It was 6:30am on Saturday 19^th October when I woke up shivering.  I was cold and wet and lying on some hay bales in a barn in the middle of Wales somewhere.  I wasn’t too sure where I was but strangely, I felt like I had been here before.  When I walked down the driveway to the farm about 75 minutes earlier I ‘recognised’ the barn even although I had never been to this part of Wales before.  In fact, for most of the previous 18 hours I had had this strange feeling that I had been here before.  So much so, that at times I wondered whether I had walked in a big circle or was walking back in the direction I had come from.  But no, I had never been here before, and I was walking in the right direction.  This was just some weird experience.  An hallucination perhaps.

The Lon Las CYRMU Ultra:

This was the second edition of the Lon Las CYRMU Ultra, a 253 mile running race from Holyhead in North West Wales diagonally across Wales to Cardiff, following the national cycle route number 8.  In the first edition in 2017 only six runners had finished within the 88 hour time limit.  They had had bad weather that year and many of the competitors had been forced out of the race due to the cold and wet conditions.

My goal for the race was simply to finish.  Since dropping out of the Thames Ring 250 in June, when a shin injury preventing me completing the last 20 miles, I had spent time in hospital with blood clots and a lung infection.  My shin injury was 90% recovered but I couldn’t race-walk, only power-walk, and my lung infection was more or less 100% cleared up although I hadn’t yet been signed off by the NHS, and I was still due to have a CT scan to confirm that the blood clots had gone.

But I was keen on another adventure, and thought this would be a great opportunity to see the Welsh countryside.  Rather than the uneven trails we had in the Thames Ring, this would be on smooth sealed paths and roads.  Much easier to walk on.  I knew that the course would be hilly, with about 17,000 feet (5,200 meters) of elevation change in total, but given that it was along a cycle route I figured that it wouldn’t be too difficult.

The difference, for me, between race-walking and power-walking is that with my normal walking style I pull my toes upwards as my foot is about to hit the ground and I get into a rhythm whereby I rotate my hips a little – kind of like you see the elite race-walkers doing at the Olympics.  As a result, I have a longer stride and my leg turnover is faster.  My average training speed is about 5 miles (8km) per hour but since getting injured in June I hadn’t been able to pull my toes upwards and without doing that I found that I wasn’t able to properly rotate my hips and my training speed had dropped to closer to 4 miles per hour.  Given the ‘undulating’ nature of the race, I figured that I would be fine with the slower pace, and in training I had being practising walking a little harder on the uphills to compensate for my slower overall speed.  My expectations were that I would be well off the back of the field for the first 24 to 36 hours before slowly catching runners during the very hilly section between 100 and 150 miles into the race.  But I wasn’t going to be racing.  I was just in this for an adventure, and to finish.

The race was almost 100% self sufficient in that whilst there were nine checkpoints along the route, the race organisers only provided water at those checkpoints along with limited shelter.  Checkpoints at 100, 150 and 200 miles were indoors.  All others were outdoors.

I had divided the race into five ‘legs’ with leg 1 being from the start through to the checkpoint at 60 miles, which was nothing more than a bus shelter by the beach in a town called Criccieth.

Facebook video showing the checkpoint and the torrential rain:
https://www.facebook.com/mark.cockbain.7/videos/10156625958696918/

 

Leg 2 was the shortest at 40 miles through to the first indoor checkpoint at Dolgellau, and each of the other legs were 50 miles.

The first 60 miles – Holyhead to Criccieth:

I woke up at 5:30am on Thursday 17^th October to the noise of heavy rain outside.  Looking out the window confirmed that there would be no need for us to carry our rain jackets.  We would be wearing them from the start!

The hotel was a short walk, perhaps 500 meters, from the race start by the railway station and with the race due to start at 7am I took my time getting ready.  So much so that I missed the photo of the competitors lined up at the start before the race, but fortunately I was on the start line when the gun fired at 7am.

I started slowly as planned, but not as slowly as two of the other competitors who were also walking, and for the first 20km I was in 3^rd to last place – until I missed a turnoff and walked an extra kilometre.  By this stage it had stopped raining and the sun came out and for a while I thought about taking my jacket off – and then it rained again.

The first checkpoint was at 30 miles (48km) which I reached in 7 hours and 10 minutes.  My feet had been in wet socks for 7 hours so rather than continuing without stopping which would have been my normal plan, I sat down and changed my socks.  Somehow that managed to take me 13 minutes.  I have no idea why it took so long, and I left the checkpoint wondering how much time I would lose changing socks at every checkpoint if the rain kept up.  However, I figured it was important to change socks regularly if they were wet as otherwise I would lose a lot more time if my feet blistered badly due to the weather.

Other than wet socks, I was happy with progress so far.  I had actually missed a second turnoff at around 35km and so far I had probably walked about 2km further than I should have, but that was all a part of the adventure.

I knew that we would pass a McDonalds when we reached Caernarfon (about 60km) and made a short detour to get a late lunch/early dinner – McNuggets and fries but no drink.  I was trying to avoid processed sugar for the time being as I would be consuming plenty of that later on, so I washed my meal down with water.

Leaving Caernarfon we followed a cycle trail for a while and I was stopped by a local asking me if it was true that we were heading for Cardiff.  I guess someone ahead of me had told him what we were doing and he didn’t believe it.  I reassured him that we were sane, and that no one was forcing us to do this 😊

At some stage after it got dark I caught up with John Steele and we walked the rest of the way through to checkpoint 2, arriving at about 10pm (15 hours).  Again, I changed my socks, but as we got access to our bags at every second checkpoint, I also changed into a dry pair of shoes and got enough food out of my bag to get me through the next 40 miles.  It was bitterly cold and by the time I left the checkpoint with John 30 minutes later I was shaking uncontrollably.  From memory there were a couple race officials at the checkpoint and they told us that we would soon warm up as we had a long uphill section coming up in a few minutes time.  They also told us that a group of runners not far ahead of us had taken a wrong turn, so watch out and don’t walk down the High Street.

60 to 100 miles – Criccieth to Dolgellau:

We left the checkpoint and I rang Ruth to update her on progress.  I was so cold I could hardly hold on to my phone, and whilst talking to her I realised that I had forgotten to get my main head torch from my bag.  I decided that I had better head back to the checkpoint as I was using my spare head torch which was unlikely to last me the night.  By the time I finally reached the hill that would warm me up again, it was after 11pm.  I walked hard up the hill and within a few minutes I was sweating under my layers of clothing.  And then I missed another turnoff!  This time I walked over a kilometre before I realised my mistake, losing over 20 minutes by the time I got back to the turnoff.

The next time I got lost wasn’t too much later.  I arrived in a town called Portmadog (the Welsh do have some funny place names 😊) and then about 30 minutes later I arrived in a town called Portmadog – again!  I was relying on my phone for navigation as being colour blind I found the printed maps difficult to read, and my battery was going flat so I had turned it off.  A costly mistake.  As I had a spare phone I found some shelter from the rain and stopped to get the spare phone from the bottom of my bag, only to find that for some reason I couldn’t get any data on the spare phone.  I decided that the solution to that problem would be to switch the sim cards over from one phone to the other.  Not so easy when your hands are wet and cold, and my Vodafone sim card is still on the ground somewhere in Portmadog!  To make matters worse, once I managed to get my EE sim card into my spare phone, although the phone was unlocked, I couldn’t get any data on the phone so had to switch things over again.  If I had been thinking clearly, I would have plugged the first phone into a USB charger while I was doing this, but I wasn’t thinking clearly and therefore my main phone was still on about 10% battery life.  And when I did charge my main phone it just wouldn’t charge.  I think it had moisture in the charging port.

In the end, I got my main phone working, worked out what I had done wrong, turned the phone off and started walking again.  Another hour lost!

Next up was some of the steepest hills I have ever walked over.  This was supposed to be a cycle route but I couldn’t imagine anyone cycling up these hills.  Steep up, and just as steep going down the other side to where we found checkpoint 3.

I arrived at checkpoint 3 at 5:45am, just as three other runners were leaving and I told them I would catch them up shortly as I needed to refill my water bottles – and as it turns out, I also needed to miss another turnoff and walk another bonus kilometre or so.  As a result, I never did catch the runners ahead of me, and I was caught a while later by David Wright who had been having a short sleep when I arrived at checkpoint 3.  When David caught me I was looking at my phone again and working out that we had both gone off track, although this time if we continued in the direction we were going we would come back on to the correct course shortly.

A while later I stopped again for a few minutes and David went on ahead.  It was daylight now and I think I stopped to try and charge my phone again, but really can’t remember why I stopped.  It turns out that David stopped for breakfast a short while later and I didn’t see him again until he arrived at the 100 mile checkpoint about 30 minutes after me.

It was now Friday morning but it was still raining.  We had a nice walk along the coast and even although I was cold and wet, I was enjoying it.  I think this stretch through to the next checkpoint was the longest I went the whole race without getting lost.

I arrived at checkpoint 4, officially 100 miles (161km) but 173km by my watch (meaning I had done 12 bonus kilometres), a few minutes before 12 noon.  It had taken me almost 14 hours from the time I arrived at checkpoint 2 to complete the 40 miles (64km) through to checkpoint 4.  We had been walking for 29 hours in total.

100 miles through to the laundrette:

Officially checkpoint 4 was due to close at 30 hours so I had an hour to warm up, change in to dry clothing, eat and restock for the next 50 miles.  There were several other runners at the checkpoint when I arrived, at least 4 others, and some of them were still there when I left.  I also learned that many runners had dropped out that there were only around 15 of us left.

I had been so cold during the last 12 hours that I put on a total of 5 layers of clothing on top (Two thermal tops, a jacket, my plastic poncho, and another jacket – the one I had been wearing since the start of the race) and a pair of thermal pants plus waterproof over trousers on bottom.  I also changed my socks for the third time and put on the shoes I had started the race in the previous day.

I left the checkpoint at about 1:30pm with Gary Chapman and we walked together for an hour or so until we got to a long steep uphill and it started hailing.  I told Gary to go on ahead as I couldn’t keep up.  30 minutes later I reached the top of the hill.  The ground was white from the hail and the view was probably fantastic, but not on this day.

The laundrette:

Around about 7pm I arrived in a town called Machynlleth.  For the previous hour or two I had been feeling a little confused.  I kept feeling like I had already been here.  I ‘recognised’ the scenery and checked my phone regularly to confirm that I was going the right way.  I was cold and wet through.  The plastic poncho had helped to keep some of the rain out but it wasn’t a perfect solution.  I was walking extremely slowly and used Google to find out whether there was a laundrette in the town.  It had stopped raining and if I didn’t dry my clothes and try and warm up, I knew that my adventure would be over before I made it to halfway.

In a re-enactment of the Levi’s TV advert of the 80’s, I stripped off (my top half and socks only) and put everything in the dryer. It only took a few minutes for my thermal tops to dry but it was 20 minutes before my socks were completely dry again.

I then went to the local (only) fish and chip shop and stood in queue for 20 minutes waiting to order my dinner.  I knew that I needed to eat something hot to warm me up before continuing, and I craved some hot chips.

Machynlleth to the middle of nowhere:

While I was in the fish and chip shop David Wright walked past.  He opened the door to say hello but obviously wasn’t hungry and didn’t stay.

I left Machynlleth about an hour after arriving.  It wasn’t raining (for the time-being) and I was warm and eating hot chips.  It was Friday night and I was heading for the halfway mark in another couple hours, or so I thought.  It turned out that it was almost non-stop uphill from close enough to sea level to 500 meters during a distance of about 8 miles (12km).  It took me almost four hours, arriving at 125 miles just before midnight.  I would imagine that the view from the top was amazing, but at midnight you can’t see much.  So much effort and no reward.

The halfway checkpoint was nothing more than a van with a bottle of water on a table beside it.  I stopped long enough to refill my water bottles and was off again.  As I was leaving, Rhys Jenkins arrived.  I don’t remember passing him earlier but must have at some stage.  I do remember his wife/partner telling me at a couple hours earlier that it wasn’t far to the top of the hill.  Or maybe it was only a couple minutes earlier.  It felt like hours.

Soon after leaving the checkpoint Rhys ran (shuffled) past me and I called out that he had a good shuffle.  It was raining again, and I was cold, wet and tired.  We were walking past a couple houses and I decided to see if I could find some shelter so that I could have a sleep.  I think this was around 1am and I found an empty garage and lay on the concrete floor, setting my alarm for 20 minutes.

I woke up just before the alarm went off, shaking from the cold but feeling refreshed.  That was my first sleep since waking up in the hotel in Holyhead 44 hours earlier.  I think it had stopped raining and I started walking again, checking my phone to make sure I was walking in the right direction and not going back in the direction I had come from.

Shortly after I restarted Rhys’ wife/partner drove past again and told me that Rhys was going to drop out as his feet were trashed and asking if I wanted to drop out too?  I told her that I was feeling good and would keep going, but if she didn’t mind, could she go and collect Rhys and then come back to check on me.  Sometime soon after they arrived back and I told them that I still felt good and would keep walking.  They drove off and within minutes it started raining again and I started wishing that I was sitting in their warm car.

The rest of the night is a blur of strange memories of thinking I have been here before and wandering along a road somewhere in the middle of Wales, not knowing where I was.  At one stage I found a car park area with some public toilets that were unlocked.  I went in and thought I could perhaps stay here sheltering from the rain and have another sleep.  But I was so cold that I irrationally thought that if I lay down to sleep now, I might never wake up, and knowing that we had no phone reception, I thought I might never be found again.  Completely irrational but cold and tiredness were causing me to lose grip on reality.  I also completely forgot that we were all carrying GPS trackers and the race officials would know exactly where I was.

I remember thinking that it was time to drop out of the race and I turned off my stopwatch.  Looking at Strava it appears that I turned my watch off at around 4:30am but I remember that it was 5:25am when I lay down on the hay bales in someone’s barn for a sleep.  What I did in the missing 45-55 minutes is anyone’s guess.  Maybe I continued walking.  Maybe I didn’t.  I remember walking around someone’s house trying to find some shelter.  Maybe it was the house on the same farm as the barn I ended up sleeping in.  Maybe it wasn’t.

What I remember is looking at my watch when I lay down to sleep on the hay bales at 5:25am and then looking at it again when I woke up freezing at 6:30am.

And then I remember walking back up to the road wrapped in my silver space blanket just as a car was about to drive past.  I remember walking into the middle of the road so that the driver couldn’t get past me, and then when he stopped I remember trying to tell him about my situation but I had completely lost my voice.

I eventually explained to the driver that I was in a race but I had dropped out and could he take me to the nearest town.  As it happened, that was where he was going, and I remember talking to him as we drove and explaining that we had left Holyhead on Thursday morning and were supposed to be arriving in Cardiff tomorrow.  I think he said that he had seen some runners the previous night.

He dropped me in a town called LLanidoes.  On the back of our race numbers we had the phone numbers of the various race officials in case we needed to call them in an emergency, but I had lost my race number many hours earlier.  Fortunately, I had Lindley Chalmers phone number saved in my phone.  Lindley is the organiser of the Thames Ring 250 and I had his number saved from that race.  He is also the person that rescued me when I dropped out of the Thames Ring and in that race he had to give me a fireman’s lift back to his car because I couldn’t put any weight on my foot.  I rang Lindley and asked him to rescue me again.  At least this time there would be no need for him to carry me anywhere.

And that was the end of my adventure.  Lindley collected me a short while later and took me through to the 150 mile checkpoint where I learned that only nine runners were still left in the race – and shortly later there were only eight when a lady rang Lindley to say that she had rescued David.

The end:

In the end, only four runners finished the race with two others making it to the outskirts of Cardiff but without enough time to complete the race inside the 88 hour time limit.

Would I do the race again?

Maybe.  Probably. Yes.

I have now purchased some waterproof socks and waterproof gloves, and now that I know the first half of the course, I’m sure I could complete the whole distance within the 88 hour time limit, even if the weather is just as bad next time.  So I have the Lon Las Ultra on my list for 2021, the next time it will be held.

Cancer Research UK fundraising:

Every year my work, Wolters Kluwer, does fundraising for Cancer Research UK as a part of our ‘values day’. This year values day was the same day that I started the Lon Las CYMRU Ultra so I dedicated my walk to Cancer Research managed to raise £300 for them.

What’s next?

I don’t have anything else planned for 2019.  I have written this year off.  Three DNF’s (Belfast Dublin Return, Thames Ring, and Lon Las) and two sub-par performances (Last One Standing Castleward and the Continental Centurions Race).

Next year can only be better …

 

Video:

April 2020: I recently came across this video of the race.  Watching it made me want to have another go.  I’m sure that I will be on the start line for the next Lon Las Ultra!

I make an appearence in this video on three occasions: 30 minutes, 30 seconds for about 2-3 minutes, 48:20 for about 1 1/2 minutes, and 60:30 for a couple minutes.  But watch the full video.  It will make you want to do the race!!

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.  I hated it. And I loved it.  And I can’t wait to go back.  I’m talking about the 2019 edition of the Thames Ring 250.  A 250 mile (400 km) race that starts in Streatley on the River Thames and wanders its way down the Thames to Richmond, up the Grand Union Canal to Braunston, and down the Oxford Canal to Oxford before a final section back along the Thames to the start/finish in Streatley.

This was the sixth running of a race that has an historical finish rate of only 45%.  That is, only 9 of every 20 runners (and me as a walker) who have ever started the race have actually finished it.  In the previous five races (held every second year), 149 different athletes have started the race 191 times, and 77 of them have just 86 finishes between them.  For me, 1 attempt (in 2017) and 0 finishes.

Before the race:

I haven’t had a great year so far – eliminated after just 18 hours in Last One Standing Castle Ward in February, a DNF at 160 miles in the Belfast to Dublin Return ultra in March, and then a sub-par 24 hour race in Weert, Holland at the beginning of June – so I held off entering the Thames Ring 250 (also known as TR250) until the last possible moment.  I didn’t want to start the race if I couldn’t finish it, but at the same time, I didn’t want to miss out either.

Having DNF’d at 132 miles in 2017, this was the first race I have ever entered without 100% certainty (at time of entering) that I could finish, and my wife had told me “Don’t come home if you don’t finish”.  I had booked the time off work, and accommodation for the night before the race, months ago.  But was too scared to commit to entering the race.

But once entered, I couldn’t think about much else in the 2 weeks before the race.  I decided that I would treat it as an adventure with cut-off times rather than a race, and my first goal was going to get past 132 miles where I dropped out last time, and through to checkpoint 6 in Nether Heyford, as the speed required to avoid being timed-out at checkpoints was significantly less in the final 94 miles than in the first 156.  If I could make it to Nether Heyford, I was confident that I would be able to finish the race – and wear the race hoodie without having to deface it like I had to in 2017.

 

In 2017 I had travelled to the race start on the morning of the race but this year I decided that the extra sleep on race morning was worth the additional expense.  I travelled to Goring (the other side of the river from Streatley) via train after work on Tuesday and checked in to my accommodation, a B&B hosted by a lovely lady who cooked us (fellow athlete Ryan Isles was also staying there) a huge breakfast the following morning and took us down to the Morrell Rooms (the start/finish) in Streatley after breakfast.

Arriving at the start I met many friends from previous races.  There were only 41 runners entered in the race, but in most cases if I didn’t already know them from the 2017 race or various other ultramarathons, then I knew the names, or would come to know them over the coming days.  This is one of the most friendly events and I enjoyed talking to some of the other competitors as I prepared for the start.

The first three legs – Streatley to Yiewsley – 82 miles (the part where I felt great):

The race started at exactly 10am on Wednesday 26^th June.  41 of us left the driveway outside the Morrell Rooms and turned left over the Goring Bridge.  I hung back at the start as I always do and found myself walking with Spenser Lane who in 2015 had completed the TR250 in the slowest ever time of 99 hours and 56 minutes, just 4 minutes inside the 100 hour time limit.

It was too early to ‘race’ and I enjoyed Spenser’s company for about 30 minutes before he decided that it was time to start running.  When Spenser started running, I also picked up my walking pace but stayed at the back of the field for an hour or so until I caught up with Rupert Coles who said he was OK but he didn’t appear to be having a good day.

By the time I arrived at checkpoint 1 in Hurley (27 miles in 6 hours and 9 minutes) I had passed a couple other runners but wasn’t really pushing the pace.  I was in and out of the Hurley checkpoint in just 10 minutes, and found myself walking with Vicky Yeomans.  The first thing I remember Vicky saying to me was that she had heard that there was a guy who was aiming to walk the whole 250 miles 😊  I told her that that was me.

We walked together for about two hours before Vicky decided to start running and left me behind (for a while).  As much as I was enjoying walking and talking, I am just as happy walking alone and it wasn’t until the bridge coming in to Windsor that I caught Vicky again.  It was around 8:30pm and I was looking forward to a visit to McDonalds for dinner.  Vicky joined me at McDonalds but she wasn’t feeling good but I convinced her that we would be better moving slowly than not moving at all.

The further we walked, the worse Vicky said she felt and as it was getting dark I decided to stay with her through to checkpoint 2 in Chertsey.  It was still very early in the race and I didn’t feel the need to race yet.

We arrived at the Chertsey checkpoint 2 (55 miles) at 10 minutes before midnight (13 hours and 50 minutes into the race).  Once again, I didn’t want to hang around.  Ten minutes and I was on my way again, leaving Vicky with Maxine (medic extraordinaire).

Soon after leaving Chertsey I passed a group of three runners and then caught up with Mark Haynes, a runner and walker whom I often catch 50 to 60 miles into a race.  We walked together for a while and somehow managed to get lost without realising it.  A short while later, when we were about to approach the Walton Bridge those same three runners whom I had passed earlier were also approaching the bridge from a slightly different direction.  Not to worry.  It was early in the race and I was still feeling good.  And I was now on my home turf.

From Walton through to the next checkpoint at Yiewsley we were in the area where I train.  Also, the ground was dead flat and easily walkable.  I walked alone and don’t think I even saw any other runners after Walton, arriving at checkpoint 3 (82 miles) at 7:15am (21 hours 15 minutes), 1 hour and 40 minutes faster than 2017.

I was feeling great!  In fact, I don’t think I have ever felt this good 80 miles into a race before.

Day 2 – Yiewsley to Milton Keynes (struggling):

Summer arrived in the UK shortly after I left Yiewsley and over the next few hours the temperature got warmer and warmer, and my feeling of ‘great’ started to diminish.  From now on my recollection of events and timings is slightly reduced but I think I have things in order for this race report.

There was a riverside café somewhere around 95 miles perhaps and I remember standing in line behind Nicole Atkinson, an awesome lady whom I would spend a lot of time walking with over the coming days, and the guy behind me asked if I was a New Zealander.  I said I was and asked where in NZ he was from.  He was from Ngaruawahia and when I told him that my uncle used to own the petrol station in Ngaruawahia he told me that he used to work there and knew both my uncle and cousin – small world!

The service at the café didn’t appear to be too fast and I told Nicole that I didn’t need an ice cream that badly after all.  I’m fairly sure there was another runner in the queue too, and we decided to keep going, figuring that Nicole would catch up soon after.

I arrived at checkpoint 4 (106 miles) in Berkhamsted shortly before 2:30pm (28 hours 30 minutes), almost 3 hours ahead of my 2017 pace.  I was beginning to struggle, and for the last few miles I was looking forward to getting a bowl of hot chips from the pub that the checkpoint was next to, only to find that the pub wasn’t serving any food.  The problem with arriving at a pub in between lunchtime and dinner time – no food service.

I also had a few blisters so took my shoes and socks off so that Maxine could attend to my feet.  I’m fairly sure that I was sitting next to Ryan Isles, my house mate from Tuesday night, at this checkpoint and remember a few other runners in various states of well-being but can’t remember who was there with me.

As soon as my feet were fixed, I was my way again.  My aim was to get through to Milton Keynes no later than 10pm so that I could have my first sleep of the race.  In 2017 I had arrived at the Milton Keynes checkpoint with just 30 minutes before the checkpoint closed, and no time to sleep.  I only managed another 2 miles before my DNF.

I don’t remember too much about the walk through to Milton Keynes other than I think I walked alone the whole way and I remember stopping at the Leighton Buzzard Tesco supermarket for my first chocolate bar of the race and my second coke.  Unusually, I wasn’t interested in either Coke or chocolate and we were over 30 hours into the race.  Normally I’m hanging out for processed sugar within 12 hours.

It is a long drag from Leighton Buzzard through to Milton Keynes and I was struggling a little.  A friend from the US sent me a message to say I was in 10^th place!! But I messaged him back to say that I didn’t want to know my place at this stage as I was still treating this as an adventure and not a race.

I arrived at the Milton Keynes checkpoint 5 (130 miles) at 10:30pm (36 hours 30 minutes), 30 minutes behind my plan, but 4 ½ hours ahead of cut-off, so plenty of time to sleep.

After a bacon sandwich I hobbled (it is surprising how after just a few minutes sitting down, you can’t walk properly) over to the tents that were available to sleep in.  I would like to say that I fell asleep immediately and slept for three hours, but after tossing and turning for about an hour I gave up on any idea of sleep and hobbled back over to the checkpoint for another bacon sandwich and to prepare for the next leg.

Day 3 – Milton Keynes to Fenny Compton (Hallucinations, I hate it, I love it)

I left Milton Keynes at about 12:30am Friday morning just as Nicole was arriving.  With no sleep I knew I was going to struggle, but there was no point in staying at the checkpoint if I couldn’t get to sleep.

In 2017 I had left this checkpoint completely exhausted and only lasted another couple miles before my DNF.  I wasn’t going to let that happen again and I walked north with purpose.  Other than getting slightly lost for a few minutes, the night section went well but come daylight it was a completely different story.

According to my facebook post at 6:30am I was really struggling:

Even now, a week later, I remember the two cars that popped up in front of me and prevented me continuing.  I’m not new to hallucinations and knew that what I was experiencing wasn’t real and was due to tiredness, but I confess that I was close to tears and was at my lowest point in the race at this stage.  I wasn’t at the stage of giving up, but I was wishing I wasn’t here.

The terrain was also extremely difficult to walk at a steady pace.  In fact, well over half of the whole course was what might be called technical single track where you had to watch where you were putting your feet.  I hated it so much that I loved it.  It is difficult to describe, but in the week since the race finished I have looked back on the whole experience with fondness, and honestly cannot wait to have another go in two year’s time.

Soon after my facebook post I came right again and a few hours later, at 10:30am (48 hours 30 minutes) I arrived at checkpoint 6 in Nether Heyford (156 miles).

For most of the athletes, checkpoint 6 is a highlight of the race.  It is the only indoor checkpoint which means you can recharge devices, use a proper bathroom, sleep in quiet, etc.  Maxine, medic extraordinaire was also there to tend to sore feet, etc.

I had a sponge wash in the bathroom and changed my clothes, and then had two hours sleep before Maxine cleaned up my feet again.  They weren’t actually that bad but while she was taping my left foot I noticed some swelling near the bottom of my left shin.  The swelling was localised, about the size of a matchbox, but didn’t hurt.  I asked Maxine if I should be concerned about it and what I should do.  I remember her reply as something along the lines of “stop what you did to cause it”.  Obviously that wasn’t an option!

I had arrived at Nether Heyford at 10:30am and it was now 2pm.  I remember hearing that everyone who was still in the race had either already left for the next stage or was currently in the room.  There was no one else behind us.  I looked around the room.  There were 10 of us in various stages of preparation for the next stage of the race, and 11 ahead of us.  21 of the 41 starters were still in the race.

I can’t remember everyone who was in the hall, but do remember that Vicky was there.  I was glad to see her as I had wondered several times over the last day and a half as to whether she had survived her low point at Chertsey.  I had conversations with a few others, but really don’t remember who was there or what we talked about.

At about 2:30pm I headed out the door for the 7^th leg of the race, 27 miles through to Fenny Compton.   I don’t have many/any memories of the next few hours other than noticing some bites on the inside of my left leg, just above the knee.  When I reached down to scratch what felt like an itch my inside leg was wet with a clear fluid that wasn’t sweat.  It was a sticky pus.  I noticed that I had about five or six insect bites.  They weren’t sore, but were a little itchy, and a little pusy.  For the remainder of the race, every time I had a drink I poured some water on my hand to rub over the area to keep it clean.  After the race the bites were diagnosed as being infected spider bites and I was given an IV antibiotic plus 7 days of antibiotics to aid my recover from them.

I also remember that my left shin was starting to hurt now, and on a couple occasions during this leg I managed to beg an ice cube off people on canal boats.  The swelling was still localised and in a perfect place where I could put an ice cube over the swelling and hold it in place with my sock.  It was also about now that I started on the pain killers.  I carry a small first aid kit in long races like this.  It wouldn’t pass any quality tests for first aid kits, but does include some paracetamol tablets, some KT tape (for taping blisters and repairing shoes), a pin (for popping blisters), and a scalpel (for cutting away parts of a shoe that might be rubbing if necessary).  So I started on the painkillers probably around about 160 miles and would continue for the remainder of the race, restocking at checkpoint 8 on Saturday.

Another memory I have is getting lost above the Braunston Tunnel.  This is a section where the canal goes through a tunnel and the race follows a path up a hill and down the other side, or in my case (and that of Nicole Atkinson who chose to follow me) it involved wandering around lost for about a mile.  I have walked the Grand Union Canal Race, which goes in the opposite direction, on three occasions and when we got to the top of the short path from the canal I was adamant that we shouldn’t go straight ahead through the narrow overgrown trail as I didn’t remember that from the GUCR.  15 minutes later Nicole suggested that we back-track to work out where we had gone wrong.  Thanks Nicole.  I hate back-tracking, but if you hadn’t made that suggestion, I don’t know how much longer we would have continued wandering around lost.

I’m not sure if this was the first time that I met Nicole properly (I remember saying hello to her at checkpoint 3 and again at the canal café on leg 4, and seeing her at checkpoint 5), but I think helping her get lost above the Braunstone Tunnel might have been our first proper introduction.  We would spend many hours walking together between now and the end of the race.

Braunstone is where we turned left on the Oxford Canal, and for me this was now new territory.  I had heard stories about the ‘quality’ of the trail on the Oxford Canal and I would not be let down.  The section from Braunstone through to Oxford is not something I want to walk again – ever. Or at least until next time I do this race 😊.  I hated it.

Nicole stopped for a short break in Braunstone and I continued.  I recorded this facebook live video soon after:

I’ve mentioned in previous race reports that in races like this time doesn’t seem to have any meaning.  Hours can go by and it feels like minutes, or minutes can feel like hours.  In writing this race report I was going to say that it got dark about 30 minutes before we arrived at the next checkpoint and that Nicole caught me up again when my head torch battery died just as I turned my light on.  But looking at the split times from the race tracker, we didn’t arrive at Fenny Compton until 12:45am meaning that we walked in darkness for around three hours.

If this is the case, then I suspect that I probably walked with Nicole for about two or more hours.  I remember that my head torch died (I was using my spare head torch and intended picking up my main head torch at the next checkpoint) and I knew that someone was only a hundred meters, or so, behind me because I had seen their head torch.  So I stopped and waited for that person to catch me.  It was Nicole and it turned out that she had an extremely bright spare hand torch which she lent me.  I decided to sit in behind Nicole and let her do the hard work of concentrating on foot placement for the duration of the journey through to Fenny Compton.  Every now and then she would warn me of holes in the ground so that I didn’t step into them.  How anyone managed to walk the Oxford Canal without twisting an ankle or falling in the canal is anyone’s guess.  Not only were there regular holes in the ground, but on many occasions that gap between the hedge on the right and the water on the left was just a few inches (ok, maybe 10-15 inches), and the camber of the ground was very steep.  And when the path was smooth, it was overgrown and difficult to see.

Like most of the checkpoints, the last couple miles leading up to the checkpoint seemed to drag on for ages but at 12:45am (62 hours 45 minutes) we arrived at checkpoint 7 (183 miles).

I wasn’t tired (I had only had a total of two hours sleep in 62 hours but I wasn’t tired) and I had heard that the temperature was going to be brutal on Saturday, so I decided to get going as soon as I could.  Nicole had decided to have a sleep, and as I was preparing to leave I heard Vicky arriving but it was obvious that her race was over.  I didn’t see her but heard her complaining about severe back pain.  Vicky had never run further than 100 miles, and we were now at 183 miles!

Day 4 – not the end I wanted

I left checkpoint 8 at exactly 1am for the 23 mile leg through to Lower Heyford, and after about 30 minutes Steve Illingworth caught me.  I don’t remember seeing him previously during the race but we spent the next 3 hours walking together – or to be more precise, I spent the next 3 hours following Steve.  He was walking at a good pace and I stuck in right behind him.  As with a few hours earlier when I was following Nicole, Steve would call out “hole” every now and then to warn me when I needed to keep an eye on my footing.

On occasions we also had someone else sitting in behind me, but I can’t remember who that was.  Steve would call out “hole” and I would repeat “hole”.  I remember at one time, we had been doing this for a few minutes when Steve called out “unicorn”.  It was funny at the time 😊

At around 4:45am, just after daylight, we arrived at Banbury where about six locals were getting in some early morning swim training in the local lock.  Either that, or they were on their way home after a hard night out and had stopped for a swim.

Steve wanted a coffee and the ‘swimmers’ told him that the local Morrison’s was about three minute’s walk to right (away from the Canal).  I didn’t want coffee and also suspected that a) the Morrison’s would be closed, and b) their 3 minutes was probably more like 10 minutes at our pace.  Steve agreed and we continued along the canal, but I started to slow and let him go off ahead of me.

The rest of the journey to Lower Heyford comprised of more overgrown trails and with the due on the grass, it wasn’t long before my shoes and socks were wet once again.  Maxine had done a great job taping my feet though and I was relatively blister free when I arrived at checkpoint 8 (206 miles) at 9:45am (71 hours 45 minutes).

My left shin was killing me however, and I asked for ice – which there was none.  Instead, one of the fantastic volunteers (I think it was Glyn) decided to fill one of the large plastic containers, that they had used for transporting equipment to the checkpoint, with cold water from the tap near the checkpoint, and I soaked both feet and lower legs for 30+ minutes.

Today was going to be the hottest day of the race, with forecast afternoon temperatures of around 34 degrees, so I wasn’t in any rush to get moving.  After soaking my legs I then let them dry in the sun whilst talking to the volunteers.  There were also a couple other runners at the checkpoint but I can’t remember who.

With Maxine already at the next checkpoint, Russell Tullett did an excellent job of draining the couple blisters I did have, and re-taping my feet once they were dry, and at some stage late in the morning (I have no idea what time), I headed out into the heat of the sun for the 9^th leg through to Abingdon.

This leg was a real struggle.  The pain in my shin was getting worse and I was popping paracetamol like they were M&M’s.  The heat was oppressive too.  I was walking from one shaded area to the next and resting in the shade.  It was very slow going.

About 3pm I decided that perhaps a short sleep would help and lay down on the grass beside the trail, setting my alarm for 30 minutes time.  It turned out to be one of the worst things I could have done.  When I stood up again, I couldn’t put any weight on my left leg.  My shin was in agony and I thought my race was over.

I had another two paracetamol and started hobbling the best I could.  When I reached the next canal boat I asked if the had any ice cubes.  They didn’t, but they pointed to a tap opposite them and suggested that I run cold water over my sore, and visibly swollen lower shin.  It was at this stage that I came up with the idea of soaking one of my arm sleeves (I was using pull up sleeves to protect my arms from the sun) and tying it around my shin like a cooling bandage.  This helped, and I continued on my way.

It think it was around about now that I was caught by Nicole and shortly after, by Ernie Jewson and Andy Ives.  Both Andy and Ernie had competed in all five of the previous TR250’s, and Ernie had also attempted a double TR250 with Javed Bhatti and Rich Cranswick in 2015 (the year I first heard about this race).  Once again I decided to sit in behind and I followed my three companions into Oxford, where Nicole stopped for some refreshments.  Crossing from the Oxford Canal on to the Thames I managed to lose contact with Andy and Ernie.

I may have mentioned that Nicole is a GP, and she asked whether I was taking painkillers for the shin.  I sheepishly admitted that I had probably taken many more than I should.  I suspected I had taken about 12 paracetamol since Lower Heyford (so in about a 6 hour period) and told her that they weren’t working.  Nicole gave me 8 codine tablets which she said was all I was allowed between there and the finish – which at current speed was probably 12+ hours away.

We (Nicole and I) played cat and mouse for a little bit after leaving Oxford.  She was walking much faster than me but stopping for regular rests where I would catch her.  Strangely, I was actually enjoying myself and whilst we still had a long way to go, and my shin was in a lot of pain, I knew that I would finish.

I recorded another facebook live video:

Shortly after recording this video Nicole caught up with me again but I was going very slowly and told her to go on ahead, and that I would see her at the checkpoint.

About halfway between Oxford and the next checkpoint at Abingdon the trail once again became difficult to walk with a very uneven surface and the pain in my shin started to become intolerable.  I had a call with my wife and two of my sons who all told me how proud they were of my efforts and said that they would meet me at the finish.  I told them that I suspected that would probably be sometime around 8am, maybe 10am tomorrow, as I was now going incredibly slowly, and I would message them later in the night to let them know my ETA.

The rescue:

It was about 10:20pm when I rang Maxine to ask how far away I was from the Abingdon checkpoint.  I was really struggling with the pain.  The ground was uneven and I was following a trail alongside a fence line that had wooden posts every 3 or 4 steps.  I was using each fencepost to rest and take the weight of my leg.  I couldn’t go on like this and had no idea how far away the checkpoint was.  If it was close, then maybe I could get there.

Maxine checked the online tracking webpage and said that it looked like I was still about 4km from the checkpoint.  I told her that I couldn’t continue.  She told me that I had to because where I was, they couldn’t get a car in to rescue me.  I took some more painkillers and told Maxine that I would rest for 30 minutes and then see if the painkillers reduced the pain.  They didn’t.

I called Maxine again.  She, along with David Edwards were on their way to find me and had Maxine’s walking poles in the hope that I could use them as crutches to take the weight off my leg and walk to the checkpoint.

Around now, Charlotte Smith caught me.  I had seen Charlotte a few times during the race, mostly at checkpoints, but we hadn’t spoken yet.  I told her that I suddenly remembered in the middle of last night that I had met her previously – at the Royan 48 hour race last year.  I don’t know why it was important that I told her that, but it was.  I told Charlotte to keep going, that Maxine was on her way to rescue me, and there was no need for her to wait.

While I waited I started to cool down.  It was dark now and the temperature had dropped.  I put my jacket and waterproof trousers on, and also got my space blanket out of my backpack.  If you have ever doubted the need for mandatory kit in races such as this, it was 30+ degrees when I left the checkpoint 10 or 11 hours earlier.  I was now shivering, and if I hadn’t been carrying that mandatory kit, it wouldn’t just be a sore leg that we would be dealing with.  Mandatory kit isn’t for when things are going well but for when things go wrong.  Don’t take any shortcuts.  You might regret it.

Anyway, Maxine and David arrived and I found that the walking poles didn’t help at all.  I couldn’t even put my foot on the ground, let alone try to walk.

David decided to stay with me while Maxine went exploring to identify whether there was another way out.  About 1km back along the trail she found a large country estate which was empty.  If a car could be driven down the driveway, then perhaps that would be the best option to get me out.  She called Lindley who had just seen Mandy Foyster finish her race at the Morell Rooms in Streatley and they hatched a plan for my rescue.

Whilst this was happening, Ernie Jewson caught up with us.  I was sprawled across the trail covered by my space blanket and offered to move to let Ernie past.  But Ernie thought he could step over me, not realising that there was a small hole on the other side, and he tumbled to the ground reaching out for the fence to cushion his fall.

Did I mention that between each wooden fence post there were two rows of barbed wire?  Well, as Ernie discovered, when you put your hand on barbed wire, and you have also been taking painkillers, your blood is a lot thinner than normal, and what would normally have been a small scratch created a lot more blood than would normally be expected.  David and I administered first aid – consisting of some tissue to stop the bleeding and some KT tape to hold the tissue in place, and Ernie headed off for the next checkpoint and some ‘better’ first aid care.  Unfortunately, several hours later Ernie would become the last DNF for this race when he found himself struggling mentally and unable to continue.

Lindley arrived and advised that he was able to drive as far as the other side of the country estate, meaning that we would need to walk about 1km to get to his vehicle.  A former fireman, Lindley is trained in rescuing people and he threw me over his shoulder and carried me to the car.  Perhaps it wasn’t quiet as simple as that.  I remember David being given a lesson in carrying a ‘body’ over his shoulder, and the two of them taking turns.  Carrying an 83kg fully grown man 1km over rough terrain, and in the dark, is not easy, and I want to take this opportunity to thank Lindley, Maxine, and David for the work they did to rescue me.  And also to thank the owners of the country estate for not having a locked gate at the road entrance to their estate, which was about another mile or further along the driveway.

The end:

Lindley dropped Maxine and David back to the Abingdon checkpoint and collected my bags before taking me to the finish at the Morell Rooms.  It was around 2am by the time we arrived, well over 3 hours after I had first called Maxine for help.

I had a couple hours sleep, waking when I heard some of the runners finish, but not really being conscious enough to know who it was that was finishing.

When I woke the following morning I couldn’t put any weight on my leg at all, but I found I could crawl.  My son, Jarrad, collected me mid-morning and took me home for a shower before taking me to Kingston Hospital where they x-rayed my leg and diagnosed a bone bruise.  They also diagnosed the infected spider bites and gave me some penicillin via an IV.  When they gave me some crutches I asked if I would need these for a few days until I could walk again.  They said, “use the crutches for the next two weeks and make an appointment to see your GP”, so 8 days later I am still unable to walk without crutches although the swelling has gone down by about 80%, and I am keeping my leg elevated whenever possible.

I have cancelled my next race, the KACR 145 mile race at the end of July.  Whilst there were no refunds, I asked the organisers to remove my entry so that I wouldn’t be tempted to compete based on the fact that I could walk again.  My next race is currently unknown but I have entered another 250 mile race in October – the Lon Las CYMRU Ultra from Holyhead in the North West of Wales to Cardiff.  Ideally I would like to do some races before then, but will have to wait and see what happens.

The results:

In the end, for me, the Thames Ring 250 resulted as a DNF at 230 miles.  230 miles plus approximately 8 ‘bonus’ miles.  My Garmin recorded over 238 miles (383km) in 3 ½ days.  It appears that all the runners recorded extra miles.  I also understand that the Oxford Canal was measured in nautical miles which are longer than imperial miles.

Regardless, I think this race is perhaps one of my best athletic performances ever, even better than my six day races which were on a 1km circuit and much easier to walk than the terrain of the canals.  I am therefore allowing myself to wear my TR250 hoodie even although I didn’t complete the course.

I spent hours walking with Victoria (DNF at 183 miles), Nicole (98 hours 25 minutes), and Steve (91 hours, 21 minutes).  I also walked with many other people at various stages of the race.  Most didn’t finish for various reasons – only 14 of the 41 starters finished the race.  Congratulations to everyone, regardless of your final result.

 

And a huge thank you to Lindley, Maxine, and to all the volunteers that manned the checkpoints through the race.  This is an awesome event thanks to your efforts.

See you all for the 7^th edition of the Thames Ring 250 in June 2021!