When I entered the Ashby 20, I have to be honest, I didn’t think I was going to have the determination to wake up on the morning and go run the course. I knew it was hilly. I knew it has been described as painful. And I knew that in order to get there in time, I’d have to wake up at 7am on a Sunday morning.
What can I say – I’m lazy?
Then I ran Silverstone last weekend and for some reason I told someone that I was doing Ashby on the 22nd. And then I told someone else and before I knew it, enough people knew to warrant me getting up and going.
On Friday I was scared. What if I couldn’t finish?
Saturday I loaded up on carbs with pasta, pizza, chips – anything really. If I was going to run, I was going to need fuel. Regardless of how far I ran. Worst case – I run 5 miles and end up 5 miles from the start and I was NOT getting into a sweeper vehicle.
I don’t have anything against sweeper vehicles, I just don’t want to get into one.
So Sunday morning arrives. I wake up at 7:30am. But somewhere in my mind I don’t realise that I’m already late. I figure I have to leave by 8:15am at the latest to get to the start without rushing. I have oats, I have eggs, I have coffee. I shower and get everything together (shouldn’t I have done that last night?!?!). I get in my car and notice that now it is 8:50am.
The race start is at 10:00am.
I figure I have enough time to arrive, hand in my bag and get to the start.
At 9:30am I arrive at Hood Park Leisure Centre and take my sweet time walking to race HQ. After standing in line to get into the bathroom, I stuff everything I don’t need into the bag and head over to hand it in, only to realise 5 minutes later that I’m still wearing my t-shirt. I head back and just give the girl behind the desk my shirt and with a ‘stuff it into number 23’, I start my way to the start, which according to the race booklet, is 15 minutes walk away.
As we approach the start, one of the marshals come alone to rush us.
“The race is starting!!” he yells, as if that would rush everyone in. I take a small jog and go to the back of the pack.
Unfortunately, that isn’t the race start… noooooo, we have to walk about a quarter of a mile to the real start. A very nice woman, called Mary stood next to me and told a few jokes before the start, told me how this was her first 20 miler and that she was doing London as well at the end of April.
Somewhere in my mind I tell myself that I have to run 12 minute miles – its only training after all. 12 minutes will give me some chance to just relax and it results in a 4 hour 20 miler. Which means that its still faster than I was at any point during last year.
The race starts – and immediately I fall into the trap of running FAR TOO DARN FAST! I check my pace and its around the 9:30min/mile mark. I tried to slow down, feeling quite worried about what was to come.
The first mile went by in less than 10 minutes. Thankfully after that some sense seemed to kick in and I slowed down, to around 11 min/mile while not trying to catch anyone else and trying to just run my own pace. Every now and again I would take a sip of water or Gatorade and mix it up with some honey.
The fuelling seemed to work rather well for once.
At 7 miles, I suddenly felt a really sharp pain in my left knee. Running was impossible. Walking felt okay, but wasn’t particularly what I had in mind for the day.
I’m going to stop, take off my number and walk back to the finish, even though I haven’t run the 2nd loop. Today is DNF day.
My mindset was obviously not right. I didn’t feel like walk-running. I didn’t feel like walking. I couldn’t run. I told one of the women that ran alongside me that I was going to stop at the next point and wished her good luck for the rest of the race.
The next point came. I saw someone I knew. I started wobbling. Which turned into a bit of hobbling. Which turned into a slow plod. Which turned into me jogging past them, waving, having a bite of chocolate and then I kept on jogging until I caught up with the people I ran with before and passing them. Which in turn turned into me going past the turn-off point and carrying on with the second loop.
It was like I got a second wind. I kept going and going and going… until 15.7 miles had passed and I could still go. Then the knee decided to play up again. I wobbled my way to next to a man that was walking as well and slowed down to a walk with him.
Chatting to fellow runners are always interesting and he’s training for IM Germany! At mile 16.8 we started plodding away again… there was a huge downhill and I could go for AGES! I plodded my way past mile 18, got to the watering point and made the turn up the hill – everything was pointing towards home now.
My quads, hamstrings, calves were shattered. Hills weren’t happening. I walked. All the way from mile 18 to 19. And then another quarter of a mile after that.
Somewhere I realised that the end was in sight and I started jogging again. A kind marshal pointed me down a hill and told me to just watch out for the potholes. I let my legs go and managed to just go down the hill without resistance. When a board proclaimed that there was only 400m left, I just about cried. With 200m to go, I just wanted to get to the finish line.
I finished, walked about 10 meters and then headed into the first aid tent. Suddenly I wasn’t feeling well at all. One of the people in there brought me an Ashby 20 2009 top to put on to keep warm.
It took about 10 more minutes before I felt okay enough to get up, collect my goody bag and head back to race HQ. I collected my bag, took off my shoes and after a quick hi to a facebook/twitter friend, I had to get home.
What puzzles me today though, is that I’m not feeling stiff or sore AT ALL. I’m in perfect working order. I can walk up and down stairs. Sideways, forwards and backwards. I can walk. I can get off a chair without groaning. I can sit down without falling backwards.
I’m uncomfortable with the fact that I’m perfectly comfortable.
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