North Downs Way 100 Race Report - Putting the "end" back in NDW

Well, I have to be honest - I had almost forgotten what the finish line of a Centurion race looked like. I seem to have a habit of DNFing these particular races, despite the fact that they are some of my favourite races to run in the UK. Previously this has been due to injuries or not wanting to ruin myself for other A races for the year. This year, I decided to have a crack at the 100 mile Grand Slam (Thames Path, South Downs Way, North Downs Way and Autumn 100) to polish them all off in one go, but as you may have noticed that didn't quite go to plan. Dysentery on the TP100 (Sophie Ellis Bextor's follow up hit) and a sense of humour failure on the SDW100 quickly buggered up any chances of that Grand Slam buckle.

There wasn't much I could do about the TP100, but I sacked the SDW100 with only 8 miles to go. I could have walked in for a sub 24 hour finish, but I was just taking things too seriously and trying too hard for a PB. I got so annoyed with how whingey I was being, especially given how hard everybody else was working out there (not just phoning in their attempts like me), that I decided to pull out until I got my head back on straight.

So I hit the NDW start line with two aims in mind - to have fun and to reach the Centurion Running finishing arch in Wye. Well, I say hit the start line, but I actually managed to miss the start due to an urgent call of nature that I figured would be best taken care of sooner rather than later. I wasn't too bothered though, as I was in no hurry - a very different approach for me. I was chatting to Dan Park and Bryan Webster (who were both on race 3 of the Grand Slam) when I heard the horn go, and said good luck before heading off through the field.

South Downs Way Race Report 2015

Eurgh. Okay, I wasn't really planning on writing anything about this race, but decided to use this post to get my thoughts in order and to record it for posterity. This blog is predominantly for me to look back on after all, and I don't want to introduce a publication bias in my own work! I'll try and keep it short, but I think that we all know that ain't going to happen!

The South Downs Way 100 was the first 100 miler that I ever ran, doing it way back in the heady days of 2011 before it became a Centurion Running event, and was run in the opposite direction. It was a bit longer back then (about 107 miles I think), and started up Beachy Head and along the Seven Sisters (which was a bit of a shock given my lack of hill experience). I did pretty well, and in particular I pushed right the way through despite feeling like crap, and despite having a dodgy knee from about 80 miles in. For about 10 miles over night, limping along, being taken the wrong way by my Dad who met me to pace me, I felt like there was no way that I could I finish. But I pushed on - "one leg in front of the other", "run if you can, walk if you have to, crawl if you must". Pick your cliché. The point was that I bloody wanted it. I was hungry to feel what it would be like to push through the barrier and do something that many others couldn't (or wouldn't). And do you know what? As the sun came up, as I got back into the rhythm, and as I smelled the finish line for the first time (I think the drains had gone...), I suddenly found that I could run after all. In fact, the last 5 miles went bloody well. "It never always gets worse", and as anyone that has done these kinds of races before knows, if you just keep making relentless forward progress you'll likely get a second (or third, or fourth, or fiftieth) wind and suddenly feel great again.

I mean bloody hell, that's the name of this blog!

Ultramarathon Running Research Project - Thames Path 100 2013

This year, I have continued the project that I started last year with James Elson from Centurion Running, looking at various aspects of ultra running and how these relate to a runner's ability to complete the race. I still think that there is lots of interesting information to be mined from these data, and hopefully more people will take part in the surveys for the next few races. Anyway, below is the report that I produced for the 2013 Thames Path 100 mile race in its entirety. As ever, these are merely my own interpretations of the data, but I would love to hear from anyone that might have any alternative ideas. I hope that you find it interesting!

Introduction

Following on from last year's pilot project at the South Downs Way 100 mile race (SDW100) last year, we have now upgraded the analysis to look at all four of the Centurion Running 100 mile events in 2013. The current state of research into the factors that may affect a runner's ability to complete a 100 mile event is still very open, with several key studies beginning to delve into the key factors essential for all runners to consider.

The research of Martin Hoffman and the rest of the Western States Endurance Run Research Committee has produced several key papers, analysing both the effects of running 100 miles on the body, as well as the demographics of the runners who choose to run such events. Recently, the Ultrarunners Longitudinal TRAcking (ULTRA) study from Stanford University (which I recommend everybody takes part in if they haven't already by going to https://stanfordmedicine.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_aY1e47DdzVRjHKI) has begun to track a wide range of information for ultrarunners, which will then be tracked over the coming years with the hope of monitoring training styles and observing how these relate to injury rates.

Recently, more and more researchers have aligned themselves with race directors in order to obtain data on ultrarunners in the field. For many races, this may allow the study not only of runners' preferences and training styles, but also the study of the changes in physiology brought about as a result of running 100 miles. These studies will undoubtedly direct our current understanding of "optimum" training methods in order to ensure that running styles are tailored to specific physiological needs. Whilst I personally do not believe that there is such a thing as "the right way to train" (it is likely highly dependent on individuals), there are certainly universal truths that we can all benefit from fully understanding.

Our own study was a fairly simple yet powerful approach. We asked runners of the SDW100 to complete a pre-race survey (focussing on information on the runners themselves and normal training strategies) and a post-race survey (focussing on their approach to the race and how the race itself went for them), and combined these data with split times throughout the race. There were several goals with these data, but the main goals were to understand what sort of people typically take part in such events, what sort of training strategies are typically used, and how these relate to race-day performance.

In 2013, we will be performing these analyses on all four of the Centurion Running 100 mile races; the Thames Path 100, the South Downs Way 100, the North Downs Way 100, and the Winter 100. At the end of the year, we will combine these data into a single analysis to get a view of how runners have approached the different races through the year. These analyses are only possible because of volunteers choosing to take part in the surveys. But the more people who take part, the more interesting the findings will be. I hope that these results will encourage people to take part in the future studies and that we will soon have a deep pool of data to mine for interesting results.

On a personal note, my time for performing these analyses has been drastically reduced due to the birth of my gorgeous little girl. She's strong on her feet already so I'm sure she'll be a runner like Daddy! But unfortunately she also seems to have my lung capacity and ability to cope with no sleep... But I hope that you find what I have managed to cobble together between feeds interesting! These are entire my own opinions, but if you have any thoughts or comments feel free to contact me through my blog at constantforwardmotion.blogspot.com. As ever, all the best to everybody with your running, and I'll see you out on the trails!

Ultramarathon Running Research Project - Pilot Study

Towards the start of the year, I contacted James Elson (Race Director of Centurion Running) about an idea that I had had. I had recently read a few papers by Martin Hoffman's group from the Western States Research Committee looking at factors that affected a runner's ability to complete the Western States 100 mile race. I had also signed up to the Ultrarunners Longitudinal TRAcking project at Stanford, which aims to follow ultrarunners and track their health over many years. I thought that it might be quite interesting to do some of our own researchr here in this country, and thought that James' series of 100 mile races was a perfect opportunity to do something similar, as they are very well organised, they are quite homogenous in their organisation, and James has a particular interest in delving into the stats behind ultra running.

The plan that I proposed to him was to create a couple of surveys for runners of his events to fill in: one before the race, asking questions relating to the runners themselves (biometrics, professional status, running history, etc.); and another survey after the event asking questions relating to how the race went, what their strategy was for the race, their nutrition, etc. By putting this information together with the split times from the event itself, my hypothesis was that we may be able to see some trends dropping out from the data. Yes, this is the kind of thing that I do for "fun"!

In the short term, this approach would give us a good overview of the race itself, the sorts of people who entered, and which runners took a sensible approach to racing. But my main aim was for the long term, building up a database of survey results and race performances for ultrarunners that, over time, will allow us to look at more specific questions relating to performance: Do certain training choices improve your chances of finishing a 100 mile race? Are certain racing strategies more likely to result in a finish/win? Do people with green eyes run faster than people with blue eyes? These burning questions and more may well be answerable in the future from such a database.

To kick things off, we organised a pilot project for the South Downs Way 100 at the end of June. This went very well, and we found some (I think at least) very interesting things from this that bode very well for the future. James has created a research page on the Centurion Running website where you can download the report that I put together (using my official "Dr" title to make it seem to people that don't know me that I have some air of professionalism about me...). Alternatively, I have replicated the report below so that I have a record of it on my little blog. Hopefully you find it interesting, and any comments will be gratefully received. Hopefully we can get even more people interested in taking part in the full project at next year's races!

South Downs Way 100, June 2012

Well. What a difference a year can make!

This weekend marked my "official" return to ultra running after my DNF at the Thames Path 100 miler in March. Since coming off my bike a week before the race, then running over 70 miles on what would later turn out to be a pretty dodgy ankle, I have been desperately attempting to recover and avoid missing any further races (already failing to make the Viking Way and a Bob Graham Round attempt with Chris Baynham-Hughes). Some aggressive electro-accupuncture from my physio Chelsea Harding and slowly building up my training seemed to be working well. A top 10 finish at the Northants Shires and Spires 35 mile ultra, 3rd place at the Willingham 7.7 mile Fun Run, and a first place finish at a random 5 Km Fun Run in Swavesy that I joined by accident after spotting it on my cycle ride home suggested that things were on the mend. But the big question was; could my ankle withstand a full 100 miler?

This time last year I ran my second ultra - the South Downs Way 100 mile race, running along the beautiful SDW between Eastbourne and Winchester. This was somewhat of a passion project for the race director Jen Jackson, who organised the first event in 2010 with about 35 runners. The 2011 event would be her last event, but she decided to hand over the reigns to someone who could do the route justice. Step in James Elson from Centurion Running, who had wanted to organise an event on the SDW National Trail but had not wanted to step on Jen's toes. He took over the race (with a few tweaks including changing the direction to take advantage of the westerly winds) and added it to his set of 100 mile races (Jen took part in the inaugural rebirth of the race and you can read her report here). Last year I came 5th in a time of 22:10:00, so I was really looking forward to seeing how much difference I had made in the last year.

Despite only having a month or so to really build my training back up, I was feeling strong. Chelsea seemed much happier to let me run this race than she had been at the Thames Path. I was therefore a little peeved to wake up on the Wednesday before the race with a fever coming on and... let's just say "stomach problems". I was a bit worried that I was coming down with something, but a day of drinking water and dioralyte to stay hydrated seemed to keep things in check. So when race weekend finally came around, I was feeling happy. There was no excuse this time!