The keeper of fleeting moment
“If you ask me” muttered the slightly grumpy physio at CP2 as he taped my left foot up to stabilise my knee, “this race is too much”. There’s nothing bach about this ultra, for sure. It may be what we disparagingly dismiss as “only” 50kms (32 miles in old money) but with 2,500 metres of ascent and 90% technical terrain it’s probably the hardest race I’ve ever done.
As well as the subtle menace of heat, there was an unusually high level of testosterone flying around at the start. Races like this tend to be pretty low key, with the willy waving left to the road princesses – but I was almost choking on the pheromones as I headed for my 29th pee of the morning.
We were away on time for a short run along the road before we hit the canal for a couple of miles. This brought my first challenge of the day – letting everybody go. I was in no way match fit for this, even though it was a training run for more scary races later in the summer. My ski-lift-banjaxed right knee (remember that one?) had recovered enough – or so I thought – to train enough to get me round, but I’d lost a lot of weeks of training earlier this year and this one was always going to be a challenge. I had a strict 4/1 run/walk strategy for any flat bits and whilst I am a pretty disciplined racer, watching everybody else disappear while you’re left clinging onto your nerve is a bit disconcerting in the first 15 minutes. I was already feeling a wee bit out of sorts when somebody caught up with me, looked me up and down and said “walking already, are you?” but I smiled in a sweetly dangerous way, affirmed their astute observation and carried on, muttering “I’ll see you later, Mrs”.
A few kms of warmup and the proper business of the day got underway, with an ascent up the north side of Tor y Foel. I’ve done this route once before – I was wearing the t shirt to prove it – and it’s a horror. Straight up, relentlessly. There were a couple of guys behind me clearly having a hard time and I was happy to make it all the way up without having to stop. It’s a beautiful, technical decent down the back, which I know and love, so I was looking forward to letting rip and getting some time bagged. But my left knee suddenly, from out of nowhere, had other ideas – it pretty much seized up. Alas, it was a sedate and demure descent for me. I was only 10 kms in and already things were getting a bit stressful. And I had the coal road ahead of me. I hate that fecking stretch of trail with every fibre of my being, so I had music lined up to get me through it. It’s uphill, but runnable, for a few miles. Not today though – my running was already over, and I knew it. So, it was music and singing to get me up to the first proper CP, where Nick would be waiting for me with food.
Once of the CP marshalls was a physio and he suggested taping up my foot, to stabilise my knee. I sat there like a queen, stuffing my face and letting him deal with my foot, during which my antagonist from earlier arrived….and retired. Mind what you say to other runners, kids – it might just come back to bite you on the arse.
The next 22 miles were unchartered territory for me. I’ve never pushed through an injury in a race quite like this one. The infamous incident in Paris 2014 that took my adductor out left me roaring, literally, for the last 6 miles to get it finished – and my DNF at mile 21 in Amsterdam the following year, which led to the underlying issue finally being diagnosed (and some eye wateringly memorable pelvis realignment) are my only previous experiences, so I had no idea which way this was going to go. As I headed off up the next hill into a 10 mile section that would only be reachable by a rescue helicopter if it all went tits up.
Ultra running is a funny old business. When I was a road racer, I would go through a proper training plan for every marathon, to make sure I go the right combination of distance, tempo and intervals each week. These days, it’s completely different. I still train at least 4 days a week, but it’s much more relaxed. All about miles, time on my feet, how much I can eat – and hills. Many, many hills.
It would be pushing it a bit to say that these days it’s possible to go out and bullshit my way around a 50km race…but as that’s pretty much what I was doing, there may be a grain of truth in there. Getting through a long day of racing is a very different animal from holding onto your eyeballs, nerve and digestive system for a few hours during a marathon. Ultras are all about the hygiene factors. Pacing, drinking enough, eating enough – especially when you don’t feel like it. Flexibility in your thinking, because it won’t go to plan. Have you got all the kit you need – and even more importantly, do you know exactly where it is in your race vest? Because if you don’t, the time when you’re hypo/sick/getting sunstroke will be 100 times worse.
Which brings me neatly onto my traditional race rescue. For those of you who were already having flashbacks to 2019 when my OCC tracker stopped for a very long time, I’m truly sorry. But when there’s a person down, you stop. We were about 22 miles in. I’d recovered from my running out of water incident, had a wee sit down and some food at the bottom of Pen y Fan (where I also spent some time hissing at my long suffering husband about how I was never getting on a ski lift with him again) and was making steady, if painful progress up yet another huge hill. This was the bit where there was no more trail – bogs and sheep tracks all the way. And almost no markers, so plenty of navigation adjustments. I was feeling pretty ok, in spite of some rather dubious music that a friend had sent to motivate me. Thanks, supporters. There were two men behind me and one up ahead – and I was gaining on him faster than I thought I should be at that stage.
He sat down suddenly – and as we reached him it was clear that he was very unwell. He was projectile vomiting everything he’d ever eaten. He was carrying, for no discernible reason, a 40 pound pack which did have the salt and electrolytes he needed, but he hadn’t taken them. It was a boiling hot day, he was burnt to hell and almost certainly had sunstroke. We got some electrolytes and water into him and slowly he started to recover. It was slow progress and one of the other guys carried his pack for him, which was a heroic thing to do.
I’d let go of all idea of time by this point – I just wanted to finish in one piece, inside the 12 hour cutoff. There was still a long way to go, and we’d lost quite a lot of time doing our first aid thing. Heading down yet another boggy hill to the last CP, I saw the most welcome sight in the world – Joe. He’d walked nearly a mile up to meet me, then he skiddled along beside me talking absolute nonsense until we got to Nick and Ashley. Later, he said he thought I’d like some company by then and he was spot on – especially the talking nonsense thing, because all I had to do was listen.
They tried to time us out at the checkpoint. Luckily, our almost recovered friend did some swift talking for us and they agreed to let us carry on, so long as we all stuck together. I’m very grateful to him – I thought I was going to have to cry to get what I wanted. And to be honest, I didn’t really have the energy.
The last 7 miles were just painful. Tiredness, hills, forests, steps, waterfalls that we had to walk behind (that was cool), more steps, headtorches, and just putting one foot in front of the other to get to the end.
Then suddenly, out of the darkness, Joe again. Promising me it was just around the corner – and of course he was right. There they all were, my little group of stalwart supporters who’d been waiting for me in the dark. A last effort to run, a lovely medal, and the pride and relief that comes from surviving another one.
I run alone, but I don’t do this thing alone. I have a family who have absorbed this as part of our life together. Nick, who spends day up in the hills while I train and who turns up at an extraordinary number of checkpoints to support not only me, but everybody who is running. Joe, who has a sixth sense for what I need when it all starts to get a bit gritty. Ashley, who didn’t even blink when we hauled her up to Yorkshire last summer for her inaugural supporter experience. Ashley’s Mum, who lives 5 minutes from the end of this race and who took me home and made me proper deep fried chips – my love for her is now limitless.
And my amazing friends. The ones who send me messages, who sing me songs when I’m sitting by the side of a road in a race being a brat and refusing to move because I don’t like running any more, who send me music to, apparently, inspire me…you all rock. I’ve got some amazing people in my life, and never more so than when I’m in a dark place, everything hurts and I recognise the utter stupidity of ever embarking on such a preposterous undertaking. Until next time.