Old Dominion 100 Mile

This race was designed to be the second step in training & experience towards the UTMB100 in August. Rocky Raccoon was a good way to learn about running 100 miles but climbs totalled 5500 feet over the 100 miles, as opposed to UTMB which has 30,000. Old Dominion at 14,000 feet has a few monsters but enough rolling road to make them bearable. As the second oldest 100 miler in the States, set in beautiful Virginia countryside i'd expected a deeper field but there weren't that many of us. I flew into Washington and stayed a night with Frank, Chelsea and their horsedog Winston who tried to eat my bag. The next morning we got up, ate some hotdogs and scrambled eggs & Frank dropped me back to the car rental place at Washington.

The next day I drove out to Woodstock and checked in to the Holiday Inn then went to the Fairgrounds where the race started to register for the race. They weighed me in (if you lose or gain too much during the race they pull you out) and I loaded up 7 drop bags with packets of cheese and bread rolls. I put things like burgers and cheese in drop bags gels and energy bars taste like sh*t and I need the real food. I ended up talking at length with a guy called David Snipes who had run OD 4 times before and really knew his stuff. After the course briefing we drove out to the 3 mile to go checkpoint, at the bottom of Woodstock Mountain where you emerge back into civilisation after 97 miles of running and then back into the Fairgrounds so that we could double check the route, which although marked, regularly gets removed by vandals. I didn't want to go wrong at 97 miles so was grateful that we did it. After that I went to Pizza Hut and got involved and then went back to the hotel for some sleep.

Alarm went at 3:15 for the 4am start and put my stuff on and went down there. There weren't that many of us starting which I found suprising as the run is heralded as extremely good by all those who take part each year, plus it is the 2nd oldest 100 in the States, oldest on the East Coast & hence has some prestige. Talking to Ray the Race Director afterwards he blames a lack of finances for marketing and therefore word of mouth which inevitably leads to low numbers. I agree with him but I think what puts most people off is the course profile and cut off. 28 hours is tight for any 100 miler and with 14,000+ feet of climbing I think 28 hours alienates a lot of would be runners. Its not hard enough to go up against Hardrock/ Leadville or Massanutten on the East Coast but its also not flat enough to run fast times.

They had spray painted a pink line on the ground outside the main stable at the fairgrounds and we all lined up behind it in the dark, most without headlamps including me as i had stuck it in the drop bag to pick up at 75 miles. The gun went and some really odd music started coming out of someones car speakers, something you might hear at the end of an old Western and off we went. One circle of the fairground track and then out onto the roads. A police cruiser led us through the town to protect us from all the traffic and I quickly got into stride with David from the day before. The course went 3.1 miles before aid station 1, then more flat until we went over the huge Shenandoah River and to the bottom of Woodstock Mountain. I walked pretty much the whole climb up the 14 switchbacks and at the top the first signs of dawn were appearing 7.2 miles in. Down the otherside on a gravel path David pushed on ahead with a friend of his and I got into just running my 100 mile pace, steady roughly 10 minute miles. Aid Station 3 was Ray in his truck with some water and all until now had been on road/ gravel road so despite the climb & descent real easy pacing.

The pattern for the day was set in the next 4.5 miles however. The course markings disappeared off of the road left into a wood and straight up a long rocky ascent. Nice trail but totally unrunnable as a climb, then back down the other side on nice dropping wooded trail and back on the road to the next Checkpoint. The whole of Old Dominion is road, gravel road, road nothing too serious and then WHAM off you go out of nowhere on a massive off road trail climb and technical descent back to nice easy road again. It makes for interesting running but pretty hard to get any rhythm going. Nevertheless the course meandered down into Fort Valley and between 16 and 32 miles there were just rolling hills and road through farms and quiet Virginia Country. The only distraction were dogs in cages which went insane each time we ran by.

When I got to 32 I felt tired. It was hot probably 80ish and I knew it wasn't going to be an easy day. The next 15 miles were supposed to be hard back to the 47 mile aid station which was also the 32 mile station so a loop within a loop here. We climbed another long hill and trail then dropped down into what they called Duncan Hollow. Essentially it was just a shit up hill climb for about 5 miles on rocky trail that was totally flooded. I passed about 7 people on this stretch all trying to keep their feet dry as I went straight up the middle of the 'river' wading the whole way Im never bothered about getting wet feet it defies belief how long some people spend changing shoes and socks to keep dry feet your gonna get blisters anyway may as well just SUCK IT UP!!!!

Anyway back at 47 I started getting in trouble. Id been drinking loads until now in the oppresive heat but I didn't take on what I needed in the next 4 miles all uphill road into the 51 aid station called Mountain Top. When I got in there I was staggering about and when Ron and Andrew the two guys I ran a lot of this section with asked me a question the words just came out in totally the wrong order. As a result I knew I had to start consuming food and drink straight away or id be in big trouble shortly after. In the end after around 20 minutes of trying to recover the 6 miles down to Edinburgh Gap at 57 miles flew by I really started running strong.

I blew up my own race on the next 8 miles though. I left the aid station at 57 with Ron & head up onto the ATV Trail which was an absolute bitch. Serious sand climbs and descents around a water and wet sand soaked path and it was really hot. Flies everywhere and only one aid station with water (a guy in his truck) in the middle so I pushed on here and actually burnt up a lot of the energy reserves I had left. When I got into Little Fort at 64 I sat in the chair and some guys brought me a burger and some soup which was great but I knew it was slowly but surely all going a bit wrong. Another long climb and then some rolling road brought us into Mudhole Gap which was again full of so many flies I just got water and carried on. Mentally I was shaky on this section but the guy at the aid told me I was the last one on the course still on for sub 24 time, with 13 in front of me. That was good to hear.

I went on the 6 mile trail to Elizabeth Furnace Mile 75 and it was really nice trail running, smooth compacted but despite that I was all over the place. My mind was playing the old tricks you naturally suffer ie. You've got 30 miles left with the 2 monster climbs still to come and you're already totally cooked. You've been running 16 hours and you've definitely got 8 left minimum.

Still when I got to Elizabeth Furnace at 75 miles it was still light. Id been told that the next 8 miles up Sherman Gap and down were awful. I'd read a pre race report from a guy called Jay Finkle 5 time sub 24 hour finisher outlining that Sherman Gap was by far and a way the worst part of the course and that you should try to do as much of it in daylight as possible because its long and technical. Id known this all day and I think having this in the back of my mind had maybe caused me to push too hard earlier on when I knew I was tired.

Anyway in that Aid Station the Volunteers told me I could have a pacer. I said thanks but I didn't have a crew with me, but a 16 year old kid called Cole from the local school was there headtorch on, food in hand ready to go over the mountain with a runner. He offered to go with me and I was absolutely stunned. I said yeah sure that would be great but bear in mind there won't be any running involved until we get over the mountain as I was feeling pretty wrecked. He said cool and in hindsight I think he saved my race.

It took almost 3 hours to cover the next 8 miles up and over Sherman. The top was so steep I passed another runner literally panting and panicking because at 80 miles the massive climb had sent his Heart Rate through the roof. He recovered but I thought for a minute he was going to collapse which would have been a really bad idea up there. Talking to Cole took my mind of the run. We talked films, facebook, running all that American High School stuff that he was into and I knew by the end he'd end up running this race himself one day he was loving the pain!

When we got to the Aid Station at 83 i shook his hand and told him if I broke 24 id send him the buckle you get for beating the 1 day clock. I then caught up with Ron again and we climbed up and over the 2nd bastard climb called Veach Gap. Down the other side into Veach West at 87 wasn't as long as Sherman but again we were wading through the river and it was absolutley pitch black. I hadn't replaced my headtorch batteries (idiot) so i was tripping everywhere in the half light. At Veach I felt close to the edge. With 13 left I knew id be ok but i was absolutely gone. No energy left at all. The next 4 were back on open road and it was so dark the black top road looked like a magic carpet. I went delirious here imagining peoples mail boxes were animals and people and stuff but I kept moving forward until close to the 91 mile aid station. I was looking for anywhere to lie down at that point. I almost lay on the road I was so tired. I knew i was going to finish but that to break 24 hours id have to run most of the remaining 10 miles and that was looking very hard to do. Instead I hobbled into the 91 mile aid station and sat in the chair again. The guys there kind of went 'don't stop you're nearly there' and i couldn't be bothered to tell them 'look lads there's still 9 miles left and im not sure i can go 9 metres' but they could tell thats what I was thinking. I shut my eyes for a few seconds and then got annoyed with myself for being a pussy and stood up to move off. I sort of stumbled forward back onto the road but realised i wasn't going anywhere. In fact a car had come up the road & I had almost stepped out in front of it. The aid station captain was holding me by my collar to stop me walking into its path. When it went by he released me with a kind of 'off you go now' in the way you would talk to a 3 year old which I guess was about my mental age at that point.

From 91 there was a 2 mile climb to the top of Woodstock Mountain. The racebook mentions this point when you enter as follows:

'There are fancier ways to spend Saturday night in America. None better than to stake your claim at a spot on the top of Woodstock mountain, about seven miles from the finish. Some look like the survivors of a battle. They are the victors who have actually been in the arena.'

Ron and I had some coke at the 93 aid station and took absolutely ages descending the 14 switchbacks down to the bottom of the road we had run up in the morning because our quads were screaming at us. We tried to run little bits and then just hobbled a bit acknowledging that it just wasn't going to happen.

We got into the 97.36 aid station with 24 hours 30 on the clock and ran the last 2.7 miles in 27 minutes. The last lap round the fairground again we were picking up some good pace still. No ties allowed in this event so I let Ron cross first and then followed him in 24 hours 58 minutes and 34 seconds.

The finish was just a small banner and a man under a gazebo with a watch who signed us in. We said thanks and went on our way. All that running to be witnessed by only one person at the end of such a journey. Ron and I exchanged a quick hug and I grabbed the car and went back to the hotel.

Footnote: 1 of the runners Dan Brenden who has finished the Grand Slam and Last Great Race multiple times went wrong at 47 and ran 9 miles to another aid station before they told him what he'd done. Instead of dropping he turned around and ran the 9 miles back and then finished the rest of the 100 miles totalling 118 miles in 26 hours. I will remember than any time I make a mistake in course reading or add unnecessary distance to a race as the mental strength it must have taken not to quit at the point he realised he was going to have to have run an extra 18 to finish must have been absolutely enormous.

4 Weeks, 4 Marathons

With the Old Dominion 100 round the corner first weekend of June I've stepped up the training again. Over the last 4 weeks I've managed to push out 4 marathons as part of that and they couldn't have been more different from one another. I started with the Black Dog marathon on the Suffolk/ Norfolk border 4 weeks ago (see race report).

The following weekend I head up right into central England to a race called Valleys and Views. Actually it was actually just an organised event over marathon distance with checkpoints, no course markings and a lot of map reading. I got lost about 30 times and Im pretty sure I ran 30 plus miles in the end. After taking over an hour for the first '6' miles I stayed with a group of 4 others and we ran almost the entire distance together getting better at the navigation throughout. Between the 5 of us we had over 200 marathons so there was some experience there and the pace was easy but consistent. 4 hours 20 is exactly 30 minutes outside my previous worst time for the distance and given that we were running roughly 8 minute miles most of the way....Still excellent training and we were the first ones home in the race as a group of 4 in the end.

Number 3 was the Three Forts Marathon, 27.2 miles over the South Downs. Very tired at the beginning which was disappointing as I felt towards the middle of the race that I could have actually competed with the leaders if i'd been feeling good. Huge long grinding climbs and fast rocky descents on this one with an 8 mile out and back at the start where I went totally wrong and ran an extra km or so. Running through the last 4- 5 miles I twisted my foot & was in a lot of pain managing to move from 10th place to 17th. At the end I threw up on the line in front of the local mayor which was nice. 3 52.

The last one in this little series was Halstead in Essex where I paced for a friend of mine Pete running his first marathon. Good training exercise for me and although my foot was numb with every strike at the beginning, it eased off after 10 or so miles which was great. Pete, with 10 weeks training & nothing over 20 kept my 8 minute miles until the 21 mile marker but at the deciding point where we were either going to pick it up or drop off he hit a little wall of dehydration/ fatigue and we were forced to walk in what was becoming quite oppresive heat. Amazingly, however when I thought all hope was lost he started churning out the 8 minute mile pace again for the last 2. I was pretty amazed and also a little stiff from breaking into a walk at that stage but we scraped in under the 3 45 barrier, a great first effort from him.

So with those 4 behind me Im left with three weeks now to Old Dominion. The training has been ok and Im in pretty good shape and Im ready to tackle 100 miles again. Stood on the start line with nothing but pure running in front of me for 24 ish hours is something I think I may find myself doing over and over again the future I love it that much.

Bungay Black Dog Marathon

Well I felt strong all day today after such a great day yesterday. I got up early and drove what turned out to be a long way to the start line of the Bungay Black Dog marathon on the Suffolk/ Norfolk border.

Im starting to find with more and more races under my belt that I am now really quite relaxed all the way through to the start of the run. There are always a few familiar faces around and I quite often look at those with 100 marathon club vests on and think if I am relaxed just how calm must they be....

I lined up in the 2nd or 3rd row given that there were roughly 300 runners and started at a fair pace but still got to 1 mile in 7:15. 2 miles 14:20, 3 miles: 21:07, 4 miles, 28:08, 5 miles: 35:06: 6 miles: 42:00. What a great start and I felt strong. i was breathing hard and deep but my two checks, legs for lactic acid and breathing for straining both came back positive i was totally in control and now moving up through the field of 20 or so that were ahead of me at the start. The first 6 miles were over rolling hills on road, when we turned off we were on the flat through some beautiful villages and quiet roads. I loved it. 7 miles: 49:01, 8 miles: 56:02, 9 miles: 1:02:58, 10 miles: 1:10:03, 11 miles: 1:17:01, 12 miles: 1 24:01, 13.1 miles: 1:31:30. The first loop was fast and smooth, stopping to walk and drink at every aid station, 6 per lap.

The second lap I felt strong, i ate after 14-15 miles over the course of 2 miles and it helped. Had a couple of endurolytes as it was now getting hot. I lost track of my time here but I felt metronomic in my pacing, step and stride in time and I knew that i was maintaining 7 minute miles. At 20 my faint hope at the beginning of popping 3 hours which was massively over-ambitious was extinguished I knew I was dropping off but I had dreams of beating 3:05/ 3:06 and certainly at the very outside drop under 3:10:59 for Boston qualification, under 3:12 as a landmark. In the end I went through 25.1 miles in 3 hours and just held on for the final mile finishing in 3:09:11. Great to run with the lead lady for 2 miles or so as she broke the course record by 7 minutes to come in in 3:07.

Had a couple of bacon rolls straight afterwards and then went back to the car and had a sleep. very very tired and knew that I had pushed it but it was totally worth it I was delighted with the time. I loved the setting, the blazing sun and the small field nature of the race, I only hope in future I have the opportunity to run 100's of races like this.

The training I have done in preparation has been sporadic and unfocused but i proved to myself once again that with some short quick runs of 6 - 7 miles plus back to back long runs in the lead up i can turn out a strong performance.

Read Anton Krupicka's blog again today Riding the Wind. Looking at 50,000 lifetime miles by his 26th Birthday on August 2nd. Truly inspirational.

March 2009

I've trained erratically this year. Just looking back over my log for 09 to date I've averaged only 150 miles per month which is frankly quite shocking when you consider that 200 miles of the 450 I've covered have been race miles (RR was 100 miles alone). What I've noticed significantly over the past 4 years since I started running is a sea change in my attitude to running day after day & an improved understanding of fatigue, nutrition and knowing when to stop. Work at the moment is stressful, not as stressful as I thought it would be but stressful all the same & that really takes its toll at the weekend. I am successfully running 3 times in the week at the moment, anywhere between 6 miles at pace and 13 miles slowly with a long run at the weekend. The long run is essentially what I live for. I look forward to it all week and when I am out there, preferably after dark with no traffic on the roads the endorphins kick in at their strongest. I have a desire to do a lot more of this, a lot more regularly. Sleeping during the day on a Saturday has unforunately become something that I absolutely have to do in order to stay alert through the rest of the week & to have the energy to do the long run.I guess what I would truly love at the moment is to pack up work for a few months later in the year and train day in day out. I know how to run multi day races in the desert with 4 behind me, I have the equipment & logistics down to a fine art & I know how to race over 100 miles non stop and pace myself successfully. I know what it takes to train 70 - 95 miles of hard miles with a heavy pack week after week in order to get very close to competing at the highest level, 5th and 2nd in the last two showed that. What I could do with 3 months, therefore, is fine tune my fitness to complement the endurance and the organisation and probably do very well in Egypt in October. The real question, knowing that at the moment this isn't really possible, is whether I can do all of this without giving up or compromising work. I am going to try.First step involves dropping alcohol almost completely. Drinking heavily once or twice a week leads to 2/ 3 down days and I need to reduce the down days to 1 per week & make that a recovery from training day not a recovery from booze day. The second step involves sleeping well, for me that is 9 hours a night. I have always needed it. The third step involves nutrition, setting myself an outline of 10 meals on rotation which cover all of the nutrients/ calories I need. I have only started eating breakfast in the last year and I now have no idea how i coped without it before. Fourth & final step is training. Running to work is realistic and achievable. It then allows me to take the 6 miles in the evening and only if I feel like it to push that out to 8/ 13 miles if I have the energy which I all to rarely do at the moment. By doing such a simple thing I can get my daily average back up to 2 hours and tick off 13 as an absolute minimum which is where i need to be to start competing more successfully. The key for me at the moment remains miles/ hours on my feet due to the nature of the events I want to complete this year. 

The current schedule involves a couple of ultras and 4 marathons in the next 6 weeks, followed by the OD100 in June. Two or three more marathons/ ultras in between that and the UTMB100 in August, and a simlar number again between that and Sahara in late October. I have to recognise that this year is about maintaining a solid endurance base all year, avoiding injury and getting my body used to coping with stress whilst minimising exposure to that stress as much as possible. That includes stress from work, stress from overtraining and stress from anywhere else. This of course leads up to what will be the Pinnacle of running for me, Badwater in 2010. Finishing 2 x 100's this year (RR100 already done) will allow me to qualify. It will be somewhat of a spiritual journey for me having had that in the back of my mind since my first run in preparation for the MdS in early 2005. My resume at that point should read:Marathon Des Sables (2006)4 Deserts (2007, 2008, 2008, 2009)3 x 100 milers (RR, OD, UTMB)10 x Ultras (5 x 50+milers)25 x Individual MarathonsIronmanBeyond that my to do list includes:Shadow of the Giants 50kWestern States Wasatch Front Hardrock Angeles CrestComrades Oxfam Trailwalker UK Mongolia Sunrise to Sunset My annual races will continue to be:Thames Path 50 (January)RTP (Roaming event Month Changes)I am excited by this. I feel I am in a better position to manage this than I will ever be and I can tick off a lot of my goals in the next couple of years.

Steyning Stinger 2009

After Rocky Raccoon I took a week off pretty much entirely and then did a couple of hours at the start of the next week which felt ok. I really didn't know what to expect in terms of recovery time & I had lost around 5 pounds during the race but these went back on pretty quickly so I figured it was ok to resume training. The South Downs are undoubtedly my favorite place to run in England. The views from the narrower, steeper sections are stunning and the trails well kept and hard. You can be on your own up there for hours on end when the weather turns bad. The Steyning Stinger Marathon contains 4 climbs up and back down the downs and the course profile is jagged but all runnable as they rarely exceed a mile in climbing length. This race was hard and hilly and the weather wasn't the greatest being very flat, cold and windy. I got to the start line around 15 minutes before take off and there was no one around, just a running clock and a guy with a clip board. When I asked what was going on he explained that you could start when you wanted and your time would be adjusted upon finishing. Good idea as most were using this as a training run of some sort (MdS etc) given that PBs were certainly out of the question. He also mentioned that there was going to be a 'mass start' in ten minutes time which I might as well wait for. I did and all told there were around 40 of us starting together at 8 30.

He shouted ready set go in school sports day fashion and we head off up the hill almost straight away. The laid back nature of this race was great. You turned up and started when you wanted, ran some great trails with regular aid stations. If you missed the cut offs they would simply advise you to miss a bit of the course and carry on anyway. I was ok until 20 ish miles and then i started to bonk a little. The last 4 miles were the hardest, up and then straight down the other side back into the village. It was very hard to gauge where you were in the race at any time as lots of people had started up to an hour before us. Despite this I thought Id done ok and subsequently ended up around 20th out of 150 in 3 46. I see that Jack Denness is running in the Sahara again this year. Great news. Jack is as a personal hero of mine following his repeated Badwater triumphs, most notably the one contained within the film Running on the Sun.

Rocky Raccoon 100 Miler

A couple of days before the race I booked a hire car from Houston airport and a hotel just off of the side of the I-45 freeway, packed a lot of mars bars and flew to Texas. It felt strange going off to take on a big race knowing that I wouldn't be meeting up with the rest of the Endurance Heroes. RR100 is widely renowned as one of the easier 100's as it takes in only 5500 feet of climb and is largely on nice soft woodland trail around Huntsville State Park. I've got to say that the scenery was stunning but I doubt i'll ever run a race with 5 x 20 mile loops again. This time it made sense, I had no crew, no pacers and had to drive straight back to the airport after the race so needed to be back at the car immediately at the end, not 100 miles away from it.

I got to Texas on the Thursday night had a Mcdonalds which was just great. The nuggets were good & the burger was dripping grease much more so than in the UK. The next morning I went to Wal Mart, bought some food and drove to the park to give in my drop bag which was going to be taken out to the aid station at the 6.4 mile and 12.4 mile point. This was a waste of time as I actually never got anything out of it and had to leave so soon after the end of the race that I didn't have time to get it back! I tried not to change my body clock for this race as it was a 6am start on the Saturday so I went to bed at 7pm and got up at 3am, ate a lasagne and then spaghetti with Meat Balls from the microwave, got in the car and drove down to the start line. I put my bag behind a tree near the finish line tent and lined up with everyone else. Before the start I looked at the 10 people around me and thought to myself 'at least 3 of us aren't gonna finish this' and told myself there was no way I would come all this way and DNF....

The first hour we jogged around in the woods following each others headlamps. The light came through around 7 30 and most of the trail was good. The 6 mile out and back section at the top of the course was long, undulating and littered with thick roots and was going to be difficult to negotiate in the dark of the night but it was good in the daylight. I managed to cover the first 20 miles in 3:34 which was right on for the schedule I had written across the front of my pack. The next 20 were mentally the hardest. I was enjoying running but had that slightly sickening sensation that 80 miles to the finish line was a long way. There were around 250 x 100 milers and 200 x 50 milers so with the loop format you saw people all the way around. Loop 3 luckily went like a dream. Haruki Makayami writes in his book 'What I talk about when I talk about running' which describes ruising through some miles, how I felt for this middle 20: 'As I run I tell myself to think of a river. But essentially I am not thinking of a thing. All I do is keep on running in my cozy, homemade void, my own nostalgic silence. And this is a pretty wonderful thing. No matter what anybody else says.' I came back to the start finish in 11:36 & that is where it all started going wrong.

I went for a sit down on the loo near my bag and for want a nicer way of describing this, ended up wiping half of the skin of my rear end off in the process. When i came out every step felt like someone had been rubbing at it with sandpaper for an hour. I tried to address the issue with vaseline but it was barely covering the problem. The next three miles it got dark and i started tripping over the roots. There seemed a lot in the day time but now they were everywhere. I went down quite hard twice and with the pain of my rear end, the slowly depleting energy reserves and lack of daylight I got a bit low. In the end I got to the turn around aid station and sat in a chair for 1 minute. Frank had spoken at length to before hand about how he had not sat down, not stopped, not changed clothes in the entire of his journey through the 2008 Leadville Trail 100, and I liked that. Very impressive. It seemed that i needed 60 seconds of 'personal time' here though just to remind myself that this was all a good experience & relatively speaking I was still fine. I stood up again and pressed on up the hill with short but quick steps and two guys coming the other way doing the last stretch of the 50 stopped and give me a round of applause with the comment of 'nice peppy step brother very inspirational.' This made me burst out laughing & helped me to start to refocus.

I got back round to 80 miles in 16 something and with my rear end still on fire reapplied a large amount of vaseline. It was at this point that the winner Andy Jones Wilkins carried himself over the line, just a massive performance, but I had for the first time EVER succesfully paced myself to within my target time of sub 24 hours and felt reasonably comfortable on the last loop. I ran out of the aid station and pushed through it as best i could hitting mars bars every 30 minutes, stumbling a lot, falling a bit but always moving forward. In the end I got round the last lap in a horrible time but crossed the 100 mile mark in 22:54. I was delighted but knew that I had to focus on the other endurance element of the trip, getting home.

I drove to the hotel got my stuff and drove straight to the airport. I was in such a rush a didn't have time to properly tend to the chaffed areas which therefore remained fairly exposed. I must have heard 'good job' 1000 times on the run but I was now making a decidedly POOR job of conducting myself in an honourable fashion. My legs were locking up so I was shuffling around and wincing. People were staring and i felt paranoid that they were trying to move away from me. I found a diner and waded into a cheese and bacon burger with fries and onion rings. Then I made my way to the Seafood restaurant next to our departure gate and had some pasta. I was so hungry it was unreal. I basically ate 20 mars bars on the run, a couple of small cups of pasta at the aid stations but that was it. I had to sit cramped up next to the window for 10 hours, got off the other end and literally couldn't walk. When I got home Monday lunchtime I found a gas man in the road outside and all of the pavement around the front door dug up. I knew what he was going to say before I even asked and I was pretty annoyed about it. No gas. No Heating. No Cooker. No Hot Water. I bought 3 packs of sandwiches from the shop over the road got in a sleeping bag, got under the duvet, ate all the sandwiches and went to sleep until it was time for work the next morning. Still I am now the proud owner of a sub 24 buckle for a 100 mile race. I am happy about that.

Thames Path 50 Mile

I decided to rest the three weeks left in December after the Last Desert, drank a lot, got ill and started again at the beginning of January. I started winding it back up and ran the Thames Path 50 to London on the 17th Jan. Its a good training event for anything longer as its flat. This year I wanted to run slowly as there were only 3 weeks until the 100. The start of the race is in a disused field next to a car park in Reading. This year I got to the start 5 minutes before the 'gun' in freezing torrential rain and found all the runners huddled in a flock under a red bull hoarding which had seen better days. Someone came over and asked if I had a light and a space blanket so I said yes and he told me to go over to join the others. 50% of competitors hadn't bothered to show, exactly the same as last year when the Thames burst its banks and I had to actually swim a 20 yard section with my bag over my head because the water was so deep, so something like 150 of us went off together.I honestly tried to pace myself as until now I hadn't done much training at all but I couldn't do it and I finished the first 30 miles in a little over 4 hours. Go Hard or Go Home was clearly the choice and I was determined to run every step so i just grit my teeth, tried not to think about the recovery time before the 100 and stuck it. I finished in 7:49 stood at the finish line and turned around, thinking to myself could you now run back? The answer was NO WAY and it then dawned on me that actually I was going to have to FORCE myself to pace Rocky Raccoon otherwise I was going to really screw it up.

January 2009

The third chapter in the tale of the 4 deserts finished at the perfect time for me. When the 5th and final stage of the Last Desert got cancelled it was actually a relief. When Mary told us that there was just no way we could risk a landing in the horrendous conditions of the Drake Passage I don't mind admitting that Paul & I exhaled heavily, slapped each other on the back and sat at the bar for 3 days. Most were more than happy to pack away the gear, accept that mother nature (and the good grace of god) had at least granted the opportunity to race 4 stages in the white wilderness. A medal is a medal after all and not a soul on board would have doubt that each one of us fully deserved to wear them with pride. I think the thought in the back of both our minds come the end of stage 4 were 'oh no, dean and evgeniy are getting stronger' and whilst neither of us would shy away from a hard race I think 4 deserts in one year for him and 12 months of solid racing for me including 3 big international trips had taken its toll. So we got back to dry land and it took around 30 minutes to come up with the next idea, Rocky Raccoon 100 in Texas on the 7th Feb. I signed up the day I got & back booked some flights. Frank then e mailed us stating that whether we were in or not he would be going into the lottery for the UTMB in August a 100 miler through France, Switzerland and Italy, so stop messing about and get involved after all 46 hour cut off is easily do-able. Bocket and I duly signed up after all how can you turn down a race which has been classed alongside and has the same elevation gains and losses (30,000 feet) as Hardrock. We all got in. Looking forward to a great year.

The Last Desert: The End

The End of the Last Desert: And just like that the Antarctic conditions totally erased all chance of us completing the last two stages on day 4. I would like to say that I was annoyed and wanted to race hard over the following two stages. In reality I was going to have to burn myself out completely to hang on to 2nd and would have struggled to make the 3km up on Paul for the overall win. Evgeniy has won much bigger events than this in the past (he won the Gobi March a couple of years ago over a strong field of 150 ish) and Dean, as I have mentioned before, has won plenty of big races including Badwater (the ultimate ultra race 135 miles through Death Valley) and the Atacama Crossing. There will be an awards ceremony as we come back through the Beagle Channel in a couple of days time.

The Rest of the Trip: We spent that afternoon in Paradise Bay cruising around in the zodiacs and walking onshore, our first real rest period since the racing started. I took some great photos but I pressed the black and white button by accident on the camera setting so every sodding photo I have now looks like I was trying to get arty. We then sailed up to Deception Island in the South Shetland Islands 14 hours north overnight. It was so rough that I got to sleep at 1am and was up again at 2 30am. It was awful and plenty of people were sick. From then on the weather has not eased off and when we were supposed to be landing ashore yesterday for a 5 hour stage we were in fact caught in 80kmph winds with some scary 10 metre waves coming over the side of the boat. Since then we have been banned from going outside and are left to suffer a 60 hour journey back to South America in horrendous conditions. I boycotted dinner last night as I felt so sick and am now typing this lying sideways on my bunk. No bad thing as it was so rough that all of the dinner for 50 people went onto the floor of the kitchen and one of the chefs cut his arm open. I just threw up in my mouth a little bit. Sounds horrific. It is. Last night we had a celebratory drink up as the seas rose up the side of the boat and over the windows on the 4th deck. Scary stuff. I have learnt that Pisco Sour is disgusting. Frank spent most of the night crying from either NASTY cocktails or laughing too much and Paul our race leader tried to make his way through a bottle of JD literally on his own. In the end Pete B was awarded the yellow jersey for leading everyone through the evening making his own special drinks: LE TURD incl baileys which curdled in coke and a special ingredient that Pete won't release. Great for sea sickness though. 30 hours to go, 2 more nights of fun.

The Last Desert Stage 4

Stage 4: 3 hours in the thickest snow yet kicked off early in the morning. It is 24 hour daylight here therefore the time of day was irrelevant but we were all extremely tired. Dean, Evgeniy and myself trailed each other for 1 hour 40 passing lots of people repeatedly on the 1km loop. I made the fatal mistake of not eating during that time which was stupid as I knew it would cause me to blow up. In fact I lost the plot and started getting dizzy and seeing stars at around 2 hours. As I came back past the start finish line Mary the Race Director shouted over was I tired today. I could barely respond but tried to keep it covered up. I walked a hundred yards to eat something and then started jogging slowly. My energy never came back but I did recover slightly. As long as Evgeniy and Dean did not lap me I would be allocated the same distance so I fought to hang on for that last hour. I managed to do it, putting a lap into Paul at the same time. 3km between him in 1st and me in 2nd Evgeniy 1.5km back in 3rd with 2 stages to go.

The Last Desert Stage 3

Stage 3:It was quite clear following the end of Stage 2 which was run on the Antarctic Mainland that the race was going to hot up during Stage 3. We lined up in a freezing cold blizzard on a small island covered once again in penguin rookeries and the course laid was a 1.3km loop out and back along the shoreline. We started off and the snow was again over 2 foot thick. I trailed Dean Karnazes for a lap and Paul was in front of him and put 200m on us in the first lap which was crazy. Dean let me past after the first loop which I found strange as he had said he felt much stronger that morning. It turns out I don’t think he ever felt comfortable with his gear and therefore the running for the whole day as it was colder and wetter than it had otherwise been. After 4 hours of running Paul was still exactly the same distance ahead of me, 200 metres. We would pass each other on the out and back within yard of the previous lap. The penguins would sometimes wander right onto the course which meant we had to stop for them to move off rather than run them over but once we were into a running groove it was actually a much easier day despite the distance being increased. In the end the stage ended after around 5 hours and Paul was pleased with his win but felt tired as Evgeniy and I had pushed him hard. I lapped Dean 3 times in the end and he didn't really explain why he had let it slip so much. I guess it had been a long year for him or that the conditions didn't suit him out there that day. Team Trifecta spent some time diving around in the snow tackling each other and it did occur to me I might have been better enjoying this race a little more by slowing down and taking in the scenery/ wildlife etc. Nevertheless I enjoyed pushing the limits again. Back to the ship for 10:30 pm where we were told to eat and sleep as the wake up call would be at 0415 for stage 4. The importance of sleep in these races cannot be underestimated if you are able to get some. That is the period in which your muscles take a break and start repairing themselves, it recuperates your energy levels and blisters have a chance to die down. It also meant there was no chance for kit to dry out. Racing stages so close to one another is not good for any of us but Paul and I suffered more than most the following morning....

The Last Desert: Stage 2

Stage 2: So stage 2 began on a loop of similar length to the morning. A monster climb before coming back down on ourselves and round a short runnable path before commencing again. Mentally it was very very tough but I always find the easiest thing to do is to concentrate on the race rather than watching the clock tick down which is torture ie ala treadmills which i have always hated. Paul, Dean and I head off at the front breaking trail again but it became obvious fairly quickly that Dean was not feeling great & Paul was feeling fantastic. The stage lasted 4 hours and was absolutely strength sapping. In the end I overtook Dean and held a good distance for the remainder of the race lapping everyone else. Apart from Paul that is who nailed the whole course and beat me into 2nd by some way. 

For those that don't know Dean he holds plenty of recods & his longest ever non stop run: 384 miles. He recently ran 212 miles in 48 hours on a treadmill and covered 50 marathons in 50 states in the US. In 50 days. Needless to say he is an impressive athlete. Woke up this morning feeling rough but have slept this morning and feel better now. The bad news is we are now headed to stage 3 which is going to be 7 hours non stop. If the conditions are like yesterday its going to be a nightmare ad the pace will have to drop down several more levels again. The scenery will remain other worldy and absolutely stunning however which does ease the pain a little bit.

The Last Desert: Stage 1

Stage 1: Yesterday morning we finally arrived on the Antarctic continent & immediately departed the boat for stage 1. The zodiac ride out to the island on which we were racing was incredible. Ice bergs filled the harbour ranging in size from small footballs to larger than houses. Penguins were swimming back and forth across the channel popping up and diving in and out of the water as they went. We landed ashore in the middle of a penguin colony. There were 1000's of them. They can't walk properly so they waddle with their arms out behind them and often fall over. We hiked up a very steep hill before RTP decided to hold the stage on a small plataeu half way up the mountainside. The course was absolutely brutal. I head off behind Karno (Dean Karnazes) and we broke the trail for around an hour before he started to pull ahead. I knew i was in good shape and felt I could really push Dean, the question was how much he wanted to win this last one of the year for him. The snow was over 2 feet thick the whole way around the course and when Dean started running the hills i dropped off the pace by 50 - 100 yards or so. The race format was to cover as much ground/ as many laps as possible within 3 hours. The big problem with this format is that you have to keep overtaking people the whole time which is both frustrating for them and for you. The best thing about that is is that you get plenty of encouragement especially from the Team Trifecta boys, Pete Bocquet and the other Brits in the race. Ive no idea how much ground we covered in the three hours but it was harder than any marathon ive done and i was cramping up massively on the walk back down to the shore. It was agony for a while but i took on a lot of salt and redressed the balance quickly. We were promptly informed then that Stage 2 would start almost straight away. You can imagine the general reaction of the racers when shorlty after finishing a brutal run in thick snow that we were told to get the wet gear back on and go again.

The Last Desert: On the Boat Day 3

Today we got up at 8 30 ate and went back to bed at 9 30. Great times. The only thing we have to do is watch DVD's and we only have 3 sh*t ones. Pete and I sat through alexander yesterday and it temporarily ruined my life until it ended and i remembered where we are going. Around 12, some whales appeared around the front of the boat. Im not going to say too much, instead have a look at Alex's photos in the photo section of the website www.4deserts.com. I was hanging off the bow with him as a 20m humpback whale and its calf came out of the water to exhale and dive back down and under the boat back and forth for about an hour. We were so close we had to stand back away from it to get any of it in shot. Truly unbelievable experience for which we shut off the engines & drifted for a while. We have literally just seen the first site of land 2 full days and 18 minutes since we left. It looks like an enormous white sail rising 6000 feet straight out of the sea. If where we are headed provides wildlife and scenery like this it will stack up to be some trip. That besides running around in the snow and ice for hours on end day after day. That also begins tomorrow. We are being told 5 hours in the morning on an island and then a possible 2nd stage in the afternoon on the mainland although it is unclear how long that might be. Frankly I can't wait to compete in the third desert in the series of 4 & give it everything. It has been a long year with 1200 miles of racing but what a finale to 2008 this should be. If we are to run 250kms however we will need to do it in 4 days. That breaks down into some painfully tough back to back mileage days but.... Fortitudine Vincimus. Through Endurance we Conquer (Shackleton's family moto).

The Last Desert: on the Boat Day 2

Shortly after my last blog we finally left the dock. Good things. We arrived back at the ship at around 3pm and were told straight away to make sure we were on board at 6pm for an important announcement which turned out to be that we were leaving straight away. The Russians welded a new plate across the hole in the front of the ship and we haven’t started sinking yet so I guess it worked. Shortly after leaving we had a lifeboat drill which involved us all climbing into the life vessel. There are seatbelts and it is fully enclosed therefore should the seas become really rough the thing can rotate 360 degrees and right itself. Not ideal to end up in one but if we sink but it might help any future book sell.I spent some time running laps of the enormous dock knowing we’d be out at sea for 3 full days without being able to stretch legs although I tried to stick to the side away from an argentine submarine unloading sailors and testing systems due to having union jack flags sewn into my clothes. The Falklands are due east of here so I just waved and held my hands over the patches.I have been reliably informed that the passage so far has been calm. That is frightening. The ship is constantly listing from side to side. At lunch I brought some of my carrot soup back up but avoided throwing up on the table. There is a good chance this could happen at any point. 6 of the 30 are bed ridden with sea sickness according to Zac and there are sick bags positioned every few yards throughout the ship. Standing on the top deck all you can see for miles and miles is wide open sea with some huge swell. The 70 metre Russian ice breaker is handling it well but the movement is still significant.Life aboard revolves around lying in the bed, going up on deck and looking at massive birds and feeling sick. Hully has been asleep for 39 hours non stop and Frank has read two books. He is a very fast and good reader. Yesterday morning Pete stood in front of his laptop next to my bed from 8am to 9 am playing air guitar to 80’s metal. The signs of cracking are there Its all good though. Running begins in just over a days time. Pretty soon we’ll reach ice bergs and start seeing the splitting pack ice created by Antarctic summer.‘That which we are, we are; the equal temper of heroic hearts made weak by time and fate; but strong in will; to strive, to seek, to find and not to yield.’

The Last Desert: On the Boat Day 1

Well we boarded the ship yesterday evening. Thats where the good news ends. Relatively soon after getting into the cabins we were summoned to the bar area for our briefing. Unfortunately it turns out the ship has a hole in the front from breaking through ice on the previous trip. There´s really no other way to dress this up. If the can´t repair the hole which is below the water line then we may not get there at all & everyone is absolutely prepared for this to be the case. On the other hand it is possible that the repairs will be completed sometime during the night and that we may be able to leave tomorrow on a slightly reduced schedule.If this is the case then we may be asked to repeat the 24 hour/ 100 mile non stop stage that took place 2 years ago.Peoples reactions have ranged from depression, anxiety, anger to acceptance that these things are what they are & cannot be prevented. Mary, Alasdair and Zac have been fantastic at keeping us updated from the race management side of things and I have complete faith that if they cannot organise anything to accomodate us around this problem then there really is nothing else that can be done. The initial discussions of running on shore today to begin building the miles towards the 150 mark have dissipated 1. because Alasdair would need to go and mark the course, establish new checkpoints etc and with the onset of leaving constantly looming this may be a worthless exercise. 2. because no one on this trip came to run in South America, we have all done it before, we came to run in Antarctica & if we aren´t going to do that then frankly there is no point. I am optomistic, others are not. I would do the 6 day return journey for an hour on the ice. I only hope the Russians manging the ship see it that way as well.The silver lining to all of this is that Jan the Belgian Hero of a barman declared free bar at 6pm last night & allowed us to make our own drinks, play our own music and generally have a damn good time through the onset of disaster. Its fair to say that a different kind of endurance event was held & some excellent perfomances registered through the following 8 hours. Others didn´t fare so well and there was a substantial amount of mess created particularly when the dishwasher was opened by one racer and around 30 glasses fell out and smashed on the floor. Jan laughed and poured another drink. We love each other and now I love Jan. Its going to be a good trip from that side of things.Update tomorrow I hope from the middle of the Drake passage. We´ll see.

The Last Desert: Ushuaia

Arrived here safely last night after 33 hours travelling. Thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it, especially the 13.5 hour flight from Paris to Buenos Aires. I was sat in a seat between a French bloke who, with all due respect, stank & an obese latvian naval officer who in broken english during the course of the flight asked me: 1. How to turn the light on for his seat, 2. how to work his tv, 3. where the toilets were & best of all 4. whether we would be being served breakfast. Everyone is here now. The most southerly city in the world has a frontier feel to it ringed by the very tip of the Andean mountain chain before it fades into the sea. The locals are friendly & the food is good. Last night I dropped the bags in the room and went to meet the boys down in town. We had a few liveners to celebrate re-convening for yet another adventure. On the way home we stumbled into a nice looking night club, a nice young lady leaning from a window beckoned us but something about her gold lamee night set told us there may be something 'special' about the establishment. This morning no-one could confirm or deny that we are staying next door to a brothel (we are).It gets dark at 11 here and light at 4. As we sail south on Monday morning this will become midnight and 1am. I can't wait...

London to Brighton 2008 56 Mile

The inaugural London to Brighton race started at 7am in the dark in the middle of a park by the River Thames in Central London in torrential and freezing rain. 210 of us head due South pretty much straight away and made our way out through the streets of south london. I had not had time for my customary morning movements before the race & a quick convenience stop 20 minutes in unfortunately led to the loss of my map. Given that the last 80km of the race were cross country & unmarked this wasn't ideal but thankfully I had reccied this 10 mile part of the course the week before being on my doorstep so getting lost at this point wasn't a problem. Yet. The rain at this point had become incessant and everyone was soaked through. I quite quickly found two other guys who seemed to be moving pretty well (and had maps) therefore i stuck with them. As we moved out of London the whole thing became a farce and the rain was turning every hill into a waterfall. 

The cut offs became harder and harder at each of the 5 x 10 mile checkpoints and I reached 50 miles in 9 hours in 20th place with just 45 minutes to spare and knew that the last 11 miles in 3 hours was gonna be tough as there was a monster climb in that last section. By this time all but 80 of the runners had dropped or been pulled out for missing cut offs. I stuck with my map reader buddies and they kept pulling out the pace and almost dropped me a few times but like a doped up rider on the slopes of Hautacam I just kept on their heals and ended up dragging them over the final summit. The final drop down to the seafront was painful as it got dark and the rain kept coming but & with an hour to cover the last 5 km i knew it would be close. 

I crept over the line in 11 hours 39 minutes, only one other group behind me finished within the time. Easily the hardest one day race I have done with only 15% finishing inside the 12 hour limit it was utter pain but once again a week later the the legs are strong & the fire burns as strong as ever. 

Cowman: Half Ironman

I had written a long e mail to some of my 'endurance racing buddies' across the world so i thought i would recount as much of it (minus some swearing) on here. Obviously this was my first triathlon of any sort and therefore I was not expecting miracles but nevertheless i could not have anticipated quite how badly the start might have gone. My birthday present this year was a wetsuit, tried it on in the living room saturday night and it felt a bit tight (like i couldn't breath properly) but I figured id get in the water and it would loosen up. What actually happened was that I got in the water and it felt as though a 30 stone man was sitting on my chest. I queued up for the mass start (everyone in the water at the same time) and had trouble even breathing without swimming. No doubt here that there was a problem. The gun went and 285 people started swimming and i started drowning. I realised after 5 strokes that i was totally out of control and had to breath every STROKE just to keep enough air in my lungs which weren't expanding one bit. I ended up on my back after swallowing a pint of green water and started spewing. Then the girl in the canoe who acts as a rescue boat came over and I couldn't let her see me doing that after 15 yards or she'd have pulled me out of the race. It genuinely looked like I couldn't actually swim. So i unzipped the wetsuit all the way down and started breast stroking it to the first buoy. Just then I hear the gun go for the male vets. Sure enough 15 mins in and ive gone 400m and they're all coming past me. One bloke actually looked at me like 'what are you doing' and i just kept breast stroking and swallowing water as they swam over me. Got to the 800m mark and the women and 1 junior start coming past me. Male seniors with black caps are nowhere apart from one chap who was competing partially disabled swimming breaststroke in front of me as he was unable to swim crawl due to his disability. I honestly thought about pulling out at the end of the first lap after all what kind of idiot spends his birthday like this? Instead i climbed out of the water at the bank by the crowd where we had started, took my wetsuit off and then dived back in. The officials started shouting at me and the crowd started cheering so i gave it the fist pump and swam the last lap in just the tri suit. It was FREEZING. Out of 285 finishers I came out of the water 284th with no wetsuit on. When the bloke gave me a hand out he was like 'where's your wetsuit mate?' i just started laughing. 48 minutes in total. It felt like 6 hours. I picked up the bike and head out in the wind and lashing rain for the 92km but I realised that I had made two mistakes. 1. because i had no number belt and i had to have a number on my back for the bike leg i had safety pinned the number over the jersey pocket so i couldn't put the food bag i had in my hand behind me without tearing the number off. I stuffed the two mars bars and salami stick up my shorts pocket but it started rubbing on my crotch and it fell out and i couldn't face stopping so i just rode on anyway. Then i tried to drink out of my aero bottle but i had cut the straw without testing it and i couldn't reach it with my mouth so i ended up chucking it on the side of the road. No food and no drinks bottles. Well aero. I got a bottle of water at 30km and carried on by this time it had stopped raining and i started to pick up a bit. When i got to 70km i was done. Bonked big time. It was all i could do to get to the transition area in one piece. 3 hours 10. I picked up a load of food and water for the run and started off feeling terrible. Pretty quickly it all hit my system though and I just started feeling 100% better. After 2 of three laps i had a pain on my inside leg so i felt it and i still had my bike gloves stuffed up there from the start of the ride and had forgotten to put them on. 1 39 for the half marathon & I didn't get overtaken once. I loved the run. It felt so good to be so sure of something after all that anguish. Moral of the story, fail to prepare, prepare to fail. Lessons were learned and fast. When you're going through hell, don't stop.

Atacama Crossing 2008

A 250 kilometre running event which takes place entirely within a landscape & environment used by NASA to test its Martian modules is never going to be light work. Come the end of 5 days of self sufficiency, daily running distances ranging between 40km and 74km per day, each and every one of us had learned a total respect for the terrain & conditions that Mother Nature can provide. 

The 4Deserts events organised by Racing the Planet are weeklong races split into 6 individual stages. Much like the Tour De France the race clock stops each day as you cross the finish line and the cumulative time for the week gives each runner or teams their overall position. The first 4 stages come one a day and usually feature distances around a marathon in length (42.2km). The fabled long day normally comes on day 5, spanning across into day 6 for those towards the slower end of the field. The sensation of finishing the long day is something that can only be appreciated by those who have put themselves through the huge mental and physical test required to get there. In many ways there is a moment of serenity on crossing the finish line. At once it seems that all the hunger, thirst, pain & anguish is washed away to be replaced by serenity and peace of mind that you are on the brink of achieving something that really will stay with you forever.

As I stood on the finish line of the long stage clapping the last 3 competitors into camp including a blind man being led by his son, I couldn’t help but feel incredibly emotional. It was an overwhelming occasion for two reasons. Whilst it is no longer so uncommon these days to see someone overcoming adversity in everyday life, witnessing it first hand and in such an environment is extremely moving. Coupled with this the fact that physically and mentally at such a moment you yourself are on the edge emotionally it really hits home just where you are. The second reason is that I have always felt it is at that moment that the race is over. You can finally reflect on what you have achieved and the sheer amount of pain and anguish you have gone through to reach what is a moment of exceptional achievement. Whilst this may appear to be presumptuous given that one stage still remains, the 10km finishing run a day later is, for 99% of the field, entirely processional. 

This was my third desert (second in the 4Deserts series), following the Marathon Des Sables in 2006 & the Gobi March in 2007 & each has provided me with a thousand memories that remain as clear as day, but always with one seminal moment belonging to each. In the Marathon Des Sables of 2006 a British ex pat residing in Singapore, CEO of one of the worlds major banks crossed the finish line of day 3, walked over in floods of tears and embraced me, in the words of my running partner Jimmy Corrigan, ‘like a son’. I had met him on the plane on the way out and exchanged a few words in conversation but that was it. It is unlikely he will ever be able to accurately describe how he felt at the end of that day but at the time I knew and it was a humbling thing. In China 2007, 65km into the long day with the light fading, the stars over my head stumbling around trying to stay awake I again had my little moment where it all came together. Forgetting the ‘bling’ at the finish line & the fact that you have the accomplishment with you forever, each event has also left me with respect for everything you take for granted in day to day life.

Training for the Atacama Crossing started for me the minute I finished my first 4Deserts event, the Gobi March in June 2007. By nature I am a very competitive person when it comes to sport & whilst I had gone to Morocco and China with the intention of simply finishing, when I completed the 80km fifth stage of the Gobi in strong fashion I had unknowingly opened myself up to the question of how much better I could do. On my return it took less than two weeks for me to enter the Atacama in April 2008. Over the months leading up to Christmas I kept up a steady stream of training doing reasonably well at the events I entered. Over Christmas I then wrote a training schedule for the 12 weeks of 2008 leading up to the event which I knew would stretch me further than I had stretched myself before. The culmination of this was running two 6 day weeks of 2 hours per night with pack at full race weight. Mentally this helped enormously. Coming into a 6^th half marathon of the week with a heavy pack on your back in the freezing rain of a London winter’s night you need to be tough & this undoubtedly stretched my idea of what training hard was really all about.

When we all arrived in Calama, northern Chile, I felt pretty good but with no understanding of how my fitness compared to the other competitors. After 37 hours of travelling I reached the hotel & hooked up with the boys. Pete Bocquet, Hully and Willo are like lifelong friends despite having only spent a week in their company before, with only one night in the ‘real world’. Frank & Erik ‘the Easy E’, one of our volunteers, were to fill exactly the same roles by the end of the week. I think these friendships are borne out of the simple act of suffering for a week. In effect they become ‘partners in pain’. For 4 days before the event we seemed to do nothing but laugh. Some of the other competitors & even the race directors might have wondered if it would stop come running time, however it was all in good spirit. 

When we got to the first campsite, straightaway some of the runners made it pretty obvious that they meant serious business. In particular two of the Chilean national team members could be spotted doing sprint warm ups up and dow

n the start line. Two runners even went for a jog along the first section of the trail. To be honest those of us who’d run an event like this before saw this posturing as a little over the top. We all knew we were about to go through hell but to put on this kind of bravado was unnecessary. Worse than this, their activities no doubt left some of the competitors feeling even more nervous than they already were. Time would tell as to whether the characters behind this pre match bravado would last the test.

I spent the first night with little sleep as I couldn’t get warm enough. At 3200m Campsite 1 experienced temperatures around freezing during the first night. My bag was rated down to positive 5 centigrade and wasn’t equipped to keep me warm enough in the conditions, particularly as I was carrying very little fat at this point. Starting the following morning at 9am everyone quickly settled into their rhythm. I knew Team Trifecta would perform strongly, Pete, Mike and Frank are all extremely tough competitors who competed up the field in China and had come here to win the teams event. In the back of mind & from the first moment on I knew I had those guys as a safety net, running behind me each day &, rightly or wrongly, without talking to them about it, this would remaining the case throughout. I had decided prior to the event that I would run as much as I physically could, however if things went belly up it was great to know that such good friends were always close behind out on the course. If they were to come past me, at that point I would just try to hang on to them.

 

(Before Stage 1 Start)

As with all of these events the field became strung out very quickly on the morning of day 1. At the front of the field were pre race favourites Jimmi Olsen (Denmark) who had previously won the Sahara Race in 2006 & Dean Karnazes (USA) perhaps the world’s most renowned ultra distance runner. My race strategy in ultra’s has always been to walk every hill, saving energy & muscle fatigue plus a good strong power walk actually results in almost no lost time against a calorie draining jog. At that altitude and with the sand/ rocks under foot, running up the 14km of mini dunes to CP1 was out of the question for me. I simply stuck to jogging the flats and falling down the descents as quickly as possible. 10 or so runners were quickly off into the distance and I sat comfortably into a position just in front of Mimi Anderson, a British lady with an extremely impressive running CV and a bubbly personality. 

My primary goal coming into the race was to take home the trophy for the 20 – 29 age category. Secondary to this was finishing inside 40 hours and as high up the field as I could. I knew my main challenger for this crown would be Johann Boost, a British runner who took home the award from the Gobi Desert in 2007. I caught Johann heading into checkpoint 1 and decided to drop the hammer straight away in order to give myself a lead, which I could then protect. The 10km between Checkpoint 1 & 2 was simple enough despite a South African guy, Paul Liebenberg, who later became a great friend, running straight into me from behind (as if there isn’t enough room to pass in the desert) & I had so far balanced well my pace, nutrition and hydration. Glancing at the hr monitor and seeing an average of 178 (my peak is 205) scared me a little but I put it down to the altitude and pressed on. Things began to get better and better for me between CP2 & CP3. Over a series of dried river beds with broken rock, followed by a long uphill slog I went back past the South African, overtook a strong Italian runner as well as Jimmi Olsen whom sadly had injured both his ankles crossing the awful terrain. Coming into CP3 in 5^th place I was struggling to keep calm and not blow the good day by hammering through the last 5km to camp. I managed to keep it steady and came in, in just over 5 hours for a great first day. I was immediately congratulated by a surprised Mary Gadams, CEO of Racing the Planet and I admitted to her that I had even surprised myself so early on.

Day 2 began with a 10km section through slot canyons & a fair amount of time spent in the water. I have always relished these sections as whilst others concentrate on footing, keeping their shoes and socks dry or even changing socks I have always found simply ploughing on through works best. The scenery was incredible pushing on towards CP2 with a huge climb up and through a disused mine shaft followed by a drop down a 100m sand dune into the 2^nd CP. Once again I started strongly giving myself a bit of a fright as I came past Dean Karnazes shortly after CP1. As a lover of the big hill climbs I was able to use this to my advantage, again catching Johann at the top of the climb & then raced through CP2 with a good lead on him. The next section was probably the most drawn out of the race. It became exceedingly hot pushing upper 30’sC & myself and German folk legend Joey Kelly traded positions for the remainder of the day. On reflection it may have been better to stick together but racing each other hard over the next 20km certainly pushed us both. In the end I made it to camp in 5^th place once again, 4 minutes behind Joey who had quite severe heat exhaustion and required medical attention on finishing. Later that afternoon with competitors coming in very sporadically due to the tough conditions I wandered down to the nearby salt lake. Having a soak in the cool water, bobbing around on the surface due to its high salinity was great. That was until you stepped out at which point the salt instantly caused some horrendous chaffing, particularly in my already sore behind!

Day 3 kicked off with our first section of the dreaded salt flats. As we ploughed through an area of tall grass the field stayed much closer together & for the next 20km to CP2 it was strong & close running. 

I left the second checkpoint in 8^th place but quickly passed the Chilean national team who were almost stationary in the horrendous salt flat area between CP2 & CP3. Many people have tried to describe what running or more likely walking on this landscape is like. Best, in simple terms, it is like running across a coral reef minus the water. I repeatedly kicked rocks into the rear of my calves with my trailing leg. This did wonders for the already badly sunburnt skin. Nevertheless I persisted on passing an Italian competitor and again made CP3 in 4^th place despite stopping three times with stomach problems. CP3 to CP4 went on forever across rolling dunes, ending in a small section of climbing just prior to the finish. Nicola Bennetti, another strong Italian competitor, passed me during the final stage and as hard as I pushed he always seemed to be around 200m ahead the whole way into camp. On arrival I was greeted with a mandatory kit check of food stocks, emergency gear and mandatory equipment (which I passed) and for the first time ever in any race, headed over to the medical tent. The main reason for this was that when removing my shoes and socks I had inadvertently torn off two fresh toenails. 

(Missing toenails)

A quick removal job followed by burning the skin with hydrogen peroxide rendered the toes as good as new and I was amazed at the difference. Never again would I be so against seeking help from the Docs! By this point in the race Team Trifecta (Frank, Hully & Willo) had built up a small lead over the warring Chileans. I couldn’t help but feel for one member of their team as he was very obviously being dragged along at a ridiculous pace by the two quicker local runners. Passing him in tears each day was a real low point and on seeing them I always made sure to congratulate him on doing such a great job, ignoring the others who appeared to be barracking him for show and move on quickly so as not to get dragged into the psychological downer of being around the group. Had they worked as a team there was a very good chance they would have ended up beating our boys but Trifecta were solid as a rock each day. Sticking to a regime of run 7, walk 3 for each ten minute burst they found their rhythm and stuck to it. It was impressive to see how a well organised unit used their racing experience to manage the race to victory. What was not so impressive was an unnamed member of that team flooding the area under my sleeping bag with water during the night. It was quite an experience sleeping out under the stars though. In the end I was grateful. 

Day 4 was straightforward enough, aside from CP2 – CP3. The first 20km was a relatively simple and largely runnable gradual downhill slope and with everyone conserving energy for the long day, the pace was far from relentless. Shortly after CP2 we entered the salt flats. It felt very much like the race almost stopped for that section. You could see runners ahead and behind all moving at snail pace just trying to get through it in the best shape possible. Running was out of the question, twisted ankles and cut legs were the order of the day. I simply put my head down at this point, pulled out the ipod which I had brought for this one section in particular and ground out the 10km with the foo fighters blaring at me. Once again I passed the Chilean Team, with the two stronger runners shouting at the third much slower guy to hurry up, knowing full well that Team Trifecta were bearing down on them. After the horrendous section of salt I passed the Italian Italo Orru at CP3 and jogged into the finish in just over 7 hours. Shortly after I had gone through, the Trifecta boys also came past the Chileans and ended the Chilean fight for the lead. Later that afternoon the slower member of the group decided the pain of his feet had become too much to race with the two faster guys any longer and they disbanded to race separately for the last 2 stages. An horrendous day for many was then made worse when the weather closed in and destroyed the campsite. Whilst sitting in the tent sorting my kit a sand devil blew through and tore the tent from the ground with me in it.  It felt like Armageddon as I fought to get out from the material being torn about me and as I crawled outside the race directors were shouting ‘get down get down’ with flying poles and tents everywhere. That was fine by me. Our tent stayed on the floor until it passed & with four of the tents completely destroyed and blown out across the salt lake, the boys from Team Trifecta and I quickly made our way to the media tent where which we made our home for the night. 

Before the start of day 5 I had a very careful look at the standings to see what I would need to achieve across the 74km in order to tick the boxes for the goals I had set myself. To my surprise and delight I was in 5^th place overall, 4 minutes behind Joey Kelly in 4^th and 3 and a half hours up on the nearest competitor in my age group. If I had a good day I would move into 4^th and undoubtedly secure the ‘win’. If I hit the wall or had a bad one I would perhaps be looking at over-nighting on the course and could very realistically still lose everything I had worked for across the last 9 months. Starting out with the rest of the top 20 in a staggered start an hour after the slower runners had left camp, we ran straight into 13km of salt flats. Not an ideal way to begin running 75km. I went off hard straight away. I wanted to put time on Joey and make him work to catch me. I was also spurred on by the site of the slower group in the distance. As we began to pass the back of the field one by one it became painfully clear how slowly some of the competitors were moving. With shredded feet or injuries ranging from the mild to the severe it was inspiring to see people coping with whatever ailments they were suffering. At the agonising pace some were moving at it was going to be an extremely long day, if not two, yet they WERE moving and what’s more almost all of them smiled and clapped as we went past. By CP2 I had passed all but 1 of the runners from the slower group and began to move into a section of rocky desert. With the front group strung out up ahead I literally couldn’t see another sole for miles around. That was until Joey Kelly came roaring past. I had a bit of a down moment when Joey came through. I knew that I would have a job on my hands trying to beat him and get 4^th but I hadn’t expected to relinquish the lead so early. Joey later told me that he had found it impossible to pass me over the previous 2 days. Each afternoon he had come up behind me and we had run together for a while before I had managed to find second wind and push on ahead once again. He wasn’t going to let that happen again. CP3 came after an enormous dune climb before dropping down to CP4 at the end of a dried river bed. At this point we had covered about 50km, Joey was well out of site and were left with 8km to CP5 and 12km to the finish. The 8km wasn’t too bad although I needed to visit the gents (side of the road) 5 times alone on this section alone as my stomach problems increased their intensity. I reached CP5 just as darkness was falling, changed into some long sleeved clothing, pulled out the headtorch and began tackling the 3km hill ahead. It always amazes me in these races how alone you can feel, not being able to see anyone behind you for miles and miles & yet how quickly people can come up behind you. At this point I was in 7^th place & I knew if I could just push on at a steady 5km per hour I would have the trophy and 5^th place within my grasp. Unfortunately things started to go badly wrong. I hit the wall in a big way as a direct result of my stomach problems which persisted and had real trouble walking in a straight line. I had reached my limit. Kashin from Singapore and Shane from Ireland came running past at what felt to me like 5km race pace and I was struggling to just keep moving. As I turned off of the road I used my old trick of resetting my watch every 10 – 15 minutes counting down the amount of time I had before I reached the finish. Basing it on 10 minute km’s I thought I would be ok.

Two hours later Nicola from Italy came up behind me and we walked together for the final 4km. Both he and I were toast. Nicola kicked a rock rather too hard and let out a scream of pain which woke me up from a dribbling stupor. As we descended a dry waterfall, two volunteers helping us down told us ‘just 400 yards from the second waterfall’. As we reached the second descent, Mary Gadams was there to help us with the hand and foot holds. When we checked how far to go, Marys response was ‘no more than half an hours walking’. Absolutely on our last legs, Nicola looked at me and then let out a tirade on poor Mary about how wrong the distance estimations had been. I felt like giving up there and then with the finish line almost in sight. As we stumbled on in silence I was irate and started to run again fuelled by nothing but adrenaline from the anger. Nicola joined me & in no time at all we crossed the finish line together in 11 hours and 50 minutes. 

The final competitors crossed the line to our applause over 24 hours after the start gun had gone off. When the blind Korean came through the tension over the camp from a weeks hard racing seemed to lift & thoughts of burgers, fried chicken, chips, cokes, beer and loved ones (in roughly that order) started to appear very close to home. As we enjoyed a few of those things that evening everyone started tending to feet for the last time & hitting the sack early in order to be on top form for the awards dinner the following night, as well as the small matter of the final 10km the following morning.

Stage 6 of desert stage races have always seemed unnecessary to me & none more so than in this race when it was decided that the top 12 would start an hour after the rest of the field. I was hoping to be able to run with the boys from Trifecta and with them just outside the top 12 this was rendered impossible. Racing the Planet have provided me with unparalleled experiences and moments that I wouldn’t trade for any amount of wealth, however this decision plus the ‘waterfall incident’ did make me wonder if they would consider making small adjustments to the benefit of all in the future. As the last 12 of us set off we were chased by the course sweepers picking up the final pink route markers behind us as we went. It was surreal to know that the course was disappearing forever just a few paces behind us but also frustrating in that I felt like I was being tested for pace by a German guy with no back pack and fresh legs. I ended up coming over the line 10^th  out of the 12 maintaining my 5^th place overall and winning the age group. Team Trifecta took home the team award and Joey Kelly took home the age category 30 – 39 and ended up an hour ahead of me in 4^th place. 

(The finishing Line)

People always ask if I would recommend others to take part in stage racing of this nature. My answer is always the same. If you train & are in any sort of shape coming into the race, you will have what will remain forever as one of the best & most unforgettable weeks of your life. There is no single part of it that isn’t worth it. All the pain you might experience on the race itself is washed away at the end and you are left with so much more than overcoming such a huge physical undertaking, not least pride, a sense of achievement, renewed vigour, strength of mind when returning to the real world & friendships you will keep for life. The only real danger can be that each subsequent race must try to live up to the one that has gone before & that is a lot to ask. In my experience they always have.