THE NORTH FACE 100 HK- DNF

Running 100k over this type of terrain is, of course, as much about the mind as it is about the body and on this occasion my head gave in first.

Since the summer I have been pondering the concept of racing 100km rather than running it. A subtle distinction over such a long distance perhaps but I've done a few 100k races now but I've never had the feeling of racing them. I don't quite know to describe this and suspect it is completely illogical. I am not talking about racing against people as such. It's more the feeling of pushing yourself, of keeping the effort sustained but managable, of seeing the best you can do rather than just surviving and getting around the course. Many ultra runners may frown at this sentiment, but last weekend my priorities put meeting my own expectations above finishing. I hadn't planned it before hand but after the first 20 minutes or so my legs felt solid so I decided it was all or nothing, and in the end chasing one meant I didn't manage either.

I did not have a fixed time or placing goal in mind (though I hoped to do better than last year), more I wanted to stay on the edge of what was manageable and try to keep the needle there the whole way round the course, while hopefully not pushing too far over this self imposed edge and going into meltdown.

As it was, it was my head which let me down and my legs which could have gone on. Sure, I had plenty of other issues along the way, including bouts cramp at various stages, and unhappy stomach and worst,  a flare up of my old foot injury from the summer which had me walking down part the road from Tai Mo Shan (not the foot injury I was concerned about before hand ironically). These things are however pretty normal when running mountain ultras and which you have to deal with to varying degrees in most races of this length. By far the biggest issue I had was with my head.

I started out feeling very comfortable,which rather suprisingly had me floating along in between 2nd or 4th place until after half way. I would have much rather not known my position or been running near to others to be honest, as thinking too much about the people around me ultimately made me drop the ball. A couple of times I dropped back at check points as the Champion System/North Face guys with a crew just swapped out their packs and kept going while I had to fumble with refilling bottles and restocking from my drop bag. We are only talking a couple of minutes each time but is was enough to lure me into a feeling of 'I must catch up'. This was really stupid of me in the first half of a 100k, especially as it framed my race in the context of other peoples effort. I should have been running my own race and concentrating on managing my own situation but instead my ego lured me into thinking more about where I was in relation to other runners. Most importantly, this distracted me from what I really should have been focusing on at this stage in the race, namely eating and drinking enough. Inevitably this caught up with me and unsprisingly the wheels started to come off soon after 50km. Not in a catastrophic way but enough for the lights to gradually dim and the fingers of cramp to start creeping in.

I probably could, and should,  have soldiered on but unfortunately this wasn't my focus at the time. I lost the heid, got annoyed that I'd 'dropped behind' (incredibly I was actually only 15mins or so behind second at the point I mentally gave up) and as soon as I started to fall into the mindset of battling my body to finish rather than racing I just lost all motivation to keep at it. I didn't want to 'just' finish on Saturday, though writing it now it sounds a bit pathetic and misguided. The irony is that if I had kept fighting I likely would have 'just' finished in the top 5.

After initially intending to quit at CP7,  I kept a painfully slow plod going and eventually threw in the towel one stage later at 80km after walking in the last few km to CP 8. I surrendered 5th place just before I moped my way into the CP.

Lessons to be learned for sure.

Photo Credits: Wilson Chong, Maggie Tsang, Edwin Yung, Derek Leung, Rupert Chamberlain, Daniel, HK Run, KK Run