Ultra_Tales_Issue_13

EVENT REPORT LADYBOWER 50I now started walking up the inclines as it felt likethere was still quite a long way to go and I wasprobably paying a bit for the faster start. I did havea bit of a wobble at around one o'clock when I'drealised I'd been running for about five hours and inthe best case scenario had at least four more hoursto go but managed to pull through by repeating tomyself "this is what you have trained for" and givingmyself a pep talk. As in, nobody said this would beeasy! It was a relief though to see the Howden damas I knew this meant I was only a couple of milesaway from the Derwent dam and the race HQ.Third long lap - Miles 36-50(ish)The marshals once again helped me fill thehydration vest and it was really nice to be asked bythe race director if I was doing OK - he concluded Imust be, as I was still smiling! I finished off theother half of my Coke, picked up snacks for the lastlap and set off with marshals wishing me a goodlap. It was indeed good but very challenging, too.As I started off on the last lap, I had a small glimmerof hope that I could indeed finish this thing andtold myself my job for the next couple of hours wasto finish the flapjack I carried with me and keeprunning and walking until I did indeed finish. As onthe previous lap, there weren't too many runnersaround but some stretches were fairly crowded withmembers of the public who were gettingthemselves ready for the flyover of the planes.I bumped into a fellow runner who happilyannounced it was less than a half marathon to gowhich sounded good enough although not as goodas "only a parkrun to go" which is my usual mantra. Ikept plodding ahead, trying to get somewhat Zenabout the fact that at that stage I was in quite a lotof pain, not injured, but just fatigued from therepetitive motion and the pounding. I wasalternating running with walking and was veryhappy to catch up with a woman (didn’t catch hername) and tag along for half an hour or so, justchatting about most random things to distractmyself and keep moving forward. After that halfhour I found myself struggling to stick to her paceso dropped behind but carried, now trying tomentally break the distance and get to the turningpoint and then to the Howden dam. Some humourhelped too, there was a diversion in place shortlybefore the Howden dam and when I saw the 5 milespeed limit I thought to myself that at that point Iwas definitely in no danger of exceeding that…Finally, the Howden dam appeared in the distanceand I started feeling better as the end was in sight. Ispotted Jill and Mo once again, Mo was visiblystruggling, stopping and starting but still pushingstrong, Jill was going really strong and definitelyhad some energy in the tank for a great finish. I justwanted to finish, full stop - although when Ireached the Derwent dam and knew that I was very,very close I managed to pick up the pace and kepttelling myself - remember this, this is how it feels tofinish the first fifty miler!I saw my partner right towards the end and had toliterally push up the hill past the people on thefootpath, trying to resist the urge to shout: "wouldyou mind stepping aside, I am trying to finish a racehere"! and then finally, the race HQ was there and Icould get my T-shirt and be done with the race, 8hours and 54 minutes later. I hang around at thecheckpoint briefly but my legs started turning intojelly and I knew that if I didn’t start walking soon, I’dbe in trouble.The walk to the car felt almost as a difficult as theentire race - I seemed to no longer be able toproperly lift my legs and could only manage veryshort and slow steps. A couple of people werestaring, and my partner would happily explain thisis what you look like at the end of a fifty miler.Getting into the car was fun, too, as I had to ask mypartner to lift my legs one by one as my musclesrefused to co-operate, fortunately this only lastedfor a couple of days after the race. All in all, awonderfully organised event but I am glad to bedropping down in distance for the next couple ofmonths and switching to shorter events. But thereare quite a few ultras on the bucket list so thisdefinitely won’t be the last 50 miler I'm planning torun, there may even be a 100k and 100mile eventson the horizon for next summer…189 ULTRA TALES | OCTOBER 2014Sponsored by thehttp://