May 2019 – Page 2 – My Outdoor Living Room

After last weekend’s excesses I had a reasonably laid back on this weekend. That phrase had so many different meanings in my twenties.

Anyway, the training focus now shifts towards the Fan Dance in about 7 weeks and the ultra marathon following that the weekend after. As luck would have it, a mate of mine whom I met at our local ParkRun, almost read my mind and messaged me to see if I’d be interested in doing some longer runs on Saturday mornings before ParkRun, which is what I was intending to do anyway. So after a night on the tiles on Friday night after work, I met him at 7.30 am and off we trotted at a fairly pleasant pace, able to chat the whole way. By the time we did the ParkRun however, dead legs had set in and despite my assurances to concerned friends overtaking me that I was taking it easy, I couldn’t have actually ran faster if there was an escaped leopard chasing me. I would have been breakfast. Still, it was really enjoyable to run along chatting to people instead of flying along like it’s the Olympics.

The run home for both of us was fairly hilarious as we both literally ground to a halt. Still, it’s good for me not to tire my legs too much ahead of the weekend.

My very good school friend whom I mentioned last week completed an incredible 100 mile (actually 104 mile!) cycle ride at the weekend, and finished in a very respectable time. The face to face conversation we had briefly at my ultra the other week revealed she was concerned that the broom wagon would get her! This obviously wasn’t the case. I think the size of her achievement might not sink in for a while. Despite her doubts, and my years of endurance training, I am actually only 25 minutes faster across that distance, so she has a hell of a lot to be proud of. I hope it is now the catalyst to start a journey of self-discovery and personal achievement that I started out on years ago, cutting any doubt down to size and instilling a kind of quiet confidence that you know what your limits are and what you’re capable of. So many people are afraid to find out.

As I carried out hill sprints and circuits in the woods near my house yesterday morning, I was very aware of the motto on my t-shirt: Pain is your only certainty.

This makes or breaks people. Time find out which.

On Saturday morning, after a week slogging it around the Brecon Beacons, I found myself at 7 am on the starting line of my first ultra marathon of the year. In the past couple of weeks I have raised concerns about my lack of training for this event, not helped by it being brought forward a week, squashing any hope of a recovery week.

So Friday was spent unpacking everything from the mountain escapades and repacking for overnight camping at the race HQ as well as for the run itself. Once there, dinner was made, as well as chatting to the other camper, a guy named Jonny who was doing one of the shorter distances (a mere 31 miles).

After a humble speech, and rapturous applause, the race field set off. The field quickly spread out and I found myself behind a guy, who awkwardly held every gate for me. Fortunately, I’d had too many coffees and had to stop for relief and he plodded off ahead. I eventually did catch him up again shortly before the first checkpoint, overtook him, and pulled away.

A few miles later, on a beautiful descent down to the River, there was a field of yellow rapeseed crops, with our path cutting through it. On this path I could see two small heads meandering through it. It would have made a fantastic photograph, their blue kit contrasting the yellow, epitomising the beauty of the region and why we get up so bloody early and do this to ourselves.

I had prepared to spend the entire 46 mile course alone, mainly by creating a playlist on my phone for when it got tough, and different techniques to push through when I had to. Such is life and these events that I did catch up with the two guys that I had seen previously in the yellow field, and after running as a trio, three became two. As luck would have it, the two of us were very similar in outlook, humour, pace and temperament. He was a Swedish guy called Krister, though at first I thought he was a Londoner! In all we ran about 20 odd miles together, well over half the race. We talked at length about life, our different cultures, humour, Vikings and cracked a few jokes, usually around our respective nationalities. We created an ultra marathon mantra to ourselves which went something like this:

If you can’t run, there’s always walking. If you can’t walk, there’s always crawling. If you can’t crawl, there’s always Uber!

Two things amused me the most in the final few miles that we were together. The first was a bottle he kept sipping from, which contained his magic sauce. Now, I know what was in it, but I believe it is Krister’s right to secrecy so I won’t reveal the recipe. I should add that there’s nothing illegal in it! It was the sauce (ha ha) of humour that kept me going through some tough climbs, along with trying to work out what this strange clicking sound was. I first heard it, and thought it was me. Or something in my bag, or something in Krister’s bag. It sounded like two pebbles being trapped together. I didn’t say anything until at one point Krister turned and said, “What’s that noise?!” and he worked out it was in fact his shoes. It was like running to a metronome!

It was about 5 miles from the finish that I had to let Krister continue alone, as just of a farm track, sat on the grass with her dog, was a longstanding school friend, who despite being in contact with on social media many times a week, I haven’t seen face to face since we left school in 1998. I often think that your friends will tell you what they think you want to hear, but the best friends you have tell you like it is, and this rang true on Saturday. I mentioned that I had in fact stopped sweating, probably due to dehydration, and quick as you like, my friend looked at my face and neck and said, “Yeah, you’re really crusty, mate!”. After twenty years, five minutes in and those are amongst her first words! It made me laugh all the way to the finish. Really great to see her and humbling to have support.

Eventually I crossed the finish in a time one hour and a quarter faster than last year, finishing seventh in the process. On the back of the success of my midweek test march test march, this gave me more confidence, and has pushed me to begin to consider much bigger goals for the next two years.