Crawley 12 hour Ultra Marathon ,59 miles 400 metres at a time….

The picture is of Roscoe a sleek , efficient running machine….we have little in common….What a beauty though …lots of love for the lurchers…!.O.k.im off track already ,back to Crawley…For the uninitiated the race involved running around a running track for ,yes you guessed it 12 hours!!.

On the whole I was pleased with my distance and I left physically relatively intact..so on the whole mission accomplished,this was to be a learning exercise…a status update if you like.Im delighted to say I learned an awful lot on the day.The downside to the track is the …well the track…as one fades the journey offers no solace ,there’s no bend in the river, no view to capture the imagination or dog to photo…the walls can close in a bit …and they did…the track may not have beat me but it certainly extracted its pound of flesh.

The advantage to the track was it meant the athletes (some of team GB) would remain within eyeshot, this was an opportunity to observe…what the words ultra runner mean and what separates the elite from the rest…Perversely this seemed to encourage rather than deflate me!..Two top athletes that I had heard of in dispatches were Debbie and Martin Consani…both powerhouses of running with a pleasant demeanour that hides a ferocious steel and desire to achieve…both generous with advice and a kind word when the going had become painfully slow…occasionally I’d try to keep up ,secretly chasing them distracting myself for 100 metres before the reality that the only way I might catch them was as they lapped me again….. !.

The experience has taught me a few things.

(1)I need to focus more…the plan I had ,wasn’t really a plan.

(2)Cheese works well as a food source after 6 hours!

(3)Ambrosia creamed rice tastes great after 9 hours running!

(4)I never set foot on a track before…..I may never set foot on a track again!!!…..

Next stop is the endure 24 ,this one is 24 hours long….the plan had better come together!

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