I’m about to have a bit of a self-pitying man-whinge here so
be warned!
I’d better make it absolutely clear that the race itself is
fabulous, the route in its full autumn glory is both challenging and quite
breath-taking, not that I noticed at the time! The weather was actually quite
good, the organisation faultless, the medal and the t-shirt are great. All in
all it’s a must do race.
Back to the whinge
By any rational measure I’ve had a good year. I got my
marathon PB down to 3:16 which earned me a VLM good for age place for 2016.
I’ve PB’d at 10K; 5 mile and just recently banked 2 successive half marathon
PB’s in two weeks. I’ve been injury and sickness free. I’ve ran 8 races of
Marathon or Ultra distance so far. I achieved my goal of a sub 10 hour Fling
and I knocked over an hour of my Lakeland 50 time in July.
Most recently I ran the 35 mile Tiree Ultra and got my
highest ever Ultra finishing place 13th overall, 10th
male, 5:36:48 for 35 miles.
On this basis everything should have been teed up nicely for
a triumphal tilt at the Jedburgh Ultra, a fitting swansong to a golden 2015 for
Ainslie?
Wrong
I didn’t have a “lightbulb” moment where I suddenly thought
“Oh crap it’s all going to go tits up”, I did however have a persistent
ear-worm nagging away “you’ve not done any long runs”; “there’s a lot of junk
miles in the training log”; “a week in Tenerife running up and down volcano’s
in 30C plus heat…..what could possibly go wrong?”.
But what the heck, I’m an experienced Ultra runner; I can
run hills and trails and its only 38 miles!
Whoa there cowboy, it’s never “only 38 miles”. That’s near
as damn a marathon followed by a half marathon, that’s a ruddy long way in any
book.
Yes I’ve got the miles in the legs; yes I’ve got the
experience; yes I’ve got the base fitness but in the 7 weeks since Tiree my
Ultra training and focus has been pants, in short I’ve been complacent. In fact
I’ve committed one of the cardinal sins I have banged on about on Facebook, not
treating the distance or the race with the respect it deserves.
And to heap insult onto injury, in the week before the race
I knew in my heart of hearts that I was guilty as charged, this was going to
hurt…a lot!
Race-day
It was the first time I’d not stayed over the day before a
race so a 4am alarm call and a 2 hour drive all helped to fuel the fires of
self-pity.
The weather forecasts for Saturday were about as grim as my
pre-race mood, with pretty much universal rain in prospect. I wasn’t feeling my
usual excitement, just a quiet confidence sapping dread. The Jedburgh rugby
club was packed, the nervous tension in the air was palpable and following
Angela’s no nonsense “don’t drop litter and don’t be a dick” race briefing we
trooped over the road for a warm up to YMCA where I danced around like a tit in
the front row.
I’ve been nursing a niggle on my right hip / IT for a couple
of weeks it’s not a proper injury, it’s not sore as such, but on some runs it
feels like I’m running wearing a wooden leg, I’m almost limping for the first
mile or so until I warm up so I spent the first 3 miles or so convincing myself
not to bale. I’d overdressed at the start and lost a bit of time while I faffed
around, losing my long sleeved top and switching to a waterproof jacket as the
rain came on. In my mind it rained all the way to Maxton, but I suspect it
didn’t in reality. There were some muddy bits, but in truth not many. It’s not
really the mud fest it’s painted as, but yes, there are some muddy slippy bits.
It’s not as completely mud free as the WHW, but it’s still very runnable.
The checkpoint at Maxton was super-efficient and friendly
and apart from the numerous wet and greasy wooden steps on the riverside
section after this threatening to send me for a river swim the run to the
Eildon hills passed uneventfully if slowly.
I wasn’t looking forward to the hills or more precisely I
wasn’t looking forward to the steep descents on the first two hills, my already
stiff right hip protesting at every jarring downhill step. When Craig Malcomson
passed me and described me as “descending like a big girl” I’m afraid I had to
agree with him. By the time we hit the rather shallower descent from the 3rd
hill I felt like I was running wearing somebody else’s legs, everyone else
seemed to be pulling ahead and away from me and having fun, while I remained
firmly wedged in my wallow of self-pity.
I was lucky enough to find myself in the company of Caroline
Graham and David Nightingale, whose cheerful company ultimately kept me going
until just after the famous shoogly bridge, and they both pulled ahead, whilst
being hugely grateful for their cheerful chat and banter all I could selfishly
think of was……bugger I’m back running on my own and I’m not in my happy place.
As we’d gone through CP3 at Maxton I’d been so focussed on
eating my rice pudding that I completely forgot to refill my now empty water
bottles. I was only about 100 yards out on the road when I realised this. As I
was still running with Caroline, I bizarrely rationalised that I could get by
without water but couldn’t stand running alone. Not surprisingly I was wrong on
the former.
The lack of water added to my misery fest, I was both cross
at being dehydrated and even more cross at my basic and self-inflicted error.
When I’m struggling in an Ultra I’ve two fall back mantra’s
one is to count from one to eight in my head and the other is “any run is
faster than a walk”. I’m afraid I had to adopt the latter just to keep running,
and I use the word running in the loosest sense of the word.
When you cross back over the A68 one of the marshals had
thoughtfully got water available, what a hero.
I was able to refill one bottle, cram in a handful of Jelly
babies and within yards I was feeling much sprightlier. My befuddled brain was
able to work out that if I pushed harder I could possibly squeeze under 7
hours, especially if the route was actually slightly short of the full 38
miles.
The last mile of the race is a gentle slope back through the
pavements of Jedburgh, feeling happy that it was nearly over and not feeling as
rubbish as I’d felt all day I was able to pass David (but not Caroline) and
cross the line in 6:57:47.
I’ve blogged in the past about how I hate runners who post
statements like “only managed a 31 minute 10K, might as well give up running”
I’m acutely aware that many folk would kill to get a time I’m moaning about, in
my defence I did say right back at the start this was a self-pitying whinge.
I'm also conscious that this blogpost is also miles late AND it's ages since I posted both things I intend to pay more attention to this year
Cheers
K
