For anyone that looks at this and decides TL:DR, a summary:
I entered a race, lockdown happened, the race still managed to go ahead, I got injured, ran anyway, it was great. Now my leg is really swollen.
For those that have some time and a cup of strong coffee to hand this is the long version...
I entered the SVP100 way before anyone had heard of Covid-19. It would be my sixth time at the race and whilst I know many people don't like repeating races too much I like the SVP100 because it is very well organised, very friendly and a nice route. It also takes me out of my comfort zone as most races I enter are ~50km and/or multiday, 100km in one hit is quite different for me.
Obviously once C-19 hit and we went into lockdown races were being cancelled on a regular basis. To his credit Matthew Hearne remained relentlessly optimistic about the SVP races right through lockdown and appeared to be constantly planning what would need to happen to be able to stage the races. I loved his optimism but I must admit I found it hard to share it as more and more races fell victim to lockdown.
On the 11th of July an email was sent out to confirm the race had its permit and various aspects (start, finish and checkpoints - which is most of the race really) would be modified to comply with social distancing. The biggest changes were that there would be a 'rolling' start and face coverings and hand sanitiser would be compulsory at checkpoints.
As the day got nearer and more information was sent out I got more and more excited that I was going to get to run my first race for months and only my second in 2020. The obvious thing to do was to rest and get to the start line in tip-top condition. I don't do 'nothing' very well and anyway a nice easy 6 mile run with friends two days before the race wouldn't hurt would it? Well yes, quite a lot after an encounter with a hole in the ground led to my calf making an audible popping noise which led to Sharon having to bring the car round as near as she could get to me and me having to be helped back to said vehicle. One of the people I was running with was a physio. I won't name her as she may not wish to be associated with my stupidity but she knows me very well and so didn't immediately tell me there was no way I would be running on Saturday. Instead we discussed ice, compression, elevation and optimal loading.
Friday involved a lot of all those things! By Friday evening I could almost walk without hobbling and tried jogging up and down the living room. I managed to convince myself that my calf felt better jogging than walking. To put this in perspective, in the past I have convinced myself that ice cream and black pepper are OK served together at a restaurant, that the Morris Marina wasn't a terrible car and that a bottle or two of red wine is good carb loading for a race the next day. I still believe the last one. There was still 12 hours to go until the start so I decided to forego the red wine but pack my race kit and drop bag just in case something miraculous happened overnight. I included my poles in my race kit just in case I made it far enough through the race that I would have time to limp to the finish if things went (even more) wrong.
Although I managed to convince myself things were better by morning an overnight miracle had, rather predictably, not happened. However having woken up at 5:15, and more importantly woken Sharon up at 5:15, I wasn't going to rule myself out just yet so I put on my running kit - complete with calf guards, I hoped they would help - grabbed some bars and sports drink for the journey and off we went, but was I just postponing the inevitable?
The race check-in was very different. For a start it wasn't a check-in, numbers had been sent out in advance, it was just bag-drop and a toilet stop - quite different to the usual buzz and banter in the hall while everyone is waiting for the race briefing. However neither the bag drop or toilet was a problem, and I’m now one step nearer to starting...
However getting to the start involved several steps slightly up hill from the hall to the start point and I'd be lying if I said they were the most comfortable steps I'd ever taken. I stopped to stretch my calf and tried to pretend it was now fine but I still wasn't totally sure if I should start. There was no issue with deciding if it was a good idea or not, I was way past that point, even I couldn't make a case for it being a good idea, the question was really, could I run 100km with a damaged calf? Sharon was walking up with me and said if I wanted to give it a go she would hang around for a while so that if I decided it was a no-go early on she could pick me up. The first mile and half roughly is alongside the A1304 so if it quickly became obvious I couldn't run she could easily rescue me. My other thought was that the cut-off for the first checkpoint is not over-generous, it doesn't require fast running but it does really require running rather than walking. I reckoned if I could get to the first CP inside the cut-off without using my poles (part of the first leg is along Devil's Dyke, an SSSI, where poles are not permitted and anyway I didn’t want to be relying on poles too soon) then I might stand a chance.
At the start I met Gin Lawson who was taking time off from 'Gin's Running Stitch' (check it out if you want custom racewear or imaginative things done with race t-shirts) to volunteer at the start and measure competitors’ temperatures before they were allowed to start. She measured mine, pronounced it OK and soon suggested I should stop chatting and start running - this was it, I was no longer a DNS but could I avoid the dreaded DNF?
I was mainly concentrating on not limping and trying to run normally to avoid aggravating some other part of my body rather than worrying about pace and after about half a mile I found that I could run with more of a dull, nagging ache than limp inducing pain so I considered that a success.
After Devil’s Dyke there are some very nice easy to run sections and I started to actually enjoy myself. I was slightly worried when I passed Adam Jones as I thought he was starting at 6:00. I started at 7:20 so this didn’t seem to bode well for his chances of reaching CP1 before cut-off. Fortunately there had been a delay with the coaches from the finish to the start and so he had started at 7:00, only 20 minutes before me.
I arrived at CP1 in an hour and fifty-three minutes according to my watch, very comfortably inside the cut-off of two and a half hours. The checkpoint was different but still very friendly, the main difference was the requirement to wear a face covering (I just pulled my Buff up) and use hand sanitiser. I had no objection to the hand sanitiser in principle, it was just hat in practice it made my hands very slippery and so opening my Tailwind was tricky! Fortunately someone saw my predicament and cut the top off the packet with scissors for me.
The leg from CP1 to CP2 passed without incident - except for the mud. Dry weather, harvest and some torrential downpours had combined to leave the field crossings extremely muddy and I was arriving at the other side several inches taller and finding out how the world would look if I was average height. Also in previous years when we all started together I would have been one of the first 20-30 people across the field. This year 50-100 people had already been across so the mud had been well and truly churned up!
CP2 to CP3 was similarly fine. CP3 had moved from the cricket pitch to the High Street but the volunteers waved enthusiastically to attract my attention and I didn’t miss it.
A couple of miles after CP3 at Long Melford the Stour Valley Path joins the Valley Trail along a disused railway. This is also where the SVP50 joins the path. As I was running a long I saw a familiar figure wearing a t-shirt (Little Baddow Ridge Runners) much like mine - by complete coincidence I met up with Sharon!
We ran together to the next checkpoint with me just about keeping up with her. We continued to run and chat to checkpoint 5 (or 2 for the SVP50). This one had also moved but there were plenty of people pointing us in the right direction. It was also a good move to have put the checkpoint in a bigger space as there were a lot of runners sorting themselves out and refuelling ready for the last 13 miles or so. The race medic, Lindley Chambers saw us leave and told us we were looking good. I had seen Lindley at the start but I deliberately avoided him in case he started asking awkward medic type questions about why I was about to start a 100km race with a significant injury…
Not long after the checkpoint you leave Nayland via Gravel Hill. This is without doubt, by a significant margin, my least favourite part of the course. I can’t run all the way up it, it’s too boring to walk all the way up so I end up alternating running and walking in a kind of hopeless ‘surely this must be over soon’ sort of way. Sharon wisely told me to get on with it and she would see me at the finish so I ran on ahead.
The last two legs always seem longer than they really are to me but once I was at CP6 I knew I was going to make it even with the detour to avoid the Fen Bridge which was closed. I had less than 5 miles to go and about four or five hours to do it in and my poles were still in my pack. Eventually the slightly ant-climatic section along the road to Cattawade came into view - at least this year the hedges had been cut and it was possible to run along the pavement until the turn into the picnic area. I met a marshal at the road crossing who confirmed the finish was where it always was. This was good, I’d got it right four times out of the previous five…
I finished in 11 hours 46 minutes and 8 seconds and 22nd place overall, 19th male and 4th in my age group. Amazingly, given I wasn’t sure I’d finish at all, this was my third fastest time! The finish was inevitably less exuberant than usual. There was much applause and cheering as I finished but I was invited to pick up a medal from the table as opposed to the usual having it hung round my neck and getting a hug from Nicola-Anne. However some things didn’t change and Steve Kjar instantly presented me with my bag and got me some tea! I was very pleased to see Jackie Stretton at the finish. We had been messaging each other the day before as I had my dodgy calf (did I mention that before I this report?) and she had a dodgy knee. We both carried poles, both didn’t use them and both ended up with enormous rubs on our backs from them.
Sharon finished only about 10 minutes later and joined us in a heap on the grass. Adam finished sometime later after Sharon and I left having stayed with a first time ultra-runner who had got lost to make sure he finished, typical of Adam and fortunately typical of many ultra-runners.
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| Post-race relaxation |
So I finished, I have the medal, I’m being sent a t-shirt and I have a left calf 3cm bigger than the right. Was running the right thing to do? No, of course not, I was very lucky and hopefully haven’t done too much damage - it’s hard to tell when It’s so swollen. Do I regret it? Not yet. Would I do it again? Well I think three of my six SVP100s have been done with some sort of injury, although this was by far the worst, so probably yes. If so many races hadn’t been cancelled already I might have been more inclined to not start but I suspect I would still have done it. I’ll probably be back next year but hopefully fully fit and able to run properly!
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| Not quite normal - bit like the owner |
Thanks to Matthew Hearne for his determination to put his race on when so many were cancelling theirs and of course thanks to all the volunteers and marshals who adapted so well to the very different circumstances but still made it the enjoyable friendly race it has always been. Thanks to Sharon for her unwavering support as always, even when I am doing something beyond unwise. I leave the last word to my anonymous physio - “Remember that conversation we had about optimal loading? 60 miles is not optimal loading!"
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| It was worth it |
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