Did not sleep, p.1
Did Not Sleep, page 1
Did Not Sleep
An Attempt at Running 100 Miles on the South Downs Way
George Mahood
Copyright © 2025 by George Mahood
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This edition published 2025 by George Mahood.
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Contents
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
Author’s note
1. Acknowledgements
SPEAKING
ONE
When my wife Rachel and I told our three children – Layla, Leo and Kitty – that we’d signed up for a 100-mile run, their reactions were mixed. Leo (15) and Layla (17) both just asked ‘why?’ (which is a perfectly valid question).
Kitty (13), on the other hand, erupted with a manic cackle.
‘HA! 100 miles? In one go? There is NO WAY you are going to be able to run 100 miles. Oh my god! NO chance!’
This also was a perfectly fair comment, but one that did stoke a bit of desire in Rachel and me.
Attempting a 100-mile run has been high on my bucket list for the last few years. Actually, ‘bucket list’ is the wrong term. That implies it’s something I’d desperately wanted to do. It was more like I had a curious desire to see what it was like. And to see if I could.
I’ve got a couple of friends who have completed the distance before, and I know other people who have tried and failed.
At the end of March this year, three different people in the space of a week suggested to me that I should sign up for the South Downs Way 100.
It felt like a sign.
A sign I then did everything I could to avoid. I told them it was too short notice, too expensive and was in the middle of Layla’s A-level exams, so unfortunately (fortunately), I wouldn’t be able to do it this year. Maybe next year instead? (when I would hopefully have another excuse).
It transpired I’d just been hoping that Layla was going to be in the middle of her A-levels, and that she was actually finished a week earlier. The too expensive and too short notice reasons still applied, but it did feel like perhaps this was an opportunity I should be saying yes to.
Persuading Rachel to run 100 miles with me proved a little trickier.
I feel like perhaps Rachel prefers to use me as a tester for these events. It happened with running a marathon, a triathlon, ultramarathon, ironman. Me completing these first gave her the confidence that she could too. ‘Well, if HE can do it, then surely I can.’
100 miles was very different. It was uncharted territory for me too. And the fact that I literally crawled across the line of a 50-mile run in north Devon a month earlier won’t have filled her with much confidence about my ability to finish it either.
But the FOMO kicked in and she agreed to give it a go.
I’ll admit, preparations didn’t go quite to plan. We (I) had struggled through that 50-miler on 10th May – five weeks before the South Downs Way 100 – and the blisters I’d got during that run put me out of action for a couple of weeks.
Despite Kitty’s cynicism, when Rachel told her after that 50-miler that we had decided to withdraw from the South Downs Way 100, her attitude took a swift turn.
‘Don’t be a loser. Give it a go! When you’re old and grey and sitting in your rocking chair you’ll regret not at least trying.’
She did have a point. What was the worst that could happen? We’d just stop. This was the reassurance we needed. If even the pessimist Kitty thought we should give it a go, then there was no way we could withdraw.
‘But I still don’t think there is any chance you’ll complete it,’ she added.
After the blisters had semi-healed, I then broke a rib playing football, three weeks before the race. I managed a long walk and wild camp on Dartmoor with Leo and it wasn’t too painful, so foolishly played football the day after we got back. It was fine for most of the match, but with five minutes to go, I had a collision with another player and made it far worse than it had been before. To stand any chance of being able to run 100 miles, I abstained from any physical activity for those remaining two weeks.
They say you are supposed to taper your training to include a period of rest before a big event. The blisters and then the broken rib forced me to do a pretty extreme taper. And weirdly, I really liked it.
In comparison, another guy I knew – Andy – is an experienced 100-mile runner and was also taking part in the South Downs Way 100. In the two weeks leading up to race, he ran 203 miles. That’s 14.5 miles per day.
This forced taper took the pressure off completely. If I’d been fit and healthy, I would have seen Andy’s runs on Strava and felt like I should be out there racking up the miles too. But to be ready and to give my rib the best chance of recovery, doing nothing was the key. And nothing is what I did.
In those five weeks leading up to the South Downs Way 100, I ran a total of three miles. And that was a slow run with Leo when he hadn’t left the house all weekend.
The South Downs Way 100 is a race organised by Centurion Events, following the South Downs Way national trail for 100 miles from Winchester to Eastbourne.
We drove up to start at Matterley Bowl near Winchester late afternoon on Friday 13th (unlucky for some), registered and picked up our race numbers and GPS trackers, and were spending the night in the van ready for an early start the following morning.
Learning from the disastrous past experience of trying to sleep on the seats of the van, we took both back rows out completely this time and stuffed in two mattresses, a couple of duvets and pillows, forming a cosy nest in the back.
Mark, my best friend from primary school (the same Mark who I travelled across the US with in Not Tonight, Josephine and ran my first ultramarathon with in Chasing Trails) was also taking part. He’s now a seasoned ultrarunner and this was going to be his fifth 100-miler.
He was also camping at the start with his wife and two children, and we sat on the grass outside their tent to eat our cold pasta, while Rachel and I grilled Mark with last-minute questions about running 100 miles.
Does it get worse as it goes along?
Not necessarily. There are lots of different highs and lows throughout the day.
What food do you find the easiest to consume?
It varies. I eat a lot of crisps and sandwiches mostly.
Is it hard to follow the route in the dark?
I hope not. I’ve never done this event before though. They are usually very well marked, and it’s rare that there’s not another runner’s head torch somewhere in the distance in front of you.
Our alarms went off at 04.30 the following morning, after a hot, but surprisingly restful night considering all that was going through our minds. We had prepared some peanut butter sandwiches which we ate in sleepy silence while shuffling into the queue for the portable toilets.
I won’t go into too much detail, but let’s just say I’m a creature of habit, and I don’t usually open for business until at least 7 am. I was a little concerned about how my body would cope with a further 24 hours of snacking and moving, without an intermission.
SPOILER: It didn’t.
We were still chatting to Mark’s family when the clock hit 05.30 and the race began without any real fanfare. About 300 of us set off on our adventures. Another 300 would be starting theirs at 06.30.
Matterley Bowl is a huge natural amphitheatre in the Hampshire countryside. It’s privately owned and gets used for concerts, festivals and, apparently, the start of stupidly long running events.
The route began at the bottom of the basin and climbed steadily up a gravel track towards the rim. Rachel and I had made a pact to walk all the hills to conserve energy, but it felt a little wrong to begin a 100-mile running event with a walk. We decided we should at least try and look like runners for the first 100 metres, until we were out of sight of the spectators.
Mark stayed with us for the first few miles as we completed two laps of Matterley Bowl, which gives friends and family opportunities to cheer on their loved ones. Mark was aiming for a new pb of sub-23-hours. It was great to run with him for a bit, but we didn’t want to hold him back, so as Rachel and I began walking up one of the slow inclines, we wished him luck and waved him off.
After our second lap of Matterley Bowl, we left the estate and passed through our first of what we were told were 95 gates or stiles, and onto the South Downs Way.
Rachel and I had been obsessively checking the weather forecast in the days leading up to the event. At one point, temperatures of 29, lightning, heavy rain and thick fog were all predicted at various stages of the day.
Thankfully, conditions on the day itself turned out to be very favourable. The morning began with a light drizzle in the air, it was warm and humid, but the wind would be mostly at our backs for the duration.
The chalky hills of the South Downs span 260 square miles of south-eastern England between Hampshire and East Sussex. We were going to be running in pretty much a straight line across all of them to the finish in Eastbourne.
Our strategy for the run was very simple. It boiled down to three words.
Keep mo
‘Have you done this before?’ I asked another runner as we saw our first official South Downs Way marker.
‘No. This is my first 100-miler. How about you?’ he said.
‘Same. We’ve never even done a mile of the South Downs Way. So we thought we would just do it all in one go.’
‘Yeah, it’s basically just a day’s sightseeing, isn’t it?’
Runners had been assigned one of two starting waves. We were in the earlier 5.30 am wave. The second wave began at 6.30 am.
It felt like most of the first-wave runners were ahead of us and we knew at some point soon those who had started an hour later would catch us.
The route quickly settled into a familiar rhythm: long, gentle downhills that made us feel like we were making great progress, immediately followed by slow, relentless uphills that reminded us we weren’t. The South Downs Way undulated endlessly and was rarely flat. It was all mostly runnable (in theory), and compared to the brutal, sharp inclines of South Devon, they were much kinder, but we knew if we didn’t try to conserve energy on the uphills, we would be punished for it later. It was beautiful and varied, and for now at least, our legs still felt just about fresh enough to enjoy it.
TWO
After about 11 miles we reached the first of 12 aid stations at the top of Beacon Hill.
In Did Not Finish, I described the feed station at the Salcombe Marathon as looking like someone had stolen the buffet from a children’s party. This was the same – only supersized.
There were several long tables spread out with cheese sandwiches, marmite sandwiches, cheese and marmite sandwiches, jam sandwiches, sausage rolls, scotch eggs, crisps, grapes, fairy cakes, sweets, and then an extra section with lots of vegan and gluten-free options. A team of attentive volunteers helped refill our water bottles, offered words of encouragement and made sure we had everything we needed.
As it was often a long way between aid stations – sometimes 10+ miles and 2½ hours, we would eat as much as we could and then fill our pockets with a few bits to have on the way.
The route was stunning and far more varied than I’d expected. We ran along bridleways and on narrow footpaths alongside herds of cattle and through fields of barley.
The early morning cloud had quickly cleared, and the sun was out in full force. Most of the South Downs Way is treeless and exposed, and we were grateful for the short sections of woodland we passed through where we could take advantage of the shade.
I had been quietly concerned about my broken rib causing problems for me and potentially ending my chances of finishing the race.
About 17 miles in, I could feel a dull ache in my rib and was worried if it was sore this early in the race that it might get a lot worse. To try and relieve some pressure, I unclipped the lower of the three chest straps on my race vest and it wasn’t too much of an issue for the rest of the day. As the rest of my body slowly fell apart, my rib ended up being the least of my worries.
A long steep descent down Butser Hill brought us to the aid station at Queen Elizabeth Park after 23 miles. This was a popular spot for cyclists to join the South Downs Way, and Rachel and I were slightly envious of our two-wheeled friends tearing down the hillside without exerting any effort.
These aid stations were little oases in the desert. Each one served as our destination, and we tried to avoid ever thinking ‘only 87 miles to go’. If we had, it would have felt so demotivating. Instead, we just counted down the miles to each aid station.
The aid stations themselves were like little bubbles. Buzzing with incredible volunteers taking our drinking bottles from us to refill, asking us what they can get for us and generally just being awesome.
A tray of cut watermelon lay on one of the tables at Queen Elizabeth Park. A marshal, not content with just doing the basics, was meticulously sprinkling Meldon Sea Salt onto the melon like a Michelin-starred chef. He then began carefully chopping gherkins into neat 2 cm pieces.
I’m a big fan of gherkins, and all pickles really, but I don’t think I’ve ever had them midway through a run.
‘Oh my god,’ I said, as I put one into my mouth. ‘That’s the best gherkin I’ve ever tasted. Thank you.’
‘That’s good to hear,’ he said, as he chopped some more and lay them out in an artistic way on the platter next to the watermelon. ‘I took a punt on those. They were a last-minute addition to my trolley.’
Almost all of the aid stations were situated at the bottom of big hills. This was mostly due to the logistics of road access. But it also had the added benefit of allowing us time to eat and digest as we walked up the hills following each aid station.
My feet had never fully recovered from the blisters I acquired during the Two Castles Trail the previous month. To try to prevent further issues, I had applied blister plasters and covered the balls of my feet with some fancy zinc oxide tape before the start of the South Downs Way 100.
After about 30 miles I could feel that the tape didn’t seem to be providing much relief, and if anything was causing more problems. I decided to address the issue before it got worse. I sat down on some soft grass in a gateway at the side of the path. I removed my shoes and socks and discovered that neither the tape nor the blister plasters were even attached to my feet. Instead, it was all bunched up around my toes. Not only was it not providing any coverage to the sensitive area, but it was also now irritating a previously unaffected part of my foot.
I gave my feet a good clean with some wet wipes, dried them off, and tried to reapply a new blister plaster. It immediately curled up like one of those fortune-telling fish, doing anything in its power to get away from my feet. To be fair, if I was a blister plaster, I would have done the same.
I forced it down against its will and wrapped tape over and then around my entire foot to try to hold it in place.
‘Oh, fuck, what was that?’ I said, feeling a sharp pain on the back of my leg. ‘Ouch, damn another one!’
I looked down and realised I had red ants crawling all over my legs and up my shorts.
I tried to brush them off as best I could, shuffled sideways to a new patch of grass and put my socks and shoes back on as quickly as I could.
‘Are you alright?’ asked Rachel, trying to hide her laughter.
‘Not really,’ I said, jumping to my feet. ‘Those fucking bastards have bitten me all over.’
‘I can’t believe you sat in an ants’ nest while trying to fix your feet.’
‘At least it’s taken away the focus of the discomfort of my blisters now.’
The pain from the bites faded away after a couple of hours, to be replaced once again by that now-familiar burning sensation in my feet.
Layla, Leo and Kitty had all been very supportive and were following us on the online tracker and sending regular messages in our family group chat.
Leo: Well done guys
Kitty: Wahoo you’re slaying (I think this a positive youth speak)
It wasn’t all positive. Some of the chat was their usual sibling bickering.
Layla: Who hates kitty? Me. The moron woke up and hasn’t done a single useful thing. She won’t even walk ludo. Idiot.
Leo: Are there any hidden snacks here? What goodies can I eat?
Kitty: I will share out the Doritos.
Many of the aid stations had webcams that were live-streaming footage onto the event website. We had lots of messages from friends and family who were enjoying following our adventure vicariously and looking out for us on these cameras.
Rachel and I can both be quite faffy. She’s generally much faffier than me, but I have my moments too. During a 100-mile race there can be lots of things to faff about. Sorting out your feet, tying shoelaces, toilet stops, getting food out of backpacks, taking off layers, putting on layers.
All this faffing over 100 miles does add up. And it was rare for us to both do our faffing at the same time, so the faffing time was doubled.
