An Irresistible Providence: South Downs Way 100
I had no business completing this race. Absolutely none. The fact that I did complete it suggests either an indomitable spirit or an irresistible providence. Or perhaps a little of both.
Three days before the off I was lying on a physio’s table with the muscles around my left knee being needled into relaxation in an attempt to ease the strain on my patella.
Go back a couple of weeks and I was having a first easy jog in weeks, trying to convince myself I could make the start line with even a small expectation of travelling 100 miles on foot.
Go back a couple of months, and I was not running at all, as a suspected meniscus tear had followed on from a hamstring strain and a calf strain.
But go back two years, and I was volunteering at Eastbourne athletics stadium, getting in my ten hours Centurion Army duty to earn my place in the 2020 race, as part of my attempt at the Centurion 100 Mile Grand Slam, to follow on from the 50 Mile Grand Slam I was then in the process of completing. Yes, if this race was merely about 30 hours on the South Downs, I had no business completing it. But it was actually about more than two years of planning, preparation, anticipation and self-identity. For as long as I can remember, one of my online passwords has been “2020GrandSlam”*. For more than two years, I’ve been looking forward to a lap around the Eastbourne track at the end of 100 miles, to collecting a big buckle, and to donning a famous red t-shirt.
In the days leading up to the race, the weather threatened to be similar to the 2020 NDW 100, the first race of my grand slam journey, run in blistering heat, that culled more than half of the field. With the NDW experience under my belt, this didn’t phase me. I knew that sensible pacing and a laser-focus on hydration would be crucial. And so it was that when I set off for the opening circuit of Matterley Bowl, I was carrying 1.75L of water, and run/walking 15 minute miles. People could overtake me if they wished; I was running my own race, and it was one I intended to finish.
While Covid-compliant protocols were still in place, so no mass start, the start area looked something more like the races we used to have. Supporters and crew there to clap, volunteers out in force, and runners queuing for the loos.
One of the things I had been looking forward to for months was the chance to see, however briefly, lots of familiar faces. I’ve said before how I feel like part of the Centurion family, and it was lovely to exchange words with so many people who have been part of my Grand Slam journey.
There was Helen Caddy-Leach, my pacing hero from NDW100, here to pace my Metros club-mate Spencer Millbery. There was the almost inseparable Julius Naim and fellow-slammer Allie Bailey. There was RD James Elson and timing/tracking guru Chris Mills. There was Nikki Rees, wishing me well, and other runners who recognised me from social media, clocking my red Grand Slam number and well, knowing a non-white runner was quite likely to be me. I was sad to miss fellow Black Trail Runners co-founder Rachel Dench, who got underway earlier than me. I was even sadder to hear later that she dropped at Housedean’s Farm, suffering from stomach problems again, while running as 5th lady.**
Even before I left the confines of the ‘natural ampitheatre’, numerous runners had passed me. Among them was Zoe Norman, in characteristically subdued mood and attire 😉. She was looking strong, and I was so glad to see she smashed a sub-24 finish. As for others streaming past me, I figured I’d either see many of them later, or they’d be in the DNF list later that day. I’d seen the same thing on the NDW. Runners respecting their ego more than the conditions. Me, I’d left my ego at home, in a small box with a label on it: “Do not open until you have your Grand Slam buckle.”
I was run-walking the first section, aiming merely to stay within 15 minute miles. I was pleased that my strapped knee didn’t seem too unhappy with either jogging or walking, so that my concern shifted to whether it would continue to be OK for the whole 100 miles, a distance designed to find out a body’s weaknesses. Every mile covered at that pace gave me a three minute buffer from the cut-off.
Good to see Louise Fraser at the first aid station, Beacon Hill. And good to have people acknowledge my red ‘Slam’ bib number, which made it easier for me not to feel embarrassed going so slowly so early. I dallied only long enough to fill my three bottles, and was off again within my pacing window.
By this time I’d decided to continue the first 20 miles at that pace, bank an hour buffer form the cut-off, then slow down to 16 minute miles. Partly to reduce the running impact on my knee, and partly to avoid problems with hydration and fuelling in the rising heat. It was getting properly warm, and it was still hours until midday.
I was still happily on schedule at Queen Elizabeth Country Park, CP2 at 22 miles. There the route crossed paths with some shorter distance races going on within the confines of the park. We’d been warned of this in the race briefing, so I was alert to the possibility of following a random runner or piece of signage. Centurion race markings are both familiar to me, and thorough, so there was really no need to worry. I trotted into the aid station to be greeted by Niki Yeo, as well as Chris Mills having a sit down and pretending to look busy.
I now had time in the bank, and my knee was behaving itself, so I was feeling fairly relaxed. It was now just a question of continuing in the same vein for another 24 hours or so. I’d earned three buckles in the past ten months, so I knew I had it in me to do that. I reminded myself that I was ahead of cut-offs, so just needed to keep moving forward in order to achieve my goal.
I thought of myself as familiar with the South Downs. I’ve completed the South Downs Way 50 twice. I’ve run the Race to the King (which takes in the first half of the SDW100 route, but in the opposite direction), and I’ve run the Lewes 10 mile race and the Moyleman Marathon (my last race before lockdown last year). Even so, the second quarter of the route was a bit of a blur. I couldn’t tell you the difference between South Harting, Cocking and Houghton Farm. Except the former was up a big hill, and the latter was near a farm shop which sold ersatz Calippos.
It was at that farm shop that I became aware of the Ewan Thomas/Susie Chan bandwagon. She was there having a coffee with what I now know must have been a film/support crew. I’d passed Ewan some miles earlier, and from this point on, his film crew would greet me just before every aid station.
Washington aid station kind of marked halfway. It was actually 54 miles, but it was the place to pick up a drop bag. I downed the Lucozade Sport I’d forgotten I’d packed, and changed my socks, as well as picking up my head torch. I left my carefully prepared solid food (salted, boiled potatoes) in the bag; I’d given up trying to eat anything solid miles and hours earlier. Apart from that fake Calippo and an ice cream, it was tailwind, coke and water all the way to the end. I’d just about managed to stay on top of my hydration, though my hands were swollen in a way I’d never seen before, and my pee was getting less like ‘hay’ and more like ‘scotch’ as the day wore on. Halfway was also a good time to apply sudacreme to possible future hotspots. I was anticipating enough pain without risking chafing in my nether regions.
This was the first of the four Grand Slam runs on which I hadn’t had a pacer. I’d consoled myself with the fact that I was very familiar with the second half of the course, and if I could make it to Washington in good shape and good time, there was no reason why I couldn’t finish. The first part of the plan had been achieved. Now to bring it home.
For me, the second half of the route could be broken down not only by aid station, but by the big climbs that followed each of them: Botolphs, Southease, Alfriston, Jevington. For some reason, I couldn’t visualise the hill after Housedeans, only the downhill (field to the left, trees to the right) that precedes it.
The hill after Botolphs somehow seemed longer than I remembered, despite me remembering it as the longest hill in the world. My overriding image of it was from when I had volunteered there a few years ago and had seen Tom Evans on his way to a SDW50 course record running straight through the aid station and disappearing up the hill as though it was a training run on a flat course.
Before Botolphs, it had gotten dark. I was in the stage of the race when my body was likely to be at its most vulnerable. But I knew there was probably less than six hours of real darkness to contend with. And it brought with it a welcome drop in temperature.
Clear days on the Downs can end in spectacular sunsets, and this one hadn’t disappointed. And after the sun had dipped below the western horizon, there was a period of running when the brightest lights were the red warning lights from the vast offshore windfarm. I wondered how many people every really saw it like this. Or heard the pigs grunting in their sties.
Unsurprisingly, the middle of the night was my lowest point of the race. Saddlescombe (which had disconcertingly moved since my volunteering stint there at SDW50), seemed to take an age to arrive. An age when I began to have regular doubts about being on the correct route. No headtorches were ahead of me, and those behind me I imagined may be just as lost as me. When I did eventually arrive at Saddlescombe, I didn’t recognise it at all, despite the fact I must have been there in two previous races. I decided to take the weight off my feet for a few minutes and get my first hot drink. I’m pretty sure it was tea, as I’d been drinking more than enough caffeine-laden Coke. It perked me up somewhat, but not so much, so that the next stage, to Housedeans, was the one period when I was genuinely concerned I was going to miss out on my Slam.
I’d spent quite a while in the lead up to the race building a spreadsheet that included the average pace between aid stations required to stay within cut-off. Over the course of the whole 100 miles, that was 18 minute mile pace, no more than a brisk walk. But the cut-off pace was not entirely consistent. Between Saddlescombe and Housedeans, it was close to 16 minute miles. This fact was printed on the laminated card I had in my race vest. But somehow I hadn’t taken it on board. I spend a lot of time on long runs playing with numbers in my head. Counting steps. Counting miles done, and miles to come. Working out percentages of races run and to be run. Percentages of the grand slam completed and yet to complete. So I was frequently thinking about how far ahead of cut-off I was, as I headed towards Housedeans.
In a previous blog, for the SDW50, I’ve written about how I’ve run down the hill towards the farm with Dead Can Dance playing in my earphones, mourning and/or celebrating the life of a schoolfriend who introduced me to that band and who studied at Sussex University, not far from where I was running. I was picturing that section of the route in my head, but as I moved closer to it, the cut-off seemed to be getting nearer and nearer. For a while I couldn’t understand what was going on. My pace hadn’t slowed, but I was losing time. Eventually it dawned on me that the “required” pace in this section was the quickest part of the route. It was time to go faster, or go home. My knee was not being nearly so cooperative now, but pain seemed a small price to pay, now that I was effectively 375 miles into a 400 mile journey. I knew I had 20 minutes or so to spare, but I’d forgotten about the section of woodland climb that precedes Housedeans, and I was swearing into the night air, at myself, and at the incline, as I desperately kept putting one foot in front of the other, praying (in a secular way) that I hadn’t forgotten another section of the course, and that the aid station really was less than a mile away. It was with great relief that I eventually emerged onto the familiar downhill section. My legs were reluctant to run down the slope, but I did eventually jog into the barn. I was conscious that cut-offs apply when you leave the aid station, not when you arrive, so I was, let’s say, task-focussed, during my few minutes there. I took in the silent, blanket-clad runners whose race had ended there. I downed the Lucozade Sport in my drop-bag pretty much in one gulp. I think I remembered to thank the volunteers before I headed out, across the bridge over the main road. I got my head back in the game, determined that there would be no more dalliances with cut-offs. There was less than a marathon to go, and my Slam was in sight.
The sun was rising again as I headed up Castle Hill. Some early morning runners and walkers were out and about. I began to get that absurd feeling of comparative self-satisfaction; you’re just starting your day, and I’m more than a day into my journey. I saw a fellow competitor lying down by the side of the trail, apparently asleep. I thought he might resent being woken up, but I also knew he might be cold and distressed. I woke him, but he assured me he was just taking a quick nap, and wasn’t feeling the cold. And in fact the sun was up now, and the temperature was beginning to rise.
By the time I reached Southease, and the infamous pedestrian bridge over the railway line, it was fully light again. I got a warm welcome from Lesley Lewis. If such a thing was possible, I was beginning to feel confident. The climb after the aid station was no surprise to me. Yes, it was relentless, but I took the time to pause occasionally and stare out over the low-lying cloud in the valley, lit up by the angled rays of the rising sun, reminding me of the dragon’s breath from John Boorman’s Excalibur.
Heading into Alfriston, there was Sharon Dickson, with Paula Chase. There are few more inspiring things than the way Sharon dealt with her last leg DNF in the 2019 Autumn 100, the end of her Grand Slam dream that year. Many people would still be hiding in a figurative hole, nursing that wound, but Sharon was out here supporting others. She’s a legend, and it added to the motivation I had not to screw it up now. Not to mention all the support I’d had online from family, friends, social media followers, clubmates at Metros Running Club, from my ASICS Frontrunners team, and from fellow co-founders and community members at Black Trail Runners. It’s possible to be out on the trail in the middle of the night, to be physically isolated and yet be surrounded by love and support. For the times I doubted myself, there was always someone who had faith in me.
Alfriston is always a soothing aid station, and not just because it’s within ten miles of the finish. The dark wood panelling of the old chapel somehow takes me back to childhood memories of the chapel in the Yorkshire village where I grew up. Here, a kind volunteer cleaned my sunglasses for me. The sun was climbing in the sky, but my clothes and body were all sticky with sweat, gel-residue, tailwind and cola, so the best I’d managed to do was comprehensively smear them. Now I had the practical and metaphorical advantage of a clear view ahead.
The long, sweeping right-curving climb out of Alfriston was imprinted on my memory from my previous SDW50 finishes. But I’d forgotten about the sleep, straight woodland climb, with shades of Wendover, that precedes it. By the time I emerged out onto the open hillside, not far from the Long Man of Wilmington, the temperature had climbed significantly. There’s no shade at all on this part of the course, and I was overheating just moving at all.
Many SDW finishers have never actually seen the inside of the Jevington aid station. I didn’t see it this time. Agata Winiarska and Steve Offord were outside, offering Evian and encouragement. I took both gladly before heading out of the village. With just five miles to go, it was hard to see how I could fail to finish, but I still played possible disasters out in my mind.
I’d seen Drew Sheffield a little earlier, and he’d walked with me for a while, offering encouragement in his effortless way. He seemed to be taking personal responsibility for ensuring the last of the year’s slammers did not DNF. He’d said he’d meet me at the final trig point, before the notorious gully of doom. Like some of the hills before, I’d somehow forgotten how big the climb up to the trig point actually was. I guess the clue was in the name. When I got there, sure enough Drew was waiting, and he accompanied me some of the way down from what was the last climb of the race.
In both my SDW50s, I’d enjoyed the seemingly precipitous gully into Eastbourne, clocking my fastest kms of the day, and overtaking several runners. This time, after more than 90 miles, I couldn’t bring myself to go above a slow jog. My knee was protesting, my body was generally close to exhaustion, and I was frankly terrified of tripping over, twisting or breaking something, and having to sit there while my Grand Slam hopes ticked away. My big buckle was there for the taking.
By the time I reached the roads and paths of Eastbourne, half my brain knew I was going to achieve my goal. The other half was still inventing ways for me to mess up. 400 miles had come down to 35 minutes. Maybe my watch was wrong. Maybe I’d mis-read the final cut-off time on each of the previous several hundred times I’d checked it. Needlessly, I forced myself into a run. It didn’t bother me whether I finished with half an hour to spare or half a minute, but I couldn’t contemplate missing out due to some crazy calculation error at this stage. For all I knew, I was the last person out on the course. I didn’t care. I just had to reach that track with enough time to get around it.
In the event, I finally came into the stadium with more than half an hour to complete the last 400 metres. As I’d approached the finish, I’d told myself I’d walk around the track, taking the time to savour the experience. But the warmth of the welcome, from volunteers, Centurion staff, fellow runners and their supporters, spurred me on to run, at least for the first 100 metres on the track, and the last 50 or so.
I raised my arms as I crossed the line. I’d done it. I was a Grand Slammer. My journey complete, I was back in the embrace of the Centurion family. Congratulations from James. Photos from Stuart. Help from Lisa Martin. Another volunteer asked me if I wanted to know my finish time. Perhaps a little too brusquely, I said I didn’t care. It really made no difference at all to me. It only mattered that I finished, that I had my Grand Slam buckle and my red t-shirt. It was maybe half an hour later before I remembered to stop my Garmin! That’s how many fucks I gave about my finishing time.
I was spent. I marvelled at the energy of the volunteers and staff, who I knew would have been coming to the end of immensely long shifts. Among them was fellow Black Trail Runners member Sylvie Wollaston, now on the Centurion staff, and with approximately 1000 times as much energy as I had. It was great to meet her in person for the first time. Representation matters!
My legs began to seize up, and my knee began to swell up, pretty much as soon as I stopped moving. I hobbled over to a chair and opened the small bottle of fizz from my drop bag. I’d done the same thing at the end of the NDW100 nearly a year before, and it seemed only right to do it again here, except this time I was wearing a red t-shirt and a look of undimmable satisfaction.
Solid food was still unappealing, so for once I declined my customary end of race hot dog. Instead, I just sat there, breathing in the sense of achievement, watching the final few runners coming in at the end of their personal journeys. Among them was Ewan Thomas, around 10 minutes after me. Like every ultrarunner, he had had his battles out on the course, and it clearly meant a lot to him to have finished what he started. I won’t forget the day I beat an Olympic athlete in a foot race, but I may yada yada over the details whenever it crops up in conversation.
My dad came to collect me and drive me back to Harrow, and we gave a lift back to Watford to Dan Brazil, who had run sub-24, and therefore had been waiting for me to finish for quite a while. Like dads do, mine was happy to go out of his way to help me out. He was concerned for my well-being, knowing that running 100 miles isn’t necessarily a healthy thing to do. Normally, I’d dismiss the idea of being in any serious jeopardy on an English trail in June. But on the way home, on the M25, a truck had a tire blow-out right in front of us. One second we were speeding along in regular Sunday afternoon traffic, the next there were chunks of rubber on the carriageway, brake-lights were glowing red, and the truck concerned was slaloming across lanes before coming under control and veering over to the hard shoulder. It was a reminder that no matter how well we prepare, how determined we are, some things are truly beyond our control. Our spirit is nothing without providence. I had no business completing this race, and yet I did.
*I’ve changed it now, obviously. ** Delighted to know Rachel came in as first lady in the Maverick Chiltern Ultra the following week.
