Marlborough Downs Challenge race report

Distance: 33 miles (advertised), 32.34 (measured)
Time: 04:55:28
Terrain: trail
Ascent / descent: +2153’ / -2106’
Pace: 9:08 (avg.), 7:55 (fastest), 12:19 (slowest)
Position: tbc (results not out yet)

Marlborough is a lovely historic market town which spreads down the south side and into the bottom of a south downs valley. It is the home of Marlborough School, a rather more well-to-do affair than Greenfaulds High School in Cumbernauld where a large number of protestant (or non-denominational) essentially Glaswegian kids have been educated, yours truly included. They play cricket and wear suits at Marlborough. Not so at Greenfaulds. In fact so much so I had no idea that anyone played cricket at all in Scotland but apparently they do, just not in Cumbernauld. I was quite disturbed when I learned that some Scots play cricket and it still doesn’t sit well with me. Cricket!?

Marlborough College (from http://www.geograph.org.uk/)

Marlborough is also the home of the Marlborough running club who organise the Marlborough Downs Challenge, a race with a 20 mile and a 33 mile route. The 33 mile ultra route is a cracker – fairly fast for an ultra with a mixture of grassy field, forest trail, chalky downland trail and canal towpath. Very historic too as it takes in the Saxon Wansdyke and the ancient Avebury stone circles. I ran it last year, got a little lost and ended up adding on a mile, but thoroughly enjoyed it. Like last year it is part of the ultra-champs series so attracts a fairly competitive field, including some members of the Vasque ultra team and some other gnarled, very prominently calf muscled chaps.

I got up at 5:45am, sneaking down the stairs so as not to wake our daughter and was out the door and on the way by just before 6:30am. The roads are clear at that time so the drive past Oxford to Swindon then south was easy going and took about 1.5 hours.

The 33 milers head off at 9am, followed by the 20 milers at 10am giving us the 33 milers a head start and an opportunity to catch some of the 20 miler field on the final 6 miles before the finish. Dave Waterman had trashed his legs on a 6 mile run a few days before the race and was being perhaps uncharacteristically sensible and texted me to say he wasn’t turning up, leaving me to go aar. I decided nobody else would understand why I was going aaar so said it once or twice quietly before shutting up.

I did however meet one WHWR’er, Shirley Colquhoun at the start before all of a sudden the starting horn parped and we were off through the ground of Marlborough School to the first climb of the day. A hundred feet or so straight up a steep grassy slope after a few hundred metres of running (look at me interspacing imperial and metric). I was in the front 6 runners as we puffed our way up the steep slope but dropped back a few places as we ran the first mile or so along the top of the down through some fields towards the first checkpoint at the edge of a forested section.

To get to this checkpoint we needed to cross diagonally across and down a sloping field. I began running down and heard a thundering galloping noise. Lifting my head from looking at where my feet were going I watched a largish heard of around 60-100 young bulls stampeding away from the very front runners. I didn’t think much of it but they began ever so slightly to turn back in on themselves towards the fence with the front runners. Oh aye I thought, what are they doing? They continued turning and slowing until they almost stopped then began speeding up again, curving ever more in my direction. Oh dear, that’s a heck of a lot of beef tonnage with a lot of momentum heading increasingly towards me I thought. Some of the other runners were at the fence and trying to get as quickly as possible to the stile over. I changed direction and made for the fence thinking that a bit of vaulting action might be required as the high velocity beef stampede bore down upon me. They curved even further back in on themselves and thankfully away from direct intercept course with me then stopped. A lone bull stood apart from the herd and lunged at a runner ahead of me. Hmm I thought, not so good and headed for the fence again. The runner evaded and got to the stile, The lunging bull seemed happier and rejoined the mass which milled about a bit as I ran along the fence to the stile and was over, to the checkpoint then into the forest.

Cow trying to look innocent

The forest trail was much more pleasant than last year when, as a result of heavy rain there was a lot of heavy clay mud. Not so this year, only a little mud but nothing to get bogged down in.

I met a chap with a peaked cap and a rucksack in the woods and started chatting. He was going steadily at 8 min/miles or so, and I wanted to try keeping this pace up for as long as possible so kept with him. We exchanged some race stories, me about the Fling and him about the Manx Mountain Marathon, an ultra I’d love to do – 31 odd miles almost the length of the Isle of Man with 8000’ or so of ascent. The social aspect of ultra running is great, I can’t think of any other sport where the competitors have such camaraderie.

West Woods nr. Marlborough (http://www.geograph.org.uk/)

After a mile or so of woodland we broke out onto the downs and started the long, very scenic stretch of the race along the Saxon Wansdyke to Devizes. The path follows the edge of the Downs escarpment so you get a great view north and south over rolling green, very pleasant land. We ran on together and were joined by a first time ultra runner, Matt, who was starting to train for his MdS place in 2010!

View from the Downs (http://www.geograph.org.uk/)

The run was pretty uneventful but enjoyable to Devizes although I could feel my legs were beginning to feel like they’d run 20 odd miles by mile 14. I wondered how the legs would cope, given that this race was only 3 weeks after the 53 mile Fling. It looked like they’d feel as if they’d run much further. Compared to last year, when this my 3rd ever ultra though my legs felt strong. This race was ultra number 9 for me, the WHWR in June will be ultra number 10.

I continued to run and talk with Matt whilst the peaked cap chap slowly peeled away – I didn’t think I could sustain his pace, which was about 7:50/mile so didn’t bother. The rutted tracks back towards Avebury went past quite quickly compared to last year when I really felt it and had to keep stopping and walking for bits and before I knew it I had reached the stone circle and the last 5-6 odd miles.

Avebury Stone Circle (www.geograph.org.uk)

Matt and I were still together when the peaked cap chap approached behind – he’d screwed up the navigation and must have run an extra mile or so to get back on track. I did this last year so felt for him, he would have run a cracking race if it were not for this. He slowly peeled away again, running very consistently and I decided to try not to let him out of sight. This meant I slowly peeled away from Matt on the climb out of Avebury and he didn’t catch up. I got to the last checkpoint about 30 seconds behind the peaked cap chap who started off just as I arrived. I quickly stuffed a jaffa cake and some jelly babies in, took a cup of water and asked how long to go. 3 miles came the reply. What!? Great, I thought it was 4 miles or more left. I looked at the watch and saw I had almost 30 mins left on the clock – a sub-5 time was on.

I quickly ran off, only a few hundred metres behind peaked cap chap and tried to up the pace. My legs weren’t having it. I could only get to 8:30 / mile or a bit under. No chance at 7 min / miles. Bummer, but sub-5 was still on.

Peaked cap chap ever so slowly started peeling away so I upped the pace a bit but struggled and he started peeling away a little more. I kept him in sight though and was feeling on a real high, knowing sub-5 was almost definitely in reach. I had already passed a few 20 mile route runners and passed another who had had it. He was walking so I started encouraging him as a I ran past, saying it was less than a mile to go and he could do it no bother, and he started up again. Great!

Peaked cap chap was still in sight as I turned the penultimate corner into the dipped field. He was climbing out of the dip as I ran quickly down into it, and was out of sight by the time I crested back out. I upped the pace a little more reaching 7:30/mile by the penultimate bend, then the final straight to the finish line. Upping further I almost got to 7 min/mile pace before crossing the line. Peaked cap chap was there, trembling a bit. He’d run a great race, so consistent in pace and still beaten me even with a few extra miles. I came in a minute behind him, at 4:55 by my reckoning, although the official results aren’t out yet.

I didn’t hang around too long as I have, yes Debbie you guessed it, a baby daughter to take care of. ;-)

My bottles of Fuller’s finest London Pride went down very well that night. Mmmm.