St Maixent 24hours ultra running event It’s not often we read race reports that say how not to do things but I guess in some ways these are just as valuable as the successful reports. I’m a scientist and my pet peeve in the Scientific literature is that only success is reported. No one ever publishes what didn’t work. I’m convinced we could half the completion time of an average PhD if we had a reliable resource for what doesn’t work so that endless students don’t repeat the same work.
So what has research science got to do with running 24 hours? Not a lot but I needed a way to justify a report based on what didn’t work!
My last report to runireland was on the Connemara 100 in August. It was a race I hadn’t planned to do but I enjoyed it so much I started thinking about another ultra marathon almost immediately. Enter Seb Locteau who managed to secure us a place in the St Maixent L’ecole 24 hour race (19-20 September) at short notice. Obviously I didn’t have time to train for this event but I was feeling good after the Connemara so decided to give it a shot. My first mistake was not respecting the distance and thinking it’s perfectly possible to do two long races a month apart (not to mention the other long events that I’d already done this year).
This was to be my first attempt at a race where the goal was to run for a certain amount of time rather than to reach a specific end point. It’s a very different way of thinking. Luckily the Athenry AC guys came good (as always). Mick Rice was also signed up for the race and Ray O’Connor and Valerie Glavin both offered to give up their weekend to come and crew for us. To have experienced runners (both Ray and Valerie have also completed the 100 mile run) crewing was amazing and I can’t thank them enough. To put it in perspective, Niall (my fiancé) has vowed never to crew for me again after his last experience. Apparently I was a little grumpy after 16 hours of running!
With Valerie and Ray on board, the logistics were pretty straightforward, fly Dublin – Nantes and then a drive through rural France to St Maixent L’ecole. Finding food mid-afternoon was a challenge and eventually we had to eat in Subway. Once we arrived at the village we had a quick look at the course. It was really well laid out, a 1.2 km loop on a mixture of tarmac and loose gravel with barriers marking the way. Registration was easy despite the rather dodgy French we were speaking. The organisers could not have been friendlier and we were made extremely welcome. Part of the evening was spent in the race HQ sharing a meal with the other participants and then we retired to the only hotel in town (or rather Mick and I did, Valerie and Ray went in search of exotic cocktails!).
Perhaps I should have gone down the cocktail route as back in the hotel my tummy decided to give me some issues and I spent a proportion of the night on the toilet feeling rather unwell (lesson 2: diarrhoea is not a good addition to race strategy!) On the plus side (an triathletes reading this will understand) what a joy to be able to arrive the day before a race and not have a bike to put together.
On race morning we had croissants and coffee in the hotel before heading over to the start. Again the friendliness of the organisers and other participants was astounding. I was quite surprised at the mixture of personalities taking part. Of course there were high quality athletes like our own Mick and several members of the French national team but there were also locals doing the race as a relay and several older gentlemen who were well beyond retirement age. There were also a couple dressed as clowns but more about them later! After the race briefing and pre race photo we assembled on the start line for the gun at 11 am.
I had no idea how to approach pacing for this event. I went with a strategy of running at the pace that felt pedestrian and hoping that I could keep that going for the length of the race. Hardly a technical approach but I didn’t know any better. I was actually feeling quite good. The diarrhoea had stopped (with the help of Imodium) but I didn’t use the bathroom in the first 5 hours (very unusual for me) so I guess I must have been a bit dehydrated (lesson 3: if something is different from normal, pay attention). Before the race I had not been looking forward to the circuit of lots of small laps. I thought I would get bored, I thought I would relax too much and fall into stride with the slower runners but in fact the opposite was true. It was great to be able to break the event into bite size (1.2 km sized!) steps.
We got to see lots of people on each lap and the reception when we passed by the official counters was fantastic. It was also great to see Ray and Valerie each lap, they offered encouragement, they fed us, they updated us on our progress and most importantly, they smiled with enthusiasm. Valerie also helped in ways that are above and beyond the call of duty involving sudocream and the ladies toilets. Thanks guys.
Most of my previous long races have been self-supported (meaning you carry all your food with you for the duration of the race). In St Maixent, each support crew had a table where they could set up supplies. Our table seemed to be half booze, half more traditional fare. Indeed at one stage there was a sign up saying “biere €2” and I thought I was hallucinating when I noticed the mop bucket (which was doubling as cool water for sponges) had a champagne bottle sticking out the top. Just as with pacing, I didn’t really know how to approach feeding in such a long event.
In an ironman, I stick to cereal bars on the bike and a mixture of coke and ISO on the run but this race was all running so all I knew was I needed about 300 kCal / hr and that I was hoping to take this as a mixture of sweet and savoury foods. Ray and Valerie handled the food and it was no mean feat to calculate calories, electrolytes, fluids etc for two different runners for such a long time. I was eating every 4th lap which I thought was a good idea. In hindsight I should have taken more fluids and less fruit.
Back to the Clowns. Patrick and Sylvie deserve a special mention. They started the race dressed as clowns and had 7 costume changes during the race including a spell dressed as hells angels, Indians, hippies, sailors…. It’s not their costumes I’ll remember though, we managed to make friends with two people, despite not really being able to communicate with them. They were so supportive and really added some atmosphere to what on paper should have been a very dry affair.
The first few hours were uneventful. The first few laps saw people sorting themselves out, getting into the swing of things. A couple of hours in and people were enjoying a pleasant afternoon in the relatively good weather. I was feeling very strong. Averaging about 11 km an hour and feeling very steady. Ray was asking me to slow down (Sensibly) but any slower would have been uncomfortable. 5,6,7,8,9,10 hours, still feeling good. I was in second place for most of this section, When the lead man stopped to change his shoes, I even led for a couple of minutes but I guess it’s like any race, there is little point being in front at the half way mark. Even as it got dark, which I was worried might make me tired – mentally, i was fine. I slowed slightly in the dark and at just before the 12 hour mark I had covered 122 km. Gradually I stopped wanting to eat though. The guys had any number of food options for us but only fruit was going down and even then, I wasn’t eating enough to keep running and the fruit acids were starting to strain my stomach. Ray got me to stop and look at everything on the table, I tried some pasta, I threw it up, crackers, my throat clamped closed.
It was pretty horrible. I decided to sit down for 15 minutes to see if a rest might settle my tummy. The sit down became a lie down which became a lie on my side to facilitate the amount of throwing up I was doing. Even water wouldn’t stay down and I was getting cold. I tried to get going again but my stomach had decided I’d had enough and all I managed was a couple of very slow laps before energy depletion got me. Even reports back from the crew that Mick had passed the 100 mile mark in the fastest time ever by an Irishman (verified by the French Athletic Assoc.), didn’t make me feel any better and I went into the HQ building to sleep. I slept right through the night. Next morning I finally managed to get some food into me and at the request of the organisers I rejoined the course. Mick was already out there. We got a huge cheer passing the checkpoint. They really know how to run a friendly race in St Maixent.
At 11 am a gun went off and we stopped. Within minutes the organised had come by with a measuring wheel to see where we had gotten to in order to calculate our final distances covered. Then it was just a matter of clearing our table and heading indoors for another group meal and prize giving. Despite only running half the race, I still managed to hold 4th place with 143 km. An awful lot less that I wanted but the whole race was a valuable lesson and I’ll be back to do better next time.
So what has research science got to do with running 24 hours? Not a lot but I needed a way to justify a report based on what didn’t work!
My last report to runireland was on the Connemara 100 in August. It was a race I hadn’t planned to do but I enjoyed it so much I started thinking about another ultra marathon almost immediately. Enter Seb Locteau who managed to secure us a place in the St Maixent L’ecole 24 hour race (19-20 September) at short notice. Obviously I didn’t have time to train for this event but I was feeling good after the Connemara so decided to give it a shot. My first mistake was not respecting the distance and thinking it’s perfectly possible to do two long races a month apart (not to mention the other long events that I’d already done this year).
This was to be my first attempt at a race where the goal was to run for a certain amount of time rather than to reach a specific end point. It’s a very different way of thinking. Luckily the Athenry AC guys came good (as always). Mick Rice was also signed up for the race and Ray O’Connor and Valerie Glavin both offered to give up their weekend to come and crew for us. To have experienced runners (both Ray and Valerie have also completed the 100 mile run) crewing was amazing and I can’t thank them enough. To put it in perspective, Niall (my fiancé) has vowed never to crew for me again after his last experience. Apparently I was a little grumpy after 16 hours of running!
With Valerie and Ray on board, the logistics were pretty straightforward, fly Dublin – Nantes and then a drive through rural France to St Maixent L’ecole. Finding food mid-afternoon was a challenge and eventually we had to eat in Subway. Once we arrived at the village we had a quick look at the course. It was really well laid out, a 1.2 km loop on a mixture of tarmac and loose gravel with barriers marking the way. Registration was easy despite the rather dodgy French we were speaking. The organisers could not have been friendlier and we were made extremely welcome. Part of the evening was spent in the race HQ sharing a meal with the other participants and then we retired to the only hotel in town (or rather Mick and I did, Valerie and Ray went in search of exotic cocktails!).
Perhaps I should have gone down the cocktail route as back in the hotel my tummy decided to give me some issues and I spent a proportion of the night on the toilet feeling rather unwell (lesson 2: diarrhoea is not a good addition to race strategy!) On the plus side (an triathletes reading this will understand) what a joy to be able to arrive the day before a race and not have a bike to put together.
On race morning we had croissants and coffee in the hotel before heading over to the start. Again the friendliness of the organisers and other participants was astounding. I was quite surprised at the mixture of personalities taking part. Of course there were high quality athletes like our own Mick and several members of the French national team but there were also locals doing the race as a relay and several older gentlemen who were well beyond retirement age. There were also a couple dressed as clowns but more about them later! After the race briefing and pre race photo we assembled on the start line for the gun at 11 am.
I had no idea how to approach pacing for this event. I went with a strategy of running at the pace that felt pedestrian and hoping that I could keep that going for the length of the race. Hardly a technical approach but I didn’t know any better. I was actually feeling quite good. The diarrhoea had stopped (with the help of Imodium) but I didn’t use the bathroom in the first 5 hours (very unusual for me) so I guess I must have been a bit dehydrated (lesson 3: if something is different from normal, pay attention). Before the race I had not been looking forward to the circuit of lots of small laps. I thought I would get bored, I thought I would relax too much and fall into stride with the slower runners but in fact the opposite was true. It was great to be able to break the event into bite size (1.2 km sized!) steps.
We got to see lots of people on each lap and the reception when we passed by the official counters was fantastic. It was also great to see Ray and Valerie each lap, they offered encouragement, they fed us, they updated us on our progress and most importantly, they smiled with enthusiasm. Valerie also helped in ways that are above and beyond the call of duty involving sudocream and the ladies toilets. Thanks guys.
Most of my previous long races have been self-supported (meaning you carry all your food with you for the duration of the race). In St Maixent, each support crew had a table where they could set up supplies. Our table seemed to be half booze, half more traditional fare. Indeed at one stage there was a sign up saying “biere €2” and I thought I was hallucinating when I noticed the mop bucket (which was doubling as cool water for sponges) had a champagne bottle sticking out the top. Just as with pacing, I didn’t really know how to approach feeding in such a long event.
In an ironman, I stick to cereal bars on the bike and a mixture of coke and ISO on the run but this race was all running so all I knew was I needed about 300 kCal / hr and that I was hoping to take this as a mixture of sweet and savoury foods. Ray and Valerie handled the food and it was no mean feat to calculate calories, electrolytes, fluids etc for two different runners for such a long time. I was eating every 4th lap which I thought was a good idea. In hindsight I should have taken more fluids and less fruit.
Back to the Clowns. Patrick and Sylvie deserve a special mention. They started the race dressed as clowns and had 7 costume changes during the race including a spell dressed as hells angels, Indians, hippies, sailors…. It’s not their costumes I’ll remember though, we managed to make friends with two people, despite not really being able to communicate with them. They were so supportive and really added some atmosphere to what on paper should have been a very dry affair.
The first few hours were uneventful. The first few laps saw people sorting themselves out, getting into the swing of things. A couple of hours in and people were enjoying a pleasant afternoon in the relatively good weather. I was feeling very strong. Averaging about 11 km an hour and feeling very steady. Ray was asking me to slow down (Sensibly) but any slower would have been uncomfortable. 5,6,7,8,9,10 hours, still feeling good. I was in second place for most of this section, When the lead man stopped to change his shoes, I even led for a couple of minutes but I guess it’s like any race, there is little point being in front at the half way mark. Even as it got dark, which I was worried might make me tired – mentally, i was fine. I slowed slightly in the dark and at just before the 12 hour mark I had covered 122 km. Gradually I stopped wanting to eat though. The guys had any number of food options for us but only fruit was going down and even then, I wasn’t eating enough to keep running and the fruit acids were starting to strain my stomach. Ray got me to stop and look at everything on the table, I tried some pasta, I threw it up, crackers, my throat clamped closed.
It was pretty horrible. I decided to sit down for 15 minutes to see if a rest might settle my tummy. The sit down became a lie down which became a lie on my side to facilitate the amount of throwing up I was doing. Even water wouldn’t stay down and I was getting cold. I tried to get going again but my stomach had decided I’d had enough and all I managed was a couple of very slow laps before energy depletion got me. Even reports back from the crew that Mick had passed the 100 mile mark in the fastest time ever by an Irishman (verified by the French Athletic Assoc.), didn’t make me feel any better and I went into the HQ building to sleep. I slept right through the night. Next morning I finally managed to get some food into me and at the request of the organisers I rejoined the course. Mick was already out there. We got a huge cheer passing the checkpoint. They really know how to run a friendly race in St Maixent.
At 11 am a gun went off and we stopped. Within minutes the organised had come by with a measuring wheel to see where we had gotten to in order to calculate our final distances covered. Then it was just a matter of clearing our table and heading indoors for another group meal and prize giving. Despite only running half the race, I still managed to hold 4th place with 143 km. An awful lot less that I wanted but the whole race was a valuable lesson and I’ll be back to do better next time.