The Killerthon

This weekend just past saw the culmination of months of intensive un-training get tested on the longest road race I have ever done. But to that in a second, firstly I have found the boat that I have been looking for. Fast enough to take on distances races with a degree of competitiveness, stable enough to inspire confidence.

I have had my eye on the Pyranha Speeder for ages having seen it at a boat show a couple of years back but I hadn’t really given it any great attention until I started all of this Devises to Westminster nonsense. Testing out the thoroughbred racing boats scared the bejesus out of me, the slimline hyperfast carbon and glass boats are undoubtedly the fastest craft out there and the only choice for the competitive racers, but they are so unstable for a fair to middling paddler like myself, I don’t think I could have taken part in any race without intensive training to become comfortable in one. I don’t have enough time on the river to be able to do that so I had to look to alternatives, and I wanted a boat that could be used in more situations than just distance racing.

The Speeder seemed like a good candidate, it has the lines of a racing boat, long and slender and is advertised by Pyranha as being a stable river runner. Reading reviews all over the internet I wasn’t sure if Pyranha’s “stable” was different to everyone else’s stable, so I felt I had to take one out for a test drive. West Midlands Canoe Centre were kind enough to get a demo boat in for me and on Saturday I took it out. On the water I was aware of the boats tendency to tip but it didn’t seem much worse than I have experienced in my RPM and certainly the advertised secondary stability was there in spades. Once I got up to speed I was more than confident that I could handle this boat, it was fast, and to my surprise relatively manoeuvrable for something of this size and weight. I got back to the quayside with the biggest grin on my face. The upshot.. One new boat arriving in about 5 weeks time and I am pretty excited by the prospect of this years paddling.

That was Saturday, Sunday was the worlds first Kilomathon. I’ll be surprised if this is the first time a 26.2 kilometre race has ever been run ever anywhere in the world, but the organisers were making a big play on the fact that that this was the first Kilomathon and that the 5,500 of us who turned up would be taking part in history. It might be the first time anyone has ever called it a Kilomathon I suppose. Anyway, twenty six point something kilometres is sixteen point something miles, three miles longer than a half marathon and as I had done two of those so I wasn’t particularly worried about the additional distance.

I’m the first to admit that my training was poor but I had completed my first Half Mary (Ironbridge) after a similarly poor training regime at about this time last year so I had pencilled in a time of 2 hours and 40 minutes. Two hours is my Half time and I thought an additional 40 minutes for the remaining 3 miles would be fine and plenty, even if I ran at a slower pace I thought I would be well in.

Race day didn’t start all too well, my iPhone which had my running playlist and was going to be key to liaising with my dad and wife at the end of the race broke down just as we had set off. We turned around so I could grab a spare iPod and then we were running late.

Getting to the start line after a two hour drive it was cold. Sunny but bitterly cold and when the wind blew I just wanted to get running. After a seemingly long delay we were away, my left leg which has been giving me some gyp since forever, gave me a quick painful reminder that there were problems with the shin but that soon subsided after a couple of kilometres were under the belt.

My dad had started in a forward group because he was going to run the distance in a quicker time but after about 10ks I had somehow caught him up, we shared a brief chat but I couldn’t keep up and promptly fell back. By 13kms I was completely knackered, seriously tired. Legs were out of fuel, feet were feeling bruised, and my shins were beginning to ache too, had this been a training run I think I would have phoned for a lift home because my pain had become quite serious but as it was my options were to pull up and get rescued by the stewards or carry on. I carried on.

By the 20th Kilometre I was in agony, I had been forced to walk for stretches of the distance and the pain in my feet had made it impossible to run in my preferred toe first style so I resorted to a knee jarring heel first gait to keep moving. It was about now that my iPod ran out of batteries, and I was overtaken by an asthmatic, it was all getting pretty grim.

For some reason I was under the impression that the Kilomathon was 24kms. I don’t know why, I put it down to my mind trying to cope with the self inflicted pummelling I was putting myself though. Either way, there is nothing more crushing to moral than thinking that the finish line is only one more kilometre away only to hit the 24km marker post and there is no cheering crowd, no aid station, just a couple of marshals clapping and telling you to keep going. I had built myself up to collapse, only to discover I had to keep going for 2 more kms.

I made it to the finish line in screaming pain. I could not run anymore, you can tell by the finish line photos where it looks like I am making an awful lot of effort for very little forward motion. I staggered through the finish post, collected my medal and things and wanted to collapse.

That wasn’t how it ended though. The ordeal continued. I then had to liaise with my dad (who had finished half an hour before I had) and then we were supposed to walk the short distance to the car park where my wife was waiting in the car but because my phone decided to stop working I had to try and find my Dad amongst a crowd of five and a half thousand other knackered runners. After ten minutes I decided to give up and head to the car by myself. My missus would be there who could then phone my dad to tell him where we were.

I set off cold and tired to the Park and Ride car park which a steward told me was a short walk thataway only the short walk I took seemed to have been in the wrong direction and I ended up walking a very long way round with a few other runners who had also got lost. I eventually made it to the car ready to finally stop moving to discover that my wife wasn’t there, she had headed to the start line and was still waiting for me to finish. I collapsed to the floor and just sat there for a bit, I was not going to be able to walk back to the finish line even if I had wanted to. Eventually Someone lent me a phone and we all met back up.

I am now at Thursday and I am still limping, and my shin splints problem is back with a vengeance. After the race I vowed never to run again but now the sun is shining and the pain in my legs isn’t keeping me awake anymore so I think there will be some more distance events in the future.