We Brits love a decimal goal, despite our disposition towards imperial units. In running terms, 100 miles is a great target as, with big hills in, it takes even the best runners to around that 24-hour mark. For us mere mortals, it becomes an epic journey to get to the end, despite the sleep deprivation, the battle to consume calories and fluids, and challenges of blistering, chafing, injuries and other ailments. But this run brought an even bigger difficulty - avoiding heatstroke.
The story
The event start line was set in the village of St John’s Dalry, a village in the hills near Dumfries. Two events were happening concurrently, the 50 and 100-mile variants, both of which were to follow the Southern Upland Way. The 50 finish line was also checkpoint 5 for the 100-mile race. This meant that we would spend the first half of the race alongside people who may be finishing much earlier - that can make for a difficult mental journey for those measuring their effort for 100 miles, as can passing a finish line, knowing you have to do it all again.
Rob and I were very prepared, or so we thought. A challenging 75-miler a few weeks before had given us huge confidence for both fitness and handling race logistics. We’d also obsessed over kit - clothes, shoes, packs, nutrition and more. We were both quite experienced with hot marathon and ultra distances, so felt we’d take that in our stride too. We assessed the elevation, and nature of the terrain from video footage and descriptions, and quite spectacularly misjudged the difficulty level. Thankfully, we’d been training with a future, hillier run in mind; Scotland was meant to be the stepping stone, so our training had been targeting the harder run. It was combining the high difficulty level with scorching heat, for such a long distance and time, that made Scotland such a surprising challenge.
Start, Saturday 0600
The races, 50 and 100-mile, had a mass start in a field in the town of St John's Dalry. The speedier runners had already adopted positions at the front of the pack; we went in the middle, where we expected to finish, but also knowing that any speedy exit would be meaningless for an event of this scale. We made a steady start and settled in, as we adjusted to the weighty packs we were carrying.
Conditions started as I expected, with light, undulating trails, and plenty of grassy fields. Despite the very dry conditions, I deftly located the one soft patch when skipping over a minor bog, and so before we'd even hit the first checkpoint I had fallen into knee-deep mud. Not ideal, but I'd clean up the mess later.
It was still early morning, but feeling remarkably warm.
CP1, 8 miles, Saturday 0751
In the run up to the checkpoint, my head had been spinning; after all of the prep, there was still a lot to think about. What fluids did I need to take on? What bag adjustments did I need to make? What should I eat? What kit did I need to move into accessible pockets?
We arrived at the checkpoint, and I began to execute the plan, and start filling my bottles. A marshall informed me that my tracker was malfunctioning, and needing resetting, which he did. I grabbed a drink in my cup. We put our bags back on, and set off.
Then I realised my mistake. The plan was 700ml fluids for every hour. Tailwind drink was being supplied, which is complete nutrition, including electrolytes. I'd taken just a litre between my front bottles, and not filled the 1.5L bladder in my backpack. At endurance pace, the next checkpoint could be 4+ hours away. I was slightly worried, but resolved to drink at normal rate, and then just manage the gap
We did plenty of climbing to get up to the big stone hula hoops in the ground. People were struggling with the inclines, but I felt strong. I hadn't found time to study the route properly, and was relying entirely on the route indication on my GPS unit. Pulling out a map would have been awkward whilst using running poles, so I settled for operating in total ignorance to the route and geographical details, at least unless we had a problem.
The heat built quickly, and I got through my drinks at a fast rate. I realised this was a risky situation already, but we kept our pace steady. The checkpoint seemed a very long way away. An event car passed, offering Coke from the window; this saved me from the immediate risk, and I sank a couple of cups. After what seemed like a long time, we passed another event car dishing out water; I drank a couple more cups. Eventually, upon entering a small town, we crossed a river and refrained from opting to swim, but I did take the chance to dunk my head and wet my cap. Given the now aggressive heat, I resolved not to make any more mistakes with fluids.
CP2, 26 miles, Saturday 1229
At the checkpoint, I made a t-shirt and sock change. My heels were already blistering. I don't normally suffer blisters, but I had been running with loosely tied shoes. This wasn't good. I put Compeed patches on and reapplied Vaseline between my toes.
From chatter at the checkpoint, it became apparent that many had already dropped out of the event. 18 miles is a long gap between checkpoints in any event, but with this heat, along with race instructions only specifying 1L minimum of water bottles to be carried, it presented a very risky situation. This race was going to be far from easy.
Mercifully, the distance to CP3 was smaller. We weaved along stony fire tracks through woodland, and the temperature had built up to what I would describe as scorching, yet I knew the peak would be around 4pm. As we descended and approached a bend, I spied a pool in the stream that looked deep enough to swim. We wasted no time, stripped off to just shorts, and I fell backwards into the refreshing water. It felt amazing, but importantly, we were cooling down.
CP3, 34 miles, Saturday 1555
I continued with a pattern of avoiding the mass of sweet foods presented at the checkpoint, and went only for salted potatoes, pretzels, crackers and fresh fruit. My nutrition was in the Tailwind, so these were mostly to help my stomach cope.
More big hills followed, mostly grassy, but bigger than I had imagined. A marshall understated the journey to the next CP, which became a common theme of the day. It was a very long 6 miles.
CP4, 40 miles, Saturday 1754
Coping pretty well with the running, we found ourselves quite alone for a while. We ran some beautiful, secluded woodland. The variety of terrain and scenery had already surprised me, it was a lovely route, but my mind was mostly on the challenges ahead; the heat had been taking its toll, and we were quite slow.
We worked our way around the dam, where the path was closed, and passed a dramatically large reservoir. The big hills kept coming, and we trudged past a huge wind farm.
We were working towards the mid point, and might have expected this 14-mile leg to take 3-4 hours. However, we started slowing a lot, with much walking. I didn't immediately identify the problem that was building. We were approaching the outskirts of the town. I realised darkness was approaching, and calculated that we still had several miles to the checkpoint. Rob was swaying around, propped up by his poles, and looked drunk. The heat and dehydration had caught him. At first I thought we could just plod on, but as the time ticked away I realised the relatively early cutoff for this CP was starting to look risky. I started gently nudging Rob to eat and drink, and when he didn't really respond I went in with more insistence. If he didn't, I told him, we might not make the cutoff. I closely tracked our times, knowing that a call to the race director might be needed, and a difficult decision might have to be made. We'd agreed in advance that if one of us was having difficulties, the other could continue their attempt to get round, but I wasn't going to leave Rob alone in that state.
CP5, 54 miles, 2331
We arrived in the town, and with just a couple of streets left I realised we would make it. Another group of runners caught us, and we chatted a little. Their support party welcomed them into the checkpoint. I missed having such support for this one, and we limped in to the checkpoint. Rob grabbed a chair, but then wobbled around, a bit disoriented. I suddenly felt nauseous, as the dehydration had caught me too. I headed for the edge of a field to vomit, but found myself sobbing uncontrollably instead.
I pulled myself together, and headed back to the checkpoint building. We got drinks and food, found our drop bags, and then discovered that some of the 50-mile finishers had been taking the opportunity to have a shower. We stayed long enough to pull ourselves back together, made use of the showers, and remained for over an hour. The checkpoint was closing and being packed up. In the hurry to get out, I wrongly packed my stuff, and left my night time running clothes in the drop bag.
We had left the checkpoint a full 40 minutes after the cutoff, which by most people's reckoning would mean we were at risk of not making the next CP cutoff. I wasn't worried, as I knew our normal pace would see us gaining time again, we just needed to be recovered. My initial estimation of our pace would have seen us finish the event, which has a 38 hour cutoff, in around 28 hours, so I figured we had hours to play with. But I had hugely underestimated the terrain. We intended to attempt a couple of 15-minute power naps during the night.
My memory is failing me for the next phase. I'm aware that what followed was the biggest climb of the run, over 2000ft up to Croft Head. My only recollection is a very long time working through woodland, and looking for places to stop for a nap. When we finally chose a spot, amongst tree stumps, I covered my face with my buff and lied down. I could hear the hum of midges, punctuated by the odd mosquito buzz. As I'd forgotten my night kit, I was still in shorts, and I could feel them swarming on my legs. It was a hugely unpleasant 15 minutes. I didn't sleep. The many bites I got would cause me discomfort for the next few days.
We finally arrived at Croft Head, and worked along the top of the high hill. I could make out a steep drop to our right, and the outline of very large hills to the right and ahead. It was eerie. I pointed my torch, but it illuminated nothing; the scale of this valley was huge.
We dropped down an intimidatingly steep, zig-zagged path, and could see light in the distance on the other side of the valley, which we assumed to be runners. As we eventually neared where the lights had been, it became apparent that it was in fact a high viz jacket, hanging up, reflecting our torches. As we neared, we saw a guy sat under a tarp hung from a dry stone wall. He asked our numbers, informed us that the road was near, and the checkpoint was around 10k away. It must have been a lonely marshalling post.
As we worked our way along the side of the valley, daylight began to appear. We picked through some tricky terrain to cross the valley, and things started getting more grassy as we approach woodland. Rob selected a soft bank, and we set our 15-minute alarm and dropped. It probably took me 10 of the minutes to fall asleep, but the 5 made a difference. We pressed on.
We began a long descent along forest fire roads. We were still sleepy, and were walking. It seemed to go on for a very long time. The track turned to slate, as we passed the quarry, and eventually the valley opened out, and we joined a tarmac road. We still had sleep in mind, and were keeping eyes peeled for a spot. The most appealing was a barn with a pile of wool in it, but we carried on. It was a painfully long trip down the tarmac, but we still weren't seeing the checkpoint. I picked up a jog and, to my surprise, sustained it for a good period. Rob was still pretty keen on another sleep.
We saw runners for the first time in hours, heading into the hills ahead and to our left. We figured that they had already visited the checkpoint. We checked the map and saw that the checkpoint was an out and back, a short way off the route, but didn't realise that it was actually several kilometres. We passed runners returning from the checkpoint, and wrongly assumed we'd made up significant time.
CP6, 71 miles, 0716
Another supportive crew greeted us at the checkpoint. They got me a coffee, and were insistent that we applied bug repellant - it was a bit late for that. I also grabbed a can of coffee from my drop bag, and still had one from previous drop. I attempted to fix my feet again, but this time new blisters had appeared, just at the base of my toes, in the middle; the right was worst, and was definitely now presenting a DNF risk. I patched them up as best I could.
I was quite refreshed once we got going, but Rob hadn't taken on caffeine. I asked if he wanted to sleep, because I was about to neck a coffee to boost myself into the day. We didn't sleep again.
After a while we arrived at a big loch. The race director appeared, and took our pics. I was feeling fresh, and it was warming up. Our push to make up hours really began, and we were running consistently (except uphills) for a long time. I believed we were making up time, and also discovered from messaging my wife that more people had dropped out. This put us last of the heavily diminished field.
After several hours of good progress, we finally spotted some other runners ahead. It was once again scorchingly hot. I was motivated to be back in the mix with other runners, and pushed a little so we'd catch and pass them. It seemed like our passing spurred them on because they kept us in sight. The heat slowed us all for a while, and I was expecting to see the checkpoint soon, but as ever, it never seemed to come. In pure frustration, I picked up a run and held it for ages, across fields. Rob kept pace, and the other two were never far behind.
CP7, 89 miles, Sunday 1350
As we descended towards the checkpoint, the marshalls appeared with plates of food for us. They were keen to take our bottles and give us a refill. They were aware, though we weren't at the time, that our ETA for the finish was later than the 2000hrs cutoff. They hurried us, which I felt was a mistake; we were seriously hot, and if we were to finish at all, we first needed to cool down. I wasn't worried about time because I was still confident we could be faster than typical times, but actually I was being a little too confident; I didn't know what difficult hills remained.
We took a couple of minutes at the nearby stream to dunk heads and caps, and then set about doing a brisk stint. We were taken by surprise at the next forest section by what seemed like an unending, steep, rocky climb; it was a straight line up a huge hill, and despite the woodland, gave us little shade. It was brutal in the heat, and I couldn't believe we hadn't clocked, or been told, that this was still to come. The walking was clearly making us slow, but attempting to run this hill would have been counter-productive. When we finally reached the top, we settled back into a run, and soon hit a very technical, rocky descent. This was problematic with my blistered foot, and I had to take huge care placing my feet, cursing at each mistake. We believed our distance should place us near CP8, and that timing would therefore be fine, but we were very wrong.
We had another very long technical descent, and eventually picked up the river. Still no checkpoint, and it turned out to be much further along the valley, and then the road. The realisation finally came that we did not have time in-hand, all our efforts to gain time had merely bought us the chance to make the final cutoff.
CP8, 98 miles, Sunday 1732
We arrived, once again needing to cool off, but we were told not to sit down; they wanted to fill our bottles and send us out, to give us a chance of finishing in time. I dismissed the idea that we might not manage it as I knew we could pick up a better pace for the sake of 8 miles. They told us there was only one small hill left. It was not at all small; it was long and very steep.
Having cracked the hill, all that remained was 7 miles of relatively easy running, which we needed to do at a moderate pace. Although exhausted, dehydrated and hot, this didn't seem like an impossible challenge. Rob led, but was pottering. I told him to speed up, but then initially found myself unable to keep up. After forcing my legs to get moving, I eventually rejoined him down in the woods. My mind drifted away from the running; occasionally I would come back to consciousness that running was happening, but it didn't seem like I was there. Rob spoke, and I wondered why the words made no sense. We continued to keep up a decent pace. Rob spoke again, and it still made no sense, so I told him I couldn't understand what he was saying. I had some sense that I was having a problem, and knew that drinking was the fix, so I kept the fluids going in. I got confused by the arrows on the navigation device, as some complicated intersections in the path meant they required some interpretation. My thoughts were incoherent, but somehow I blundered through the woods.
Finish, 106 miles, Sunday 1919
We eventually reached the outskirts of Melrose. We passed a build that looked very much like it could be the checkpoint, but as I zoomed out of the view on my GPS, it was apparent we were still a few miles from done. The Southern Upland Way was tracking along the town, and then ascending above, before a left turn took us over several fields down the river. We snaked our way along the river, going back on ourselves towards the middle of the town. Rob took the lead, and I was fading but keeping up. Our big push meant we were in plenty of time, and had 40 mins in hand as the checkpoint came into view. We got a cheer, but things were wrapping up in preparation for the coach leaving at 8. It didn't really feel like a great moment of celebration, and the emotion I'd felt earlier about the possibility of reaching this point had evaporated. I felt numb, and quite confused.
Having been given the medal (a weighty belt buckle), I wandered inside and drank two small cups of water. Nobody offered the recovery drinks I'd expected, but I wasn't thinking straight enough to ask. I went for a shower and struggled to get dressed, because of the state of my feet. Still a bit confused, I put my bags on the coach and climbed aboard.
After we left, I had a minor meltdown as I thought I'd left my phone at the finish line. When I found it, in my pocket of course, the next thought was more serious; I'd brought no drink along for the 2.5 hour journey. I felt sick, and the coach driver was driving very fast along the twisty roads. I had to sit up tall and watch the roads to avoid vomiting, and eventually my body calmed. I had a sleep.
We arrived back in St John's Dalry, and I walked very slowly back to the field where the van was. I realised we had only a modest amount of water, and inadequate food, with no prospect of buying anything. We were meant to have had hours in the day to buy lunch etc, but that plan had failed. We made noodles on the camping stove, drank a little water, and went to bed. It was a disturbed night where my swollen feet wanted to be high, but my hamstrings wanted anything but straight legs.
I anticipated a huge marathon hangover, but none came; after a coffee and beans on toast in the morning, we packed up and got on the road. At the services, mid-way, it was scorching, and I hid from the sun. Yet it was similar to Saturday and Sunday. It seemed implausible that we'd run 106 miles in these conditions. I grabbed an espresso from Costa, and a vegan roll from Greggs, and we continued our four hour journey home. When we got back, I still felt fine. No notable dehydration, no back pain, no major tiredness, no knee pain. Just blistered feet, some back sores and a multitude of midge bites on my legs, arms and head. Rob had no blisters.
We'd made it round 106 gruelling miles, in fierce heat, and despite the enormous attrition rate. It was our first century run. We'd both had moments where failure came very close, but our preparation and race discipline had helped us make it. It was unquestionably the hardest thing I have ever done.
