207/401 = Calderglen's Part in an Amazing Endeavour

Ben and his merry band approach 9 miles

On Friday 25th March we were not only blessed with beautiful (but cold) East Kilbride weather but were privileged to be able to assist the remarkable Ben Smith on his way towards running 401 marathons on 401 consecutive days. "Our" marathon would be Ben's 207th since starting at the beginning of September 2015. We welcomed Ben to the Sports Club the evening before having arranged access to the club showers, overnight parking and electrical power for his camper van in the car park.

After an enjoyable evening of conversation (and a few ciders for Ben) we already knew that this was a very humble and charismatic guy raising money for charities close to his heart. Despite the fact he must have answered the same questions hundreds of times by now, he was only too keen to satisfy our curiosity too. We also found out that the current world record for consecutive marathons is 52 and therefore his target of 401 consecutive marathons is stupendous. There are 36 rules and regulations he has to adhere to in order to satisfy the Guinness World Record criteria and he is being constantly monitored and verified by Guinness via his Garmin Connect, Strava and Facebook accounts. The Challenge was several years in the planning and is being carried out solo on the road but with a remote support team. His dad, Pete, is logistics coordinator and it was Pete who contacted club secretary Hugh Simpson a month or two ago to see if Calderglen Harriers would be willing to arrange for marathon number 207 in East Kilbride. This sort of thing is right up Calderglen's street and we were only too happy to help (amazingly, many club's have knocked back the request for assistance. Pete now tends to look at club web sites and blogs before contacting them to see the sort of things they get up to and hence now focuses on clubs who have a wide and varied competition and social calendar; sounds just like Calderglen!). We were also told that if we had 8 or 9 people running with him on the day, we would have a Scottish participation record so far.

Lined up and ready to go.

So on Friday morning we were glad to see 15 to 20 runners from the Harriers and various other clubs and Facebook Friends arrive in time for the 9:30 (ish) start. Ben advised that he was going to be running about 11 - 12 minute per mile pace and would probably have two long stops to eat. He needs 6500 calories per day to sustain this effort and must eat solid, proper food (not gels). Our first 9 mile loop was the Kingsway, Kingsgate, Stewartfield, Queensway circuit ably navigated by Sandra Reid with Charlie McDougall, George Stewart, Graham Ramage, Anne McLelland and Paul Rooney providing the Harriers' team for the first stage but supplemented by 3 or 4 from Springburn Harriers and numerous other individual runners (and the Buchanan children for the first few hundred metres!). This first stage enjoyed a stop for a bacon roll or two at Stewartfield Morrisons, not something we usually do on that loop!

The pack heads out of town on Shields Road

Stage 2 took us out on a big Auldhouse loop, taking in most of our old 10 mile race route plus some extra detours to get the miles in. There was a partial change in Calderglen personnel with Eddie Reid taking over navigational duty from Sandra whilst Charlie McDougall and many of the others carried on. Heading towards Shields Road, Charlie had an argument with a kerb resulting in a skint lip. A few hundred metres later Ben had his first injury scare of the entire challenge when something felt like it tore in his right quad. Fortunately one of the runners (Karen Leslie I think) is a physio and was able to administer road side treatment which amazingly completely solved the problem. Crisis over. At this point Jim Holmes arrived in his car direct from work and quickly joined the pack. However, Jim has become a slave to his Garmin and soon discovered that he had forgotten to put his Garmin on, so dropped out the pack, sprinted back to his car to get his Garmin and then leap frogged the pack in his car to join in again. Oh how Jim has changed in the last month since getting that watch for his birthday! By now the pack also had a lead bike in a yellow (Calderglen) jersey as the Howell children and dad Martin were in the pack.

Lead bike in yellow jersey brings the pack to lunch

Lunch stop was planned for about mile 15 and Sandra had agreed to pick up coffee and plain sandwiches for Ben. With perfect (unplanned) timing, Sandra arrived at the Kennels/Milwell junction where I was waiting with even more sandwiches and Tunnocks wafers (courtesy of Graham Ramage) just minutes before the pack came into view. A very high energy lunch was quickly consumed by all and there were a few more photo opportunities and discussions with passers by who were in complete awe of what Ben was doing. Then they were off again on the steep Milwell climb. Meanwhile I abandoned my car in Auldhouse, decided to forget my hamstring injury temporarily and ran back to meet the pack on Leaburn Road. Andrew Buchanan had also run out from Auldhouse to join the pack before they reached Leaburn (and Charlie was still going strong).

Lunchtime photo opportunity

We wound our way back around to Langlands via Auldhouse and picked up the trail race route along the end of Langlands Moss before doubling back to join the top end of the Glen. Ben was delighted to be running on a trail and promptly took off at surprising speed stinging the Harriers into action! The pack of 10 or so fully regrouped when we entered the old Glen trail. We still had a couple of miles to go to hit the required 26.2 miles and we were about to enter a very busy bank holiday Calderglen Country Park with dugs and weans everywhere! Rather than doing two circuits of the busy and narrow Torr Trail to finish, Eddie suggested we do one lap and then run out the park and around Colonsay Field to get the final mile in relative peace, so this we did, with young Ben Buchanan setting the pace, completing the 26.2 miles just as we emerged from the Glen onto the main park entrance. However, as Ben wanted to add a Garmin safety factor, we kept going for another 0.2 miles, finishing at the back of his van in the club car park.

A large spread of more high carb grub, teas and coffees had been prepared by Sandra, ably assisted by Kay, Anne and Lorraine. So we all retired to the Sports Club for a well earned refuel. A huge thanks to bar manager Laura for opening up early on her day off to give us access to the hall.

Ben was out on the route for about 5:50 but actual running time was around 4:50; that would be a fantastic pace on this tough trail even if you had not run 206 marathons in the preceding 206 days! Our own Charlie McDougall also ran the complete distance as did 5 or 6 of the other runners. Ben was as much in awe of Charlie as Charlie was of Ben. There was lots of mutual respect going on there. A special mention for one girl (Jan I think) who had set out to run about 6 miles, had never run anything like marathon distance before and ended up running the full route!

It was a privilege and an inspiration to meet Ben and be involved in a small way with this challenge. I know many more Harriers would have liked to take part but could not due to work and other commitments. However, Ben will be back in Scotland in the Summer so we do hope to join him on another of his marathons somewhere else around the country. In the meantime, please check out Ben's progress on his web site (http://www.the401challenge.co.uk/), Facebook and Twitter and don't forget to make a donation to the charity (see the web site for details) if you can.

Finally, thanks to all the runners for the many comments praising Calderglen Harriers and their contribution to the day.
Many more photos taken by Jim Holmes and Eddie Reid are in this album together with the few I took.

Alan