“Utter Madness”

Back in 2021 after I finished the South Downs Way 100 miler I decided to stick to shorter distances (if you classify 50 miles as short…). This was for several reasons: training time, disruption to the family, failing body (well, failing brain to be more precise), and the requirement to slightly exceed the recommended dose for the meds.

So on the 14th April when Centurion Running announced a new 200 mile circuit (of the North Downs Way, Vanguard Way, South Downs Way, Wayfarers Walk, St Swithuns Way and finishing back on the North Downs Way) I sent Caroline a screenshot with the caption “sleep is overrated” she replied “Utter Madness, but I’ll share the crewing”.

It goes against all my reasons for stopping the long races, but just the thought of plodding along in the middle of December through the dark, rain and mud (within the time limt of 96 hours) has me grinning like an idiot. As Caroline said, “why not”?

But it wasn’t just a case of signing on the dotted line. There are 100 places and each application had to be accompanied by details of running and multi-sport experience which was necessary (in the words of the organisers) to:

“… instill confidence in us as organisers of their ability to cover very long distances between check points on foot, self-navigating in what could be extremely difficult conditions including 16 hours of darkness in every 24”

Luckily I’ve got a Mountain Leader award and competed in mountain marathons (have a look at LAMMS and OMMS if you want to see what they involve) all over the UK and in all sorts of weather so I typed up my CV ready for the entries opening on 1st May.

When the race was released I messaged Budgie (my ever-reliable training partner, and ever-reliable nutter) with the details and his reply was “Lol, just seen that, I think you should give it a go!”. With endorsement like that, who was I to disagree? And then he agreed to crew for me (no small sacrifice). This was taking shape.

Then I messaged Paula (running rockstar) who is full of useful ideas and inspiration. She’s got enough on her plate but she volunteered to help crew too. So now I had a support team. Yay!

Roll on May 1st, and some frantic copy and paste into a one line box on the entry form, and some crossed fingers.

Cue Budgie repeatedly messaging me all day “Are you in?”

This means that the 50 milers are now training runs for December, and I’ll have to do some recce runs along the parts of the route that I’ve never visited as well as a bit of planning.

Roll on December.