The Oner 2018 - Part I - Groundwork

I meant to write and publish my "preparation" Oner blog before the big day - but I was partly short of time and also did not want to tempt fate. The big day is now behind me, I have time on my hands as for the first time in 500 days I'm not running every day, so here we go. Its not going to be a quick blog...

I don't know when The Oner first popped in to my consciousness, but I do know that in 2011 it was deeply inside my head. I had been down to the coast and done a first night time recon on the cliff path. In autumn 2011 I wrote on my blog "JCC clearly mad, Oner clearly insane". Other things happened, and the Oner was left alone for a while. I occasionally checked the website, worried the race might be dropped - it is such a low profile event with a relatively small crowd I feared it might disappear. Then in 2017 I jumped headlong in to the ultra world, and did the Jurassic Quarter. After completing that, this year's Oner entry was inevitable.

The stats are frightening though. No-one enters the Oner unfit - its a self-selected bunch who know what they are letting themselves in for, yet the DNF rate hovers around 50%. I am a proud middle-of-the-pack racer, usually ending up around halfway down the field, which is fine for a normal race, but in the Oner statistically that means I really am tossing a coin between finishing or not. If entering the Oner was inevitable, finishing is also inevitable - failure was not an option. There was homework to be done. 

I started by checking out the course pretty carefully. The JQ was good research of course, but studying the splits on historic times was really interesting. Unsurprising I guess, but people fade horribly in this race - as evidenced by the splits. Normal running times deteriorate in to shuffle and DNF as the night progresses and the pain and tiredness grows. Lesson one was therefore simple - if you are anywhere near the checkpoint cut off times, you are toast and you will not make the cuts later on. I needed some benchmarks for timings to make sure I was safe from the cuts. Have a look at the 2017 data:

Now these are the last 12 finishers of the 2017 Oner. I was not interested in the fast guys - if I finished this thing, these will be the guys (and girls) around me, so I needed to work out how stay with that virtual group. My first thought was to see what splits the slowest of that group managed,  stay within those splits - if I could do that, then surely I would finish. 

The slowest finisher in 2017 is highlighted in brown above. For the first 9 checkpoints that is runner 61. Looking at his splits, I realised he was a phenomenal runner, with incredible pacing and stamina. He moved up 6 places in the field in the last 20k, managing sub 2-hour splits for the last 2 checkpoints when most people were taking over 2 hours - some a lot more than 2 hours. I could not promise to emulate that. So I looked at the second slowest runner in the group, highlighted in yellow. Those splits were much more do-able. The game plan was to stay within those splits - they were my cut offs. 

More Recon

I also needed to get to know the areas I knew less before the day - mainly Portland. The island can be confusing - it is a labyrinth of stone - whether quarry or building, and my single run across so far in the JQ had seen me wrong footed a time of two, and I simply could not allow that to happen in the race itself. I went down twice in Feb/March to Recon. The first time was dreadful weather - just as the first freezing spell hit the UK. I attempted to run around the island from Ferrybridge, but was beaten back in sub-zero temperatures and near-gale winds. 

Sub zero Portland

The return trip a couple of weeks later was much more successful. I managed to round the island - got lost a couple of times, and found the correct routes. As of today (and it will doubtless change) there are two major opportunities for getting lost on the island. The first is the quarry area on the West side as you approach Weston and the race HQ - there are diversions here and the rocks and carvings are disorientating. Easy when you know how, but an essential recon. 

Recon two - much more pleasant

The second is the path on the Eastern side, just before the prison. There is  a switch-back on the path - with the main path carrying straight on. Initially I carried on down the main track, only realising after 5 mins or so I had gone wrong, then detouring to ascend to the prison. This switchback is marked incorrectly on the race gpx file, and is hard to see on the paper maps - the screen shots below show my Strava track (top) and the "official" route, which floats up a cliff!

Lesson two - know the route! 

The final bit of race specific preparation was kit - mainly running with poles. I had never raced with poles before but knowing the ground from JQ it seemed sensible to start. I went out on runs locally with the poles, up our local hills, practising carrying and using them. My daughter (aged 9 but very wise) bought me some black diamond carbon poles for Christmas which are thoroughly recommended and perfect.

Shoes were next - in 2017 I had raced in Roclite 280s. These are fantastic shoes, but lack padding and support and I found them really hard on the feet after 50+ miles. I looked around at various options, and eventually went for the Roclite 305s. I tend to buy my shoes on-line, usually to get last-season versions at half the price. I am a UK size 8 in the 280s, but when the 305s arrived although wearable they felt really tight. After trying them a few times I decided I needed to go up a half size for all day use, so ended up buying a second pair in 8.5 - I wish I'd gone to the running shop that time. Why can't shoe manufacturers be consistent in their sizing? Anyhow the 305s are perfect and are now my dedicated long distance race shoe, so worth the investment. They are also a really snazzy blue. 

The final kit was a new head torch. I've been running with my old Petzl Myo XP for years now - its an excellent torch, but now eclipsed by newer lamps. Given I would be teetering around cliff tops not on the Jurassic Coast and also in the Alps for CCC later this year, it was time for an upgrade. I eventually went for a Lupine Piko X4. This is the best running head torch known to man. I pretended the decimal point was in the wrong place when paying for it, justifying the purchase as something that might save my life one day. It is comfortable, light, unbelievably powerful up to 1800 lumens, and the battery pack can be used to power accessories such as a mobile phone if needed.

The final run-up to the Oner came quicker than expected - the weather had been dreadful and work busy, and just before the race I felt my taper had not been perfect - but nothing is ever 100%. I felt 95% prepared which I figured would have to do. 

I drove down the day before the race, packing my bags after carefully checking the kit list to ensure I had everything - its always interesting to see what race organisers throw in that you are not expecting "waterproofed note pad and pencil" - does that mean that special waterproof paper, or just a WH Smith pad in a plastic bag. The plastic bag had it. 

Next stop - the race.