Flitch Way 100 K
Note: This is a blog mainly in Turkish. But starting with this race report, I hope I will be writing in English more frequently. Since this was a race in UK it is a good starting point.
I completed 2019 by running every day in December. When I started the new year, I was thinking about races to run and my running goals. For 10 years, I tried how fast I could get in short races, tested how quickly I could run the marathon distance, tried to survive longer races, completed 100 km and 100 miles races, and even ran Spartathlon twice. So what did I want to do now? I thought about this for a while. Actually, what I wanted to do was running a 24-hour race on the track, but I knew that I did not have a planned/scheduled training for a long time, and even though I was running randomly, my training volume was not enough for this. So I decided to run a 100 km race. If you would like to to read both my thoughts on this decision process and the report of the race, let’s start.
For some reason, I have been running without a plan or schedule. This has been the case for the past two years. At the beginning of my running adventure, I worked and progressed very systematically, but as I started to participate in longer races, because of running a lot of miles to prepare for these races, and perhaps because I am getting older, I tend to focus on the mental side and enjoyment rather than the physical and physiological side of running. Now, it does not entertain me to make fine calculations in 5 or 10 km or to finish the marathon 3 or 4 minutes faster, to run looking at my watch for an hour or to count the repetitions. Of course, I’m still curious about the limits of my own potential – speed or endurance – and I still want to push them, but nowadays – let’s say at this point in life – I want to focus more on mental endurance. Maybe one day I will want to get faster again at short distances, I will start to enjoy it while I am doing the necessary exercises for this, who knows. Nowadays, being 44-45 years old is no longer perceived as being old. I have recently read an article about runners who have been successful in running sub3 marathons spanning to 6 decades. It is called 6DS3 for short; it is used for people who have run at least one sub3 marathon every decade since the 1970s. It is obvious that in order to achieve this, they should be between 57-65 years old now. So I have a lot of time for those kind of goals. I have never run a sub3 though, but if I can run marathons faster than 3:10 for a couple of decades from now on, it is more than enough for me.
As I mentioned above, I got used to running irregularly recently. Of course, I am still careful not to leave broken windows on my running life. I mean the kind of regularity that is scheduled for every day, which includes technical training, and you know how much time/distance you will run with which pace when you run. Instead, I go out and run depending on just how I feel that day. When I look at the big picture, I actually have a certain rough plan in my head, but I do not restrict myself very much. I don’t hesitate if I want to stretch a little that day or if I want to run fast and cut short. If this kind of training distracts me a lot, I apply a streak (repetitions) as in December to regain a little discipline. (I started by running 1 km on 1st day of December and ran every day 1 more km; finishing on the 30th of December with a 30 km run.)
With all this going on, I wanted to try a 24-hour race. Running the longest distance in a given time period requires a very different mental effort. Because you can leave the race at any time and you will not be DNF, no matter how far you ran. This is a feature that can easily seduce people. Especially if you are making tours in a small loop, you will be passing through the stop point. I ran for more than 24 hours, I know what it is like, but I was always running to a target at those times and shortening the remaining distance while taking steps. So I was wondering about this different approach. I don’t want to go to distant places to race; the preparation, the planning process and the journey make me very stressed and tired. I thought, “I am already in England, this kind of races is frequent,” but unfortunately it is not the case. I was able to find only two 24-hour races ran on the track and that is close to where I live. One is in April and the participation quota has already been filled, and the other is in September and the registrations have not yet been opened. Yes, there are many other 24-hour races around, but they are all run by looping on 5-10 km routes or there is altitude gain on their trail routes. Neither case is really ideal for seeing how far you can run in a day. The trail and elevation gain slows down and tires a runner, while long loops can make you lose many kilometres in the last part. They are not very suitable for someone who wants to see his/her full limits for 24 hours. If that was the case, this test has to wait a little longer.
So I turned my route into a 100 km race. This year I passed 100 km point during Spartatlon in 10 hours and 16 minutes despite the hot weather. Of course, this ruined the rest of the race for me, but I saw that I was able to run the distance under 10 hours. Could this be even under 9,5 hours under better conditions? When I realized that the last week of December would not be easy at all, an idea came to my mind: turning this into a beautiful 100 km race preparation. But I had to find a race just a few weeks later. As a result of a good coincidence, I was able to find a race exactly as I wanted, a few hours away from home.
The kind of race I wanted was a boutique race. The term “boutique” can be misunderstood, I do not use it for the distance or difficulty of the race, I use it for the size or complexity of the organization. I have mentioned many times before that I do not like very big organizations. The races where hundreds and thousands of people run, crowds have to wait for each other in narrow places or water stations, and where there are huge feeding tables, do not attract me much. I like the races where there are only tens of runners, one or at most two stations since the tours are made by taking tours in a small area, where there is no blasting music at the gathering places. The definition on the web site of the Flitch Way 100K race immediately captured me. It had a 10 km route in the form of 5 km out and back. At the starting point, it had a single station and 15-20 registered runners. Its motto is: “No prizes or medals or t-shirt. It’s all about the time and to provide a medal or t-shirt for a small number of runners would be expensive for such a small number.” I think it’s very logical. Isn’t our wardrobes full of racing t-shirts that we don’t wear and medals that we don’t look at again? Someone keeping your time properly and reporting to certain places accordingly is enough, isn’t it? As such, the registration fee was very low, I immediately signed up.
The race would be on Sunday. We booked a hotel for two nights as the race would end in the evening and a few hours of travel would not be easy being so dirty and tired. We reached at Braintree town on Saturday with my wife Başak. It was not very convenient even to go and see the track because the starting point was 3-4 km far from the hotel, and since we did not have a car, there was no method other than walking. It was not that necessary to see the route because it was already well described on the website. They closed an old train road with soil and opened it to the public as a narrow but very long natural park. The park has a funny shape, in the form of 25 km by 20 meters rectangle. We would run in the 5 km section of it. An old railroad meant almost straight in terms of both elevation and turn. I knew that there would be others on the route as the pathway mentioned in the race would not be closed to the public. All I wondered was the ground. Because this country is always wet. Would there be too much mud? I would see this in the first round.
After getting up early and snacking in the morning, we walked to the starting point in the dark from a path that was not very pleasant to walk. I was carrying a small suitcase for my belongings. Before a fast 100 km race, walking 3-4 km with suitcases did not seem very wise, but there was no other way. When we reached the starting point, we met the 3 people organization team. They had set up two small tents. One for our belongings and the other for their own small station. It was stated on the web site of the race that there will be a small number of types of food, cold and hot water at the station, but runners should bring adequate and appropriate food for themselves. Despite this, I think the table they prepared was sufficient alone. Since the sun has not yet risen, we prepared in the dark. It was difficult to predict who were the runners. The organizer of the race, Lindley, gave a very short speech. He advised us to pay attention to the fact that the track is open to the public, that there would be people walking, running, biking or even on horseback. He stated that the turning point would be seen very clearly and there would be someone checking the intervals and wished good luck.
We started the race with a group of 14 people -2 women and 12 men- at 7:00. It was quite dark, so I decided to run the first lap in the light of my headlamp, focusing only on the ground. I decided to explore the environment during the next round. In a place where I have not seen before, it was the most rational thing to focus only on the ground and 10-15 meters in front of me. I was right because there were some roads cutting the path, and these intersections were blocked by steel fences. It was necessary to either jump over it or go through narrow passages left for cyclists. It was possible to trip over or bump in the dark. Fortunately, the ground was very clean. The crushed soil was very smooth and there was very little mud. There was only one muddy region of 15-20 meters on the 5 km route. Something happened about this mud during the race. When I saw the mud in the first two laps, I focused on running from it’s right or left, because I didn’t want my foot to get wet and dirty. Since both sides rose slightly and the slopes were muddy, I either almost fell or went stuck in the mud all four times. In the third round, I decided to run right through the middle of it without changing way. Then I passed easily, only the mud and water splashed to the back of my legs. I thought: “Similar things happen in life. When I face a little obstacle, I see it bigger than it may be without testing it or thinking about it smart, I try to escape from it through other routes or use easy, avoiding methods. However, just like here, it can get worse. I should take this as a lesson and remember it when I encounter such situations in life. That’s how one may think long enough to take life lessons even from a simple mud during ultramarathons. 🙂
Before the race my plan was as follows: to complete the first 50 km in 4 hours and 10 minutes, and complete the remaining 5 laps by running each of them in about 1 hour. So I would try to run the first 5 km with 5 min/km pace and the next with 6 min/km. If I could do this perfectly and I would not pause, it would be 9 hours and 10 minutes. But in a race that long there will definitely be unplanned things and of course, I could lose a few seconds here and there, and even a few minutes at the station. During December, I ran almost all of my runs on 4:50-5:00 min/km. This pace had become my natural pace. If I was not tired, I was naturally running at this speed, without either trying to slow down or accelerate. When the race started, two male runners stepped forward. I started running at almost the same speed as one of the female runners, 5-10 meters behind her, as third and fourth. While darkness started to break slightly, we came to an overpass before even running a kilometre. Since this is a train route, other roads pass either above or below it. There were one big bridge and one small bridge that we ran over, one after the other. The slopes are too small to care for the first 3-5 laps, but in the last few laps, they could become, “wait-what’s-this!” grade. They are not longer than 100 meters, so there is no need to talk about them, but what can I do when there is no other excitement to tell on such a smooth track… 🙂
At the end of the first round, I left the headlamp to Başak by the dawn. The younger of the two leading runners did not start the second round. Even though it might seem interesting to start such a long race that fast and stop after the first loop, I thought “There must be a reason.” I started the second round. This tour was a tour of watching and getting used to the route for me. At the end of the first round, I also passed the female runner and was in second place. But of course, I never care about ranking in races. The leader was very fast. The race had been transformed from 100 km race to 12-hour race in the last few days. Both 50 km, 100 km and 12 hours results would be given at the end. But as I mentioned above, if there are no intermediate degrees in a loop – which is impossible at such a route – 12 hours does not make much sense. I thought the leading runner was running for maybe 50 km. Because the pace was really fast. I passed the first lap at 48:15 and the second lap at 48:29.
Garmin Fenix 5 measured the first 3 laps very well. When I arrived at the flag at the turning point there was 4.95 or 5.05 km on it. But when I read a value of 4.40 at a point that I knew I was further away from the turning point in the fourth round, I realized that the measurement was distorted. After the race, I saw the map above. I wrote two detailed articles on GPS. I wrote in these articles that in such a complex and expensive system, the tiny devices on our wrist are doing a very good job. But I don’t understand why, when the device measures something very different from the previous measurements it doesn’t fix or reassess. It doesn’t need a very intelligent system to know that I can not run 100 meters in a second. Frankly, I would like to talk to someone who has technical knowledge about this. Let’s say the watch is too small to accomplish this, or let’s say this is something complicated to be done during running, but when we upload it to Strava, why does not it say, “My friend, you uploaded a workout, but there is a lot of inconsistent data in it, maybe you want to review it.” It even takes that run into account in segments. Anyway, this is the subject of an article itself. In summary, the distance on the watch after the 4th round has become meaningless for me. I was just estimating where I was based on some obvious things on the way.
I gave Başak a list of what she should give me -food and drink- at the end of each round. She did a great job. In the first 4-5 laps, everything went well, but as everyone who runs long distances knows that 4-5 hours later, you do not want to eat anything. You keep turning it in your mouth and can’t swallow it. Here I tried to eat Flapjack, protein bar, cheese and peanut butter roll wraps. I also consumed gels when I felt down. Especially in the last few rounds, it was like torture to eat something. At that moment, I remember how I describe long-distance running: “Ultramarathon, an endurance sport where eating is like a torment, and not eating is the end”.
I completed the fifth round in 4 hours, 10 minutes and 36 seconds. Yes, you can say that I am a little obsessed about following the plans. But you may also say “You know yourself well”. After that point, every time I left the station, I looked at my watch and tried to arrive at the turning point in 30 minutes. When I said I tried to be there at that timespan, I meant both not being early and not being late. But after the 6th round, trying turned into an effort not to be late only. I walked very little in this race. I completed the 6th round in an hour, the 7th in 63, the 8th and 9th in 64 minutes. The plan was working well.
I learnt that very well: it is impossible for someone to feel very good all the time during such races. This applies to both amateurs like us and professionals. We watch the professionals during races and read their race reports. They live the same ups and downs as us. The important thing is not to get caught up in these moments of decline, not to let go or think about negative things like “I can not recover anymore!”. Being aware of the fact that the moments of decline are temporary, one must either proceed as fast as possible while waiting for this situation to pass or do something mentally and/or physically (such as washing hands, drinking something, slapping yourself 🙂 ) to reverse the decline. I have been recovering faster in long races since I learned this. I have experienced this several times in this race also.
Another issue is pain. It is very difficult to run so long and not experience any pain. Of course, some part of the body hurts; in fact, after 7-8 hours, you feel the pain in every inch of your body. First of all, it is necessary to eliminate the possibility of it being an injury. After that – if that is not the case (you can know this by knowing yourself and your body well) – the best thing to do is to stop resisting the pain. I have read or listened somewhere: “Pain is like a car that has been left in neutral, without the handbrake being pulled, you will have more difficulty if you stand in front of it and try to stop it with all your strength.” You really shouldn’t bother with pain. It does not make much sense to force the body so hard and expect it not to react at all. But at the same time, it does not help to worry about the pain and constantly think about it. On the contrary, thinking about it strengthens the feeling. I keep thinking “Nobody said it would be painless.” and try to focus on something different. Pain goes away after a while.
Since the track was a round trip, runners were seeing each other frequently. Surprised by the pace of the leading runner was already a little fun for me each round. The man stepped on the gas to the end without slowing down. He finished the race in 7 hours and 29 minutes. When I finished the 9th round, he came and congratulated me and started to chat. I understood that he was thinking I finished. When I said “I have another round.” he was surprised and walked away. I ran that final lap in 63 minutes, running a little more enthusiastically and ambitiously than previous couple of laps, and completed the race in 9 hours 26 minutes 33 seconds. It was quite satisfying for me to be running exactly as I planned and to hit the target exactly. While finishing, I ran great with this feeling of satisfaction in the last kilometres. The weather was always dry, the sun did not shine, and the temperature was also quite good. I finished it as I started without changing any clothes. I changed the buff on my forehead in the 6th or 7th round, just because it got wet more than sweat. At the end of the race -for me-, it started to drizzle. When I finished it got quickly cold for there was no sun and we returned to the hotel without losing much time.
14 people started the race, 13 people completed 50 km and 7 people completed 100 km. The results can be seen here. I really don’t have a T-shirt or medal now, but now I have a sub10 100K race in my book. I don’t know what the next goal will be, but under 9 hours seems not too far. Who knows, maybe I will try it.