My Highest Running High - Winning Endure24 Part 1

At the start of the year one of my aims was to run a 100 mile week. It came from a conversation with an old running friend Matthew Crehan. The deal was that he had to run 120 miles in a week and I had to run 100. At the time it felt crazy but crazy is good right? What’s life with no crazy???

Making crazy running plans!

Matt completed his in December and so I was keen to keep up my end of the bargain. I planned an 80 mile week followed by 100 miles the week after, but as it was early January I had one eye watching the weather. It’s not an ideal time of year to attempt a challenge like this. I started the 80 mile week and had planned to front load the week, to get the heavy mileage done, so I could have a few lighter ‘rest-like’ days before starting 100 the following week. As the week progressed I was feeling great, and by Wednesday I’d clocked up 55 miles and was still feeling pretty fresh. Looking ahead I saw snow and ice forecast the following week, so (despite 66 miles being the most I’d ever run in a week previously) I decided to go for it and do the 100. I racked up the rest of the miles pretty easily and finished with a Varsity XC race on the Saturday and a 10 mile trail race on the Sunday (Temple Newsam 10). It was an amazing week and in my head it surpassed anything I thought I could achieve with my running. But…it was easier than I thought it would be. I’d felt strong, focussed and had really enjoyed the week!

Less than a week later I saw a post from my dear friend Eleanor Gallon saying she fancied running Endure24* (E24) as a pair but needed a partner. I had already signed up to Thunder Run** (TR) which was only 3 weeks after E24 but there was little pressure as I’d signed up to TR solo so I could take it as easy as I wanted. Eleanor and I signed up as a female pair (Team name - Keep Gallon Forwood). It’s pretty hard to train for a 24 hour race as hammering yourself with loads of heavy mileage is probably just going to make you very tired and fairly likely to get injured. 

I took a lot of confidence from the hundred mile week. It was such a jump in mileage so I knew that my body seemed to cope with large increases in workload. My training peaked with a 50 mile week, 3 weeks before, which included two back-to-back long run days. The second day included a short run in the morning with a longer run in the afternoon The longer run included coming back home, having a 45 minute rest and refuel, and going back out to finish my run. The idea was to simulate starting running again on tired legs after eating when I probably wasn’t going to feel like running…only something wonderful happened. Because I’d been used to big mileage this concept of breaks for food and rest was amazing! Imagine running a marathon with a few food stops and sit-downs included! Sounds like my sort of running! I was on board!

Eleanor had been beyond excited about this for WEEKS, since the very moment we signed up in fact! I’m not entirely sure she’d thought about anything else which made her the perfect partner. Her excitement was infectious and so we were both hyped and even started thinking we’d quite like to win! We’d looked at the previous year’s results and knew that we could run further. The winning female pair had run 12 laps (60 miles) which we knew would probably be beaten this year (these events become more popular year on year) but it was a bit of an unknown as the previous year at Leeds had also been the first ever year. 

Over the coming weeks we poured over the details. We reckoned slick handovers were the answer and we also thought we should place heavy emphasis on conservation of energy. We decided not to handover in the team handover area, it was too busy and we’d waste a lot of time and energy on predicting our partner’s time, and standing waiting for them. We decided handovers at the tent would be best. Whatever time or energy we’d lose in the extra distance to the tent would be more than made up for by the extra rest we’d get.

Our confidence and focus took a bit of a knock when the Reading results came out. Endure24 Reading is 3 weeks before the Leeds event and the winning female pair had run 29 laps! TWENTY NINE LAPS! That’s 145 miles! It just wasn’t something we thought we could do and it was a good reality check for us to make us realise that we couldn’t control who else entered or how good they would be. All we could do is do everything in our power to have a good race and do the best we could. With slightly more realistic heads on we set our initial target. We would try to get to 50 miles each, if we both made it to 50 miles, then we’d go from there.

We decided to go and pitch our tent and take most of our kit on the Friday morning as soon as the site opened. We’d get a good spot and get the rest of the day to relax. We set off in convoy and arrived at Bramham Park at 9:55am (the site opened at 10am). We joined the queue of cars and giddily bopped to music as we tried to contain our excitement. At 10am on the dot cars were let in and we found a spot right by the start/finish, the solo entry/exit point, and the toilets. What more could you need?! It was only 10.30am but it was super-hot and by the time we pitched the tent we were both already sweating. The forecast for the weekend was set to get much hotter! We set out our beds, laid out our kit and went to register. We took some photos and looked around the site. There was already a real festival vibe and the multi-coloured flags looked beautiful in the bright sunshine, fluttering in the light breeze. We couldn’t wait! We headed home and waited for Saturday morning.

Team Keep Gallon Forwood!

Festival vibes ☼

Was I ready to run, run, run, repeat...?

Preemptive complaining of the pain my legs would feel!  

 * A 24 hour endurance race at Bramham Park in Leeds made up of 5 mile loops of trail running. Endure24 is also in Reading several weeks before the Leeds event.

** Another 24 hour endurance race at Catton Park made up of 10 km loops of trail running.