Prologue: Here We Go.
My account of finally(!!!) finishing my first century, the 2026 Montane Summer Spine Challenger South, 108 miles, will follow in instalments. Herewith the important parts of the lead up.
Would you take the shot?
If it meant the world would see you at the top, will you take the shot?*
The only thing that was dead cert going into my second
attempt at the Montane Summer Spine Challenger South and its taunting 108 miles
is that I was committed to risking everything to finish it. I decided well in
advance that I’d fight to the bitter end no no matter how much it hurt, no
matter how slow I was moving, no matter how ill or overheated I was, I’d finish it.
If I had to hold myself together with Rock Tape and Fleecy Web (largely the case
in the end) I’d finish it.
I decided that I’d gladly lose running indefinitely from the
inordinate amount of recovery required to finish it. In fact, I was even
resigned to allow and carry an injury that could take away my running
permanently –
Just to finish it.
It was time to win; I was no longer prepared to accept
losing.
Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee –
I’d finish it.
Fortunately for me and my head game, I'd be toeing the line after soundly avenging last year’s
Shropshire Way 80K DNF with an eye-watering 3 hour and 33 minute course PB. I
was on a firm trajectory towards a long-awaited victory and I wasn’t about to
squander another chance at capturing the dream of becoming a Centurion once and
for all.
But it’s all significantly unhinged when you think about it.
Seven years obsessing about completing a distance, all because it carried with
it an extra digit. That taunting little digit, that 1, that bloody 1, that one
step beyond everything you’ve ever done after you became an ultrarunner, which always
sticks in your craw like the most painful ‘What if? Can I? Should I?’
It’s out there, that bloody number one. Snickering at you
until you punch it square between the eyes. It breeds an almost violent
determination that makes ordinary obsession look like a competitive game of Jarts
at a 70s family picnic, where everyone wears brown plaid and pudding bowl
haircuts and smiles politely while desperately wanting to topple the cousins
from the leaderboard, just for the glory of it all.
For me, the hunt for That Damned One was the equivalent of getting a seed stuck between two molars and trying everything I could possibly do to manipulate it away with my tongue, all while the dental floss was lingering merely one door away, in the medicine chest.
I hadn't been using all the tools at my disposal.
There is a very long story for another day, but the most important pieces of the puzzle called ‘Holy Shit I Have Finally Done It’ are about fitness – both mental and physical.
Seven previous failures at achieving that century gave me more learning than I could possibly have imagined, but in the end I realised I needed everything in the world mapped out if I meant to succeed. I honed the plan for nearly seven years yet still could only hope that on the day the planets would align and guide me to that mythical finish once and for all. How many badly-timed infections had I fought off? How many lost childcare situations?
My perpetual misfortune in all things related to this goal had worn my patience to the consistency of rice paper; still, I hoped that a little luck would light my way to journey’s end like bioluminescence behind a ship, and I’d
follow it, tittering like a giddy toddler, with the easy serenity of a far gentler creature than that ghastly whale. I’d be grateful for
its presence, its gift, its releasing the lock on that door previously frozen
shut with painful puzzles I couldn’t solve and heartbreaks I could no longer
bear.
I’d not bear them again. I knew this.
If I knew nothing else, I knew this.
But recovering my head game had taken some doing, let me tell you.
Having had the most hideous time trying to sell my house and
depart my failing marriage, the iron clad head game I’d honed to perfection during the
pandemic and Laz Lake’s pandemic project, the ‘Great Virtual Race Across
Tennessee’ had completely evaporated. That thousand miles covered in four months
was galactically off the charts for me, and I was as fit as I’d ever been. Cleverly,
I knew I was more than ready to crack the 100 and booked my first Ridgeway 86
for 2020, expecting to smash the bejeezus out of it, then tack on 14 more miles
and bish bash bosh I’d have done it. Simples.
The pandemic had other ideas. The race, like most other
things that year, was cancelled.
There followed that glorious head game into the abyss, and I’d not see
it return until the house finally sold and I could escape it in June 2024. The
in-between is also detailed at length elsewhere so I’ll not touch it here, but
it took a HELL of a long time to get my head screwed on again. I may still be
waiting for the stragglers.
After I finally landed in my new home and recovered my long
lost incline trainer, a driven and talented runner and friend helped me to
rekindle the other key ingredient – that GVRAT fitness I’d long since lost. Having
a new identity as a single mum made for limited training time so it had to have
maximum bang for the buck. I worked incredibly hard on speed work and pushing
myself past the pain threshold, realising that the emotional pain I’d endured
over the preceding two years was preventing me from unlocking this important
training ingredient - my mental endurance was being used up by general life and all its adulting. But as expected, the longer I lived in my new home, the stronger my head
became. The stronger my head, the more I could tolerate increasingly brutal
workouts.
And the training was off the charts. I was smashing PBs like
nothing, obliterated both 5 and 10k times well under 30 and 60 minutes (broken
thresholds – I am sensing a pattern here!) until I absolutely destroyed my
Snowdonia (Eryri) Marathon course PB with a 5:15 and change in October 2025. I
came bounding round that final curve like my arse was on fire and you could not
have beaten the grin off my face. This could have partially been because it was
absolutely Baltic out and raining cats and dogs all day so my mouth was frozen
in a grimace but I’m going with pride for the purposes of this story.
After a near disaster with hideous inflammation after
weaning off HRT, solved by – wot hey – going back on HRT, I returned in April
to that glorious Shropshire Way 80k finish, which was the greatest triumph of
my life (for a few months wink wink nudge nudge). I’d wrap it up tightly in my
heart and my head and carry it through the remaining training period as I kept
the fire of my dream burning brightly.
I wound the training down and tried to taper sensibly but unsurprisingly
still managed to ping my right hamstring and glute with a bit of overeager
single leg presses at the gym. I’d rest more than planned or desired in the
taper, but I figured if I wasn’t fit enough by then these weeks would have no
impact anyway.
In the year since I’d last run the race, I’d climbed over
168,000 feet in training. My nutrition was so dialled in I hadn’t been
seriously ill all winter which was a total coup after the preceding year. I was
getting the strength work in. My focus on hip flexors was a game changer to
ease up a long term hip injury that I’ve still not identified. I was strong and
fit, physically and mentally, and as ready as I’d ever be.
What a dream at age fifty-four! How did I get here? I'd never be fast, but I would bloody well finish.
You watch me. It’s going down once and for all.
Telling myself? Others? Doubters? The Universe? Fate? Those
bloody noisy magpies at the bottom of my garden?
You just watch me.
At 8 am on Saturday 13 June, 2026 I lined up for my eighth
attempt at bagging a century. The Realbuzz baton tucked tightly in my ‘nose
bag’, that OMM chest pod full of all the food I may or may not be able to eat,
pre-empting last year’s fuelling disaster. Ticked that box, fixed that issue,
trained my ass off.
I have to do it.
I didn’t know how I’d do it.
I have to do it.
I didn’t know when I’d do it.
Can I do it? I HAVE to do it.
I knew that all would be revealed in the climb up Jacob’s
Ladder. If I ascended well and didn’t feel my niggly hamstring and glute flare
up, I was good to go and my head would carry me home.
I would trust in the only person that mattered after I crossed that start line. Myself.
The rain started.
The countdown started.
The race started.
Everything started but me –
I'd already been running for seven years.
__
I will run, I will rise, I will grow.
I will climb to the place I belong.
I will fight like the world’s never known.
Here we go.
Through the smoke, through the ash, through the
flames,
And it burns like a fire in my veins,
In the end, you’ll remember my name.
Here we go.
____
* Victorious, Brenne
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