Chiltern Wonderland 50 miler 2025

Coming out of Ibstone Aid Station on the CW50 course

It seems like every time I run a new race I say right afterwards that it was the best run of my life but I believe it to be true because I believe in constant improvement.  And indeed I am certain that my skill as an ultra-runner has improved a lot since last ran a really long ultra, from my first 100km non stop last year, to my unsuccessful attempts at the 100 mile distance, incorporating all the learnings from those races. 

So: I lubed up.  I layered the lube under my pits and in between the buttocks and down between the legs.  I used the Body Glide blue bar, with Squirrel's Nut Butter or Body Glide cream toppings.  I know that sounds weird but when you consider that the reason I DNF'd my NDW100 attempt this year was chafing, then you see how I must learn from that to avoid a similar outcome this year.

The other thing that worked brilliantly this year, and that does include lube-based insight and learnings, was my foot strategy.  My feet were perfect.  As I said when I got home on the Saturday night after finishing CW50 in under 12 hours: "my feet are in mint condition."  They were!  I hadn't tied my laces too tight (learning 1), and I lubed my toes into Injinji ultra crew socks and my Hoka Mafate X gravel trails cruisers.

I mean, my feet were brilliant.  The other thing is: my pole didn't break.  The Leki poles have now outlasted the Black Diamond ones by over a year.  They held up through multiple stumbles over roots in this race, mostly at the end in the dark when we were approaching Goring. 

The poles saved my legs and 'edged it' through as one Aussie put it when I passed him a mile from the finish line.  I could tell at the end, as my whole body was sore, not just the lower half, with effort distributed across the shoulders, core and whole upper body.  As other runners do, I maintain an intense focus on the ground, never losing sight of the trail immediately in front of my feet over 11 hours and 56 minutes of effort.  As soon as you do, you fall.  And I didn't fall, so thank you poles!

The weather was as close to perfect as possible.  We were at around 17C but it was humid, until it wasn't.  The rain never came either, but we got smatterings of droplets and a shower, followed by a cooling wind, that blew away my mid-race sag.  The other boost I got came in the form of running company and chat as I grouped together with some other runners who accompanied me through the last 3 aid stations and just helped to pass the time away.  Thanks to Ian Cragg especially.

I ran through a hornet's nest and got stung 7 times.  This was just before the iconic windmill, and well before the Ibstone aid station.  It was a bit demoralizing, and I was feeling a bit low after passing Ibstone (over halfway) when it was hot, but then just after that I joined Ian et al, and things picked up.  

Running Grim's Ditch was magical and transcendent, and by then things were both cool and brilliantly sunny.  I mean, it doesn't get ANY better than this in life, feeling like you're floating, flowing along the trails easily (mind you at a 13 min/mile pace, but still: it's running!), pushing through the Ridgeway where you've had epic races over years gone by, knowing the terrain yet seeing as though for the first time and running better than you've ever run before.  

Coming around the end of Grim's Ditch there was another short rain burst, the last one, and it was backlit by a gorgenous late afternoon sun over the fields of dreams.  The wind burst through like a cold sunblast both energising and cooling at the same time. We hit that last aid station and I had saved my Cokes for the last half of the race: another learning.  Reward yourself at the end of a race with a caffeine/sugar hit of coke and wash it down with watermelon.  So incredibly refreshing!  I kept taking the gels too, every half hour like clockwork, and this kept the legs supple, moving, flowing.

I paced out the setting sun, following a headlamp up the rows of wheat in the fading light, down onto the darkening trails at the edge of town.  The edge of darkness ate slowly away at the orange/blue/yellow/purple fading bruise and I just fed myself along those rooty trails into town as the light finally faded at the finish line. I got cheered in and finish the perfect run of a lifetime, around the back of the Goring community hall and into the warm embrace of the Centurion Team and my big shiny reward: a medal and hot cup of tea.  

I shook Ian's hand and said thank you and goodbye (he's sped 5 minutes ahead of me to improve by an hour on his previous year's time), to go find Diane and a cheeseburger.  We went home and watched Strictly and I told stories the whole way home.