Run, Koper, run

Before Another year, another Arc as they say?... After 3 unsuccessful attempts in 2017, 2018 and 2019 , I still didn't get the message and was planning to be back for more beating from this brutal race. For the first time my better half was to be there to support me and we kinda had an agreement that this year was to be my last attempt; now or never. So armed with that knowledge I threw myself at some serious training. I grabbed a training plan from Sage Running and was following it to the dot. The previous year I kinda thought I was doing OK with training, but it was nothing compared to my determination this year. I did 9 consecutive weeks of 100km+ mileage (peaking at 124). The last of those were four days spend over the New Year break in Cornwall and four recces of the course. By the end of it I almost covered the whole course. Most importantly I did cover the bits — last 50k+ from Pendeen lighthouse to the finish — that I never got to in my previous attempts. Coming...

The road to Arc Arc of Attrition... the good ol' Arc... Admittedly I have some history with that race. There's some love. There's some resentment. We definitely bonded over the years though. This love-hate affair started in 2017 when I tried it for the very first time without quite knowing what I was getting myself into. Winter race, very technical trails, lots of ups and downs... I wasn't ready for any of it and had to throw in the towel halfway through, being borderline injured. Then came 2018 . I was very determined to get my revenge from previous year's DNF (my second one ever). I was better prepared and I did fight for longer but after 70 miles I was done again, this time busting my shins. Training And so 2019 was supposed to be the year. I promised myself to train hard and come race day to show it who's da boss! I was always the happy-go-lucky kinda runner, never really following any structured training or plan but just running for the joy of it....

Arc of Attrition 2017 Long time no see, huh? First a quick recap. 2016 was a year of no-running (long story...). Almost literally. Only by the end of the year I decided to go back at it and came up with a crazy idea of signing up for the Arc of Attrition , a 100-mile long, winter-time coastal race in Cornwall. Yeah, not exactly smart. I guess the only thing I have in my own defense is that I didn't fully know what I was getting myself into... With less than three months to get ready and little to no running prior to that I had to ramp up very quickly. And I did. And so I got injured. Less than three weeks before the race. Yeah... It seemed the race was over before it started. My physio was definitely more convinced of that than I was. However, I recovered surprisingly quickly and went from barely being able to walk to feeling completely fine in time for the race. I decided to give it a go. Gingerly... Gingerly my ass. The plan was to walk. At a fast clip I figured out...

Or: How does it feel like to run for 30 hours straight. I think the above subtitle pretty much summarizes what this post is going to be about. But let's start at the beginning. Few days before the race. For most race reports I try to reconstruct chronologically what happened. This time it was such a long endeavor that there are gaps in my memory that stretch for hours. So instead, I'll try to talk about different aspects of this race, in short sections, only roughly sticking to the timeline of the race. There we go. On traditional pre-race bad luck Before almost every race things tend to go wrong. It happens so much that I even came to the conclusion that it's not that things go wrong, it's just that I'm more acutely tuned to problems and I notice them more. Screw this theory. Things do go very wrong before races. If you don't believe then listen to what happened to me on Thursday and then tell me that I'm wrong. During the day I went to wash my car ...

(Disclaimer: it’s a long post but hey, trust me, it’s been an even longer race!) I get up at 3am after few hours of restless sleep. Excitement quickly kicks in so it’s not too bad. I got everything ready the previous night so I quickly dress, jump in the car and I’m on my way. When I’m getting close it starts to rain. Badly. I get there with plenty of time to spare and on top of that registration opens late, so I end up sitting idly in my car watching the rain and wondering if this is the weather I’ll have to put up with for the next… well, 100 miles. The start is delayed by 30 minutes so when we set off at 6:30am it’s already bright and headlamps are not needed. The next 18 hours are a bit of a blur, but I’ll try to recall few things that are worth mentioning and that I still remember. After a short time the rain stops and never comes back. In fact weather-wise the race was close to perfect. Some people complained that it was too cold, but they were clearly hard-core Californian...

It’s almost time. The event that I was waiting for and preparing for for the last year or so. The 100 mile run. The Chimera . Now, I always knew that completing this race was not going to be easy. All I was hoping for was that when I stood on the starting line I would be able to tell myself: OK, I did all I could to prepare for this; now let’s see whether that’s enough . Sadly, reality got in the way. The first 8 months were great. After running 50 miles in The Lakeland 50 , in August 2012, I got the taste for trail running and, after moving to California in October that year, I started developing it further. I was running at every opportunity I got, exploring the “neighborhood” and sometimes venturing much further . I was doing decent mileage with decent elevation gains. I was also enjoying myself immensely in the process. It all collapsed in June 2013. I run Big Basin 50k , clocking my best time ever for that distance (on the trails). But I miscalculated. I kind of forgot th...