This weekend was my 100th 'official' marathon, as per the rules of the 100 Marathon Club. I've known about the 100MC since my 2nd marathon, where I saw an older lady wearing a t-shirt that said "100 marathons" on it and asked her if she had really, actually run 100 marathons. She replied that she had, and in fact, this was her 237th marathon. My mind was blown.
But I didn't seriously start thinking about getting to 100 until after I finished my counties challenge in 2022. At that time, I'd run the marathon distance 100 times, but I was including runs I'd done on my own, I was 'double-counting' 55 mile races as 2 x marathons and was also including races that don't officially qualify e.g. ones like Escape from Meriden with no set distance. When I counted up how many official marathons I'd done, it was only 56.
As I got closer to 100, I wanted to find a special way to mark my 100th. I saw the Supermarketathon advertised while we were away skiing. It was the first of its kind, being held in a Tesco Extra in Bridgend in Wales. It involved going up and down the travelator, round the shop, and round the car park. Fancy dress was encouraged. This was my kind of race. I managed to get a spot, frantically refreshing the browser on my phone at the dinner table on holiday (sorry Ben)!
Not long later, I realised that if I got a move on, I could make it my 100th marathon, so after some bargaining with my coach - funnily enough, cramming 6 marathons into 6 weeks is not ideal training for a 135 mile hilly trail race in September! - I cracked on.
Which takes us up to Sunday! I obviously had to join in with the fancy dress so after scouring the internet for suitable items-you-might-find-in-a-supermarket costumes, I settled for a packet of Rice Krispies. I wanted to be able to run in it (my strawberry costume from Milton Keynes was very funny but a bit of a nightmare practically). I enjoyed all the comments from "Snap crackle and pop!" to "You need a pint of milk with that!" to "I've seen lunch and dinner, now here's breakfast" on the way round.
I also wanted to bring a proper cake to celebrate with. To celebrate finishing my counties, I decorated a cake, but this time I wanted something bigger and better. I'd seen one I loved back at my 21st marathon, the appropriately named Piece of Cake, and used that for inspiration. If Helen is reading, it ended up looking a lot like yours, so I hope you consider imitation the sincerest form of flattery!
Making and transporting this cake from London to Wales during a heatwave was pretty stressful, but with Ben's help, it arrived in one piece and looked pretty good. It also all got eaten which I was delighted about given it served 60-70 people.
Ben and I travelled up the night before and stayed with family in Aberdare. The event didn't start until 4:30pm because it had to wait for the Tesco to close... which is a very weird time to start a marathon. Many people will probably be horrified to hear I had 2 portions of a massive roast dinner at lunch time at my sister-in-law's house, but it was actually perfect (especially as 'dinner' turned out to be a Filet-o-Fish at 11:30pm). It was lovely to manage a flying visit and a bit of Welsh countryside pre-marathon too!
The race briefing was held inside the Tesco foyer, with the Race Director Rik giving the briefing over the store tannoy, which was just hilarious. The most critical rule was absolutely NO running on the travelator - and I didn't see a single person break this rule all day, which was wonderfully in the spirit of the event.
We all filed outside the shop to begin our many laps. It was 48 laps for a marathon, and I had the idea that if I took a list of all the marathons I had done, I could think about two every lap, to kind of mentally run through my entire 100 marathon journey. In fact, some laps this was quite difficult because I was chatting, other laps I was distracted and forgot, but whenever I did do it, it really made me smile and brought back a lot of happy memories. One of the marshalls commented that I was always smiling, but it was because she was on a quiet bit of the course where I was recalling happy memories of 10-and-a-bit years of running!
Red Bull were sponsoring the event and had a huge inflatable arch, plus a DJ outside the shop. The atmosphere at the start line was fantastic, it was like a giant party:
There were loads of great fancy dress costumes. I've included a few here but there were absolutely loads. The girl in the shopping trolley rightfully won the competition, her outfit was absolutely amazing. I honestly don't know how she did it, apparently it took her 50 hours!
The first lap of the race was completely bonkers because we all set off at once, so of course there was a queue to get on the traveletor and around the narrow bits of the course. It was just so funny and silly.
I also took a video of my first lap around the top floor of the shop. It's quite a short loop but it got really hot up there so this was enough. As the race went on, people spread out more, and people doing shorter distances finished so it was much quieter than in this video towards the end.
The first few laps were just settling in, getting used to the route and the weirdness of it all. It was a mild, sunny day, not a heatwave but not raining either, ideal conditions in fact.
There were marshalls at every corner and also chalk arrows on the floor. Usually in these kind of races, the marshalls stick around for a few laps and then disappear as you know the route. I was expecting that to happen in this race too, but to my surprise, loads of them stayed there for the entire race, shouting encouragement every single lap. I don't think I've ever said "thank you" so many times in 5 hours in my life! It was pretty impressive.
I had decided in advance that I would stop and cut my cake pretty early on, because I figured lots of people would stop after 10k or half marathon and if I waited until the end, there'd be nobody to eat it. So I stopped after 7 or 8 laps to cut it and take some photos.
Ben kindly sliced it up and laid it out for the runners to help themselves to, and I saw it gradually decrease each lap until it was all gone by the end - perfect! Ben had planned to go to the cinema while I was running, but the timings didn't really work out and so he decided to just hang out in the Tesco car park for most of it, occasionally running half a lap around the car park with me so we could chat.
The race went on. I found people to run with and chat for a lap or two, I still found being in the store really funny, I took loads of slightly crazed selfies.
Here's a nice 'official' one:
The marshalls in this race were absolutely amazing. The marshall at the top of the travelator, who I found out later was called David, had a loudhailer and called out announcements to people in the shop. Everything from "no having fun on the travelator" to "no breathing in and out on the travelator" and "no stopping in the stationary section". It made me smile every time I heard him. On one lap, he announced, "no smiling on the travelator" on my way up the travelator, I objected saying,
"Come on, surely not?" on my way past, then after my lap, as I went
down, I heard "No Rice Krispies on the travelator" - it absolutely made me howl. Too good!
There was also Dog
Marshall with a beautiful and endlessly patient hound in the corner before the main entrance, "well done
Breakfast" marshall in the far corner of the car park who said this to me every lap for about 30 laps, I told her I was thinking of changing my name to 'Breakfast' as I'd got so used to it!
There was a super-enthusiastic marshall with her jelly sweets who was so happy whenever I took a sweet and was almost as excited as I was for me to finish. And there were the three guys who cracked jokes, shouted encouragement and kept everyone cheerful at the car park mid-point. There was also a lady in the dark corner near the clothes recycling who was quietly motivational for literally hours on her own. And not forgetting the lovely gang at the aid station, and all the work done behind the scenes organising.
All of these marshalls stayed put for between 3 and 6 hours. It was absolutely unbelievable and definitely part of what made this race so special.
The race went on. My friend Steven messaged me and said, "Are you a box of Rice Krispies?? (Not a sentence I ever thought I'd send someone)". Ben told me I could log onto the tracking app to find out how many laps I'd done, which was handy as I'd lost count hours ago and my GPX was going crackers in the shop, it looked like this by the end. The laps were only 0.55 miles each!
The sun was starting to set but I was still having a great time. The DJ came into her own in the last hour or so and was pumping out some tunes and I knew I was going to finish comfortably, so I just settled into enjoying the last few laps.
The final lap arrived and I crossed the finish line of my 100th marathon in 5 hours 19 minutes, just before it got dark. Ben took a finish line photo:
Shortly afterwards, it was time for my 100 Marathon Club presentation. When you join the club, they have a lovely tradition that someone from the Club (in this case the Race Director, Rik) presents you with your official t-shirt. Rik had the great idea to do my presentation at the bottom of the travelator whilst the race continued in the background. He made a lovely speech, informed me it had been 10 years, 2 months and 26 days since my first marathon, and gave me a selection of lovely goodies. I knew about everything except the special 50 counties patch, which I had literally just earned THAT DAY for completing my 50th different county in the UK. It was such a lovely and special moment, made all the better by the bizarreness of it happening in Tesco!
** I will upload the video here as soon as I can **
As ever, I had written a few words which I read out and the assembled company including multiple 100 Marathon Club members all clapped. I did forget to mention that my total distance to run these 100 marathons is 3003 miles, which is 383 miles further than is technically required, or an extra 4 miles on every marathon!
We said our goodbyes and headed back to London. Ben kindly did the driving. We were amazed at how many Welsh people were on the M4 at 11:30pm! Finally got home at 02:30am. Luckily I had the day off today, poor Ben had to go to work!
MASSIVE THANK YOU'S
To Rik and his team for organising and hosting such an epic race and for all the trouble you go to make 100th celebrations special. It's why I wanted to have my 100th with Phoenix
To Bryan from the 100 marathon club who kindly spends his free time checking everyone's marathons and counties to make sure the spreadsheet is right (surely a thankless task)
To the marshalls (again) you were the best marshalls ever!
To all the lovely people I've met through running 100 marathons - it has been a huge source of joy
To Ben and my parents for their patience and tolerance of my obsessions!
To Tesco Bridgend for permitting this event, even though I'm sure there must've been many corporate hoops to jump through. It was honestly up there in the top 10 days of my life! If anyone reading cares to make a donation to their fundraiser for Help for Heroes,
here's the link
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