And I don’t care for reality, it’s better to pretend.
“Come and run round my Island” he said, on 19th May 2023.” You’ll love it”. “It” being a 107km (officially) lap of the Isle of Wight, with 1800 metres of climbing.
I’d never run over 85kms, and Alison had done one 100km race back in 2016, declaring afterwards that she was never doing THAT again. “No”, we both said, firmly. “Don’t be so bloody ridiculous. Not only is it a very long way, it’s also on an island and I don’t do boats.”
So anyway, here we are, 2 weeks post-race. My internal organs have mostly returned themselves to their rightful place and my brain is firing on enough cylinders to managed short bursts of joined up thinking, so here, in all its pristine glory, is my opinion of the Isle of Wight Ultra Challenge.
This is, as Alison remarked the week before, more of an Event than a race. We were doing the full, continuous circuit of the island, but there were options to do the full circuit over two days, just the first or second half, any of the four quarters, a new three quarter challenge and, this year for the first time, a cross island challenge from top to bottom. It’s a massive piece of organisation, with thousands of runners and walkers involved. And the exact opposite of what I would normally go for. Low key, mountainous and self-supporting is much more my bag.
Nonetheless, Mike – the “He” of the first sentence – a colleague of Alison’s, friend of mine and long time IOW resident, kept chipping away at us until we finally relented, mainly for a bit of peace and quiet.
The Great Relenting saw us both arrive on the IOW on Thursday afternoon, ready for 4 nights in that well known hotbed of vice, the Newport Premier Inn. As Newports go, it’s about as inspiring as my local Newport, but possibly with less fake tan. But it does boast a great Filipino restaurant where we all went to stuff as many noodles down us as we could possibly manage.
Mike did the full “And here is my Island” tourist thing on Friday – with breakfast at the Garlic Farm – tremendous food, red squirrels and all the garlicky products you could possibly imagine. And some you probably can’t. Fed and spent up in the farm shop, we headed to Sandown, where Alison revealed a previously well hidden predilection for the twopenny slot machines on the pier. Crazy golfed out and Mike gagged for pointing out Hills We Would Be Up Tomorrow rather too often, we headed back to Newport, where Mike wisely went home and left us to do our traditional pre-race fretting and faffing.
A tremendous bowl of pasta, a trip up to Cowes to pick Nick up from the Redjet and suddenly it was the night before the race I wasn’t sure I was capable of.
The 4.30 alarm rolled around after a pretty restless night. A nasty porridge pot and a banana in a Premier Inn never gains any appeal but the prep went well, and we were all ready to leave at 5.45am for the 20 minute drive down to Chale, where our race started and finished. We were in the first wave of starters at 7am but it was a hive of activity when we arrived. Registration and picking up our GPS trackers was easy, there were loads of lovely clean portaloos and we were ready to rock way ahead of time.
They had us away just a minute or two after 7 – and after 5-10 minutes of bottleneck and wet feet from the long grass we were away along the cliff path, heading towards the Needles in the far distance. It was a beautiful morning, with a promise of heat about it already.
The first stretch was fairly flat, with some small undulations. We settled into our traditional 4/1 run/walk, kept it steady and enjoyed the sunshine, the breeze, the fresh legs…all the stuff we’d have forgotten about by lunchtime. There are checkpoints generally every 12 or so kms in this race, with big ones every 25kms. The first one rolled around very comfortably – Nick was there with his camera, I had a most excellent custard Danish, and we headed out again within a couple of minutes.
There were some hills after that as we headed towards Compton beach and then back up again over Compton Down before we dropped down into Freshwater, where we saw Nick, then a couple of minutes later, Mike, who had clocked in for his crewing shift. Quick hugs all round and we headed up Tennyson Down towards the Needles, which had been looming in our sights for the last 20kms. This was a beautiful stretch of the route – uphill all the way but not lung bursting, we were able to maintain a brisk power walk and still chat. We weren’t taken right out to the end, although some folk did do a small detour.
A sharp hairpin and a few more kilometres saw us safely into the first big CP at 25kms. I was hot and hungry – and although I didn’t really fancy it, took a cheese and pickle roll from the selection on offer. It totally hit the spot. I only ate half in case I ran into digestive issues, but I could have inhaled the lot. Filling up my water bladder I encountered the one and only dickhead of the race – he’d clearly done the first quarter option, so he was hanging around looking for sport when he spied my race number – they’re coloured according to the distance you’re doing.
“How does it feel, having only done a quarter of the distance” was his opening gambit. Slightly surprised I replied that I felt great and carried on wrestling with the 5-gallon water tank. “You won’t be feeling great in a few hours, you know” said my new friend…at which point Alison turned up and explained to him that I had poles, and I wasn’t afraid to use them. “They’re folded up” he scoffed…”Aye, and they can be unfolded at the click of a button and shoved up your arse” was my classy parting shot. I hope he got sunburned.
That pleasant exchanged powered me up the next hill and we started working our way up the west coast of the island. Encouraging messages about Nice Lazy Mornings I Am Having popped in occasionally from various friends and relations, but we were still mellow and heading for a reasonably civilised section of coast and beach where the dog walkers and families tried not to stare too much as we staggered into a very large holiday complex that took us into Yarmouth. By this point it was pretty hot and I was very glad we were due to see our lovely support crew soon. A quick chat with another runner who told us her glutes weren’t firing properly (they looked good to us) and we saw the welcome sight of the Welsh flag flying ahead.
We were still pretty chipper at this point – grabbed some food, topped up our water and away we went, heading for The Mud. We’d been warned about this in the race briefing, but oh boy, it didn’t disappoint. When there are marshals telling you to get your poles out, medics in the middle of the section and all you can hear ahead of you are faint cries of “FUUUUUUUUUCK” you know you’re in for a bit of weather. First thing I did was fall over, before I could even get my poles unfolded. They played up all day with their clicking in and out nonsense – never was WD40 more needed. Duly sorted (and covered in mud) we picked our way slowly though what felt like miles of bog. We were soaking and absolutely filthy – and I’ve never been gladder of my gaiters kit choice. But give me this over road, any day.
The bog of doom spat us out into a stretch of trail that I can’t remember much about, so it must have been uneventful. We saw Nick and Mike again – I was a bit grumpy then and having a low moment, so grizzling at them for a couple of minutes cheered me right up, along with the lovely National Trust place just a bit further on who had a sign saying we were welcome to use their toilets. Being able to wash my hands felt pretty good – the realisation that my pee was a dehydrated colour less so.
We had halfway in our sights at this point. We were very hot, starting to feel the 50 odd kilometres we’d already done in our legs and agreed we’d get some hot food, have a sit down and a proper break at this point. I’m so glad we did – 20 minutes break, a very mediocre pasta bake, a cup of tea and an Eccles cake were exactly what I needed. Nick joined us – Mike was away to do some domestic stuff and buy us more water.
The days was showing no signs of cooling as we headed out again and along the river Medina towards Newport. We were feeling good but running past the door of our hotel 60 kms into the race was slightly cruel. We whiled away a few miles with the well-loved racing pastime of Pissing and Moaning – this time about the cycle track surface we were running on, which didn’t please us one little bit. This brought us to out next supporter stop – and a welcome sock and shoe change – it was time to deploy the road shoes for 20 miles or so.
Mike was back and had stuck our chairs in the shade – excitingly, next to the Spice Bus. Our trail shoes should, frankly, have gone straight into an incinerator, but we were going to need to put them back on again later. I cleaned the mud and grit off my feet – honestly, we were disgusting – put some lovely clean socks on and felt immediately better. A change of socks and shoes shifted the pressure to different bits of my feet, and I got some of my bounce back.
We said our goodbyes, had a few swigs of coke and headed off for what was, for me, the worst section of the race. I am not a fan of road running at the best of times, and this was a very long road section down into Ryde. There was a lot of downhill and we were still running, but it was a very long way to the next CP. Mike was away to do some life admin for a bit but we saw Nick somewhere along the way and he was looking a bit tired and peaky, so we told him to get some proper food and we’d see him at the next CP. Alison necked an alcohol free beer, I had some coke and we carried along the relentless road into Ryde. I’d have welcomed the mud again at this point, to be honest.
Alison’s Garmin keeled over just as we got to the outskirts of Ryde. Frankly, at almost 70kms in, I knew exactly how it felt, but we stopped to put it on charge, and I almost had a shout at a man on a bike who was fiddling with the race route signs…until I realised he was hanging glowsticks up to light them up. Nick caught up with us at that point, we whinged a bit about how much further it was to the CP and staggered on.
Looking back on it now, I can see that my joined up thinking was starting to fail when we arrived at the checkpoint. I had a cup of tea, but I couldn’t make any decisions about food – and that’s a proper warning sign for me.
We’d written a pretty detailed race plan for Nick and Mike, so they knew when we were going to need the big stuff like shoe changes, warm clothes for the night section, head torches etc. Overall, it worked almost like clockwork – except that I forgot to be flexible and take my headtorch from Ryde, because the list had it down for St Helen’s. No matter as Alison had hers and they attached glowsticks to our backs before we left the CP, but it was a sign of potentially poor decisions.
Off we trundled into the dusk, out of Ryde and along a beautiful stretch of coast down to St Helens. The sun was setting, we were still moving well, and it was absolutely beautiful. We passed a windmill. Alison sang her own version of It’s A Long Way to Tipperary which was a welcome deviation from our usual repertoire of race songs. There were some posh holidays homes, people doing normal things like having dinner with friends and not running ridiculous distances, there were lots of boats. There were some hills. My bladder finally came back online, and I seemed to need a pee every 5 minutes, including in a hedge where I scared an owl.
Shortly after the owl incident we saw our lovely crew for the big shoe and kit change stop. We were both pretty tired and tetchy at this stop…which was managed beautifully by Nick & Mike who found the gloves, attached the torch, sorted the zip, made sense of our bleatings, had our nasty trail shoes cleaned up and ready for us to put back on…made sure we had our warm kit on in spite of the predicted arguing from me (I’d written “do not listen to any arguments from me” in the race plan) and sent us off feeling better again. We always say what goes on the trail stays on the trail, but when we’re both grizzling at the same time, it must be pretty exasperating.
There’s 1800 metres of climb in this race and more than half of it came in the last 10 miles, which felt….challenging as it was all off road and in the pitch dark. Up we went over Culver Down, through fields of bemused cows and into the last big CP where we forced down some mediocre pizza and a drink. There was another runner looking really very unwell here, wrapped up in space blankets and a lot of warm layers.
By this point, our main motivation was to get to the other end of Shanklin, to see Nick and Mike again. They spent their day supporting us and making sure we had everything we needed, but I always spend a fair bit of my race time worrying about my supporters too, because we’re never running exactly to time, they never know how we’re going to be, I worry about them getting enough food and rest themselves. These long races live and die on the hygiene factors and this is one of them.
We skiddled down Culver Down and hit Shanklin for the second time in two days. It went on FOREVER. We were past running by this point and whilst we were still power walking, it seemed to take a very long time to get all the way along the seafront to where they were waiting for us. But waiting they were, to revive us with last snacks, muller rice for Alison and coke for me. Mike went home for a well deserved sleep and Nick was instructed to get to the last CP and get his head down for an hour, while we headed up another bloody hill.
Some time later (see how I glazed over the fact that I can’t remember much about this – it was seamless, right?), we finally reached the last CP at the Ventnor Botanic Gardens. By this point Alison replied “a bullet in the head” when Nick asked what she needed, and I just said “I’m so tired” over and over, and over again. The main bit of the CP was down a long flight of stairs, which seemed particularly cruel at this stage.
And so, we went out to conquer the last few miles. We were power marching, but we couldn’t speak. I’m grateful that we’ve known each other long enough to know that none of this matters – we’ll periodically check we’re ok but beyond that we don’t have to do anything. Besides, I had my hallucinations to keep me entertained. It’s pretty common for this to happen late on in long races and I’m always disappointed we have to wait so long for them. I saw a witch in a wall, moving road signs, a big black pit of tar in the road which Alison walked across without a care in the world, and the evil 100km distance sign that kept moving, to torment me. This sustained me right to the top of the last hill where we realised it was getting light again and the dawn chorus had started in earnest.
The sight of the finish did raise a smile from both of us – and somehow, daylight makes everything a bit better. But it was one of those awful finishes where you can see it for miles before you get to it. Not helped by a bunch of runners passing us playing Queen’s Greatest Hits very loudly – unnecessary at the best of times, never mind 105 kms in. “Any requests for the DJ?” shouted the tail runner “Yeah, turn it fucking DOWN”.
The last mile shall never be spoken of again, because it nearly broke both of us. It took us in the opposite direction to the finish and really, that was the last straw. We were so close, and yet my Garmin was telling me we were at 109kms of a 107km race…and we still weren’t there. Until we were. It’s a slight uphill finish and neither of us had the energy for anything more than a Grim March across the finish line where Nick was waiting to record us looking a bit battered.
We did it. All 110.4 kms of it. As I write this, two weeks on, it still hasn’t properly sunk in and there are big chunks that I can’t remember. Perhaps that’s for the best.
Would I do it again? I’d hesitate to do another Action Challenge event. The organisation was good, in that there were well stocked Checkpoints, pristine Portaloos all the way round, which is some feat in the face of a bunch of feral runners who are eating god knows what rubbish to keep us going. The route signing was excellent – the couple of times we went slightly wrong were entirely down to our own loss of concentration – and the All Seeing Eye of Mike had us being WhatsApp’d within moments to put us back on track. But…I’ve done a lot of long, off road races and I’d have liked to see a LOT more marshals out there on the race route. Not to direct us, but to have eyes on runners who can go from perfectly ok one minute to really not ok a few minutes later as we get tired and hypo. We only saw a handful all day and that’s just not enough, especially when the GPS trackers were optional so for most, they only knew when folk were at a CP. The marshalls at the arrival points of the CPs were certainly looking to see if we were in one piece and there were some lovely Lowland Mountain Rescue folk just past the Culver Down CP, before a very sharp descent, properly speaking to us to make sure we were ok and not going too bonkers. But the very unwell man at Culver Down was being told that if he put more clothes on he could continue – when it was obvious from what he was saying, even to my medically untrained eye, that he wasn’t able to.
As always, we didn’t do this alone and the company was what made it for me.
Alison – my long time friend and stalwart race buddy – your company all weekend was a joy as always. I’m not sure I could run that far with anybody else.
Scott – you turned up on Sunday morning with a fresh bundle of energy for all us mud covered, knackered and half crazed folk who were lying around the Premier Inn in various states of disrepair – and you got Alison home in one piece. Outstanding work.
Mike – In full recognition that this was all your fault and yet in spite of it…for spending the weekend before the race sorting out the best meeting places for Nick and taking a huge amount of stress away from him, for showing us the glittering metropolis of Sandown Pier, for putting in a monumental support shift on Saturday, for indulging all our last minute WhatsApp demands for Things From Co-op, for cleaning my muddy trail shoes so I could put them back on without them cutting my tired feet to ribbons, for staying calm in the face of my bratty squawking about my waist torch, for being ready with the hugs, no matter how filthy and sweaty we were, for getting up again after only a few hours sleep to give Nick a lift to the Redjet so I could stay in bed…thank you seems inadequate at best. You are a hero.
Nick – for recognising when I put my running shoes back on 13 years ago that this day would surely come, for wholeheartedly supporting all my racing and ridiculous endeavours, for coming out on the long training days and weekends with me, for never minding when I’m in a training cycle that takes priority over other stuff…this one was, most deservedly, for you.
