The ARC 50

Or rather 15 in my case…

For those who do not know the ARC50 is a tough point to point ultra of around 50 miles along the south west coastal path. Starting at the Minack theatre and heading north round Lands End and finishing at the Mount Pleasant Eco Park in Porthtowan. There is also a 100 mile. Version that I may have a past DNF or two to my name on also!

The route is stunning but also testing with very technical terrain varying between very muddy stony tracks and paths, rocky scrambles and sandy beaches and coves.

Cut off for the 50 is 15.5 hours and although this seems like a generous time limit for a 50 it’s a fair challenge on that type of terrain. Plenty of elevation change, with you descending into coves and beaches to only climb out of them back up to the cliffs almost immediately. Navigation is simple enough with only the odd path to confuse you here and there but the race provides and detailed .gpx file that’s easy enough to follow on a watch or similar device.

I entered this a few months ago due to some peer pressure from my mate Paul Ali who is recovering from a dodgy knee and like me trying to get back to full fitness. I am not injured but still have niggles and have too little fitness for my levels of fatness! Paul dropped out a few weeks before the start as his knee was not going to be up to it.

I have been working to resolve these fitness and fatness issues over the last 4-5 months and slowly building up a good base fitness and shifting a little weight. However I had not made the progress I had hoped for. This was also supposed to be a qualifying race for a 100 mile attempt at TP100 this year in May. It was to be a good test and help me decide if a 100 miler was possible this early in my comeback to ultras. Clearly I got the answer I needed even if it was not the answer I wanted.

The race itself is super organised and well run by a great race team, the Mudcrew team are a great bunch and have created a fantastic event in the southwest. They have a top series of races that are worth a look if you are down in that part of the country.

I knew going into this it was a tall order and very likely that I risked a DNF but it also gave us a nice weekend down in Cornwall seeing the Mudcrew team and Maxine could do some wild swimming in the sea. Great to catch up with and support friends who were running. Including Emily who completed it at the second attempt this year.

My race was fairly short and uneventful, I started and plodded along at the back enjoying the scenery and trying to keep up a decent pace on the runnable stuff and not lose too much time on the technical sections where it was rough underfoot and sometimes meant you needed to scramble over rocks and boulders.

I was moving well and with my trusty Mountain King Trail blaze poles I was coping with the rocky/slippy sections well. My problem was pace, I was not fit enough yet to manage the average pace required on the technical terrain and nor was I quick enough on the flat to make that time up. It was going to be touch and go for the cut offs.

The first cut off was Pendeen about 15 miles in at the lighthouse, I was going to be very tight to this cut off which was 1pm (5.5 hours). When I was only a few miles away I did some mental maths and it was obvious I was going to miss that cut by 5-10 mins. At this point the sweepers caught up to me and I had a good chat with them as we walked into the CP where I was timed out and met Maxine.

I was not deflated or upset or annoyed, it was not unexpected and it was a great test of my current fitness levels. It was good to be at an event ad have that pressure to maintain a pace and I was comfortable with a DNF.

Unbeknownst to me at the time there was also a little Tracking page update where my photo was edited! Cyber bullying I think it’s called!

We went back to the van and decided to go along the route supporting others we knew and following friends like Emily. Maxine decided to go for a long run as she had her crewing duties cut short and I sat at Godrevey point car park chatting to people or chilling in the van. I bough the obligatory Steak Pastie for lunch.

Looking at the run I was only going to take positives away, no point dwelling on the fact of a DNF. But I had been out for 5 hours plus which is my longest run for years as far as time and 15 miles on rough terrain had not caused any injuries and apart from being slow I was happy with my strong base and could have happily continued for the rest of the day outside of the race times of course. I have a great benchmark of where I am an will now start working on the speed needed to go with the base.

I made the decision to drop out of Thames Path 100 in May as it was clear that it will be a big ask to make the improvements needed to complete that in less than 3 months. I will enter a 100 later in the year when I have made better progress.

That evening we went back to the campsite and showered and watch friends finish, the next morning Maxine wanted to go for a Wild Swim in the Mermaid pool at Porthtowan on the beach.

The only negative of the weekend was when leaving the Beach road after the wild swim, some woman decided to pull out of a junction into the front wing of the van! I saw her go to pull out and stopped but she just drove into us. Turns out she had a sick dog in the car and was in a bit of a state and paying no attention. She really should not have been driving and was not safe. The van was not badly damaged but will need to be fixed and spend some time off the road which is a pain when it’s also your house!

So back to training and building and planning for my next event on my comeback tour…