Copthorne Races 100 mile 2023 – Race Report
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Date: Saturday 25th November 2023
Official miles: 100 miles
Strava says: 105.23 miles
Elevation: 22,600 ft / 6,289 m
Weather: Below freezing
Start: Mickleham Village Hall
Route type: 10 mile laps
Conditions: The ground never thawed
Website link: The Copthorne Races by Canary Trail Events
Describe the route in three words: really hard graft
Copthorne Races 100 miles – Race Report
This race had interested me for some time as I had learned about it from a Facebook group in 2022 where the RD was advertising it, he stated that not a single woman had completed the race. This of course pipped my curiosity and I wanted to know why. It was 100 miles and similar elevation to the Beacons Way at 22,660 ft and had a 32 hour cut off. It was ten 10 mile laps of Box Hill in Surrey. No mountains but plenty of steps. The Mickleham Village Hall start and finish location was a checkpoint, plus another checkpoint at Box Hill Village Hall 5 miles into the route, so checkpoints every 5 miles and access to your drop bag every 10 miles. On paper it did not seem an unreasonable ask.
My husband and I had already booked a holiday for November 2022 so I penciled the race in my 2023 diary. I was intrigued, what made it so hard? The 2022 edition saw the first female finisher, Michelle White, with an impressive time of 25 hours and 47 minutes.
2023 was a great year for me, I had huge success in everything I did and was certainly the fittest I have ever been. However, Dragon’s Back Race really took its toll on me both physically and mentally. The trench foot had cleared but it had left me with what were essentially brand new silky soft feet. I’d lost all the skin off my feet, including the super important hard patches. I was left with delicate baby soft skin which was now prone to hot spots. I decided I would enter the full distance of the Copthorne Races but with a view to not race and just see how far I could go before my body decided it was too fatigued or my feet decided they had had enough. I certainly felt like I was not at all recovered from DBR and carried with me a constant underlying fatigue.
I went a few weeks ahead of the race with my friend Debbie and we ran a recce lap together to see what it was like. We could not cross the bridge or the stepping stones as the the water level was so high, in fact it was so high we could not even see the handrails of the bridge!
Having done the lap, I entered the race.
Race morning had a real buzz to it, I was surprised and delighted to see my running club friend Angela and her dog Treacle there. Treacle recognised me so when we started the race, Treacle ran excitedly with me for a bit! I hoped that her recall skills were good!
One thing I enjoyed about this run was the different distances, certainly at the beginning there were plenty of people to chat to, there was a 50km, a 50 mile, a 100km and 100 mile race taking place. I found it good using the other distances as significant goal posts during the run.
Lap one went well, I spent the bulk of it chatting to a guy, however I did perhaps run this first lap a little too fast to stay with him. After the initial climb at the start the route takes you on to ‘The Gallops’ an ever so slight incline along a wide grassy path. This leads you through some trees and down Kamikaze Hill which is a little on the steep side made all the more tricky with numerous tree roots and leaves on the ground. I can imagine this to be a total nightmare in wet and muddy conditions. We cross Headley Lane and then head up what I later named ‘Saturn Hill’, this is after the chap I ran numerous laps with told me he was really into conspiracy theories, one of which was believing a black box was on the planet Saturn, the black box being identical to one in Mecca. It was on this hill that he told me this interesting theory. A nice hill down and then time to head up the first of many steps. Just before the halfway point at Box Hill Village Hall is a flat lane with some speed bumps, I counted them and knew exactly how many there were (although I can’t remember now). Heading for the River Mole we had to cross over the bridge and then come back over the stepping stones, every lap I was so fearful of falling in! Now for the big climb up all the steps to the top of Box Hill. Just beyond the top of Box Hill was a couple in full wedding attire getting some photos! Bit random but a lovely sight to see!
You think that might be it for the steps but no! We needed to come down a steep staircase and then head back up Satan’s Staircase! The last part of the loop saw us descend down another hill and through a graveyard.
I went straight through the 10 mile checkpoint on my first lap, sticking to my plan of running 20 miles before taking a break. I had considered that I would perhaps like to do between 5 – 7 laps (50 – 70 miles) but was fully prepared to listen to my body and see how things felt. Lap two my feet started to feel tender. I was disappointed to say the least. Surely I can’t pull out after only 20 miles? How long until my feet were back to how they used to be? I continued on and chatted to another guy which took my mind off my feet. I stopped at the checkpoint for some food and then went out onto lap 3.
And so my laps continued, I ran with one guy on the 50 miler for the bulk of his race, then there was of course a noticeable drop in numbers. I kept saying to myself, “just do one more lap until…” the end of one of the other race distances, to round off my laps / distance to a specific number. And then of course there were the ‘bad’ laps. Of which I had two. I’m afraid to say I have written this blog post 9 months after the race so I can’t remember the first bad lap (although quite possibly it was lap 2 as my feet were so tender and sore), but I vividly remember the second bad lap! With the bad laps, I told myself that it was not good to finish on a low and I should do one more lap, make it a good one and finish on a high. However, who quits an ultra because they are happy running?!
Being a winter ultra, night came early with the sun setting around 4pm and it was to be a long night as sunrise is not until round 7.40am, around 15 hours on the head torch. The night was beautiful though, a clear and starry sky, the moon seemed to have a rainbow glow around it. Throughout the race the ground never thawed, it was freezing cold the whole time and overnight the ground sparkled with ice. This meant that through the race, the steps had the potential to be slippery with black ice. My foot did slip on them a couple of times but I saved myself each time. I know that someone had a bad slip on them pulled a muscle and was out the race. Overnight I needed to wear my 300g Montane warm coat, only ever used as an emergency layer up until now and over the top I had my thicker Montane rain jacket, I had a hat and double gloves, it was very cold indeed and the layers were needed.
I remember when I took my coats off when the sun had risen and the day warmed up, I was really impressed with how well the layering system had worked. I was bone dry, all my sweat had been wicked away and was sat on the outside of my thick Montane jacket.
Another memorable moment and I’m not sure after which lap but certainly in the second half – Paul White who had done the 50 and I had chatted to a bit on one of the laps gave me a really lovely pep talk when I was having a bit of a low moment in the check point.
On one of my laps, I overtook two guys who were moving so slowly, I asked one of them, “Are you in the race?”, I didn’t realise how offensive that was but he suddenly woke up and put some speed in, he caught back up with me for a short while and told me he’d been pretty much sleep walking and when I asked him that question it woke him up and he was grateful to me. It was a similar story to the other guy, he was also pretty much sleeping on the move. It had been a long night.
Lap 8 was a really bad lap for me. I’m putting it down to not fuelling enough at the checkpoint before heading out and then making the mistake of not having enough food in my pack, I think I was too blasé at how close together the checkpoints were, even though there was officially no food available at the 5 mile checkpoint. However, I went stumbling in there starving and weak knowing that food was now a major priority. I pleaded with the surprised marshals if they had anything I could eat, they’d just made themselves hot drinks and there was a mince pie by each mug, one marshal looked momentarily crestfallen as he handed the mince pies to me and the other found a couple of small packets of Haribo. I gratefully devoured the much needed food, thanked them profusely and went on my way. It took me 3.5 hours to do lap 8. Yes, you read that right, 3.5 hours to complete 10 miles. When I got into the main checkpoint I had loads to eat and a massive faff about too. A kind lady (I think Allan’s wife) toasted two crumpets for me and lathered them in butter, they were the best crumpets I had ever had and to this day I still fondly remember how good they were!
With just two laps to go the guy who was with the tracking company told me that my race was over. He said it would be impossible for me to make the cut off in the last two laps. I nearly quit there and then. I wasn’t here to win or complete, I was here to see what my body and feet were capable of even though they clearly were not recovered from DBR. In stepped RD Allan. He gave me a good talking to, saying I was not to listen to the tracker guy and that he just wanted to go home early. Allan told me I did not know if I would get timed out unless I tried. He helped me gather myself together and essentially marched me out the door and pushed me out on to lap 9 which I completed in less than 3 hours. Allan was waiting for me to come in and turned me around quickly, refilling my bladders, giving me food and words of encouragement and marching me out the door again. I headed out on lap 10 with 3 hours and 45 minutes to do it in. This sounds like a lot of time but I still felt under pressure, I felt like I was chasing the cut off.
Coming into the 5 (95) mile checkpoint was exciting, there was a line of people Downton Abbey style cheering me through, I was confident I could complete it within the cut off now!
I had a good lap and encountered some dog walkers on the final descent down, they asked me how far I had run, I told them I was on the final mile of a 100 mile race, they were very supportive towards me giving encouraging cheers! As I ran down the lane and through the graveyard I could see the village hall, I knew I was well within cut off. Allan was ready and waiting for me and cheered me in, it was certainly an emotional finish with so many ups and downs, and that’s not just the steps of Box Hill. It turned out that of the 17 who started on the 100 mile, only 2 of us made it within cut off, meaning not only was I first lady, but I was second (and you could say last) overall. There was another lady behind me, who completed the distance but sadly did not do it within cut off.
What’s in the snack pack?
Drop Bag
What I wore: Saucony Peregrine 12 ST, Garmin Fenix 6 Sapphire, buff, Sweaty Betty power leggings, Stance socks, Ronhill merino long sleeved top, Decathlon long sleev top, Dirty Girl gaiters, Montane hat, Montane gloves, Salomon Adv Skin 12 running vest.
Lead up: Going into this race I did what I could to get fit however it was difficult as I was most definitely not fully recovered from DBR, my feet were still repairing and my body had an underlying fatigue. I was able to do a number of boot camp sessions and a few runs. The day I did the route recce I also put in three 4 mile runs 4 hours apart, this actually worked really well as I didn’t feel like I could put the distance in in one go but splitting it like that was really manageable and gave me confidence that I still could put miles in if needs be. I felt quite relaxed about my lack of readiness as my mindset was not to complete and compete but just see what I could do.
Lessons learned
Results
Chip time: 31 hr 13 m
Overall: 2/17
Lady: 1
Copthorne Races 100 mile 2023 results: click here
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