When you set off to run 184 miles in three days, it’s fair to say that you’re not really sure what awaits, other than a big serving of suffering, of course. But I can honestly say that running the Thames from its source in Gloucestershire to the Thames Barrier in East London threw up more than its share of surprises. Here’s what I learnt from running 190 miles in 60 hours, tracking the stunning river Thames source to sea.
You have to start small and build
James Carnegie Photography
The first step, the first mile, the first 10k, these are all building blocks as you lay the foundation for the whole run. Concentrating on these small chunks and little victories is the only way you can avoid being crushed by the size of the full task ahead. When you’re running 60 mile days, it’s important to find little wins along the way but without getting carried away. It’d be easy to be overwhelmed by the numbers but I made a point of only thinking of the positive side – the increase – rather than what was left to go.
Consistency is king
In a run as long as this it’s all too easy to let the little things drift. You might miss a feed or forget to drink and think in the grand scheme of things it doesn’t really matter but it does. Every decision has a consequence and if you don’t stay on top of your fuelling, hydration and your kit at all times, you run the risk of creating problems later on. Eating little and often and never letting your energy levels get low is crucial. I learnt to spot the signs and a big one is when I get grumpy. That’s a huge indicator that I need to eat. Every time you do something positive, no matter how small, it builds into your overall chances of success.
Getting moving on day two is a struggle
James Carnegie Photography
You’ve run 71 miles already, managed to smash down some midnight pizza and get to bed for a twitchy 4.5 hours sleep, all too aware that very soon you’ll be asking your broken body to go again. When the alarm clock signals it’s time to kit up there’s a huge amount of trepidation.
We all felt rotten that second morning, particularly Fabrice whose stomach was in shreds. I could barely walk out of the hotel room thanks to a de-hooded toe that was half caused on the run and half when I stubbed my toe on the table. The drive to starting point was depressingly silent and you could almost hear the internal anguish we were all feeling about the 72-mile day that lay ahead. It was a deafening silence of doubt.
My legs hurt more when I wasn’t running. Lying in bed trying to make the most of the four hours sleep you’ve got with your legs screaming in pain is crucifying.
At this point the novelty of our adventure had peeled away leaving the raw enormity of the challenge ahead fully exposed. As we started to walk (we couldn’t run) the Thames Path stretched out in front of us, a giant twisting snake of slow, muddy, painful miles and things looked bleak. It’s not just your 71 mile legs that are tired, your spirit is too. The mind hurts and it feels too soon to be doing this again, like you didn’t ever really leave the path. There’s no reassurance anywhere to be found. The only thing assured is that you’re in for another very, very long day.
There will be moments where you lose faith
James Carnegie Photography
Around 9.5 hours into day two we found ourselves taking refuge in an out of town supermarket cafe for one of our longer pitstops. We’d moved well for a good chunk of the early afternoon but as we headed towards 4pm and the darkness started to descend once more, we still had around 30 miles to run. I did a few quick calculations as I scoffed down a ham and cheese toasty and I soon realised that if we ran to our planned stop at our current pace, we had another 9 hours of running to do. We also wouldn’t finish running until 1am and that meant no sleep until at least 2.30am.
As we sat there staring down the barrel of all those miles and the threat of sleep deprivation on day three, both Becs and I were hit by a huge wave of negativity. Depression even. Suddenly we had to face the bleak realisation that despite our very best efforts, we might not be able to complete this challenge, that we’d bitten off more than we could chew. It wasn’t our only low moment but it was one of the lowest.
The idea that you’ve run hard, given your all and the run still demands more is extraordinarily hard to square in your head. Worse still, you also know that even if you can find more to give it might not be enough. In this moment you question everything. Why you’re here, whether you want to go on, if the previous 100 miles of running have been a waste of time and whether you’re going to have to quit.
Self preservation is the key to success
Faced with such a huge task, at that Reading stop Becs and I made a very smart decision that would save our run. I’m a big believer in self preservation as a guiding principle for running, particularly ultras. You have to keep yourself in the fight even if that means making concessions on your original goals. This can mean slowing the pace on tricky terrain to minimise the damage to your feet, it could mean taking an extra 10 minutes at an aid stop to ensure that in 20 miles time you’re well fuelled enough to keep running. In this instance it was that we decided we would only run until 10pm on day two. It seemed counter productive to run for longer and we both knew that getting to bed at 2am could do irreparable damage, so much so that we’d never make it up and out for day three. And it worked.
By giving ourselves a definite end point to focus on, a manageable cap on day two, we were able to make a bargain with the brain. In return for 5 hours more running, we promised ourselves more rest. The brain approved and with an end point in sight and the promise of more sleep, it acquiesced and gave the body some more energy. It restored our faith and belief that we could get this run done.
Kindness is a type of endurance fuel
James Carnegie Photography
When my friend Adam arrived just outside Reading with his daughters and all kinds of supplies, including my favourite water melon; when Sam dropped in on us at Henley with warm drinks and packets of Munchies; when Pat who was filming our adventure told me from time to time how well we were running; when Andy who ran some of the second day with us held gates open for us, these kind actions act as a secondary fuel source. They lift you up and drive you forward. They power the miles immediately after they happen and were a crucial part of our success.
And they don’t just come from others on course, they come from the people you’re running with too. There were times during the second and third day when I knew I was being grumpy and abrupt with Becs. I couldn’t help it. The moments where you take a wrong turn and get lost or you realise you’re going to run further than you’d planned, can get on top of you. When my fuse got short Becs was incredibly calm, kind and forgiving, helping me through my struggles as best she could. And I hope that I returned the favour in my own way.
You need to free yourself from the tyranny of time
James Carnegie Photography
Trying to get a day’s running done by a specific time can be paralysing. Setting targets can be motivating on some level but if you slip behind it creates feelings of failure that nag at you out on course. And I’ve found in ultra challenges like this, you inevitably fall behind your target at some point. I think this interferes with that all-important ability to approach the run from the perspective of self preservation and you start to make bad decisions in order to keep to your timings.
I personally believe you run better – and even more efficiently – without that pressure because there’s less mental weight to carry. If you can make the end point the only measure of success each day, you free yourself from a big psychological burden.
Thames Source to Sea: the stats
- 190 miles run
- 7.25 marathons in 3 days
- 60 hours overall
- 44 hours of running
- 9.5 hours sleep
- 14 min/miles average running pace
- 343,717 steps
- 23,890 calories burned
You have to find the magic
Running 190 miles hurts. It hurts your toes, it smashes your legs and it batters your emotions like no other run I’ve ever done except the bloody Lavaredo Ultra Trail. And when you’re hurting for so long you need a defence mechanism, a reason to keep moving. You need moments of light in the darkness but those don’t necessarily just happen. You have to open your eyes, ears and to a certain extent your heart and seek those moments out. To actively heighten your awareness of your surroundings and look for something to stir your spirit.
For me that was things like the dawn mist rising from a reservoir or the fog floating across the Thames encircling an enchantingly lit riverside pub deep into the night. It was the rushing water in a fast-flowing lock or saying hello to a herd of cows and enjoying the look on their faces. It was pretending we were getting our own private fireworks display as we ran through the pitch black night on bonfire weekend. It was running past a cosily lit boat with the golden glow providing a welcome break to the blackness and the monotony of light of your headtorch,
Your legs hurt more when you’re not running
This was something I really wasn’t expecting but my legs hurt more when I wasn’t running than when I was. Lying in bed trying to make the most of the four hours sleep you’ve got with your legs screaming in pain is crucifying. This is supposed to be the restful bit, where you recuperate but it’s anything but. Imagine how your legs feel immediately after your most intense marathon. You know, the one where you can walk down the stairs on the way home from the race. Multiply that feeling five times and you’re close to how my legs felt after day two. I couldn’t find any position to lie in without being in pain and all the while knowing there was another day to go.
Trust your cravings
James Carnegie Photography
I recently spent two months doing a very detailed test for Runner’s World magazine, of all the various running supplements and race fuels you can buy. Along the way I read a lot of the latest scientific research on what to eat when to fuel your body for endurance and boy is it a complicated business, at least on paper. But this run taught me a very important lesson about this common struggle – trust your gut instinct, literally. If you get a craving for a ham and cheese toasty, eat it.
At one pitstop in a lovely country pub, Fab ordered a cappuccino and it gave him a huge boost. I had a sip and it tasted delicious, like it was doing me good too so at the next stop I got a black Americano, something I’d never have done before and it really worked. I spent the rest of the race have tactical Americanos. I went with cravings for croissants, beef jerky and pints of orange juice and sparkling water and they all paid off.
You will feel disconnected from reality
Spending hours in relative solitude in the middle of the countryside will inevitably make you feel removed from the world but when those hours also involve hard physical exercise as well, a kind of delirium can descend.
The only way I can describe it is that it’s much like that feeling you get (or in my case used to get) when you’ve been out clubbing all night and you’re just getting back home as the sun comes up. A mix tiredness, adrenalin and happy chemicals. You don’t notice this fully until you encounter people who haven’t been running, like buying a coffee in a cafe or someone fresh joins you for a few miles of the run. You are to all intents and purposes off your rocker.
Your emotions run high
This is a part of running that I actually love. There’s nothing quite like 16 hours tapping out miles for bringing out your emotional side. Everything feels raw, more real and somehow the important things in life come to the fore. That can be something in the moment like when Becs bought me a bag of liquorice allsorts because I’d told her the day before they were my favourite. A small act of kindness that made me want to cry. Or it can be the bigger things in your life like how grateful you are for your family or the realisation that the problem you’ve been wrestling with can be resolved, or doesn’t actually matter that much.
You see more and you feel more and it’s a sensation that I think keeps me coming back to running time and time again. You can get this from running a marathon but over 190 miles the effects are even stronger.
You will run further than you planned
James Carnegie Photography
And that will come close to breaking you. When you’re running the kind of distances we’re talking about here the chances are you’re going to get lost at some point. Or the course you’ve mapped might have to change as you navigate around unexpected obstacles. We had both of those and it meant on day one where we estimated we’d run 60-65 miles we ended up running 71. And those extra miles were bloody hard to take.
On paper the final day was supposed to be a shorter 52-mile run but it turned out to be 60 miles, again undermining the mental bargains you’d made and making for some tough final miles. You need to prepare for that and anticipate your days might be longer than you’d hoped.
You are stronger than you think
I’ll be 100% honest, I thought our chances of finishing the 184 miles run along the Thames was 50-50 at best. More than 60 miles a day on consecutive days is a big ask and I wasn’t convinced I was strong enough physically and mentally to cope with that much suffering. Those feelings were hammered home in the early hours of day two where we could only manage a walk.
But step by step, mile by mile you move forward. With a little bit of self belief and a willingness to let go of the fear you can unlock so much more potential than you ever give yourself credit for.
When I started running almost 10 years ago, I would never ever have imagined being able to say I ran 190 miles in 3 days. But we did it. And so whatever your challenge, be it a 5k or a 300km, what I now realise is that you can do more than you think if you just give yourself the chance.
Now read this: Running your first 100-mile ultra
