500 meters in to the 145 mile Grand Union Canal Race I looked behind me and found I was in last place.

36 ¾ hours, and 271,000 fitbit steps, later I finished the race in 27^th place out of a field of 98 starters – 97 of whom were runners with me being the sole walker.

That is the short story, but it was by no means as easy as it sounds.

For me, the 2016 edition of the Grand Union Canal Race was the toughest mental battle I have faced in the eleven events of 100 miles or further that I have done during the last three years.

The Start:

Unlike two weeks ago (before the Continental Centurions Race) I slept well each night in the lead-up to the race with the only exception being that I was awoken about an hour after going to bed on Friday night by a flashing light in my hotel room.  For some unknown reason my head torch had decided to short-circuit the night before the race and started turning itself on and off randomly. Fortunately I always travel with spare head torches when doing races of this type so I took the batteries out and used them as spares rather than changing head torches at the 85 mile checkpoint as planned.

Depending on who you listened to during the week leading up to the race, the weather was either going to be brilliant all weekend, or was going to rain on and off all weekend, so it wasn’t a surprise to wake up at 4:30 on Saturday morning to find that it was raining lightly outside.  By the time I had opened the curtains to check the weather, I had already showered and dressed for the race including putting on my trusty Brooks Adrenaline road shoes so I decided to start the race in these and packed my trail shoes in my kit bag so that I could change in to them at a checkpoint if necessary. The rain was extremely light – probably a typical Birmingham summers day 🙂 – and I prefer road shoes over trail shoes whenever possible.

I left the hotel shortly after 5am for the short 1 kilometre walk down to the start at the Gas Street Basin carrying my two kits bags that contained everything I would need for the race.  Bag 1 contained 9 plastic shopping bags (my food bags) which each contained all the food and coke that I expected to need at each of the 9 checkpoints between Birmingham and London.  Last year I lost too much time stopping at checkpoints and my two best long-distance races to date (the Roubaix 28 hour race last year and the Continental Centurion Race two weeks ago) were both races in which I didn’t stop at all during the duration of the race because I was able to collect food and drink from either my support crew or the official aid stations as I walked past.  My plan was to replicate this as much as possible by arriving at each checkpoint, grabbing the appropriate food bag (each one was numbered for the applicable checkpoint), refilling my water bottles and if necessary adding hot water to my porridge or Pot Noodles, and getting moving again as quickly as possible.  As the race progressed my intention was that my diet would change from mostly fruit and some biscuits to mostly chocolate and Coke and each food bag was therefore numbered so that I would get the food that I expected to need.

My second kit bag contained my spare trail shoes, spare clothes in case needed, my first aid kit, and a few other bits and pieces but the idea was that everything I would need for the next 40 hours was in the one bag and easily accessible.  Even my head torch was in the bag for checkpoint 4 (as it would be dark about 1 to 2 hours before arriving at checkpoint 5), spare batteries were in the bag for checkpoint 7, etc.  I don’t know that I have ever been this well prepared for a race.

I wouldn’t say that the start was an anti-climax but I wasn’t excited like I was at the start of last year’s race.  I was keen to get started though, as it was raining gently and as a walker we don’t burn as much energy as runners so if I got cold it would take me longer to warm up again.

This year was the 22^nd running of the Grand Union Canal Race but the first under the guidance of new race director, Keith Godden.  The previous run director, Dick Kearns said a few words, Keith said a few words, and then we were off.  I had positioned myself at the back of the field on purpose and started off with a very easy first kilometre of just under 9 minutes as the runners ahead sorted themselves out along the narrow path beside the canal and through the first tunnel about 300 meters from the start.  Once through the first tunnel I got myself into rhythm and spent the morning ticking off kilometre splits of around 7:45 to 7:55.  Slower than my normal race pace but this was going to be another adventure rather than a race as such.

My big goal for 2016 is the 6 jours de France (6 day race in Privas, France) in October and the Grand Union Canal Race was a part of my mental training towards October.  The 6 day race will require more mental strength than I have ever needed for anything I have done previously – mental strength that I don’t yet have.

Because I was backing up just two weeks after my 20:58 100 mile NZ record in Holland the GUCR would be much tougher both physically and mentally than if I was fresh.  And to make the 145 miles just that little bit harder I set myself a goal of not sitting down at any of the 9 checkpoints along the way – or at any other time during the race.  My previous best effort at staying on my feet was the 32 ½ hours I managed during the first 2/3^rd of my M25 circumnavigation in March and my goal was to beat that, and if I could beat 32 ½ hours, then perhaps I could go the whole journey without sitting down.

The first half:

It didn’t take long before I began passing runners as we headed along the canal out of Birmingham towards the first checkpoint at 10.7 miles (17km) which I reached in a shade under 2 hours and 20 minutes – the same time as last year.  It had stopped raining so I removed my jacket, grabbed my first food bag and kept walking.

It was shortly after that that we hit the first, and fortunately only, muddy part of the course.  For a moment I regretted making the decision to wear road shoes as I tenderly walked through the mud trying to keep my feet dry.  Mud in the shoes results in wet socks which results in blisters but as with my last few long races/walks, I was wearing Injinji toe socks as well as coating my feet with 2Toms Blister Shield and thankfully I didn’t suffer anywhere near as badly as I might have – only two small blisters on the inside of each heel later on in the race.

The first 36 miles (57km) through to the third checkpoint went perfectly, and almost exactly the same pace as last year.  I was averaging a little under 8 minutes per kilometre which wasn’t fast, but was fast enough to pass a runner every now and again.  I stopped at each checkpoint only long enough to collect my food bag and after each checkpoint I ate some of the food I had collected so as I wouldn’t need to carry it all, stuffed the rest of the food in to my pockets and waste belt, and posted a progress update on facebook and twitter.  I was enjoying the walk.  The sun had come out and it was a nice afternoon – possibly a little hot for running, but fine for race-walking.

Shortly after checkpoint 3 my average pace dropped by almost 1 minute per kilometre for no particular reason.  I wasn’t tired and wasn’t particularly concerned although at checkpoint 4 (53 miles/85km) I drank a Coke and had some dinner (Pot Noodles, Jelly and a Banana) to give me a pick-me-up.  Up until then I was consuming mainly fruit and biscuits.

It didn’t make a difference though and I continued plodding along through until just after 100km when we hit the only road section of the course – a 1 ¼ mile (2km) stretch that I walked in the dark last year.  But this year it was still daylight, meaning that I was well ahead of my pace from last year, and I decided to push the pace and make the most of the tarmac surface.  My Garmin split times show that I averaged a shade over 8 minutes/kilometre for the next 12km (8 miles) through to the half way checkpoint (actually 70 miles so just short of half way) at Navigation Bridge.  I felt really good even although it was dark for the last hour.  I passed a couple groups of 3 and 4 runners during this section and arrived at the 70 mile (112km) checkpoint in 16 hours and 14 minutes, and in 54^th place overall.

As with every checkpoint throughout the race, the volunteers were fantastic and told me to sit down while they got my kit bag.  But at every checkpoint I simply said that I was “on a roll” and didn’t want to stop.  I gave them my water bottles to refill and put my reflective long sleeved top on as well as a woollen hat to keep me warm overnight.  And then I was off again.

Walking through the night:

I love walking at night.  I had a bright head torch and was walking alongside the canal in solitude.  My pace slowed again as is expected at night – you have to be a bit more careful with foot placement during the dark, especially when on an uneven surface.

I continued to pass runners from time to time but most of the time I was alone and took the opportunity to do a bit of singing.  I can’t sing! I’m tone deaf. My wife won’t even let me sing ‘Happy Birthday’.  But no one could hear me and I was listening to some great music on my ipod while I walked so decided to sing a few duets with the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Michael Jackson, Queen, etc.

I was also eating and drinking heaps.  Perhaps too much, because by the time I arrived at the 85 mile (135km) checkpoint I felt nauseous.   I decided not to have anything more to eat, and to only drink water, until daylight.

Other than that I was still feeling good though, and it wasn’t long before it was light enough to turn off the head torch at around 4/4:30am and I realised that I was probably as much as two hours ahead of where I had been at the same time last year.  I worked out that I could possibly get through to 100 miles in under 24 hours – something I hadn’t previously managed to do outside of a proper walking race on a sealed surface.  Last year it took me 26:03 for the first 100 miles through to checkpoint 7.  This year, 23:52!

The mind is stronger than the body:

Last year, at 100 miles I spent over 15 minutes in checkpoint 7 and I believe that is what cost me my race.  I became a zombie and took almost 17 hours to cover the next 45 miles.

This year I was in and out of the checkpoint as quickly as possible, stopping just long enough to get my food bag plus a sausage roll, drop my head torch, and refill my water bottles.

I knew it was going to be a struggle to get through the next 45 miles – I was starting to feel a little tired and hadn’t sat down for over 24 hours – but I wasn’t going to let the same thing happen to me for a second year.

From daylight last year I was hallucinating.  Everything I saw looked like a person until I arrived at whatever object it was to realise that it was a bush or some other inanimate object.  This year I hadn’t suffered any hallucinations yet.  I think the big difference was that I was eating much more food than last year.

The biggest gap between checkpoints in the Grand Union Canal Race is between checkpoint 7 and 8 – 20 miles (32km) and I was struggling a little.  I wasn’t passing as many runners as I had on Saturday afternoon/evening, and my feet were starting to hurt.  I was also struggling a little with tiredness and wanted to sit down.

I had small stones and grit in the bottom of both shoes and decided to stop to empty my shoes.  This was probably around 115 miles and when I removed my feet from my shoes I found that they were both numb to touch, and whilst both heels were blistered I didn’t feel any of the expected pain sliding my feet out of, or back in to my shoes.  Although my feet were numb to the touch, they felt much better once I had removed the small stones and I powered through to checkpoint 8 which I reached just before 11:30am – 5 ½ hours after leaving checkpoint 7.

This was the last checkpoint where we would have access to our kit bags but I had plans for that.  We had 25 miles to go and I would need to carry enough food to get through that distance, although I could collect some food from the final checkpoint which was 13 miles away.  My plan though, was to fill my camalbak with food and cans of Coke so that all I would need to do at the final checkpoint would be to refill my water bottles.  I’m not particularly keen on carrying stuff on my back.  I normally carry my water bottles and food in a waste-belt – two actually, one on the front and one on the back.  But I didn’t want to risk running out of sugar during the last 25 miles so I decided that the backpack option was the best way to proceed.

The finish:

It was hard.  Possibly the hardest thing I have ever done.  The last 25 miles took me 7 ¼ hours.  But that is significantly faster than the almost 10 hours it took me last year!  Last year was comparatively easy though because I had become a zombie and was just going through the motions as opposed to trying to push the pace.  This time, it was a case of focusing on turning my feet over as quickly as possible, keeping my stride as long as possible, driving with my arms, staying awake – and repeat!  The fact that I hadn’t sat down since before 6am yesterday was really starting to cause problems.  I wasn’t hallucinating, but I was feeling motion sickness.  Every time I went past a canal boat moored beside the towpath I had to look the other way as otherwise, half way past the boat it would appear to jump forward.  At one stage I walked under a bridge and the reflection of the bridge on the water caused me to feel dizzy.  I really needed to stop, but I kept on pushing on.

I didn’t feel like eating or drinking, but I knew I had to.

The towpath seemed to drag on forever.  There weren’t any other runners around, and although I knew I was on the right course I kept wondering whether perhaps I had taken a wrong turn somewhere.

But eventually the signpost that all GUCR competitors dream about came in to sight.

13 ½ miles to go!  Just over a half marathon.

One mile further up the path I arrived at the final checkpoint.  The only checkpoint where the volunteers told me NOT to sit down.  Only 12 miles to go.  Their view was ‘feed and water the athlete and get them moving again as quickly as possible’.  And that is what I did.

Many hours ago, at around daylight, I thought I could get under 36 hours even if I slowed during the day.  Now I was thinking that I probably wouldn’t manage to break 37 hours.  There was nothing I could do about it other than continue to focus.  One step after another.  Keep the stride as long and as fast as possible.  Swing the arms.  And stay awake!

Ruth and Zac were going to meet me at the finish so I messaged them to tell them I was about 80 minutes away as I crossed the A406 at Wembley – completely oblivious to the fact that there was a major football match on just down the road.

A while later I saw a runner ahead of me.  You could tell which runners were in the race and which runners were just out for a Sunday jog.  The joggers were going significantly faster!

I knew that we were close to the finish but I didn’t know how close.  I also knew that if we were less than a mile away, maybe two miles, then we would get under 37 hours.  I didn’t want to pass another runner in the finishing straight, but what if we weren’t yet in the finishing straight and I slowed to let someone finish in front of me because I didn’t want to pass him on the line, and as a result we both missed going under 37 hours?

So I picked up the pace and passed the runner telling him that if we worked together we might break 37 hours.  He replied that he was stuffed and unable to speed up.  And about 3 minutes later the finish line was in sight!

36 hours and 42 minutes.   271,000 fitbit steps.  One fantastic race!

I finished in 27^th place overall.  6 hours and 20 minutes faster than last year!

Not a bad effort if I say so myself.

Other things:

• After the Continental Centurions Race two weeks ago I had serious back pain. It hurt constantly from the time I finished that race until about 7 or 8 hours in to this race.  I was reasonably certain it was just a muscle strain but I saw a chiropractor twice in the hope that he could resolve the problem.  He didn’t.  I only did three short walks between the two races and the back hurt each time but I figured that I could put up with the pain.  But it looks like it must have been a pinched nerve as I haven’t had any back pain since around 40 miles in to the race.
• My goal for the race wasn’t anything to do with the race itself. It was to build mental strength for my race in October.  There were many times during the weekend that I doubted my ability.  For the last 100km or more I was averaging only 10 minutes per kilometre and in October the goal is to walk no slower than 9 minutes per kilometre for up to 20 hours per day.  But in October I will be walking around a flat 1km circuit and will have a support crew that will be feeding and watering me and looking after my every need (take note Jim and Sarah 🙂 ).  They will also be keeping my mind focused and I am sure that I can do what I need to.  This race has helped build my confidence in many ways.
• I spent over 37 hours on my feet. I’m not planning on doing that again.  But I know I can do it if I have to.
• The Grand Union Canal Race is 145 miles (233km) in length. My official NZ 48 hour record is 233.075km.  I think I need to find a 48 hour race next year to see what I can really do in 48 hours.  200 miles perhaps?

My other GUCR’s

What to read more?

My 2015 GUCR report is here

And my 2017 race report is here

In race-walking, a Centurion is someone who walks 100 miles in less than 24 hours in an official qualifying race.  Centurionism (if that is a word) is recognised in seven different countries – the UK, Holland, USA, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia and most recently South Africa which will have its first qualifying race in October of this year.  The first time that an athlete completes 100 miles in under 24 hours in a country they are given a unique centurion number.  My numbers are C19 in New Zealand and C1131 in the UK – meaning that I was the 19^th person to complete the feat in NZ and the 1,131^st to do it in the UK.  1,131 might sound like a high number but it is significantly less than the 1,600+ people who have swam the English Channel, the 4,000+ people who have climbed Mount Everest.  It is also marginally less than the number of people who have played ruby for the All Blacks.

Other than Malaysia, which no longer has a regular qualifying race, each country holds a qualifying race on an annual basis and last weekend 83 race-walkers competed in Schiedam, Holland to qualify as Continental Centurions.

There were a mixture of experienced centurion race-walkers (including the legendary Sandra Brown who is one of only two people to have qualified as a centurion in all six countries that have had qualifying races and has completed over 170 races of 100 miles or further!) and relative novices who were attempting to become a Centurion for the first time.  I was the only New Zealand competitor.  There were three Australians plus half a dozen from the UK and 12 from the Isle Of Man.  The rest of the field comprised mainly of Dutch race-walkers with a few from other parts of Europe.

As with all big races, one of the highlights was catching up with everyone beforehand, and that started when I arrived at my hotel in Schiedam on the Friday morning to find that my room wasn’t yet available.  I phoned Australian race-walker John Kilmartin (Australian Centurion C67 and UK Centurion C1137) who had arrived a few days earlier and dropped my bags in his room before going for a walk around the course with John.

After walking a lap of the course John and I headed back to the hotel for lunch and were mistaken by hotel staff as being a part of the conference that was happening in the hotel and as a result we ended up being served a free lunch.  Who said that there’s no such thing as a free lunch?

During the course of the afternoon more competitors arrived including Peter Miller (UK Centurion C1159) from the Isle of Man who, during the race, specifically asked me to mention him in my race report. 🙂  He also told me that he had been reading my book so I guess he deserves a mention here, as does Michael Bonney (UK Centurion C1135) who also told me that he had read my book.  FYI, I’m not going to mention the names of every single person that has ever read my book as that would add at least another 2 lines to the length of this race report!

By dinner time there were about 20 competitors/support crew at the hotel. We had dinner together and then I went to bed around 10pm hoping for a good nights sleep as I wouldn’t be getting any sleep the next day.

Over the last few years I have got to the stage where I sleep really well the night before a race.  I don’t know what it was this time though, but I had been struggling to sleep all week and the Friday night was no exception.  During the week the daytime temperature had increased from mid-teens to mid 20’s and I had put my problems getting to sleep down to the warmer nigh time temperature but I suspect it was more the pre-race nerves/excitement.  I eventually got to sleep though and woke up the following morning to find that race day was much cooler than the last few days with a forecast 7 to 12 degrees, with cloud and showers throughout the weekend.

The course:

The Schiedam course was a 3.936km (almost 2.5 mile) circuit set within Prinses Beatrixpark with the first lap being slightly shorter so that we would finish the 100 mile race in front of the official timers; and for the last 30 minutes of the 24 hour race we would go on to a much shorter 991 meter circuit.  It was set amongst the trees which provided shelter (from the sun, the wind, and the rain at different times during the race) for over a half of each lap and was almost dead flat other than a few small bridges crossing over streams.

The only problem I had with the course was that there were no ‘out and back’ sections which meant there wasn’t any opportunity to see any other competitors other than when lapping them, or being lapped, or occasionally when going past the supporters’ tent village at the end of each lap where you would occasionally see another walker sitting down for a rest or being attended to by their support team.

For me personally, I enjoyed the course and found that the distance per lap was almost perfect as it gave me the opportunity to get food and drink every 30 minutes throughout the whole race.

The race:

As well as the 100 mile/24 hour race there were also 50km, 50 mile, and 100km race being held during the weekend with the 50km race starting at the same time as us (but from a different starting point) and the 50 mile and 100km races starting later on.  In total there were over 130 walkers competing with 83 of them being on the start line at 12 noon for the 100 mile/24 hour race.

My intention was to start off at a pace of 7 minutes, 30 seconds per kilometre (8 km / 5 miles per hour) and hold that through daylight hours and as long as I could through the night.  I was able to start off at close to my target pace but I didn’t feel 100% comfortable and couldn’t believe how fast some of the other competitors were walking.  According to the results, after lap 1 (which I completed at a 7:36 pace) I was in 37^th place and by the end of lap 3 I was in 38^th place and averaging 7:38/km.

From the 4^th lap onwards I started to feel better, my pace started to improve marginally, and for the next 22 ½ hours I slowly picked my way through the field.  My plan of walking a good pace during daylight hours was working and I was consistently lapping the circuit with times ranging from my fastest lap of the day (lap 7) in 29:28 through to 30:56 (with two laps in the mid 31 minutes).

I passed 50 miles almost bang on target at 10 hours and 19 minutes, and in 17^th place, but then the wheels fell off.  A 33 ½ minute lap was followed by a 35 ½ minute lap.  And then a 34 minute lap followed by a 32 minute lap.  What was happening?  I couldn’t work it out.  I was feeling fine physically and had been eating well throughout the race to date – mainly eating fruit but also some biscuits, and drinking water with the occasional cup of orange cordial.

I had to do something or my goal of going under 21 hours for 100 miles and more than 182.648km (the current New Zealand Record) for 24 hours would not happen.  I had already gone through the stage of telling myself that missing the records would be OK as I have another 100 mile race scheduled for August, but I don’t have another 24 hour race scheduled for 2016.

During training, and also long races when I am walking alone, I like to listen to podcasts as they give me something to think about during all those hours that I am on my feet, but I realised that listening to podcasts for the next 12 hours wasn’t going to do me any good.  I switched to music and what a difference that made!  It was like I had flicked a switch.  My next lap took 30 minutes and 40 seconds and the next three were all under 30 minutes.

I also switched my nutrition.  I remember walking past Jim who was supporting a few of us along with Suzanne and told Jim that for the next 9 hours he had to give me chocolate every lap!  I also had some cans of coke stored in the tent for when I needed them (I had already had a can of coke and a bag of crisps as a ‘reward’ for passing 50km and 50 miles) and when I passed Jim at the end of the next lap he had a can of coke and some chocolate ready for me.  At 100km (18^th place in 13 hours and 4 minutes – 9 minutes slower than my pre-race target) I had a whole chocolate bar along with a can of coke, but other than that it was four pieces of chocolate washed down with water every 30 minutes .

Once again, I am 100% certain that if it wasn’t for my support team I would not have achieved my goals.  Thanks Jim and Suzanne.

100 mile NZ record:

I remember getting to the stage where I had 10 laps to complete to get through to 100 miles.  The time on the clock, at the end of the lap, was 15 hours and 50 minutes meaning that I had to average slightly under 31 minutes per lap and I would complete 100 miles in under 21 hours and would beat Peter Baillie’s 10 ½ year old record (21:04:59) by at least 5 minutes.  “I can do this”, I thought.

And then a 32 minute lap!  Or so I thought.  The clock now read 16:22:06 and I couldn’t remember what the number of seconds were on the clock at the end of the last lap, but it was definitely slower than the sub-31 minute laps I needed.  The next lap took 31:19 and then I managed a sub-31 minute lap but only by a few seconds.  As I lapped the course I watched the minutes go up and it was looking more and more unlikely that I would break 21 hours.  I still had 5 minutes up my sleeve to get the NZ record though and I rationalised that 21:02 would be OK.

But I really wanted to get under 21 hours, and I managed to start reeling off some mid 30 minute laps.  I had another Coke with two laps to go as well as another chocolate bar and gave it everything I had.

As I came down the finishing straight for the last time Suzanne handed me the black silver fern flag and I powered down the last 60 to 70 meters holding the flag above my head.  It was an emotional moment.  I had finally broken the NZ 100 meter record which was something I had targeted since I first started race-walking in 2012.  My time was 20:58:27.  I had managed to get under 21 hours!  And I was in 7^th place overall, and became the 432^nd Continental Centurion.

I crossed the finish line ready to celebrate but Jim grabbed the flag off me and told me to keep moving.  I still had 3 more hours to walk if I wanted to also break the NZ 24 hour record.

24 hour NZ record?

It’s not every day that you break a national record though, and while I kept walking I slowed a little and rang my wife, Ruth, to tell her the news and then posted on both facebook and twitter as I casually walked the next lap in a very slow 36 minutes.

John caught me at some stage during that lap and we started to pick up the pace a little, walking a 32 minute lap and then a 30 minute lap.  John then decided to ‘race’ his last lap (through to 100 miles) and left me for dead.  He walked 28 ½ minutes for his last lap (faster than any of my laps and his fastest of the race) and I started to feel the strain of the previous 23 hours slowing to 31 ½ and then 32 ½ minutes a lap – but still on pace to break Peter Baillie’s 24 hour record of 182.648km.

With 30 minutes to go, as each walker completes their lap they are directed on to a smaller 991 meter lap and this occurred for me at 23 hours and 41 minutes (180.614km).  I walked two of these shorter laps and when I passed the finish line with just 2 minutes and 59 seconds to go until the 24 hours was up I asked one of the officials whether they would sound a horn at 24 hours and we would all stop (as is traditional in a 24 hour race) or what?  And to my surprise he said that we had to complete the final lap – which I did, finishing the race in 24 hours, 5 minutes and 18 seconds, and covering a total distance of 183.587km.  This was 939 meters further than the NZ record, but it had taken me 5 minutes longer than 24 hours.

Go back one lap: my time was 23 hours, 57 minutes and 1 second and my distance was 182.598km – just 52 minutes short of the record.  Based on my average speed for the last lap, this meant that at 24 hours I had covered a total distance of 182.950 meters – beating the NZ record by 302 meters.

Unfortunately, while this maths makes sense to me, it doesn’t meet the official rules regarding records and as a result, I cannot claim the NZ 24 hour record.  Looks like I will have to try again!

I am claiming this as a ‘New Zealand Best’ however, and for the time being I’m happy with that.  It means that I now have a goal for 2017 as I don’t intend having another attempt at a 24 hour race this year.

One upside was that I ended up winning the 24 hour race, but this was because 5 of the 6 walkers who finished the 100 mile race in front of me stopped walking at that stage.  It did mean, however, that I came home with two trophies instead of just one.