The T100 - or how I learned to stop worrying and love 100 miles

I’ve always said I like multi-day ultras, 30-35 miles a day over 2 or 3 days. So why was I on the start line of the T100, a 100 mile, single stage, self-supported ultra, running along the Thames path? A fair point and one that I can only partially explain. I had previously signed up for the TP100 a couple of years ago, a 100 mile race which runs along the Thames path and allows support crew and pacers after 50 miles. The T100 is also 100 miles along the Thames Path but has only 3 checkpoints (and a water stop) at which only water is available, no food, no crews no pacers. However in 2015 when I signed up for the TP100 I had a major back problem which meant I had to withdraw and I hadn’t really thought too much about 100 mile events since.

Facebook is a terrible thing. Some of my friends were looking at a 250 mile race the length of Wales. I wasn’t really interested but it wouldn’t have mattered if I was as completion of a 100 mile race was a requirement to enter. This made me think, I’ve done a few ultras and had moderate success in some but wasn’t the lack of a 100 miler a bit of a gap in my running CV? The Centurion events (of which the TP100 is one) tend to sell out quite quickly so I did a bit of Googling (Google is almost as terrible as Facebook) and found the T100, which had a nice looking website, was reasonably priced and had spaces. Best of all I would finally get to use the map I bought for the TP100! I am fully aware that having a map of the Thames Path qualifies me to run on it about as much as having a hat with ‘Lion Tamer’ on it in neon letters qualifies me to tame lions but it was a start.

Anyway after I had entered I thought I’d better read the rules. The compulsory kit list was about right, enough kit required to keep me safe but not an excessive burden. There was also a good explanation of the purpose and requirements for each item. The only item I would quibble about slightly was the map case as my map was waterproof. However my abilities with a map are such that the only likely use for a map was if I decided to fold it into a novelty hat or, in extremis, it might work as toilet paper - although it’s waterproofness might have restricted its usefulness in that regard. I do accept that if I had needed to use it a case might have been useful.

The requirement to be able to carry at least 2 litres of water wasn’t unreasonable given the distance between checkpoints but my hydration vest only had two 600ml bottles. I personally don’t like bladders, the water gets warm against your back and I find them a pain to fill, so I bought a waist belt with two 350ml bottles. This still wasn’t quite 2 litres although if I filled all the bottles right up they would hold 2 litres. I thought of asking if this would be OK but decided that actually it would make more sense to have more water capacity so I added a 500ml soft bottle to the collection with a hand strap. I could carry this and once I’d emptied it, it would fit in a pocket.

As the event drew nearer I read the instructions properly and started to realise what I was taking on. In addition to the check points a list of locks which had toilets and water was provided. I didn’t think this was terribly useful a first as it only went as far as Teddington. After a while I realised I would be running up river (uphill!) and so the source was at the other end. A list of locks from the source to Teddington then made a whole lot more sense… I mentioned this to a work colleague that spends a lot of his holidays on inland waterways. He said ‘You have got a British Waterways key haven’t you?’ Apparently these taps can sometimes be locked. Also they are not very easy to find if you don’t know where to look. Start to the first water stop about 13 miles - no problem on 2 litres of water. Similarly water stop to CP1, 13 miles. At CP1 fill up the additional 500ml bottle and hope to find the odd tap or drinking fountain as it will (hopefully) be daylight for much of this leg. CP2 to CP3 is 28 miles and going to be overnight. I didn’t really fancy trying to find taps I probably wouldn’t be able to find in daylight in the dark so I decided to take a 1 litre collapsible bottle which I would fill at CP2 along with the 500ml bottle. This would give me 3.5 litres and hopefully enough to see me through to CP3. I didn’t think too much about how to carry all this…

Water was very important. Water is always important but as I was planning on using Tailwind for most of my ‘food’ not having enough could hit me twice. For those not into endurance sport Tailwind is a powder that dissolves in water and provides calories and electrolytes. I had used it in Bhutan and on the Stour Valley Path 100km race and knew it worked very well for me. I packed some peanuts, bars and Pepperami too but was really only planning on using the Tailwind.

I’ll spare you a detailed breakdown of kit and how I packed it. Basically everything else was compulsory and I packed it according to how likely I thought it was I would need it (map at the bottom of the most inaccessible pocket on the pack naturally). I added a small pocket I bought ages ago to the waist strap of my waist pack to hold my headtorch and spare batteries so I could get them easily when it got dark.

By far the smartest afterthought I have ever had was to take my hand help GPS. I had the route and maps on it, it also has replaceable batteries. The plan was to use my GPS watch as the main navigation aid and the GPS as a back-up if the watch failed. If the watch and the GPS failed it was the phone, then I would try dumb luck, guesswork, astrology, and, eventually, the map.

So kit was sorted and I had everything I would need to run 100 miles - maybe. As the race started somewhere fairly easy to get to (for me) and not too early I was able to take a train to the start. Fortunately the journey was very smooth, I got a seat on all the trains and arrived in plenty of time. As I walked along Charlton station I saw that one of the houses nearby had strings of Buddhist prayer flags flying. After running The Last Secret Ultra in Bhutan and seeing a lot of Buddhist culture I have a lot of time for Buddhists so I took this as a good omen.

As I had done precisely no course recce I thought that it would be a good idea to walk to the start along the Thames path. That way I would at least know what the first half a mile held in store. To be honest it wasn’t that interesting - hopefully the other 99.5 would be better. However the Thames Barrier did look like a very impressive ‘starting line’.

Even I couldn't miss this 'start line'

I got to the Race HQ (café) to see a large number of runners all looking fitter, faster and much better prepared than me. This happens at every race though so I’ve stopped worrying about it. I may have caused slight confusion by saying hello and then walking straight past everyone but I was terribly well hydrated and had more pressing needs. Once that was sorted I registered, signed the waiver (‘If this race kills me I promise not to moan about it’ sort of thing) and was given number 16 and some safety pins.

I found a space on a table with some other runners and sorted out my number and awaited my kit check. The kit check was exactly as I like it - thorough but not excessively fussy. For instance the fact that my pack was positively bulging at the seams with Tailwind was taken as evidence of enough calories, I wasn’t asked to get it all out and count them. I passed the next hour by talking to other runners and having a nap using my pack as a pillow.

Poised, alert, ready to go - these were just some of the things I wasn't at the start

I don’t entirely remember what was said at the run briefing - other than there was absolutely no necessity to actually enter the Thames at any point on the race, not even for those doing the far more brutal T184, which was basically the T100 plus another 84 miles all the way to the source of the Thames. When I found out the T184 started at the same time as the T100 I started (ironically) referring to the T100 as the ‘fun run’. We were walked down to a slightly arbitrary point on the Thames Path (a few yards here and there are really quite irrelevant in a 100 mile race) and at 10:30 unleashed into London!

The first half mile was familiar but then things started to become less so although the O2 Arena (which will always be the Millennium Dome to me) wasn’t hard to spot. Fortunately I was running with someone that actually knew what the entrance to the Greenwich foot tunnel looked like and stopped me from bowling along straight past it. Unfortunately he was less sure of which way to turn at the other end and so we did a small bonus loop around some flats before returning to the foot tunnel exit and heading in the right direction. It was at this point I turned my handheld GPS unit on. As I said earlier I had originally brought it as a backup but it quickly became obvious that the ‘breadcrumb trail’ route I had downloaded to my running watch was hopelessly inadequate for navigating through London, especially as the watch was running in a battery saving mode which made the GPS less accurate anyway. Every time the watch thought I had gone off course or returned to the course it buzzed. This would almost certainly flatten the battery way before the end of the race so I switched the navigation feature off and relied on the handheld unit.

Just some old bloke running - nothing to see here

Fairly early on I realised that just ‘running alongside the Thames’ wasn’t quite as easy as I might hope. There is still a fair amount of development going on along the riverbank which leads to a few sudden unannounced path closures. Fortunately my handheld GPS shows a map as well as your location so it wasn’t too difficult to navigate round the path closures.

My best side

London wasn’t quite as crowded as I feared and if I’m completely honest the various road crossings provided some welcome short breaks as I progressed past Tower Bridge, London Bridge, and some other bridges until I left the Thames to run round the Houses of Parliament. I did notice I attracted the attention of at least one policeman there but I tried to look as non-threatening as possible and he left me alone. I continued to Pimlico where there was a water stop. It was quite a hot day so I took the opportunity to refill my bottles and drink some water before continuing on my journey along the Thames.

As I went further west the streets became a little less crowded. There was still the odd diversion from the Thames but generally progress was good and navigation easy. The biggest detour was around the Hurlingham Club, ‘a green oasis of tradition and international renown’ - it says on its website. From my perspective the most interesting part about the detour was that I got to run through another ‘green oasis’, Hurlingham Park. Just over eighteen miles in and I finally got to run ‘off road’! Shortly after, another turn ‘inland’ was required to go around Craven Cottage, the home of Fulham Football Club. This not only took me off-road again but a section of mud announced the presence of a water tap. As I said it was hot so I took the opportunity to use my collapsible cup to have a drink.

By now I was getting used to navigating with the GPS, besides which the route wasn’t difficult to follow in fact it was almost too easy. The first checkpoint was slightly off the route I had on the GPS and as a result I was only just stopped from disappearing down a side street twenty yards before the checkpoint. Once I had been yelled at, stopped and actually looked up I crossed the road and was greeted by Ian Chappell. Ian is part of the XNRG team and has provided me with all sorts of food, drink and general help and encouragement at many of their events. I think he found it quite hard to only be allowed to give out water and encouragement at this event, usually he would be plying me with soft drinks, crisps, pork scratchings and whatever other goodies were at his checkpoint. However the T100 is an unsupported race so I filled my water bottles, filled my extra half litre soft bottle and bade him farewell. I was advised to follow the main road to Isleworth rather than return to the side street I had previously tried to disappear down as there were a number of diversions along that section of the path which would make it almost impossible to follow.

Drink!

Things were going quite well. I was jogging along at a steady pace, I passed Hampton Court and whilst I never found an actual British Waterways tap at a lock I did refill my bottles from the toilets at Moseley Lock. The taps didn’t say the water wasn’t suitable for drinking so I thought it was worth taking the chance. The only slight downside was that by now it was heading towards late afternoon/early evening on Friday and the pubs looked so inviting… However I resisted the temptation and continued on. My hope was to reach the second checkpoint before dark. I only had one mishap on the way, the trail was now not so consistently paved, which was good but I did manage to trip over on one of the non-paved grassy sections. Fortunately the only damage was to my pride, my number and a grass stain on my t-shirt. 

There are some benefits to running at sunset...

A few miles out from the checkpoint I drank the last of my water. As it had cooled down and my pack was now at its lightest I pushed hard and almost made it to the checkpoint before dark. Once again I nearly missed it as I was running along the footpath by the side of the imaginatively named ‘Straight Road’ whereas the checkpoint was about 10 feet nearer the Thames on the Thames Path itself. Fortunately the checkpoint crew had been tracking me as I ran towards them and shouted at me before I 'sped' past. At this point I had no idea how the race was unfolding. I hadn’t seen another runner for hours so I assumed  that I was somewhere down the field and that several runners had already been through the checkpoint. ‘No’, I was told, ‘You are the first’. My first ever 100 mile race and I was leading! I didn’t get too excited however as there was a long way to go and the next leg was not only the longest at 28 miles but would  - unless things went badly wrong - be run entirely in darkness. I filled all my bottles including the additional 1 litre collapsible bottle, which I strapped onto my pack with the bungee cord on the back of it. It stayed there for nearly 10 yards before falling off. I picked it up and shoved it under my waist belt where it sort of stayed.

Probably going to need my head torch soon...

As I’d posted a brief status update after CP1 I thought I’d the same at CP2. Disaster! The pocket that my mobile phone lived in was open and empty! I turned round and headed back to CP2 and explained my predicament. It wasn’t anywhere around CP2. Then I remembered my fall, it must have dropped out then - panic started to set in. One of the marshals (I’m sorry, I got practically no-ones name in this race) said he would call it just to see if it was around where we were or if anyone might have picked it up. I gave him my number, he rang it, the black phone shaped thing in my hand under my half litre soft bottle started to vibrate… My face was so red I could easily have run the next half a mile by the light of it alone, the headtorch was entirely superfluous.

By now it was properly dark and whilst I don’t exactly hallucinate, everything looks like people when I run in the dark. At one point I was convinced a large group of people were standing very closely together wearing dinner jackets and looking down the road at me. That was a very large rose bush with big pink flowers. A man walking down steps was actually a litter bin and I don’t want to talk about the people that turned into giraffes that were really some very tall flowers. It may be the running that does it or maybe I just need my eyes testing… Hearing voices was more easily explained as I did annoy quite a lot of geese that had settled down to roost.

I had no worry about being in the countryside at night as the chances of meeting anyone in the middle of nowhere that wanted to do me harm were quite slim. I was more worried about passing through towns as my usual reaction to trouble - run away quickly - was by now no longer an option. Fortunately everyone I passed was completely disinterested in me and I encountered no trouble of a potentially violent nature during the entire race. I did have a small detour due to the closure of a park that caused me to have to retrace my steps and improvise across a wet field but otherwise navigation was going well. The only slight issues I was having were largely down to Mother Nature. The grass was getting wet with dew and so my feet were getting wet on the grassy sections. This didn’t bother me too much as I had run with wet feet with same shoe/sock combination before without any problems. Admittedly not for 100 miles but I was optimistic. Speaking of optimistic the next nature induced problem was a misty optic. Quite a few patches of mist were developing which meant I could only really see much looking downwards and not so much forwards. At least that’s my excuse for almost running into so many trees. The final nature problem was quite minor but intensely irritating - spiders. Or rather spider webs, the spiders obviously felt everyone should be in bed and so they could weave their webs across the path. They were probably as annoyed as I was when I came running along and it all wrapped around me.

All in all the section from CP2 to CP3 passed with little incident after the mobile phone mishap and I arrived at checkpoint 3 at twenty to three on Saturday morning in good spirits. I assumed I was still first as no-one had passed me and I hadn’t made any significant navigational errors. The marshal checked the tracker and told me I was at least an hour ahead of my nearest rival. I had 20 miles to go and a lead of an hour or more, at this point it looked like the race was mine to lose. However I wasn’t taking anything for granted as anyone that has run any distance will know, the wheels can come off very suddenly with very little warning.

I was also told I should pass the Reading Festival early enough that I shouldn’t have any problems negotiating festival go-ers. This was more or less true, festival go-ers themselves wouldn’t be a problem, however the festival itself would be a different story…

The next 10 miles were quite uneventful and I mostly spent them trying to work out how I would explain to Sharon why I was about three hours ahead of schedule when I had to phone her at around 5 in the morning to ask her to drive to the finish to pick me up. However as I was contemplating making that call my journey along the Thames Path was abruptly cut short by a large metal barrier across it with a man in a chair sitting in front of it. ‘Can I go past?’, ‘No, it’s closed for the festival’, ‘But I’m in a race, I’ve run 90 miles, I’m 10 miles from the end and I’m winning’. Man shrugs shoulders. Looking back at this I have no idea why I didn’t throw man and said chair in the Thames and climb past his barrier. Apparently that section of path is closed at night to prevent festival go-ers jumping in the Thames - because obviously they wouldn’t think of jumping in along the section before the barrier… As there were a large number of people putting out barriers I asked their advice. ‘You’ll have to go round’, ‘How far is that?’, ’About 10-12 miles’. By now I am getting slightly stressed and not really wanting to run an additional 12 miles - or even the optimistic 10. I phoned Gareth the Race Director and explained the position. A few minutes later he phoned me back and between his instructions and my trusty GPS I had an alternative route which had only actually added the couple of miles I had run to and from the blockade plus the time spent on the phone. I picked up the Thames Path again just past Tilehurst Station and phoned Sharon. Less than 10 miles to go and the sun would soon be rising - I was finally allowing myself to believe I might actually win this thing.

There is a slight sting in the tail of this race in that at Whitchurch-on-Thames the path arbitrarily turns away from the Thames just so it can go up and down a couple of hills but eventually I was literally out of the woods and back beside the Thames. With the various diversions I now had little idea exactly how far it is to the finish. From the GPS I had estimated about 5 miles when I passed an early morning dog walker. ‘Excuse me, how far is it to Streatley?’. ‘Not far, a mile and a half, two at most’. Admittedly it was early and so the competition for ‘Best news I’ve had today ‘ was small but I could have kissed her. However being arrested at this point would almost certainly lose me the race and so I settled for profuse thanks and ran on until I saw a familiar bridge in Streatley. I had crossed this bridge several times before from the opposite direction on the Druid’s Challenge and knew the finish was just the other side of it. I crossed the bridge headed for the hotel (fittingly a slight diversion to the back of the hotel was involved) and ran to a small gazebo and the finish of the 2017 T100 race. I was first in a time of 20 hour and 50 minutes, smashing my target of a sub-24 hour finish!

Nearly there...

A few more yards...

'Is this the finish?' (I really did ask that)

Sharon arrived to pick me up shortly afterwards and I celebrated with a cup of Earl Grey. My first 100 mile race completed and a nice little glass trophy as a reward for my first place. The attrition rate is so high (only 6 of 17 starters finished the race) that t-shirts aren’t ordered until after the race but hopefully in the next couple of weeks I will be able to display my achievement across my chest.

Still don't believe this

My podium moment

Generally the very few people that manage to get to the end of one of my unbelievably wordy race reports have a few questions so I will answer the more common ones. However just before I do I must thank Ben Lumley (benlumleyphoto.co.uk) for taking the fantastic photos that have hopefully made this long ramble a little more bearable.   

Did I enjoy it? Yes, I was possibly slightly lucky in that the weather was good - too good for some in fact. Friday afternoon was very warm but I think I cope reasonably well with heat and so I suffered less than many. I also had no injuries - although my back was rubbed raw by the end by my pack. My fault I think, where I had stuffed all the kit in the back of it had rounded out and so moved around. Over the course of nearly 21 hours that can remove a lot of skin. However whilst I knew it was a bit sore I only found out how bad it was in the bath later. I was pleased with the way I coped mentally, even the ‘Reading Incident’ didn’t cause me to have a melt down. The ‘Phone Incident’ was embarrassing but I know that my brain functions (even) less well after many miles of running.

Would I do anything different? I’d make sure my pack didn’t rub certainly. I might consider a course recce through London just because of all the diversions. I would take extra water capacity again but I might give some thought as to how to carry it. I would use the hand held GPS for navigation from the start - the batteries lasted all through the race and into the following day after I forgot to turn it off. If I was considering getting water from locks I would decide which ones and go and find the taps and make sure they were accessible in advance, however carrying enough water seems a less stressful strategy.

Would I do it again? Possibly, I have no reason not to but I am now wondering whether next year I should go the whole hog and enter the T184 race, 184 miles from the Thames Barrier all the way to the source of the Thames. Could I do it? Only one way to find out I guess…