The Adventure Hub Exmoor Ultra

What can be better than running along the coastal trail from Minehead to Lynmouth?  Why surely only turning around and running back again?  That's the theory, anyway. This race has been on my radar for a few months, but the March schedule was a bit busy, so it was only loosely penciled onto the race diary.  During February, the weekend came free, so I entered together with my friend Mitch and started to promptly panic that my Winter ultra training was fairly pants.  I had a duff toe, a ropey hamstring (especially following the Threshold 10K), and not nearly enough miles in the legs.  Compared to 2012, I was woefully ill-prepared for this race.  With such great background, I did the only sensible thing and had a bit of a rest before the race to give my body a chance to sort itself out.

The day started early, with the alarm going off at 3:30.  I woke to the sound of the test match commentary I'd been listening to while trying to get my legs to stop twitching so I could get to sleep.  Why, oh why, does my body want to start running the night before the race?  I made up my tortilla-based menu for the day - breakfast of scrambled eggs in a tortilla, pre-race snack of peanut butter and banana in a tortilla, mid-race snacks of hummus in tortillas.  If there'd been more leftover tortillas from dinner a few nights earlier, I'm sure I'd have found a use for them.  Aside from being light on the stomach, they're a great way to carry a nice filling without taking up much space.

Mitch picked me up at 4:30 and we talked our way through the 2 1/2 hour drive down to Minehead, arriving in plenty of time to register, eat, etc. Thankfully, we don't need our jaws much in an ultra, because I expect they would have been a bit tired by the time we arrived.

The forecast was for fog, followed by thunderstorms, followed by rain, and I'm pretty sure I saw a plague of locusts tacked on as well.  The race started at 8 with a few drops of drizzle, which quickly gave way to glorious sunshine.  The first 4.5 miles are basically uphill out of Minehead, so I had ample opportunity to take off my jacket during one of the hiking sections.  It was glorious to feel the sun on my skin, and I tried to run as much as I could with the goal of getting as far as possible before the weather turned.  I enjoyed a few miles of chatting with Ted, a fellow American enjoying the UK life and ultra scene.  I always seem to find a bit of an international collection at events in the south, and this was no different.  American, French, and Irish voices made for an eclectic mix. The stop at the first check point was brief, enough time to drink a cup of water and give my number.  I was running self-sufficient, other than water, in part to avoid losing time in the friendly comforts of the check points.

By the time we dropped down the rather steep Bossington Hill and made our way to the pebbly beach at Porlock, it was sunny, warm, and beautiful.  I took a few pictures on the run to prove that we'd had some sun.

Perfect dog-walking weather

The Sunken Forest as the tide headed out

Leaving Porlock Weir, the route climbs for another few miles before flattening out and then presenting another big downhill just after the second check point.  At this stage, I'd realized the basic pattern: 5mi up, 5mi down/flat, repeat.  So, I did my best along the rough single track over the next few miles to make good use of the terrain.  I knew there was at least one more big hill before the long downhill to the turnaround point, and wanted to get there as quickly as I could sensibly manage.

In truth, I was struggling to run with any cohesion.  My legs were getting close to the furthest they had run in a while, and I didn't feel I had full control over where they were going.  I'm also not that keen on steep cliffs combined with wet rock (strange, for a trail runner, really).  The combination meant I felt the need to take a bit of extra care.  As a result, I wasted a fair bit of time gingerly picking my way along track that I would normally jog along without too much concern. On the plus side, I'd been able to eat regularly and felt quite happy with how things were going.  After all, there'd only been a few small showers and I was almost to my favourite downhill section of the Endurancelife CTS Exmoor Ultra, where I would surely be able to have a good run into the halfway point.

Of course, at this point, the weather turned and I had the chance to enjoy a heavy shower followed by a long hike up the final hill with a sleet shower blowing into my face.  Thank goodness for a good waterproof jacket.  As I slogged it up the hill, eating my final hummus wrap of the day and looking at the herd of Exmoor ponies, I wished I had reached this point before the storm.  It would have been nice to take a picture of the young foal with its dam, and I expect the views would have been quite pleasant.  Instead, the camera stayed in the dry pouch and I just kept trudging up the hill.

At last, I prepared to run down the final, long hill to the turnaround.  I had approximately 2km of steady track to enjoy.  Or, after all of the overnight rain, 2km of slippery single track to pick my way along.  The front runners were flying past at an amazing rate on their return journey, which meant lots of "keep going" and "well done" as we wished each other well on our respective challenges.  Those at the front had a race on, with the front few fairly close together.

I reached the turnaround in 4:23, expecting to slow down by around an hour on the way back.  The sun had come back out, so I could take off my sodden gloves and prep my bag for the return journey.  More TORQ bars and gels came out of the main pocket and went into the convenient front pouches and I pulled out some dry gloves and buffs and headed back to Minehead.  On the way out, I got a hug from Sharon Walton, who had been slowly reeling me in for a while.  Sharon ran the Naunton 19, and it's not always possible to have as good a chat with runners as I'd like when on the other side of the fence.  But, when we met before the race it was like meeting an old friend.  She and her husband Tim were very encouraging.  Sharon and I passed each other regularly on the way back.  It would have been great to run together, but I couldn't stay with her on the run, while making up lost ground on the uphill hikes.

Somehow, the way back seemed much harder than the way out.  The reality of it, though, is that the first 10 miles is actually the most runnable section, so the middle 20 are a real struggle.  I knew, once I got to the penultimate check point, that I would be able to get in somewhere near 10 hours if I just kept running.  Easier said than done, but I kept my check point visits short and kept going.  Yes, there was more sleet, and some rather festive snow for a mile or two, but that wasn't such a big deal.  It was, after all, better than heavy rain.

My biggest concern as I headed down to Porlock was strangely my hands.  The windproof/waterproof gloves weren't as waterproof as they needed to be, and I lost feeling in a few fingers.  Once the snow stopped, I wrung the gloves out and put them in a pocket, using spare buffs as make-shift mittens until my fingers returned to normal.  Once again, the sun came out to help take the chill off and the 10km shuffle home was on in earnest.

A nice coastal rainbow (if you look closely) as the snow stopped

At the top of Bossington Hill, I knew it was a clean run to the end and did my best to carry on at as fast a jog as I could manage.  The mist began to roll in and I tried to up the pace a bit to at least finish before sunset - I didn't want to have to dig the headtorch out of my bag.  I finally reached the end at 10:06, the longest I've ever raced for both in time (by nearly 3 hours) and distance (by nearly 2 miles).  My quads were shot, my achilles were ready to disown me, and I was pretty happy about the whole experience.  I'd wanted to go faster, but I couldn't, so that's just the way it goes.  The race was good, I had no real problems, I never got lost - in other words, it was a success.

Since the race, I have been double-checking that next month's Highland Fling isn't due to be this hard (it's not), because frankly, I think another 11 miles like that would have turned a good day into a world of hurt.

Garmin's interpretation of the Exmoor Ultra

Endurancelife Exmoor Ultra - brutal from start to finish

You may have gathered from my past postings that I enjoy the challenging courses provided by Endurancelife.  They offer fantastic scenery, plenty of miles (sometimes even a few extra "value" miles), and geological/geographical variety.  The Exmoor race rounds the series off nicely, with narrow cliff paths, steep hills, and an abundance of toe-catching, ankle-turning rocky paths.  It's rated as the toughest of the Coastal Trail Series courses.  So, naturally, I chose to put myself to the test and race the ultra.

The key part of this challenge really was not the course, or my fitness to run it, but the plan to "race".  I make a habit of running to a conservative plan for this kind of event, with the option of racing during the closing stages if I'm feeling good.  It's a good plan, and generally results in thorough enjoyment of the run.  The plan doesn't, though, give me too much feedback about what I can actually do.  So, being inherently curious, I figured that my third ever run over 50K was an ideal time to find some of my limits.  Being inherently stupid, I forgot just how tough the Exmoor course is.  After all, I remembered having had an awesome race in 2011, so the course couldn't be that bad...

The setting at The Hunters Inn is picture-postcard stuff, so we decided after the 2011 race that we would come back and stay at the Inn for this year's race.  Logistically, it was great.  Roll out of bed, have breakfast, register, have breakfast again, go to the start, run.  What could be better?  We had the benefit of our own toilet facilities (not to be undervalued on race mornings!), didn't have to wait around in the cold, got extra sleep, and were only a short walk from the shower and clean clothes before heading to the hotel bar at the end.  Strangely, though, it really broke the pre-race routine and meant that I hadn't had much of a warm-up before the race started.

Why warm up before an ultra?  The general advice is to start slow and get slower.  That's all well and good, except that at 0.5 miles, we start a half mile, 500 foot climb that runs between 15% and 30% gradient.  Without much warm-up, the calves were burning from the outset.

Part One of the 4-mile opening climb (Nic's pic from the next day)

At the start, I met up again with my friend Rueben.  He was doing his first long race for a while where he wasn't shepherding someone, so decided to stick with me for a while since we often run the first half in similar times.  It was nice to have someone to chat with, although we were moving at an effort level that didn't invite long, philosophical discussions.  We burned our way up the first hills (all 3.7 miles) before having the chance to scream back down to the start.

Hiking up the hill as fast as it will let us.

The highest point of the race - Holdstone Hill

Both Rueben and I enjoy a fast descent, and the drop from Holdstone Hill to the Hunters Inn is fast, occasionally quite tricky, and pretty unforgiving.  I managed to lose my footing over some roots and narrowly avoided causing a pile-up when I went down.  Rueben was more artistic and decorated the front of his white t-shirt with the local dirt when a rock failed to give way to his big toe.  Such minor incidents aside, we had a ball on that three mile section.  I also knew that the next time I would do that little loop, I would be moving much slower both up and down.

From the start, the course took us back out of the valley onto the cliffs heading towards Lynton.  The climb was pretty sociable, with small groups forming and reshaping as we moved along the coast.  I've usually run these events essentially on my own, but found that the pace I was aiming for (~6:15-6:30 finish) put me into a part of the field that I would normally never see by being more conservative.  At around 12 miles, Rueben and I caught up with the Shannon brothers to form a little international pack (1 American, 1 Kiwi, and 2 Irish).  We held a good, steady effort level until we passed through the worst of the hills at 19 miles.  The racing was good fun.  With people around to share out the pacing, gate opening/closing, and good camaraderie, I felt strong as we climbed up to the top of another of these 20% beasts to Countisbury.  From  there, I remembered there was some hard work to do, but nothing too unpleasant until the second round of the initial 10K.

It turns out that marathons really are a lot like giving birth (I've often heard it said, but have no experience upon which to judge).  The climb out of Lynmouth is quite steep, and more than just a little painful at pace.  I had totally forgotten about it from the previous year.  Looking back at the 2011 race report, I'd even forgotten about it by the time I had finished.  The hill doesn't show up as much on the chart - just another 500ft climb over a bit more than half a mile.  It happens, though, to come after the hill up to Countisbury and the long descent along vertiginous goat tracks where I kept having to remind myself to breathe while I tried to both run quickly and keep to the 10-inch wide path.  The result is that this little hill hits you when you're feeling fast but have in no way recovered from the battering you've just received over the previous few miles.  

By the time we got to the top at 21 miles, I was feeling pretty rough.  I also felt like a short comfort break was in order.  I chose to stick to our little foreign crew for as long as I could, hoping that I'd get some energy back within a mile or so.  By mile 23, though, I had to wave them farewell.  My guts were grumbling, my bladder was screaming (that, at least, was easily solved), and I was teetering on the brink of a bonk.  I was still in my "perfect-day" target zone, so eased back and tried to take on more calories and water and to just keep going for the next few miles.  The trick to trail racing, compared to road racing, is that a few miles can take nearly an hour when you're feeling below par.  So, I just kept pushing gels and the like in the hope that I'd feel less bad in 30-40 minutes.

The Exmoor ultra course has one very nice attribute, compared with other Endurancelife ultras - you don't actually pass the finish line before heading on the "ultra" part of the course.  About a mile before the finish, the ultra course drops onto a different path to get back to the bottom of Holdstone Hill.  Still feeling pretty rubbish, I was happy not to have to actively decide not to call it a day.  About half a mile up the hill, though, I had to stop for a bout of retching at the bushes.  Oddly, I found this unpleasant break to be quite uplifting.  For one, I didn't bring anything up - so, I figured that adding one last gel would work.  Even better, I realized that my abs still had a lot of strength left in them!  Most importantly, though, whatever unsettled feeling I had just went away.  Feeling a bit wrung out, I looked down the hill to the finish, told myself to stop being such a wimp, and carried on up the path.

I won't pretend that the next couple of miles up to the top of the hill were easy.  They weren't.  I was starting to get passed by guys I hadn't seen for over 10 miles, which really pissed me off.  But, I kept putting one foot in front of the other, running where I could and walking the rest.  I picked up a bit of speed on the final 5K descent, but nothing like what I had managed at the start.   My feet couldn't move fast enough to handle the terrain safely, so I was plodding (relative to the first lap, anyway) down the trail to the finish, where I crossed the line looking pretty wiped out, but happy (it's always great to cross the finish line).

Finishing at last!

Had I remembered the extra climb, I might have taken a slightly more conservative approach from 17 to 19 miles, but otherwise I would probably have approached the race with the same goal of finding out what I am actually capable of.  I also learned that I probably should ditch my waist pack in favour of a backpack for anything over 4 hours to keep from adding extra pressure to my digestive system and that I prefer gels over solids if I'm going to keep the pedal down.  In the end, I ran the marathon distance about 15 minutes faster than 2011, and survived the extra 6.5 miles in around 90 minutes - not too dissimilar from last month's trip to Sussex.  I can live with that for the first time I've "raced" an ultra.