As the plane circled round to the left and headed towards Gatwick, the scene below looked like the ripples of stream caught in a long exposure photograph.

Caught between the islands and banks which on a sunny day would be the hills and slopes of the South and North Downs, the clouds were caught in a pool, only able to drain away through a small gap towards Shoreham.

The lights of Brighton and the areas around it were trapped underneath fog so impenetrable that the pilot told us we had to turn off our mobile phones.

Not flight safe mode. Off.

The Cabin Crew went person by person insisting and checking that each device was off, with the man beside me looking more and more nervous the further through the plane they got.

Within a few minutes though, we could all see and feel why, with the wheels touching down and outside barely a glimmer from the huge airport that was hidden from view.

If I’d been flying to Jersey, the plane wouldn’t have bothered leaving, but luckily I was back on the mainland for just over 24 hours, and the first part of the journey was complete.

Thanks to the general ineptitude of public transport in the UK, the second part was either three hours and three changes on rail replacement buses or a 25 minute taxi.

In the words of Mr White from Reservoir Dogs, “no choice at all”.

Outside Departures at Gatwick, the freezing fog was living up to its name as I walked over to the rank in sub-zero temperatures, desperately trying to connect to an Uber driver along with half of my flight by the looks of it.

Luckily Suresh turned up in his Tesla and I was able to jump in and get at least a little bit warm as we drove through country lanes, him trying to work out the fog lights on the huge console while asking questions about Jersey (I think he might actually visit now – you’re welcome Visit Jersey).

Meanwhile I was just staring through the windscreen at the ghostly, whispy, halogen lit, frozen road in front.

In about 18 hours I was supposed to be running a 50k trail race in this…

Dorking

The plan was relatively simple. Fly in, run, fly out.

For this, I had chosen to stay in the luxury of a Travelodge on A25 and getting out of the taxi, I was shocked by the cold, and impressed by how close it was to a Tesco Express.

These things matter when prepping for races.

I checked in to a room that very much suited the roadside location but it had all the basics I needed: warmth, tea and a bed.

As a bonus it also had a bath but as I was to find out later on, it was weirdly small and the water didn’t really seem to get anything above tepid.

But like I said, it did the trick and after a couple of minutes I was off to the shop for breakfast provisions, and a few minutes after that, I was in and back out on my way to dinner in Dorking.

Rarely have I ever felt such cold in ‘normal’ places. Walking down the High Street could well have been the Artic for all the protection that my four layers of clothing gave me.

I was wearing nearly everything I brought with me and it was doing bugger all.

Six minutes into my walk though, I was pleased to find Dorking Leisure Centre, the start location of the Hurtwood 50k, which meant that I could leave as late as possible the next morning.

Walking on, I felt my usual sense of “why am I doing this” as people sat around fires in pubs while I was about to eat dinner at 6pm, go to sleep and then run more than a marathon.

This regret didn’t last long though as my restaurant of choice turned out to be a lovely little Italian with Venetian scenes painted on the walls, friendly waitresses and their own gelato.

A swift Fiorentina pizza (which you really can’t get in Florence), a couple of glasses of wine, and said gelato later (Kinder Bueno flavour), and I was back to the hotel for a cup of tea and a Rice Krispie Square as a final carb boost of the evening before falling asleep pretty quickly, and sleeping relatively well given the cold and the usual pre-race nerves.

Hurtwood 50k

Check-in for the race was at 7:30am but crucially, the Hurtwood 50k (and not sure whether this is all Freedom Racing events) allowed a rolling start from 8:15 which meant that actually, I only needed to be up at around 6, a relative lie-in when you’re more used to starting at that time.

It also allows for sufficient time to have fuel up and, ahem, try to make sure everything was regular.

Now this is definitely too much information but as most run chat will turn to toilet matters at some point, it’s only fair to mention that I had been violently ill five days earlier. To the extent that I’d woken up visited the bathroom six times before (stupidly) going into work, only to be visit the gents again twice, and then walk home while feeling like I was going to pass out.

Once home, I spent the remaining hours of Tuesday either keeping the toilet company or asleep.

So lining up for a 50k race might have been stupid (and I’d been firmly told that I better be in work the next day if I do the race) but I was determined to finish something this year.

This is a long way of saying that indeed everything was not regular and my usual anxiety about pre-race loo arrangements was very much heightened.

Still, another cup of tea and another Rice Krispie Square (super high carbs thanks Rob), and I was off out to the Leisure Centre to check in. Thankfully it had warmed up a bit since the previous night.

The process was quick and easy, the race team friendly and efficient. I found a spot on the panelled sports hall floor and got my kit ready.

Quite literally I needed to get my shit together…but with toilets and changing rooms that had suddenly been taken over by nearly 400 runners, it wasn’t quite that easy.

The first I visited resulted in a sheepish looking guy walking out quickly, for me to find a completely blocked loo and not much help. The second had run out of toilet paper. The third, luckily, was fully stocked and in working condition so I was relieved – in both senses (sorry).

With that done, I wandered back in to the hall past a mum and dad playing badminton, and waited a couple of minutes before heading outside for the rolling start.

I would guess that about half of the 400 odd runners had chosen to start early, whether to simply get it done or because they would be taken longer. For me, I needed to be at Gatwick for a 6pm flight so needed any help I could get.

A small speech from the organisers and we were off. Well once I had managed to get GPS signal it was 8:17 but close enough, past the petrol station, turn left and off.

In a rolling start like this, it was hard to tell who was quick, who was slow, and what my pace was relative to any of them.

The usual wisdom is to start a lot slower than you think you might need, but I actually felt pretty good considering and inched my way around the backstreets of Surrey suburbia at a leisurely pace. The houses and streets soon gave way to paths and forest as we climbed out of Dorking following the Greensand Way.

Hurtwood has more elevation than the Channel Islands 50k but for some reason it never felt like it.

Maybe there would’ve been more of a sense of the elevation if the fog had lifted from the wooded areas but it was hard to see more than 100m in front and the higher we climbed, the thicker the fog until suddenly a tower appeared in front of me.

Looking at the elevation profile beforehand, there are three hills on the way out and three hills on the way back but a lot of it felt runnable, especially at the early points on the way up to Leith Hill, and the tower which would’ve been looming and spooky if it wasn’t for the coffee shop at the bottom of it.

But looking out, there were just no views at all, simply fog, which made it colder and quieter, more isolating.

I was also pretty chuffed to have got to the tower relatively quickly as I knew the first checkpoint was just a little way after it and so it only took a few more minutes before I was tucking into a cheese and crisp sandwich, some biscuits and some flapjack.

My word this flapjack. I’d read somewhere that it was semi-famous but it was so perfectly oaty, sugary and melty, the best mixture for ultra food. Spoiler alert – I had at least one flapjack at every checkpoint on this race.

As I said, for some reason the hills didn’t feel hilly. And at some points, I don’t know if I would’ve even known that I’d got to the top of a hill if it wasn’t for a trig point or one of those trail signs explaining what you could see in front (if it wasn’t foggy).

Maybe the conditions made it more simple to focus on the present rather than worrying what was to come. Or maybe I was just enjoying it so much that I didn’t want to think 10 or 20k down the line.

The trails weren’t particularly technical but you bet that you would trip over an odd root or slip right into one of the boggier sections of mud if you weren’t paying attention. I was wearing my new Hoka Tecton X 2 which did the trick perfectly with only a couple of grip issues in very wet sections.

To give you an idea of how well my race was going, I even decided to skip a toilet stop at CP1 and run the extra 6 miles or so to CP2 as my body felt that good!

We ran through a posh looking school (think it might have been this one) and into the actual Hurt Wood before more flapjack, some orange squash, more biscuits and crisps at CP2 and out on to the lollipop.

At 23k, the route goes in a sock puppet shape in a clockwise fashion before you bringing you back out at CP2, except now it is CP3.

This section was quite satisfying but also one of the toughest sections as a relatively easy and gentle downhill (my fave) was followed by very muddy and slightly monotonous paths alongside a road (not my fave).

The satisfaction knew that everything from here was heading back, counting down rather than up, towards the finish.

It was also around here that the faster runners, who had been encouraged to race in the mass start at 9:30, caught up with me. I’m sure there were some earlier but it felt like a trickle of people shouting “on your right” as they flew past me was slowly turning into a stream.

Not a problem though. My one goal was to finish and I was well on my way to doing so.

At CP3, it was a case of more flapjack, more squash, and a couple of sandwiches which I had to stuff in my face when I saw a photographer in front of me.

The weather had another strange effect on my racing as the fog condensed on my skin, making it difficult to work out how much I was sweating. My beard was literally dripping but I didn’t think it was because of my exertion and it certainly didn’t feel like it.

In fact, since the first mile, I been running in just the t-shirt and shorts, discarding arm sleeves, hat and gloves as I was far too warm. The night before had scared me into thinking that I was underprepared for the weather but as we all know Wilkes’ Don’t Get Cold.

Quite often in a long race, you get too much time to ponder your life choices. But I really didn’t feel that with the Hurtwood 50k. It had the right amount of challenge and variety to keep you occupied without it pushing too much (as much as a 50k can not push you).

I just enjoyed it.

And it’s been a long time since I’ve enjoyed an ultra AND finished it.

Through to CP4 (more flapjack) and once again no loo break, I was excited by the last 10k of the race – nearly all downhill from 300m above sea level to 60m.

Since I’d been through five hours earlier, somebody had out in some ridiculously steep bits but these served only to break up the descent rather than ruin it and I felt like I was cruising back, now with the weather lifting enough that I could see Dorking below, knowing I only had a few kilometres left.

Back through the houses, this time with families taking Christmas Trees home or walking dogs (everyone in Dorking has a dog), going about their normal Sunday lunch plans.

Down the final hill, turn right at KFC and dodge the smallish crowd and bemused bystanders to finish in 6:18:24 (205^th out of 416 finishers – 16 DNF).

After the Hurt

It was a little bit of a blur after finishing. I was handed a lovely wooden medal and headed inside the Leisure Centre to pick up my stuff, buying one of the cool race t-shirts (having originally opted for Trees not Tees) and trying to slowly change into something that might get through security at the airport.

My first idea was to get a pint next to one of those roaring fires which looking so inviting the night before but as I hobbled towards the high street, I noticed that the Christmas Fair was in full swing and realistically I only had a couple of hours to get to Gatwick.

I turned and kept hobbling, this time towards the stations which were once again displaying ‘How to get your replacement bus’ signs and jumped in the first cab, rudely interrupting the driver’s lunch.

Not sure what it is about taxi drivers around that part of the world but he was also fascinated by Jersey. He even offered me some of his energy drink when he asked what I’d been up to. There’s no simple way to explain that I’ve just run 50k when most of his fares that day had been heading for a roast dinner.

But one of my final, favourite and abiding memories of this whirlwind trip to the Stockbroker Belt, as I got out of the car and slowly made my way to the zebra crossing, the taxi driver wound down his window, pointed and with no malice at all intended, said…

“Mate, look at how you’re walking” before laughing and driving off.