Ultra_Tales_Issue_13

EVENT REPORTNORTH DOWNS WAY 100as with the sleepiness now kicking in I found myselfstumbling over a few times.True to James’ word, the rain started around 1amish and I immediately put my rain jacket on at thefirst sign. I didn’t want to risk getting my bodysoaked during the night and wrapped up.The rain progressively got heavier until thick sheetsof rain were falling. With my head torch on theoccasional sheet of rain would reflect back at megiving the impression of distant flashes of lightning.I was trudging along by myself in the middle of thenight in awful weather conditions and I tried toconvince myself that I sometimes perversely enjoythese conditions and now is the time to break into arun but the other part of my consciousness was nothaving any of it and laughed back in my face and soI trudged on.This section wasn’t that much fun, the rain was soheavy that at one point I had difficulty spotting themarkers and glow-sticks and followed the line ofdirection on my Garmin.I carried on walking through the night for the nextfew hours until I got to the Lenham Aid Station. Mylegs were pretty stiff and sore by name with theconstant up and downs although my feet didn’t feelas battered as normal which may be down to thecushioning of the Inov8 Race Ultra 290’s as I wasgiving them their first serious outing. It rained forthe next few hours as I made my way to the LenhamAid Station. As I stopped there I could feel myselfstarting to shiver and had a couple of cups of tea towarm up before moving on after a few minutes. Oneof the many excellent volunteers kindly opened thecamera case for me to change the battery as myhands were too wet and cold.It started to get a little lighter around 5am and therain eased off as daylight set in. Keith was waitingfor me at the Dunn Street Aid Station and I alsobumped into Peter Johnson here and. As I left DaveBayley walked in with a line of dried blood runningdown his nose. I checked if he was ok and hementioned something about cutting his head on abranch. He unsurprisingly seemed a little tired butok and I carried on as he went into the Aid Station.I was grateful for Keith’s company and we chattedand walked the last four miles to the finish alongwith another chap (Doug I think). We followed thenow much flatter paths, fields and tracks into Wyeand I dawdled into the finish to a few cheers but Ijust wasn’t into it. It was a disappointing effort and Ididn’t really want any fuss as it wasn’t deserved.The final finish time was just over 25 hours. I couldtry and put some gloss over it by talking about thelack of my normal preparation, the calf injury(genuine but not completely debilitating) and thestomach problems (required several unscheduledstops but didn’t prevent me from running) or thehorrible weather conditions overnight (I should bewell used to the rain by now) but truth be told, Igave up half way around the course and marched itin and that was really disappointing.A big thank you to Keith for coming out to meet me,listening to me moaning and having to take on therole of the walking pacer and then giving me a lifthome as I slept in his car.64 ULTRA TALES | OCTOBER 2014Sponsored by thehttp://