The
White Horse 100 had been looming in my mind, for weeks! For me, 100’s
still feel like a bit of an untamed beast. I have loved each one I
have done, and the memories of each sparkle in my mind like gems when
I think of them, but I think that’s partly because they are quite
hard, and so I always worry about them beforehand. What if I can’t
do it? What if something awful happens? What if I get lost beyond all
recognition and end up in Wales? I obsess over all these thoughts and
more! But, when Sarah and Jon told me about it, it sounded like such
an adventure that I knew I had to do it. I almost ended up not being
able to enter, when I realised I was meant to be on holiday, but I so
wanted to do it, I managed to persuade Andrew it would be a good idea
to rearrange things - thanks Andrew!
Made
it to the Premier Inn at Marlborough (near Swindon) on Friday
evening, to join some other members of Team Unicorn. The transition
from Team White Horse to Team Unicorn came about as Jon had a left
over trowel from his last ultra adventure (as you do), and on
discussion with the group about how this could improve a white chalk
horse, it was decided that it would make a good unicorn horn. And so,
preparations had been underway for team members to embrace the spirit
of the unicorn, in preparation for race day. This started (of course)
with manicures…
In
the Premier Inn Car Park, on Saturday dawn, unicorns Sarah, Jon,
Hayley, Rob, Andrew and myself assembled ourselves, and exchanged
unicorn gifts. Thank you Sarah for the badge, and Caramak bar, and
nail transfers! And Jon for the unicorn horn!
We
walked 5 minutes to the race start to check in, and catch up with other
unicorn members Ollie and Gareth. Due to Covid, you could start when
you were ready between 07:00-08:00, so we all set off together at
around 07:30. The White Horse 100, as the name suggests, is 100 miles around white horses (horses cut into the turf of the chalk hillsides of Wiltshire).
The first few miles were great fun catching up, playing
the postbox game (1 point per post box), and 'Spot the Horses' game (1 point per horse).
At
7 miles in we found our first white horse – the Hackpen White
Horse (which involved negotiating two actual very cute real horses who were guarding the gate of the field, and who preferred to make friends with/ steal snacks from the people passing through, rather than letting them through to see the chalk horse).
Narrowly avoiding having all my snacks for the remaining 93 miles stolen by a pony, we escaped, to continue with a few miles of pretty scenery....
And, although not horses, some donkeys were spotted, which were allowed 1 extra point each for the 'Spot the Horse' game, owing to their extreme cuteness.
Plus some alpacas and goats, which also scored some bonus points.
After the first checkpoint at Broad Hinton, we managed to miss Horse #2 (the Broad Town White Horse). We were running through a wood at this point, which made looking for chalk horses on hills a bit tricky. Soon made it to CP2 at Cherhill which was a fabulous CP with many snacks, smiles and support from the CP bosses. Then it was back to the trails, and time to find horse #3, the Cherhill White Horse. This was situated on a hill, with a big tower which looked just like a unicorn horn. This, of course, was extremely funny to begin with, but the novelty gradually wore off during the day, when it turned out that we could pretty much see this for the entire day, no matter how far, or how long, we seemed to have been going.
Attention soon changed to decorating the White Horse trail signs with unicorn paraphernalia.
Next up was the Avebury stone circle (dating from between 2850 and 2200 BC!), and CP3, which had luxury inside loos, but the lights didn't work, which made for an interesting luxury loo experience and I almost lost my phone down said loo, whilst using the torch.
Bonus post box points were also collected, due to a crocheted post box (which had something on the top that look a bit rude, and may have been a unicorn horn, a flower, or something else entirely).From here on were some pretty tough miles, up and down, up and down, repeat a few more times. It made for stunning views though and as the light turned dusky coming into CP4, it was quite spectacular.
And looking back up the hills, was horse #4, the Alton Barnes White Horse.
CP4 at 41 miles, in Alton Barnes, was also brilliant; outdoors in a car park of the village hall where some kind of classical music concert was going on! But here, we had to say goodbye to Andrew, who was doing the 50 miler and so was taking a different route back to base. So proud that he did a 50 in good spirits and great form, after some recent troubles with this distance. He smashed it! We had a good faff at CP4 and recollected ourselves (with some rice pudding and fig roll), and after a little while, Hayley, Sarah, Rob and me were good to go again. There are so many beautiful villages around here, with many thatched cottages, like this one, with thatched rabbits to boot!
And some helpfully motivating signs to keep us going!
At a place called Honeystreet, we dropped down to the Avon and Kennet Canal which we followed for a good few miles. It was nice after all the hills to have a bit of flat, straightforward running for a while.
We also found a tyre horse to add to the collection!
The light started to fade, and then suddenly went dark quite suddenly!Thank you so so much Jon for staying to crew us. It is a very lucky thing to have a brilliant person keep popping up at different points (including at the getting dark point!) and checking in if we needed anything, and magically going to find things, and then turning up at all sorts of difficult to get to places with said things, plus with cheer and support. The most valuable thing that you can give people is your time, and you gave us so much of your time, plus boundless kindness - thank you a million Jon!
Thus sorted out by Jon, and with headtorches on, we set off once again along the canal for another good few miles (missing the Devizes White Horse due to it being dark), until turning off just before CP5 at Poultshot. CP5 was wonderful! A village hall with bright lights shining from within, the CP boss (I wish I had got his name!) came outside to meet us - he had on the tennis inside, Abba playing on full pelt, tables full of snacks, and made us hot soup and rolls and hot drinks. I think it's fair to say we could all have stayed quite happily there for the rest of the night! It really boosted us, so thank you so much!
Heading back out into the darkness, it was 10 miles to the next CP at Bratton. Quite a lot of this was along lanes, which made for easy going underfoot. We passed a church yard and light streaming from a stained glass window, which I thought would be good to take a photo of, until I looked at it afterwards and noticed all sorts of spooky shadows appearing all over the place!
In the darkness, instead of admiring the scenery, we turned more to chatting, and the miles went by quickly, focussing on our micro-worlds in the spotlights of our headtorches. The CP at Bratton was also brilliant, two CP bosses (again, I wish I knew their names!) looked after us so well, and there were even Ginsters pasties at this one! I was feeling quite awake considering the time of day, which I think was thanks to Rob buying me some Coke earlier in the day, and letting me try his caffeine tablets. I know you're not meant to try new things on events, but I also think you might as well experiment in the field, so to speak, to be able to evaluate things fully! I think they worked! And thanks Sarah for the salt tablets too!
Shortly after this CP, we headed up a hill to find horse #6, the Westbury White Horse, and we managed, despite the darkness, to find it's head (as shown by this remarkably good photo)!
We got a bit lost on this bit, but found our way back to the road, and headed down to the edge of the MOD training area.
It was quite a long haul this bit, 14 miles to the next CP, and it was all along a stony track along the perimeter of the firing ranges, and I think it's fair to say I found this the toughest part of the whole route. It was pretty flat, and the navigation was straightforward, but running on that flint was like running on top of tiny tiny daggers for 14 miles, and it was relentless! Again though, Team Unicorn got ourselves through it together, and many laughs were had (many at expense of the millions of slugs and snails that we slithering all over the path, and there would be regular squishes and cracks as we kept mistaking them for stones - sorry slimy friends!).
Just before the next CP, the sun rose, and we had survived the night!!
CP7 was on the MOD border road, and the poor guy manning it had been there all night, but was still chipper and so smiley and encouraging - these people are incredible humans!! I stopped ignoring the fact that my feet were unhappy with me, and applied some padding and plasters to the blistery parts. There were a few more miles of evil flint tracks before finally, FINALLY, we left it - the first few steps on grass were heavenly!! Jon came to do a surprise CP at Charlton, and we had a regroup/final faff to ready ourselves for the remaining miles. Gave my teeth a brush with my mini toothbrush, which is a nice boost to trick your body to thinking you have just woken up! I woke up enough to notice one the of the waymarks that had been dotted along the route, and thus establishing the way forward....
.....in a few more miles, we found horse #7, the Pewsey white Horse. We had a few issues finding the right path to this one, and, to be quite honest, despite being quite tired and less enthusiastic about white chalk horses by this point, I still feel that it was a bit disappointingly small, considering all the effort we had made to get to it.
Then it was down into Pewsey for the final CP (thank you to the lovely lady who had walked out a bit to find us and show us the way in!), and then on to the final section of 11.5 miles to the end. It sounded quite simple, but of course, there were a few "surprises" thrown in, like the Giants Grave, which is a short but particularly nasty hill (seen here, in the background).
We paused at the top for a photo shoot/recover ourselves....
....then continuing around the top of the ridge, over Huish Downs and to West Woods. There was another nasty shock when we spotted the unicorn tower from yesterday, which despite having run almost 100 miles, was STILL visible!!! (you can't really see it in this photo, but trust me that it's there!)
Then there was a final hill for good measure, a nice tricky bit of navigation through some woods, horse #8 (the Marlborough White Horse, which we managed to miss) before coming down into Marlborough. Here, around 0.5 miles from the end, the sole of my (brand new!!!) Hoka became detached from the rest of the shoe! This was either a) bad luck, or b) very good luck indeed that this had not happened any sooner!!
My shoe and I, along with my dear friends Sarah, Rob and Hayley (plus Andrew who appeared magically!) ran the final bit back through Marlborough, to cross the finish line together, just as we had crossed it together at the start! Actually, crossing it at the finish was an altogether less stylish affair than the start had been; we stopped in the wrong place, crossed the line bent over double with our timing chips to get them close to the mat (this had the effect of looking like we were crawling), and then I almost fell over our finishing slates which were all nicely lined up next to the timing mat. But never mind all that, we finished and we finished together!
There are really not many people at all on this planet who have put up with me for 31 hours solid, and for that Team Unicorn, you all deserve another medal! Thank you my lovely team, for 100 miles of memories and fun!
And thank you Beyond Marathon for an absolutely wonderful event, and to all of the people who were on the checkpoints for being so brilliant! I really really loved the route - a beautiful part of the country, and for someone who does not know the area well, it really showed it off!
And thanks to my Garmin, who of late has taken to calling my training status "unproductive" or "poor" (despite my best efforts) for my new "insanity badge"!
