Volcano Ultra Trail 80k - Chile - 6th December

Volcano Orsono sits brooding on the northern fringes of Chilean Patagonia. Glaciers hang preposterously from its upper, impenetrable flanks, occasionally calving-off and trundling down the lower skirt into the surrounding lakes. Ancient Mapuche legend tells how the local Huilliche people tied up a god and left him exiled on the volcano. Since then it appears that no-one has been back. 

A few trails do weave half-hearted inroads into the mountain but quickly fizzle out altogether. Beyond, lie virgin beds of verdant moss and tongues of once-molten lava and scree. An hour and a half into the 50mile event, at 4:30am, it became obvious, however, that this lack infrastructure was not a concern of the race organisers. Wherever you saw those reflective strips, that’s where you were going. 

I had followed the markers out onto what I began to sense was a long narrow ridge, covered in loose volcanic scree. My head-torch revealed nothing to either side. The moon was high though and led me further out onto an increasingly thin and windswept areté. The thin reflective strips stopped. At my feet, the scree stopped too, replaced only by the hollow sucking sound of air being pulled violently into a precipice.

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The ultra scene in South America, especially Chile right now, is being shaken up by a Richter ‘9’ earthquake. This October, in the surrounding cordillera of Santiago, the first 100mile distance was run at the North Face Endurance Challenge. Patagonia will also get its first 100 at the Ultra Fiords in April. The end of the calendar is firmly bookmarked with the legendary 'Andes Infernal' which records the highest altitude of any running event on the planet at 17,795 feet. From the summit of El Plomo, competitors must then descend to the thick air at 10,000'. These events are being made possible by shorter races that are held simultaneously, which are pulling in the crowds, and developing the sport at the grassroots level. (The VUT this year additionally held 10, 22 and 40mile races.) 

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I narrowed the beam and stared way down into it. One of these markers had blown off course and beamed fluttering back at me, from fathoms below. But then I saw another. And another deeper still. And then, like a morbid joke you shouldn’t laugh at, I got the sense of humour of Chile's Volcano Trail. And plunged interminably into it.

Dawn came, and with this, the realisation that we would be blazing new trails over the majority of the 50miles. The 14,000’ of ascent and the loose cheese graters underfoot added to the challenge. This race also involved your hands a great deal: on your knees, pulling on ropes, clawing at rocks. And then in the later stages, well, with them just spread out wide across your face in despair. After sunrise, swirling shrouds of cloud swept in. The dry riverbeds of antipodean summer, that carved down from the summit, were obscured again. Their walls of loose rock and sand reared up unexpectedly once more, bringing you to your hands and knees.

This is still most definitely a running race, though. It’s a technical and highly challenging one, which explains why the field was so spread out and only 64% of the 50mile runners finished. In the men's race, the internationally successful Argentine - Gustavo Reyes - took first place after a very close battle with his North Face teammate, Enzo Ferrari. In the women’s race, Chilean hero Marlene Flores beat the Uruguayan - Andrea Fabiana - to top of the podium. Undoubtedly next year we will see even greater depth in the elite field. 

Whilst it’s not a race for PBs, the VUT is all there. It’s extraordinarily creative and has that rare flavour, like a good spicy Chilean Pevre, of something dangerously refreshing. If you do head down here to run it, you might well get scared and you might not know if you are going to finish. But when you make that same step into the precipice at 4:30 in the morning, you will be going very deep into a South American adventure. And you will be smiling. 

1st place male  - 10:30:31 - Gustavo Reyes                                     (North Face, Argentina)
2nd place male - 10:52:37 - Enzo Ferrari                                          (North Face, Chile)

3rd place male -  11:25:46 - Fernando Etcheverry                            (Chile)

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6th place male  - 11:53:19 - Matt Maynard                                       (TBAC, UK)

1st place female  -  12:36:25 - Marlene Flores                                 (NorthnFace, Chile)

2nd place female - 13:00:33 - Andrea Fabiana Montana Laudisio   (Uruguay)

3rd place female  - 13:43:56 - Fernanda Andres                              (Argentina)

Autumn Trails in Boulder Colorado

Musical Pairing - click here

I hitched a ride out of Jackson Hole from a stoplight on the outskirts of town. It been hailing whilst I had been waiting, and the windscreen on the jacked up pickup slowly began to mist up. 

The snow was close and it was time to get out of Wyoming and get as far south as possible. I had fallen out with the bike which bobbed around in the rear view mirror now, accusingly, from it’s precarious position on the bike rack.

Pete Maniaci was driving 600miles in my direction and he said he would take me all the way with him. I was off the Divide trail after a month in the mountains and now sitting there in the sprung sits, pulling the grey smudged scenery towards us at 100km/h, it felt easy. The day slipped away and we drove on, adjusting our conversation to the time that spread out for hundreds of kilometres infront of us.


In the early hours of the morning we crossed the state line and I stepped out into Colorado for a toilet stop with the engine rumbling away behind. I had left my shoes in the car and my wallet. I looked over my shoulder into the blinding headlights towards the invisible driver and imagined the pickup rolling away for a moment. And what I would do next.

But the headlights burned steadily through the darkness until I climbed back in. And we drove on.


I took possession of the car in Denver the next morning and promised to drop it off in Boulder for Pete who was flying out to a job in Santa Fe.

I spent the night in the Downtown streets exploring the heady dive bars and playing pool with heavy drinking strangers. It was enough to remind me of how little I had missed. I shook it off over the first few kilometres of the Flatiron Mesa Trail the following day and my first run on the American continent.

I shared my reflections so far on Boulder’s Trails that evening with  Simon from the running store after he caught me idling with Ultrarunning magazine and invited me into the back room for a beer. The weight of responsibility for explaining Boudler’s story and the runners it has produced fell heavily on Simon as he detailed the achievements of individuals and created a picture of this town at the foot of the mountains as a hub for training and serious endeavour.
Two more days of adventures on mountain trails and then I made the journey up into the Nederland ski area. I walked up narrow gravel roads from the bus stop to the remote house of Paul Maude; surrounded by limber and lodgepole pine - shrouded this evening in a cool Autumn chill.


Further still from Denver, this household runs in synchronicity with the passing day rather than artificially continuing it with electric light bulbs. I interrupted their routine however for an hour or so as we stood talking. Paul, his housemate Jenny and I, took quiet pleasure in welcoming mutual strangers into our lives over hot tea in the dim light of the final dregs of the day.


And then with the light again, Jenny and I were out of the house and into the morning, driving deeper into the Eldora mountains and towards the Great Divide. ‘Lord Huron’ played on the stereo and it was a moment where the music not just enhances the experience but describes it.As the sun came higher and the road ended, we worked ourselves into a jog in the thin air, and the deepening snow. After an hour or so of effort we had climbed above the tree line to a desolate lake at the foot of a startlingly steep ridge that led the final few hundred feet up to the Divide. Hunkering down beneath a rock, we put on more layers and considered breaking trail up to the high point. It felt good to be out - to be feeling the cold - to be in the Rocky Mountains - to feel comfortable in the surroundings. It felt good too, to have conversation again. We saved a brave face adventure on a slippery icy ridge for another day and ran instead down the valley again, wooping and breathing in the steadily thickening air. 

The Great Divide - A thousand miles from Banff to Yellowstone - September 2014

Words at CrazyGuyonaBike

And a video story below

Strava Games

When I was much younger, but still old enough to know better, we used to play a game involving bicycles and trespassing on private land. We would head out from my parents' house to the top of a hill in Kent somewhere and pick a point on the horizon. We would then spend the rest of the afternoon trying to get from our starting location to our chosen one via the most direct and uncompromising line possible. Why we took bicycles I do not know. More often than not we would spend far more time carrying the bikes than riding them; passing them between one another, over fences and prickly hedges. I have memories of lying in wait on the margins of fields, studying the movements of agricultural vehicles and industrious looking farm wives hustling around hen pecked courtyards. When the moment was right, we would make our move and dash out across the prohibited expanse before diving for cover and beginning the process all over again. Hours would pass in this way. And we thought we were ever so clever, sneaking around, going where we knew we shouldn't. It was our game and we played it with all the zest and enthusiasm of children experimenting with the forbidden pleasures of the adult world. We called it 'Ultimate Bearings.'

About this time, we started an afterschool road running club on Wednesday nights. The official aim was to train for a mountain marathon in the Brecon Beacons, Wales (which we did go on to subsequently complete and remarkably win!) But what kept us meeting midweek I think was the same feeling of rebellion that we enjoyed in our game with the bicycles. We would always run with our tops off you see - 3 or 4 scrawny boys bouncing along the A21 trunk road in rain and dusk - and we revelled in every disapproving honk of the cars that passed us. 

Recently I have discovered a new game. It doesn't grip me in the same enchanting glow of merriment as these other childish adventures but it does have a similar feeling of miscreant pleasure and perhaps also of the absurd. Strava - (if you haven't heard of it yet then some would say you've never been on a run at all - "if it's not on Strava it doesn't count") is the most recent way I have found to satisfy those unfortunate penchants for naughtiness and narcissism that have hung on from years ago. 

This App. offers the user the ability to create a 'segment' of a completed run which they believe to have been particularly taxing and which they ran well. This can vary from a 400m sprint section or the entirety of the session. They can then share their stats online, complete with a map, so that others can find it and give it a try. This is a great benefit for runners visiting new cities or trails as they can just follow a local runner's route. Anyone subsequently completing a 'segment' is automatically ranked (see below) against those who have already completed it. The current leader holds the Tour de France borrowed title "King of the Mountain!" until that is, someone comes along and knocks them off by going even faster.

'The Eiger Downhill' is an off-road 'segment' above the Roman spa town of Bath. It is the last in the line of a hundred miles of hills that mark the Cotswold chain. Earthy smells of agriculture and cattle jostle here with the quaint, polished chic of 'Aquae Sulis.'  The slope angle makes for a real rib rattler and the line is littered with tussocks of grass and rock which haven't seen a plough since the tree clearance. To engage in combat, the runner needs to bring the requisite tools of recklessness and a strong sense of balance. And as they descend, they must continuously evaluate how to draw on these competing resources: risking ankle crunching leaps of wild faith for potentially sliding downhill on their face. It is not for the faint hearted. 

So on a warm Sunday evening, my running partner and I weaved our way through the tourists and wafts of real ale and roast dinners and climbed out of the city to have a look at it. We ran it once downhill as a practice to find the best line. And then we disengaged the brain and went for it. Whilst his GPS device, to his great frustration, didn't work mine had me down as "King of the Mountain!"

Some call this kind of session where you go out deliberately to snatch a record: 'Strava Bombing' - others might call it an act of flagrant self publicity and adoration. Either way, the world would be a pretty sad, and serious place without a bit of fun like this ever so often: and after all, it's probably a whole lot better than trespass and partial nudity. Relatively speaking.

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.

Beacon Batch Fell Race, a pint of Doombar and a bag of chips

On a balmy midweek adventure Team Bath made a raid to the Mendips to try our luck in the Beacon Batch fell race.

It's never nice having to try super hard from the gun and with this 5mile course being the shortest by a good 8miles that I had ever put a race number on for, I knew it was going to be a right old lactic acid festival.

2.5miles up, 1 mile flat and then 1.5miles to drop like a stone to the start.



Nervous runnners anticipating the 300% heart rate spike
 

There had been some top Team Bath banter in the car with the insatiable Andy Mullett on the way over. With the threat of worsening piss taking on the way back, and forfeiting a pint and chips in the pub I decided I better put on a good showing.

The hard and fast and relatively short distance event that is Fell Racing is a predominantly Northern spot. This is because Northeners are generally hard. Fast as well. Yes and maybe short works too.

And once we were off it didn't fail to prove anything less than the body mutilating exercise I imagined it to be. Elbows are used in this event as bargaining tools to crowbar yourself into a marginally preferable water gunnel on the single track byway we started up. Views are not savoured; they are slobbered over. Descents are not a rest; you must fall down them.

We gathered in the TBAC troops at the finish line and gave a rousing cheer to our successes before toasting them further at the prize giving where I picked up a nice little bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon for my second placing. Tom took the much more topical prize of a football for his strong showing and 1st V60. New heights of inappropriateness were had on the return journey from this successful raid and it was late Tuesday night that we arrived home to fall asleep thinking about being proper fell runners; to one day compete  in such revered races as the Grasmere Senior Guides fell race where they run so fast downhill that they vault the dry stone walls.... Drifting off. Counting them as they come. One Northern hard man. Two Northern hard men....Three Northern hard men....Four............

BEACON BATCH FELL RACE 17 JUNE1 0:34:03 POTTER, Adam BrisOC JM
2 0:35:18 MAYNARD, Matthew TBAC SM
23 0:41:40 HUTCHISON, Tom TBAC V60
51 0:46:12 WATSON, Nick TBAC V50
60 0:48:00 MULLETT, Andy TBAC V50

A week on the run - Sardines for breakfast

Monday

I have less than 6 weeks left until the Lakeland 50. Ever since the Mallorca Ultra I have been putting my feet up really and this week I decided that, if I am going to give it a go in the Lakes, then it's now or never.  To get the sessions in I took full advantage of the commute to work run. I am increasingly appreciating the pleasures of this at the moment. In understanding the satisfaction of the commute to work run, the folowing formula is vital:

Time lost to running = normal commute time - running commute time.

In other words, the only commitment of time spent running is that spent over what you would normally have spent sucking on someone else's exhaust fumes in traffic. In some urban instances I can imagine that this time could be close enough to 0mins!

 

Anway.....Monday's run was a good blast over the Cotswold hills from Bath via the long distance footpath, up to Kelston Round Hill and then a fantastic steady descent from the ridge to North Stoke with views to the south of the Avon and the Mendips beyond. I arrived for that endorphin drenched shower just in time. I then rushed into a 8:30 meeting to discreetly see my way through a tin of recovery sardines and rub the welts from stinging nettles that were just coming up nicely.

Tuesday

 

Celebrating James' bday at the Pultney Tavern

Tuesday was track night! After a nice little warm up with the kids at school at Athletics Club and then a balmy ride home on the route 4 to Bath it was up to the club for some speed! 24 x 100m reps in 4 sets of 6, with 3 minutes rest, and 100m jog ons between each 100m within the set. Blimey. Then it was Paul King's core class which is always a big gurning session. After this we needed cake and lots of it. That's my big training tip for this post really...oh and to take advantage of 2for1 night on food at the Pultney Tavern on the road that the Bath Half starts on. 2 portions of seafood linguini and a pint of Otter- bosh!
 

Wednesday - is double day!

I hadn't run a double for over two months and so I took a pretty straightforward 10k route along the canal path to work and then back home again. Some tightness in the achilles after all that springting last night but it felt good to be clocking up the week's miles and drifting along with the pollen seeds in the pre 7am coolness.

 



Hot air balloon top left and Keynsham  village church barely visible right of shot on the horizon

 

Thursday

 

Just the usual bike commute to work. Gotta get that balance right!

 

Friday

 

Homeward bound on Friday - Kelston Round Hill in my sights top left of shot

 

Ran a solid double today starting with a really fresh morning session through the wheat fields. Explorative shoots of brambles and ferns are trying to build bridges across all the footpaths at the moment. The scratches they leave are worth it for the variety they provide to otherwise tame footpaths. Popping out of one of these verdant tunnels I run into some rowers who are getting their boats out of the water at Saltford. They too are rife with that early morning post exercise glow. I loop around on the way home to take in two good Cotswold climbs: up to the Roundhill first and then down to Wooley before climbing up to Little Solsbury Hill via Swainswick.  I clock 55 miles by the end of Friday with plans to push it out to 70+ at the weekend.

It's suprising that Strava says I got so much in. But those work miles are really the way forward I think. You definitely stick it to the man like this. Just don't let on to him how much you are enjoying yourself!





The last time I watched the oggle box....

 

My fake ID arrived in late 2002. Thereafter I became 2 ½  years older and, for a short time known at some doors in SE London as ‘Matt Blackwood’ – but more on that later. The Friday night before it arrived however, I would have watched my last evening of telly for a very long time.

 

Robot Wars followed the Simpsons back then at about 8 o’clock. Red Dwarf next, then Never Mind the Buzzcocks and finally Have I got News for you. If I could feign interest through this last one then I would sometimes be rewarded with 30 minutes of unadulterated ‘Eurotrash’ titillation once the parents had gone to bed. GTA Vice City had just come out on the PS2 and if the night’s entertainment could still not satisfy a 16year old’s hot blood lust, a killing spree in Downtown Miami followed by some pixilated simulated backstreet sex in a comically bouncing Buick would round events off nicely. Yes, that was probably how it went down the last night that I stayed in and watched television.

However for more than a decade now I have, until recently at least, led a clean living, non-television owning, bike riding, X-Factor scorning, right on hippy lifestyle with broad brush assumptions about the kind of people that spend their lives glued to the idiot box. Before the downward spiral began, a  forthright friend of mine remarked how he can tell he'll get on with someone if “they don’t own a telly” - and I probably laughed. It is a mystery therefore how I went from an irregular and recreational user of Net Flicks, to a Breaking Bad junky; looking for a hit at any given hour of the day or night.

I have been clean for about 48 hours now – but not through any self-control – I just got to the bottom of the season 5 barrel.. So why did I end a ten year televsion fast for Breaking Bad? I think its because it's got that voyeur element of computer games and late night soft porn. Walter White is that Everyman character who cuts loose in a way that we would do  if we were less morally scrupluous....or spent less time watching TV.