I am unsure exactly what made me sign up to run 50 kilometres through the night along narrow, hilly, zigzagging paths in a forest in Buckinghamshire I had never been to before. Was it the uncertainty, the thrill of running in the darkness, the challenge of it all combined, or something else?
All aboard the choo choo train
I had initially signed up to run the race with a bunch of friends. In the end, only one remained keen to take on the challenge with me: Krysia. I absolutely adore her, she is such a beautiful soul and an incredible athlete. Having recently paced her at the South Downs Way 100 miler, I was honoured to be running with her again, and so soon.
We caught the train there together. Or, should I say trains. Train to Waterloo, tube from Waterloo to Marylebone, train from Marylebone to Wendover. And then a cab. We met a mutual friend we did not know was racing on the last train and she jumped into the cab with us - which I had pre-booked, as there were no Ubers in the area.
A guy none of us knew came along in the cab, he was running the race too, and I offered. When we got out in the other end, he neither thanked us for the ride nor did he offer to chip in. He just grabbed his bag and started walking towards the registration tent. You are welcome, buddy.
In a world where you can be anything - be kind.
Situated in the beautiful surroundings of the Chilterns, Wendover Woods is 5 square miles in size. Still, Centurion managed to create a ten-mile loop, which we were to run three times to make up the 50 kilometres. Majority of these were run during the hours of darkness, as the race started at 10.30pm.
3 laps of happiness
There were runnable sections & not so runnable sections. There was mud. There was what seemed like endless hills. But there was also laughter. A lot of laughter. Had you told my 20 year old self what I would be doing on a Saturday night come 30, I would have not believed you.
Reality check
We are in a culture that is driving everyone towards this idea that happiness is purchased through luxury, comfort and ease. It could not be further from the truth. Running three laps of Wendover Woods during the night was uncomfortable and hard; yet there were so much happiness to be found.
Lap one was relatively easy, as we had somewhat fresh legs and were still warming up to what was yet to come. We tried to get a photo with the infamous Gruffalo, but with the sun having only set a few hours ago, it was too dark.
Lap two was harder, but we kept on plodding along. We greeted the Gruffalo once again, still unable to get a photo due to the darkness surrounding us. He did not seem to mind.
Lap three was tough. Our legs were heavy, we were tired, but then the sun came out to play. It was magical. We got to take our head torches off and see where we had been running the last 5 hours. Wendover Woods is a beautiful place!
Our third lap was where the sleep deprivation fully kicked in. I was delirious and giggling at just about anything. We were running up and down the same sharp hills for the third time and my legs were now hurting a lot. Oddly, my response was to laugh through the pain.
I then noticed that Krysia’s bib number made this repetitive sound every time she took a step and my brain convinced me that I was listening to a tune with a lot of bass. It was hilarious. I had to actually stop and compose myself in order to keep going!
We also came by this lonely, huge tree trunk that somehow was bright orange. It took me a while to register what I was looking at. It was standing out so much amongst the other trees in the forest — as these were all brown — and I am still not sure I was looking at a tree. Trees are not orange like that.
10 . 07 . 2021
We were done just before 7am. Normally I would have preferred a bowl of porridge at this hour, but having just run 50 km through the night, I oddly craved pasta. To my surprise there were pot noodles up for grabs and I have never been more excited about breakfast before.
We got changed into dry clothes and spent some time chilling in the sun, before making our way back home. Annoyingly there were rail replacement buses from Wendover all of that Sunday, but trains to London were running from a station a little further away. Neither of us were in the mood for more time added to our homebound journey, so we jumped in a cab to said station. I fell into a deep sleep almost instantly, no chance of keeping those eyes open.
I got in around 10.30am, some 12 hours after the race had started, and having now been awake for 29 hours, I was ready for bed. I had a shower, some more food and then hit the hay.
If you are looking for a fun night race, Wendover Woods 50 km by Centurion in the one!
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