Rewind to 2nd Feb 2019 and somewhere around 71 miles I dropped out of Arc100. I had only made the infamous Pendeen lighthouse cut off by 15 mins and I wasn’t moving in my opinion fast enough to make the next one at St Ives.
Fast forward to 31st January 2020, it’s 12pm and I’m stood in Coverack again to do the Arc100. Training had gone well, lots of Wendover hiking mixed with speed work and long runs. You might even say WW50 was a training run back in November. I’d got a course PB that year so training had definitely paid off.
My main objective was to finish, I really didn’t want to have to go back. I’ve seen on the FB page stories of people trying 2/3/4 times to finish. The next objective was a 30 hour finish, not completely crazy based on previous finish times but this was Arc. I broke the race down into simple chunks. The first chunk was the beach crossing approx 20ish miles in without a headtorch. I put mine on around 200mtrs after the crossing so this went down as a ✅.
Due to DNF’in and rage deleting the garmin data I didn’t have anything to go on from then onwards. I knew at Penzance previously I had walked a large part after the CP as it was tarmac and boring. This time I made myself run as much as that section as I could as I knew this would help. I also saw my crew (about 40 miles) and we attended to a blister that had appeared on the underside of my right foot from all the wet and sideways motion.
The next chunk for me was getting to Pendeen lighthouse CP by 7am, doing this would be a massive confidence booster. I moved well for that chunk passing through Minack theatre (50) and Cape Cornwall (60). I stopped at Lands End CP but only to get my blister seen to by a medic. He sliced it, drained it then taped it up. I knew I was ahead of last year as I was getting to recognisable places still in the dark. I eventually hit Pendeen at 7:45am, not quite 7am but it had a 7 at the start and I was having that!
Next chunk to St Ives was the hardest part of the course. No crew or CP areas due to the remoteness. I’d ran a few miles of it last year so I knew how boggy some of it was and this year it didn’t disappoint. Every cove that came I wished it was St Ives to no avail. After asking a few yocals who confirmed it was 2/3 miles away it then appeared in the distance. I hit the CP at 1pm,1 hour before cut off.
As a side note there’s an unwritten rule of thumb that if you make St Ives baring a disaster you will finish the race. You have 10 hours to complete the final 22 miles on terrain that is more forgiving compared with what you’ve just negotiated.
I stopped at St Ives to get a medic to check my blister again, they redid the tape and I had a coffee while I waited.
Next and final chunk was to the finish via a final cut off at Godrevy by 7pm. Part of this first bit includes the infamous “dunes of doom”. They‘re now marked with large slab markers and I had the GPX so there wasn’t much ”doom”. I got to Godrevy by 5, an hour ahead of what I expected so sat and had a cup of coffee with my crew. Also Jason appeared who was crewing his partner Shelley who coaches me and was also running the 50.
Another side note. There’s also a 50 version that starts at Minack theatre Saturday early am. The front runners of this eventually catch you in the later stages of the 100.
I leave Godrevy knowing it’s 11miles to go and I’ve 6 hours to do it. A lady I met at WW50 called Una was also leaving at the same time so we leave together. We chat as we move and the time passes, it becomes clear her walking is faster than mine so I jog a bit/walk a bit. At around 95 miles Shelley catches us up and we briefly chat before she pushes on. It’s now apparent my quads are shot. Going down the steep steps is so painful it takes a lot longer than it should. There’s about 4 steep downs on this section, great. At Portreath Stu says there’s rain coming keep your jacket on and boy was he right. The last 4 slow painful miles were now very wet ones too. Eventually we drop into Porthtowan and Fergy is directing us to the last climb back up to the Eco village. We crawl to the top, across a small field and in to the Eco village. I finished the Arc100.
The feeling I had at the finish was different to CCC or TP100 which was such elation. Maybe it was 34 Hours of moving or just that I had got the job done. Maybe it was just pure relief and I had no need to come back to Coverack at 12pm on a Friday in January/February.
Thank you Mud Crew, it’s an experience I will never forget.
As always thanks to Stu for driving there and back and semi crewing me 😉. Jane and Corrine for crewing and being everywhere I needed you to be and for slick bladder swapping 🙏🏻.
As per usual at these events it’s like a meet up of jogging buddies. Plenty of Centurion faces including Drew and James. Also KAREN who you will all know from Canary Trail events and other events. I brought my canary just in case it was a requirement 👍🏻
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