Back in 2020, after watching the live feeds and Dot watching I thought what the hell let's sign up. I mean at the time I hadn't run 100 miles or even anywhere near that distance but this is what I do isn't it 😂
So 2021 I would be taking part in Arc of Attrition 100 miles around the South west coast path in the stunning settings of Cornwall. Unfortunately Covid put a stop to that, and we were all transferred over to 2022, but it just didn't sit right with my plans so luckily I was able to defer to 2023.
The 100 mile distance is probably the holy grail for most Ultra runners, I've ran over 100 miles a few times now, I've even ran over 200 miles but I'd never officially ticked off the 100 mile with a buckle as my one and only attempt turned into a DNF with knee issues.
For me personally this was an absolute massive race for me, I've come off the back of a DNF in Scotland and also at the Wildhorse across Wales in August, so not going to lie, confidence was a little low. But I'd been training hard, I switched Running coaches back in October to Jack Scott, who if you don't know just absolutely smashed The Spine Race coming home in 2nd place, which I genuinely believe if he hadn't picked up his time penalty he would have won 🏆
So apart from my little Boiling Hot water incident before Christmas which lead to a couple of days in NHS finest establishment I was good, I felt ready, I felt pumped and had a good plan in place ready to go and execute the Game plan. I'm not going to lie, I can be an absolute daydreamer and let myself get carried away, but I'd discussed it with Jack and I felt confident with hitting my goals.
🟢 Sub 20
🟠 Sub 22
⭕ Sub 24
Unrealistic to some, but I know what I'm capable off if everything goes to plan.
Day before Race day
So we travelled down to Cornwall on the Thursday, via a trip to Taunton to drop the kids off to my mum who probably now regrets offering as they can be bumholes on a very large scale 😂
Me and Chief pit crew Mrs Smevs, Bruno and Dottie then headed on down to Redruth where we had booked a hotel for the night. I wouldn't normally mention this, but the hotel was fantastic and deserves a shout out. It was the penventon park hotel, and the way they looked after the dogs was brilliant, on arrival in the room they had a dog basket waiting for them, with bowls, blankets, a massive pillow bed and there own sofa. A ground floor room opening up straight out on to a green for toilets and to top it off for us, we had an absolute gangster huge bed and even at full starfish we weren't touching each other 😂😂
Anyway back to the reason your reading, 17.00 came so it was time for the 10 min drive to the eco park to get registered and I'd felt fine all day, but some reason as soon as we started driving I felt sick to the belly with nerves and I really felt on edge, not a feeling I've had before. Maybe I knew how important it is, there was no way I could get another DNF. We got to kit inspection and this was really quick and easy an A3 poster on a table with 6 items on from your mandatory kit list and you just matched the picture to your kit, they checked it and it went away again, into the next room to collect your number and a quick photo for your tracker then it was done.
The nerves were still pretty intense at this point, so just wanted to get out of there, but we made the mistake of taking Bruno and Dottie the bulldogs with us and within 5 minutes these 2 were local celebrities. If I'd charged for photos we would be minted I swear 😂
I then got a shunt from behind, turned around to see Lauren Gregory one of my friends who I had tagged in numerous posts about the Arc goading her to sign up, which of course she did. We didn't chat for long though as I needed to get back to the hotel, felt like I had a lot to do still. Needed to pack my kit properly as I knew it was coming out for kit inspection I just threw it all in an Aldi carrier bag and strolled in like Roy Cropper 🙌 still needed to eat as well, and it would have been rude not to try out the swimming pool and Jacuzzi at the hotel 👌
Race Day
Naturally woke about 6.30am, threw on some clothes and headed straight for breakfast, the old me would have gone the race isn't starting till 12.00 so I'll go with a full English but instead I went big bowl of Granola, natural yoghurt and berries, then a couple of bits of toast while watching Mrs Smevs munching on eggs Florentine 🤤
Then it was get ready and head back to the eco park to pick up trackers and head over on the coachs to the start about 45 minutes away in Coverack, it's a shame it didn't take 45 minutes to run back 😂 I had arranged to sit next to Lauren but I think she hid from me so I couldn't find her 😉 instead I sat next a bloke called Steven, who really made me feel relaxed as I was starting to feel pretty nervous again, we just talked about races we had done and he showed me some unreal pictures of a race he had done, I can't remember the name unfortunately as I wanted to have a look into when I got home.
Anyway, the coaches arrived and we were kicked off out in to the cold and made to hang around for 50 minutes, you could see people were getting cold, luckily I had Mrs Smevs there and the deadly duo getting more bloody photos, so I managed to get a warm coat on, and munched a protein bar while we waited for the time to tick down. Steve Cousins was doing a get job on the mic, pulling in all the elite runners to have a chat with them. Bumped in Lauren again 🙌 after she mugged me off on the Coach 😂😂
Then we were getting called to the start line for the off. Pretty insane to be fair, one side of me was Ellis Bland from Våga and the other Holly Rush who has run at the commonwealth games 🙂
The music then kicked in, 10 second quote down and some yellow smoke popped and we were off. The streets of Coverack were lined with people and it was a great feeling. It was a really easy pace and I found myself just loitering in the top 10, nothing pushed at all as we ran the first mile at about 10.30 pace, I did notice at this point my HR was up at 167, which for me is high, I don't even hit that when I'm doing sprints. But I felt fine so ran to feel, I knew it was a long way so wasn't going to do anything stupid at this stage, that was arranged to start later once the time arrived
So everything was going alright, feeling really comfortable still, HR still high but I wasn't worried. Then I tripped and took a nasty fall doing a couple of Rolly polys down a hill of boulders, jumped straight back up though and off I went but I didn't completely feel right, got to 8 miles and it was as if I had been sucked into the deep dark hole of despair, everything went black, all the doubts kick in, you question everything. It's quite common on the long stuff, but after 8 miles?? This should not be happening at all, I normally have a wobble at about 40 miles but this was bad, I just felt like I had no energy whatsoever and I was struggling to lift my legs which then resulted in me tripping a few more times, luckily not hitting the deck these times though. I knew I was seeing Carly at Lizard point which was the 10 mile point, I'd already popped a gel trying to pull myself out the hole but I was still deep inside. Lizard point wasn't an official checkpoint so it was more of a smash and grab, so I grabbed a banana and half a cheese sandwich and just kept going just thinking to myself that once these kick in I'll be good again. 9/10 if you feel shit while running, Eat! Seems to always work, but this still wasn't and I still had another 15 miles till the official checkpoint. Trying to put on a brave face and keep moving in but I was completely blown up inside, how the hell was I going to be able to run another 90 miles feeling like this.
I kept plugging away, but I knew I'd slowed up, loads of people overtaking me from this point, and all I wanted to do was get to the Checkpoint. Some really tough sections and climbs but eventually I saw a group of smiley happy people in hi-vis vests, as I ran to them one ran with me and guided me into the checkpoint. I saw Carly stood on the side of the road, and I just said where's the camper?? I need to get in it. In to the camper, door slammed shut, pack thrown on the floor. Me and Smevs had made a packed before Arc, under no circumstances was I allowed to DNF, any talks of it, you just throw me out the van and send me on my way. So a pasta pot and a cup of tea literally forced down my head, as my guts were all over the place, didn't want any food let alone a roast chicken pasta pot that smelt like cheesy feet. A quick change of top, and a jacket on, head torch ready then it was time to go. The standard quick kiss and I was off again, all of a sudden that dark hole had lifted and for the next 12 miles I was feeling good again, and I was picking people off. I really enjoyed this section, single track trails, sharp turns and quite technical but you could let yourself go with it. A few miles out from Penzance cp2 and the dreaded road section came, I absolutely hated this and so did my body, my feet were already hurting as the whole trail just seemed to be made up of sharp cobbled rocks all over the place and every step you got stabbed in the feet. I bumped into a lad called Jack, who had overtaken me earlier when I was in the hole and we ran together for a bit, he was really tall and 1 stride for him was 2 maybe 3 for me, and then I remembered what coach had said to me, you have to ask yourself "Are you in control" the answer was no, so I said to jack I'm just going to walk for a minute and off he went. I only literally walked for about 30 seconds maybe a minute max, but it was enough to let him get away from me and slow me down slighty. Then again the shining lights of the Ark Angels 😇 The original plan was to see Mrs Smevs every 10/15 miles but after the Dark hole incident we were playing it by ear which kind of turned out to be every 5 miles.
Ran into CP2 said Hello gave them my number and straight outside to the camper. This time it was a sausage and beans which for Race across Scotland I pretty much lived on it, really struggled to eat this so picked out the sausages and dipped in some bread and butter while Smevs loaded up my pack ready to send me off into the darkness again. Quick kiss then off I went, unfortunately still a big road section to come as we navigated down into mousehole, and the road out of mousehole really sticks in my mind as it was steep as fuck 😂
I'm finding it really hard to even remember when and where I saw Carly as it was now pitch black and all a bit of a blur, but a quick meet up at Lamorna at 44.5 miles for a bottle change, as my stomach had completely gone at this point and everything was just turning into stodge in my mouth, and I was having to chew stuff for 10 mins till it was small enough I could flush down with water. I kept pushing on and caught Jack up plus others as I tried to get myself back into the race, through minack which was pretty disappointing it was at night, because from the photos this place looks amazing and it's also the start point for the 50 miler. Then on to porthgwarra only 4 miles out from Landsend at 55 miles. A few people had said don't go into Landsend as you won't leave as that's the place that has the most DNF, due to the warm and good food.
But I went in, wanted to try something different and it took a bit of pressure of Smevs and add a bit of variety to the food options. On entering it was like an after party, live Facebook streams, loads of Angels and they really couldn't do enough for you, we hit here at 23.52 so just under 12 hrs for the first 55 miles, I knew it was over 100 miles so in my head I was saying expect 105 and anything less is a bonus, so we still had 50 miles left at this point. Anyway pasta and meatballs, little sprinkle of cheese, cup of tea and a cup of coke. T shirt, jacket and hat change and a spray of deodorant as I was smelling worse than that pasta pot from earlier. Ready to leave and me and Jack went together, he was great in the climbs, but I was faster on the flats and the downs so it was a good mix, and from here on in we stayed together, well until the last mile.
Landsend to st Ives
This was dubbed as the hardest section, which would indicate that they would say one of the sections is the easiest 😂 to that I would say bollocks. Every section was brutal for different reasons, this section though was tough, very tough and very slow. So many sharp rocks so every footstep was a stab in the foot, my feet felt like they were on fire, my feet at this point had been in numerous bogs, numerous puddles, waterfalls and streams and to be honest I was quite scared to take my shoes off as I thought my foot might come off in my trainer 😂 me and Jack had settled and we were moving well, overtaking people as we went. It became a bit of a joke when we past someone we would say alright? And the response from everyone was I've had better days 😂😂 not one person actually said I'm loving this. 5 miles on from Landsend and it was cape Cornwall, at this point the chaffe was unreal, my arse cheeks and around my balls and winky, I got some lube but this just caused them to sting like crazy 😅 was also really desperate for a 💩 but I just couldn't go, I'd been farting for the last hour, proper loud smelly belly farts, I had to keep letting jack go Infront otherwise he would have definitely ran off and left me after tasting that 🤢🤢
In was thick into the night now and Jack was struggling, so it was my job to keep him moving, it was now at the stage of any type of incline was getting walked, and we were trying to jog out the rest, but there was some very steep downs with boulders all over the place so you were climbing over everything in sight, Mrs Smevs was now meeting us at every point she could, it was tough now, I wasn't back in the hole, I knew I was going to get it done, but I just wanted nothing more than being on that last climb because I knew it would all be over. I was screaming inside but the thought of another DNF and them smug people who like to see me fail just kept me going. I knew the actual racing side of things was over and it had been for a long time, I hadn't eaten anything now for about 15/20 miles and was just running on thoughts of letting people down again.
Into Levant in the middle of nowhere, all you could see was red flashing head torches in the distance and white torches behind you, but we were still moving, not fast but still moving, in our heads it was now checkpoint to checkpoint and we just needed to get to St Ives because apparently all the hardest bit is done. Mrs Smevs had made me up a pot noddle here, but I just cuddle eat it, I didn't even want to look at it, filled my bottles and off we went again. Little did I know but after we left, the battery in the camper was flat and Carly had to get Jump started, so to the gus in the other VW thank you so much for sorting her out 🙏
Then we pushed on to Zennor, remember me saying about the 💩 well all of a sudden I had no choice, it was like scene from bridesmaids " it's coming out of me like lava" but because of absolutely terrible admin, I had to sacrifice my gloves, so if you find any gloves on the SWCP leave them alone 🙈🙈 not an official CP but Smevs had walked the half mile trek to be there for us, I sat down on the floor just to take the pressure off my feet and I was telling her how my chaffe was even worse than before. Her response was dropping a full water bottle in my nuts 😂😂 not sure if this was on purpose or not 😂 Mrs Smevs came with new presents this time though, a pasty from a local shop, can't come to Cornwall and not have a Cornish pasty aye! 😬 Took about 3/4 bites and there was so much pepper in it that it felt like my mouth was on fire 🔥
7 miles to St Ives, savage terrain, freezing cold, chaffe of the balls so bad they actually looked like cherries and an arsehole like a Japanese flag we were on my way. This was where I took my 2nd big fall, I hit the Deck hard, and yes I hit my balls, ffs give my balls a rest 😂 I genuinely lay there for about 5 mins, jack in silence and me in the fetus position, if someone had covered me with a blanket there I would have just got my head down, screw the race my balls hurt too much 😂
Although me and Jack were running together the majority of the time we were running in silence, we didn't need to talk to each other, but we knew we were for each other. Every now and then there would be a grunt, or a laugh or a this is so shit, or a fart from me, when is a fart not funny 🤣 The sky was turning grey which meant the sun would be coming up soon, you could feel the chill in the air as we started running down in to st Ives, but before we got there we had 2 Marshalls and a medic charging at us asking if we'd seen the bloke who had Fallen in the brambles and got stuck, wasn't sure if this was a joke or not. But apparently it wasn't 😬 we hit the town and the magic angels to guide us to the check point, this bit felt like 2 miles long, seemed to take forever but we arrived at St Ives now for the easy bit to the finish 😬
St Ives 79 miles, but I was already in 81 and I knew it was 103/104 so still potentially 25 miles left, I didn't have this in me, I was done, my feet were so sore I just needed to sit down to take the pressure off so probably stayed at St Ives longer than I should of, but some pizza 🍕 smallest slices in the world ever but it was still pizza, a change of top, hat, jacket and a deodorant spray, yes it might waste time, but this was now about just getting to the end, I didn't want to be there anymore I just wanted to be at the end finished. But I still had 25 miles left to do and the Dunes of Doom, but that wasn't the worse bit. We were stood about 75 metres from the Car park in hayle but we had to run 6 miles on a big loop along the road to get there.
Mine and Jacks crew had parked in different places here, so I jumped in with Carly and he kept running and once I'd finished I'd run into him. A quick bottle refill but still unable to take on any properfood,so it was a little pot of custard and a water and a orange squash and down to literally a sip or 2 an hour. I ran on to meet jack and his crew and I'd been running for about half a mile, I genuinely thought he'd gone on without me, it wasn't till I got to the top end of the Carpark he was there. Phew 😅 I wasn't in a very good place here and wouldn't of wanted to run the rest in on my own. Off we went to the Dunes of Doom, and how delightful they were 🤣 although not as bad as I thought they would of been, down into Godfrey where Mrs Smevs had prepared another pot noddle which I actually managed to eat half of it, but I think it was too late, didn't do anything for me apart from make my horrible feeling guts even worse, we were now down to about 15 miles to go though and 7 miles to meet Mrs Smevs at what would be our final meeting point Bassets cove, not many other crews had stopped at this one, but I needed to see Carly at every opportunity, 1 for a boost and 2 if I needed anything Incase some miracle occured I became savagly hungry. That wasn't the case but I wanted to try and get one last bit of food in so a pot of rice pudding and only 6 miles left.
These were horrendous, up on top with amazing views, but open top fields and paths, and then steps down and steps up, these were horrible, the downs were worse than than the ups, I was positive my feet were bleeding inside my shoes the heat from them was unreal, we then hit portreath and another horrendous run climb out of there but only a few miles left to the finish, I'd already hit 100 miles so now it was a bit of a lottery, just kept telling myself it could be up to 5 miles. We then headed down into porthowan were we saw the Arc Angel 😇 who pointed us up the road to the next, who then pointed us up the road to the next and the next, we were so close but felt like a million miles away, it was now just me and an absolute stinker of a hill to the eco park. The hill I'd longed for all night and day, I didn't want to be on it anymore, it was steep and long and I had nothing left. Where Jack had struggled through the night, he seemed to come alive in the day and pretty much dragged my sorry arse to the end. I wanted Jack to have his own finish line so at the bottom of the final hill, I said thank you and told him to go on, "Are you sure" yes mate go! He went and I dragged my arse up that hill, into the car park and across the finish line
Crossing the finish line, I didn't feel happy, I just felt relief that it was over, I met Jane for the first time, had a cuddle, then my favorite photographer Mark from Blue kite was there to take my finishers photo, and final a kiss and a cuddle for my one and only Mrs Smevs, which I swear to God if it wasn't for her I definitely wouldn't of got to the end. She saved my arse, dropped a bottle in my balls, washed my feet for me in the bath later and then did the 6 hour drive home, crewed my single handily with 2 dogs and absolutely smashed it. That Buckle was for her, could put her through all of that to DNF. Finishing in a time of 25.38.40
Knowing what I know now, do I think my goals were unrealistic?
No I don't, yet again the nutrition side of things has got to me, so I really need to work on this and I really do think I could go back there one day and definitely bring home a black buckle. I'm not going to lie, that was the hardest race I've ever done, it was brutal and no wonder it's arguably the toughest 100 miler in the UK.
It's a funny race, because I never saw anyone smile at all at any point during the race, everyone said how shit it was, but once you cross that finish line, those miserable faces turn to smiles, and mine eventually did. Ok things went tits up, but I'm proud of myself for getting to the end, after being submerged by the black cloud at mile 8, to still be there 95 miles later shows some grit and determination.
A massive Thank you to everyone who commented or sent a message to me or Carly, or took the time to watch a silly little dot on your phone for hours on end, because some reason it's so bloody addictive. Big Thanks to Mudcrew, Fergy and Jane for putting in an absolutely stinking brutal race!
Also a Big thanks to Jack Scott for believing in me, I know it didn't go to plan, but you've invested so much of your experience and time in to me I really appreciate it 🙏🙏
For anyone thinking of doing this race in the future, do not underestimate it, there were so many DNFs, and as I keep getting told we were lucky with the weather. Also 💯 get to Cornwall and do some recces, as I didn't 🤣 a few tricky spots to navigate, especially in the dark when you're hanging out your hoop.
What's Next?
As things stand I have nothing planned, but there's a race I'm interested in for the summer months. I'll be speaking to coach tomorrow.
Mr Smevs 🙌