Chris Hobson
Well-Known Member
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 2
Here is my account of a fantastic weekend at the Mizuno Endure 24 event at Bramham Park near Leeds. The park is a very large area of grass fields and woodlands with woodland trails made out of a kind of chalky hard core material. My wife Liz and I entered the event as a pair to see how many laps of the five mile course we could do in 24 hours. Liz is a member of the 'West Hull Ladies' running club, who are very experienced at organising the camping for this kind of event. Being a man, I got to be an honorary member for a few days, what is known as a West Hull Laddie. The club was fielding four solo runners, four pairs, one team of three and one team of seven. Running as part of a team involves a wristband which is passed onto the next runner like a relay baton. This type of event is what is known as ultra running. This is any running event that is longer than a marathon that is anything longer than 26.2 miles.
Those who have read some of my other writings here will be aware that, since early in the year, I have been suffering from a mild heart problem which has been causing me to start feeling faint if I train too hard. This has meant that I haven't been able to train properly. I have been exercising as well as I can, and have managed to maintain a reasonable level of overall fitness despite the problems. Meanwhile I have been having various scans and tests to try to get to the bottom of the problem. The cardiologist has said that it is probably caused by a virus and, if this turns out to be the case, there is no treatment and you just have to give it time to sort itself out. This seems to have turned out to be the case as I have gradually been improving. I had to withdraw from a 140.6 triathlon as I simply couldn't do the level of training needed to make the cut off times for that type of event. The nature of the Endure 24 event means that I can run as little or as much as I can and I am under no obligation to do it under any strict time restrictions so I was still on for this event.
The Camping.
Liz and myself copped the job of taking a day off work on the Friday before the event and setting up camp. We had to get ourselves to the venue at around 09:30 in order to get in the queue for the gates opening at 10:00 This was so that we could get a good patch close to the course, and not too far from the events village or the bogs. Being a bit of a newby to SUV ownership I am still amazed by the ability of our Sangyong Korando to swallow up massive amounts of stuff. We loaded the Korando and our camping trailer with four tents (one of which was the size of Westminster Abbey), two events tents, Four camping stoves, masses of mugs, plates, cutlery and cooking utensils, camp beds, sleeping bags, numerous folding chairs and folding tables, enough food to feed the five thousand, our overnight bags with all our running gear, about twenty pairs of running shoes and the proverbial kitchen sink.
Just a ninety minute drive and we were tagged onto the end of a long line of cars on a hardcore track in the middle of the woods that surround the park. The recent spell of hot dry weather meant that everything was very dusty and the cars were all rapidly gaining a coating of white powder. In the woods to the right of us we could see the bits and bobs that are used for the paint-balling events and obstacle courses that are also held here. This venue also hosts events that involve jumping over things on horseback. Bang on 10:00 the gates were opened and the convoy moved forward amid huge clouds of white dust and we were off to find a spot to pitch our tents. The area was a huge grass field divided up into large pens by means of white plastic posts and yellow ropes. We managed to bag a pen right next to the running course about half way between a bank of portaloos at one end and the event village at the other. There now followed a spate of frantic unpacking and pinning out tents flat on the ground in order to stake out our territory. Other WH Ladies were gradually arriving in their cars and joining in with the fun. That recent spell of hot dry weather had left the ground absolutely rock hard and we were having great difficulty hammering the tent pegs in with our feeble rubber mallets. We had a mixture of airbeam tents and those that are supported by jointed fibreglass rods and it is immediately apparent how much less trouble the airbeam tents are to put up. Just plug in your stirrup pump, a few minutes of pumping and you are done. The event tents were dome shaped gazebo type things and again, the more modern one is far easier to put up due to its ingenious design. The event tents were then set up, one as a cooking area and the other as the dining and sitting around area. More ladies were still arriving bringing with them such things as an amazing folding hand cart and a huge cool box made of expanded polystyrene which has been packed with numerous ice packs and two large bottles of milk which had previously been frozen solid in the freezer. These provide a chilling effect for the cool box and gradually defrost so that we have fresh milk for the next two days. Eventually we had everything deployed and it was time to pick up our race numbers and timing chips before having a wander around the site and to do a bit of exploring.
Anyone who has attended these big events will be able to picture the event village already. Various stalls selling running related merch, mobile disco pumping out contemporary hits, catering stalls selling pizza, hot dogs, burgers, baked spuds etc. and a van selling booze. There was a huge cauldron shaped like a giant wok, with logs in and around it. The following day I saw that there had been a fire in it but I have no idea what for, whether there was any cooking involved or whether it was just being used to keep warm. There was a marquee where you can sit in the shade to eat your grub and, of course the inflatable start/finish arch. Near to the event village there was an area filled with rows of identical tents made out of old school heavy white canvass. These vaguely resembled native American teepees and were all set up with basic camping equipment and futon style beds. Thus, by hiring one of these, you can camp but save yourself the trouble of erecting and dismantling your own tent. Looking around the camp site we saw that some had avoided this trouble altogether by bringing a camper van instead. One such camper was one of those Winnebago type things that was the size of a bus.
Saturday morning arrived and I was up nice and early after being forced out of bed by my bladder. I set several kettles going for making tea and washing up water and downed a bowl of muesli with granola and one or two other cereals mixed in. I then set about making some kind of fry up. Other campers were emerging at this point and I was encouraged to put on a big pan of beans so that everyone could dip into it. I fried a couple of eggs and had them with some beans and some buttered bread as I couldn't work out how to make toast. We actually had a toast making gadget but I only found out about it later. Once breakfast was done we had the morning to chill out as the big off was not until noon.
The running.
Again, anyone who has done any kind of running event will be familiar with the format of the race start. Several hundred runners were corralled between two metal fences watching a huge digital clock ticking towards 12:00. Midday arrived, a hooter went off and the race was underway. As I was the quicker runner, our starting plan was for me to run first and do one lap, Liz to do one lap and then I would do two then Liz would do one and I would do two and so on. As it turned out, my third lap started to show up my lack of race preparation and I started to struggle a bit. At this point I altered my plan and just did one lap until my final turn the following day when I did two laps again.
There wasn't a cloud in the sky and the weather was baking hot so staying hydrated was very important. I was carrying a 350ml water bottle and filled it up each time that I passed the start and each time that I passed the water station just after half way round. I seemed to be getting this right as I did need to keep going for a widdle and my widdle wasn't too dark in colour. The course wanders in and out of the woods where you get a bit of shade. There were various distractions around the course, Some ladies in grass skirts doing a hula dance, A black and white van playing Ska and Blues Brothers music, various follies in the grounds, and an enormous inflatable running shoe.
We took it in turns to run for the rest of the day and by early evening I had clocked up 25 miles and Liz had 15. Liz would have gone out again but had hurt her foot. She was worried that she might have to drop out and leave the rest to me but, by morning she had recovered. Some of the runners either run all night or take only very brief naps but we had nothing to prove at this stage so we turned in for the night. I was up at four in the morning the following day and, as I wandered off to the portaloos, noticed the steady stream of runners that were still out on the course. I had been planning to be out on the course by five. As it turned out getting breakfast and bodily functions out of the way took rather longer than I had expected and it was a quarter to six before I got going again. It took a couple of miles to get my legs unseized but once I got going I was doing 1k splits of about six and a half minutes which were unexpectedly good. I handed over to Liz and went back to camp and tried to force myself to eat something. This is a problem with any kind of endurance event, you need to keep taking sustenance but you just don't feel like eating. Of course the well organised WHL team have every conceivable kind of browser food laid on, so I ended up having a bizarre mix of Jaffa Cakes, nuts, Pringles and sultanas. I then wandered down to the change over area in good time to meet Liz and take my turn again. I now realised that my legs had seized up and, once more, it took a couple of miles before I got going again. So I started thinking about whether or not I was up for doing two laps as per the original plan. I didn't really want to do so without talking to Liz about it first, but when I arrived at the camp Liz had taken a toilet break to be ready for her next run. She had told the rest of the ladies to tell me where she was, but it seems that non of them had been paying attention. Not being able to locate her, I set off for another lap. This lap went very well, mainly, I think, because I had decided that, after finishing it, I would be calling it a day and leaving Liz to finish off. As it turned out she was pretty pissed off about my extra lap but was blaming her club mates for not telling me so I was partly off the hook. In the end she took her time and did one more lap while taking lots of pictures with her phone and chatting with and thanking the marshals. So we finished having done 65 miles between us. I had run forty miles and can now call myself an ultra runner. Liz had done 25 miles but was an ultra runner already having done 30 miles at Reading the previous year.
I was left with the slight feeling that maybe taking breaks as you rack up your ultra mileage is cheating slightly. On the other hand, setting off again after you have rested for a while is hard as your legs tend to become so stiff. Nevertheless the pair of us are planning to enter next year's event as solo entrants. As a solo, every minute that you spend not out on the track makes a dent in your final result. Having managed 40 miles without doing any training aimed specifically at distance running, I am hoping to see whether I can run 100 miles next year and win the special tee shirt.
More camping and the journey home.
The event finished at noon on the Sunday but, providing that you can get back on the course before the hooter goes, your last lap still counts. Liz was still out there but those of us who were not still on the course now started the task of breaking down the camp. I had anticipated that this part would be a bit of a miserable experience but it turned out not to be too bad. We all mucked in and packed all the tents back into their bags and stuffed everything back into the cars. There was loads of food left over and we divided it up between us to take home. There were shower facilities on the site but we both decided that we would rather have a bath when we got home. On the way we stopped at a Burger King as Liz had developed a craving for a whopper meal. After we had stuffed our faces, I wandered over to the nearby filling station and got some chilled bottled water and a four pack of beer. We arrived home to find two guys with a digger fixing the water main. All we needed was a pot of tea and a bath and our water supply was off. I wandered over for a chat and they ensured me that the supply would be restored in about half an hour. This turned out to be the case and so the weekend came to its conclusion with a cup of hot tea followed by a long soak in a hot bath full of bubbles.
Chris H.
Those who have read some of my other writings here will be aware that, since early in the year, I have been suffering from a mild heart problem which has been causing me to start feeling faint if I train too hard. This has meant that I haven't been able to train properly. I have been exercising as well as I can, and have managed to maintain a reasonable level of overall fitness despite the problems. Meanwhile I have been having various scans and tests to try to get to the bottom of the problem. The cardiologist has said that it is probably caused by a virus and, if this turns out to be the case, there is no treatment and you just have to give it time to sort itself out. This seems to have turned out to be the case as I have gradually been improving. I had to withdraw from a 140.6 triathlon as I simply couldn't do the level of training needed to make the cut off times for that type of event. The nature of the Endure 24 event means that I can run as little or as much as I can and I am under no obligation to do it under any strict time restrictions so I was still on for this event.
The Camping.
Liz and myself copped the job of taking a day off work on the Friday before the event and setting up camp. We had to get ourselves to the venue at around 09:30 in order to get in the queue for the gates opening at 10:00 This was so that we could get a good patch close to the course, and not too far from the events village or the bogs. Being a bit of a newby to SUV ownership I am still amazed by the ability of our Sangyong Korando to swallow up massive amounts of stuff. We loaded the Korando and our camping trailer with four tents (one of which was the size of Westminster Abbey), two events tents, Four camping stoves, masses of mugs, plates, cutlery and cooking utensils, camp beds, sleeping bags, numerous folding chairs and folding tables, enough food to feed the five thousand, our overnight bags with all our running gear, about twenty pairs of running shoes and the proverbial kitchen sink.
Just a ninety minute drive and we were tagged onto the end of a long line of cars on a hardcore track in the middle of the woods that surround the park. The recent spell of hot dry weather meant that everything was very dusty and the cars were all rapidly gaining a coating of white powder. In the woods to the right of us we could see the bits and bobs that are used for the paint-balling events and obstacle courses that are also held here. This venue also hosts events that involve jumping over things on horseback. Bang on 10:00 the gates were opened and the convoy moved forward amid huge clouds of white dust and we were off to find a spot to pitch our tents. The area was a huge grass field divided up into large pens by means of white plastic posts and yellow ropes. We managed to bag a pen right next to the running course about half way between a bank of portaloos at one end and the event village at the other. There now followed a spate of frantic unpacking and pinning out tents flat on the ground in order to stake out our territory. Other WH Ladies were gradually arriving in their cars and joining in with the fun. That recent spell of hot dry weather had left the ground absolutely rock hard and we were having great difficulty hammering the tent pegs in with our feeble rubber mallets. We had a mixture of airbeam tents and those that are supported by jointed fibreglass rods and it is immediately apparent how much less trouble the airbeam tents are to put up. Just plug in your stirrup pump, a few minutes of pumping and you are done. The event tents were dome shaped gazebo type things and again, the more modern one is far easier to put up due to its ingenious design. The event tents were then set up, one as a cooking area and the other as the dining and sitting around area. More ladies were still arriving bringing with them such things as an amazing folding hand cart and a huge cool box made of expanded polystyrene which has been packed with numerous ice packs and two large bottles of milk which had previously been frozen solid in the freezer. These provide a chilling effect for the cool box and gradually defrost so that we have fresh milk for the next two days. Eventually we had everything deployed and it was time to pick up our race numbers and timing chips before having a wander around the site and to do a bit of exploring.
Anyone who has attended these big events will be able to picture the event village already. Various stalls selling running related merch, mobile disco pumping out contemporary hits, catering stalls selling pizza, hot dogs, burgers, baked spuds etc. and a van selling booze. There was a huge cauldron shaped like a giant wok, with logs in and around it. The following day I saw that there had been a fire in it but I have no idea what for, whether there was any cooking involved or whether it was just being used to keep warm. There was a marquee where you can sit in the shade to eat your grub and, of course the inflatable start/finish arch. Near to the event village there was an area filled with rows of identical tents made out of old school heavy white canvass. These vaguely resembled native American teepees and were all set up with basic camping equipment and futon style beds. Thus, by hiring one of these, you can camp but save yourself the trouble of erecting and dismantling your own tent. Looking around the camp site we saw that some had avoided this trouble altogether by bringing a camper van instead. One such camper was one of those Winnebago type things that was the size of a bus.
Saturday morning arrived and I was up nice and early after being forced out of bed by my bladder. I set several kettles going for making tea and washing up water and downed a bowl of muesli with granola and one or two other cereals mixed in. I then set about making some kind of fry up. Other campers were emerging at this point and I was encouraged to put on a big pan of beans so that everyone could dip into it. I fried a couple of eggs and had them with some beans and some buttered bread as I couldn't work out how to make toast. We actually had a toast making gadget but I only found out about it later. Once breakfast was done we had the morning to chill out as the big off was not until noon.
The running.
Again, anyone who has done any kind of running event will be familiar with the format of the race start. Several hundred runners were corralled between two metal fences watching a huge digital clock ticking towards 12:00. Midday arrived, a hooter went off and the race was underway. As I was the quicker runner, our starting plan was for me to run first and do one lap, Liz to do one lap and then I would do two then Liz would do one and I would do two and so on. As it turned out, my third lap started to show up my lack of race preparation and I started to struggle a bit. At this point I altered my plan and just did one lap until my final turn the following day when I did two laps again.
There wasn't a cloud in the sky and the weather was baking hot so staying hydrated was very important. I was carrying a 350ml water bottle and filled it up each time that I passed the start and each time that I passed the water station just after half way round. I seemed to be getting this right as I did need to keep going for a widdle and my widdle wasn't too dark in colour. The course wanders in and out of the woods where you get a bit of shade. There were various distractions around the course, Some ladies in grass skirts doing a hula dance, A black and white van playing Ska and Blues Brothers music, various follies in the grounds, and an enormous inflatable running shoe.
We took it in turns to run for the rest of the day and by early evening I had clocked up 25 miles and Liz had 15. Liz would have gone out again but had hurt her foot. She was worried that she might have to drop out and leave the rest to me but, by morning she had recovered. Some of the runners either run all night or take only very brief naps but we had nothing to prove at this stage so we turned in for the night. I was up at four in the morning the following day and, as I wandered off to the portaloos, noticed the steady stream of runners that were still out on the course. I had been planning to be out on the course by five. As it turned out getting breakfast and bodily functions out of the way took rather longer than I had expected and it was a quarter to six before I got going again. It took a couple of miles to get my legs unseized but once I got going I was doing 1k splits of about six and a half minutes which were unexpectedly good. I handed over to Liz and went back to camp and tried to force myself to eat something. This is a problem with any kind of endurance event, you need to keep taking sustenance but you just don't feel like eating. Of course the well organised WHL team have every conceivable kind of browser food laid on, so I ended up having a bizarre mix of Jaffa Cakes, nuts, Pringles and sultanas. I then wandered down to the change over area in good time to meet Liz and take my turn again. I now realised that my legs had seized up and, once more, it took a couple of miles before I got going again. So I started thinking about whether or not I was up for doing two laps as per the original plan. I didn't really want to do so without talking to Liz about it first, but when I arrived at the camp Liz had taken a toilet break to be ready for her next run. She had told the rest of the ladies to tell me where she was, but it seems that non of them had been paying attention. Not being able to locate her, I set off for another lap. This lap went very well, mainly, I think, because I had decided that, after finishing it, I would be calling it a day and leaving Liz to finish off. As it turned out she was pretty pissed off about my extra lap but was blaming her club mates for not telling me so I was partly off the hook. In the end she took her time and did one more lap while taking lots of pictures with her phone and chatting with and thanking the marshals. So we finished having done 65 miles between us. I had run forty miles and can now call myself an ultra runner. Liz had done 25 miles but was an ultra runner already having done 30 miles at Reading the previous year.
I was left with the slight feeling that maybe taking breaks as you rack up your ultra mileage is cheating slightly. On the other hand, setting off again after you have rested for a while is hard as your legs tend to become so stiff. Nevertheless the pair of us are planning to enter next year's event as solo entrants. As a solo, every minute that you spend not out on the track makes a dent in your final result. Having managed 40 miles without doing any training aimed specifically at distance running, I am hoping to see whether I can run 100 miles next year and win the special tee shirt.
More camping and the journey home.
The event finished at noon on the Sunday but, providing that you can get back on the course before the hooter goes, your last lap still counts. Liz was still out there but those of us who were not still on the course now started the task of breaking down the camp. I had anticipated that this part would be a bit of a miserable experience but it turned out not to be too bad. We all mucked in and packed all the tents back into their bags and stuffed everything back into the cars. There was loads of food left over and we divided it up between us to take home. There were shower facilities on the site but we both decided that we would rather have a bath when we got home. On the way we stopped at a Burger King as Liz had developed a craving for a whopper meal. After we had stuffed our faces, I wandered over to the nearby filling station and got some chilled bottled water and a four pack of beer. We arrived home to find two guys with a digger fixing the water main. All we needed was a pot of tea and a bath and our water supply was off. I wandered over for a chat and they ensured me that the supply would be restored in about half an hour. This turned out to be the case and so the weekend came to its conclusion with a cup of hot tea followed by a long soak in a hot bath full of bubbles.
Chris H.
The operation altered my gait slightly as well, so I'm more prone to soft-tissue damage, particularly lower leg. I'd love to be able to run for 24 hours, how was the recovery in the days that followed? Hope you get the heart problems sorted soon so you can get back to full strength