Lakeland 50 / UK Ultra Trail Championships

My preparation for this race was a mixed bag and for quite a while I was not even going to run it.

I ran the Ultra Mallorca Serra de Tramuntana 112k back in mid April  - Mallorca’s answer to Palma’s higher profile Transvulcania – and spent a long time recovering. This was the longest race I had done and still is, and I decided to rehab myself properly after it. There is the school of thought that a mile raced needs a day of recovery (67 days recovery in this case) and there are those who would run another race the following weekend. Different things work for different people. I erred on the side of caution and listened to my body and I quickly got use to the idea of taking it preeeety easy for a few months. I was also a bit disappointed with my performance in the race I realise in hindsight and I think this hampered my motivation for a while.

Besides the flat 6.5mile bike commute to work and back and the very occasional short jog, I did very little other exercise. I enjoyed having more time at home in the evenings after work. I did a spot of circuit training and had a mega week with Sof on the tandem cycle touring in Wales in and around the Hay on Wye literature festival.

Westbury White Horse Challenge with James Donald

It was well into June before I ran over 15miles in one push and did anymore than 25 miles a week again. It was probably the spectacular 3-4 hour night session on the trails with Guy Landon in preparation for his South Downs Way 100mile race that got me going once more. We skipped over trails that night in Cotswold fields flooded with moonlight and I surprised myself about how easy it all still felt. I allowed myself to make unfair comparisons with Guy (who already had over 100miles in his legs from trails that week alone!) and saw that I was moving pretty well. As I got into bed well after midnight, I had wildly inflamed welts on my legs from a mile of stinging nettles that we had waded through but I flirted with the idea of competing in the Lakeland 50 still, and trying to run it well. A few weeks later I ran to the white horse on the hill in Westbury and back with my running buddy James – 42 miles round trip from the abbey in Bath – and topped out that Sunday with my first 90mile week – almost all of them having been run on trails.

I felt released once the end of the school term came about with work out of the way for another era at least in the UK, and exciting preparations were afoot for our move back to Chile in mid August. The following Wednesday morning after breaking up and with three days still to the race, we made our way up to the Lake District from Bath. 

From our BnB in Ambleside, generously paid for by Sof’s visiting mum, I headed out, perhaps rudely, as soon as we got there. I wanted to recce as much of the route as possible and thought that if I took it easy I could make it the 10miles to the Wynrose Pass road crossing without putting too much fatigue into the legs. I used the Road Map pace notes that I had saved on my phone and found them worryingly fiddly but I don’t know what I was expecting from written instructions about footpaths over open fell - and really - they are very good indeed. Other runners had been making visits for months and had the route locked down. If I thought I was going to benefit from the same advantage as them from a quick read of the notes and the map before the race, I had another thing coming – do your recces kids.

Looking back nostalgically on Wednesday
recce night in the Langdale Valley

I got to the Wynrose Pass on the recce after a stella rundown off Blea Tarn through pine forests and fast, good track, skipping stepping stones occasionally over the meandering tendrils of the outlet brook. I felt fresh and invigorated and overwhelmed by the scale of the landscape now that I was back in the Lake District compared to the Cotswold Hills. I had rock climbed many times in my early 20s on the north faces of the Langdale valley that stand guard over the Old Dungeon Ghyll. That evening, as I climbed out on the steep sided valley to the south, I looked across at the gnarly crags. I had gazed at the same path I was on from belay ledges nearly ten years ago and had marveled at how steep it was and what it must be like to hike up it – I’m sure that if I had seen any climbers that Wednesday evening I would have wondered at how precipitous and exposed their own position was.

On Thursday Sofia joined me for another evening adventure from Wynrose to Tiberthwaite - the last aid station - and then onto Coniston. We walked most of the 5miles with its 500m of elevation but ran down the back of the climbs. We had done the same in Mallorca days before the race and it felt mega to be moving in the mountains together again.

Race day, with its 11:30 kick off was a calm build up with none of the headtorch eaten, mouth scolding experience of 1am porridge that accompany other such all day mountain endeavours. The race organisers by putting it at this time (with a touted 1.5% of finishers completing the course in less than 9 hours I had read the week before in Trail Running magazine) had every intention that the 50miler event would be run at night for the vast majority of people. There was therefore no reason to ram it forward into the early hours, which suited me just fine. I don’t like porridge anyway.

If I had known my who’s who within the goldfish bowl of UK ultra running, it would have been a moment of pant wetting excitement at that start line on Saturday. As it was though, I was blithely ignorant and chatted away to Damian Hall as you can see here in our moment of stardom for all the seconds inbetween 2:39 right up to 2:41. I did have the chance to wish Stuart Mills the best though– winner of the 100 miler last year – who I recognised from his blog I sometimes enjoy reading.

Off they all went and I sat in behind in about tenth place for the lap around the Dalemain Estate. The pack started to pull away and I decided to hold back and not try to match the sub 7:00 mile pace they were setting at this early stage. I fingered my Road Book nervously anticipating a long journey navigating by myself.

On the first proper chug uphill to The Cockpit, just beneath High Street, I was surprised to overtake Damain who was struggling with the heat a bit. He is a very seasoned ultra runner now (despite his ever more farcical claims at being otherwise in his self deprecating articles for magazines) and I wondered whether I was going well or pushing too hard. My breathing felt good though and my chest felt light; I had started my hat dipping strategy at every river crossing as well and as the water evaporated rapidly in the 26degree heat it cooled me beautifully. I had my big wrap around sunglasses on lock down setting and tried to keep my face relaxed too.

Howtown checkpoint came and went and I used my ‘party bag’ strategy for the first time; filling a ziplock bag with nuts from the aid station as I went through and then trying to get them down on the long climb back up onto the ridge and High Kop. I overtook Matty Brennan here, another Kiwi alongside Stuart Mills, who let me go saying ‘I can’t do hills’ – but it was not the last I would see of him.

Nuts in, water in, more water in, more nuts in. Top of High Kop.

The run off down to Haweswater was an aggressive pace as I was trailed through it and coached along very kindly by John Butters who knew the way. The banks of Haweswater was the heat trap that had been anticipated and I was low on liquids and high on anxiety about keeping hydrated. It was techy and rolled up and down the flanks of the hillside along a rock strewn sheep track that allowed none of the time to switch off that I had hoped for. As I closed on the Mardale aid station, the figure who had been gaining on me for the last 4 miles drew up alongside. Jo Meek.

'How you going?' I ask.

‘Oh, not so bad thanks. Do you think you could keep up this pace? Maybe we could work together?’

‘I dunnknow…I’ve got some rocks in my shoes and I’m very thirsty.’

I took these out at the aid station and I bet she was glad she didn’t wait. When I left, she was 200metres up the trail and was 4:30mins ahead by Kentmere - I never saw her again.

Eating had already settled in at that 1/10 perfunctory level of enjoyment that seems to be synonymous with ultra distance running. Peanut butter sandwiches were in the party bag now on the way up to Gatesgarth and as it steepened I did some housekeeping by getting three mouthfuls in.

Longsleddale valley next, where you have to push hard. The landscape is big and imposing; the tracks are rock strewn but demandingly runable. Kentmere comes after and there are Girl Guides with smoothies. I hit them, the smoothies that is, like shots lined up on a bar: one, two, three and young caterers stand by horrified.

‘It’s weird this running business ey?’ I say.

They nod, their woggles bouncing up and down in agreement, and spoon their lovingly made pasta into the maniacs food bag. I walk briskly out of the aid station and Matty Brennan jogs past me as I begin to gouge sweaty tomato stained carbohydrate lumps out of my party bag with bare hands.

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Kentmere is the halfway point and during the 7.3 miles to Ambleside, I try to have a bit of a look at myself and see what I am going to need to make it to Coniston as fast as possible. Water is still the number one priority judging by the yellow syrup I manage to squeeze out of the pipes as an extra piece of housekeeping. As well as this, my legs tell me they are a bit tight on the run off from the Garburn Pass when I broach the subject of there being 25 miles left : we strike a compromise and take small quick strides and stop to check the Road Book when confused to limit the damage of taking a wrong turn.

Troutbeck next,, then a contouring traverse down to Ambleside through dry stone wall flanked tracks and woods. In town it’s my team Chile support crew on the side of the road for high fives. 'Yes!'

‘Okay.’ I know this from here I think. I put the Road Book away very deliberately, open the taps just a little more and start to get the first dividens of those complex carbs from early on in the race, just starting to dribble through now into the blood stream. Fill me up! I’m coming home!

Skelwith, Elterwater, Chapel Stile. The Langdale valley yawns open again as it had done at the same time of evening the previous Wednesday. It’s very fast through here and you have to push on a lot because you know everyone else sure will be. I’m looking over my shoulder a lot like some kind of sponsored hero to see if anyone is sneaking up on me. I had seen Lizzie Wraith’s boyfriend Ed in Kentmere and he told me I was in sixth. I wasn’t sure. I had lost a place since then but had also overtaken Martin Cox who was limping along with an injury. I had a fair idea I was still in the top ten and I was keen to hold on to it for as long as possible.

At the High Tiberthwaite car park and last checkpoint the clouds have rolled in, the temperature has dropped and it’s threatening to get real nasty. That 'Trail Running' statistic about 1.5% of runners going sub nine is going through my head as it’s already 8:12 on the race clock and there’s 3.5miles to go with 385m of elevation. Ian Coreless is there snapping away and I tell him how much I like his ‘Ultra Talk’ radio show whilst taking on a reservoir of water to stave off the cramps and help sluice down the last push caffeine gels I have been saving. Open the flood gates.

The rain touches down on the climb out of the quarry and up to the Yewdale Fells, momentarily: before thinking better of it and saving itself up for the full onslaught an hour later. It’s only me up there on the plateau above Coniston and I can see I am not going to get caught before the winding descent to the finish. The track becomes a trail which become a path and then a road and I feel good and cramp free and stride out down into Coniston. Crossing the line I have to take deep gasping breaths as if I have just finished a 5k; so loudly did the crowds cheer in the high street and so enthusiastically did I push on. I finish in 8:55 and in 8th place. I'm pleased with that.

I spent the evening also feeling very pleased about finishing before the darkness and the rain which washes the car across the road on the drive back to Ambleside. Sofia and Consuelo and I eat good curry and I offend the mother in law by taking my stinky shoes off to examine my ballooning feet.

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Just before getting into bed as I walk across the BnB hallway in my dressing gown I hear shouts and screams and applause from the town. It’s midnight and raining hard still but I swap the bed wear for a waterproof and let myself quietly out of the front door into the now silent streets again. I walk back up the road to the centre of town and then down to the Ambleside aid station:  mile 34 of the 50 mile race and 89 of the 105 mile race. Bodies and coffee cups; bandages and ginger biscuits; damp socks and blister plasters stretch out, infusing steadily with the smells of deep heat and body odor in a gently shifting mosaic across the Parish Centre floor. This is live race coverage and it is the picture of determination and grit. I try to enthuse and pass out coffee but neither are really needed as their eyes are set on the goal of completing within the 24 hour time limit. I feel like an imposter into the private solidarity of the back-of-the-pack-runner and slink towards the door after an hour. I reflect back over the day on the way out and how my experience was over so much quicker than theirs and how I spent a lot longer looking at my feet than the views. I try to comfort myself with the thought that I had put in a really good showing and had even beaten some of the sponsored guys today.

‘Some of those guys get free stuff’ I tell myself! I fantasise about getting a free Cliff Bar through the post one day and let the Parish Centre door swing shut on the mountains of cake and ginger nut biscuits.

The Cotswold Relay Race 2014/ conversations with the inner black self-doubt cloud

School Sports Day is one of the greatest forums for excellence and humiliation that still exists for the C21child. This Tuesday I was on starting duty for the 100m end of day climax as well as the ‘long distance event’ the 800. Whilst a few select students awaited their event, plucking pensively at blades of grass, the majority of the school sprawled along the home straight, turning rosey coloured in the sun. 

What was unexpected, or I should say poorly remembered from my own childhood, was the level of self-doubt that was being expressed. ‘I can’t do it’ - ‘I’m going to vomit’ – ‘This is a terrible idea’ and ‘Everyone is way faster than me.’ As I gave them the starting orders, I admit that I envied my PE colleagues for the spell bond attentiveness that I momentarily caught them in. It was with callous satisfaction therefore that I dismissed desperate plea after plea, with each wave after wave of children who I mercilessly ‘Ready, Steady Goed’ through the start line. And with each protest, I began to hear echoes of the same self-doubt that I had heard just the previous weekend with a group of adults in a very similar situation…

The Cotswold Relay, in this, its 22^nd year, saw a record ninety teams of runners wiggle their way down the 100mile off-road route of the Cotswold Way from Chipping Sodbury to Bath Abbey. It’s not a traditional baton exchanging relay, as each stage has a predetermined start time - regardless of whether your runner has come in yet –with a mass start at the next chocolate box village every hour or so. This format allows runners to follow the race once they have completed their own leg. Inevitably spectators snowball in number in proportion to the pant wetting levels of anticipation experienced by the later runners who they voyeuristically turn up ‘to support.’

MId-week recce with Paul

A ‘recce’ run is de rigueur on a weeknight preceding the race. With another club mate Paul Griffiths, I scoped out a 12 mile leg that took in the infamous Cooper’s hill of cheese rolling fame, near Gloucester.  Questions were asked and eyebrows were raised about whether such a gradient was even runnable. Later the same evening, whilst rehydrating with a packet of crisps and a pickled egg, I could see these hills begin to reach mountainous proportions in my club mate’s mind and the sweeping curves morphing into vertiginous drops. Indeed the inner dialogue of self-doubt had begun.

The morning of the race we travelled in a bigger group in a Team Bath car and the excuses and the self-criticism really began. ‘My shirt is too floppy,’ ‘my leg is too hilly,’ ‘my body is too old,’ ‘my feet are too clumbsy.’ And yet all members of this chorus came in the top ten of ninety odd competitors over their leg. More on this in a minute.

The Cooper’s Hill leg is the fourth one. It’s everything  you can ask from a perfect trail run. Great views, good steep climbs, rutted rock strewn descents, fast open common, banked trails through woodland. At 12 miles in length it was enough time to get into the race and the pace was never going to be gut wrenching. I set off with the front pack which whittled down to a stretched out three in the first few miles with me at the back. I needed to keep visual contact as we had not had time to recce all of the route and I would lose time following the Cotswold Way signs otherwise. It quickly transpired that the others knew as little as I however and their double backing helped me keep contact a couple of times. I don’t like to run close behind others on trails and I would ideally keep a good 5 or 10 metres back so that I can see clear ground infront and plan my footfalls. This lasted for the grand total of the 45 seconds that I led the race where I enjoyed clear footpaths as we whistled down through woodland, weaving our way between meaty branches of Oak. I was quickly put in my place by Garry Hughes of Stroud AC, who seemed to have recced the second half and from mile 7 we didn’t seem him until the end.

Cooper’s Hill was always going to be that climb at the end of a run that you are measuring your efforts against and saving energy for and being a bit afraid of. The air temperature was rising outside of the woods but the soil was soft underfoot and we plunged regularly through cool air pockets and brushed against low hanging Beech leaves. I had Anthony Glover from Westbury Harriers in my sights in second place as we started up the path that contours – thank heaven – around the cheese rolling hill. On the recce I had run it at a manageable pace but as Anthony started walking, I walked it too. There is a bit to save here for another post (and lots of others have already expressed it well) that walking is a good tactical move in a race as you conserve energy and, here I think, I went  faster for it. So I reeled in Anthony a bit.

And then the end was coming and it was taps open. I managed to squeak past my man on a rocky narrow patch. Anthony looks like a really strong runner and he probably should have finished ahead of me if I hadn’t caught up when he stopped frequently to find the route.  I tried to run strongly up the next rise to put some distance between us…and to feel less bad if I did finish infront

The familiar closed in now from our Wednesday recce but I tried not to concentrate on it being over. Maybe in a road race when you are running for a time. But in the woods, on a dry sunny summer’s day in the middle of the Cotswolds it has got to be fun, at least a bit, or it’s not worth doing.

Garry Hughes was relaxing at the finish line with his first place bubbly in hand and looking very relaxed compared to the runners of leg 5 who had been ‘ready steady goed’ just minutes before. The day expanded from here into a glorious afternoon of clapping and cheering and manic driving between the remaining 6 stages to see all the remaining 600 runners off. At stage 7 Luke Sturgess-Durden handed me the starting horn after issuing his race briefing and then took his place with the rest of the runners. As I counted them down and then sent them off on a mid-afternoon arc around Dursley to Wooton under Edge, I even got to wear the starters’ sombrero: one of the entirely appropriate eccentric touches that Luke has added to his brilliantly restyled and idiosyncratic race over the last three years. And of course, 50 minutes later, with a grand total of two hours sleep the previous night (2hours more than the previous year he reassured me afterwards) Luke was the first runner home.

The one and only Luke Sturgess-Durden

Team Bath had 4 podium places by the end of leg seven. Other great runs were had by Dan Jones 1^st place on leg 2 and James Donald - 3^rd on leg 5. But as the afternoon drew on, it slipped away a little bit and when we reached Bath Abbey we finished in 3^rd of the ninety teams.

Prize giving for the Cotswold Way was at Bath Rugby club. Anxiety was completely absent and had long since dissipated amongst the leaf mulch of the Cotswolds. Pints were raised and runners from Birmingham to Bristol fell into leisurely conversation. Plans were hatched to run again next year and to see a different part of the Cotswolds over a different leg. The most prestigious prizes of the evening were the King and Queen of the Cotswolds: runners who have run the entire length in nothing short of ten years. It’s a good effort that, but then there’s always the Cotswold Century where you run the entire 103mile length in a oner!

There had been nobody really out there watching us, unlike at Sports Day. But there were undeniably a lot of nervous people lacing up their trail shoes throughout the day. This nervousness was aired in many of the shared cars en route to the start line no doubt. Telling others how little faith you have in yourself does seem like a good self-effacing, group therapy strategy for managing nerves. And if it is entered into lightly, it can be reassuring to know that other people are anxious too. Perhaps this nervous energy, if properly addressed, can even be productive if repackaged at the start line into something more broad minded and rational about the difficulties that lie ahead. Whatever race you enter however, it seems like it’s always going to be there no matter how experienced a runner you are. So remember those feelings in the pub, toasting your success and the pleasure you derived afterwards from giving it your best. Package them up, and fold them away neatly with your Cotswold Way t-shirt,  to be unpacked deliberately the next time the doubt cloud starts to roll in.