The T184 - from the Barrier to the Source

A couple of years ago for reasons that were neither good nor sensible I entered a 100 mile race. Much to my surprise I enjoyed it and did quite well. The race in question was the T100, one hundred miles (and a bit) along the Thames from the Thames Barrier to Streatley. However there was a problem, it has a big brother, the T184…

When I reached the finish of the T100 my main feeling was one of great satisfaction at my accomplishment, however as time went on another, nagging, feeling started to develop - there was another 84 miles to the real finish, the Source of The Thames. In reality this is quite unfair, the T100 and the T184 are two separate races that just happen to follow the same route and start at the same time, however reality has never had a large part to play in my life and this time was no exception.

I should also mention there is some doubt that the point I was running to is really the Source of the Thames but it has a big stone block there saying it is and I never argue with big stone blocks.

Anyway, whatever the logic, the fact was I had entered the 2019 T184. Another fact was that I was mostly terrified by the idea, sometimes excited but mostly terrified.

I appeared to be going to run quite a long way across England

Before I even got to the running bit however there was quite a lot of preparation to be done. The T-Series Races are what is generally referred to as unsupported. Actually there is a huge amount of support but you have to carry all the food and equipment you want for the duration of the event with you. There are checkpoints, on average one every 25 miles where you will be given water. There are also a large number of taps en-route from which you can also take water. Due to the expected heatwave we would also be allowed to purchase water if necessary but generally the idea is that you don’t consume anything you haven’t carried from the start apart from water.

I spent a very long time messing around with a new pack and hydration system and never being quite happy with it. Eventually it dawned on me that actually I had a fully race proven pack of ideal size in the form of my 20 litre UD Fastpack I used on the MDS. Anyone want to buy a nearly new rucksack?

I bought some nice new Raidlight bottles as the ones I had were round and the new ones were curved to fit against the body. The round ones had been OK on the MDS but I thought (OK Sharon thought) that given how long I would be continuously wearing my pack anything that even slightly increased comfort was worth doing - needless to say she was absolutely right.

This gave me 1.6 litres of water capacity. I needed at least another 400ml to comply with the rules and from my T100 experience at least another litre would be nice. I also like plenty of accessible pockets and so my UD waist belt with two 600ml bottles was added to the ensemble. I even managed to squeeze another pocket onto the belt so I now had 2.8 litres of water capacity and endless accessible storage. It did make me look like I was wearing Batman’s utility belt around my waist but you can never have enough pockets.   It would have been nice to have tried all this out before the race but my fallback position was that the pack had been OK three years ago and the waist belt could be chucked in the pack if necessary . I work on the theory that a large number of half-baked plans and vague ideas can be made to look like a coherent strategy from a suitable distance in a very bad light.

The nutrition strategy was very simple. I had run the T100 on nothing but Tailwind and so Tailwind would form the core of my nutrition. The question was how much would I take? Race rules state 2000 calories per day should be carried so for the T184 this is 8000 calories or 40 stick packs of Tailwind. I decided to go for 35 packs of Tailwind plus one and a half stick packs in each bottle to start. I made up the calorie count with a few bags of peanuts, some Peperami and a porridge bar. I did check with the race organisers that having so much of my food as powder was OK but their view on everything seems to be that we are adults and if we comply with the rules it’s up to us how we do it - which is a nice way for a race to be.

Quite a lot of Tailwind - and a hat

Compulsory kit was compulsory kit so I won’t bore you with the details of that. Apart from that my only other significant kit item was a USB power pack to charge my phone and watch. I had made a particularly neat cable which allowed me to charge my watch whilst still wearing it. This feat can only be achieved with the standard charging cable if you are prepared to drill a hole through your wrist.

Clothing was simple, shorts, compression t-shirt, Little Baddow Ridge Runners club vest, calf guards and ‘Darn Tough’ socks. Footwear was On Cloud Stratus road shoes as it had been very dry and I knew a huge amount of the first 100 miles was on roads anyway. The entire ensemble was topped off with a Tailwind branded tri-cap they had sent me for free when I bought a large quantity of white powder stimulant from them - by which I mean caffeinated Tailwind of course. If viewed from the previously mentioned distance and bad light I could almost pass as a runner.

Obviously I had a fairly good idea what was to come for the first 100 miles after completing the T100 in 2017. Whilst I couldn’t actually get out and recce any of the remaining 84 miles I did spend a lot of time with Google Earth and an OS map trying to get as familiar as I could with the later stages and to try and identify those areas where I was likely to get lost. This was probably ‘all of them’ so I tried not to worry too much and just make sure I had enough batteries to keep my hand held GPS alive through the event. The GPS was a last minute addition to my kit on the T100 but without it I would probably still be trying to get to Streatley two years later. I had downloaded the T184 route and all the checkpoint locations and was planning on following the pink line on it for 184 miles to the Stone.

On the subject of checkpoints, on average there is about 25 miles between them on this event. This either means you have to carry enough water for 25 miles or find some between checkpoints. The alternative to this blindingly obvious fact is to risk dehydration. Given it was forecast to be extremely hot, and also the fact that most of my calorific intake was going to be from drinks, not having enough water would be likely to cause me to DNF in very short order. One of the other things I had done in terms of preparation was to read the blogs of some of the T184 alumni. There are many and they are all better than this one but the one that helped more than any other was the blog of 2015 winner and course record holder Mark Denby. Mark had reconnoitred the entire route and found water points (or taps as most people call them) every 12-15 miles between checkpoints. He had also listed them and described their locations and distances in his blog. In theory there are plenty of places to obtain water along the Thames as most of the locks have fresh water taps but they are not always easy to find and sometimes locked up. I understood that things may have changed in the intervening four years but I created a small chart with all the checkpoints, Mark’s water points, distances and pacing for 48 hours and 56 hours which I printed out, sealed with some waterproofing spray and put under my transparent phone case so it was effectively laminated to the back of my phone. This was one of the best pieces of preparation I did and I can’t thank Mark enough for sharing the results of his hard work, although it did make me feel a bit like I was doing the ‘Standing on the shoulders of giants’ bit (it’s a quote from Sir Isaac Newton and on the edge of at least some two pound coins if anyone hadn’t come across it before).

Everything I really needed to know during the race - Thanks Mark

Anyway back to the race - except we haven’t even got to the start yet. With a 10:30 am start time I had ample time to travel to the Thames Barrier from Chelmsford on Friday morning. I decided to travel early to avoid the worst of the commuter traffic. This would give me plenty of time for breakfast and I had already picked out the ‘Valley Café’ outside Charlton station as a possible source of my last meal. Bacon, egg, sausage, baked beans, a truly awesome fried slice and a mug of surprisingly passable coffee cost a mere £4.90 and went down a treat. Just a short walk to the start during which my phone rang…

Sharon has recently had some scans and was awaiting the results. When I saw it was her calling I didn’t think she was just going to wish me luck. However as usual I failed to answer the phone and had to somewhat nervously call her back. Yes she had spoken to her doctor and all tests were negative! So far I couldn’t really fault Friday, the journey to Charlton had been so smooth I haven’t even bother to try and make a joke about it, breakfast was great and my wife has been given a clean bill of health. It was a very happy and positive feeling Colin that turned up at the race start to check in. Unfortunately none of this had suddenly improved my sense of humour; the best I could manage was ‘is this where I register for the 1.84 mile fun run?’ Liz (Fretwell, Race Organiser) tried to smile but we both knew it was a pity smile, not one borne out of any actual amusement. I was given a number and some paperwork and waited for my turn at the kit check.

Kit check went very smoothly, mainly because for the first time ever I actually knew where I had put each item of kit. Usually I have a few items I’m planning on using and a load of stuff that the organisers make me take and so I only know where the kit I’m going to use is. On this race I was fully aware I could need any and all of my kit so I had gone to some lengths to try and pack it logically and remember where each item was. By Saturday night I would be tired and functioning even less well than normal, a frightening thought given I can’t usually find anything more than 30 seconds after I put it down at the best of times. The only thing I had pushed to the bottom of the pack was my map. If I was down to using that for navigation it would be game over and ‘can someone please come and get me from Birmingham - yes I know it’s the Grand Union Canal and not the Thames now…’ kind of scenario and since a bivvy bag was a compulsory kit item I was unlikely to try and sleep under it.

To anyone that is still reading - why? But thank you for persevering we are almost at the start of the race. The only other things to mention was that I had a very useful chat with Al Cormack, who was on his fifth T184 and that my favourite photographer Ben Lumley was at the start as he would be the official race photographer. Ben is my favourite photographer for two reasons, firstly his pictures are amazing (many of them are illustrating this blog) and secondly he has photographed two races I’d previously run and I’d won both of them - would it be three out of three? It seemed far too soon to be worrying about position, my main aim was to try and finish before Sunday night as I wasn’t sure that mentally I would be able to face a third night out there. Ben also had purple and orange tape on his camera gear which was apparently some kind of clever photographer thing to colour code his lenses (I think, photography is an art form I know even less about than some other art forms). However it’s also the colours of Little Baddow Ridge Runners and so I was taking it as a good omen.

The race briefing (© Ben Lumley Photography)

OK, it’s time to ‘reward’ those of you that haven’t got bored with the massive preamble and start talking about the race. Gareth gave a short race briefing in which he reiterated that the race was along the Thames and that there was no necessity at any point to actually be in the Thames, and then we were taken to the start line - actually two lines with the word ‘START’ between them in multi-coloured chalk. At 10:30am we were off!

Somehow I had hoped for something more impressive (© Ben Lumley Photography)

Shortly after the word ‘START’ the word ‘FINISH’ had also been chalked on the path, followed by the words ‘Only Joking’.  Suddenly my ‘1.84 mile fun run’ ‘joke’ didn’t seem so bad after all.

That's more like a Start Line! (© Ben Lumley Photography)

The T100 and the T184 start together and you would expect at least some of the T100 runners to set off quickly and this was indeed the case. I set off in my traditional style of far too fast and became part of a group of three running behind the lead group. Sebastian was a T100 runner and Alex was a fellow T184 runner. I had picked out Alex as a potential winner at the start, he looked quietly confident and his equipment, whilst nothing special, had the look of kit that had been well used and was fully race proven - unlike some of mine…

And we are off! (© Ben Lumley Photography)

We stayed together for the first part of the race (during which I managed to run past the Greenwich foot tunnel whilst taking a photograph of the Cutty Sark).

Not the best picture of the Cutty Sark and I went the wrong way...

We stayed together to the first water point but by Fulham they had left me behind. Although some development work was being done around Craven Cottage the tap I remembered in the park was still there so I stopped to drink and pour some water on my head.  What happens at the start of the race is one of those areas I need to work on from a mental point of view. I usually run 50km trail races and so I’m conscious of my position in the race from very early on and have a good idea of who I will see later and who will leave me behind. When you are going to run 184 miles and take two days to do it, you really can’t read anything into what happens in the first three hours. However I was already wondering if I would see Alex again before the Stone.

That question was answered at the first checkpoint where, much to my surprise, I caught up with Alex. He appeared to be sorting out his kit and so I filled my water bottles and set out down Brentford High Street having been given the instruction ‘turn left into Syon Park’ by the ever awesome marshals. I had also had my tracker changed, which caused some concern to those following my dot on the web and on the app as I appeared to stop at the first checkpoint.

As I ran along Brentford High Street I thought I’d post a quick update on Facebook, just to let everyone know things were going OK so far. I pressed ‘Post’, looked at my GPS, turned round, ran back to the entrance to Syon Park… When you have people rooting for you back home and following your dot it’s nice to post the occasional progress update but really going in the right direction should take precedence over all other activities. Anyway as I entered the park I saw Alex a few hundred metres ahead of me. He didn’t appear to be going any quicker than me so I thought I’d catch him up and see if he would respond if I passed him. No, of course he didn’t, it’s only me that behaves like a dog chasing a dustcart when someone passes me, everyone else is far more sensible. As it turned out Alex would pull out before the next checkpoint but I wouldn’t find that out until Saturday evening and so would be wondering where he was for some miles to come.  I passed Sebastian some time later, he also would soon withdraw.

At Hampton Court the first of several memorable encounters occurred. I’ve raced against Tim Haughton in many XNRG events and he has always been most supportive. He lives in the Hampton Court area and had previously asked when I thought I would be in the vicinity. As I approached the Great Vine (apparently) Tim was there with a huge smile and many words of encouragement. I took the opportunity to take a walking break as it was getting quite hot and walked and chatted with Tim until we crossed Hampton Court Bridge at which point he bade me farewell, wished me luck for the rest of the race, and told me he would be watching my progress with interest.

Running or about to be run over? Hard to tell (© Tim Haughton)

Shortly after the bridge is Moseley Lock. I recognised the toilets from the T100 and again stopped for relief and to replenish some of my water. I hadn’t really planned to take water here, the next water stop on my (Mark’s) agenda was at Sunbury Lock but it was a very hot day and it didn’t seem wise to turn down any opportunity to refill my bottles.

At this point everything was going well. I reached Sunbury Lock and found the tap right where Mark had said it would be. It was here I made my first error. When I ran the T100 I was completely out of water by Checkpoint 2. Today was much hotter and here was an opportunity to completely fill all my bottles - so why did I only refill two of them and leave the other two half full? With over 6 miles to go to the second checkpoint I was getting low on water and with over 3 miles to go I was completely out. I also don’t remember going wrong at Staines but I’m following my GPS track as I write this and something odd appears to have happened there…

On the T100 I ran into Old Windsor on the pavement by the road rather than on the Thames Path. This was mainly due to trying to pretend it wasn’t dark and not wanting to get my head torch out until I reached the second checkpoint. The result was that I almost ran straight past the checkpoint. This time I was there slightly earlier so it wasn’t dark, and I knew the path was there, so I actually ran into the checkpoint from the Thames Path as was intended. I was told I was the second runner through; the only person ahead of me was Spencer Bunn, the current leader of the T100. I realise that could be interpreted as a truly terrible ‘currant bun’ style ‘joke’ but it was entirely unintentional.

On the T100 I had filled up an additional litre water bottle at this checkpoint so I didn’t have to look for water in the night. I had the bottle with me but I made the decision not to fill it. My main bottles held 2.8 litres of water as opposed to the 2.4 litres on the T100 and I also had some hope of finding a tap near a church in 14.6 miles. Even if I didn’t I thought 2.8 litres would be just about enough, especially as I had a good drink at the checkpoint to make up for the lack of water towards the end of the leg.

Once again I had trouble finding where the path went back to the river after crossing the Albert Bridge at South Lea but I regained the path and started to see the occasional flash of a light ahead of me. After a while I realised it was Spencer. I caught up with him and he told me he wasn’t feeling great. I told him that maybe he would start to feel better as the sun had gone down and things were cooling off but unfortunately he didn’t and dropped out sometime after. I was now in front of all the other T184 and T100 runners on the road, the big question was, had I gone out too hard and was I destined for a big fall at some point later?

I quite like running through Windsor as it always seems to have a nice vibe at the time I go through. Maidenhead worries me a little more just because it’s a bit later but apart from a few fishermen I didn’t see anyone there and everything was fine.

At Cookham I realised the church was the one Mark had indicated as a water stop, ‘on brick building behind church’. I didn’t really want to be skulking round a churchyard at midnight but the Thames Path goes right through the churchyard and the church is impressively lit, so much so that I had no problem spotting the brick building or finding the tap on it. Even better, a conveniently placed bench fully illuminated by the lights meant I could easily add the Tailwind to my bottles.

A lovely church but what I liked best about it was the lights

My new head torch was very comfortable but unfortunately it doesn’t deliver a constant level of illumination as the batteries run down. By Aston it was too dim to run by and I was using my back-up torch (actually the one I used on the T100) as my main source of illumination. The Flowerpot Hotel appears to be the sum total of buildings in Aston but it does have a convenient outside light I could change my torch batteries by. It also has a dog that barked through the whole operation, great guard dog but not so much use if no one else is interested - fortunately.

With new batteries in the torch I was able to push on through the night. It was surprisingly misty at times and there was a lot of moisture around, however I reached Checkpoint Three without any incident - not that I can remember anyway. It was here that I found Ben trying to get some sleep in the camper van at the checkpoint before I turned up and woke him up. I refilled my bottles and added double Tailwind to them as I wanted to make sure my energy levels were maintained and I was drinking less in the cool of the night. The marshal (sorry, one time I will do a race and actually take the trouble to find out the names of the great people that look after me) showed me the gap to second place on the tracker, which looked like between one and two hours, decent but not enough that I could afford to be complacent if I wanted to win. Apart from anything else there was still over a hundred miles to go to the stone. I left the checkpoint and left Ben to hopefully get some sleep before the next runner came through.

Leg 4 is the shortest leg of the T100 at a mere 20 miles, only the last two legs of the T184 are shorter. It also includes the only two hills of note on either of the races and it includes the Reading Festival. Those who have had the misfortune to read my T100 blog or to have had me tell them the story personally will know that I had some trouble with the Reading Festival on the T100, as the organisers close the Thames Path overnight until 6am. Last time I had to double back from the closure and be given directions as to how to divert around said closure. As I came into Reading I looked at the time, 4am. I knew there was no point trying to get along the path so I took the previously used detour as soon as I came to the appropriate point in Reading. It took a couple of minutes of staring at the GPS and corresponding roads to make sure I was on the right route but once I was sure I was on the right road following it to Tilehurst Station was straightforward and lead to me being reunited with the Thames Path. In case anyone is wondering whether I may have actually gained a sneaky advantage, according to my map measurements the detour is actually slightly longer than the official path but only by around 0.25 miles so in the grand scheme of the T184 it was negligible – I added more than that to my run with my self-inflicted detours at the Greenwich foot tunnel and Syon Park (these weren’t the only errors in London either but they were the most stupid).

Anyway the Reading Festival had now been successfully avoided and I was back on the Thames Path. This is obviously a good thing from the point of view of actually being on track and going the right way but the path almost immediately climbs up through a housing estate before descending back to the Thames - this is the first of the ‘hills’. I didn’t really mind though as the day was starting to dawn and I was only 10 miles or so from the next checkpoint.

One of the benefits of running all night is that you get to see the sun rise
(possibly the only benefit if I'm honest)

The hills come fast and furious on the T100/T184. Well, the second hill is less than 3 miles from the first one anyway. At Whitchurch on Thames the path turns 90 degrees away from the river and climbs through the village until it eventually becomes a really pleasant undulating path through some woodland which has an overall downhill kind of inclination eventually returning to the bank of the Thames. My crib sheet indicated that there was another tap on the corner of an activity centre 15.4 miles after Checkpoint 3 but as this leg was ‘only’ 20 miles and I had run most of it in the cool of the night I had sufficient in my bottles to comfortably complete it without any intermediate stops.

Another couple of miles running saw me arrive at Streatley where Jerry Hunter met me. Jerry is the only marshal whose name I actually knew so at Checkpoint 4 there were two marshals, Jerry and Not Jerry. Sorry Not Jerry for not knowing your name.

Given I could see the checkpoint from here and Jerry is waving at me,
it's hard to work out why I was staring at the GPS so intently...

 I had arrived at Checkpoint 4, the end of the T100 about 10 minutes ahead of my time for said event in 2017. I don’t believe I was running any faster, I saved between 20 and 30 minutes by making an executive decision about my route round Reading rather than going to chat to a security guard in a deckchair before diverting. However given I still had 84 miles to go some may have been questioning whether I should have slowed down more – especially as I was ahead of all the T100 runners too. I felt I had been running at a comfortable pace, I had taken plenty of walking breaks and tried to keep my energy levels up with regular doses of Tailwind so as far as I knew I was in good shape for the remaining 84 miles. However given that Streatley marked just about exactly the furthest I had even run before I had nothing to base this assertion on other than hope. Oh well, off I go into the unknown…

The next leg was the longest at 30 miles. If you told most people you were entering a race and it was 30 miles long with no checkpoints they would probably think that was fairly hardcore. I think in many ways the fact that just one stage of the T184 would be a serious ultra on its own – and you have to run 100 miles to get to the start of it – really says a lot about what a challenging event it is. Unfortunately my crib sheet just said ‘Tap 15’ as my intermediate point as Mark had lost his notes but I wasn’t too worried as I expected to complete this leg entirely in daylight and was fairly confident I could find water on the way. What else I would find on this leg was far less expected…

At Wallingford the Thames Path leaves the riverbank for a while and goes slightly through the town, along Thames Street appropriately enough, before crossing the High Street and turning down a short lane where you turn a corner back onto the bank of the river… and see a Little Baddow Ridge Runners vest in front of you. To be clear, it is unlikely that anyone else running the T184 will have the last part of that experience but once I had stopped staring at the vest I realised Megan was inside it and Charlotte was standing next to her, both of them grinning ear to ear.

Surprise!

Although I had been posting updates on Facebook I hadn’t been able to read all the comments or I might have known they were in the area (on a houseboat, for reasons I’m not entirely clear about) and had decided this was a perfect spot to ambush me. I have never been more delighted to be ambushed than at that moment. We had a chat, took some pictures and I set off again with my spirits massively lifted.

A thorn between two roses

This leg turned out to be a great one for meeting people. About 10 miles later I met Julie and Nicki, two lovely ladies I‘d never met before but who were very interested in the event and who took the trouble to find me on Facebook afterwards to send me a congratulatory message. With all the mad, bad things going on in the world is great to know that there are some people out there who will be supportive and positive without looking for what’s in it for themselves, thanks ladies.

Shortly after I arrived at ‘Tap 15’. It turned out to be at Clifton Lock, the lock had a lock keeper on duty who was only too happy to direct me to the tap and tell me to let it run for 30 seconds before filling my bottles. Needless to say I didn’t waste the 30 seconds of water and washed my hands and splashed myself with water until I could fill my bottles and add the next doses of Tailwind.

The most completely unexpected, random, amazing encounter occurred a few miles further on at Abingdon. It was nice sunny afternoon and so there were many people enjoying the river. The path was wide and I was having no problem avoiding them as I jogged on until a lady turned to me and said ‘Are you Colin?’ Yes, but who was this, possibly a friend of someone that was tracking me? No, it was Kim. When Sharon and myself went to New Zealand one of our activities was a boat trip around the Bay of Islands. We shared the boat with (amongst others) Kim and her family, New Zealand residents but originally from Essex. We kept in touch for a while but had unfortunately lost contact until this very unlikely meeting on the banks of the Thames! We had a chat, I told her what I was doing and continued onward.

As the day wore on the temperature continued to rise. There was no shade and no breeze and so I was reduced to walking for much of the time. The walking was taking its toll on my feet and they were becoming quite sore. It was at this point that my lack of experience with sore feet became apparent. What I should have done was to stop, take my shoes and socks off and let my feet air for a while until the skin dried out a bit and became less prune like. What I actually did was wrap tape around them to try and protect them a bit. By the time I got to Checkpoint 5 at Oxford they were starting to blister and I knew that the final 54 miles were going to be a slow painful walk to the finish.

However Checkpoint 5 had a number of marshals at it (none of whom I can name, sorry guys) all of whom were amazingly supportive and wished me luck for the rest of the race. As the sun started to set I realised I was broken. I also realised that although I was broken there was no reason not to finish the race. Yes, it was going to hurt – a lot – but I wasn’t doing myself any permanent damage and the pain wasn’t completely debilitating, just annoying and reducing my love of life. The next 16 or so hours were going to test me like I had never been tested before but I was fairly sure that with the immense support I had from the people following my dot and my sheer bloody- mindedness I would kiss that stone. Just before the sun set I looked down and saw a couple of field mice playing in the grass. I’ve never seen a field mouse before and whilst in may seem an unimportant event its things like that that just make life better, especially when your feet hurt.

The intermediate water point was at Northmoor Lock. I think I got there in the daylight and I have a vague memory of a fairly obvious tap from which I filled my bottles.

I’m not entirely sure that the farmers around Oxford and beyond are big fans of the Thames Path. Anywhere it goes through a field it seemed to be either overgrown or full of cows. I crossed into a field and saw the most bizarre sight. There appeared to be a whole bunch of people in weird glowing costumes with strange green eyes moving around the field. After I stared at them for a minute or two wondering what kind of strange cult I had stumbled upon before my brain finally worked out they were cows. The eyes were reflecting in my head torch, the white markings were almost glowing, while the black parts almost vanished (they were Friesians). Unfortunately my staring had somewhat attracted their attention and I had to take a slightly circuitous route around them to avoid exciting them further.

About a mile out from my next checkpoint I saw a group of people sitting having a picnic, probably a drink or two, I don’t know. 99% of people are absolutely fine but unfortunately I am always aware of the 1% and so I tried to walk past without attracting attention to myself. Equally when a friendly sounding ‘Good Evening’ came out of the gloom I responded in kind. I then had a chat with a group of people I couldn’t see, explained what I was doing, explained why the offer of a Snickers Bar was much appreciated but I couldn’t take it (my refusal was thoroughly approved of by one member of the group at least) and went on with their good wishes accompanying me along with the information that the pub was about a mile away.

The pub seemed to have huge camping grounds and some sort of festival going on. I was less than popular with those heading back to their tents as I was walking towards them and blinding them with my head torch. Fortunately I quickly came to an oasis of (relative) calm in amongst the mayhem, Checkpoint 6, only one more checkpoint before the finish! I was offered the opportunity to lay down for a while but I felt that I was so near to the finish I just wanted to keep going. When you are running an ultra it frequently takes on its own reality into which occasionally real reality intrudes. It was at this point that the real world enquired at what point did my reality get so messed up that I was excited that there was ’only’ 29 miles to go? Anyway I left the checkpoint to take on the shortest leg of the T184.

It may have been the shortest leg but it was also the hardest and the one that came closest to breaking me. It was entirely in the dark and so I only have a series of impressions of most of it. A lot of it seemed to involve following a narrow rough path between an electric fence and some bushes beyond which I guessed was the river. I didn’t know, I didn’t care, one foot in front of the other, slowly painfully, just keep going. Gates, so many gates on this run. Pairs of gates with wooden bridges between them with impossible steps or no steps at all onto the bridge. Tracks through grass, losing tracks through grass. To be fair other stages had had most of these things but by now it was hard to do anything more than just keep moving forward. At one point I was convinced I was going round in circles and when I’d done 13 miles someone would come and fetch me and take me to the next stage.

At Inglesham, just past Lechlade the Thames Path had been improved. It used to follow the A361 for a while, a fairly fast main road. I knew there was a permanent diversion, unfortunately my GPS didn’t (nor did my map, had I got that desperate).  Fortunately there was a sign warning me of an impending footpath diversion, unfortunately I missed the actual diversion. I could see where the path used to go onto the road but I really didn’t want to go that way. This was another one of those moments where I have to thank someone else.  Chris Prevett had recced the new path and posted some pictures in the T-Series Racing Facebook group.  I thought the fence down the edge of the field I was in looked a bit like one in his pictures and so I followed it until I came to the diversion. Once I was on the diversion it was well signposted. To be honest the first bit was probably signposted too but when you are tired and its dark anything less than 20 foot high flashing neon sign saying ‘Thames Path - This Way’ is likely to be missed.

I followed the path to the final Checkpoint at Castle Eaton but before I get there I would like to say a word about hallucinations. I haven’t mentioned them so far but the second night was full of them. On the first night I only had a couple through Reading, as on the T100 everything was people. Interestingly one was the same litter bin as on the T100 and two men dancing in fluorescent jackets were actually two posts with reflectors on them when I got closer. On the second night I saw people at every gate and across every field. Along some sections I was convinced there were rows of office blocks and factories just beyond the trees (there weren’t) and at one point I was convinced I was in Spain. Fortunately when this happens about 20% (maybe less, could be only 10%) remains rational. In my mind it’s a small part at the back on the right. Anyway what this means is that I can kind of enjoy the hallucinations because I retain enough of a sense of reality that they don’t become overwhelming. People in my hallucinations make no noise, that’s how I know they are not real.

The reason for mentioning hallucinations here is because Castle Eaton was going to test me like nothing else. It is about 4 ‘o’ clock in the morning and I am seeing people everywhere and I walk into a village holding….. a scarecrow festival. I now really have no idea what’s going on, cars have started rolling backwards too, that was new one. The rational part of my brain worked out that only the scarecrows had numbers so if it had a number it was probably real. The jesters on the ‘Pick and Mix’ stall were entirely mine (a bush and a line of litter bins on closer inspection) but generally I was so confused that when Liz approached me at the checkpoint I stared very hard at her and said ‘Oh good, you’re real’. She laughed at me and enquired if I was hallucinating yet – yes thanks. I filled my bottles for the last time and hobbled off into the dark to take on the last 16 mile stage of the 2019 T184.

Actually I got about 200 yards down the road and stopped to take a large dose of painkillers and caffeine tablets to try and keep me going for the last push.

The Thames got narrower, the sky got brighter, I got slower. I went through Ashton Keynes into the water park. I tried to sleep and walk through the water park, it didn’t work. Everywhere felt uphill, I felt so slow I wasn’t sure I would ever get there. Eventually I had to have a word with myself and tell myself to stop looking at my watch all the time. I was crossing a lot of fields by now. My strategy was that I would pick my route across the field to the next gate and then I wasn’t allowed to stop or look at my watch until I got there, then do the same again.

I posted this on Facebook just to let people know I was still going and on the final leg
- I hadn't even noticed it was tempting me to go to the pub,
I must have been in worse state than I thought!

As you may have realised there were a number of points on this journey where things just happened that lifted me a crucial points, friends, strangers, sunrises, sunsets, field mice, taps, they all gave me a positive boost. I was about 5 miles from the finish and hurting a lot when I met Dorothy and her husband running along the path. They stopped to chat, told me how well I was doing and wished me luck for the last few miles. Dorothy was another one that looked me up on Facebook and sent me a very nice message afterwards.

Now it was just a case of left foot, right foot, breathe to the end. Actually another of my friends had sent me a link before the race to an article about Cliff Young, a man that won the Sydney to Melbourne ultra at the age of 61 because he just kept shuffling along while the other competitors slept. I decided that as I was already doing the not sleeping bit maybe shuffling would preserve my feet a little longer so I deliberately shuffled across the fields until I reached the A433. This is a totally straight single carriageway road along which the average speed appeared to be about 370miles per hour. My top speed by now was about 370 feet per fortnight. I had to judge my road crossing carefully but I made it.

Has anyone seen this sign? I can't find it...  (© Ben Lumley Photography)

I had looked at the finish quite a lot on Google Earth as people had said it wasn’t as obvious as one might hope. I thought it was at the back of the field against a barbed wire fence. Looking across the field all I could see was a dry stone wall, no blocks of stone, no welcoming committee. Maybe there was no welcoming committee, maybe finding the Stone was part of the challenge. My GPS told me I was in the wrong place but by now I was having trouble interpreting where it wanted me to go. This was my final moment involving random strangers. A couple approached me and said ‘are you the Running Man?’ I replied I was more of a hobbling man but I was probably the one they were talking about. They kindly pointed me to a gate in the wall and told me to go past the cows and I would be there. I thanked them profusely and went through the gate - I could see the finish!

Trying to look good at the finish  (© Ben Lumley Photography)

I also couldn’t be bothered to walk round the cows so I just shouted at them a bit and they moved. Then, just because I hate to walk over the finish line of a race, I gritted my teeth and used the last reserves of mental energy I had to run up to the Stone. I touched it, I kissed it, I kicked it for being so bloody far away, then I kissed it again.

Finished!  (© Ben Lumley Photography)

Never has a block of stone looked so good  (© Ben Lumley Photography)

I needed this  (© Ben Lumley Photography)

Artistic or what? Great picture Ben  (© Ben Lumley Photography)

Trying to look cool and composed

Liz gave me a medal and a hug, Ben took some photos for me on my phone (he’s quite good with most cameras) and they took me back down the hill to the Thames Head pub. On the way down Sharon came running up, she had been stuck in Bank Holiday traffic and so - as is traditional - had missed me finishing the race but it was still wonderful to see her again.

I really needed this  (© Ben Lumley Photography)

Once down at the pub I sat down outside Liz and Gareth’s motor home and was fed sausage rolls, pork pies, cocktails sausages, tea, beer and wine. I was offered ‘proper’ food but I love junk and after two days of Tailwind and one packet of peanuts something solid, savoury, and fatty was just heaven.

I really, really, really needed this 

We sat and chatted for a while, I was given a trophy and a t-shirt and eventually we said our goodbyes and left for the Premier Inn Cirencester, where I bathed, Sharon bandaged my feet and I hobbled down for my first meal in over two days - and some wine. At about 10:30 I went to bed and slept for the first time in over two and a half days (about 64 hours in fact). Sore, tired but also the winner of the 2019 T184, and that will last long after the soreness and tiredness has gone.

Epilogue

So one question I’ve been asked a lot is ‘would you do it again?’ My first thought had been no, just because it had come so close to breaking me I didn’t want to think I could go back and ‘tame’ the race. However since then my answer is probably yes. You can’t ‘tame’ the T184 but I can learn from my mistakes. The biggest one was my feet. I’m not used to being on them for long enough to actually have to worry about them usually. Even on the Stour Valley path 100km when an unwise shoe choice left me with bleeding ankles and blistered heels I wasn’t running for long enough for it to be totally debilitating. Obviously I can’t do better in terms of finishing position on the T184. I may not be able to be any quicker; if I could have run more would I have been walking at the end due to sheer exhaustion? Who knows? Having walked so much I was quite fresh from a cardio vascular point of view at the end. However I don’t judge my races on speed or finish position but on how ‘right’ I get it and on that basis I can’t really give myself much more than seven out of ten for this race - 50 odd miles on blisters due to bad foot management is not a good result.

However a far more important reason for doing it again is that it is a great race, well supported and superbly organised. Yes it is tough, I’ve done the Marathon Des Sables twice and I would say the T184 is tougher. However everyone involved in the race wants you to succeed. No one listened to my complaints about my blisters, they just told me how great I was and sent me off to the next checkpoint. I’m sure if I had been genuinely injured they would have pulled me out but while I was still moving everyone was willing me on.

People also keep asking me why I do these events and when I think of the reasons they all come down to the same thing - to learn. On this event I learnt that it is important to look after your feet. I learnt I can run 184 miles even if the last 50 were mainly walking. I learned I can go to some very dark and difficult places in my mind and I don’t break. I even learnt I can go 64 hours without sleep - which was a big surprise as at work I have trouble staying awake for 64 minutes. However the most amazing and humbling thing I learnt was the amount of support I have for these ventures. When I posted the tracking links I honestly expected maybe 5 people would follow me fairly closely and another 5 to 10 would have a look. I don’t know exactly how many people followed me all the way through but the number of comments and posts I saw afterwards on Facebook was truly overwhelming. Add to that people coming out to support me and even people I met on the way taking the trouble to find me and message me afterwards and I realise how lucky I am to be able to do this with that level of support. When things were hard and I was hurting I thought about all of the people following me and thought ‘I can’t give up because I couldn’t look those people in the eye and claim I’d done my best’. I know no one would have criticised me if I had dropped out but that made it all the more important to give it my best shot, not stop just because it hurt a bit. People say ultra-running is 90% mental and 10% in your head, the further you go the more true this becomes.

Anyway if you followed me through the race and have managed to read to the end of this blog I’ve taken more than enough of your time. If you’ve read this blog because you are thinking of doing the T184 then go for it, it’s a doddle after the feat of endurance you’ve just completed.

Final words (honestly), to Sharon and everyone that supported me, the win is for all of you, because without you it wouldn’t have happened, thank you.