When you’re standing in a field at 7.30am, the sun already burning a hole in the back of your t-shirt, staring down the barrel of a 62 mile run along often-shadeless, undulating trails, you know you’re in for a fight. And the Dixons Carphone Race to the Stones 2018 was certainly that. Two days, 100km, scorching heat, wrong turns and lost teeth, this race had it all. Here’s what happened when I took on The Ridgeway for the third time on one of the hottest weekends of the year.
I’ve run the Race to the Stones before, once back in 2014 when I did the 100km in a day inside 13 hours and once in 2017 where I wobbled off the 100km course after 60-something kilometres. The Race to the Stones is to ultra endurance what London is to the marathon. More fund-raising challenge than serious ultra race, it inspires a brilliant mix of runners and walkers of every age, shape, gender and running ability to have a crack at something seemingly impossible.
With just 1200m of elevation over 100km, the race ought to be pretty plain sailing for an experienced ultra runner, but each time I’ve run the Ridgeway it has been a decent test. Perhaps because the first half of the course carries most of the elevation and it’s hard not to go out too hard, too early. Or maybe because the second weekend in July tends to be hot and this route has long sections where there’s nowhere to hide from the sun. Whatever the case, it’s never been easy for me.
On more than one occasion I’ve found myself at the 50k basecamp slurping back soup, fantasising about stopping overnight. I’ve promised myself that one day I’ll come back and take the ‘easy’ two-day option, run a 50k Saturday and a 50k Sunday with some camping in between. A sort of mini Marathon des Sables without the sand dunes.
This year, I finally held good on that promise. And boy was I pleased I did when I wobbled into the halfway point at the Race to the Stones 2018, roasted like a Sunday chicken with everything looking a little fuzzy.
As I stood at the starting line I knew the heat would make for a tough day. My recent combustion at the Hamburg Marathon on a far cooler day suggested that the sun would be my biggest enemy on the trails over 50km. So I ditched my ultra running vest and stripped my gear right back to basics. Just a Raidlight bottle belt for water and a Flipbelt for gels and salt tablets. If I’d brought a vest and short shorts, they’d’ve gone on but sadly I wasn’t that smart.
Despite the obvious battle ahead, I went into the race with an air of contained optimism. I hadn’t trained specifically for a two-day ultra but I was feeling sharp and I had been running well. I also had a different game plan that I thought might give me an edge. Rather than running on pace or heart rate, I’d run on power, testing out the new Stryd sensor for Wareable.com. That meant I’d have a whole new metric to base my effort on and one that promised to make things a lot smoother.
The theory behind using power as your guiding metric is simple: get the power target correct and you should be able to run at a consistent effort regardless of changing conditions such as hills and heat. The ideas is to fly along just under your threshold and thus avoid hitting any kind of wall. All I needed for the entire race were just two numbers: 279 watts (for the ups and flats), and 245 watts (for the downs).
Race to the Stones 2018: Powering my way to Basecamp
It was the first time I’d run on power in a race situation and I executed the plan pretty well for the first 25km. If everything went right and I managed to hit my power targets I’d be looking at an estimated first 50km time of around 4.5-5 hours. As I set off onto the trails of The Ridegway I initially found it tough to keep the power steady. The numbers on my Garmin Vivoactive 3 bounced up and down from 200 Watts to 350 Watts on the climbs.
Despite this fluctuation, I found running on one number liberating. It took the pressure off the climbs, removing that worry that a drop in pace on the ups would cost me overall. On the flats, it felt far more like I was running on feel.
However, by the time I reached the third pitstop at 30km I began to realise that I’d need to adjust my original targets to make it to halfway unscathed. By 11am, the sun was well and truly up and The Ridgeway had turned into a pizza oven. My organs were being slow cooked in the countryside heat and my stomach was on the churn. I certainly hadn’t trained to run in heat like this and maintaining that all-important electrolyte-water balance was radidly becoming more tricky.
By the time I hit Pitstop 4 at 40km, I could feel my engine over-revving and I was forced to take refuge in the shade of the medical tent, (frustratingly the only place that offered shade). After a 10 minute time out to cool down and stave off the wobblies, I kicked on for a last push into Basecamp.
All thoughts of power targets went out of the window. “Get this shit done!” was now my guiding principle as I edged my way one kilometre at a time towards my family who were waiting to greet me. Unsurprisingly the last 10km took me almost twice as long as the first 10km and when I finally wobbled up the last 50m with my sister, nephew and my mum running across the finish line beside me, I was hugely relieved to get out of the heat.
It’d taken me 5:22 minutes, an hour longer than I’d hoped, but it was done. At least for now, at least for me.
It’s moments like this when you see ultra running at its most raw and brutal, yet also its most inspiring
At this point I’m not ashamed to admit that I’d rather have done anything than head back out into the midday melt for a second set of 31 miles. As I lay there forcing down a recovery drink, trying to get my stomach to stop doing flips, I watched the other struggling souls steeling themselves for a second effort. Just the sight of them plodding back into the oven made my stomach writhe some more.
It’s moments like this when you see ultra running at its most raw and brutal, yet also its most inspiring. For most people in the UK it’d be unthinkable that you’d run a mile, let alone take on 62, in temperatures like this. Everyone who was brave enough to get back out there and go again deserves a huge amount of credit. From where I was lying, I wasn’t even sure I’d want to run the following day, let alone right now. But out they went.
For me it was all about a night in a yurt with a double bed (thanks @curryspcworld), a sports massage and at least four dinners and when my alarm went off at 4am the following morning, the fear of going back to the hurty place was glamped well and truly away. I was ready to go again.
Race to the Stones 2018: Running from the front
As I made my way to the start line, Basecamp was glowing with a gorgeous sunrise and the air was, dare I say it, even a little cold. When my fellow runner Michael Sawh came to see off that was the final morale boost I needed to send me on my. Fearing the return of the sun we got underway at 5.30am and I quickly found myself running from the very front. That’s right, I was leading a race and it’d stay that way for 30km.
Running from the front is not an experience I’m used to but it I loved it. At each aid station I got a rapturous welcome that put extra air in my lungs and more power in my tired legs. In between these welcomes, I had The Ridgeway to myself as the sun climbed higher and the air warmed steadily. After such a struggle the day before, with my legs ticking over nicely and the kilometres counting down, this was pure bliss. If it stays like this, I thought to myself, all will be well.
A few glances at my watch told me that I was running at around 250 watts, lower than my target but at an effort that I knew I could sustain in the cool of the morning and still have something in the tank should the oven fire back up earlier than expected.
Out of nowhere three words start to roll around my head on repeat. Sensible. Steady. Controlled. Sensible. Steady. Controlled. By the end of the race I’d uttered these to myself hundreds of times but to great effect. I ran smart and with a consistency that had been lacking on day one. I wasn’t about to win the Race to the Stones overnight race, but I was leading the second day and that felt great. For the first time in a long time I felt like the runner who smashed a 4.5 hour marathon on the final day of the Marathon des Sables.
And then I got lost.
Losing my cool (and a tooth)
I’ve read so many times about a running nirvana where you enter a state of meditative motion, almost forgetting that you’re running. You’re moving but the act is seemingly effortless, there’s no more fighting your way forward, it’s all flow. And I was there, in that moment. I’d gone inside my head and it was great.
What the books don’t tell you though is that if you’re out in front where there’s no one to follow, it’s no good being all Zen and shit, if you run clean past the course markers. It wasn’t until I’d been running for a while without seeing one of the little red arrows that so clearly mark the Race to the Stones course that I started to panic.
After what felt like five minutes but could have been fifteen, I finally came to a stop at a fork in the trail which had no signs at all. That’s when I accepted my mistake and my inner peace was shattered. At 83 kilometres, just as the race was starting to bite, I’d run at least half a mile out of my way, down some tasty hills that I’d now have to run back up.
Now, if you’ve never run an ultra before let me get one thing straight, when the smallest thing goes wrong it can feel like the world is about to end. It can make you angry, cry and even want to give up. Sometimes all of the above. So this extra mileage was a big mental blow, not only because I’d certainly lose the lead I’d worked hard to maintain but also I now had to run lord knows how far just to get back on track.
A few days earlier I’d had the pleasure to chat with elite ultra dude Hayden Hawks at a Hoka One One launch and we’d chatted about race psychology and what to do when shit goes wrong. So instead of crawling into a corn field and going back to sleep, I asked myself what would Hayden Hawks do? The answer: he’d be chilled and just get on with it. So that’s what I did. Half a mile back up the big hill to reach the now-totally-obvious wrong turn, just as the guy in second place went by, going the right way of course.
For a while I managed to latch onto him but eventually his pace was too rich for my still slightly boiling blood. I had to let him go and get back to my own business, namely getting these last 13 km done. (I’d later find out that guy was Liam McIntyre, the winner of the 100k Overnight race).
Thirty seconds later when I bit down on something hard, and realised a Shot Blok had ripped off half my bottom back right molar, I definitely wished I’d gone for a gel.
The good thing about the Race to the Stones course is that once you get to 90km it’s pretty much flat or downhill all the way home. The trail underfoot becomes rutted and bumpy but at least there’s no more climbing. As the clock hit 10am, the sun grew fierce and it was a huge relief when I passed the 95km marker. Just a Park Run to go.
The bad thing about the final 5km of the Race to the Stones is that about 2km of that involves a little out and back to the stones themselves, mainly for the money shot photo. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, that part of the run is damn hard to take. I don’t think I’ve passed anyone who’s looked happy to be circling the stones at this point.
Before I set off into that particular punishment, I decided to give myself one last energy boost. I reached for a pack of Clif Shot Bloks that I had as emergency fuel and popped one. Now I don’t normally eat Shot Bloks but I thought a full gel might be overkill for just 2km. Thirty seconds later when I bit down on something hard, and realised the Shot Blok had ripped off half my bottom back right molar, I definitely wished I’d gone for the gel. Almost on the exact same spot where back in 2014 I’d taken all the skin off my foot, I’d just lost a tooth.
For the second time in an hour I called on Hayden Hawks wisdom. What would the Hawk do? Before my brain could even answer I popped the tooth in my pocket and got moving again. A quick trot round the stones, try to smile for the camera and then one final kilometre down to my dad who was waiting for me, just like he did back in 2014.
I eventually crossed the line in 4:57 and second on day two (at least of those who started at 5.30am), 2nd in my age group and 6th overall for the two-dayer. And while I never set out to do so, it’s fitting for the #yearofthepbs that I also set a new 50km PB on Saturday and then smashed it by 25 minutes on Sunday.
Yes, it may have cost me a tooth but it’s not everyday you get to do that.
Now read this: What it’s like to run a marathon in Kipchoge’s shoes
