjoy this? I repeat the ultra-runners’ mantra of ‘low mood, eat food’, but I’m struggling to get gels in now, feeling queasy and walking not just the hills but any slight slope, using my food issues as an excuse. Struggling with temperature – too hot when running in layers, too cold when I stop to walk. It’s not so much hitting the wall as wading into a swamp of negativity. If I don’t get some fuel in soon my race is done. So I drink much more tailwind, little and often, topping up at halfway, and find I can eat some sausage rolls – anything that isn’t sugary gloop at this point. And on the long, grinding ‘Boulevard of Broken Dreams’ I hear coach Parky asking ‘did you do all that training just so you could walk the last 20 miles?’. I manage a trot. The second half improves and I just focus on getting back to base. A loop course also means you may get lapped by the leaders – in this case seeing eventual winner Joe Turner smoothly zoom past is inspiring rather than demoralising. 2hrs 14 for this loop. Ryan is in the checkpoint, looking chirpy, he’s paced it perfectly and I tell him not to wait for me. I won’t see him again. A voicenote from the kids, a change of t-shirt, a cup of tea and food restock and back out after 10 minutes.
Loop 4: Regrouping. Deliberately slow in the first half, just trying to move forwards relentlessly and with each section the thought comes: ‘I only have to do that once more, I can do that’. Familiar faces ebb and flow as I pass people on the hills and they pass me back on the flats. A twinge of cramp reminds me to take another electrolyte tab. Darkness falls, headtorch on but all I can see is 2 feet of mist in front of me, slowing down to avoid a race-ending trip on a tree root. At least I can’t see the hills anymore. Entering a strangely zen state, one step at a time, each one is further than I’ve ever run before, a little glowing ember of confidence that I’m actually going to finish. The loop takes 2.5 hours but all thoughts of giving up have now gone. More tea and a waterproof jacket are added at the last turnaround, where I spend 16 minutes but don’t sit down, before stepping back out into the darkness.
Loop 5: Revival. Start off walking, deal with headtorch problems and think I’ll just slog to the end, but as some of the fuel kicks in I start to perk up and run again. I do a mental checklist of my physical state from head to toe, which is actually pretty good, and feel myself getting stronger as the loop progresses. I’m overtaking people on the hills and zooming through the descents, feeling better than at any point since loop 2. The final aid station has turned into a disco in the woods (really, no hallucinations involved) and provides some wondrous lukewarm chip-shop chips which it turns out are the greatest running fuel known to man. I actually have some running left in my legs, and for the final 4 miles I’m steadily overtaking others all the way to the finish. Finishing strongly was one of my pre-race goals, and is a great feeling after such low points earlier in the day.
I finish in 11 hours 44, 76th of 183 finishers from a starting field of 248. The overall cut-off of 15 hours is relatively generous, but still results in a number of runners being timed out as they miss the start-time for the fourth or fifth loop. Dave sadly retired at the end of loop 4 with a flare-up of a knee injury while going well in fourth place. Justin and Ryan took different approaches but both executed terrific races: Justin started strongly and held pace really well despite little race-specific training, finishing in 10:25 for an impressive 34th place and 3rd MV50 in his first 50 mile event; Ryan’s ultra experience really showed, starting slowly and spending almost the entire race steadily overtaking, from 107thafter 1 loop to 43rd at the finish in 10:41.
Centurion always delivers value for money in its courses: I log 83k and 3,261m elevation gain, but after investing so much time in a race you wouldn’t want to come up short would you? A beautifully organised race with plentiful aid station and finish line food, free photos and a seriously large medal. The Centurion team and volunteers were consistently amazing, incredibly attentive, supportive and focused on helping you have the best experience possible. This is not a race of stunning mountain views, but there were some lovely early hours in the autumn woods before it all got painful, and the relationship with the course, pitting yourself against sections again and again, is not something I’ve experienced before. I spent about 38 minutes between loops and probably another 15 minutes at the on course aid station, and could definitely have cut that down, but decided to prioritise fuelling and kit change, which ultimately worked. My aim was to put myself somewhere difficult and see how I could respond, so that was a success on both counts.
A consistent training block and lots of advice from the WRC community was a massive help in preparation, without which I don’t think I’d have got this result. Having friends on the start line ‘in it together’ is also a massive boost even if you don’t get to run with them. 50 miles is just a number (albeit one that appeals to a lot of guys having a similar mid-life crisis, judging from the start line), but for me was a very different proposition from the marathon or 50k, entering a whole new world of endurance, mental battles and problem solving that I had no experience of from shorter races. Now there’s just a bit of me reflecting on how I could perhaps have approached it differently, dealt with problems better, pushed harder in that middle section. I wanted to find out if I could do this, and it turned out that I could. I wonder if I could do it faster…?