The Ultra London took place on Saturday the 5th October and you guessed it, I signed up for it! The Ultra London follows the Capital Ring Footpath for 55km or 27.5km if you opt to do the shorter distance. I opted for the 55km and running along side me I had my cousin and her husband (the perfect running buddies).
We started our day with a massive bowl of overnight oats that we had prepared before! I put oats, peanut butter, chia seeds, nuts, dates and some sultanas in mine and it was just delicious! Oh and I of course washed it down with a strong black coffee!
The Ultra London 55 completes the entire southern section of the Capital Ring. The race starts at the Woolwich Foot Tunnel and finishes in Richmond Upon Avon. The start time of the race varies by approximately two hours, your allocated start time will depend on your estimated finish time. You can find out your start time on the website a couple of weeks beforehand, we were given the start time of 8:30AM.
We got the Woolwich leisure centre at around 7:45AM which gave us plenty of time to get ready for our start time at 8:30AM. Registration took place in the sports hall which is when you also receive your race number and bag tag. It was quite a small field of around 500 in total and if I have been told correctly only 200 or so signed up for the full 55km so it was pretty easy to collect your race number.
There were plenty of energy supplies at registration as well including water, cliff bars, cliff blocks and cliff gels. They set groups of runners off every 15 minutes and we loved how small the fields or people were!
There is a mandatory kit list that you must carry on the day; a fully charged mobile phone, Debit/credit card, small foil blanket, small first air kit, water bottle/foldable cup for water and you own initial water supply/fuel. They were actually only checking that you had a mobile phone and credit card but it’s always better to be over prepared!
The route was well signposted, look out for the pink ribbons and pink London Ultra sign and you won’t get lost! The race was a mixture of terrain, but we would recommend wearing road trainers as quite a lot of the route was on road/pavement. There were so many beautiful views across London and we also managed to see so many areas that we had never even heard of before.
Rest aid stations were at Mile 10, Mile 16 & Mile 28. We stopped briefly at mile 10 to catch our breath and use the toilets before carrying on. Mile 16 is the halfway point, however we found that the second half of the route was a little bit further than the first half. We knew that mile 16-mile 28 was going to be the longest part of the run without a rest so we made sure we stocked up on all the supplies we needed. We were secretly happy that the final rest point at mile 28 was only 6 miles from the finish as it gave us that last little boost we needed.
The staff at the fuel stations were just INCREDIBLE! They were on hand to help everyone and they were running around making sure that everyone had everything they needed. Races rely so heavily on volunteers and the London Ultra sure did have some good eggs!
The last 5 miles or so were super tough but they were also some of our favourite miles as we were running through Richmond Park which is just stunning. With one mile to go we left the park and started to run along the Thames path in Richmond where lots of bystanders were cheering us on!
Crossing the finish line has never felt so good, as a team we have never run further that 50km so running 55km was an achievement all round. It was tough but it was not impossible and if you are looking to run your first ultra then I would highly recommend running the Ultra London next year!
The Ultra London are always looking for volunteers to join the team, so why not volunteer at this incredible event next year!
