Yesterday I dropped out at mile 58 of the Thames Path 100 mile run. I've had had a day to reflect on why I dropped out and here are my thoughts thus far...
I started the day feeling pretty good. I'd slept poorly the night before due to nerves, but that is nothing new to most people. My training since the South Downs Way 50 miler 4 weeks earlier had been okay. I've found it hard to get the motivation up to get out the door and everything was feeling really mechanical. But no injuries or anything coming into the race. The weather was just about damned perfect with blue skies and 16 degrees predicted. So everything was looking up from the start.
Also I had the lovely Julie to keep me company at various points throughout the day. She was the best crew I could ask for, always cheery and ready to help with food, water, salt or hugs. I especially liked the hugs :)
The first 11 miles was fairly breezy, with no issues and reasonably high spirits. On reflection I didn't really feel "in the zone" at all, which should have been a sign that I wasn't mentally in the game. Also, I didn't really feel like talking to people, which is odd as ultras are all about the social connection and the chatting to people as you go. But things were still looking pretty good.
By aid station 2 at 22 miles I was starting to feel a bit rough. This isn't entirely unexpected as I always feel a bit of a hump at the 20 mile mark, which coincides with the hard part of a marathon. It was here that I had an inkling that it was going to be a challenging day.
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| Beautiful scenery all along the Thames Path |
Moving on through the aid stations I was feeling worse and worse. Nothing catastrophic like a ruptured tendon, but a general all-body ache that by about mile 40, made any type of running to be a challenge. No hills, no excuse to walk, but I just couldn't motivate my legs to keep any type of pace. It was something I couldn't quite understand and the walking bugged me more than it should have. It made me think of the run not taking 18 hours, but 20, 24 or worse.
By mile 51 I was pretty darn tired and not in a happy place. But here I had my secret weapon in the form of Raf, my pacer for the next 20 miles. I was hoping this would keep me focused and motivated to just make it through to mile 70. From there it would just be little more than a marathon to get to the finish. Nothing really!
It is all in the mind...
Sadly I just lost it around here and couldn't carry on. Sure there were physical aspects (which I'll mention later) but ultimately I couldn't bare to consider being out for another 10, 12, 14+ hours for the final 42 miles. Something in my head just went "this isn't worth it" and from that point it was a losing battle. What I realise now is that I didn't have the mental framework to carry on through suffering for the rest of the race.
So I dropped at the aid station at mile 58. Very disappointing, not the least for poor Raf who only got to run 7 of his 19 miles. He was awesome about everything, but I could tell he was frustrated.
On a side note, the aid station at mile 58 had a special vegan treats table. There were all sorts of vegan goodies such as vegan jelly beans, pumpkin hummus, vegan wraps, soup. I thought this was brilliant and I made sure to have my fair share while waiting for Julie to come pick me up. A silver lining in an otherwise dark cloud :)
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| Coming into Henley at mile 51 |
Dropping...
What this has helped me realise is whereas some people have an innate ability to push on, I always hold a little back, afraid of feeling too much pain and suffering. My experience with really long runs is limited, with my 3 longest being - my 5 hour 52k training run, the SDW50 and now the TP100. In these I've not properly learnt the trick of letting the physical pain go and to just keep pressing on, one step at a time. This, more than
anything, is the aspect I need to address if I decide to take on another 100 miler. Thinking about it, it is probably limiting my potential at
all distances from 5k upwards. If I'm holding something back to protect myself, I'll never break through that self imposed barrier and see what I'm truly capable of.
On the physical side, it was a rough day, but nothing game wrecking. My shoes weren't cut out for the terrain and gave me blisters (which didn't show on my 30k long run). My hip gave me some issues, but is fine today. My left knee is very painful today, as is my left foot. Likely an imbalance related to the underdeveloped medial glute the physio gave me exercises to strengthen a couple of weeks ago. But again, nothing that would have stopped me carrying on.
On somewhat weird physical issue was I was getting really bad shivers at the aid station at mile 51. They were seriously wracking my body and I needed an emergency blanked to keep me warm enough to sit and eat some food. It was like hypothermia, but it wasn't actually that cold. I had the same issue after my first marathon, but hasn't bothered me since until now. I will have to do some further research on this one.
Today I think to myself "only 42 miles to go, you had time to walk it all!" while last night I couldn't even think of walking all that way. So disappointment is mixed in with everything, but I know at the time it was all I could give (mentally in any case) on the day.
