Belfast to Dublin Ultramarathon - 30/31st March 2018

Before this event the most I have ever ran was 82 miles last year at the Belfast 24hr Energia event held at Victoria Park. I knew I had a good endurance engine but I recall that 60 onwards last year was a struggle and a lot walking from there on so I knew 107 wasn’t going to be a walk in the park.  Training wise was good and bad. The good was that I had a 50 done by myself at Victoria Park a while back and also weekends I had tried to do the long runs most of the time. Unfortunately the bad was pretty bad. I had not done hardly any of the weekday runs. I tried to say to myself that because I was doing weekly Thursday night running club runs with BARF and Friday football that I wasn’t that unfit. But I was finding that the Friday footie was taking alot out of me with the high impact jumping around not helping my joints and muscles.

Nutrition also was going to be a concern. Last year after doing about 60 miles I really didn’t want to eat anything so I had hoped I would be ok this time around. I tried to stay positive with the knowledge of two things. I had plenty of ultras under my belt, a lot of marathons too and to try to treat the weekend as a fun couple of days with friends. The numbers had grown considerably from the year prior growing from 25 odds to 80 people so I knew there shouldn’t be too alone for too long at any point….I hoped!

I knew plenty of those taking part and a few friends Mark, Jonny, Thomas (aka Tucker) had already did a recce with me a few weeks prior. We did Belfast to Newry (40 miles) which went pretty well and was great craic.

Recce before big day - 40 miler to Newry

 

 

So the morning began, I had banana and toast and set off for the midday start at Crown Bar Belfast. There was a good crowd and we were all very excited for the off. Sammy and Adrian our RD's from Atlas Running gave us our emergency beacons and little maps and we got ready for the blower at midday.

My sister Carol came and it was wonderful to see her with friendly words of encouragement and smiles. Midday came and off we went! Exiting times ahead! As we crept up Victoria Street little groups formed and quickly I formed a group with Jonny and Tucker. The three amigos were embarking on a weekend adventure which had just begun!

Initially, Belfast to Lisburn gave us a chance to settle our legs during the first 8. We quickly adopted the walk the hills, not that there was much gradients going out but it gave us a good laugh going past Kings Hall bridge walking and saying ‘here’s a hill, lets walk…only 100 miles to go!’.

In Lisburn, Carol met us again with trusty packet of fruit pastels and drink which gave us all a sugar boost going through the town before we branched off to Sprucefield direction. Last time we were out here on our recce we opted to stop at McDonalds for a coffee but this time we fired on ahead. Thankfully Tucker and Jonny’s support crew had been patiently waiting for us from about here on in as we joined the carriageway out towards Hillsborough on the A1.

Here on in it was busy carriageway traffic, we ran on the hard shoulder and occasionally support crew stopping every few miles. A jam sandwich or banana were staple foods that went down well whilst Natasha and Keith (aka Mackers) fed us like kings.

Boot open ahead - means feeding time :-)

 

Every so often the trucks and cars beeped and thankfully the weather was kind to us being quite mild.  We passed through Dromore and were still on a high with plenty of banter between us. We were looking forward to Banbridge which was almost the marathon distance ahead of us.

 

Likely lads -

 

Finally we reached our first milestone, Banbridge. Here we stopped at the for chips and sausages and we chatted to support crew and loads of running community friends that had travelled  down to see us as well as my parents. Lots of photos, chat and a good feed in us and we set off again feeling re-energised. We were gunning for Newry which would be were the real games were to begin. The three of us had slowed a little but were still running steadily enough.

Keep er lit -

 

After Banbridge we left the A1 and joined some quiet backroads towards Loughbrickland and Poyntz Pass. These roads were like a roller coaster up and down but lovely and quiet with only the odd car passing us. The hills gave us lots of opportunity to walk and the odd time I was tempted to test out my BARF Club hill rep sessions to see how the legs held out but thankfully Tucker and Jonny kept me on the steady walk run approach with the ups and downs.  

 

To be honest I was feeling a bit tired and eventually I was looking for my next target which was Newry and the big 40. This was starting to get tough and longer than expected. The afternoon was slowly getting darker and we were hoping o get to Newry before dark. Jerrettspass, Goragh eventually came and went but we knew Newry and the bright inner city lights were soon to come. Here we took a slight wrong route ending up going around instead of straight through town, but nothing too major milage wise. The town had a few folk out over spilling from the pubs as in merry form during the late night.

Head torch time -

The next thing to aim for was the big 50. We knew that we were slowly crossing the border and Dundalk at 55 odds would help us knowing that we would be over half way there. As I write this I can not recall too much apart from the amazing disco car we got from Keith. He drove along some small obscure quiet roads with a disco ball going strong projecting out of the car window and his phone hooked up to youtube with running songs such as Rocky and the Proclaimers anthems to keep us going.

Disco Car -

 

A few times such as towpaths and obscure roads we did go the wrong way but the running Gods were on our side because between Natasha, Stephen (my bro sometimes on his bike) and Lorna (who took over from Keith) they usually scouted ahead and came back to give us clearer instructions.

We hadn’t used our maps that we were given and unfortunately the way was at no stage marked out. Checkpoints were supposed to be at every 15 miles with major drop/check points 40 and 70 but to be honest I'm not sure they were all there, we must have missed some.

50 miles came and gone and soon we pressed on to the next big town which was Dundalk at 55 miles. It was quite a large town and it took us a while to get through. We agreed to push til 70 mile and then hopefully get some well earned rest. Tucker wasn’t so sure it was a good idea in case we seized up by resting too long but me and Jonny said we try to just close eyes for half hour and it might help a bit. We finally reached Dunleer tired and weary approx. 5am. We agreed to sleep for the half hour then kick off again. I dived into sleeping bag in Stephen’s car then no sooner than I closed my eyes than I heard the alarm went off.
I managed to wake ok and Stephen was great getting my shoes back on ready to start again. Me and Tucker got a coffee in us. It was a big disposable cup which was a bit too much for me so I threw some left in it into the bin. No sooner than I did this and a poor cat lept out of the bin – I had disturbed its sleep ! The morning was breaking, yes it was pretty cold but thankfully not freezing, probably about 5 degrees. We got our momentum going again along to quiet roads. Later in the morning Stephen swapped support crew duties with my parents whilst he headed home for a few hours kip. Mum and dad drove along the hard shoulders at intervals and it was around this stage we all started to feel proper aches and pains in our feet especially. Blister issues started playing up and we were all struggling more, but we preserved as morning light gave us a renewed vigour. It was more of a plod with more regular walks and waiting beside our convoy of 3 cars at this time was pretty regular, probably every couple miles with the odd stop also at petrol stations for supplementary food etc.

Refuelled -

I guess looking back we were all on our feet for about 20 hours so we were at times quieter with each other and it was proving difficult to stay motivated although it was nice I admit to see the morning break, birds chirping away and the road noise starting to pick up, it had been a long night.

I recall being in a bit of a daze daydreaming just trying to keep one foot in front of the other. My aches and pains weren’t too bad, yes I did feel sore throughout my legs but no more significantly than I had done a 40 or 50. I had a large blister forming bottom of forefoot and one developing at the tip of one of my toes, but I could still run ok with these. But the running was getting less frequent and by the time we reached Drogheda at 80 miles we were probably running only about half the time. The morning weather conditions were pretty good light breeze and skys reasonably clear with no rain. We knew we had got the guts of it done and we roughly only had a marathon distance to do. Earlier we had broke the race into 4 marathons, and now we were on our last one now.

Our pace was now sitting at roughly 19 min mile and collectively we were tired sore and sleep deprivation had really kicked in, we knew it was going to be a very long day to get through. We had hoped to finish about 4-6pm which would work out about 30hrs in total. As the miles passed we realised this wasn’t possible but we just wanted to get finished on time. We didn’t really appreciate just how quickly our pace had decreased and later about 95 I guess Tucker said if we slip to a 20-30 min mile pace we wouldn’t meet the cut off of 36hrs. 

We were just walking for a long time now and we agreed to pick up the walking pace and Tucker and I kept close eye on our Garmins. We were pretty worried and sometimes dipping to a 23 or 26 then 18, 19 didn’t steady our nerves. I remember leading the three of us and saying to Tucker I was finding it difficult to walk at a fast pace. My breathing was a bit laboured but the overriding difficulty for the three of us I think was sleep deprivation. Suddenly we heard a ‘Ahhhh!’ and we turned round to see Johnny stopping. I big blister had just burst and he said it felt like a knife had just been stabbed into his foot – no fun. I unfortunately had only the crappy basic plaster at hand but coincidence medical car pulled up as we had stopped and Sammy (RD) applied some thick K tape across foot. Brave Captain Jonny was good to go again and off we went. At 101 miles we passed in close proximately to the main M1 and started to go through Swords. For some reason I thought Swords was only a few miles in length but Johnny said we still had a good lot of mileage left before we got to the finish. It was afternoon now and we realised at this rate it would be night time before we finally finished. Hopefully not too dark!

Other runners were few and far between and those we saw were all passing us, some amazingly still with regular jogging intervals, most of which we knew then from previous races we had all done. We wondered and eventually became convinced we were going the scenic route to the finish instead of a more direct route. Jonny had done Dublin Belfast last year and he said he didn’t remember this part of Dublin Swords area. A series of roundabouts ahead.

I remember being  very cold and I wasn’t sure why? Little by little I got more and more layers given to me. I had changed clothes earlier back in case it was purely because of a sweaty baselayer, but I was really cold as if it was a frosty evening and this was proving very difficult for me. Tracksuit bottoms, fleece , 2 pairs gloves all were given to me but I was still couldn’t feel much warmer.

Feeling very cold -

 

 

I knew the end was in sight and it was good to see Natasha giving us a chippy to lift our spirits towards the end. Dromondra Road arrived and I knew now that we were going to be ok and to just enjoy and celebrate these last few miles. None of us knew exactly how to get to the bar at the very end but we knew we would be ok. After Druncondra Road I remember a large hill through the centre of Dublin town. This was pretty difficult and steep as we were very tired, weary and lost.

 

Nearly there :-)

Lorna and Natasha basically stayed beside us these last few miles to accompany us. The last mile Stephen knew very well so he walked us across some streets to let Natasha and Lorna go ahead and meet us at the finish. Our faces all were beaming and we knew we had done it. As we approached Arthurs Bar there was a large crowd clapping and cheering; we raised our hands and crossed the final road and hugs all round – we had done it! Happy days ! Milage wise my garmin showed 113 miles over 34hrs 31 mins (I think my garmin was slightly out by few miles too much), the organisers stated that if you took exact route it 107 miles so somewhere in between I was very happy with :-)