I scrolled through my phone to find the entry labelled “Centurion RD”. I knew it would be there because I checked before the race start; I also knew because it had been there since 2015, when I first lined up for one of James Elson’s races. That day started quite a bit like today. Nervy. Optimistic. Blisteringly hot. (Early). It ended much the same as this one would too – with a DNF. But a very different outlook.

Describing where I guessed I was, I even apologized for bothering him. “I’m fine, don’t worry, I know I’ve timed out. Please tell the sweeper to wait for me.” But I didn’t feel especially emotional. The truth was, I’d known for a few miles that I wasn’t going to make it, and I knew why. It wasn’t that I didn’t care; after all, this was more than a race to me, it was my qualifier for the Autumn 100. I needed this finish to be allowed to run in October, and I needed it to reassure myself that I’m up to the task. I should have been crying, or angry, or disappointed. Remembering back to that first Centurion race when I sulked for the 2 hour drive home, chin on my knuckles staring out of the window. I’m eight years older now though. That brings its own demons, but it also means I’m eight years more experienced. So instead of sulking, I started running through the race step by step, in a bid to work out what went wrong.

The Start

The month leading up to the South Downs 50 was… suboptimal. Oh, is she getting her excuses in early? What a surprise. In all seriousness, after the disaster that was Kingston Breakfast Run I hit one of my worst patches of period pain so far and it showed in my mileage. For those of you who can’t relate – and I’m genuinely glad you can’t – I don’t just mean grab a hot water bottle and an ibuprofen. Pain, relentless chronic pain, is exhausting. A key feature of these bad patches is having to sleep 10+ hours plus naps during the day, and surviving on codeine while awake. Chronic pain even makes a hazard out of holding a cup of tea. It was deeply frustrating to be back in this cycle when there was so much at stake, so I tried to make the most of the enforced rest and hope the pain would subside by the race. A very unnerving taper.

If I was nervous, there were plenty of little touches on race day to make me feel optimistic. A lift to the start from Andy made all the difference to my lacklustre logistics. The Centurion shop, where (if you’re me) you inevitably stop to buy missing snacks and pretty hats. The ladies-only loos with a shorter queue, chintzy curtains and a toilet roll dolly (I guess you’ll just have to sign up next year to know if I’m joking). The reassuring presences of James and Nici and an army of volunteers. Optimism. That’ll start things off well.

So obviously I went out for the first couple of miles at a pace I had no business trying to run, chatting away to another lone runner who heaven help him probably wanted to focus on the uphill start and conserving breath. That should have been a clue. Never mind; I actually love the rolling ups and downs on this course, for whatever goes up is about to come back down. Dropping a sub 9 minute mile on the first descent, I carried on with my no-business pace.

The Middle

My plan had been to run to a pace around an hour inside the cut offs, and thanks to my hot start I was well within that. For someone with as much experience as I have, there were red flags and in my haste, I missed them. They said things like “if you go faster now you’ll bank time for later”, “hammer this downhill, it’s fun” and “save time at the aid station, your bottles don’t need refilling yet”. Saying that, recapturing the fun of trail running is pretty fundamental to recapturing my old self – so it’s seemed perfectly intuitive at the time to lean into that. This last year has been a process of accepting the fact that I’m functionally a newbie again, and that’s both a blessing and a curse. Being new to the sport you get the thrill of discovery (or to put it another way, the bliss of ignorance) but the price is the pitfalls that a new ultra runner can so easily fall into, and are usually on the lookout for. My experience should have made me less wary of those pitfalls but more wise to them – and it didn’t. So off I went, throwing my undrunk Tailwind and untrained quads all over the Downs like a demented pixie.

Rampaging into the first aid station at Botolphs, I was in a disgustingly good mood and comfortably ahead of schedule. It was warm but not blistering, although in retrospect I underestimated how dehydrated I really was. The next station at Saddlescombe Farm is only 5 miles on, and immediately followed by some more punchy climbs, so calories were the order of the day. I got a good little picnic spread going, topped up my water and got moving.

The rolling Downs are just one of the best places to be on a warm spring day. Trotting on ahead of my target pace, enjoying the views and appreciating my ability to move. It was liberating not to be in pain for once – sore, sure, but it’s a blessed relief from the alternative – even though I felt the heaviness in my legs weigh further and further down. As I reached the marathon mark on my watch, that weight landed hard. I realised at that point that, where there was usually pain, there was now the creeping threat of nausea. In all likelihood my rule of thumb estimates for calories were wildly off, from the days when I could cover 10 miles in two hours and not three, and my “hydration” was no more than a good score in Scrabble. And it was too late to do much about it. I tried bringing food up to my mouth – no dice. My pace slowed; still well within my target, but obviously coming to a halt. Thankfully, I was moments away from Housedean Farm.

And better still, the sunny smile of Laure from Fulham RC – a stalwart of Centurion races and a bloody lovely human. She had been looking out for me, gave me a massive hug and boost of joy, and helped me fill up on Tailwind and snacks. I didn’t want to admit that I was already on the struggle bus, so I took what I could and got right back on the trail. The next section is high and exposed – enough for me to need my jacket despite the heat – and although stunning, a real slog for my underfuelled body. I cheered myself up with video messages to my football friends and a bootstraps call to Andy while I pushed food against my unwilling mouth, trying to get my mindset and calories back on track. And watching my pace slip further and further away.

A miserable theme for the next seven miles. I wanted so badly to be doing better; but by this point, I also wanted not to feel sick any more. It’s a horrible Catch-22 situation: you can’t fix the hunger pangs without food; you can’t get food anywhere near you without vomming; you can’t vom because there’s nothing there. I want to say that determination dragged me through – seasoned ultra runners are no stranger to battling on for hours without calories. In reality, I’d left determination somewhere around Ditchling Beacon with my pace and my common sense. By the time I trotted across the bridge towards Southease Aid Station I was mathematically, physicaly, mentally DONE.

(Here is a cautionary tale for you all – I got into the sweeper bus at peace with my DNF and ready to be reunited with my kit bag and my journey home. By the time we actually made it to the track, having waited to sweep the handful of non-finishers from the next two aid stations, I was wearing all my kit including the spare layers, two foil blankets and a borrowed DryRobe, and even as I was curled up in a heated van I was shivering hard enough not to be able to speak. That’s how dehydrated and calorie deficient I’d got. Do not skimp on your mandatory kit, people. It may save your life.)

The End, and then some

So what went wrong?

To truly understand that, I’d have to go a bit further back than the start of the race.

Increasing speed work had been the right call – I ran a faster, hillier 35 miles that day than the 33 on Pilgrim’s day 1 in February. And to bring a little light into the story, seeing my fitness progress was a plus even if it ended in disaster. On the other hand, there still wasn’t enough structure or discipline in my self made plan, let alone enough mileage. Reflecting on my HR data, I spent a quarter of the race in Zone 5 and nearly 40% above Zone 3, which speaks to how hard I was working relative to pace – in other words, I just wasn’t fit enough. It’s all very well pointing to the inability to eat, the nausea, the dehydration; but not having enough fitness likely meant that I had no buffer to deal with the other setbacks.

In short, I didn’t respect the distance and it disrespected me back.

But there was something deeper to look into as well. I’d been struggling with lethargy alongside pain for months, and in the periods when it lifted I avoided training too hard in fear of wearing myself out. Not that that was the wrong thing to do, but it was addressing the symptoms more than the cause. And it’s not like lack of motivation was the problem – I wanted this SO badly. So. Think. Examine. Solve.

That’s when I decided to look up coaching; something I’ve toyed with for a while but considered to be too expensive. I figured that the monthly cost wasn’t much more than a day in the pub with QPR and investing in myself is a bit more responsible than investing in pale ale and pad thai. So I got in touch with a few ultra specialist coaches, explaining that I had a 100 miler to finish and no real idea how to do it, explaining that I needed someone who would understand and be flexible, but make me accountable to my goals. One of those phonecalls was with Eddie Sutton, and I came away feeling like I was talking to someone I’d known for years. It was a no brainer.

Taking charge not just of my training but a holistic understanding of my health, Eddie pointed out something she noticed in my Strava feed that I hadn’t: just how often I complain of fatigue. And she did this before we even had our first official call – an example of how the price you pay for isn’t just the hour’s consultation but the years of experience that back it up. Some small but significant steps, including changing my contraceptive, taking iron supplements and adding more walking (I’m completely serious) got me on the right track. And that was before I even had a training plan.

I won’t go into all the boring details here, but I will point out something I think was key to improving my fitness: we didn’t start with a plan. We started with giving me the best chance of following one.

I’m not a fucking idiot: I can Google; I have Hal Koerner and Krissy Moehl and Sarah Lavender Hall and P&D in my library; I know about the 80/20 split and time on feet and cross training and all that. My problem was, how do you jump into a 6 mile tempo when you can barely lift your feet? The answer was to break the problem down, step by step, and restart with the basics. You don’t grow a tree by sticking a twig in the ground and hoping for the best. You start with a seed.

Growth – in this context – looked like moving from despair, from feeling a total lack of control over my body, to actually listening to it and letting it take the lead. Growth looked like multiple mornings looking forward to the day instead of dreading it. Growth looked like starting off with one push up and eventually making it to six. And honestly, at times I was so overwhelmed with relief I cried. What a twat.

Fast forward

Next up – attempt number two at my Autumn 100 qualifier. I had a deferred entry to Race to the Stones in my pocket, something you have to enter a lottery for these days, and I was determined to make it count. A familiar trail, a generous cutoff, a well-organised race. This would be the best chance I’d have for a long time.

But that’s a story for another day.