Participant: Ivan Davis (Australian)
Location: London U.K.
Total Funds Raised: £85 (aprox US $155)
Total Distance Covered: 76miles
Total Time Ran: 23 hours 34 minutes
Media Coverage: Press release issued by my employer – Salvation Army London Central Division. One small local paper did an article with photo but I haven’t seen it. No reply to eight emails/letters personally sent to editors of main national papers. Possibly my personal distrust of media had something to do with this!?!?
Event Narrative: I chose the site for convenience to my living quarters and to minimize costs as I fully expected that I would pay up out of my own pocket to meet a personal commitment of US $100. As it turned out I raised a bit more than that by virtue of an entrepreneurial wife. Almost the entire 4 mile loop of the course is on concrete paving and although I knew this could hurt I figured that as I had been running 60 miles/week for 8 months on concrete I would be tough enough. There was extra training sometimes on the weekends but that was always on dirt or grass, which in retrospect may have been a mistake. A personal goal apart from just staying the time was to do 25 laps or 100 miles. This was realistic I thought given good training and even allowing for the crowds of tourists flocking the route. Another factor was that the 4 miles was only a conservative estimate measured by GPS and in reality was almost surely a little longer. This is due to the switchback stairways and pedestrian tunnels I was using.
The first obvious annoyance was the dust blown up into my eyes. This took three days to clear but was really only just annoying. At about 30 miles I realized that the damage being done by the concrete was going to be huge if I wasn’t really careful. In the end the pain level was as high as anything I can remember going through and it took a bit of managing. It was an incredible experience though seeing the moods of the city change through the 24 hour period. I didn’t really notice the tide go in and out on the Thames as I normally do but certainly noticed people a lot more. Odd little acknowledgements of encouragement came my way from a few folk - possibly brought on by rather outrageous front loading of my pack with bottles and food compartments.
My first lap took just 43 minutes and the last took over 2 hours. That pretty much sums up the whole run. There is no doubt that during the last 6 hours I was thinking that I wouldn’t bother running such times or distances again. Three days later and recovery is almost complete so with some small sense of satisfaction for making a statement worth making I’ll go for a short run tomorrow.
Participant Quotes: Never ever - ever – ever run further than 20 miles on concrete.
