Surviving a 100km run 🏃🏽
3 UK counties, no route and no where near enough food always makes for an interesting adventure.
Buckinghamshire – Bedfordshire – Cambridgeshire – (and every corner shop in between)
_______________________
Distance: 100.06km
Avg. Pace: 7:29 /km
Elevation: 528m
Moving time: 12:28:15
Elapsed time: 14:57:48
Calories: 7,714
_______________________
#trailrunning #ultrarunning #adventure #explore #runningcommunity #runningmotivation #runner #run #running #exploringtheuk #englishcountrystyle #cambridgeshire #bedfordshire #buckinghamshire
it’s just gone 5 on a Sunday morning and after only 4 hours of sleep the sun is starting to rise so it’s time to set out on another adventure 100 km was the goal the route was unknown and the pace was irrelevant the first goal get out of Mil Keen as quickly as possible so this adventure could well and truly begin after snoozing my alarm one too many times this morning I didn’t have time for breakfast so today’s run was fueled by a banana six energy gels a couple of electrolyte tablets 250 grams of pesto pasta and whatever else I could scavenge along the way my first shop stop on route and this one was just about topping up water supplies before getting back on the road back at it and making good progress even if some of the footpaths were less obvious than others 26 km in feeling all right definitely not anywhere near enough food in by this point I’d started to have an idea of where I was heading for St ne and Cambridge here but how I was going to get there was still anyone’s guess and I still had plenty of obstacles left to overcome 33.3 km in a third of the way through not even reached Bingle’s Wade yet i’m getting there the footpaths were often wild and overgrown meaning no one had been there for a while and that always bodess well for a nature poo marathoning feeling all right run out of water so I get some more barn stable i tried keeping the route as rural as possible throughout but every once in a while I had to cross a sketchy road like this thankfully I made it to Biggles Wade in one piece where I found another shop grabbed a twirl picked up some water filled up my bottles and got going again freestyling the route as I went presented its own set of challenges it meant I was relying on often outdated maps and having to carry my phone in my hand for the majority of the run which led to moments like this but thankfully I wasn’t in any kind of rush which was just as well because my next hurdle was over 500 meters of overgrown trails stinging nettles lashing at my legs but sometimes you’ll do whatever it takes to avoid turning back after around the 65 km mark I finally made it to St Neots and what started as the target destination ended up being just another pit stop at the shops i stopped for a minute plot my route back and started making my way towards Bedford and after 75 km it seemed like all of the trails had gone cold and the public footpaths that I kept trying to join were all closed for one reason or another i’d grown tired of the footpath closes I kept encountering along the way so I started getting a bit braver and taking a few more risks at least I was heading in the right direction my fourth and final stop on my corner shop tour through Buckingham Shear Bedford Shear and Cambridge Shear where I picked up some more water and grabbed one last 12 for the road cuz that’s what it was going to be now as the rest of the route flitted from urban to rural and back again it was hard to build any momentum so it was just a case of putting my head down turning off the distance on my watch and keep moving forward the end was in sight as I started to see signs for Milton Kees but I still had to contend with about 8 km along the A421 something I will definitely not be doing again in a hurry i’d finally made it into Bedford and 15 hours later the 100 km was done 100 km done and that is a wrap
1 Comment
this is insane, just did a 50km today in 5:15. Respect to you brotha