Chiltern Wonderland

Sep 18, 2016 · 7 minute read · Comments

About a week ago I was going over the course details and mandatory kit when all of a sudden Laura pointed out that the race was listed as a 4 point qualifier for the UTMB. For those that don’t know, to enter the Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc, a 103 mile race through the Alps climbing nearly 10000 metres, you need to have accumulated 9 points across 3 races in the last 2 years. A typical 50 mile race in the flattish, rolling hills of middle England is typically worth a paltry 1 point while epic races such as The Spine, a 268 mile traverse of the entire Pennine Way in deep wintery conditions in January, are worth a maximum of 4 points. So a 4 point 50 miler implied some absolutely mind boggling mountain climbs… not something the Chilterns are well known for. A quick Google search later and my nerves were settled when I realised that they’ve revised the qualifying standards for the UTMB for 2017 onwards and the point system has changed drastically to now require 15 points with races being categorised with up to 6 points for the most challenging. Fears of a horrifyingly hard course averted I still had time to reflect on what I’d expected to be an easy race (as far as 50 mile races go!) was still picking up significantly more UTMB points than I’d have expected. With 2016 being the inaugural event for this course I didn’t really have much to go on other than looking at the course stats and that niggling worry of it being probably harder than I’d ever realised.

Come race day and the drive down to Goring I was feeling about as far from prepared for the day’s exertions as I’d felt all year long. I’d somehow been telling myself that this wasn’t going to be a hard race compared to the likes of The Fellsman and Lakeland 50 but I was going into this event completely exhausted from the amount of races I’d already ran this year and a particularly heavy year at work too.

Getting registered and moving out on to the tow path along the Thames for the start of the race I just about started to relax while talking to other runners and deciding that this was just going to be about getting round and not a time. I’d previously thought that Chiltern Wonderland should be doable in about 10 hours but anything under the cut off would be good and minimising the time spent in the dark would leave me with a bit more going into Downslink in two weeks time.

Following the Thames we headed off into the Chiltern countryside, briefly picking up a small section of the Thames Trot that I’d ran a couple of times previously. In general the course was a nice mixture of gentle climbs through woodland, broken up by wide, open fields and farms and time seemed to just generally drift through the day as the miles clocked up.

By about half way I was struggling to hit the 12 minute miles I’d have needed for a 10 hour finish and my average pace was creeping up to about 11 minute miles. With how badly I always finish in these races I knew then that I had pretty much no chance of making it inside 10 hours and was now thinking about making sure I didn’t fall apart too badly by not eating or drinking enough as is normal for me and then hopefully I’d finish in under 11 hours and only have the last couple of miles to do in the dark. Knowing how slow I tend to move once I’m exhausted and the night sets in I resolved to running what I could and absolutely making sure I forced myself to eat more, both at the checkpoints and all my Shot Bloks plus other food I had on me during the day.

Despite the course being brilliantly waymarked with arrows and sprayed orange chalk at most major checkpoints I did manage to veer off the course a couple of times while chatting to people and getting carried away and as the race wore on and the field thinned out I started to get really worried any time I went more than a couple of minutes or so without seeing a marker or section of reflective tape to confirm I was on the right path. I’m never great at navigation but having spent absolutely no time looking at the course ahead of the race and only having the course map on a GPX file on my phone I found myself overly paranoid about going a long way off course or even just adding huge amounts of extra distance to the race by going marginally off course and having to run back on myself.

Reaching the final checkpoint at about 41 miles I was keen to grab whatever food and drink I could, load up with stuff to eat on the march out of the checkpoint and just try to not lose too much time. At this point I was already averaging a little over 12 minute miles and I was feeling utterly exhausted. The worry about having to spend a long time trudging around in the dark began to eat at me but I managed to settle into a slowish shuffle interspersed with some walking on anything even remotely uphill to try and keep my average speed up as much as possible.

After going past a couple of other runners in a couple of miles after the checkpoint I found myself entirely by myself for a few miles and only occasionally noticing another runner in the distance behind me when the scenery opened up to cross a farm or some fields. It’s funny how quickly time can pass when you end up in situations like this but the hour by myself until I hit the outside of Goring seemed to absolutely fly by despite how slow I was moving at that point, sometimes barely managing anything more than a couple of hundred metres of shuffling every now and then. Coming through Dean Wood just before we got into Goring itself I finally came across another runner who I’d chatted to earlier in the race and was looking like he was about done.

At this point I realised that if I upped the pace a little bit I might be able to finish in the last of the daylight without needing my headtorch. Despite the gloominess of the forests I decided to grit my teeth through the pain and push as hard as I could for the last couple of miles and began to properly run for large sections except when slowing down to check I was still on the right route. Coming out of Wroxhills Wood and into Goring properly I really upped the pace, pushing as hard as I could and figuring that I didn’t really have to keep anything left in the tank with so little to go. Crossing the bridge into the town, I dashed along the street and into the checkpoint, feeling like I was sprinting flat out. Turns out that I was only doing about 9-10 minute miles which goes to show how much an ultramarathon messes with you!

So, that’s 9 races down and only 3 left. With Downslink in just 2 weeks time it finally feels like this year is almost at an end. Although with 130 miles of racing still left in those 3 races I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself.