To infinity and beyond!

It was the first time I was to run and ultra marathon so I decided to stay behind someone who is much more experienced in such events. I managed to do that...for the first 500 m. In every race there is always a muppet who starts off way too fast. This time it was... me. For some reason I thought that the pace of 5min/km was too slow so I sped up. Rookie mistake! But at least I was the first person to reach the first checkpoint at 12km.

How it happened?

The first time I heard about ultramarathons was when a few years ago I read a book by Dean Karnazes: "Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of an All-Night Runner". And my immediate thought was: "wow, it's so impressive and inspirational but I will never ever do such a stupid thing!"

Last year I read a terrific book: "Born to Run: The Hidden Tribe, the Ultra-Runners, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen" by Chris McDougall, which featured many ultramarathon stars, most notably Scott Jurek, an absolute legend.
 
And this week I got my hands on the autobiography of the Scott Jurek, himself: "Eat and run"

And every time I read any of these books, the thought of putting my body through such an ordeal seemed utterly repugnant. So why did I end up on the start line of the race from London to Brighton? Partially it's because my innate willingness to test limits of my body and to try a new challenge. But the main reason was very prosaic: one of the most powerful forces - a man's EGO. Yep, that's true. I have a crazy flatmate and when she signed up for this race without even having done a marathon first so I simply couldn't be the one who chickens out.

Before the race

When a person trains for an ultra, they should gradually include the distance, doing at one point 5-6 hours in training. I didn't do anything like this. I had a London Marathon to run 5 weeks before L2B challenge and after it was a race against time to recover after it. I didn't have time to incorporate any proper ultra sessions so before that day, 42.2km remained the furthest distance I've ever done in training. The race was to start from Richmond Park and we had to do be there before 5 am in the morning. Richmond is not far from where I live so we could get a taxi at a reasonable price. I was worried whether 5.5 hours sleep will be enough though.

Equipment

When I run I like simplicity. Very often I even do it even without a watch. I knew that most runners will have a backpack, possibly also a waist belt to stuff the food. I wasn't used to any of these so decided to do exactly what I always to in my training: run with a water bottle in my hand and possibly some gels in another. As a matter of fact, I was the only person without a backpack at the start line
 
I also bought an arm band for my mobile phone. I was reluctant to take it, but I have a natural tendency to get lost and besides I knew that my parents would be worried if they didn't get updates for over 10 hours. Applications I used: "MapMyTracks Endurance" (to send updates every 10 minutes thus saving battery) and "My tracks" to which I downloaded the whole route in case I got lost. And as it turned out later, it was a very sensible thing to do!
I took my favourite watch, Garmin 305 and I was pleasantly surprised that battery lasted for the whole race! A lot of people like listening to the music. I do it as well, but only during my lonely training runs. A race is a completely different story. I knew that this event will be special and I wanted to experienced every single bit of it without being distracted by any noise in my ears. I strongly believe in being present in the moment; music simply takes your thoughts away so you're not as focused as you should be.

Nutrition strategy

I knew that I needed to drink about 500ml of water per hour, possibly more when the temperature got higher and consume about 200-300 kcal. I did my homework and asked what they would be serving and based on what I was told, I was going to devour a few flapjacks at the checkpoints and take with my some energy gels for eating before I reached the next one. I was pleased with my strategy, the only problem was that they stopped giving flapjacks after checkpoint number two and the first time they gave people an energy gel was after 80km. So on many occasions I was forced to eat something I've never eaten before and many times I made such bad choices that I had to throw away the food I took because it was completely inedible. At one point I begged for food a fellow runner - luckily he saved me with a savoury chocolate bar so I could reach the next checkpoint! Also because there was no energy gels I spent a lot of time at checkpoints because it's very difficult to eat solid food on the run.

The race

The route was taking us from Richmond Park to Brighton Race Course:
and "flat" was the last adjective you would use to describe it!
After the first checkpoint I was overtaken by a few guys who were running at nearly 4:30 min/km pace. I thought that was plain stupid and decided to let them go. Perhaps one of few sensible things I did on that day. I'm a very competitive person but I realised that I had yet over 80km to run and I should spare my energy for later.
I was still running at a very decent pace, despite the terrain getting rougher and harder to run. I completed a marathon (42.2 KM) in 3 hours 43 minutes. At that point I felt like Sam leaving Hobbiton:

From then on it would be terra incognita, the furthest I've ever run in my life. I didn't spend much time pondering about it but carried on. I covered 50km in 4 hours 28 minutes. Amazing pace, but unfortunately it wouldn't last.
What makes this race so difficult is the fact that majority of it is off road. Occasionally we would cross the A roads with cars going at 60+mph. We would run through the pastures, with high-knee grass, through the forests, we had to jump over fences and at one point, when I took the wrong turn, I had to go over a barbed wire, using a map to protect my hands. At one point it was really annoying when we had to jump over the fence every 200-300m and in total there were over 50 places like that...I was running through the herd of sheep and cows, there were dogs barking at me and even horses blocking the way...
It was raining for the whole day before but I hoped that it would dry up during the day. In vain! Most of the roads through the forests were slippery, with some branches sticking out and every descent was a potential ankle twister. In a few places there were signs: "Flooding - follow diversion". Unfortunately the route didn't follow the diversion. At one point my shoe was almost stuck in the mud.
And there are hills, big hills....The most daunting of them is at 88th km and it's almost like a wall, with a 23% gradient. In the second half I decided to save my legs and walked up the steeper hills. I lost a lot of time because of that but I was then more in a survival rather than a competitive mode.
And I got lost literally too. To my defence I can say that I wasn't the only runner who went that way. Luckily I used a map in my telephone to get me back on the route. But it meant that in total I did 103km rather than 100km.
Last few kilometres were extremely tough - I didn't have anything left with me but I raced against the clock to finish in less than 11 hours. When the road was flat I was going at 5:30 min/km pace, pretty amazing considering that I already had almost 100km in my legs. I crossed the finish line (according to my watch) in 10h 53min 29seconds and I found out that I was the 6th runner overall! Not bad for a debut and so many mistakes!

Epilogue

By doing this raise I managed to raise over £600 for British Red Cross. Thank you for your very generous donations!
http://www.justgiving.com/Jakub-Pawlowski-London2Brighton
Now, like Tom Hanks, I'm just tired....

After the race I had a massage, a very unhealthy meal consisting of chips and a burger and I waited at the finish line for my flatmate who finished 4 and half hours later. It was nice as well to cheer other runners and congratulating them on accomplishing them such a remarkable feat

I took a long awaited hot shower and it wasn't until 2am till I got to bed. I thought that I would sleep for the whole day, but woke up after 4 hours still buzzing from the emotions of the previous day.
11 hours of running is a long time, especially when you're alone with your thoughts and every few kilometres you're tempted to pull out. I had time to reflect on many things - it was like a very extended meditation!
At the checkpoints when you're drinking and eating is very beguilling to simply say: "I'm done with it - enough is enough". I would say it's more a mental challenge than a physical one. Like in life, every step you take toward your goal despite difficulties, actually makes you stronger and more determined. Never before had I been more tired and never before did I fully grasped what Dean Karnazes wrote: "Run when you can, walk if you have to, crawl if you must; just never give up". 
It was definitely a life changing experience. After doing such an extraordinary thing I will never again think of myself as an ordinary person.