The Gloucester 48 hour track race in August was another ‘2021 running event to look forward to which doesn’t involve public transport’. When I entered in February, my target was 175 miles, based on my 37 and a bit hour finish at the (145 mile long) Grand Union Canal Race (GUCR) in 2013. In retrospect this was more than a little over ambitious. Pre GUCR I was managing 20 and 30 mile back-to-back long runs regularly. At the point I entered the 48 hour I hadn’t managed a proper run (as opposed to a run-walk-shuffle) longer than 15 miles since my 2018 Monarch’s Way DNF. But 6 months was plenty of time to get back to proper training…

Things were sort of going in the right direction for the first few months, and I managed to run-walk-shuffle 83 mostly unsupported miles in 23 hours at Convergence in late May. Some family stuff then kicked off and I didn’t have the mental strength for the long flat canal tow path runs I should have been doing on Saturdays and Sundays. Instead I just went for long run-walks in the Peak District on Sundays. There were a few good long days mixed in though; a 12.5 hour, 41 mile circumnavigation of all of the bear statues in Sheffield, and a fast packing weekend on the Lady Anne’s Way route (in preparation for a race along it in Jan 2022). The later didn’t go entirely to plan. I’d already recced Richmond to Hawes in Summer 2020. The aim of this trip was to recce the 2nd ‘half’ of the route from Hawes to Penrith. Penrith is easier to both get to and find long-term parking in than Hawes. So my plan was to do Penrith-Hawes-Penrith over a long weekend. Unfortunately I picked the weekend of the Appleby horse fair… Passing though not just Appleby but the surrounding villages was one of the most unpleasant solo travel experiences I’ve ever had (far worse than travelling in India on my own). There was no way I was doing the return journey on foot, so I got the train pack to Penrith. Initially I’d planned to walk back as far as Kirkby Stephen. But it was raining, my feet were starting to blister, and with the track race a couple of weeks away I headed bailed at Garsdale just outside Hawes.

Given all of the above, by race day I’d scaled my ambitions back somewhat. My plan was just to keep moving for as long as I was managing 3mph, which would hopefully be sufficient for a 48 hour PB (officially my EMU split of 137 miles, but actually the 145 miles of GUCR).

I drove down to Gloucester the night before the race and stayed in a Travelodge (this felt a bit decadent with other runners arriving in Gloucester on the day, but I didn’t want to start tired). In the morning I set my tent up next to the track, with a chair and snack table in front. I started off walking one lap every half hour. Unsurprisingly, given the lack of long runs, this didn’t last long and by the evening I was alternating running and walking laps (as usual with fixed time races my memory of exactly what happened when is fuzzy). Unsurprisingly I was close to the back of the field, hovering around 10th of the 13 entrants.

Beforehand I wasn’t sure about whether I was going to stop and sleep on the first night. In a point to point race I wouldn’t, and the truly hardcore can do 48 hours without sleep. However by the early hours I was feeling pretty sleepy, and other people were stopping, so I stopped and managed an hour or so’s restless sleep.

It didn’t feel like I was moving particularly well, but to my amazement at 24 hours I'd managed 96.2 miles and had worked my way up to 5th place. The 24 hour race then started and the track suddenly felt very crowded. Despite the race organiser repeatedly telling me there was no need, I moved out to lane 2 to stay out of the way. As usual I struggled to eat. For some stupid reason I didn’t bring the expensive gels I’d bought months before specifically for this race and instead tried to eat baby food fruit pouches, which were far too sweet. My quads got really tight and (repeating a bad habit from the EMU 6 day) I stopped for a massage. It was good. Painful, but good. I’m not sure it made me move any faster though, so the ~30 minutes would have been better spent keeping moving.

By 36 hours I’d managed 133.5 miles. I was moving slowly, but barring disaster 160 miles was within reach. I stopped for a 45 min sleep in the middle of the night, but just after dawn I started really struggling with sleepiness, and taking caffeine tablets didn’t help, so I had another short sleep stop. I still felt crap afterwards, but it was enough to see me through to sunrise when, as usual, I started feeling better. Post dawn is always tough, and in retrospect I should have timed my sleep stop so that I ‘got up’ at dawn.

Overnight I moved into 4th place, but in the closing hours the bloke I’d overtaken started running properly, faster than I can even when fresh. There was no way I could match his speed, so I just concentrated on keeping moving as fast as I comfortably could. In the end I managed 167.3 miles, not so far off my initial goal, and enough to hold on to 4th place overall by about a mile (I was 2nd woman, the overall winner was female). Given the suboptimal preparation, I’m fairly satisfied. And with better preparation 175 miles, and possibly even 180, should be doable. The main thing I’ve learnt is that I can/should put down more miles in the first day than I thought. My rough plan for 175 miles was a 92.5-82.5 split between the 2 days. However that’s far too close to even, and I now think a 100-102 mile first day is a) doable, and b) necessary to maximise my total 48 hour miles. And I’ve got my eyes out for another 48 hour race to give it ago. Unfortunately they’re few and far between/hard to get to. The options are Gloucester in 2023, or a long journey to a fiddly to get to overseas race. The easiest options are in France, but unfortunately (since at my school it was impossible to take French GCSE if you were doing Physics and Chemistry) my French is limited to ‘Je m'appelle Anne. J'ai onze ans.’, which isn’t very useful.