The Roubaix 28 hour race started in 1954 and has been held every year since, making it one of the oldest continuously run race-walking races in the world.

When I competed last year this was my longest race to date and only my third race of 100 miles or longer.  Going in to this year’s event I had completed four races of 100 miles or longer in the previous 6 months and was in excellent condition, both mentally and physically.  My goal was to complete at least 200km and ideally a little further than that as the current New Zealand 200km race-walking record was 27 hours and 40 minutes and it would be the perfect ending to my racing year if I could beat that time.

As with last year, there were only two English speaking walkers in the race. Suzanne Beardsmore, who was coming off the 6 day race at Privas in August, and myself.  We were being supported by Suzanne’s partner Jim and fellow centurion race-walker Sarah Lightman, and there were two teams of GB walkers competing in the 24 hour relay event which accompanied the main race.

Jim, Sarah, Suzanne and I traveled to Roubaix by car on Friday, the day before the race, and set up our tent beside the track on Friday afternoon before joining many of the other individual and relay competitors for dinner at a local restaurant on Friday evening.  One of the things I love about the French ultra-distance race-walking circuit is that at every race you make new friends and meet old friends again.  And with walkers coming from all over Europe you often find yourself communicating in very basic English, French, or maybe even in sign language.

This year was no exception, with walkers coming from New Zealand, England, France, Holland, Russia, Germany, and several other European countries.

Race Day:

On Saturday morning we visited a supermarket to purchase some last minute food supplies and then set up the rest of our equipment trackside to ensure that Jim and Sarah would be able to provide the best possible support.  A job they did perfectly.

The race itself started in the town square in Roubaix at 11am so we left Sarah at the track and traveled the short distance in to Roubaix with Bernard Six (most of the photos in this race report are thanks to Bernard), a local resident who has been supporting the English race participants for as many years as anyone can remember.  It was a beautiful sunny morning driving from the track to the town centre, a big improvement over the wet weather from Friday, but no sooner had we arrived at the race start and the heavens opened with a torrential downpour that lasted about ten minutes.  During this time we sought refuge in a local café, had a drink and made use of their toilet to relieve pre-race nerves.  Fortunately, once the rain stopped we didn’t have any weather problems again – until we arrived back in England on Monday afternoon!

Tour of Roubaix:

The first 18.5km was a tour of Roubaix which is a fun way to start the race.  We started outside the town hall and, in my case, followed the leaders through the often narrow streets of the town.  My aim for this stage of the race was to keep the pace at between 7:30 and 7:45 per kilometre (12 to 12 ½ minutes per mile) and whenever my pace increased above this speed I would deliberately slow down and let myself drift slowly back through the field, being careful not to allow the gap between myself and the walker in front to become too big as I may need to rely on them for directions.  There was only one time that I went around a corner to find the street in front of me empty but fortunately most corners were well marked with green arrows so I didn’t have any problems.

I arrived at the Parc Des Sports, where we would be racing over a 1.982km circuit for the remainder of the event, 2 hours and 23 minutes in to the race and in 31^st pace, and then started to race!

Around and Around:

For me this was probably the most uneventful race of this distance that I have ever done.  I’m not complaining.  The opposite actually.  The race went perfectly.  I didn’t have any really low points during the race or any real problems.  I simply walked around the circuit lap after lap after lap.

At the end of each lap I would pass the electronic timer and then see my name on the TV together with my cumulative distance and current position in the field, and as the distance grew, the position slowly came down.  There was never a time when my position went up, meaning that throughout the race I was passing people which gave me huge motivation.

And just past the TV screen either Jim and/or Sarah would be waiting to feed and/or water me.  It was a 25 ½ hour eating and walking festival.  And there was also an aid station approximately half way around the circuit which I would often grab another drink or a banana from as I walked past.

Unlike recent races where I have tried to remain sugar free for as long as possible (and in the Thames Path 100 I completed the whole 100 miles without any sugary food or drink at all) I had decided that I would fuel myself mainly on coke, fruit and biscuits along with ham and crisps, and at least every second lap (every 4km) Jim or Sarah would hand me something to eat.

I was in paradise.   Having a great race.  Something to eat at least every half hour.  What more could I ask for?

My lap times were extremely consistent too.  Averaging around 15:30 to 16:00 per lap in the early stages and then slowing a little once it was dark, but with a fastest lap of 14:48 and a slowest lap of 18:08 (I stopped for a quick toilet break) I can’t complain, and most laps of the 94 laps I completed were in the 15 to 17 minute range.

The circuit consisted of about 300 meters on a compacted ash track which would have been very messy if it had rained throughout the race, but turned out to be a great surface other than the occasional small stone that would bounce up in to my shoe – I had to stop three times during the race to remove stones from my shoes but this wasn’t a major issue.  And the rest of the circuit consisted of three separate out and back sections on a tarmac surface, with one being dead flat and the other two being slightly uphill – but only with a few meters of elevation change so nothing to worry about.

I found myself getting into a rhythm and the laps flew by.  And with the three out and back sections we got to see the other athletes throughout the race which was fantastic, and occasionally I would use the opportunity to calculate how many minutes or seconds I was behind someone and then check again on the next out and back section to see whether I was closing the gap.  This became especially useful in the last few hours of the race.

I passed 100km shortly after midnight in a time of 13 hours and 18 minutes.  Not my fastest time for 100km in a race of this distance but something I was completely comfortable with.  My aim had been to complete the first 100km in 13 hours flat but I was happy with 13:18.

And I arrived at 100 miles in a 28 minute PB of 21 hours and 45 minutes, and was still going strongly and still moving up through the field.  From memory I was in about 14^th place at this stage.

I wanted to achieve a decent distance over 24 hours too as I wanted to qualify for the prestigious Paris-Alsace race which is by held each June and entry is by invitation only.  Last year my best distance for 24 hours was 172km and the cut-off for invitations appeared to be 173km, so I wanted to beat that distance.  I didn’t actually intend to do Paris-Alsace next year though.  It is an extremely brutal race held over 5 days on the roads of France with at least one stage being very mountainess (and I don’t enjoy hills as we found out at Chateau Thierry earlier this year) and not something that I want to do until I am a little more experienced.  But at the same time I wanted to prove to myself that I could qualify if I wanted to do the race.

And I managed to complete 176.6km in 24 hours by which stage I was in 10^th position overall.  And immediately after the race the Paris-Alsace organiser invited both myself and Suzanne to compete next year.  Suzanne has accepted but I have declined the invitation.

200km New Zealand Race-Walking Record:

Next on the agenda was to get through to 200km in less than 27 hours and 40 minutes.  Having passed 100 miles in 21:45 I had almost six hours to complete less than 40km and thought that would be a breeze.  But for some reason I slowed a little in the next 10km and by 24 hours I knew I still had to concentrate on the job at hand if I was to achieve my goal.

Because the circuit was a 1.982km lap which we had started after already walking 18.5km, the 200km mark was not at the end of a lap and I was actually going to have to cover 200.9km in order to get an official time for 200km.  At the speed I was doing 900 meters equated to about 7 minutes, so I actually had 3 hours and 40 minutes to cover 24.3km.  Easy to achieve at the start of the race but I had already been walking for 24 hours!

This is where Sarah comes in to the story big time.  I don’t remember exactly when, but at around 24 hours Sarah started pacing Suzanne for a while as Suzanne was struggling.  They did 12km together in total so I guess it must have been sometime after 25 ½ hours in to the race that Sarah then started to pace me.  Initially she would walk with me for one lap, let me walk a lap alone, and then walk with me another lap.  The company was great and my pace picked up just enough to give me confidence that I could get the record.

Jim continued to feed me regularly too and it got to the stage where I was eating every lap as well as drinking coke at the aid station half way around.  Things were going really well.  I moved into 8^th place on the 200km lap and completed that lap (200.9km) in a new New Zealand 200km record time of 27 hours, 27 minutes, and 12 seconds!

No Time For Celebration:

The problem was that two laps before reaching 200km we worked that the guy in 7^th place was only six minutes in front of me, and on the same out and back section during the 200km lap he was only three minutes in front of me.  We also worked out that it was possible for me to complete another two full laps after finishing the 200km lap meaning that there was a very strong chance that I could move in to 7^th place before the end of the race if I kept pushing it.  So no time for celebration other than to grab a can of coke from Jim and keep on walking.

It turned out to be an aniti-climax though as half way around the penultimate lap I had almost caught 7^th place when he stopped at the toilets!  Must have been desperate to stop with less than 25 minutes still to race.

But I had built up momentum and I kept the pace going right through to the finish with two of my fastest laps of the race.

In the end I completed a total of 205.090km in the 28 hours and finished in 7^th place.  By far the best ultra-distance race performance of my life.

Some Analysis:

Firstly, I wore my Fitbit during the race and was staggered after I finished to find that in each 14 hour half I had walked an almost identical number of steps – 112,500 steps in the first half and only 500 less steps in the second half.

Looking at my lap splits I walked almost exactly 105km in the first 14 hours and 100km in the second.

Only 500 less steps but 5,000 meters less distance.

When I calculate my average stride length, less than 500 meters of the the 5km slow down in the second half was due to the reduced number of steps.  The remaining 4.5km slow down was due to a 4 centimeter reduction in average stride length!

It’s incredible to think that if I had maintained the same stride length throughout whole race I could have walked almost 210km.

Next, my lap splits.  Once we were onto the circuit I completed 94 laps in 25 hours and 34 minutes.  An average lap time of 16:19.

My fastest lap was 14:48 which I did twice (laps 4 and 5) and my slowest was one of my toilet stop laps – lap 74 which took 18:08.

30 laps took between 15:00 and 15:59 and 44 laps took between 16:00 and 16:59.

52 laps were slower than my 16:19 average and 42 were faster.

My 68^th and 69^th laps were my 7^th and 5^th fastest.  This is because I was lapped by the race leader just after 151km and decided to sit on his shoulder for a couple laps – I lasted 2 ½ laps before decided to ease the pace a little.  You can see the little peak in my Day 2 Fitbit graph above at 7am when my steps per 5 minutes increased by about 30 steps for a short period.

And outside of laps 69 and 70, my last two laps (laps 93 and 94) were my fastest since lap 24, almost 20 hours earlier!

I passed 100 miles during lap 73 and 200km during lap 93.  Both are circled.

And lastly, when I look at the distances recorded for each athlete at 24 hours and then at the finish, I covered more distance in the last four hours than everyone but one person – 28.4km!

Some Photos:

Injinji Toe socks:

In all my races and long training walks this year I have been coating my feet in 2Toms Anti-Blister powder with great success.  Very few blisters compared to usual other than the Privas 72 hour race where my feet were badly damaged by blisters (see photos here).

So for Roubaix I decided to use both 2Toms Anti-Blister powder and Injinji toe socks.

The result: one very small blister on the small toe of my left foot (one of the three toes that lost toenails at Privas) and some blistering on the sides of both heels.

Also a small hole on the big toe of my left foot (the big toe of the sock, not my foot).

I was wearing the Injinji Performance Liner sock which is much thinner than the normal Injinji socks and I think the idea is to wear another thin pair of socks over the top which is something I will do next time as I think that would prevent the heel blisters.

Overall I was happy with the result.

What Next?

That is it for 2015.  I have completed six races in total. Five of them have been 100 miles or further and the other was a marathon.  All six races were within the last six months so I think I deserve a break.

The plan is to take between 6 and 8 weeks of almost total rest and then start working on some race-walking technique before starting a buildup to my 2016 races.

Thanks Jim and Sarah:

Lastly, I want to thank Jim and Sarah once again for their fantastic work in supporting both me and Suzanne (who finished 3rd female with a distance of 185.629km).

Obviously it is your job to support Suzanne, Jim – given that you live together.  But I wouldn’t have achieved the distances and times I did without the support and encouragement you gave me during the race.  Thanks.

And Sarah, I look forward to reciprocating when you race Roubaix next year 🙂

 

I don’t know where to start with writing my report on the 2015 edition of the Privas 72 hour race.  The heat perhaps.  It was too hot to go to the beach so we decided to walk around a track for 72 hours instead!

If you were on holiday in the heat we had during the race, you would spend as much time as you could in the water or in the shade. You would definitely avoid any physical activity.

With daytime temperatures of up to 39 degrees and night time temperatures in the 20’s, this was definitely the hottest race I have ever completed in.

My initial goals of completing up to 250 miles (400km) during the three day race were unlikely to be met and it would be more a battle of survival than a race – especially during the heat of the day.

Pre-Race

I left home at 4:30am on Tuesday (the day before the race) to travel to Privas in South, East France.  Two buses, a tube ride, and then the Eurostar from Kings Cross St Pancras station through to Paris.  And from there, 2 hours on a French high speed train to Valence TVG, 1 ½ hours on a bus to Privas township, and a ride in a van driven by a Frenchmen (Laurant) who didn’t speak any English but I was reasonably confident that he was the guy who had been sent to collect me from Privas and take me the few miles out of town to the track, and my home for the next four days.

On arriving at the track I immediately discovered what I was up for.  The six day racers were almost 50 hours into their race. No one was running (there were 120 runners and 20 walkers entered) and there were very few people actually on the track – the track being a 1,025 meter circuit comprising mostly of a hardpacked ash and small stone chip surface with a few hundred meters of tarmac.

I met Jamie, Suzanne Beardsmore’s son, who informed me that Suzanne was out on the track but Kathy Crilley (the other English competitor in the six day walking race) was sleeping in the women’s changing rooms as it was too hot to sleep in the tents during the day.  And Jim, Suzanne’s partner and the second member of our support crew, was also sheltering from the heat back at the hotel.

Jim and Jamie had already set up my tent so I decided to take my bag down to the tent and start organising my food, clothes, etc.  As soon as I opened the tent I realised what Jamie meant about “too hot in the tents” and decided to leave the organising until later on.

After cheering on Suzanne for an hour or so, Jim, Jamie and I went to McDonalds for dinner.  McDonalds is often a pre-race meal for me before ultra-distance events as all I am really focussed on is consuming as many calories as possible and also ensuring that I am not going to eat something that might cause stomach upset during the race.

We watched a bit more of the six day race after dinner and I was fortunate enough to be offered the spare bed in Jim and Jamie’s hotel room where I got an excellent 11 hours sleep – perfect pre-race preparation.

Race start wasn’t until 4pm so after a good sleep-in I went to the local supermarket to purchase some more food – a late breakfast, some food for lunch, and some more suppliers for the race – and headed down to the track.

At 2pm we had the pre-race briefing.  It was in French but someone, whom I later realised would be the support crew for my biggest competition during the race, offered to act as my personal translator.  Nothing surprising in the race briefing but there was confirmation that toilet facilities must be used at all times – no exceptions.  There wasn’t really anywhere that an athlete could hide anyway as there were no trees or hedges to use as toilets.  There were three sets of toilets – the ones in the men’s changing rooms under the grandstand, the ones in the women’s changing rooms on the other side of the track, and the unisex public toilets under the back of the grandstand which we would walk past every lap.  These were the most accessible as we went right past the doorway every lap, but as a result we also got to smell the aroma coming from the toilets every lap too!  And the toilets themselves were squat toilets which were often quite messy – I won’t explain further, but just imagine four cubicles being used by 160 athletes who are competing in an ultra-distance race, and what that ultra-distance race can do to your stomach – refer back to my Grand Union Canal Race report if you can’t imagine for yourself 🙂

The Race Begins

4pm finally arrives and we are off.  There are three competitive walkers in the field (Benedicte Salomez from France, whom I had raced at Roubaix last year and Chateau Thierry this year and beaten both times, and Xabier Salillas from Spain whom I hadn’t met before) as well as one other walker and 13 runners.  A total field of just 17.

Benedicte, Xabier, and I shared the lead for the first few laps, circling the track in a little over 8 minutes per lap.  A little slower than I had planned for the early stages of the race but it was hot so I wasn’t going to push the pace.

After a while I pulled away from the other two and starting lapping them both as the evening progressed.

It was hot though, and even after midnight I was pouring cups of water over my head to try and keep cool.  I went through 50km in a shade under 7 hours. I had been expecting a time of around 6 ½ hours but given the heat I wasn’t concerned about the pace, and as it turned out, this would be my fastest 50km of the race.

Something is wrong

I like to post updates on facebook during the long races as it gives me something to do other than just focus on walking lap after lap, and I remember posting the words “Something is wrong – going to stop for a sleep” or similar.

What I can’t remember is whether that was before my first sleep or between my first and second sleeps.

At around 2:30am, whilst leading the walkers and in third place overall, I suddenly felt absolutely terrible and couldn’t go on.  I was approaching the end of the track where my tent was located and all I could think about was getting my sleeping bag out and lying down for a few minutes.  So I did. I slept for an hour and then resumed the race.

But I still didn’t feel well and whilst I thought at the time that I only did two laps, it appears that I walked for an hour before deciding to have another sleep.  This time I was off the track for two hours but only slept for one.  When I woke up the sun was rising behind the hills and I just couldn’t face the idea of getting out of my sleeping bag.  So I lay in my sleeping bag beside the track watching the runners and walkers go by and pretending to be asleep.

During the night I had been shivering, even in my sleeping bag with a long sleeved top on in 20+ degree temperatures, and I didn’t want to find out what would happen when I stood up and started walking.  So I didn’t.

Thursday

I finally started walking again around 6:45am and, other than a few breaks for some shade, I trudged around the track the best I could for eight hours until the heat told me I needed to shelter for a while.  So an afternoon rest in the shade right up the top of the grandstand seemed like a good idea and I carried my camping stretcher up there, took my shoes and top off, and went to sleep in the shade for 1 ¾ hours.

By the time I woke up and resumed the race I was third walker, 20+km behind Benedicte, and 11^th overall in the field of 17.  The race was not going to plan!

I walked a few laps at 8:30/lap pace and felt good.  It was still hot but I told myself that when the sun went down tonight I was going to start racing again.

So after about an hour I took a short break for dinner – the race organisers supplied a sit-down breakfast and dinner each day which athletes could partake in if the desired – and then started my push through to my 48 hour goal/target – the NZ 48 hour record.

New Zealand 48 hour race-walking record

In the first 24 hours I had covered just 110km.  The existing NZ 48 hour record (the easiest record in the NZ ultra-distance record book) was just 230.25km.  I had walked 233km in 43 hours in the Grand Union Canal Race back in May but that wasn’t a walking race with walking judges, so it didn’t count.

My intention before the race was to cover 280km+ in the first 48 hours of the race and then hopefully get through to 400km+ by the finish.  But the high temperatures had put paid to that idea before the race even started.  120km in the second 24 hour period was still possible though and when I resumed walking after dinner I had 20 hours in which to cover about 110km – I can’t remember the exact numbers unfortunately but I knew it was still possible.

But at about 10pm a blister burst on my left heel and I was slowed to a limp through to the end of the lap and a visit to the medical tent.  I thought it would be a relatively short stop to get the heel taped up, but when the doctor saw the state of my toes he insisted on draining and taping the four blisters on the front of my foot as well as dealing with my heel, and I ended up spending exactly an hour in the medical tent.  I refused to show him my right foot though as I feared that might be just as bad.  The track surface had badly cut up and blistered both feet but I had to get moving and I promised to bring my right foot back to see him after 4pm tomorrow.

I left the medical tent with about 16 hours to go (until 48 hours would be up) and from memory, about 90km to cover to get the record.  And pretty much for the next 16 hours all I did was try and remember my time at the end of each lap so that I could calculate how long the current lap took me when I saw the clock again.  I had to complete each lap in under 11 minutes average time, including any breaks I might need during the next 16 hours.  Sounds easy, but add the heat into the equation and I promise you, it was definitely not easy.  Sometimes I would get to the end of the lap and forget what the time was at the start of the lap, so I would have to hope it was a good time and get on with the next lap.

About once an hour I would take a few seconds to stop and read the scoreboard TV screen which was off to one side of the track and couldn’t be viewed without stopping.  It showed the position of each athlete and their total distance, but it wasn’t always 100% up to date.  I remember watching it once when my distance suddenly increased by two laps while I was watching the scoreboard.  So whilst it showed me gradually moving up the field, I could never be 100% sure how many laps I had done or how many I had to go.

I stopped briefly upon passing both 100 miles (35 ½ hours) and 200km (42 hours I think) but other than that it was 16 hours of relentless forward momentum, watching the clock and trying to calculate my lap times and what pace I needed to maintain to get that record.

With an hour to go I was getting concerned that I wouldn’t make it.  I tried messaging my wife figuring that she could follow the results online and let me know whether I was going to make it, but she wasn’t home.  I stopped at the scoreboard again and calculated that I should complete the lap that would see me completing 231km with about 15 minutes to spare.  This would give me time to do one more lap before the 48 hours was up so that I could at least raise the record distance to 232km.  I don’t know why that seemed better to me than 231km, but it did.

The race announcer was aware that I was close to breaking the NZ record and made a few announcements to the supporters and other athletes (if any of them were listening) in French.  Just a little bit more pressure.  I had to make sure I did it now.

And then, at roughly 3:53pm, 47 hours and 53 minutes after starting, I completed the lap that I thought would take me through to 232km and announced that that was far enough, I wasn’t going to add a part-lap to the record distance.  I had beaten the NZ record!!

And it turned out I had walked one lap further than I thought I had.  The new NZ 48 hour race-walking record was now 233.075km!  I had beaten the old record by 2.7km.

But it had taken a lot out of me, both physically and mentally.  There was no way I could continue immediately, even if I wanted to.  It had been almost 24 hours since I woke from my last sleep and I intended to have a bit of R&R before continuing.

I headed to the medical tent first but when they saw my feet and I explained my intentions to take a bit of a break, they asked me to have a shower first so as to reduce the risk of infection when they tended to the blisters – and to enable them to see the blisters as my feet were black from the dust and dirt on the track.  So I walked back to my tent and picked up my towel and a change of clothes and then spent a good 30 minutes or more carefully removing the tape that the medical staff had so expertly applied to my left foot the previous night.

After a shower I spent an hour or more in the medical tent getting numerous blisters on the top, bottom, and sides of both feet drained and taped so that I would be able to continue walking.  I had dinner and then a 1 ½ hour sleep.  All up, I had 7 ¼ hours R&R.  Talk about luxury.  My wife commented after the race that I went to France for a holiday and did a bit of walking while I was there, and when I look at the amount of time I had off the track I can see why she thinks that.

Blisters

If you are interested, click on the images below to see the photos that that the race photographer took of my feet while I was in the medical tent plus a few photos I took myself.  I have made the images small (unless you click on them) so as not to offend 🙂

• My selfie blister photos at 48 hours:
  
• Photos taken by the race photographer while I was in the medical tent for the second time
  
• A couple photos of my feet after I finished the race
  

The Final Day

When I stopped at 48 hours I was back in the lead in the walking section, 26km ahead of Benedicte and 32km ahead of Xabier, and I was third overall, just 1km behind the second placed runner.

But 7 hours later I had once again slipped down the field in both categories and was 7^th overall.  I think Benedicte was 5^th overall but can’t remember exactly.

It was close to midnight when I decided to start walking again.  16 hours to go until the race finish.  Maybe I could complete 87km to get to 320km (200 miles).  That would be a good result given the conditions.  If I couldn’t get to 320km then 300km should be easily achievable.

I walked through the night, and didn’t stop for breakfast as I wanted to get as far as I could before the day started to heat up.  I passed Benedicte again during the night.  I think she took a few breaks and I remember her telling me at once stage that she was suffering.

But as the day started to warm up I started to struggle again and Benedicte slowly unlapped herself to the stage where we were both on the same lap – a lap that took me 24 minutes to complete!!

I was gone.  I had given the race everything mentally and, I thought, physically, and I had no more to give.  This was the hardest event I had ever competed in.  I had given up on the 320km target long ago and now it looked like I wouldn’t make 300km either.

I decided that was it.  I had completed 67 hours of a 72 hour race but I couldn’t do any more.  I had done 280km – 47km further than I had ever walked before.

Suzanne was at the food tent when I completed the lap and told her of my plan – which was to watch the rest of the race from the shade in the grandstand.  I picked up some food and an empty water bottle and Suzanne ensured that I made it around the half lap to the grandstand safely.  I used the cold water tap at the grandstand to fill my bottle and then lay down on one of the grandstand concrete steps to rest.

After a while I had a sleep – only 45 minutes because I wasn’t really that tired, I was just totally stuffed (to put it politely).  After about four hours of resting I decided to take some photos of the athletes and slowly walked around the track where I found both Kathy and Suzanne.

There was now only 30 minutes until the finish so we decided to walk another couple laps and just enjoy the last stages of what had been a difficult few days for us all – Suzanne had been off the track for two days due to illness and both Kathy and I had struggled with the heat.

At 72 hours for me, and 144 hours for Suzanne and Kathy, the final gun sounded and we all stopped and put our small numbered piece of wood, which we had been given a lap earlier, on the ground so that actual distances could be measured.

For me the total distance was 283.6km.  Kathy managed 344.1km which is a UK age group records for the six day event, and Suzanne completed 414.8km

In the 72 hour race I finished second walker, 18km behind Benedicte, and 7^th overall.

Fitbit Analysis

I wore my Fitbit during the race and it is thanks to this that I know so much about how much rest I had.  My original reason for wearing the Fitbit was that it would be interesting to know how many steps I covered in a 72 hour period (350,600) and I would also be able to see whether my cadence (the number of steps per minute) changed much during the race.  Also, Fitbit measures how much sleep you have – which was a total of six hours in five separate sleeps ranging from 45 minutes to ¾ hours in length.

My average cadence during training in around 700 to 750 steps every five minutes – or 140 to 150 steps per minute.  When I am doing speedwork that will increase to around 180 steps per minute, but most of my training consists of walks of between 10 and 30 miles in distance at 140 to 150 cadence.

It was interesting to see that other than the last day and the section during the heat of the day on Thursday, my cadence was consistently around 600 to 650 steps every five minutes (120-130 steps per minute).  Once I resumed walking at around 55 hours in to the race after a 7 hour break I never actually got my cadence back up to the levels it had been earlier in the race.  Was this due to mental or physical fatigue, or both?  Or was it due to me taking too long a break and not being able to get back in to it.  I’m not sure.

The Fitbit graphical analysis below also shows how much rest I had.  It tells me that out of 72 hours I had six breaks of an hour or more and that those six breaks add up to over 19 hours.  Add in the smaller breaks and I only barely managed to spend 50 hours actually walking!

As my wife said, I went to France for a holiday and did a bit of walking while I was there 🙂

Lessons Learned

This was my first multi-day race.  I had done the Grand Union Canal Race in 43 hours, but that was without sleep and didn’t quite take up two full days.  This race took three complete days.

It didn’t go to plan, but it taught me a lot that will help me in future races.  Some of the lessons learned include:

• Be more organised
  Some of the European athletes were extremely well organised. I have done two other ultra-distance races in France and you often see microwave ovens, fridges, etc, in some of the athlete’s tents.  And if not, they often have all there supplies organised into different containers – i.e. fruit, biscuits, sports nutrition, etc, separated from first aid supplies, spare socks, sun block, etc.  Something I can definitely improve on and especially important if self-supported as you want to be able to quickly access what you need when you need it.
• Big walk-in tent
  A bigger walk-in sized tent would also have been much better than having to get on my hands and knees when looking for what I needed from the tent.
• Proactive feeding
  Don’t get me wrong, Jim and Jamie provided great support, but we didn’t have a proactive feeding plan and as a result I had heaps of food left over at the end which I had completely forgotten about during the race. I had eaten a lot at the official food tent, but I had purchased plenty of food for the race which I didn’t touch – including pot noodles (500 calories per cup) and jelly (100 calories per cup) – and I also suspect that I didn’t eat enough calories on a regular enough basis. I often went several laps without food.  At a minimum, next time I will set my watch alarm to remind me to eat regularly, but better still, ensure that my support team put some food into my hands as I go past them every lap (or two at most) without me needing to ask or think about it.
• I can’t think for myself
  When I have been walking for x hours I am not going to be thinking straight, and therefore may make bad decisions. The decision to have a 7+ hour break after completing 48 hours was wrong.  The decision to stop after 67 hours was wrong.  I probably made other wrong decisions too.  In my next multi-day race I need someone to make decisions like this for me.  Someone to tell me when to sleep, when to eat, etc.  I should be walking only and leave everything else to someone else.  What I need is a “handler” – someone who does everything for me other than the actual walking.
• Shoe modification
  I took 3 pairs of shoes to Privas and wore each pair at different stages of the race – the first time I have changed shoes during a race. One of the pairs was an extra size bigger than my normal shoes to accommodate my feet if the swelled – which they did.
  But what I didn’t expect was the blisters.  Both feet blistered badly around the area of the little toe (see pictures above) and on talking to some more experienced athletes after the race several suggested that I should have cut out the side of my shoe to make more room for my toes.  This was an option I was aware of but didn’t think to try during the race.
• Tape toes before the start
  The medical experts did an excellent job with taping my feet. I used 2Toms Anti-Blister powder which I applied to my feet several times but in a multi-day race I think that taping is probably a better option.
• Remove negative thinking
  This is the third time that I have allowed negative thinking to get to me, and the third time that I have failed as a result. In Roubaix last year I was targeting 200km in 28 hours and when I realised that that goal was unlikely with about three hours to go, I was suddenly so tired that I needed a sleep before I could continue – and I finished with 186km losing four places in the last four hours.
  And then in the Thames Path 100 in May, at around 83 miles I realised that I would be unlikely to finish within 24 hours.  I was with Louise Ayling at the time and she had the opposite, positive, view.  Her finishing time ended up being an hour faster than mine!
  And this time, I think it was when I, probably mistakenly, realised that I wouldn’t make 300km that I gave up at 67 hours.  Had I continued rather than taking a 4 ½ hour break, who knows what might have happened.
• Train to walk slowly
  Most of my training is at an average speed of about 5 miles (8km) per hour with occasional faster walks or faster segments within my training walks.
  But even in a 24 hour race I don’t walk that fast. So should I be training at a slow pace?  I don’t know.  But I do think that I need to do more 24 hour races as training for the longer, multi-day, races so that I can get my body used to sleep deprivation and walking at a slower pace when already exhausted.
  Perhaps I need to do less everyday training and more ultra-distance racing – with some races simply being training for other races.
• Multiple goals may not be a good idea
  I had a goal to break the NZ 48 hour record as an interim goal but in reality that was probably more important to me than the goal for the whole race. And therefore, mentally, once I reached that 48 hour goal my race was pretty much over and it was very difficult to keep myself going through to the finish – as we saw.

I don’t mean to sound negative with the above list but at the end of the day the only failure is the failure to learn from your experiences and I think I have learnt some lessons that will help me greatly in my future races.

Photos

The following are some photos taken by me and other people during the race:

Videos

I recorded two videos during the race.  The first was recorded on day 1 and is a tour of the course:

And the second is a series of ‘selfie’ videos I made during the race:

 

The Grand Union Canal Race is an iconic ultramarathon organised by the legendary Dick Kearn and his legion of volunteers.  At just £35 for supported runners and £70 for unsupported (means that the organisers feed you during the race as well), this is one of the best value for money races in the UK – when calculated on a £££’s per mile basis.

At 145 miles, following the Grand Union Canal from the Gas Street basin in Birmingham to Little Venice in London, this would be my longest race to date, and once again I was the only walker in a field of 105 starters.

For me, the event started when I finished work at lunchtime on Friday and caught the train from London to Birmingham.  The train only takes 1 ½ hours, but it would take a lot longer to walk back – 40 hours was my thinking.

Arriving in Birmingham I checked in to my hotel and then went to the local shop to buy some last minute supplies.  I had plenty of food in my bag already but purchased some more – just to be sure.

I also took the time to lay everything out on the bed to check that I had everything I would need for the race – plenty of food, a change of shoes (just in case, but unnecessary), three head torches as whilst my two main head torches are extremely bright their batteries only last four hours, and my main nutrition supply for the weekend – 11 sachets of UCan which I poured into 11 bottles with the idea that I would collect one at each checkpoint and “just add water”.  Also an assortment of other items including caffeine tablets and painkillers – both of which would come in useful on Saturday night and Sunday.  I have wondered what the hotel cleaner thought when they cleaned my room on Saturday morning – with empty caffeine and painkiller boxes in the rubbish bin as well as some spilt white (UCan) powder on the bathroom cabinet.

Once I had sorted all my race kit and was sure that I hadn’t forgotten anything I headed up to the Travelodge in Broad Street for registration and then to the pub next door to meet some other competitors and have dinner before an early night.  These days I seem to sleep well the night before a race and this was no exception.  In bed by 9:30pm (the earliest I had been to bed all week) and asleep within minutes, but it wasn’t long before I woke with cramp in my left calf muscle!  I hadn’t had cramp when sleeping for a long time. Why tonight?

Anyway, I lay in bed for a few moments trying to stretch out the cramp, and thinking that my alarm would probably go off shortly. I had had a good sleep and felt ready to get up but on checking my phone I found that it was only 11:30pm!

The next thing I knew it was 4am and the first of three alarms I had set woke me up.  My biggest concern before a race is that I won’t wake up so as well as my alarms I also requested a wake-up call from hotel reception for 4:15.  If I had waited for that I would still be asleep now as that call never came.

Breakfast would be my last meal sitting down until sometime on Sunday night so I made the most of it – porridge (one of those instant, just add water porridge’s that my wife has most mornings but I had never had before – first rule of racing is never try something new on race day), croissants, bananas and some pancakes.  Enough to keep me going for the first few hours.

Being an unsupported competitor I was allowed two bags of supplies which the volunteer crew would ferry from one checkpoint to another enabling me to just carry the minimum amount that I would need to get me through the few hours between each checkpoint – which were spaced between 10 and 20 miles apart with 10 checkpoints in total.

So I carried my two bags the short walk to the start in Gas Street and then waited patiently talking to some of the other competitors I had met at the pub the previous night and to others with whom I would be sharing the experience that was to come.

Race Start

Just before 6am we were led down to the canal and Dick gave his final pre-race briefing (“final” because we would be off in a few minutes, but also “final” because after 21 years organising this iconic race he was handing the reigns over to someone else to take this event forward in the future), and then we were on our way.

I deliberately started right at the back. Afterall, I was the only walker in the field so in theory I would be at the back on the field for the first part of the journey. But as with the Thames Path 100 three weeks ago, there were a few runners who wanted to run slower than I wanted to walk so it wasn’t long before I was passing runners.  Not that I was walking too fast.  I passed the first 5km in about 39 minutes and reached the first checkpoint (10.7 miles) in about 2 hours and 20 minutes.

By that stage I had already hit my head on the low ceiling as we walked through the first tunnel, and lost my sunglasses into the canal.

But overall the first few hours were uneventful and I just enjoyed walking in new surroundings and taking the occasional photo.

Unlike the first four 100 mile (and longer) walking races that I had done, this (and the Thames Path 100 three weeks ago) were point to point races and as a result there wasn’t the opportunity to grab food and drink at the end of every lap like I have become used to.  Checkpoint 1 was 10.7 miles into the race, checkpoint 2 at 22.5 miles and checkpoint 3 at 36 miles. And after that the distance between checkpoints ranged from 13 to 20 miles between checkpoints.

This meant that I needed a nutritional strategy.  My plan was to collect enough food at each checkpoint to get me through to the next checkpoint as well as one bottle of UCan.  And at the checkpoints where hot water was available I would also get some porridge or pot noodles – neither of which I had tried in a race before.  What I didn’t want to do was drink any coke or consume any high sugar foods as my concern was that once I started on high sugar food/drink I would need to consume more high sugar food and drink at regular intervals throughout the remainder of the race, and I didn’t want to start down that route too early – especially as I wasn’t intending on carrying any coke between checkpoints until near the end of the race.

I ate my second porridge of the day (the first one was at breakfast before the start) in the mile or two after leaving checkpoint 3 and it wasn’t long before I remembered the rule about not trying anything new on race day.

My first bout of diarrhoea hit me at almost exactly 9 hours into the race and for the next six hours I was expelling all the food I had consumed during the day at 20 to 30 minute intervals.
Oh the joys of ultra-distance races!

So when I arrived at checkpoint 4 (53 miles) I needed some quick energy and 5 or 6 (small) cups of coke later I was feeling much better.  My intention had been to cover 70 miles through to checkpoint 5 before darkness and then put on some warmer clothes and my head torch, but I was already an hour behind the schedule I had set myself and there was a strong chance that I would need my head torch before we could get to the next checkpoint.  So this became my first stop in the race.  We were approximately 12 hours in and because of the diarrhoea my pace had slowed dramatically (although I was still passing runners occasionally – I was up to 78^th place of 105 starters) and there was a risk that if I didn’t put my warmer clothes on now, I would be cold by the time I got to the next checkpoint.

The first night

I had never suffered diarrhoea in a race before. In fact, usually the complete opposite. So this was a new experience for me and fortunately, because the race was on a canal trail and it was now getting dark, there were very few people around to witness my frequent stops.  No need to hide behind a bush or wait until the next public toilet. Just pull over to the side of the trail, do the business, and get going again.  Most stops were less than 60 seconds.

Eventually my body returned to normal and I started to enjoy the night time walk along the canal.  Dick (the race organiser) had gone to a lot of effort to produce very detailed maps of the race route.  Along the canal every single bridge and lock is numbered and the maps told us which bridge to cross and any other details we needed to know.  In total there were about 30 bridge crossings and two sections where we moved away from the canal for a mile or so.  There were also a few junctions where you needed the map to know whether to go left, right or straight ahead, and Dick’s maps were fantastic. No chance of getting lost if you followed the maps.

The only problem was that at some stage around 60 odd miles I lost my map!  And a short while later I saw a runner on the other side of the canal!

Fortunately he was going in the same direction as me.  At the next lock I crossed the canal to join him only to find that we were due to cross back to my original side of the canal at the bridge about 100 meters further on.  The other runner, whose name I have forgotten, had just started back running again after a short break and was going faster than me.  So I borrowed his map for a few moments and noted down the bridge numbers that we would need to cross between where we were and the 70 mile checkpoint, and then let him go.  The maps were printed on three double-sided sheets of waterproof A4 paper and whilst we were only on page 1 of sheet 2 I assumed that I would be able to get a replacement map at the next checkpoint so wasn’t too concerned.

I arrived at checkpoint 5 (70 miles) at around 11pm – 17 hours in to the race.  I felt good and found a number of runners at the checkpoint. Many had their buddy runners with them too.  From 65 miles you were allowed to have a buddy runner accompany you.  This can be good for two reasons – one being safety, as we were in to the night section and were running (or in my case, walking) beside a canal.  And the other reason is that, as I was finding, it was very easy to lose concentration and slow down without really meaning to.  I didn’t think I would need a buddy, and to be honest, the way I was feeling I don’t know that a buddy would have helped me go any faster anyway, so I hadn’t organised one.

Back to the maps.  It turned out that there weren’t any spare maps available but one of the runners gave me their map so I could take photos of it on my cellphone, and I also wrote down the bridge crossings – only four bridges to cross during the next 28 miles before we started on the last map sheet at 98 miles.

And as soon as I had noted down the bridge crossings I headed off down the canal and into the night again.

I think I may also have had my first pot noodles and grabbed some other food supplies at that checkpoint, but there was no need for any more coke. I was feeling much better.

I enjoy walking at night and made reasonable progress, arriving at checkpoint 6 (84.5 miles) at around 3am where I had another porridge.  I hadn’t yet put 2 and 2 together and worked out that it was the porridge that had caused my diarrhoea yesterday.

Sunday

I was walking along on Sunday morning, 24 hours in to the race, and I suddenly realised that a) it was daylight, and b) it was sunny!

It was a cloudy day on Saturday but it looked like it was going to be a hot one today.  And I didn’t have any sunglasses.

I arrived at the 100 mile checkpoint just before 8am (26 hours – which incidentally is my slowest of the six 100 miles I have completed) and sat down to change from my warm clothes back into my long sleeved ‘RichardWalksLondon’ shirt and one of the volunteers kindly gave me a pair of sunglasses out of his van.  I also got my trustee straw hat out of my bag and grabbed some food – another porridge, some UCan, fruit, biscuits, and also a bacon and egg sandwich courtesy of the friend volunteers at checkpoint 7.

I was 26 hours into the race. It was a beautiful sunny day.  I wasn’t feeling too tired – thanks to two caffeine tablets every four hours overnight – and I only had 45 miles to go!  I had also moved up to 51^st place – just inside the top half of the field although I had heard that there had been plenty of DNF’s overnight.

My original target had been 36 to 40 hours.  36 hours would have meant an exceptional race and with the benefit of hindsight, knowing that only 28 runners went under 36 hours, was probably a little too ambitious.  But with 14 hours to cover the last 45 miles, 40 hours was well within my reach.

But little did I know what a slog the next 45 miles was going to be.  Shortly after leaving checkpoint 7 I put 2 and 2 together when I started another two hour period of diarrhoea.  Obviously the porridge wasn’t such a great idea.  It was also daylight now and as well as other competitors on the course there were other people, which meant I had to be a little more discrete during my 5 or 6 toilet stops between 8:30 and 10:30am.

I had also slowed right down, averaging just 5km per hour at best.  This was also the longest stretch between checkpoints – 20 miles – and it wasn’t until 3pm that I arrived at checkpoint 8.  Almost 7 hours to cover just 20 miles!

For the first time in the race runners were passing me.  Not that I really cared.  I was just focused on moving forwards and the hours just blurred from one into another.  It took me 7 hours to cover 20 miles, but it felt like only 2 or 3.  I really had no concept of time.

Checkpoint 8 was the last checkpoint where we would see our bags and because it was likely that it would be dark before we finished, we were required to carry our head torches again even although it was only 3pm.  I also knew that I was going so slow that I would get cold very quickly if the weather changed or it got dark, so once again I put my warmer clothes on.  Pre-race I hadn’t actually thought about the possibility of the race taking me into a second night, and even now it didn’t really register with me just how long this race was taking.

Once again I grabbed some food, including my second pot noodles, and headed off along the canal.  It was like I was on auto-pilot now.  A very slow auto-pilot, but there wasn’t really any emotion or feeling.  I knew what I had to do and I knew it was probably going to take me at least another 7 hours to do it.  Just 25 miles to go.

The rest of the day time section is a blur. I remember buying an icecream, being given a slice of pizza by one of the other runners support crew, talking to a couple of runners as they went past me, and then reaching that magic signpost.  The one that says “Paddington 13 miles” and points to the left.

No more bridge crossings.  Just a half marathon to go and all along the same side of the canal.

It was 7:30pm and we had been walking for 37 ½ hours.  There was just one mile to the last checkpoint.  We were in London. Not long to go now.

The second night

Having read a few other race reports (see links below) I understand that this section of the canal is dirty and not necessarily the safest of places to walk.  But I was a zombie now.  Since early Sunday morning I had been hallucinating regularly.  Everywhere I looked I had been seeing people which then turned out to be trees, rubbish bins, all sorts of objects, but not people.  And with two or three hours to go I saw Gollum from Lord Of The Rings swimming in the canal under a bridge.

By this stage I was struggling to walk in a straight line and I am surprised I didn’t end up in the canal swimming with Gollum.  Regularly I would catch myself as I lurched to the side instead of in the forwards direction that I was aiming for.  My legs were so tired that I also found myself stopping on an increasingly regular basis.  Just a quick rest where I would lean against anything that could support me.

The final stretch from checkpoint 10 to the finish was just 12 miles but was taking forever.  I was down to just over 2 miles an hour (having started on Saturday morning at just under 5 miles an hour) and I was ready to quit.  I had never felt this way before.  I didn’t want to quit because I was in pain.  In fact I was long past that pain stage.  I was just so tired.  And I rationalised in my mind that I had done what I set out to do.  I had walked from Birmingham to London.  I had seen the Grand Union Canal. I didn’t need a medal to prove it.  All I really needed to do was call my wife and ask her to meet me at that bridge up ahead, and then I could sit in the car and have a sleep.

But for some reason I didn’t make that call.  I kept plodding along. It was dead calm and there was no one around but me.  If I wasn’t so exhausted I would have been enjoying the solitude.

A couple runners went past me and I wished them well.  There was no way I could ‘race’ them.  I called my wife to say that my expected finish time was now likely to be some time after midnight and I would call her again when I was about an hour from the finish.

And then suddenly I felt good again!  For the first time in 15 or more hours I felt good!  I have no idea what changed but I was on fire!

I rang my wife to inform her that I was probably less than an hour away from the finish.  I was motoring now!  At least it felt like I was, but my kilometre split times on my Garmin show that I was still doing less than 3 miles (5km) an hour.

And then just after 1am on Monday morning, having started in Birmingham 43 hours earlier at 6am on Saturday, I finished the 2015 Grand Union Canal Race – official time 43 hours and 1 minute for 54^th place.

 

Some thoughts on the race

• I have just walked from Birmingham to London!

• I have just walked 145 miles or 233km – my longest ever walk!

• I passed 200km in 34 hours and 55 minutes which is faster than the official New Zealand record for walking 200km.  Unfortunately this race doesn’t count as it wasn’t a proper race-walking event with race-walking judges, but it indicates that I have a very good chance of breaking the NZ 200km record when I compete in Privas in August.
• My wife, Ruth, and son, Zac, are fantastic!  Not only did they let me spend a whole weekend doing what I love, but they came out at 1am on Monday morning to meet me at the finish line!
• Dick Kearn and his team of volunteers are fantastic! Without the support of the volunteers this race would not have been as enjoyable as it was.
• I really don’t know why I had such a bad race. Was it too soon since the Thames Path 100 mile race just three weeks earlier?  Was my nutrition plan sub-standard? Or was it just one of those races that don’t go to plan?
• I am so much tougher mentally now than I was before this race.  I am sure that what I went through during the GUCR will help me in my future races.
• I spent 100% of Sunday walking.  I also spent 75% of Saturday walking and 4.3% of Monday.  How many people can say that?
• Maybe I should have had a short sleep during the race. If I had of slept for 30 minutes at the 100 mile checkpoint, would I have had a better Sunday?  The race rules state that you are not allowed to stop for more than 40 minutes at a time or you will be disqualified.  I didn’t want to take that risk of having a sleep but maybe I should have slept at a checkpoint where someone could have woken me after 30 minutes.
• I can go 43 hours without sleep!  In fact, from the time I woke up on Saturday morning until I went to bed on Monday morning was over 47 hours!
• My Garmin says that I burnt 15,600 calories during the race.
• My feet were swollen for a few days after the race.
• Only two blisters.  2Toms BlisterShield – I can’t recommend it enough.
• The finishers medal is the heaviest medal I have ever received

• There were only 63 finishers! That means that 42 starters (1/3rd of the field) didn’t complete the race!  The Grand Union Canal Race is not as easy as it sounds.

 

Other competitors race reports:

A number of other competitors in the race have also written interesting race reports so having read my report, why not click on the following links and read these:

• Rob Souter
  http://robsoutar.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/21st-gucr-birmingham-to-london-145-miles.html
• Roz Glover (completed the race whilst suffering from tonsilitis)
  https://rozglover89.wordpress.com/2015/05/26/grand-union-canal-race-gucr-145-miles-from-birmingham-to-london/
• Paul Ali
  http://ultraavon.com/2015/05/25/2015-grand-union-canal-race/
• Nick Reed
  http://www.tritalk.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1635084#1635084
• Mimi Anderson (First women home)
  http://marvellousmimi.com/v2/2015/06/01/grand-union-canal-race-2015/
• Naomi Newton-Fisher
  http://www.naominf.com/2015/05/a-long-run-deserves-long-blog-post.html
• Andrew Woodrow
  https://luckygolden888.wordpress.com/2015/06/16/gucr-2015/
• And if you were in the race and have written a race report, please comment below and I will add a link to your race report here

My future GUCR adventures

After completing the GUCR in 2015 I signed up for the 2016 and then the 2017 races.

My race reports are here:

GUCR 2016

GUCR 2017