Like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel
Song - The Windmills of Your Mind:
"Round like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel
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| Little medal |
On the 19th September was the "Tooting 24 Hour Track Race & British 24 Hour Championships"...
This was my fifth 24hr track race. I will be doing a 6th.
How to write-up running around a 400m athletics track for 24 hours in any way that's 1) interesting and 2) explains exactly what it's like? I've looked back on my last two write ups (first, second) and honestly they're both very brief (great) but not very interesting (not great) also both are jotted down as an intro to "and then I did an interesting race" afterwards.
If you want to know more about the subject in general, an excellent book is Mike Stocks "One Track Mind"
So here goes, a rambling overview of what happened, how it happened, and how it ended.
Why?
The purpose of the race for me, was to get a 180km finish, and thus a Spartathlon entry qualifying distance. (yes I want to do that race that I said I would never do again, again)
When I first heard about 24 hour track racing I thought the idea preposterous. What a stupid idea. Why would you do that? How boring must it be? but well, you won't know until you try one. So I did.... and, it wasn't boring, it was a really interesting format. You see lots of people you know, all like you. You can chat to other runners all day, at all levels, which you can't do in a normal trail ultra. It was fun.
I mean, yes, it's hard. It's really hard. It really hurts. but it feels like a really pure measure of what you can do, in the same way a *perfectly* executed marathon feels like a pure endeavour.
Where?
This was supposed to have been the "Battersea 24 Track Race", however it turns out they are resurfacing the track there so the location was moved to Tooting instead. I hadn't realised but the race had actually previously been at Tooting before they decided that Battersea was more convenient. Initially I was a little worried about this - we'd planned on taking the "race truck", which you are allowed to drive right up to the side of the Battersea track and use that as our base - but after visiting Tooting to scope it out I was much happier, it looked fine, there's plenty of of protection around the track, and as long as we got a little fishing-type trolley to carry supplies over it would be fine.
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| Still smiling |
Due to calendar mismanagement, unfortunately, Cara was to be solo crewing for the day, this isn't ideal, but Hugo had managed to choose this weekend for his 'best man duties' stag do. He has a habit of doing this sort of thing. 🙄
Preparation
Unfortunately preparation hadn't been great. again. I'd (very) badly sprained my ankle on my Vanguard Way FKT attempt earlier over summer and it had taken *ages* to heal. It wasn't 100% healed when I attempted my North Downs Way 100 run (and failed at 60 miles)
I felt that it was about ready for Tooting, but as a result my training just hadn't been up at the level I thought I needed. However, I was feeling generally fit, stubborn, and my ankle did now feel OK (well lets call it 90%).
Setup
On arriving at the track we started setting up at the far end under the trees, but then met up with Laura Watts and Matthew who'd setup along the back straight, so relocated our support gazebo to be up alongside for some company for the day.
We'd trolley'd (trollied?) all our kit over and settled in, we'd gone for a much simpler setup than at previous attempts, partly due to necessity of only having a single crew, but partly intentionally to keep things simple. There was a short race briefing beforehand, ideally they could have reminded everyone of the track etiquette which was generally ignored by everyone, but really it's the sort of thing you just shrug, accept and get on with. Then it's just a short wait trying to keep calm and relaxed before the 12 midday race start...
The race
There were so many familiar faces around and it was great to (briefly) catch-up and say hi to everyone! It's quite a niche bubble at a 24hr track race.
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| All my friends |
The first four hours were interminable, on a 24hour track race, every 4 hours you change direction. It'd be crazy otherwise (!) 😁 but I always find the first 4 hours the hardest (well apart from the *really* hard parts later, but, that first 4hours is a very long time) I should consider tactics to help in future, perhaps starting out with an audiobook or podcast might be an idea, or some other way to break it down into chunks. I had brought along some headphones (only bone conduction types are permitted) thinking I might listen to something in the later stages, but never actually used them in the end.
For the direction change, a cone is placed on the start/finish line and you simply cross the line, turn around then cross again to start another lap going backwards, when this happens everyone smiles, cheers and high fives, it's great to see everyone's face, after-all the rest of the time you're always just looking at someone's back. Every four hours this is a little boost and really lifts the spirits.
Once the first four hours is done, it just seems to get easier to tick off the time, you're just ticking off four hour blocks at a time. Halfway through the second block is "dinner time", then night falls, although with the floodlights you don't really notice you're running in the dark, similarly I completely missed the dawn until someone mentioned it to me. Then you've got breakfast in the morning block, then you're onto your final four... the time just flies by.
The food
At previous races we've used a bidon system for feeding, but had decided to skip it this time and just pass single items of food each time, with hindsight we should have used the bidon again. Food/nutrition was going to be Tailwind in bottles, PF&H blocks, and ham/cheese wraps. This worked really well, apart from the low patches when my stomach stopped playing ball. With hindsight we'd bring a few more options to manage those times. The race provides an "evening meal" and a "morning breakfast", the evening jacket potato just didn't work for me and I regretted it, but the morning porridge was a lifesaver and really helped give me some energy at a point I'd been struggling to eat.
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| Actually Laura's table! |
I had nausea again for a few stretches but nowhere near as bad as some previous runs (I remember being sick for several hours at Crawley) again some more ideas for ways to handle that in future with some more drink options. We'd decided to keep options really simple at Tooting, but I think this time we swung too far and hadn't given ourselves enough choice.
The plan
The plan/tactics were pretty simple for this run, 180km was the target I was going to start with a roughly 2:30 lap pace, although in practice I found 2:30 just didn't feel comfortable and always ended up closer to 2:15 so the plan was start at about that and then try to keep at around the 2:30 range if/when I inevitably slowed. The watch for the day was an ancient Garmin 310XT which I've still found is the best option for me for a track race, the large screen, clear numbers and auto-lap on the start line work really well. (apart from a minor FUBAR partway through when I accidentally paused for 1h30🤦)
Again, with hindsight, we should have had A,B and C goals for the day, but this time we'd again gone for "keep it simple" and just had a single goal to aim for. I regretted this afterwards, notes later on....
The wheels didn't come off, inevitably there are some bad patches, and low points, but no great implosion which I have had in the past. Bad patches or painful patches were managed just my simply switching to a walk, sometimes for just half a lap, sometimes for a full lap, sometimes just for 100 metres... but even when you're walking for part of a lap, you're still adding distance and as long as you're striding on, you're still going at a good pace when you look at your lap times later you'll see that even though mentally it feels like you're losing a lot of time, it doesn't actually make a huge difference.
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| Rough patch |
There was a single stop and sit moment, when in the morning near the end, the heat suddenly hit me, I got back to the crew point and everything span, Cara and Matt quickly grabbed me as I started to fall over and steered me back into a chair.
I explained the heat issue and an ice towel was rustled up, I said my shirt was too thick and Cara gave me her thin La Sportiva shirt to switch into... and moments (well a few minutes) later I was up and off again for the final few hours.
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| Cara's clothes |
Once I'd hit 180km Cara let me know, actually letting me have updates from about 20 laps before, I'd been doing mental arithmetic myself to multiply the number of laps I'd done by 400m... but got it completely wrong. Maths is hard.
After the 180km mark, the next possible target was my previous PB of 191km, that should be a formality as long as I kept moving, Cara did tell me that 200km was an option, but at the time I just wasn't interested. I just wanted to keep moving at the pace I was doing and get it finished.....
With hindsight, we should have had more ambitious targets that we could have ticked off and aimed for, on the day, after 22+ hours of running you're just not in the mood for new things to aim for - but afterwards.... it was so close.... if only... 200km was in reach..
In the final 10 minutes or so they start handing out beanbags - for a 24hour race you don't run over a finishing line but you stop when a whistle is blown and drop a beanbag behind your feet. This is the distance you've run and they walk around the track with a measuring wheel to calculate your final tally.
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| The beanbag |
I grab my beanbag on the second pass and decide to see how many laps I can get done, I make one complete lap and start my next lap, I'm just onto the home straight and the whistle is blown. I drop my bag, and drop down onto the track. I'm done. I'm happy. That was awesome. My final distance 198.7km.
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| Time to rest |
Afterwards
We chill out, have pizza, get medals, see the winners, then pack up and head home.
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| Getting a tiny medal |
Sunday is a day of rest, but I feel like a gentle run on Monday and everything feels fine. I'm not broken. I do then come down with a nasty cold, my immune system is AWOL and it lingers for the week before clearing up just in time for the weekend parkrun.
Now I need to come up with a plan and some new targets. I've got nothing lined up yet and I'm really not sure what I want to go for next.
