SPOILER ALERT - I finished. Ever since I crossed the finish line and could actually think again I've been thinking about how I'm going to describe the truly epic, 'it had everything' event that was the first running of the Saffron Trail. I've decided to start with an apology. I'm sorry, I don't have the words or literary talent to do justice to the event. The tale I am about to recall will be but a pale shadow of the pain, suffering, and elation that constituted the event - it will however be quite long. Right, having established to following won't be very good I'll get on with living down to expectations...
I haven't yet entered an ultra that I haven't felt very nervous about and I doubt I ever will, almost by definition every ultra is a test of mind and body. However even taking that into account the Saffron Trail sounded hard. The basic premise was very simple, competitors would run from Southend to Saffron Walden - overnight. The reason for the overnight aspect was twofold, firstly everyone should arrive at a vaguely sensible time on Sunday but also it meant that everyone would run through the night. A 'conventional' start time of 8 am would mean that the front runners could potentially complete it in daylight, this way the slower runners wouldn't be penalised by finishing in the dark.
the Long Distance Walkers Association had decided that Essex needed a route going 'up and down' Essex to complement those crossing it and the 70 mile Saffron Trail was born. It runs from Southend to Saffron Walden, via Chelmsford and is intended to represent a theoretical route that may have been used by the 16th and 17th century spice trade to take spice from Saffron Walden to the coast. This formed the basis for the route of our run.
I had given the Saffron Trail a lot of thought and when I had stopped being terrified I had given my kit quite a lot of thought. Running through long grass and weeds doesn't play well with my legs, much redness and itchiness ensues. I can put up with a bit of that for a few hours but, given we had been warned that parts of the course were overgrown, I decided that full length running tights would be a sensible move. As the run was at night and I needed to carry a small amount of compulsory kit, it seemed a perfect excuse to buy a new hydration vest (a sort of small backpack to carry water and a few essentials for those that have no idea what that is) and a new head torch (a torch worn on the head, sorry, I'll stop patronising you all now).
With a bit of effort I squeezed my mandatory kit into my new hydration vest and wished I'd bought a slightly larger one. I also added a small rear bike light to the back as some of the route would be on roads in the dark. My 'old school' Garmin had its first outing since the MDS as I was certain the battery wouldn't last in my running watch. Suitably attired I got into the car and we set out to Southend.
It was a lovely evening, which is my excuse for forgetting to pick up my waterproof jacket... I had the 'bin liner' jacket that performed so well on the MDS but I couldn't convince myself it was was really a waterproof so it seemed unlikely that Lindley (the race director and creator of the event) would accept it. Lindley only insists on kit that is really necessary to ensure competitor safety, not to catch people out, and as he pointed out thunderstorms were forecast so a waterproof was essential, He did however offer to lend me a jacket so I could still run. As it happened I had a somewhat heavier waterproof in my bag for the finish which I decided I would carry for the first leg. Sharon would perform one of her usual feats of heroic support by bringing my 'proper' jacket to CP1 where I could swap them over.
After a short briefing, at 6 pm on the dot we set off down Southend Seafront. The reaction from the people we passed was mostly one of positive encouragement and it was nice to see the newly-wed proprietors of Racekit out cheering us on - even if I did almost have to tread on Colin's toes before he saw me. It was quite a warm and humid evening and, since we were starting from sea level and turning inland, the route soon started to climb. The climbs were nothing by the standards of many ultras (this is Essex after all) but combined with the humidity I was soon sweating enough to make me think I would have to be particularly careful to stay hydrated. The first leg was a mix of urban and rural running and at this point I was part of a small group of runners somewhere in the middle of the order. The threatened rain didn't arrive, although I could hear the odd rumble of thunder.
A somewhat raucous welcome greeted me a CP1. The marshals are always enthusiastic and welcoming but in this case they were being supplemented by Sharon with my jacket. 10.9 miles down and so far no major navigational errors, no rain and I had all my right equipment. The marshals kindly filled my water bottles for me and few cocktail sausages, chicken nuggets and sweeties, washed down with Coca-cola later (I keep telling people ultra-running is a jog between picnics) I was off again.
Leg 2 was Hockley to Battlesbridge and I set off into the woods behind a group of three runners who turned right for reasons I couldn't understand. Rather than simply follow I had a look around until another runner told me I had missed the first instruction and that the right turn was correct. This is one of the things that makes navigating and running such a challenge, miss one marker and you can quickly become hopelessly lost. Fortunately I didn't end up lost, unfortunately it did start to rain. This made the 'riverside path' section significantly less pleasant than it could have been as it all started to get a bit slippery underfoot, but I made it to CP2 without mishap.
After putting on my waterproof I left CP2 still part of the loose group I had been running with for a while. This was good as Leg 3 was to prove the most incident filled of them all. I had already seen from the instructions that we would have to run over graves in a 'scary graveyard', however before that we were to be confronted by an irate landowner complete with dog, lamp and shotgun (cocked!) along with his wife who had a lovely turn of phrase consisting mostly of four letter words. We were accused of running round his field (we hadn't), being burglars (we weren't) and generally terrorizing them (he was the one with the shotgun). We remained calm and polite (and in my case, slightly scared) and gave them Lindley's phone number as we had been told to do. After this he seemed to calm down and pointed us in the right direction, although apparently later Lindley was the recipient of his wife's eloquent turn of phrase when the phone call was made.
After this the scary graveyard was simply scary - although the fact that you had to literally run over some of the graves was a little unnerving. What was possibly the lowest point of the run for me occurred a little further on. After the 'incident' the group of us that had been confronted had stayed together and found ourselves stuck in a field full of some sort of malevolent green stuff (possibly wheat, maybe triffids, I was never sure) and unable to find a way across. Three of the guys had recc'ed the field when it was empty and were fairly sure there was no path and so went around. I stuck with the others as they had GPS. Eventually after battling our way along more or less where we thought the path ought to be we cut our losses and got out onto the road a few hundred yards up from the 'official' point and ran back onto the trail. After a few more navigational problems and a run through another (non-scary) graveyard we found our way to CP3 at Danbury. I think we lost about a hour on that leg to shotguns and navigation, it was certainly the most eventful 10.7 miles I've ever run!
I was expecting Leg 4 to be much better as it was through Chelmsford and a section I had previously recc'ed - in the daylight, not at 2 in the morning. The first part was a straightforward run into Chelmsford along a route I knew well. I was still with the two guys with the GPS but I was confidently leading them on. I managed to push the fact that my bed was little more than a mile away to the back of my mind and ran into the town. Unfortunately I didn't think too much about the time of day and so lead them through the main bar area of Chelmsford through drunken revellers that used what little coherence they had left to shout abuse at us. We got through unscathed and crossed the rest of Chelmsford without further incident to a carwash that marked the point we went back running around fields. We ran into the fields with the sound of the carwash dog's barking in our ears - I don't know if it thought we were going to break in and steal a sponge or something but it was certainly persistent. Obviously I wasn't going to find my way in the dark and sure enough we had to use the GPS again to recover from my error - sorry guys.
We were still around a mile from the checkpoint when we came across a figure by the roadside who told us she was half of the new checkpoint. Apparently the owners of the house who's drive CP4 was located at the end of had returned home, possibly under the influence of alcohol, and had threatened to set their dogs on the marshals if the checkpoint wasn't moved. As it was the location of the checkpoint would have had us running past their house twice so to avoid further incident it was moved some distance away. I should point out there was nothing illegal or unreasonable about its location but for some reason parts of Essex were seeming quite ill-disposed towards ultra-runners that night and Lindley was acting in the best interests of our safety. Anyway we got water and directions to the main part of CP4 in its new location.
Another runner called Pete was at CP4 and quite fed up with getting lost on his own. He asked if he could join us, which I pointed out was very polite of him considering I had just attached myself to various other runners through the event without ever asking. I would run the rest of the event with Pete and we kept each other going as things got harder and more painful.
I really did know my way through Leg 5 (it was quite easy), and we got to CP5 where I proceeded to gorge on chocolate and Jaffa Cakes as I was feeling a bit low on energy. We were then told were the 8th and 9th runners through - top ten! This gave us a boost and we resolved to try and hang on to our placings.
It was also getting light! This didn't stop us going off in the wrong direction a couple of times but with the help of the map (Pete and myself were on our own now so we didn't have the benefit of GPS) we regained the path each time and whilst we weren't quick I don't think we lost too much ground. In fact by the time we got to the checkpoint it appeared two more people had dropped out as we were told we were now 6th and 7th. We were also told the cut-offs had been extended by 30 minutes to try and allow all those that were still running to finish.
I think it says something about how tough this event was that I was quite excited that we only had one more checkpoint and little more than a half-marathon between us and the finish. It was on the next leg that Baz overtook us. I had chatted to Baz at the start and not seen him since - apparently he had had an awful first half of the race but had come back to form and then some. Pete and myself decided we wouldn't even try and keep up with him but would concede one place rather than risk pushing too hard and not finishing so close to the end. We pushed on until we had a left/right issue at some woods where the two guys with GPS caught us back up. We ran with them (through yet another graveyard) until we reached the final checkpoint, CP7.
At CP7 we all sorted ourselves out as best we could and left as a group. By now we were all just determined to finish and to do it within the original 20 hour time limit. As a result although there was no spoken plan we all took it in turns to keep pushing the pace over the last 4.9 miles and it turned out to be the quickest I had run since the first leg. We all arrived at Saffron Walden Fire Station at 1:32 on Sunday afternoon, 19 hours and 32 minutes after leaving Southend and were all given joint 6th place! Of the 26 starters only 14 of us finished.
My original hope was to finish in 14 hours. After Leg 3 that was revised to 16, then to before midday (18 hours) and finally to under 20 hours. 14 hours would have got me third place, which I think shows me how much I had hopelessly underestimated the scale of the task. Ultimately I'm just very proud to have finished and to have earned the massive medal I was presented with at the end. I'm genuinely not sure if I'm more proud of finishing the MDS or the Saffron Trail, that's how hard I found it.
I can't finish this blog entry without giving huge thanks to the team that made the event possible. The marshals were all incredible, giving up a nights sleep to keep a bunch of runners fed watered and motivated - without your encouragement I'm sure I would have bailed out before the end. However none of this would have happened without the driving force of Challenge Running, Lindley Chambers. I have no idea how anyone can spend the night rearranging checkpoints, taking abusive phone calls and having nearly half the field drop out and still be smiling and giving guided tours of a fire engine at the end - he even gave me a lift to the station! What people sometimes forget is that those of us running can just call it quits if it gets too much, the marshals and the race director are there for the duration no matter how bad it gets and for that alone they deserve all the thanks and respect I can give them.
So I got wet, lost and threatened, my nose was almost the only thing that didn't ache on Monday morning and my legs still hurt when I move. Would I do it again next year? Of course - when do entries open?
Leg 2 was Hockley to Battlesbridge and I set off into the woods behind a group of three runners who turned right for reasons I couldn't understand. Rather than simply follow I had a look around until another runner told me I had missed the first instruction and that the right turn was correct. This is one of the things that makes navigating and running such a challenge, miss one marker and you can quickly become hopelessly lost. Fortunately I didn't end up lost, unfortunately it did start to rain. This made the 'riverside path' section significantly less pleasant than it could have been as it all started to get a bit slippery underfoot, but I made it to CP2 without mishap.
After putting on my waterproof I left CP2 still part of the loose group I had been running with for a while. This was good as Leg 3 was to prove the most incident filled of them all. I had already seen from the instructions that we would have to run over graves in a 'scary graveyard', however before that we were to be confronted by an irate landowner complete with dog, lamp and shotgun (cocked!) along with his wife who had a lovely turn of phrase consisting mostly of four letter words. We were accused of running round his field (we hadn't), being burglars (we weren't) and generally terrorizing them (he was the one with the shotgun). We remained calm and polite (and in my case, slightly scared) and gave them Lindley's phone number as we had been told to do. After this he seemed to calm down and pointed us in the right direction, although apparently later Lindley was the recipient of his wife's eloquent turn of phrase when the phone call was made.
After this the scary graveyard was simply scary - although the fact that you had to literally run over some of the graves was a little unnerving. What was possibly the lowest point of the run for me occurred a little further on. After the 'incident' the group of us that had been confronted had stayed together and found ourselves stuck in a field full of some sort of malevolent green stuff (possibly wheat, maybe triffids, I was never sure) and unable to find a way across. Three of the guys had recc'ed the field when it was empty and were fairly sure there was no path and so went around. I stuck with the others as they had GPS. Eventually after battling our way along more or less where we thought the path ought to be we cut our losses and got out onto the road a few hundred yards up from the 'official' point and ran back onto the trail. After a few more navigational problems and a run through another (non-scary) graveyard we found our way to CP3 at Danbury. I think we lost about a hour on that leg to shotguns and navigation, it was certainly the most eventful 10.7 miles I've ever run!
I was expecting Leg 4 to be much better as it was through Chelmsford and a section I had previously recc'ed - in the daylight, not at 2 in the morning. The first part was a straightforward run into Chelmsford along a route I knew well. I was still with the two guys with the GPS but I was confidently leading them on. I managed to push the fact that my bed was little more than a mile away to the back of my mind and ran into the town. Unfortunately I didn't think too much about the time of day and so lead them through the main bar area of Chelmsford through drunken revellers that used what little coherence they had left to shout abuse at us. We got through unscathed and crossed the rest of Chelmsford without further incident to a carwash that marked the point we went back running around fields. We ran into the fields with the sound of the carwash dog's barking in our ears - I don't know if it thought we were going to break in and steal a sponge or something but it was certainly persistent. Obviously I wasn't going to find my way in the dark and sure enough we had to use the GPS again to recover from my error - sorry guys.
We were still around a mile from the checkpoint when we came across a figure by the roadside who told us she was half of the new checkpoint. Apparently the owners of the house who's drive CP4 was located at the end of had returned home, possibly under the influence of alcohol, and had threatened to set their dogs on the marshals if the checkpoint wasn't moved. As it was the location of the checkpoint would have had us running past their house twice so to avoid further incident it was moved some distance away. I should point out there was nothing illegal or unreasonable about its location but for some reason parts of Essex were seeming quite ill-disposed towards ultra-runners that night and Lindley was acting in the best interests of our safety. Anyway we got water and directions to the main part of CP4 in its new location.
Another runner called Pete was at CP4 and quite fed up with getting lost on his own. He asked if he could join us, which I pointed out was very polite of him considering I had just attached myself to various other runners through the event without ever asking. I would run the rest of the event with Pete and we kept each other going as things got harder and more painful.
I really did know my way through Leg 5 (it was quite easy), and we got to CP5 where I proceeded to gorge on chocolate and Jaffa Cakes as I was feeling a bit low on energy. We were then told were the 8th and 9th runners through - top ten! This gave us a boost and we resolved to try and hang on to our placings.
It was also getting light! This didn't stop us going off in the wrong direction a couple of times but with the help of the map (Pete and myself were on our own now so we didn't have the benefit of GPS) we regained the path each time and whilst we weren't quick I don't think we lost too much ground. In fact by the time we got to the checkpoint it appeared two more people had dropped out as we were told we were now 6th and 7th. We were also told the cut-offs had been extended by 30 minutes to try and allow all those that were still running to finish.
I think it says something about how tough this event was that I was quite excited that we only had one more checkpoint and little more than a half-marathon between us and the finish. It was on the next leg that Baz overtook us. I had chatted to Baz at the start and not seen him since - apparently he had had an awful first half of the race but had come back to form and then some. Pete and myself decided we wouldn't even try and keep up with him but would concede one place rather than risk pushing too hard and not finishing so close to the end. We pushed on until we had a left/right issue at some woods where the two guys with GPS caught us back up. We ran with them (through yet another graveyard) until we reached the final checkpoint, CP7.
At CP7 we all sorted ourselves out as best we could and left as a group. By now we were all just determined to finish and to do it within the original 20 hour time limit. As a result although there was no spoken plan we all took it in turns to keep pushing the pace over the last 4.9 miles and it turned out to be the quickest I had run since the first leg. We all arrived at Saffron Walden Fire Station at 1:32 on Sunday afternoon, 19 hours and 32 minutes after leaving Southend and were all given joint 6th place! Of the 26 starters only 14 of us finished.
My original hope was to finish in 14 hours. After Leg 3 that was revised to 16, then to before midday (18 hours) and finally to under 20 hours. 14 hours would have got me third place, which I think shows me how much I had hopelessly underestimated the scale of the task. Ultimately I'm just very proud to have finished and to have earned the massive medal I was presented with at the end. I'm genuinely not sure if I'm more proud of finishing the MDS or the Saffron Trail, that's how hard I found it.
I can't finish this blog entry without giving huge thanks to the team that made the event possible. The marshals were all incredible, giving up a nights sleep to keep a bunch of runners fed watered and motivated - without your encouragement I'm sure I would have bailed out before the end. However none of this would have happened without the driving force of Challenge Running, Lindley Chambers. I have no idea how anyone can spend the night rearranging checkpoints, taking abusive phone calls and having nearly half the field drop out and still be smiling and giving guided tours of a fire engine at the end - he even gave me a lift to the station! What people sometimes forget is that those of us running can just call it quits if it gets too much, the marshals and the race director are there for the duration no matter how bad it gets and for that alone they deserve all the thanks and respect I can give them.
So I got wet, lost and threatened, my nose was almost the only thing that didn't ache on Monday morning and my legs still hurt when I move. Would I do it again next year? Of course - when do entries open?
