I’ve not done a great deal of miles this week , 22 miles on the road and 10 miles on a treadmill in preparation for Saturday, this is fine as I am tapering for the Himalayan 100 stage race. I’ll be right there among the Himalayan mountains and standing ready to go on the starting line in exactly 2 weeks today and I really can’t wait !! In the mean time I will be supporting my friend James Messer on Friday through the night until Saturday morning as he attempts his monster 24 hour stepathon to the top of Everest and back , I will be right alongside him for most of the night as I will be running a Midnight treadmill marathon in support , 26.2 miles on a treadmill hmmmmm I’ve had better ideas but the two of us will toil together through the night in aid of MacMillan Nurses , I’ve ran through the night several times and I know it can be tough , I will try to keep James’ spirits high as his body wants to shut down , hopefully me working hard next to him will help , if not I have an electric cattle prod….
Kielder
Then when my support shift ends I will try to get some sleep as I am up first thing in the morning to run Keilder trail Marathon with my friends from tent 79 in the Marathon Des Sable .. this will be amazing as I haven’t seen the guys since we parted in London in April. Hopefully the pace wont be to hard on me , I know a few of them have been pretty lazy since so it’s a get together more than anything else and I’m expecting them at my house sometime on Saturday afternoon , lets hope they understand if I want an early night , I’ve probably ran this marathon route more than 25 times , it’s so beautiful there and its one of my favorite all time runs , perfect for just jumping out my car and doing the whole route , there’s no shortcuts and there’s some short sharp hills in there , I’ve ran it from every start point , clockwise and anti-clockwise , it’s the nicest trail imaginable and not that far from my house .
Many years ago as a fledgling Ice climber I was lucky enough to get a chance to climb with James Messer. He was a talented all-round climber and already an experienced veteran of the Ice , with many Alpine ascents including Mont Blanc and far further afield with attempts on Mount McKinley in Alaska and many many more. At first I was a little intimidated but I was the talented technical rock climber who wanted to climb ice , he was the experienced veteran and we soon struck up a climbing partnership that had us climbing some very beautiful and testing winter routes all over ….. His tenacity was unlimited , he would attack scary leads with no fear , he would haul himself up some of the most horrible looking loose and unprotected pitches you ever saw !! I was the delicate technical climber who danced his way lightly up the ice using rock climbing technique and exceptional balance , we were the two extremes of climbing but we respected each others abilities and favoured leads on who was most suited , he was the man who taught me winter navigation , how to judge snow and Ice conditions , safety procedures but most of all he inspired me to go where I would never have gone if he hadn’t been on the other end of the rope … He was Mountain Rescue , brave and determined , I respected the hell out of him …that respect has only strengthened over the years and we have grown to be very good friends.
The man in action !
In a cruel twist of fate , high on Ben Ulaidh in the Scottish Highlands , we were involved in a serious accident , an avalanche crashed over us on a large Ice fall , James was hit , I was lucky , I managed to get to him and we escaped the Icefall before it collapsed , many difficult hours later he was eventually whisked away unconscious to hospital , his girlfriend pregnant at the time with his son Mark , who he later named after me .. Ive never been so proud …. James had suffered a severe blow , he had a collapsed lung which has never fully recovered , making what he is doing now even more remarkable , serious nerve damage occurred and he lost the use of his left side and spent a long time recovering in hospital , yet not once did I ever see him falter ,every hospital visit I would see him smiling on our arrival , if he had dark moments he did not burden anyone else , he has become a perfect father , he still teaches the Mountain Rescue and now he is a talented photographer , still travelling to the places he loves , not to climb , but to photograph its beauty .. JPM Photography…. although he still takes on the occasional mountain when the mood takes him.
Talented Landscape photographer
On Friday in Think Fitness Gym he will attempt to “step” the height of Everest and K2 together in one push , 57,284 feet in total , hoping to finish within 24 hours and I will be there to support him through the night , our history is deep and I’m very proud to be there for him through what will probably be the hardest stage , I will be running a treadmill marathon alongside him hoping to make it a little easier as someone else joins him in toil , ……. I cannot convey the respect I have for him in words , not much brings a tear to my eye but this dude really is something else !! He has chosen the MacMillan Nurses charity for both personal reasons and because it really is an amazing and deserving charity !!
Read about him here and consider even donating a couple of pounds if you can , lets get behind him and inspire him all the way to the finish !!!! ……………………..
My need for a last 100+ mile training week and the fact I am only 2 weeks away from my Himalayan 100 race , I decided to pull out all the stops and go for a 35+ mile trail run , I chose two of my favourites , linked them with a series of horse trails and made it a big linear route so I couldn’t just give in , I would have to reach the car to get home , this is always a good tactic . My friend Neil would dump my car at the end and mountain bike back to town , sorted !! I awoke to a perfect day , sunny , yet with a cool air , this was to change though , eventually to a roasting hot sunny day that dehydrated the hell out of me but at the very least it started well enough.
Heading for the Hills ……
I left my house at Horsley Hill and headed into the fields as soon as I could find a gate, I climbed high and ran the rolling hills looking over the town for over 8 miles until I found the long descent trail that would help me cross the Teviot valley before heading up and over to the next and on to Collifort hill and its beautiful scenery , this is a place of true beauty , the hills overlook forests , rivers , old Castles and beautiful vistas at every hill-top .. wall to wall picture postcard countryside , it’s so easy to get lost in these trails , both physically and mentally. About 3 hours in I was feeling the heat and I hadn’t filled my Inov8 bladder fully , when holding the full 2 litres it does get heavy and I’d planned on making the reservoir long before it ran out , I didn’t !!! so I was forced to detour slightly to refill , after this the trail was pretty flat and I made good going , I had passed the 20 mile stage at this point and despite the heat I was feeling better than if I had been running road miles , the trail was going well and I had decided to run in my Inov8 285s , these are my favorite shoes of all , I’m a monster Inov8 fan !! , I have shied away from using these shoes in the desert for various reasons but they are my weapon of choice for the hard pack hill or trail , I have never ran further than 18-20 miles in them though so this was their test.
Real running shoes !!
My forced rest then progressive mileage build up program that I have followed since the Gobi is definitely working and I’ve hit a peak bang on when I want to , the Gobi was a disaster, I entered that desert arena unmotivated and due to Injury lacking the intensity of training needed to run it how I would have liked but this time I’m just how I want to be !! the Himalayan 100 is going to be an Epic run !!! the finale’ to my Epic year !! About 25 miles in I hit a nice 3-4 mile long easy angled downhill section , just what I wanted and gave me a decent rest after all the climbing I had done , I had been running 90% of the hills at this point and it was starting to hurt , the Borders has fantastic runnable hills so its hard to resist , bridle paths and Drove roads are everywhere , all 95% runnable by the off-road runner , I find it very easy to use map my run to program my GPS for some amazingly complicated runs and just get out and go !!!
After passing the 26 marathon mile point I was starting to feel the heat but I headed on to an old railway track , nice and flat so I zoned out for a few miles , I felt better and had a 5 min break for food and a quick tweet before breaking into the fields again , I tweeted a few pics of the day as I hit unrunnable hills and had to slow down a bit , anything to break up the run and keep the mind occupied helps , I was finishing through the forest stage of Penchrise hill , with 360 degree views of the borders and one our highest hills , it’s a sight to behold when you reach the top after a long slog of a climb, I wanted to check the forest was clear , there’s a lot of tree felling in there and I was stopped in my tracks half way though back in March and had to negotiate miles of steep detours to get home , but as it turned out it was perfect and I headed straight through.
the long track past Penchrise …
At about 31 miles I was really feeling the sun beating down and my want to stop running was getting stronger all the time , I was fighting it and needed to play mental games galore , Sex vision , counting , meditation , Id used them all so I decided to video log the last few miles , I apologise for the swearing now 🙂 and also the ramblings but its how it was , I hide nothing …. and please bear in mind I have just ran over 30 miles in the blazing heat before recording it and appreciate that I am way better looking in real life !!! haha 😉 , another reason was Alan Eagles observation that he was amazed at how us Ultra runners “apparently” seem to run the distances easily and with smiles on our faces so I started to record a little footage every passing mile , I cant remember ever smiling apart from at the finish so I thought Id see for myself , as it turned out this video would give me the motivation in the last few miles to keep going , especially as I was so wrong as to how far into the forest I was , 36 miles turned into 39 and anyone who has run long distance knows there’s nothing more horrible than discovering you have another 3 miles to go when you think you should be finished !!!! Honestly I thought I should have been out of that forest at every turn , yet it just kept coming , I was really buzzing though , it was the best I have run since before the Marathon DEs Sable and after a tough year of races and injury the realisation that I was going to be able to enjoy the Himayalan 100 , the final race in my year off , was clearly affecting me as I was definitely getting a little emotional in those final miles , the thoughts that go through your head when you really push the distance deserve a full chapter in this blog and maybe I will write one on what was going on when I run past Everest next month , that should be interesting , my thoughts were drawn to how Its been one seriously tough mission this year , 4 of the worlds most extreme races , dragging my arse and blistered feet across inhospitable terrain for 100’s of miles in my first year of running through will power and limited running prowess !! and now I’m nearly at the end of my journey so it was all coming home to me in those last few miles .. man !! Aaaaargh !! it just weakened my legs reliving it just now , writing it down , pretty much I’m an emotional guy at the best of times , commitment ,enthusiasm and heart pull me though epics that my body probably isn’t ready for , but in at the deep end appears to be where it’s at for me !!
the buzz didn’t last forever though as every corner I turned in the forest lead to more and more track , I was seriously demoralised by the time I got out … but when I hit the open country I was buzzing again , just over a mile from the car and just one shallow hill to negotiate .. I could have run it , my legs had it in them , I’m sure of it but I couldn’t , I just couldn’t , 38+ miles in and it just seemed to be impossible to get my head round how sore it was , so I walked it to the crest and ran the flat then the downhill all the way to the car , I saw the river , looking cold and inviting , I didn’t think twice , I went straight in , cold and invigorating , running straight off the hillside !!!! I sat there for the best part of 30 minutes getting myself together , emotionally and physically. …… Eventually I headed to the car , I hadn’t thought my river dip out fully , I had no change of clothes , just a Wobbly Williams T-shirt in the back from The Great Scottish Run , still with number attached , I stripped naked and popped the T-shirt on , at least if the police stopped me on the way home I would be half-dressed ….. So onwards now to my taper , Keilder Marathon next week then off to Darjeeling in India , confident in the knowledge Im ready ………….. then back to work .. shit !! whose Idea was that !!!!
Equilibrium “the condition of a system in which competing influences are balanced”
Events over the past few days have had me accept some serious truths and start to re-evaluate just who I am and where I am now headed, pretty much my life has always sat in perfect equilibrium , I’ve been lucky enough to have had the time , motivation , funds and energy to go chasing my dreams , I kept out of serious relationships until India’s mother , I walked in and out of work easily between adventures and always kept myself fit enough to grab any opportunity to climb or kayak that presented itself , I thought it would never end but over the past few years I’ve had a dose of “come back down to Earth” served to me on a weekly basis ,my break up and ongoing troubles between India’s mother and I ,the way my shops suffered from the recession and most problematic of all !! my accident in Vallouise which has now reared its ugly head in the most obtrusive life changing way and saw my shoulder degrade to a state that now necessitates an operation just for normal use…..
Originally I thought all I had to do was rest for a year and normal life would resume again but now I’m looking at at least another 12 months on a waiting list and then a 6-12 month recovery period , hopefully after the operation it will be strong enough to begin easy climbing and kayaking again and even then it may never be trustworthy enough for a remote kayak or climbing trip. Its like one of those stories that happens to someone else , except its happening to me !! But these are now the facts of my life and I have accepted them yet its hard to know just what I feel, I’ve kayaked grade 5 all over the world and I was a climber capable of E5 , a very lofty grade and one that I trained hard to maintain , its only been a year since my accident and already my gymnastic strength and abilities have all but disappeared , the man who once walked up the “100 steps“on his hands can’t even do a hand stand anymore , my finger strength is gone and my muscle tension a fraction of what it was .. after another 2 years out I will have to start from the very bottom again and I just can’t imagine what that will be like .
So what do I do now ? Well I’m about to embark on a serious plan to become a better runner , I’m putting thoughts of rivers and rock faces to the side , they are just negative baggage now, It’s great that I have been there but I wont waste my time dreaming of maybe when there are real possibilities in front of me !! I’m going to join the local running club , follow training plans and enter tough races , it’s the only positive way forward so I am about to take it , it’s not that I havent already been run training but I always thought it was a stop-gap between getting back to the rock/river , I never really gave it 100% , I did what was necessary to enjoy myself and get to the finish line but now I want a little more , of course I want to enjoy it first but now Id like to get more involved in the training , go a little harder !! go longer !! I’ve been lucky to have become friends with and been super inspired by the grand masters of Scottish endurance Mark Cooper , Paul Giblin ,Donnie Campbell, Andrew Murray ,Richard Galbraith , ,Davie Belle and Peter Gallanagh , through twitter I’ve met and followed guys like Ray Wise,Johnny Mullen , Sonny Winston , Andrew Fletcher and many more .. in fact running culture is so inspiring its hard to believe this didn’t happen to me sooner but I did already have 2 great loves maybe 3 😉 so it took a little separation time to leave my last relationship behind and start anew with my new task mistress of extreme running !!!!
“remember all my blog posts are my own experiences and my own interpretation, if you feel I’m wrong say so in the comments and we can also learn from your experience ………”
