South Downs Way 50km 2025

It was my hardest ever effort by a long way, last Saturday, with a score of 565 (my previous highest being the London Marathon in 2022 at 481) on Strava.  But in terms of PERCIEVED effort, the South Downs Way 50km felt much easier than London.  I think the difference is entirely explainable by social and mental factors.  Runs feel easier when you run with people, and when you feel part of a community.  With Centurion, having now run two of their races and volunteered at one (and registered to volunteer at another), I'm starting to feel like part of the community.  I saw people at SDW50km with whom I'd managed kitchen orders at the Thames Path 100 miler just a few weeks before.  This isn't only a competitive thing, as many of those people are much faster than me.  And part of competition is collaborative in the sense of holding each other to a higher standard, and this held true during this race.

The race conditions were perfect as well, with 20C and fair weather clouds mixed with blue and a beautiful tailwind that stripped residual heat away from my body. 

I had the good fortune of being cheered on by Diane during this race; and I also got to run with Rik, Nic, and Paul of Bracknell Forest Runners (an award-winning team!) for some of the time, and we had some good chats.  

My time was decent, IMHO, in part because I didn't spend more than 2 minutes at any aid station.  

I drank a litre of Naak Ultra Boost Drink (60g carbs) and a litre of Tailwind, with a half litre of Coke and a litre of water to keep me going through four mid-race aid stations.  There was one available drinking water tap as well where I topped up the water. I ate sausage rolls and sandwiches in small quantities as well as a couple of slices of watermelon.

Gels consumed included three Precision Hydration fueling gels picked up along the way (30g carbs each); one Gu gel picked up at Aid 1; two Science in Sport 40g carb gels and two Naak ultra boost 25g carb gels and a Naak maple syrup 200 calorie gel.  High carb fuelling continues to get the job done.

The results are here . It is interesting to note that I was passing people the ENTIRE WAY, and you can see this as I progress from 241-->238-->213-->194-->176 by the end.  Nobody passed me in this race except for that one person right at the end! I passed 65 people, which is a great way to run a race, mentally speaking.  

It is my favourite ultra running course, and I will run this race as many times as I can in future years.  Every year. 

Beat the Sunset 2025

 

Yesterday I did the 50km Beat the Sunset race in Maidenhead as a kind training fun for another 50km and subsequent 100miler coming up later in the summer.  I think I paced it right and nailed the nutrition because today (a day later) I am recovered and have done a 5 mile easy recovery run.  

The course covered areas around Maidenhead, Cookham, Eton and Taplow, and was easily one of the most beautiful ultra courses I've ever experienced, which I was seriously not expecting.  It was mostly flat and mostly along the river, but it seemed that around every corner was an endless wheat-field expanse fading off into a horizon filled with lush forests and blue skies.  It epitomises what Theresa May described as her 'fields of wheat' childhood idyl (and which until yesterday I viewed skeptically).  I mean it seriously challenges the imagination as to how they fit so much wild beauty into that quandrangle of space between roughly Windsor and Maidenhead and the area just to the north.  

I had energy and strength throughout this race, and did not go off too fast.  I maintained pace through scorching heat by drinking a lot, and by refilling my bottles only after draining them twice.  Even then I found I was dry by the next aid station.  The stations were extremely well spaced, coming in at 10km, but with the last one somehow only 7.5km from the finish (so nice when you're tired at the end of a 50km not to have to do 5-6 miles, but only just over 4). 

Because this was a training run I tried (unsuccessfully) to keep to my 100mile pace (for my upcoming North Downs Way 100miler coming up on 9 Aug 2025), which would have put me finishing between 7 and 8 hours.  Instead I finished in 6.5, in part because I read my watch wrong.  It gave my a cumulative, instead of current, lap pace, and it was consistenly below 8min/km.  I read it as thinking that I was currently running sub 8min/km, when in actually that was my average, which included my 4 minute walking breaks.  It was a run walk effort of 11min run/ 4 min walk, meaning that my run segments must have all been well below 7min/km.  In a hundred mile effort I literally NEVER run that fast.

Anyway, it was a good training run, and it was even splits.  It was a good training run for my upcoming 50km with Centurion Running in two weeks on the South Downs way because my increased pace also increased my effort on this flat course, mimicing what will be an increased effort in two weeks due to the upcoming race having significantly more (4500feet) elevation than the one I did yesterday (only 500feet).  The hills on Beat the Sunset were pretty easy and nonetheless I walked them, and ran all the downhills (as one is supposed to do in ultras, according to unwritten rules of the ultra-running world).

I sped along passing the people the whole way (after the initial waves cleared and adjusted), and had a strong finish easily beating the sunest by just under 3 hours).  I saw several other Bracknell Forest Runners, all of whom appeared to have a great day despite the heat.  I certainly enjoyed myself and often achieved flow or a zone-out daydream state of mind (whichever one you choose to call it).  I would definitely do this one again!

Postscript: You can. see me running with poles, which I went back and forth on before the race.  I'm so glad I went with poles, and I'm pretty sure I was the only one in the race to do so.  I am sure they helped me run faster and stronger and more consistently, and added to the pleasure of the day.

Nutrition included 2 SisSport 40g carb gels; and 2 Naak Ultra Boost 25g carb gels; 8 mini sausage rolls; 2 bottles of Tailwind and 2 bottles of Naak Ultra Boost 60g carb drink; 2 bottles of Coke; and several bottles of water or over 2 gallons of liquid.

Ultra Trail Snowdonia 25km 2025

 

It was another sunny day in Wales, with the UTMB event pumping out the music at full volume on the start line through a weekend of racing.  Distances ranged from 25km (my race) to 100miles.  I wisely chose the shortest distance, a sub-ultra distance in what is an ultra-running event.  In terms of effort and sustained heart rate (and elevation) over time, this 15mile run was as hard as the 100km (62mile) run I did last year.  A run of only a quarter the distance hit me as hard something four times as long.  

We ran out of Llanberis in 3 waves (I was in the first), and headed straight up to Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon), which has a gradient often going up to 25%.  It took me 1.5 hours to reach the top, and another hour to get to the bottom on the other side where the first aid station was.  By comparison the first time I walked up Snowdon 10 years ago we took a leisurely 7 hours round trip.   But I'm in much better shape now.  So, after 2.5 hours on the trail I finally got to re-fill my bottles (switching from Tailwind to a weak-solution Naak) at the pump-up-the-music UTMB aid station in the quaint village at the bottom of the Rhyd Du trail from Yr Wyddfa summit.

That hour descent was one of the toughest segments of running I've ever done.  Tripping (and falling) was a constant hazard as the loose boulder and stone-step field of play was often loose, and always uneven.  Many people fell coming down, or twisted ankles, or suffered dehydration.  I avoided all the worst case scenarios, including not falling off a cliff, because there's one section along which a foot-wide trail perches along the top of a several hundred foot drop-off that I'd seen on a video a few days early, and that was only worse in person.  Using my poles to tap my way along the top of the cliff face (along a dragon's back spiny ridge 3000 feet in the sky) at one point it was so narrow that one of my pole taps missed the trail, and tapped off into the void.  Luckily I hadn't leaned too hard on that iteration, and quickly recovered my balance. Meanwhile the waves behind me (waves 2 and 3) were running along the spiky edge inclined to my left, whizzing past but not quite bumping me.  There's no way in hell that segment could come anywhere close to passing a health & safety review.  I honestly don't know why it's open to the public.

So, I cleared my worst fear (heights) quite full of courage and driven by the sheer need to just get down and by the time I got past the worst of it my knees and quads were screaming, rubbery and just plain unreliable feeling as I got down to somewhat more even and level pathways (it's all relative because there's really nothing even or level there).  What followed was typical Wales: often very boggy and muddy even on what should be dry sunny hillsides.  The water is constantly seeping out of everything, and it was as we ascended another pass, and gently descended down to Llanberis. 

Meanwhile we had to cross back over the valley and then navigate back into town along the paved road to the 'finish line' which is a long 1km section that lasts forever because you're right next to the finish line but you have to curl back around (as with so many ultras).  

My effort rating was 300 over 15 miles, as measure by Strava, and I maintained zone 4 heart rate close to 150 for the entirely, often going up to 170 or more.  My nutrition was 1 liter of water, 1 liter of Naak, and 1 liter of Tailwind, wtih 3 precision gels, 2 orange slices and 2 banana segments.  My preparation of trail tempo, hill reps, and weekend long runs with elevation worked well for this race.   It was well worth it, and I would absolutely sign up again!