Forest Five

This is my second 'official' run with my new club, the Bracknell Forest Runners (BFR). My first was a 5k handicap a few weeks ago, and that had been the first time I'd ever run a timed 5k.

Both went well. The previous 5k had been a PB by definition because it was a first.

The Forest Five, which I ran last night, was also a PB. This came only two days after my final run last weekend with my old running club at Endure24.



Here I am in my new club running shirt, having just completed the race and the run back home.  Here's how it went:

We all met at The Lookout, which is where I've also started three previous Sunday runs with the BFRs, usually doing the 8:30 or 9 min/mile options with some seasoned BFR trail runners.  Last night was a bit of a different feeling because members of several different clubs were present, this being a proper race.  I'd guess at least a couple of hundred people were there to race.

GPS ankle bracelets strapped on, and numbers pinned, we walked out into the forest, along those 'little' hills that characterised the end of the handicap race I mentioned above, hitting the start line at the crest of maybe the third one.

Just a small intimate gathering of runners chatting very socially, this was a really relaxing way to start a race. My previous experience with similar sized races had been my Surrey League XC competitions the previous year, in which (as I explained to another BFR Forest Five racer at the Start Line with me) the mood had been much more aggressive and pushy.

This is a really nice change for me and I anticipated a very chilled out race start, regardless of how things might go later. They set up the GPS tracking strips beneath the start line and within minutes I heard the countdown start. The more competitive runners moved forward and lined up.

We surged en masse along the forest road and after the first mile I started passing people.  This continued for me all the way to the finish line.  I was passed once, right at the very end.  Here's a Strava map of my race:



The tracks we ran along were quite varied, and as it had just rained about an hour previously, there was a nice sloppy feeling underfoot to make just that bit much more fun. I passed people along narrow single-track strips, smacking the broom and the pine with my arms and face just to get a little extra 'scrub' from the forest.  It's like I was communing with it.

It never felt forced, and this felt like my easiest PB ever.  I think having done a near (but much more challenging) PB at Endure must have helped.

We came down a long sandy section, and another long gravelly one, and then we hit the final downhill stride, and I started on a sub-6 mile pace down to the end.  It felt like flying.  I passed that one guy, and then he passed me, and then it was all over.

My medal flashed passed and I grabbed as I rapidly decelerated.  A goodie bag, a banana, and a fun chat about my upcoming Race to the Stones (with an outside racer who is doing the Tower in the same series) ensued.

I started my watch again after a little walk, and ran home to show my wife my new medal.

Endure 24 2019

[Note: Since signing up for Endure 2019 back in the autumn of 2018 we've moved to Bracknell permanently and I now run with Bracknell Forest Runners. In my next race, Race to the Stones, and in subsequent races, I'll be sporting the BFR running shirt/logo.]

***

I ate a lot, I ran a lot, I slept very little.

It was Endure 24 again, and I was composing stories in my head to keep myself awake at 2am. The faint coals of a neglected fire pulsed and glowed in the empty ring of camp chairs.  I pulled myself out of my tent where I had been nestled, fully clothed in hoodie, running gear, trousers and jacket under my sleeping bag and extra blanket.  A thin rain was just starting to spit.  My fifth run was coming up.

Unzipping the tent fly my legs trembled and I stumbled to get up to standing position. An unshakeable stiffness, my left calf and ankle making themselves known, my right hamstring announcing its presence, but none of it anything like an oncoming injury.  Just the evidence of the four runs that had come before.  I'd done each of them in under 40 minutes, with a round 1 time of 34:59.

But this second upcoming night run would be interesting.  I had a moonset and a pre-sunrise to accompany, and sounds of the very first birds waking followed me round the hills, the mud, the Rock & Roll cabin, past the Red Bull refreshment stand, up Heartbreak Hill, across the glow in the dark roots and fairy spirals, down the slippery hill and around.

At the end of each 5 mile lap is a handover spot where you give a small plastic wristband to your team-mate for them to continue accumulating laps for your team. It doesn't stop: there's always a member of your team running.  This year, with a 5-man (I now run with Bracknell Forest Runners, but signed up for the race back in 2018 when I still lived in Egham, see the note at the start of this post) team we managed 35 laps averaging 42 minutes each.

Walking into camp just after 4am I placed a long inflatable tiger outside the next-plus-one runner's tent door and quite audibly announced that I had returned and that his delivery was ready for his own handoff in about 35 minutes.

My second night run, and my fifth lap overall, took me 52 minutes, a big jump from my previous set of under 40s.  The hour nap I'd had had done something to my legs, making them stiff and leaden.

The sunrise came, not brightly, but with a hint of a beam now and then.  I caught rain showers through both of my final two runs, but it rained very little when I was at camp.  The sensation of running through the forest, with water streaming across your body, ensconced in a stream of fellow runners, with mud splatting the backs of your legs and gravel crunching around corners and through hills is pretty amazing.

Once you get your head of steam it's hard to stop.  I even started walking up the hills, getting a little more feedback from the runners in my immediate vicinity.  There is a serendipity, an element of chance to the aspect of with whom you'll find yourself running at any given moment.  A glance, a sign, a slight movement left or right gives acknowledgement of the other's presence, that you're giving way, or that you want to push through.

That's what characterised my first four rounds, was passing pretty much every single person on my horizon. It was an empowering feeling, smashing the speed barrier, whooshing down hills without holding back, only being passed a total of four times in four laps.

Then the final three, being passed in turn by at least as many as I passed, seeing that urgency amassed in all those competitive bodies hoping their own team will move up in the rankings.

We finished twelfth overall, out of 52 teams (see http://www.chipresults.co.uk/live24/index.aspx?cat=3M&eventId=30 ). This despite my own sense of dragging at the end. Maybe it was the two bacon/egg rolls; tub of yogurt; massive hamburger; tuna/pasta salad; half-liter of kefir; four Lucozades; and countless other small bits of food that contributed to the later sluggishness: I actually gained weight by the end of the weekend. In this respect I think it's quite different from running a marathon: you have loads of time to eat and recuperate.

But mentally, in some ways it's much harder than a marathon because you have time to stop and think, to get down, to question yourself and not want to do it.  This is what makes doing more than five laps a tiny bit 'ultra'. And it's why, in my opinion, walking can be much more part of the equation in a good performance than in a marathon (though of course walking in a marathon is perfectly fine too).  It's just that in an ultra you kind of have to factor in a bit of walking, even if it's just a small amount.

It's done for another year. How soon we forget the pain, the boredom, the indigestion.  How vividly the people, the camaraderie, the sun and moon did (and still do) shine.