Rachel, one of my amazing crew at Winter Downs 200 wrote about the experience & has kindly allowed me to publish it here on my blog. It’s almost like the behind-the-scenes action from my own story!

Winter Downs 200, December 2023 

There was a kettle that plugged into the car. A boot-full of snacks and socks. A massive, forensically detailed spreadsheet with colour coding. So much to love even before you get to the bit about the absolute privilege of supporting an amazing human attempting a super-human feat. 

Thursday 14th December, evening

I leave work around 8pm with a request from Nikki to buy baby food on my way to the South Downs. Sadly baby food is not something the mini Tesco at Westminster stocks. 

The train from Waterloo is absolutely rammed but I can’t complain about standing room only when Ally has been on her feet for 36 hours already…

Queen Elizabeth Country Park. Mile 130, late night Thursday.

Nikki picks me up at Petersfield around 9.30pm – she’s already been on the go since early morning so there’s lots to catch up about. We reach QECP a couple of hours before Ally is likely to arrive so we take the chance to re-charge the car – and ourselves. It’s the first of several car naps; coats over our heads, alarm set, and a fitful doze interrupted by occasional ‘refreshing’ of the tracker in case Ally arrives sooner than anticipated (it wouldn’t be the first time…). 

As she approaches, I’m so excited to see Ally for the first time in the race, 130 miles in, an unfathomable distance. A headtorch appears in the distance – is it Ally? No, it’s a bloke. He looks exhausted. Another couple pass by, and then we see another light and hear the tap-tap of poles – yes, it’s Ally! I’m wearing fairy lights so she can spot us in the dark; Ally says: ‘So I’m not hallucinating, those fairy lights are real…’ 

I’m alarmed to hear she’s been hallucinating for a while – it’s the first time I’ve known her to do that. But then, it’s the first time she’s run this far and this long – it’s uncharted territory. It’s clear she isn’t in a good patch. She can’t get warm and decides to sleep in the back of the car – but she wakes up shortly afterwards dizzy and light-headed. We make her drink some orange juice and eat something, which seems to help – but I’m worried that we’re having to make her eat with 70+ miles to go. Having paced Ally a few times before, I know she (like many ultra runners) has sometimes struggled to eat in the later stages of a race and it’s the job of crew / pacer to try and force some fuel down her – but this race is so incredibly long, I wasn’t quite sure how we’d manage to keep her going if she couldn’t eat with 70+ miles to go. 

70 miles to go – that’s further than I’ve ever run, and she’s already done 130 miles, non-stop since yesterday morning. The magnitude of this never sinks in. 

Thankfully, she keeps the food down and rallies a bit with the sugar. It’s horrible seeing your friend suffer, although thankfully she isn’t bad enough that we need to make any safety-related decisions that she should stop. Both Nikki and I are worried, though we don’t say anything out loud. 

I don’t think the thought of stopping ever crossed Ally’s mind over the whole 71 hours. Not even at QECP, a definite low point, when she was physically shaking wrapped up in a blanket with a plastic cup of orange juice wobbling in her hands. 

When I first began crewing, I had never been crewed and wondered if the runner minds sacrificing a tiny bit of dignity and autonomy. Maybe – nobody wants to be spoonfed as an adult or seen in their raw and vulnerable moments. But they probably don’t realise that we as crew see them fighting the vulnerability, not the vulnerability itself, and how in awe of them we are. And we know we’re only witnessing moments; the real slog is in the solo miles between crew points on the trail – and due to the small, spread-out field, these miles were more solo than in most races.

After a longer-than-planned stop, the light-headedness passes and it’s time to go. Nikki makes Ally promise to sleep at the next Life Station, and we send her off into the night with some trepidation. But help was at hand! About 10 yards from our car, Stu’s van was parked up and Spencer was emerging from a nap. Impeccable timing. They agree to set off together and a weight seems to lift from Ally’s shoulders. With the company of a good mate, she looks instantly better. 

Nikki, Stu and I wave them off and set off to the next crew point in the early hours. 

Beaconhill Beeches. Mile 145, early hours of Friday morning.

Somehow Nikki and I take a wrong turn, which reduces our nap opportunity, but we are rewarded with seeing a shooting star fall out of the sky ahead of us on a deserted lane. Surreal and beautiful.

The crew point is little more than a muddy layby beside a copse of trees, just off a B-road. We park up in darkness beside a couple of other vans and manage a decent nap, setting the alarm to make sure we have time to prep the hot water for coffee and porridge. Dawn breaks – a new day. 

And who is this spritely, cheerful person running towards us out of the woods? Absolutely NOT the same person we’d anxiously waved off 15 miles previously. Smiling, moving well, looking a million dollars better in the rising sunlight, refusing to sit in the car and opting for the camping chair outside – a new day, a new woman! She devours her breakfast and is off before you can say ‘How many sugars in that coffee?’ The end of the SDW, another huge milestone in the race, is definitely beckoning. 

Shortly after Ally sets off, Spencer arrives (Stu is parked next to us, a recurring theme in this section of the race). Ally and Spencer had left QECP together with Ally definitely looking the worse for wear – but somewhere near the top of the next hill, she’d got her second (third, fourth, fifth) wind and outpaced Spencer. That’s our Ally…

Nikki and I pack up the breakfast paraphernalia and set off towards Winchester. I send a message to the friend and family WhatsApp group Ally had set up – her husband, parents and one of her best friends. Ally was not using her phone to save its battery and keep her focus and had asked us to keep her close circle updated on progress. Honestly, we couldn’t have sent an upbeat message from QECP without lying, so we said nothing. But it was easy after Beacon Hill Beeches. The photo, tired but resilient and ready to go, says it all.

Bishops Sutton. Mile 155, Friday mid-morning.

Wait, mile 155? Take a moment to let that sink in. I have done several 50-mile races – it takes a whole day and you’re knackered at the end. Now Ally has just one of those 50-milers left to go. But she’s already done THREE 50-milers, back to back, with no sleep. It’s Friday. Day three. She is incredible. 

Nikki and I, however, are feeling a little ragged after a broken night of car naps, and we decide to pop into Winchester for a proper breakfast. We also need to find Maccy D’s hashbrowns – food of champions – for Ally’s next stop. By the time we navigate the traffic and one-way systems of Winchester, time is tight – we both have too much experience of Ally moving faster than anticipated and arriving at crew points early… So we order takeaway breakfast from a delightful vegan/veggie cafe (with a proper loo, whoop), conquer the MacD’s online ordering system next door (don’t laugh – at TP100 it nearly defeated us. It turns out being in your 40s and lacking sleep turns you into a dinosaur unable to use a touchscreen to order a drink), and head back on the road to Bishops Sutton. 

The crew point is a village hall car park, in what feels like a fairly posh village; we see a few residents who must think we look disgracefully unwashed and scruffy. They are not wrong. There are two other crews parked up; we share water and vegan snacks with Kate, and fall in love with someone’s dog as we fire up the camping stove to boil water for food. It’s good to chat with other crew who understand the “hurry up and wait” role. We wonder how Ally will be – has the resurgence lasted?

It has! She appears on the horizon, tip-tapping down the street, moving well and looking strong. Again, she won’t get in the car but has a brief sit in the camping chair to eat and drink. 

A passer-by says ‘You look all set for a day’s hiking!’ If only they knew… 

Alton. Mile 166, Friday afternoon.

Nikki and I arrive in Alton in good time and decide we need some coffee and lunch to sober us up – we’re feeling a little giddy from lack of sleep. We wander around until we stumble across a little independent cafe – perfect. 

After lunch, we go for a leg stretch and find a second-hand bookshop with children’s books in the window. Irresistible – I quickly find a couple to buy. Behind the till, we see a Berlin Marathon certificate; the owner is a runner and soon we’re telling him all about our crewing day. We swap running tales, and I walk out with three books bought with a special ‘runners’ discount!’

Photo: Coffee in Alton. As Nikki said, at this point the camera isn’t wonky, we are.

Back to the car park as our parking time is up now, Ally is getting nearer and we want to be a little closer to the route. Crew could meet their runners at any point along the road into Alton, but it’s busy, Friday afternoon and approaching the end of school time and we can’t find a place to park. Eventually, we pull in at a job centre right next to a petrol station… We briefly wonder if it would be foolish to light the camping stove near the fuel pumps but do it anyway – the stove is the size of a postage stamp and we’re far enough away – but it’s a bizarre place to lurk and feels slightly wrong… In contrast to the last two stops, a posh village hall car park and a secluded spot in the woods, here we are slap bang in the middle of the high street, boiling water on the wall of the job centre car park to make instant noodles for Ally’s afternoon tea. 

Cooking noodles in the job centre carpark!

She appears, looking invincible as ever, though she asks for a couple of paracetamol and needs to put her feet up for a few minutes while the noodles noodled. I’m amazed at how compos mentis she is. She’s covered 166 miles and missed two whole nights’ sleep, and yet still she’s making perfect sense and seems a lot more together than Nikki and I feel. Such a champion. I feel proud to be a tiny part of her achievement, stirring noodles with a teaspoon whilst trespassing in the job centre car park.   

We send Ally off with a couple of messages from her friends and family. They’ve all been sending us encouraging words to read out to her – and some of them make me well up. She is fuelled by love and people believing in her – I am sure this, alongside her iron will, helps keep her going. 

Farnham. Mile 178, Friday evening 

Farnham, the start of the North Downs Way, is a huge milestone for all of us. We’ve all run on the NDW a lot, it goes past Croydon and feels like home turf. We’re getting closer! But the crew point, Waitrose car park, is again bizarre – or maybe we’re the bizarre ones by now. We arrive just as dusk is falling, and decide we need to get our heads down for a nap so that we can function for Ally when she arrives. We have a routine by now; find the quietest bit of the car park, engine off, any light sources covered with a spare jumper, chairs reclined, biggest coats muffled over our heads like a duvet. But… it isn’t to be. Turns out 5pm in Waitrose car park in Farnham on a Friday afternoon is not the place for forty winks. Neither of us can sleep, and in the end we go for a wander around the supermarket. I buy some fruit, feeling the need for vitamins, and then we decide to go for another meal.

It must sound like all we did on Friday was eat – breakfast in Winchester, lunch in Alton, dinner in Farnham. But the Thai meal we find in Farnham is a game changer. A crew runs on its stomach too; never underestimate the importance of looking after yourself when crewing so that you can look after your runner. The meal really perks us up and we head back for the night shift with a new lease of life. 

Sadly, the same is not true of Ally. She arrives in Farnham, night three, exhausted, fuming at some horses that need to get in the bin (?!) from somewhere earlier in the path, close to tears. Thankfully, we have a secret weapon. One of Ally’s best friends Helen has been messaging us about coming to meet her – no small feat after a day at work and with a toddler at home too, and the unpredictable timings for such a long race. But she made it just when she was needed. 

We bundle Ally into the car, and unbeknownst to her, Helen is waiting for her inside it with a homemade baked potato, beans and vegan butter. Nikki and I leave them to it, knowing the food and a friend will make a world of difference. Stu, parked nearby as ever, makes us a cuppa in his van and we stand watching the Friday night bustle of Waitrose and feeling as if we are from a different planet. 

About half an hour later, it’s time for Ally to go again. We change her socks – I’m sure I hurt her horribly trying to force her poor feet back into her trainers but she gallantly never says a word. And she’s off, tip-tapping through the winter evening shoppers incongruously but with all her inner strength shining. She didn’t want to get out of the car and go through another night, and we didn’t want her to either. I wished we could let her curl up and sleep – but we can’t. It’s our job to keep her moving. 

But truth be told, our part is very very small – Ally keeps herself moving. She’s eating well, changing kit when she needs to, together and in control, even when she’s knackered. I guess we are moral support as much as practical support. It’s a long, long time to be on your own and there are so few people in this race, and it’s so long, everyone is very spread out.

And now she’s heading for the NDW and the final leg. It’s clearly been a tough patch (it’s only later, reading her blog, we find out how tough the preceding section was) – but she’s in a better state in Waitrose car park than she’d been at QECP car park the night before. Time or state are not linear in an ultra this long.

Puttenham. Mile 184, late Friday night.

A sleepy village I associate with the early stages of NDW50. It’s about 10 miles into the 50. Here, it’s mile 184. Again, it blows my mind that Ally has been going for 184 miles now. It’s unthinkable. Even though we’re here, watching her do it, it’s hard to believe it is really happening. 

We park up on the narrow country road mingled with patrons of the village pub and a couple of other runners’ crews. Nikki decides she needs to have a little sleep so that she can drive safely. I am amazed how she’s stayed safe to drive and awake for so long. It’s an ultra for her too.

I keep an eye on the tracker, and get out of the car to prepare the hot water for a pasta pot as Ally approaches. Whether it’s the cooler temperature or slower pace, the duration or her experience, we’ve not had to force Ally to eat once since QECP. Every stop she’s known what she wants (often the hardest part – in some ultras, she’s asked us not to give her any choice, just to give her something she has to eat), and eaten it. It’s a great relief as there is no way she could have made it without fuelling reasonably well, and it’s a lot easier for crew when she wants to eat rather than us persuading / nagging / insisting. 

There are three thoughts in my head as I stir instant pasta: first, trying not to disturb Nikki so she can drive safely for the final legs; secondly, reminding Ally to do her Duolingo before midnight which is racing towards us (she’s on a Duolingo streak and we have strict instructions not to let her lose it); thirdly, finding the words to warn Ally that fourth lady is starting to close the gap on her, without dramatising at this stage. We know she doesn’t want information on relative positions unless it’s race changing and this isn’t – yet…

Somehow, we manage all of the above and she’s off again into the night. The sound of drunk people falling out of the pub has diminished and all we hear now is the tip-tap of Ally’s poles marching determinedly up the hill towards Newlands Corner. 

Newlands Corner. Mile 191

As we pull into the car park, I say confidently to Nikki: ‘The crew point must be down there, look, I can see another car parked up.’ We approach the car and it quickly becomes clear that car is not a runner’s crew and has a very different reason for being there in the middle of a Friday night… Not for the first time, I’m glad Nikki and I are together. 

We don’t even try to sleep here. We’re too busy watching the tracker anxiously, as the fourth woman continues to gain on Ally. I’d mentioned the gap closing at Puttenham, but understatedly – we agree that here, the final crew point but one, we’re going to have to be much more direct. 

It’s foggy and raining, and we wait for long minutes for Ally’s headtorch to emerge from the mist. One or two runners come by, and the fourth woman’s crew arrive – there seems to be a lot of them and they’re loud in the quiet of the night, but maybe that’s just because we’ve been on our own for a few hours. Ally is near the front of the race and the runners are spread out. 

We wait, refresh the tracker, wait, refresh, a torch appears – it’s Ally! She needs a 15-minute rest before she can engage with the final leg. It’s a good decision; we’ve learnt a “power down” for 15 minutes in silence can refresh her. Again, her sound decision-making after so little sleep is incredible. I meanwhile spend a couple of minutes getting tangled up trying to take Ally’s pack off her but actually clinging onto Nikki’s glove straps instead. Nikki tells me several times but the words don’t get through. My brain is blurry and I’ve just been riding around as a passenger in a car; I’m in awe of how clear-thinking Ally is after so many miles and so many hours without sleep. 

Nikki and I watch the clock as we stand in the car park (far from the dogging crowd) and Ally “powers down.” When 15 minutes have ticked by, Nikki gets in the car to have a word with Ally and explain why she has to dig deep now, whilst I refill her pack with a little more water and snacks. 

She’s not drinking that much from her bottles but she’s had a drink in the car, and it’s certainly not sweaty weather. I’ve never seen her run in so many layers, but I guess her body has zero energy left for generating heat. She’s been going for more than 60 hours now. 

And she’s off. We can hardly comprehend how tired she must be, but we know her competitive spirit will kick in now and if she has anything left in the tank, she’ll find it. I guess slogging up the hill to Newlands in the damp and mist must have felt like a low point but she’s had a power nap, and she’s still moving so well and so coherently and determinedly. We wave her off, willing her on to stop the fourth woman from closing that gap any further. We’re nervous, and we don’t know how she’ll do it, but we strongly believe she will.

Denbies Hillside. Mile 196, early hours of Saturday morning 

It’s a short hop for us to the last crew point thanks to having an engine and four wheels. There would be time for a little nap but we’re not interested in sleep now. We’re too engrossed in refreshing the tracker. Fourth lady appears to be stationary – or is it her tracker playing up? 

We’re also busy communicating with Martin, who has decided to get up super early and make a surprise visit. We tried to estimate Ally’s arrival time at this last crew point for him, but after 196 miles, she’s still got tricks up her sleeve and arrives faster than we expected. She has really powered through the last 5 miles, so, so strongly, whilst it’s clear now that the fourth lady has had a sleep stop and is no longer any threat at all. Ally is easily extending the gap again now, and she’s moving so well.

Ally emerges from the mist and doesn’t want to stop for more than a couple of minutes – a swig or two of a coffee and a snack before she’s off to the finish line. 

Before she goes, we read a couple of final messages from her family and show her a photo of Sammy, her dog, adorably looking like she’s waiting for her – and Ally’s ready for the off again.

Just as she is about to leave, Martin’s car pulls up in the nick of time and he can wave her off too. It’s a special moment, one of several surreal, middle-of-the-night but special moments that come back to you at odd moments later. But it’s seconds before she’s off for the very final leg. The three of us, Martin, Nikki and I, having crewed her for her first 100-miler a lifetime ago, cannot wait to see her cross the line in her biggest feat yet in just a few more miles. 

She is actually going to do it. It’s amazing. We always knew she could, and yet it is beyond words that now, finally, there is no doubt at all that she will finish.

Juniper Hall. Mile 200 (actually mile 204), Saturday morning, pre-dawn.

We arrive at an eerily deserted race HQ. With fewer than 100 runners finishing over a 46-hour timespan (!!!), there’s never more than one or two here at a time. Undeterred, we wait, still refreshing the tracker every couple of minutes and willing her on to the finish line. Finally, we see a torch appear high above on the hillside. It’s Ally! We’re so excited we can barely stand still as the headtorch light wends its way down, down, down, and disappears from sight…. Only to reappear round the corner and down the drive… So close now!

It’s the final few steps and she is running them like the star she is… And she is there! Across the line! It’s done! We can’t believe it and neither can she. No words, just a huge hug. 

204 miles. 71 hours and 7 minutes. Three days and three nights of constant, relentless, persistent moving forward. Impossible to comprehend, and yet she’s done it. 

For us, it’s been a long couple of days, but we’ve had the easy roles – car-napping, lunching, tootling around in a warm car with the fun of seeing and supporting Ally every few hours / miles. We’ve seen, and shared in a little of the ups and downs – but a tiny fraction overall. We were honoured to be behind the scenes helping where we could, and trying not to hinder, but it’s 100% Ally’s story and Ally’s achievement. She had the love and support of lots of friends and family, plus quite a lot of sugary coffee from us – but every single step was her own. Hundreds of thousands of steps. There aren’t enough superlatives. 

Well done, Ally, and thank you for letting us share a little bit of that epic performance with you. You’re an inspiration.