So Near and Yet So Far - Thames Path 100

Centurion Thames Path 100
Richmond to Oxford
6th May 2023

Goring was my precipice. I knew my body and mind could make it to 70 miles but that the rest would likely have to be traversed on spirit alone. Running 100 miles is a fierce and beautiful beast and if you have anything going on mentally or physically, the race will find it and force you to stare long and hard at it. It’s not about how far you can run, it’s about how long you can stare.

I was running my first ever 100 mile race. It’s a distance I’ve coveted for a long time and to be honest, the build up to this day had given me every reason to feel confident that I would make it. Training had been good, I was carrying a niggle but it was manageable and I had my nutrition and kit dialled.

The Thames Path 100 starts in Richmond in London and ends in Oxford. It is incredibly flat. As someone who prefers hillier courses, I knew this would likely be the thing to crush me, if anything did. (My reasons for choosing this race were for romantic ideas about running out of the city, not based in anything practical.) The weather wasn’t ideal either - we had wearying rain for a solid seven hours. But I’ve run an ultra in conditions like that before, and the front-runners still managed to achieve speedy finishes. It was miserable in places, sure, but we were definitely still moving. 

When things are lined up for success, it’s always something else that throws you, isn’t it. It’s always some massive curveball that you paid no attention to because you thought it would be fine.  

Henley aid station is at mile 51. It is a whisker over halfway. Hot drinks and hot food starts flowing. It is also where you get your first drop bag/crew. I stood under the tent, sheltering from yet another influx of rain, and sipped my second cup of tea. I said to one of the volunteers, “I bet everyone says this, but I don’t think I’m going to make it to the end.” 

“You’re still smiling,” he said. “You’ll make it.”

What he didn’t know was that I had spent the hour before I got to Henley crying. Proper big, ugly sobs, with a panic attack for good measure. In the weeks and months immediately preceding the race I had been out of my mind with stress, but pretending everything was fine. I was right in the middle of moving out of the city that had been my home for 12 years. I was leaving my friends and my freelance life. My brain just couldn’t endure anymore and I was suddenly blind-sided by it, knee-deep into a race I’d been training so devotedly for. I could feel whatever region of the brain that handles “tenacity” trying to fire and failing. No more, for god’s sake, no more.

That’s when the weather started to get me down. By the time we reached the muddier sections of the trail, the ground was bordering on a Cross Country vibe. The cheerful dispositions from the start had turned into solemn stares. People stopped returning words of encouragement. Or if they did, it was in the spirit of bone dry sarcasm. “Having fun?” “Yeah, time of my life.” 

I think some sort of mass hysteria set in, fuelled by the conditions: this year, the race experienced an unusually high number of DNFs. People just sat down on the trail and refused to move any further. Centurion ran three full minibuses through the night, driving people to the finish line.

It wasn’t all doom and gloom though, I promise. It was actually an extraordinary day with a lot of laughter. But in my private, lonely moments I couldn’t access the peaceful place that is my predisposition on a long run. This has to be because, quite simply, life had taken a toll on my central nervous system for the passed few months, and now I was asking even more of it. The central governor was choosing survival and I had no mental reserves to argue. It was pure science, or something very close to it. 

I knew I was going to drop.

I had started this race wanting to finish it. I’d dreamed of that finish line. But I’d dreamed of finishing strong, and I knew this was going to be a long-ass death-march. I just needed to get to my last drop bag.

I got to Goring aid station, mile 70.8, and what’s interesting in hindsight is that it took me some time to announce that I was finishing there. However, as it was flooded with the strong, neat, impressive women who had been close behind me, I didn’t like my chances of stacking up against them. Instead I marvelled at everyone in similar states of distress but with staggering verve in their bones. Thousand-yard stares would meet across the room and collapse into laughter. 

Volunteers and fellow runners passed me sweets and tea and rallied to try to get me to continue with them, to walk with them. “Have some hot food before you decide. Some cheesy beans?” It had been an hour and I hadn’t actually stopped my watch, but I could only smile and shake my head.

“We’ll see you out there.”

It wasn’t to be. I’m proud to have made it to my precipice, but I didn’t like the view over the other side. “This is where you’ll discover who you really are!” One kind runner said to me at Goring. “But what if I don’t want to know?” I replied, and the whole aid station laughed in sympathy. 

It was the truest thing I could have said. Too much had been changing in my life and it had all been uncertain and I’d felt like I was hanging by a thread to make sure it all happened. If I looked, if I saw what was really down there at the gnarly, sweat-soaked, dribbling end of my small life on this Earth, I might just give up on trying to change my life for the better. Ridiculous, but true.

“Finish this, and then you’ll never have to do another one again.”

The thing is, I really badly want to do another one, and that’s the only reason I let myself drop. I don’t just want to complete this distance, I want to compete at it, so I promised myself that there will be another time. 

In the days after the race, the encouraging condolences from friends came flooding in. It just wasn’t your day. You did the right thing. Knowing when to stop is even harder. You’ll come back stronger. It’s still a great achievement. I nodded and smiled weakly and said thank you, but to this day, none of these actually sit right. 

There’s nothing to come back from. I’m not physically injured. There was no demonstrable reason why this shouldn’t be my day. I still don’t really know if that was the right time to stop. It’s not the achievement I wanted, so does it still count, if it’s not an achievement to me? The crux of the matter is, I thought I was stronger than this.

I’ve moved home now. Things are peaceful. I get shivers down my spine as tension releases. I go for long runs in the countryside, grateful to have saved my body that extra 29 miles of pain.

But I’ll get it next time. Because I am stronger than that. 100 miles won’t know what hit it.

Synonyms for Scorched Earth

 Southern Athletics - Woodford, London.
13/8/22

It’s our final meet in the Southern Athletics fixtures. There’s talk of how close we are to winning in our division - to upgrading to five fixtures instead of four. We’ve all been made aware of who our rival club is in this pursuit, and everyone who toes the line has clocked their key competitor. But it’s due to be 32 degrees celsius. The surrounding grass is so dry it invites visions of wildebeests. The athletics track is exposing and exposed. 

In the 800m, I’m racing myself, our rivals and, as I (unhelpfully) learned the night before, the club record. On the start line my body is a mess. It knows what is about to happen: burning lungs, tingling hands and tasting blood. I kick my legs out and jump in the air, pretending none of those sensations are happening. We lean, we settle. The gun goes. 

I chase our rival club but I know I won’t catch them because I am already giving everything. Adjust. Dig. Go hard then push harder. The club record is all I’m looking for now. Embrace the fade and see it over the line. I’ve done it. I am a ghost on my own shoulder, but I’ve done it. 

Back at the bandstand, we are a gaggle of electrolytes, safety pins and musical chairs, all chasing the shade. When someone does well, we tell them how remarkable that is considering the conditions. When someone is disappointed in their performance, we tell them how well they did, considering the conditions. I deny the conditions profusely. I run the 3000m and focus only on effort. I’m pushing the pace as much as I know I can without blowing up. I finish. I am dizzy. I wait for my heart rate to go down. It simply doesn’t.

The bandstand is audience to a chorus of coughing. Lactic meets gasping meets debris. Our very lungs are parched. We kick up dust in sprints and jumps and there’s nothing to absorb it, only the moisture of our own mouths. A fortunate few are escorted to the start line with umbrellas. Seeing these rainy day accessories is jarring. It only seems to highlight the very thing we’ve been seriously, worryingly lacking.

A woman sits on the floor by the high jump with a t-shirt over her head. There is only a bottle visible beneath its neck, the contents lazily disappearing. We’re fading. Events are running late. We’re all pulling off astonishing performances, but it’s just gone on for too long. After my tango with heat exhaustion, I’m kindly encouraged to do no more. “It’s not worth it,” they say. But it is, we all know it is, because otherwise why are we all here?

It’s nearly 5pm and the light has chased us up the tiered seating until we’re all squeezed onto the back row. Our steaming shoulders are braced for impact until we are submerged. Now the race is really on. Win every last point you can before you run for shelter. Run for home. 

We take the win. 

I feel a strange grief that the athletics is over for another year. But there’s next year to look forward to, and in the winter when I’m gazing out of the window at yet another grey day, I’ll fondly remember these relentless, scorching laps of a blazing running track. When January descends into its quintessential endlessness, when time yawns before us so wide that you can see its fillings, I’ll wonder at how much a 58 millisecond PB meant to me.