Into the unknown
While most of the HW distance runners have been grateful for the challenge of some virtual 5K competitions during these unprecedented times of no racing, marathon runner Richard McDowell decided to test himself much, much further. Last week he announced that, in the early hours of Saturday morning, he was planning ‘a little run’ over the 60K of the Jubilee Greenway, a Walk London route which was completed in 2012 to mark both the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and the London Olympics. His aim was to knock ‘a significant amount of time’ off the existing record listed on the FKT (Fastest Known Time) website, which features best performances for trails all over the world.
Above, clockwise: Richard back at Buckingham Palace at the end of his 60K run; looking remarkably fresh the following day; competing for GB in the Half Marathon at the European Masters Championships in Jesolo, Italy, in September 2019, in which he finished fourth in 70:08; setting a PB of 2:23:08 in home-made kit (pre the arrival of the new Soar vests!) at last year's London Marathon, in which he finished first M40 and tenth overall in the Men's race; and finishing third (and first M40) in the Yorkshire Marathon in October 2019 in 2:25:00.
Having overcome a vitamin D deficiency that was leaving him ‘wiped out after runs’ earlier in the year, Richard was raring to go, but the route, covering approximately 37.3 miles, would be forcing him into new territory – almost 12 miles further than he had run before.
Beginning and ending at Buckingham Palace, the‘urban trail’ heads up to Paddington, runs alongside the canal at Little Venice and Camden, through Chapel Market and Victoria Park, and on to Olympic Park, past the stadium. Then it is along the Greenway through Plaistow to Becton, through the Woolwich foot tunnel and along the river, past the O2 and the Cutty Sark at Greenwich to Tower Bridge; then Lambeth Bridge, through Parliament Square and up The Mall, when at last the end is in sight.
‘A friend had run the Capital Ring, which is very serious: 78 miles (126km) and hilly. I wasn’t contemplating that, but this one is its little brother, overlapping it for some of the way. However you only have to climb ever so slightly to get to Paddington, then it is downhill to Stratford and pancake-flat after that; so I thought the previous fastest time of 4:42:11 on the FKT site was very beatable.
‘I spent quite a long time contingency planning. I recced part of the route and studied most of it on Street View. I had two Garmins: my watch with the primary route on it, and another cycling one in the back pocket of my over-vest which could talk to me through my headphones and give me directions if I had to make any unexpected detours’. As well as his phone he was also equipped with a GoPro camcorder through which he recorded large segments of the run and amazingly managed to keep up a commentary throughout.
Setting off from Buckingham Palace at 4.20am he had plotted an ideal schedule of times at which he hoped to pass each landmark along the way. ‘Locked gates were always likely to be an issue’, he says. ‘It is quite difficult to get accurate times from all the websites about opening and closing times of the parks you run through, but what was annoying was that I encountered my first locked gate into Kensington Gardens only 2.5km in. Fortunately I know the area, so I was able to do a detour which was almost identical in terms of distance. There were more by the moorings on the Regent Canal and Camden Lock, but I was expecting those and had planned for them’.
Having never run further than the marathon, when he reached the 26 mile point by the Cutty Sark, he was, he admits, ‘very much aware of it psychologically. After a marathon I’ve always been pretty much spent. Also I was going for the unsupported FKT, so as well as my phone and GoPro I was carrying two 250ml bottles of energy drink (I drank around 75 per cent of it) and four gels in my other pockets. In a marathon, although I do carry gels, I usually only pick up water from the stations to pour over my head, as I’m pretty good at heat management, possibly through physiology, but also through the coping mechanisms I learned from running in India.
‘The thing about the marathon’, he says, ‘is that you can carry glycogen stores to get you through to around 20 miles, then it is about fat-burning, so it is a question of eking out your reserves, running efficiently and fuelling along the way to get you from 20 to 26 miles and avoid hitting the dreaded ‘wall’.
'Even the skinniest person has enough fat to keep going for quite a long way but it is much less efficient. What I find is that my digestive system shuts down when I am running hard, the blood is diverted to the lungs and legs, and it is always a challenge to take in the small quantity of calories needed to get to 26 miles. Because I was aware of all this, the extra 12 miles were more about self-preservation. I didn’t want to push it in case everything went horribly wrong and I ended up a wobbly mess, re-enacting some of those end-of-marathon scenes of athletes weaving and staggering over the finish line!’
The repeat sighting of Buckingham Palace was a very welcome one. His time? 3:43:30 – virtually an hour quicker than the previous time set. Thankfully, the drink bottle he had stashed away in Birdcage Walk was still there, his bike was safely locked up at Victoria and he began the ‘slow potter along the flattest route home’.
Finishing 15th overall in the Men’s race in 2:27:56 in the London Marathon, 2018.
You can take away the competition, but you can’t take away the competitiveness, and Richard confesses he has been enjoying some friendly rivalry across social media with fellow M40 distance runner, Paul Martelletti of Victoria Park & Tower Hamlets AC, who has run many a competitive 50K and even 100K at the IAU World Championships in Doha in 2014. ‘Paul has been absolutely smashing really long runs at pace recently’, says Richard, ‘so I wanted to put down a time for the Greenway that would be on his radar and not an utter formality for him to beat. However I think he is planning to do it next weekend, and he should be able to keep up the pace I did for the marathon section and then carry on without slowing down. If he does his homework well and has a perfect run there is a good chance he could knock ten minutes off my time – though I am not going to give him any tips!’