The Course:
42 laps on a 2.38km loop in North Inch Park, Perth. Basically flat, with a tiny ramp on one part of the loop. You notice these things after 25+ laps. This may sound boring, but I can truly say, that is wasn't at all. When you are suffering badly/concentrating hard, you don't really have time to take in the scenery!
No Garmins/GPS allowed on the course, which meant I needed to use a bit of the old mental arithmetic.
I also had a handler to look after to me, an experience runner called Chris Finill (worth a google), who was also looking after Paul Fernandez. He would be there each lap to help me out. Chris was helped out by Andy Smith, who was looking after England's other runners (George Dayantis and Allen Smalls). As there was no chip timing, at the end of each lap a designated lap counter would acknowledge the fact you finished the lap (no one really wants to run 43 laps do they)
The Plan:
Pacing: I thought I was capable of somewhere around the 7h20-7h30 marker. So after a number of conversions with the various other runners I put the plan in place. I would run 10m30 per lap (7m06 per mile pace) which would give me 7h21 finished. I thought I could probably get to 70km at this pace and then just accept that the split times would slow, but hopefully not too much.
Nutrition: I planned to take 1 gel every two laps, and powerade as and when it was needed. This is where the handler was vital. Getting all my stuff ready (he had details of my plans) and feeding me as the plan required.
The Start:
It was cold and misty at the start. Probably an appropriate way to start the day. The race started at 7am and this was fairly relaxed. Just like a Sunday morning run. I thought some of the runners might go off a bit faster but everyone was pretty relaxed.I let most of the men in the International race go off in front of me. I kept them in sight, but didn’t want to let myself get dragged into something silly.
Lap Lap Time Lap Pace
1 00:10:40 00:07:13
2 00:10:40 00:07:13
3 00:10:20 00:06:59
4 00:10:40 00:07:13
5 00:10:20 00:06:59
6 00:10:30 00:07:06
7 00:10:30 00:07:06
8 00:10:30 00:07:06
Ave 00:10:31 00:07:07
These lap times are unofficial (in general to the nearest 10secs). But from the first 8 laps (11.8miles) you can see I was bang on target. Nutritional plan was going well, getting a gel every 2 laps and powerade every 4. I had also started to develop a ‘rapport’ this my lap counter. Every time I ran completed the lap I would point at my counter, and say “You’re my boy”, which made most of the lap counters laugh! All volunteers out there for over 10 hours, I have massive respect for.
The Push:
I’ve called this section ‘The Push’, at the time it didn’t feel like I was pushing hard but looking at the lap times, maybe I just increased the pace a little bit. During this stage I got lapped for the first time, Allen Smalls the eventual second place runner was going strong. Looked like he might be on for sub 7 hours (i.e. sub 6m45 per mile). Nice guy we said hello, briefly, he was running a too quickly for me to keep up for a chat. I got lapped by a few others here. Irishman Dan Doherty asked how I was feeling as he lapped me, I said “Great, just not as fast as you boys”
Lap Lap Time Lap Pace
9 00:10:20 00:06:59
10 00:10:20 00:06:59
11 00:10:10 00:06:53
12 00:10:40 00:07:13
13 00:10:20 00:06:59
14 00:10:30 00:07:06
15 00:10:50 00:07:20
16 00:10:17 00:06:57
17 00:10:28 00:07:05
18 00:10:15 00:06:56
19 00:10:20 00:06:59
20 00:10:25 00:07:03
21 00:10:15 00:06:56
Ave 00:10:24 00:07:02
Ave 00:10:24 00:07:02
The Struggle:
My demise was soon to come and I would start to get lapped multiple times by the top runners and overtaken by some runners that really shouldn’t have been overtaking me. The 50km race had just started so we started to see some new runners on the course.
I hit this bad patch (well 2 hours 30 mins of suffering) around 10-15km earlier than I had expected. This really made me question whether or not I had the ability to finish at all. All I could about was that at the pace I was running I would have at least 4h30 of suffering. I didn’t know if I had the mental capacity to do it. I was running very very slow. This was a very tough time for me. All I wanted to do was take a walking break, compose myself and get running again. However, when you have the England vest on, its very difficult to stop running. It’s the last thing you want to do and you feel like you are a total failure and disgrace (in hindsight its not really that bad, but that is how it feels at the time when you are already a little fragile).
The race was a team event with the top three runners scoring for the country (the aggregate time taken to work out who wins the Anglo Celtic Plate). I was sitting in third for our team, which meant even more pressure to keep on going.
In the end I succumbed and took a couple of walking breaks. Probably lap 28 was where I took the most prolonged break…lots of talking to myself out loud here. “Compose yourself, compose yourself” Didn’t really help!!! Sorry if you heard me muttering to myself as you went by.
Lap Lap Time Lap Pace
22 00:10:30 00:07:06
23 00:10:40 00:07:13
24 00:10:45 00:07:16
25 00:11:14 00:07:36
26 00:11:46 00:07:57
27 00:12:05 00:08:10
28 00:14:10 00:09:35
29 00:13:10 00:08:54
30 00:12:25 00:08:24
31 00:12:45 00:08:37
32 00:12:30 00:08:27
33 00:12:40 00:08:34
34 00:12:55 00:08:44
35 00:13:30 00:09:08
Ave 00:12:13 00:08:16
My banter with the lap counters was starting to reduce. I was generally grunting as the other runners went pace.
The Finish:
With about 7 laps to go, some miraculous happened. I “ran through the wall”. I took on around 300ml of flat coke, and literally went mental. I just started running again. My stride length returned and I was running with at least some kind of form. I now started to retake all those people and even lap some of my other main competitors. This felt amazing. Looking at the splits I wasn’t really going that fast (7m40 pace) but geez after 7h00 of running, to turn the legs at all is special. I was pushing hard to the finish, but I was still scared, I still thought the wheels might come off again. Even when I reached two laps to go, I was still worried. With 1 to go, I was still worried and just wanted to get round to the end. But Chris said, “Harry, I want a fast lap” and I couldn’t really argue with that and opened up (well that's what it felt like)! Unfortunately I don’t have the official split for the lap and because the lap times are only to the nearest 10secs it works out my last lap was over 13minutes. But it was definitely faster.
About 15meters to go, I grabbed the England flag and burst across the line finishing in 7h51m21. Less emotional than I thought I would be after all that suffering. But I gave Chris a big hug, it was touching…but I couldn’t have done it without him to help me out.
Lap Lap Time Lap Pace
36 00:11:35 00:07:50
37 00:11:30 00:07:47
38 00:11:20 00:07:40
39 00:11:20 00:07:40
40 00:11:20 00:07:40
41 00:11:30 00:07:47
Ave 00:11:26 00:07:44
All in all a great weekend, and to be honest I feel I could write a lot more about the race and the weekend, travelling up to Scotland with the team. But I figure this is long enough for now. A great experience and I look forward to the next time I get a have a go at the distance. 7h52 isn’t disgraceful and I am happy with this as a benchmark to work upon. But I think I could have run maybe 7h30-7h35 yesterday had I run the race different and done a few things differently with the nutrition. But for a first go there is a lot of uncertainty, and this was a great learning experience.
Finally big congratulations to all the other runners, 100km is a long way to run whatever speed you do it in. The volunteers as well, I expect they just as tired at the end of the day so massive thanks to them!
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| He's struggling... |
THE END - Sorry that was long...
