On Friday the 29th of March me and Sue travelled up late to Hull in preperation for my second run in the Viking Way Ultra a super tough 147 miles across Lincolnshire on Footpaths and trails. There are no official race markings but the route is a known walking route and has fairly good signage although some parts are more difficult to find them especially through towns and villages. You have to navigate the route using a 1:25,000 map provided via email by the organiser.
Mark Cockbain is the organiser along with Alex at his side and he has created a beast with minimal support and back up allowed, no GPS allowed at all and no buddy runners or crews. Checkpoints are set 18ish miles apart except for the last one 10k from the end.
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| Left to right Sue, Claire, Alex and Mark (organiser) |
Mark had set the cut off time for the whole race as 40 hours and the cut offs at 50 and 100 miles as 12.5 hours and 26.5 hours respectfully although you really need to be well inside these times to stand any chance of finishing at all within the cut offs. Mark does not let anyone enter and all the the runners have finished other long distance races or similar events. Nor does he expect many to finish at all. This is an extremely hard race with no apologies for it. Last year 32 ran and 7 finished. This year 31 started.
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| Shuffling off at the start |
With all the rain and snow we have had recently with the cold weather the conditions were due to be anything from cold with snow and mud to really cold with even more snow and mud, It did not dissapoint!
31 of us started below the Humber bridge at 7am with a few of us chatting about last year and greeting old friends and new, not without a few worried faces at the task ahead. It was great to see many runners that I have met before at other races and from this race last year.
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| Wannabe vikings at the start. |
My basic strategy for the race was to get to 50miles in about 10.5hours, 100miles in around 22-23 hours and hopefully make it to the finish before the 40 hour cut off. I knew it was on the edge of my ability and I needed to have a good run and all to go my way to stand a chance of making it. Th only other race of a similar distance that I have completed took me 38:49 and that was on a flat easy to navigate canal route.
Off we went after a few words from Mark. I settled into an easy shuffle aand chatted to various people I knew, It was good to chat to some awesome runners who I know of or was only just meeting.
After a bit we settled into a rythmn and ran what we could then walked as quickly as possible over the snow drifts! Yes there were Snow drifts it was sunny but cold and where the drifts had piled up there was snow remaining on the trails which slowed us down a bit.
A the first checkpoint I was comfy but could feel last weekends 56miler in the mud at Thames Patch 100 in my legs but everything was working fine.
I grabbed a quick handfull of food and off I went, soon I teamed up with a few other runners to make a foursome, me, Jo Kilkenny, Ben Davies and Micky Sutton. Ben and Jo I knew from other races and last year in this event (it beat all of us). Micky was new to me but a friend of Jo’s from some multiday events.
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| One of the later checkpoints |
We stuck together in a loose group through the next 2 checkpoints occaisionally chatting but mostly just enjoying the fact that we are linking up as a group and the company is welcome.We took turns to be at the front with it all helping to keep us going at a fair pace. We rolled into the 50 mile checkpoint just before 6pm and I wanted to get out ASAP so grabbed some food and made sure I had enough in my bladder and drunk some more fluids and changed my socks and put an extra layer on for the night section. I then got up and made sure Jo and co were ready and off we went with 13 miles to the next checkpoint. At this point I noticed my feet were a bit tender after changing my socks. It was starting to get colder as the sun started to drop behind the hills.
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| Our small group – still a bit of snow about to run on. |
The light started to fade and as we ran on we lost one of our number, ben was having a few issues and dropped back and we ran on then pick up Steve for a bit and we were back to 4. It was dark not and we started to run a great section of the Way which was well groomed and very nice to run on. We caught up with a fantastic runner Jeved who I know from a few other races such as GUCR and Thames ring 250. He was walking off a bit of a rough period and was soon back to form and running/walking with us.
A couple of miles town the trail Jo started to drop back and I had a decision to make whether to drop her or stick with her through this section. I decided to go back and check how she was, She was having a rough patch and falling asleep on her feet. I decided to not leave her on her own in the dark being that tired and said I would stick with her to the next checkpoint about 3 miles further. As we plodded on through the dark my began to get worse and be quite tender on the ballls but we walked on and chatted, Jo made the decision to stop at rge next checkpoint and I pretty much talked myself into the same. As we got to the checkpoint I handed Jo on to Mark and he told me I could not stop and to feck off which I duly did once I had grabbed some food. I walked off into the dark on my own.
I was moving fine on the flat road bits and able to shuffle as my feet were sore but on a flat surface I was spreading the weight ok, Once I hit the cross country stuff again my feet were really sore and I was reduced to a walk on the rough stuff. I knew I was slowing down cross country and did a few calculations and realised I was not going fast enough to keep up the average pace to gurantee a finish inside the tight cut offs. I did some more calculations as I walked and though allowing for me feet getting worse and some slowdown in my legs I would get timed out around the 113 – 131 mile checkpoints.
I have lots of races on this year and did not see the point of destroying my feet knowing that I would not finish and it is difficult to motivate oneself to push hard knowing you are going to get beaten. I made the decision to pull out and phoned Sue and arranged to meet her at the next village I would come across which was Southrey. It took me about 30-40 minutes to get there as I waas in no hurry now and although I was cooling down in the freezing weather as it was bitterly cold I plodded off into the village and met Sue.
We went back to the Hilton in Lincolnshire where Fiona McNellis one of the marshals and a friend had a room booked and allowed us to share for the night and in the morning we got a great breakfast. Fiona went to pick up Javed another runner who had dropped and we all had breakfast together which was good. Fiona also picked up my Drop bag and then me and Sue headed for home as we were not needed for any marshalling duties.
I would like to say a big well done to Mark and his team in organising the race and building it from last year, I may well be back next year to have another go.
I am very impressed with those that managed to finish the race, especially in the cold condistions that were set before us. Special mention must go to Andy who has completed both races and both with only minutes left till the cut off.
This is an epic race and anyone who has a go is worthy of some respect and those who finish are awesome.
Lesson I have learnt from this race:
I need to build on my speed cross country
I need to learn what works best on my feet on trails and mixed terrain as I dont think the Hoka’s work well on very rough or muddy trails especially with Sealskins socks. I think I will go back to my Innov8’s for proper trail stuff and they work fine with Sealskinz too.
Dont do a very wet muddy 56 miler the week before as I think that done the most damage to my feet and they had not recovered enough to treat them badly again the following week.
Things that worked well:
Kit apart from shoes/sock combination all my other kit worked well and I was warm enough and comfortable for the race.
My legs were good and even whe I stopped I was still happy with how they felt and even after they did not seize up much and even with the 56 the week before they were fine. I am happy with my endurance I just need to fix the footwear issue.
Whats next? Just less than 7 weeks to GUCR a 145 miler which I have done before so looking forward to seeing what I can do on that course again with my best being 38 hours 49 minutes. I will be trying to get around 32 hours.
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