Ran my first ultramarathon yesterday

Yesterday morning I found myself stood at the start of the Relish Running Races Two Tunnels course in Brickfields Park. Over the course of the day it would see some 1500 runners cross that line covering various distances from 5k upwards, but for now at 8.30 on a Sunday it was reserved for the 50 or so of us mad enough to tackle five laps of the 10km route ultra styley.

A post shared by Dan (@thedancoleman) on Aug 19, 2017 at 11:54pm PDT

And what a great event it was. Of the 50km route 20km was underground in converted railway tunnels. The out and back 10km laps meant that we'd cross the other ultra runners at various points, which was a great morale boost in the later laps as we offered words of encouragement and the odd high five.

Mentally it was pretty tough at times in the long tunnel as in the later stages it seemed to go on forever and the piped classical music took on a bit of a horror film edge

Imagine running a mile through a tunnel with this coming at you from the walls. Now imagine you've already run so far that you are in that nightmare feels like running through treacle scenario. And there is a kid on a rattly scooter gaining on you all the time and laughing like a sinister little demon. That was fun.

A post shared by Dan (@thedancoleman) on Aug 20, 2017 at 8:22am PDT

Although being able to break the race into 5k trots between the feed stations really helped, and oh my were they well stocked - bananas, oranges, cakes, at least 3 different drink options, gels, jelly beans, flapjacks...everything you could want to refuel and then some. The marshals were great too, offering personal encouragement as they saw you running/trotting/hobbling towards them sporting your ultra bib.

All in all such a great, friendly, well-organised event - definitely a good pick for my first ultra and one that I'd certainly consider running again in the future.

Anyway here are the stats...

Strava routes on the Garmin Fenix 3. A whole new world!

This year with the Brighton Marathon back in April and the Bath Two Tunnel 50km coming up next week I've been pretty much cycling on and off 16 week training programmes since January. This means almost every Sunday has been a "long run" day and as you can imagine by this point in the year I'm really lacking in inspiration when it comes to leaving my house and picking a route. I've gone every direction so many times it's just sooooo fucking boring and I often find myself just on a plod as a result.

So I was lying in bed this morning wondering where to run. Ten miles-ish was needed. Would I kill my legs on the Swinley Forest hills, plod round the bike paths and underpasses, head off along the Berkshire roads? I knew if I headed out without a plan I'd just be focussing on the route and working out the distance as I ran which connects your mind a bit too much to the distance and makes the run feel like hard work, so I needed to take that away from me and have the thinking pre-done.

That was when I looked at my wrist and remembered there is a navigation mode on the Fenix3 (great watch btw, really bigly uuuuugely good watch, Garmin have the best watches). So if I could just find a way to plot a route, copy it to the watch and see if I could follow it I might end up with more variety in my runs and Garmin said...

Gee thanks Garmin, you are a pal.

So how do I work out a route? I could go to something like mapmyrun and download a gpx but the problem is a lot of the runs on these sites start and end in inconvenient places (people's houses that aren't me and such) so that's annoying. Plus other people are not me and I'm a bit control freaky about these things. So how do I make my own?

Strava in a web browser. That's how. Log in, go to Dashboard > My  Routes > New Route and you can start clicking on the map to build a run. The beauty of Strava is it has so much data about where other people are running that it will build a route between two points based on where other people tend to run so the chances of you being directed down a motorway or train track are pretty slim.

Anyway five minutes of clicking about and I had my nice 10 mile loop planned, it was a route I've never run before, and even took in a footbridge that I never new existed despite having driven under it about 1000 times. Nice.

So next challenge. How do I get it on my watch? Well the Fenix3 makes it so easy.

• Dock it in the USB
• Plug it in to your mac/pc
• If/When prompted enable Mass Storage mode on the Fenix3
• When it appears as a drive open it and then open the Garmin folder
• Check that there is a folder called Newfiles - it's hidden so if you can't see it ask Doctor Google how to view hidden files on your operating system
• Open your running route in Strava
• Click Export GPX and save it to your desktop
• Copy it to your Newfiles folder on the Fenix3
• Safely eject the device
• Garmin will say it's updating
• Route (Course in Garminspeak) is now saved to the device

Good. So how do you use it?

Well it couldn't be simpler

• Hold the Up key
• Press Down until you get to the Navigation option
• Press Start
• Select Courses
• Select your new course
• Select Do Course
• Choose your profile (e.g. Run)
• Wait for the GPS to find the satellite
• Run like normal but instead of looking at the pace and shit on your wrist you can now look at a funky route plot like this 

OK so it's hardly Google Maps, it won't show you where the nearest pub is or even the roads you are running along but it does do a very good job of keeping you on track. I tried tricking it a couple of times with detours and within a few seconds of heading off course it vibrated on my wrist to warn me. It really did achieve the primary goal of taking all the thinking about the route out of the run. So I could just enjoy the sights like the Bracknell Alps

Lillehammer has nothing on the John Nike

I just want a fondue now

So there we go. Had a nice 10 mile run. Came home. Ate a slice of cake. Hashtag Sunday mofos.