Why the Tring Ultra?
The XNRG events are smaller than average with a lovely family feel but are also professionally run. The races are very inclusive with no cut-offs and walkers are welcome although they do attract some pretty awesomely fast runners too. Because the events are not too big a unique touch is that they have 3 waves with the walkers going first and the elite runners going last. This means you see more people along the route which can be encouraging and pretty inspiring as you watch the elites zoom past. The size of the event means that overcrowding is rarely an issue and it makes for a great atmosphere.
Pretty and flat
I spent a while running alongside a Scottish lady who was easy to talk to. It was her first Ultra so she may have been fooled into thinking I knew what I was talking about. As I have said before I find it easier to talk to people when there is no pressure to look at them and when there is common ground to discuss. Being able to leave the conversation at any point without looking rude is also a bonus. We discussed running but also got onto our respective experiences of mastectomies and fear of having a problem that would stop us from being able to run. It is easy to get caught up in the what-ifs of life but I try to remind myself that I can run today and that’s all that I can know. We can’t kid ourselves we know what is coming around the corner so being in the moment, especially when running a lovely route in perfect conditions, is the only sensible option.
Lesson learned – remember your tape!
I normally put tape on areas that I know are likely to rub during a race. One particularly vulnerable place is on my back where my poles are attached to my hydration poles. Because of my mad dash at the start of the race I had put no tape on so these started rubbing and by halfway through the race, it was sore. If I had looked properly at the course I would have also realised that I wouldn’t need the poles anyway which added to the frustration of the situation.
The terrain was now more rolling but nothing like the hills of many recent races which meant despite my painful foot I was making better time than usual. I had been organised enough this time to download the route on my watch. I was on the screen that shows how far there is to go and also gives a wildly optimistic prediction of your estimated arrival time. It is a bit dispiriting to see this time get later and later but at least I know from experience this is going to happen and so it doesn’t affect me so much.
I don’t know if this is an autistic thing, a runner thing or a just me thing but I love making calculations when I am running of what time I would finish if I ran at my most pessimistic predicted pace and my target predicted pace. I like to recalculate this as I run along and it is encouraging to see the time improve from my pessimistic prediction as I run along. This only works if I am doing better than my pessimistic prediction. Fortunately, due to the relatively easy terrain and the perfect weather, I was doing better than expected and although I was losing time on my watch’s fantastical predictions my internal predictions were getting better and better.
I had, at this point made only two minor navigational mistakes. One near the start which I noticed pretty quickly and another when running past this colossal structure which was very distracting to the point I missed the glaring obvious arrow. My watch saved me on this occasion beeping at me that I had gone off course.
You don’t need ADHD to be distracted by this!
A wrong turn
Things were going too well. Something had to happen. Between the third and fourth aid station I saw the Scottish lady and another lady with her up ahead. Following on from them I got an alert on my watch saying I was off route. I “helpfully” called them back, showed them the route on my watch and led them down the “correct” path.
After a little while one of them noted that this was incorrect too and the correct path was between the two we had run down. We retraced our steps and went according to the gpx file on our watches. This led to a dead end. We then went back to the original route the others had been running along and saw the official route marking. They seemed to take it in good humour that I had dragged them on a scenic detour but unfathomably ran on ahead. I got further confused later on with official route markings not matching the downloaded route and a couple of places I could not work out where to go. This could have been lack of markings, the markings being blown away or tampered with or possibly even me missing one (although with my spectacular navigational and observational skills this seems unlikely).
The finishing line
I had lost quite a bit of time but still looked like I would do better than I had expected. By now my whole right leg and both hips were pretty sore which was a distraction from my foot. The last few miles went past pretty quickly and before I knew it I was “sprinting” across the finish line.
There was huge applause and cheering which was equally lovely and awful. The Scottish lady was at the end and gave me a big high five so it looks like there were no hard feelings. Unusually for an ultra there were showering facilities at the end but that just seemed too much effort so I changed into clean clothes without showering and noticed that I had forgotten a change of shoes so drove home smelly but happy.
Overall
I enjoyed this race more than any for a while and that is down to the hard work of the event organisers, staff and volunteers (and the weather). It was also done as a fundraiser for Humanity Direct a charity that XNRG has supported for years. It funds operations for children in Uganda using the infrastructure already set up allowing doctors in the area help their patients when the parents cannot afford it.
It was great to get back into a race I got genuine pleasure from from start to finish and a nice change from some of the more gruelling events of late. I need to learn to hang onto that feeling of being alone in the open countryside, surrounded by beauty just plodding along towards my destination.
September’s Tring Ultra
Our next XNRG fundraiser event is the Chiltern Ultra on July 13th. Set in the picture-perfect Chilterns, the Chiltern Challenge helps fund life-changing operations for children in developing countries and is the ideal 50km introduction to ultra marathon running. Escape to the Chilterns, an area of outstanding natural beauty. What’s more, it’s FREE to run, if you commit to raising funds for Humanity Direct.
New this year is the option of the full 50km ultra marathon, a 25km half ultra or run the full ultra as part of a team of up to 5 people.
Check out our events page to sign up for this September’s Tring Ultra
This review of the 2023 XNRG Tring Ultra was written by A Good Plodder On
