In early 2021, with the pandemic stubbornly dragging on, I wanted something to look forward to. With adventures being limited by not using public transport, I was also getting bored of staying close to home. Convergence 2021, 24 hours to converge on Meriden from the furtherest ‘as the crows flies' distance filled the gap nicely.

My 2016 Escape from Meriden route wasn’t particularly efficient (in terms of ‘miles covered per crows flies mile’ or ascent), but it was practical. It passed close to home for refuelling, and my finish point, just North of Rotherham, wasn’t too far for the OH to come to pick me up at midnight. So the simplest option seemed to be to reverse it, and ask the OH to drop me off at my Escape finish point and pick me up from Meriden (hopefully…) 24 hours later. The midday start/finish time made this not too big an ask, and (with a blank diary thanks to covid) he quickly said yes. Starting from my Escape finish point felt a bit ‘necky’, but I was confident that without the midnight start I would be fresher. And there would be no failed power nap on the back seat of the car at Little Eaton (if only because, unless I broke into one, there would be no car there waiting for me).

After finishing my footpaths of Chesterfield project in early March, I tried to get back to proper running training for the first time since my 2018 Monarch’s Way DNF. I only managed to build my long run up to 15 miles. But I did a fair bit of walking, including a 2 day fast packing trip around the ~95 mile White Peak Way. I wasn’t super fit, but hopefully fit enough for ~83 miles in 24 hours. I made one small tweak of my Escape route. South of Chesterfield, between Higham and Rawson Green, I’d taken B roads which were narrow, bendy and surprisingly busy. A slightly longer route, on major roads would be a bit longer, but much safer thanks to pavements all the way. And also potentially faster because I wouldn’t need to keep jumping into and out of the hedge.

On the day I woke up feeling crap (almost every race I’ve done for the last 3 years has coincided with my period). The advantage (or disadvantage…) of my route passing home ~20 miles in was that I’d have an easy bale out option. The OH drove me up to the pub car park where he’d picked me up at the end of Escape and we waited for midday. As people switched on their trackers it became clear from the map that most people were being very conservative with their starting points. There were 3 people (including one woman) starting beyond the black `90 miles as the crow flies’ circle, and then me and a couple of others roughly half way between the black and gold (`60 miles as the crow flies’) circle. It wasn’t clear which of us was furthest out, but nonetheless if I pulled this off I’d be guaranteed a high placing.

Running through Rotherham was a lot more pleasant in the daylight, and I was soon on the Trans Pennine Trail and heading for familiar long-run territory. After ~3 hours my legs and feet started hurting, possibly not surprising since that was the longest I’d run for in training. Instead of following the Chesterfield canal, I took a shorter, but hillier road route into Chesterfield, as it would give me an excuse to take more regular walk breaks.

Overall I wasn’t feeling too bad when I got home, so there was no question of stopping. I did a bit of kit sorting, ate 2 bowls of mashed potato, and headed off into a pleasantly sunny late afternoon. I was doing a lot of walking by now, but was still moving fast enough to get myself to Derby by midnight (which would then allow plenty of time to get to Meriden by midday).

The one hitch on my modified route was a road closure due to resurfacing just South of Alfreton. There was no alternative (other than running along the A38…) so I carefully picked my way through the machines and fresh tarmac. It was only early evening, but Saturday night was already kicking off in Alfreton and Ripley with puke and pissed people on the pavements.

I made good progress to Derby, with occasional stops to buy water from petrol stations, go to the toilet behind hedges, and put more clothes on. Derby city centre was busy, but much less unpleasant than the previous small towns. Derby was likely to be my last opportunity to buy water, so I bought several bottle through the night window of a 24 hour petrol station, before heading via cycle paths onto minor roads. The Swarkstone bridge was still narrow and unpleasant, with a surprising amount of fast moving late night traffic. The next 20 miles dragged; I was moving slower than I had been on Escape so everything took longer than I was expecting. Maintaining a 3.5 mph average, which would get me to Meriden comfortably before midday, served as motivation to keep up a run-walk-shuffle mix.

I was on target to arrive in Meriden by 10.30, but hit a bad patch on Sunday morning. I’d been struggling to eat, was low on energy, and moving so slowly an elderly dog walker overtook me. My Garmin also ran out of energy and turned itself off. I like to navigate by map, but have got used to having the Garmin as a safety net. And to finish things off, my final route into Meriden, which had been fine in the early hours of the morning on Escape, was not very pedestrian friendly. But I was actually in danger of arriving before my lift home (the plan was that the OH would set an alarm for 9am and decide when to leave home based on where I was then). I could take it easy, nail the navigation and jump into the hedge every time a car approached. I’m glad I wasn’t racing the cutoff on this bit of road though.

I managed to run the last downhill mile or so into Meriden, arriving at 10.45 to socially distanced clapping from runners who’d already finished. Thanks to traffic jams on the motorway I’d beaten my lift, but the OH appeared not long afterwards. And it turned out my 72.7 crow flies miles were enough for 2nd woman and 4th place overall-I’m the magenta line just East of North (one of the successful ‘black’ runs is missing from the map).