Centurion Hundred Hills 50k

Over the last 12 months I have spent a lot of time on the Pennine Way, either recceing the route or ‘racing’. I ran the Spine Challenger South in June and the Spine Challenger North (minus the last 7 miles 😥) in January. I basically covered the whole of the Pennine Way twice over, that’s over 500 miles of ploughing through endless bogs and muddy fields carrying a heavy pack. More hiking than running. Somewhere along that trail I decided I had done more of enough of that for now, and that it was high time for something different, something more runnable, but still on the trails. So my attention turned to Centurion Running, with a solid reputation for staging ultra races in the South of England. I decided to start with a ‘short’ one, the 50km Hundred Hills in the Chilterns (Oxfordshire, on the border with Buckinghamshire) on March 15th, which nicely fitted into the rest of my schedule for the early part of 2025. And so I found myself on the start line on a sunny Saturday morning in beautiful Stonor Park with 420 other runners.

I had stayed the night in a hotel in High Wycombe so just had an easy 25 minute drive to Stonor. On arrival at the park Centurion immediately lived up to its solid reputation: well organised car parking, smooth registration process and tracker fitting, friendly marshals, enough toilets. I picked up some items (more socks!) I had pre-ordered from the Centurion store which were waiting for me all nicely packaged up, saving shipping costs.

I had a quick walk around to take in my surroundings, loosen the legs and catch a glance at Stonor House. I have been here before, but we are talking almost 40 years ago when I lived in nearby Reading. I passed some time reading my book in the car, which is when we had the only rain of the day, a sudden shower which passed as quickly as it had appeared. Soon enough it was time for the race briefing by RD James Elson and then we were off at 9:00

I had done some homework on Power of 10 a few days earlier. I am by no means a fast runner but I do have a competitive spirit and like to challenge myself and do as well as I can in my age group. There were six F60’s on the entry list including me. Four women looked to be fair competition and potentially beatable. However, upon checking the last woman, Tara Taylor, I found she had some smokin’ fast times, including a 1:36 road half marathon only 2 weeks earlier. Clearly in a completely different league to me. OK, assuming Tara turned up (she did, and finished half an hour ahead of me) I would aim to be 2^nd F60 then. I am glad I checked in advance, so I didn’t spend 50k pointlessly dreaming of an age category trophy.

The race is called Hundred Hills for a reason. With 4400ft of elevation it is decidedly hilly, there are not quite 100 climbs, but when you study the elevation profile there are about 15. And they were pretty steep too. Apart from the climbs the course is very runnable, even I, who is possibly the worst descender in the universe, could run down the descents here at a good pace. A lot is in woodland, interspersed with paths through fields. There were quite a lot of gates and just a few stiles, but most were easy to negotiate, many were actually kissing gates which hardly held you up. The race was fully flagged so there was no need at all to use the gpx on my watch, except for one spot just after the Hambleden checkpoint where a crucial arrow had perhaps been removed and some runners ahead of me had actually gone about 100 meters too far along the road. They were just turning back saving me making the same error, and it was handy being able to double check the gpx there. We were very lucky with the conditions, mainly bone-dry underfoot, and no rain all day other than that shower just before the start when I was still sitting in the car. There was a chilly breeze so stretches out of the sun were cold and I was glad I was wearing my gloves, but the weather really was perfect for running. The previous two editions of this race had been very wet as well as muddy underfoot, so I lucked out here.

There were lots of friendly runners, I had a couple of brief chats on the way, but I was mainly concentrating on moving forward at the best pace I reckoned I could maintain for 50 hilly kilometres. Though I did manage to take in and enjoy the views too. The course was a figure of 8, so you returned to Stonor around the half way point. There were 5 well stocked checkpoints in total, 2 on each loop and Stonor in the middle, roughly one every 10k. I hardly stopped, I just grabbed fluids and fuel and continued on my way. Luckily for me Centurion had just commenced a partnership with Precision Fuel&Hydration so their products, which are my preferred ones, were stocked at the checkpoints (as well as Tailwind but I have never used that), so it meant I did not need to carry any fuel other than one emergency chew. Also no faffing with electrolyte tablets as they had the PFH electrolyte mix ready made. There was also plentiful coke which is my other drink of choice. Despite the brevity of my visits I did note though how well organised the checkpoints were and all the volunteers were ace.

As in a marathon things were getting a little tough in the later stages, there was about a mile and a half along a road at mile 24 where I was beginning to question my life choices, but I managed to keep running. As the finish became nearer my watch indicated an estimated time of 6:30 and I was keen to stay below that so I gave it some extra welly. This was helped by overtaking a woman in the last mile who looked like she could be 60 (she turned out to be an F50, sorry! but it can be really hard to tell) and I was super keen to stay ahead of her, so I managed to find another gear.

I was delighted to cross the finish line in 6:27:43, as 2^nd F60, and 40^th woman out of 108 who finished. The medal is lovely, I received a can of alcohol-free beer, and there was free hot food for all finishers too. I managed to have a brief chat with James Elson to say how much I had enjoyed my first Centurion race. His RD report of the race, as well as the full results can be found here. I met up with a woman I had recently got to know at a Tea&Trails event so I even had someone to talk to whilst eating my post-race food before facing the drive home. I am sure I will be back quite soon to tackle some more races in the Centurion calendar.