The Longest run home - Peterborough to home (approximately 50 miles).

02/06/2018 - To set the scene and provide some context to my doing my longest run home I need to explain a couple of things. Firstly I like the challenge of being dropped somewhere and having to get home using only my own two legs. Secondly my wife is a volunteer for an amazing charity ( Respite at Home Volunteers West Mid Beds and Ivel Valley (RHV).) and I wanted to do something to help raise some money so that they can train more volunteers.

Respite at Home Volunteers are a group of amazing caring people who give up their free time to help and support people with life limiting illnesses.

https://www.facebook.com/respiteathomevolunteers/

Now training had not been going that great this year. I'd like to say it was injury or something uncontrollable but in truth I was having a lazy start to the year. I was still running but not as often or for as long as usual so if I was going to do this I was going to have start getting some longer runs in and not to rely on my basic fitness to get me though. 

My training routine (Vietnam)

So I set out to do at least one long, 20 mile plus, run every weekend in the run up to the event. I also booked into the Milton Keynes marathon as a training run.

The MK marathon proved to be the perfect pre-event training run. Temperatures neared 30 degrees C and the heat destroyed me. I finished it but with the slowest time ever, I had to drag myself round which actually was great preparation for the 50 miler.

Half way point of the MK marathon - a good friend provided beer

So to the run itself. I had originally wanted to set off from Peterborough at around 6am as I knew it was going to be a long day and I did not want to finish in the dark. Unfortunately due to the fantastic work of the rail companies implementing a new time table everything early got cancelled so I ended up at Peterborough train station at 07:45 not the 05:45 I'd originally planned. A quick coffee and a quite lovely bacon and egg roll from Waitrose café and I’m ready to set off. First thing is to work out which direction I’m supposed to be running in – I’ve got it wrong in the past, I once did the cycle section of a triathlon twice because I “missed” the end of it.

Peterborough

It’s only a few minutes into the run before I realise how warm it already is so I strip down to my Respite at Home running top and hope it’s not going to be a hot day – it was. Fortunately the MK Marathon had prepared me for this.  It did not take long to exit Peterborough and hit the B roads. You don’t really get a sense of a road from google maps, you have to run it, and I was to discover that the roads from Peterborough to home are long and tedious. Not a run I'll be recommending to anyone. I had run from Cambridge to home last year and that was 29 miles of joy. Ever changing views and conditions from pathways to road to grass to gravel - lovely. Getting home from Peterborough was going to be a grind.

Pretty but miles and miles of this and nothing but tarmac to run on.

The run became miles and miles of tarmac and though once out of Peterbourgh the views were lovely they never really changed, just fields, so ultimately you stop looking. Which was I guess a good thing as a lot of the roads do not have a pathway for walkers so I had to keep a close eye on the oncoming traffic. When running on roads, as when walking, you run toward the oncoming traffic, this allows you to see the cars hurtling at you and jump out of the way if needed. Thankfully most drivers are very good at avoiding you and giving you plenty of room so I rarely had to jump into the bushes. When I did it was to allow large lorries to get past. The exception are the drivers overtaking cars behind you at stupid speeds and fly past your shoulder without warning, missing you by inches and getting ones heart rate up a bit. You also need to keep an eye out for the detritus on the road that you need to avoid stepping into, dead rabbits, hedgehogs and the worst – dead badgers. It constantly amazes me how close you get to their live counterparts when out running, baby rabbits allow you within a few feet, squirrels, the odd rat, birds of prey and occasionally a deer (one nearly knocked me over on a previous run).

 

Five hours after I started I was out of water and gasping for fluids, the sun had been burningly hot, at which point an oasis appeared. A pub, So I stopped, got my water bottle refilled and out of politeness had a beer and a glass of coke. 

Carbs for runners - the drink of professional athletes.

Fully refreshed I set off again. After another couple of hours I stopped for some food and a small rest, checked my stats and I’ll completed 27 miles – very slow but steady.

 

The next few hours were much the same though my right leg had started to be a problem. I was having a sort of pain and weakness behind the knee that was making it rather hard to run. A chap stopped his car and asked if I needed a lift, so I must have looked pretty bad. I was at about the 35 miles stage so I would be lying if I said I was not tempted but thanked him and refused. I was stopped whenever I found a pub and got them to top up my water bottle – what will happen when all the pubs have gone?

 

Around mile 44 ish it was getting dark and I popped my lights on and wondered if I was going to have to abandon the run for safety reasons, also I was having issues with my right leg was still causing me problems with running so I was walking a lot. What I don’t have in my fitness I make up for in stubbornness so I kept going, even when I was offered a lift by another good Samaritan – he looked confused that I wanted to keep running but left me to my stupidity anyway…. staggering and stumbling I continued on.

 

Eventually in the dark I hit the edge of my home town and my wife was there with the lovingly warm welcome of “How long does it take you to get into the car?”

Home at last

So according to my Fitbit that day I had completed 108,779 steps, travelled 54.72 miles and burnt up nearly 7,000 calories. 

If you can please donate to this amazing charity:

 https://wonderful.org/fundraiser/longestsponsoredrunever-b917fd87