County to Capital

County 2 Capital 13th January -First race in my training plan for the Centurion Grand Slam 2018, the C2C starts in Wendover and finishes in Little Venice.

A first time for me doing this race which was celebrating its 10th year running – registration starts in a cozy pub (a bit too cozy) with a good field of 300+ runners, and was really nice to see quite a few of the usual suspects from the running family. Registration, baggage & briefing all like clockwork with the exception of a 5 minute delay from the 8.30 start to accommodate a few late runners due to train delay.

I was using this race to test where I was at in terms of run fitness, I have had down time in November & December in running miles – just simply needing a rest & recovery period from a great 2017, but have been doing 2 very specific hard gym sessions per week from the beginning of December – and back on a good run training plan from January. So the plan was to run within myself, try to focus on an easy run all day mentality, test my navigation skills, and test my nutrition – completely self-catered as a vegan runner with the exception of water.

I placed myself close to the back of the pack at the start, I knew from reading blogs before the race that we would run downhill through Wendover, before coming to a halt for the first narrow kissing gate – and of course we did, with 2 runners having to runback uphill to the pub as they had forgotten their wrist chips!

The first 5 miles or so were slow stop start with a lots of kissing gates & stiles on a fairly crowded course, mostly trail & quite muddy with an icy wind on higher ground, and of course the stiles got very slippery with the volume of runners.

After about the first two hours the field spread out, making running a lot easier and as the race progressed again the spread of runners thinned out, personally I prefer it this way, I like having my own space, and there is always the danger in a group of being lazy about the navigation & assuming the person leading knows the way, never ever assume this – the navigation on this race was tricky, we were given a map book at registration, but personally I would have been lost without my GPS. Surprisingly there were a lot of runners without GPS and clearly without ability to read the maps.

The first half is predominately trail, hilly in parts with a few hands on quads moments, muddy with tricky navigation, the latter half picks up the Grand Union Canal, so you can switch off the navigation – with the exception of looking out for the Paddington sign post where the canal splits into a different channel, but it was fairly clear. The canal towpath was a mixture of muddy/grassy path – packed hard stone path & paved – as you got closer to Little Venice there were hump back pedestrian bridges which were a killer on tired legs.

As said I have been vegan since mid-December – so I was not reliant on CP’s food, which was fairly limited in comparison to other Ultras I’ve run, however the marshals were lovely and distances fairly accurate.

This is the first distance race where I haven’t felt nauseous, even in some marathon distance I struggle for the last 10k or so. I was using a mixture of pretzels, dried mango, dried pineapple & coconut strips – I do a few little pick & mix bags I had 3 bags for this race and tried to eat little and often. I had also bought a cashew & ginger protein energy ball, first time using one of these in a race, not sure if it was a fluke or not (will try again in next long run) but blimey it packed a punch just at a point where I was slightly dipping in energy! The nausea is something I need to work on for the 100 milers - you have to be able to eat!

So to the finish, about 10k from the last CP obviously getting brighter & busier surroundings as you get further into the capital, finishing in the heart of Little Venice – again lovely marshals fetching your bags & providing a much appreciated hot drink and of course handing over bling (you also got a tec shirt at registration) . Only issue really is trying to change into warm clothes outside on a now freezing cold canal - but at least tube & train stations are only a 5 minute hobble away.

An overall very positive race for me – with an 11 hour cut-off for 44 miler of self-navigation in the middle of winter – I was hoping for a 10 hour finish running within myself eye on the bigger picture for 2018.

I finished in 9.23.49 official 41st gender position & 5th Lady 50+ - besides the stats what was really positive was feeling so strong in the latter miles, both physically and mentally – I could have pushed myself for a quicker finish, but that was not the intention of this race.

Would I run this race again – Yes, but bearing in mind we got lucky with the weather!

Next up on the road to the Grand Slam – Thames Trot 50 3rd February, again another easy run pace & further experimentation with nutrition.

And of course in between training runs & continued specific gym sessions – OMG I’m being disciplined not an accidental marathon in sight :-)

#whysettleforaverage

Happy Running x