Escaping from Meriden - an exercise in attrition
For anyone not familiar with the format of Escape from Meriden, let me paint you a picture. At midnight on a Friday in November, around 200 GPS-tagged nutcases in various states of prison-escapee attire are released from the stone cross at the centre of England. From there they have 24 hours to make their way across country to make the maximum distance from the start – and the kicker is that the miles are measured as the crow flies. There is no official route, no aid stations, no emergency help unless you call 999, and no set finish line. On Friday 17th November 2023, I *was* one of those nutcases.
Having previously done the event in 2019 and made it to Ledbury I was already familiar with many of the common preparation issues and pitfalls of this particular event, but got suckered in after spending too much time dot watching and enjoying the accounts of everyone else’s shenanigans last year. So, coming into 2023’s edition with the aim of getting into the top rankings for the solo women’s category I worked with my coach to tailor my training to allow me to race both this and the Loch Ness Marathon at the start of October.
Through the summer my training was mostly focused on building speed endurance for Ness with a lot of juicy interval sessions and regular strength and conditioning sessions in the gym to build my body’s resilience when it comes to the punishment of running on tarmac. Since the most efficient routes for Meriden tend to use a mix of roads and canals, this was also excellent preparation for one of the “3 T’s” which usually take people out of the race: Tiredness, Tarmac and Traffic.
The Tiredness aspect was one I was relying on past experience to work through. At this stage I have a lot more experience of dealing with sleep deprivation under my belt than I had last time around – both from running long ultras and from experience crewing events like the Arc of Attrition where my role within race crew means being awake for around 40 hours while managing mobile crews and the safety of around 600 runners, so I was confident I could cope.
And as for Traffic – there was only one thing to mitigate that, and that is a whole lot of planning.
Planning for any long event is a huge and under-appreciated aspect of preparation – figuring out how long different sections will take, your nutrition plan and how to manage the terrain or peculiarities of the route. For Escape from Meriden, it’s critical. In my case, I created a GPX route using Strava and covered almost the entire thing split into 4 recces over September and October. Seeing the route in person meant that not only was I getting the requisite time on feet to prepare for moving for 24 hours, but also meant I was familiar with where there was (or wasn’t) footway on the A-road, where I could resupply if needed, where there were pubs that would top up water and let me use their toilets, and meant I could iron out any issues with the route planned like HS2 closures. The disadvantage of doing multiple marathon-length recce runs in the build up to Ness Marathon was that I went into that race a bit more tired than was ideal and had to work harder as a result, but having that route knowledge was important enough that it was worth it.
So, how did it go on the day?
Best laid plans…
Once we were released and the escapees scattered, I turned down the small side road that would take me to Coventry, which I had chosen after a recce of the main road showed that HS2 had completely blocked the footway. Interestingly, I was alone almost immediately as the vast majority of runners heading south either took the dual carriageway I was avoiding, or seemed to turn off towards Tile Hill. This really set the tone for the race – along with the rain steadily getting heavier.
My husband Chris had kindly agreed to crew me for the first night as a safety measure, as unfortunately as a woman running solo through urban areas in the small hours my biggest worry was most concerned about personal safety. It also allowed me to run light for the first marathon. Knowing I was seeing him on the way out of Coventry I picked up the pace and ran with purpose, and ended up meeting a chap who was taking the same route as me to Daventry so we teamed up for this entire section.
The team up turned out to be a boon as we took the dual carriageway to Daventry, with the rain becoming heavy and the wind stronger until we were both fully soaked through and extremely cold. We were both well lit with headtorches, tail lights, and some seriously reflective jackets so even though there was no footway the few vehicles on the road could see us miles off and were able to give us a wide berth, and we were able to avoid some of the deeper puddles. As time went on even my waterproof over-mitts became sodden through and I had to ask my new friend to open a few packs of chews for me so that I could keep fuelling, and as we got closer to Daventry and I found myself shivering with cold no matter how much I ate or how fast we were running, it became clear I needed to do some urgent triage as I was getting dangerously cold and needed to avoid getting any worse.
My new pal peeled off in Daventry to go home for a hot shower and dry kit (nice for some!) and I found Chris at our last meeting point at around 5.40am. I immediately got in his car and stripped off my wet top and jacket and put on as many dry and warm layers as I had along with a fresh waterproof – I had been expecting to use those at the end when I finished, but I needed to get warm NOW. I also scarfed down a flapjack and an entire packet of Veloforte chews to give my body something to burn to keep me warm, and was packed, stocked and back out on the road by 6am so he could go home.
From this point on, I knew I would see my friend Sarah briefly at some stage before Towcester and she did indeed find me about 6.45am. In a move only another runner would know to do, she pulled over her car, filled my water bottles and handed me a cup of hot tea with about 5 sugars in it and a McDonalds breakfast and was off again in 5 minutes. So, I put some tunes on, got my head down and trudged my way onwards while drinking the tea and working my way through a hash brown and half a mcmuffin. Barring 2 brief meetings with other escapees who turned off fairly quickly on their own routes and resupply stops, I was alone for the next 40ish miles.
It was still raining, if less heavily; I was running down featureless A roads and the camber and impact from the tarmac were starting to take a toll, and not a single mile of the race thus far had felt good. Normally once I’m going in a long race and my head gets in the game I’ve got a good 6+ hours of good running in me before anything starts feeling hard, but this race felt tough from the off, my body feeling tired and reluctant. I realised that this was probably a sign that I had simply stacked this big race far too close to Ness, and that my body HAD been trying to tell me this for weeks – my training runs had felt rubbish, I had been ill for 2 weeks, I’d been waking up tired… and was now dealing with the consequences of my own actions in ignoring that, while suffer-shuffling through Milton Keynes of all places, all for a race I only entered because I thought I could place. Cue my head and my usual ability to grit things out exiting the chat.
In a moment of luck, a message from my friend Lisa came in about then asking how it was going because she was dot watching, and I simply replied “f******* awful”. A couple encouraging messages from her, and I just said “can I call you?”. Cue me sitting on a fence by a gas station calling her, and Lisa coming through with the mother of all come-to-Jesus talks to stop me packing it in. Most memorably, she got me moving because we would be damned if I was rolling over and dying in Milton-effing-Keynes, and that DEFINITELY got me moving again.
Much needed fueling
I knew I had 30-35 miles to go until I would see my friend Emma who was meeting me in the last section and who I was staying with when I finished. For a good portion of the day already that knowledge was in the back of my mind – just get to Emma, it’ll be fine once you see Emma – and from Milton Keynes onwards, that knowledge and pure spite were the only things keeping me moving.
We got into the second night as I was leaving Leighton Buzzard, where I did have a brief wholesome interaction in a pub I’d ducked into for water and a toilet. Having seen three runners in various hoodies at a table I assumed they were crewing someone and walked up to them to beg for some Vaseline to deal with the epic chafing I’d got from running in rain-wet underwear; except they weren’t crew, they were there for a nice post-race lunch, and gave me some Vaseline anyway. (I bloody love the running community!) With the dark drawing in and a long stretch on narrower roads that have no footway I once again donned my still damp super-reflective jacket, lights and headtorch, and straight-up death-marched it in with the “3 T's” coming in hard. A few cars honked their horns at me and I got treated to some “fast and close” passing (Traffic); my body was battered and my left knee especially felt like it was on fire (Tarmac); and I kept seeing what I thought were people up ahead – a man in a faded fluo yellow vest, a lady in a fabulous gold hijab – but was in fact trees because I was hallucinating (Tiredness). Absolute misery, with the best miles being the ones where I seem to have spaced out so far that I didn’t notice them.
Emma eventually found me around Kings Langley, which was the best moment of the entire race. I had sat on a concrete bollard to take the weight out of my knee so the pain would subside a little, and when I saw her I grinned and said “we have got to stop meeting like this” – which is actually true because all of the last few times we’ve seen each other in person have been when one of us is running a 24 hour race and the other is crewing! The morale boost of having my pal there was huge. Yes I was still miserable, but I was miserable with company from one of my favourite people, so it was misery with sparkly bits. Emma set a solid march-and-run pace for us to get me as far into London as we could manage, given that it had become clear I wasn’t making it to Big Ben tonight. She also pulled up the tracker so we could get a good nosy at the rankings, and I realised that I was somewhere in the top 4 ladies. The tracker listed people by category (solo, pairs, chained) rather than by gender, so I knew that Sara Fabien had clearly won reaching Pimlico (huge congrats!), and there was a Sam ahead of me and a Laurie just behind me, who we took the decision to assume were ladies and therefore good reason for me to keep trudging to hold on to 3rd.
This shuffly, world’s-slowest-chase-maneuver carried on until around 10.30pm when we got past Watford North station and Emma checked her maps to figure out our best way forward. If we carried on down my original planned route it was another 8-10 miles to the nearest tube stop, and at the speed I was going it would take hours. So, change of plan and we hung a right to make for Watford Junction Tube, still being chased by could-be-a-lady Laurie who was only 3 crow km behind me. Those last few miles felt like the longest of my life, but we finally made it to our end point where I turned off the tracker and sent that magic message to race HQ: “Leah Atherton tracker 5 signing off at Watford Junction Tube 23.37”.
Of course, the race was over… and we still needed to get home and to bed. A tube ride, some dry heaving on Baker Street platform, 2 night buses and a deeply painful hobble later, we got in and to bed at about 2.30am.
24 hour races are a weird beast at times, and deeply unforgiving. I learned a lot on this one – about myself, but also about just how important it is to properly space out A races to allow the body and mind to recover, and the importance of letting friends help. Of course, after the fact I also learned that Sam and Laurie were actually gents, and that I had actually got (pending the HQ confirming for sure) 2nd lady so I had accomplished my original mission of placing – but something this race really drove home is that entering an event purely for an external motivating goal like a place (or time) is a lousy “why” to have when the chips are down, and that for me certainly, having intrinsic process and challenge goals is far better.
The spider web from Meriden
Had I gone with a process goal? Well, in retrospect that’s the best I’ve fuelled a race – I averaged out somewhere round the 80g/carbs/hr mark which is great. I triaged issues as best I could whether that was the cold, the chafe, resupply, or managing my period. The recces I had done meant that I never got lost or stuck and could just focus on moving forward. I asked for support when I needed it, because sometimes, the only thing that will help is to call a friend and be dramatic for a few minutes.
And the best part is, I acquitted myself well enough that I never, EVER, have to run this race again!
My finish line.
