New PB on the Chiltern Ridge Classic 50k
1:02pm, 7th Apr 2025 | Chiltern Ridge Ultra | 8 Comments
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Well it's a while since i've written a blog. Why not start again with a race report!
As usual, this'll be a long one, grab a brew and enjoy.
The short version is hidden here:
Decent race on some stunning terrain under beautiful blue skies and sunshine. The distance was good, but the hills killed me and I died a death after 35km. Still a 22 minute PB from my last official 50k race and a 2 minute pb from my solo 50k back in November.
Signed up a while ago, and opted to park at the finish and get the coach to the start rather than the opposite way round which was also an option. As such, I got to Wendover train station at about 0715, giving me time to sort my kit before getting the 0730 coach.
I'd decided against taking a drop-bag, so I left my jumper and coat in the car and went over to the coach in a ready-to-run state. This was certainly a mistake, i'll explain in a moment. The coach was already quite full, but I found a seat next to a nice chap called Phil and we chatted the whole way to the start in Berkhamsted. I would say that the seats were particularly narrow, more suitable to small school children than grown adults in ultra-running gear with race packs etc.
The drive took, I don't know, 15 or 20 minutes, I wasn't really counting and dropped us off a short walk from Berkhamsted castle which was the start area. As soon as I got off the coach, the cold wind bit me and I realised the error of my ways leaving my coat behind. I joined the short queue for registration which was handled quickly and efficiently by the team handing out race numbers. Over to a different desk where the safety pins and some a4 paper maps of the route were available. I took some pins and headed over to the portaloo queue. With 6 general/mens loos and 2 female only loos, the queue didn't take long and I used the time to pin my number onto my shorts (I always fold the number as small as possible and pin it to my right thigh).
I think I had about 45 minutes to wait until the race start, and I was soon shivering. I only had shorts, a long sleeve t-shirt, some thin gloves and a hat and I was very cold! I tried to hide out of the wind behind a wall, but that meant being out of the sun which negated the lack of chill from the wind. There was no winning.
The time passed and I wandered around trying to not let my legs stiffen up and eventually the RD was calling us all over to the start. Because there's an online race briefing video to watch prior to the event, the pre-race brief was concise and focused more on the potential issue of overlapping race routes. You see the other race organisation company "Maverick" had a race on the same day where part of the route was identical to that which we were using with "Runaway Racing". The RD stressed that we were only to follow orange route markings and listen to marshals giving Runaway directions.
Then a short countdown and the air horn was blown to set us off. This was the only part of the route that would be considered congested. After the initial surge across the line, we came to a halt to get through a slight bottleneck onto a track out of the castle grounds. The next pinchpoint was a hundred meters down the road where a Waitrose delivery van was blocking part of the road and we had to squeeze past. After that, the spread of runners and the trails meant no more congestion.
The first hill comes after only ~500m and it's a doozy to begin with. Wide enough for passing, and quite steep. My mantra in races like this is "walk early and walk often" and this was certainly the case only 500m into the race! I live in a reasonably flat place, and have spent the last 3 years living in Munich which could not be any flatter. Hills are not my strong point.
I won't go into detail on the route, you know what it's like, the further into a race you get, a lot of the details just blend into one, but what I will say is that there was some fantastic trails with minimal road sections used. I think all bar maybe 1 or 2 road crossings were being staffed by volunteers to aid with traffic and help get runners safely across. As the weather has been so dry over the last few weeks, there wasn't a single patch of mud anywhere to be seen. In places, this showed as dried out mud making the surface quite churned up. You had to be careful on these bits so as not go over on an ankle, but generally speaking the surface was very good, if a little hard.
The hills. My word, the hills. It actually didn't feel like we were either going up or down. There did feel like a lot of sections of flat running. Nearer the start of the race, this was a nice relief. Towards the end, I just wanted to be going uphill so I had an excuse to walk, or downhill so gravity would do the work for me.
Some course highlights for me then:
Ivinghoe Beacon and along the ridge to Steeps Hill.
The bridge over the A41. Sounds odd, but I ran over this bridge (opposite direction) on my first ever 50k all the way back in 2016.
The route then winds it's way through Tring and along to Wendover. Can you believe it, they make you run past the finish line but you still have 20km left to run! Possibly worse, the route goes past Wendover train station where my car is parked!
So, off on that 20km loop I go. Over the bridge that spans the HS2 building site, what a vast area of construction, none of which was here the last time I was in Wendover! Still plenty of delightful trails to enjoy, and by now (midday) the temperature has risen significantly. My gloves are off, sleeves rolled up, and certainly not shivering.
Let's talk about pacing then shall we? If I use the excellent data analytics tools in Fetch, I can see that for the first 30km, I had averaged a 5:34/km pace, which puts my estimated 50k finish time of 4hr 38. I started to slip between 30 and 35km, with that estimated finish time dropping to 4hr 43, but it was after 35km that the decline really started. I went through 40km in 3hr 50, meaning the last 5km had an average pace of 6:27/km, nearly a minute slower than the first 30km average. I ran through the marathon point in 4hr 3mins.
The route takes you past this little cottage in the countryside. Anyone know it from the picture? Answers in the comments.
The last route highlight here is Coombe Hill, there's the monument at the top, a fantastic view out and you can see across to Halton House, the Rothschilds Mansion from the 1880s on the way down.
The last 6km took an astonishing 48 minutes for me to shuffle my way through. Consider that this portion also had a significant downhill section coming off Coombe hill, that really is appalling. It was the early pace which, had the route been flat, I think should have been maintainable, but with all the hills? Nah, my legs were toast.
Eventually, I come back across the HS2 site bridge, past Wendover train station (again), into the town and turn right to go to the finish area. I vowed to run this whole last bit, my last km was at 6:11/km pace which i'll take.
Across the line, receive my finishers medal, and then I got down and lay on the floor for a good 5 minutes before finally getting up to go and collect my race t-shirt. In the finish area, they had water, crisps and some non-alcoholic beer, none of which I really wanted. I could really have done with some of the electrolyte fluid they'd had at check-point 3, but alas.
I then took a very slow stroll back along the road into Wendover. I wanted to go to the shop because i'd not brought any food or drink with me to have after the race. Inside the Morrisons on the high street, I picked up a litre of chocolate milk and decided that would make do until I got home.
As I came out of the shop there were a number of very, very historic cars driving through the town. Think Ford Model T kind of vintage. I only got the one picture, but I must have seen 20+ cars which was cool.
Then a final slow walk back to the car and time to drive the hour home.
With that, thanks for reading!
As usual, this'll be a long one, grab a brew and enjoy.
The short version is hidden here:
Signed up a while ago, and opted to park at the finish and get the coach to the start rather than the opposite way round which was also an option. As such, I got to Wendover train station at about 0715, giving me time to sort my kit before getting the 0730 coach.
I'd decided against taking a drop-bag, so I left my jumper and coat in the car and went over to the coach in a ready-to-run state. This was certainly a mistake, i'll explain in a moment. The coach was already quite full, but I found a seat next to a nice chap called Phil and we chatted the whole way to the start in Berkhamsted. I would say that the seats were particularly narrow, more suitable to small school children than grown adults in ultra-running gear with race packs etc.
The drive took, I don't know, 15 or 20 minutes, I wasn't really counting and dropped us off a short walk from Berkhamsted castle which was the start area. As soon as I got off the coach, the cold wind bit me and I realised the error of my ways leaving my coat behind. I joined the short queue for registration which was handled quickly and efficiently by the team handing out race numbers. Over to a different desk where the safety pins and some a4 paper maps of the route were available. I took some pins and headed over to the portaloo queue. With 6 general/mens loos and 2 female only loos, the queue didn't take long and I used the time to pin my number onto my shorts (I always fold the number as small as possible and pin it to my right thigh).
I think I had about 45 minutes to wait until the race start, and I was soon shivering. I only had shorts, a long sleeve t-shirt, some thin gloves and a hat and I was very cold! I tried to hide out of the wind behind a wall, but that meant being out of the sun which negated the lack of chill from the wind. There was no winning.
The time passed and I wandered around trying to not let my legs stiffen up and eventually the RD was calling us all over to the start. Because there's an online race briefing video to watch prior to the event, the pre-race brief was concise and focused more on the potential issue of overlapping race routes. You see the other race organisation company "Maverick" had a race on the same day where part of the route was identical to that which we were using with "Runaway Racing". The RD stressed that we were only to follow orange route markings and listen to marshals giving Runaway directions.
Then a short countdown and the air horn was blown to set us off. This was the only part of the route that would be considered congested. After the initial surge across the line, we came to a halt to get through a slight bottleneck onto a track out of the castle grounds. The next pinchpoint was a hundred meters down the road where a Waitrose delivery van was blocking part of the road and we had to squeeze past. After that, the spread of runners and the trails meant no more congestion.
The first hill comes after only ~500m and it's a doozy to begin with. Wide enough for passing, and quite steep. My mantra in races like this is "walk early and walk often" and this was certainly the case only 500m into the race! I live in a reasonably flat place, and have spent the last 3 years living in Munich which could not be any flatter. Hills are not my strong point.
I won't go into detail on the route, you know what it's like, the further into a race you get, a lot of the details just blend into one, but what I will say is that there was some fantastic trails with minimal road sections used. I think all bar maybe 1 or 2 road crossings were being staffed by volunteers to aid with traffic and help get runners safely across. As the weather has been so dry over the last few weeks, there wasn't a single patch of mud anywhere to be seen. In places, this showed as dried out mud making the surface quite churned up. You had to be careful on these bits so as not go over on an ankle, but generally speaking the surface was very good, if a little hard.
The hills. My word, the hills. It actually didn't feel like we were either going up or down. There did feel like a lot of sections of flat running. Nearer the start of the race, this was a nice relief. Towards the end, I just wanted to be going uphill so I had an excuse to walk, or downhill so gravity would do the work for me.
Some course highlights for me then:
Ivinghoe Beacon and along the ridge to Steeps Hill.
The bridge over the A41. Sounds odd, but I ran over this bridge (opposite direction) on my first ever 50k all the way back in 2016.
The route then winds it's way through Tring and along to Wendover. Can you believe it, they make you run past the finish line but you still have 20km left to run! Possibly worse, the route goes past Wendover train station where my car is parked!
So, off on that 20km loop I go. Over the bridge that spans the HS2 building site, what a vast area of construction, none of which was here the last time I was in Wendover! Still plenty of delightful trails to enjoy, and by now (midday) the temperature has risen significantly. My gloves are off, sleeves rolled up, and certainly not shivering.
Let's talk about pacing then shall we? If I use the excellent data analytics tools in Fetch, I can see that for the first 30km, I had averaged a 5:34/km pace, which puts my estimated 50k finish time of 4hr 38. I started to slip between 30 and 35km, with that estimated finish time dropping to 4hr 43, but it was after 35km that the decline really started. I went through 40km in 3hr 50, meaning the last 5km had an average pace of 6:27/km, nearly a minute slower than the first 30km average. I ran through the marathon point in 4hr 3mins.
The route takes you past this little cottage in the countryside. Anyone know it from the picture? Answers in the comments.
The last route highlight here is Coombe Hill, there's the monument at the top, a fantastic view out and you can see across to Halton House, the Rothschilds Mansion from the 1880s on the way down.
The last 6km took an astonishing 48 minutes for me to shuffle my way through. Consider that this portion also had a significant downhill section coming off Coombe hill, that really is appalling. It was the early pace which, had the route been flat, I think should have been maintainable, but with all the hills? Nah, my legs were toast.
Eventually, I come back across the HS2 site bridge, past Wendover train station (again), into the town and turn right to go to the finish area. I vowed to run this whole last bit, my last km was at 6:11/km pace which i'll take.
Across the line, receive my finishers medal, and then I got down and lay on the floor for a good 5 minutes before finally getting up to go and collect my race t-shirt. In the finish area, they had water, crisps and some non-alcoholic beer, none of which I really wanted. I could really have done with some of the electrolyte fluid they'd had at check-point 3, but alas.
I then took a very slow stroll back along the road into Wendover. I wanted to go to the shop because i'd not brought any food or drink with me to have after the race. Inside the Morrisons on the high street, I picked up a litre of chocolate milk and decided that would make do until I got home.
As I came out of the shop there were a number of very, very historic cars driving through the town. Think Ford Model T kind of vintage. I only got the one picture, but I must have seen 20+ cars which was cool.
Then a final slow walk back to the car and time to drive the hour home.
With that, thanks for reading!
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ptr_runner
I've been a runner for as long as I can remember. I was a 100m sprint specialist during my school years, before moving to long distance running around 2014 when I decided I wanted to run a 50k. Have completed 8 marathons and 3 ultras since then, and only plan on doing more!Profile | Blog | Other Blogs