Race The Sun 50k Ultra Marathon
View North to the Chilterns from the top of the descent to Checkpoint 4 at Wooburn Town
When: June 3rd 2023
Start and Finish: North Maidenhead Cricket Club, SL6 8SP
Distance: 51 km (32 miles)
Elevation change: +/- 207m
GPX File: get via Buy Me a Coffee
Other routes touched (walk): The Green Way, Maidenhead Boundary Walk, Thames Path, Jubilee River Path, Beeches Way, Shakespeare’s Way, Chiltern Way Berkshire Loop, Wycombe to Bourne End Disused Railway
Other routes touched (cycle): NCN 4, 50, 61, Round Berkshire Cycle Route, Beeches Cycleway
Maps:
- Chiltern Hills East Map | High Wycombe, Maidenshead & Rickmansworth | Ordnance Survey | OS Explorer Map 172
- Windsor, Weybridge & Bracknell Map | Thames Path | Ordnance Survey | OS Explorer Map 160
Finish time: 7 hours 52 minutes 28 seconds
Links: Maidenhead, Cookham, River Thames, Bray, Jubilee River, Taplow, Burnham, Burnham Beeches, Wooburn, Bourne End
This was my 12th Ultra and the second of a 2-part series of local ~50 km Ultras with 3 weeks between them. My legs were back to normal after the recent Goring Gap Run and I was hoping to crack my sub-7 hour target for a 50 km. With a relatively flat course and dry conditions it should have been fine. However, my running nemesis: the sun was also out and it was a very hot one.
Signing up for this race was a no-brainer as it started and ended in Maidenhead where I grew up and took in trails that I’m very familiar with. The original route also went within 100 metres of my house. The final published course took a different route on the second half but still on home ground. My friend Mark wanted to join too as he grew up within half a mile of the start but other friends’ wedding plans took him away for the weekend.
The concept for this race was to start at midday on a Saturday and to finish before sunset at 21:24. This also meant that I could fit-in a parkun in the morning and get to the start line with time to spare to get showered and changed. Timea though this was a crazy idea but I did my best to explain that it was “perfectly normal”. I had done much longer Ultras in the past so the best way to think about it was that it was a 55 km Ultra with a long break between the first 5 km and the rest of it .
The first third of the race was pretty straightforward with a pleasant cross-country run to Cookham and a section of the Thames Path to Windsor. I kept a steady running pace and the heat wasn’t too bad. At 19 km, between the Thames and the Jubilee River, there was a flooded stream crossing the path with no means to keep dry. The only way through it was to get our feet wet. With very dry conditions for the few weeks before I didn’t think of bringing spare socks so I knew this would be trouble. My shoes and feet dried quickly but I knew that there would be trouble ahead.
From 20 km the heat kicked in and my running was over for the day, replaced by a power-march. Somewhere around 40 km I could feel the impact of getting my feet wet earlier with blisters forming on both feet. I knew that my sub-7 hour target wasn’t going to happen so it was now about finishing. It was a tough final 10 km but the finish line eventually came and I completed in 7 hours 52 minutes. I can never be disappointed with a finish time. Just completing is always enough and I was well within the sunset cut-off time.
