A completely bonkers 24 hours, running around and around a 400 m running track with Sarah, at the Track Wars Inspire event, organised by Phoenix Running!
"The Track" is at the Xcel Sports Hub Stadium in Walton on Thames.
It's quite new, and very nice, and has an even nicer indoor changing area, which is lovely and warm, especially if the temperature outside is freezing.
Did I mention it was freezing? No? Well. It was freezing.
The weather for the 24 hours included a dizzying range of seasons, which shifted between each other at a sometimes alarming rate. Started off not too cold but rainy. Then it sleeted. Back to rain. The wind picked up, and a giant gust picked the aid station gazebos clean off the floor (even despite them being weighted down with huge weights) and landed them several feet away from where they were meant to be, toppling all the tables over, and the drinks and sweets suddenly found themselves all over the track. Exciting! Fortunately, the pink shrimp sweets and pretzels remained unharmed (integral for the Shrimp Strategy to be employed later). A few hours later, the wind finally died down. The afternoon was OK weather (especially considering the snow other parts of the country have!) and was just cloudy, dull, and chilly, but as night fell, the temperature did a nose dive - down to -4oC it said on the Met Office! A layer of frost covered everything, and the air was bitter!
We started off at 08:00 on Saturday, and started in the anti-clockwise direction. The direction changed every 3 hours, when if you were lucky, Rik would wear a traffic cone on his head and mark the place of turning. Sarah and I also have the "Freddo Rule" whereby we got a chocolate Freddo at each turn around point. There were other 6 hour events starting at 08:00, 14:00 and midnight, so new faces would join every so often, which was really nice (although it is a bit difficult to have fresh legs bounce past you, when your own legs have been going for ages and are screaming at you that you are an absolute idiot to be doing this). Andrew came along at midnight for a marathon (as you do!), which was a great boost. Also fab to see the 2 Richards at midnight too!
It was my second 24 hour track event, and although they are a little bit mad, and if you think about it too deeply I do find it a bit intimidating, I do really enjoy them. It's like being in a little bubble for 24 hours, surrounded by lots of other people doing the same thing, all in it together. The atmosphere, support, and banter between the participants and organisers is really special, and that's what I like the most about the events. Thank you everyone for being so friendly and fun - I love the running community and my friends here!
Sarah and I ran together, and I think it was definitely one of the toughest long events we have done. It was just so cold! Did I mention it was freezing?
But, having not seen each other since Seville, there was a lot to catch up on! So the hours passed really quickly - and luckily we had 24 whole hours, so we managed to get up to date on chat. Also remembered some random topics of conversation from last year - the hurdles family, and cone chat. Less cones on the track this year - and most would come under the "party cone" category (aka, fallen over) following the windy episode.
We did our annual wildlife audit of the track, which is quite quick to do, as there really isn't much. Other than a lot of squashed worms early in the first morning, which turned into frozen squashed worms in the night time. Two swans flew over early the second morning, which is always a majestic sight. There were a few seagulls, and a blackbird (eating worms). And shrimps. We think we might have seen a UFO. Or it may have been a plane, or stars. It being so cold overnight (did I mention it was freezing?), the sky was beautiful and clear and the moon and stars were twinkling above. Just in time for sunrise, it got cloudy, which obscured the view somewhat, but the colours of the rising sun on the clouds and the shadows was just magical. I think that we both found the night time section "challenging" - it was so cold (freezing even!) and dark and long. I has my usual pre-dawn wobble, where I think that night will never end, I feel sick and dizzy, and so tired, and become overwhelmingly convinced I can't finish (these thoughts happen every time, and so far haven't come true, but I still 100% believe my thoughts in that moment). Then the sun rises, and it all gets better!
The Shrimp Strategy was employed. Pizza arrived at 7pm! Our own snacks got a bit frozen, sitting in our bags on the frozen track. It was quite exciting to think that everything was covered in a layer of sparkling glitter - until you touched it, and realised it was frost. The water in our cups froze, so we converted to having hot squash/water in the night - thanks Gavin!
Sarah and I ran the joint furthest distance at the event, and covered 112.3 miles (or 452 laps). Girl Power! This is my new PB for distance. Congratulations to Sarah, hereby nicknamed "Princess Consistency" for equalling EXACTLY your previous PB! That is really totally incredible, I bet that no one else has ever done this - the same event, twice, each in totally different conditions, always so many variables in a run of this length - and you hit the same distance right on the head each time! You are amazing, as always, and thank you for being such an incredible and kind friend, and also for putting up with me for an entire 24 hours. I owe you a lot of cocktails.
Thank you so much Rik and Team Phoenix for a fabulous track event (shout out to Gavin who ran his 150th marathon in the morning, then staying out all night to look after everyone), and Karen and Matt at Timing Monkey. Huge well done to everyone who took part. Everyone is awesome!
I have now defrosted my kit bag, snacks and ginger beer, washed my 5 thousand layers, and am already starting to forget how cold it was. Did I mention though, it was was freezing?
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