The slog to St Gervais was wet, warm but darkish. One of the only jobs I’d forgotten to write down whilst thinking about it was to put new batteries in my head torch. The batteries were nowhere near dead but every other beam cancelled mine out. School boy error, the ground’s not technical or dangerous so I just get on with it with a mental note to change them at the next check point.
St Gervais, lovely noodle soup, sweet coke and I’m off, no, stop, change them batteries first! Leaving St Gervais Square by the stairs was like losing an anchor, this is where it had been cancelled last year. The memories started to come back of all the disappointed faces, gutted was a understatement. No time to wallow in pity, I’ve got a race to run and I’m feeling pretty positive about it.
Tactics
When I first started racing I would just put my head down and go for gold. Sometimes you would just pull one out the bag, bad training, poor diet, lack of sleep, wrong gear but somehow you pull it off and run a blinder. A particular race just occurred to me (please feel free to skip this bit if it’s just the UTMB details you’re after!) – I’d entered the 7x7x7 Endurancelife Coastal Series. Seven marathons over seven months at seven different coastal venues down the South West. Complete them all and you get a coveted 7x7x7 long sleeve tee shirt, great eh! Unfortunately I crashed the van on the M5 near Bristol, the only place the van was going now was the breakers yard (or so I wanted). Stranded on the side of the M5 waiting for the recovery vehicle my chances of the tee shirt was slipping away. What if, what if, mmmm, my mind starts to kick in on how to escape this situation? Bristol Airports only a few miles away and surely they do 24 hour car hire. Now if the kind recovery man will drop us off at the airport we can throw some kit in the car and continue our journey South. Not having our driving licence or any real ID made it a bit harder to hire the car but we got it in the end, YES! So our journey continues with a quick stop at one of those service stations for burger and fries, I’m not sure how they can justify putting ‘King’ in their title but hey! We arrive at our destination at about 1am, did I mention that we were going to sleep and cook in the van and we have a 15 month old baby with us? The next day I came in 2nd, top result!
So back to tactics, I train, eat, sleep and choose my gear better these days (and try not to crash vans!), so now I’ve to put my plan into action, tactics. My aim was to take a steady pace, listen to my body, run wise and finish strong, whilst all the time moving up the field.
Back to the race
On my way up to La Balme I started to get a head ache, I just put this down to all the hussle and bussle of the day and strictly rule altitude out. At La Balme I popped a couple of Paracetamol had a bite to eat then had to tear myself away from a roaring fire, back to the hill/hell. It was still very dark and I wasn’t sure how much further uphill I needed to go. Once this CP was departed I could see a steady line of lights leading up and up and up. An hour or two later dawn started to break and I had to resist the temptation of screaming ‘COCK-A-DOODLE-DO’ at the top of my voice. Before I knew it I was at the top of Col Bonhomme, great but what’s this I see, people are now heading off left and up, more bloody up! Once my heart/head had settled I realised that this path looked great territory and was quite runable in places. Snow had fallen over the night which gave the mountain even more of a special feeling about it. Once Croix Du Bonhomme (2443m) was departed I was looking forward to a blast down hill but it was not to be. The path was nasty and steep with lots deep ruts, maybe excellent on a 10 mile fell run but not with so many miles to go! The last couple of mile saved the day with some nice steady running into CP Les Chapiex (50km). As I left the check point something different was happening, please sir, your mobile phone, kit check time, great, I’m just pleased they didn’t ask me for my waterproof gloves! A long uphill road section next but yet again in stunning scenery. Every one was walking so I decided to knock a few off (runners) with a gentle jog. I was soon cutting across more open mountain side on rough track again though.
I found it hard to get used to the amount of people on this race, since the start there was always a snake of bodies in front and behind as far as the eye could possibly see. If you stopped to take a photo- 10 places lost, put a jacket on 20 places, call of nature 30 – 50 lost! Yes, I know you can do all of these things on the move (even the last one!) but just to stop and take in the surroundings was fantastic. Not long after here I stop for a quick picture of huge cows crossing our path with cow bells the size of sheep skulls. As I put my camera away a girl runs past me with her rucksack fully open, I shout “pardon”, no response, “excuse me”, at this she looks around and I inform her about her open rucksack and offer to zip it up for her, she asks if she’s lost anything, “depends on what you had it there” I reply! We run and chat for a bit before she breaks off and leaves me (not for the last time!).
At the next CP I see her checking her contents so I enquire as to whether everything’s accounted for. Luckily all’s there and she says we should get a move on. We ran the next leg together, I did feel conscious that I was holding her back a bit so openly stated that she needed to drop me and carry on at her own pace. I’m not exactly Mr Chat or Mr Interesting when running ultras (or most of the time some would say!).
We arrived in Courmayeur in good spirits despite the long gnarly descent. We were greeted with plenty of cheers and our half way bags. Socks and insoles changed, food consumed and we’re out of there, just like that, 40 minutes later! It was about this time that we were notified by text that there had been another route change, rather than run (walk) to Bovine we had to miss this out and take a detour down to Martigny which gave us slightly more vertical height and a few more km’s for good value!
Things start to get a bit vague for a while now, mental fatigue has set in, Helen and I chat about random things to pass the time, it ends up that most of it wasn’t so random. The run down to Martigny was relentless. After what seems to be running downhill in forests for ages we hit a road with an official on it, he points down hill and says ‘Martigny Checkpoint’. I’ve often said I prefer uphill to downhill, this was definitely the case on this never ending descent, you could never see the bottom of the valley, it was dark and occasionally you would see lights and build your hopes up only to have them dashed (dimmed).
Pain
It was on this descent I became aware of an uncomfortable area in my groin. I stubbed my toes a few times but the pain wasn’t in my toes it was in my groin. A few days before the race I’d had a very slight dull ache there. It was ever so slight I’d dismissed it as nothing and not even mentioned it to anyone. This slight ache was now developing into something a bit more.
We ran into the village at the bottom of the valley but no check point was to be found. On the other side of the valley we could see the tiny pin pricks of head lights winding up the hillside through the trees. We started our ascent, the notion of running anything more than a couple of degrees up hill had long been slain. Helen’s concerned that we’d missed a check point and disappears into the dark. I stop for a drink, rest, take a couple of Ibuprofen and my first gel, I struggle back to my feet and start a good pace uphill. As I turn a corner I notice that my breathing has become slightly laboured, but not the sort of out of breath because you’ve just pushed yourself hard, it’s more of a reduced oxygen flow like someone very gently strangling you!
I figure Helen was taken the sensible option of going at her own pace, I’d track her down when back home to say ‘thanks’, no need though as here she is just in front of me. Up, up, up we go, lights ahead, where the hell are we? Just as we are about to reach the comfort of street lights they’re snatched from us as we abruptly turn left and downhill, it seems like a sick joke but that little down, up and down was just to make up for the lost height gain of not doing Bovine!
We arrive at Trient, at this point sleep deprivation is very obvious, we’ve been on the go for 34 hours and covered 150km with god knows how many meters of ascent/descent. I’m tired, in pain and my breathing isn’t right but all I can think about is ‘let’s get this done’. We march out of Trient with the thought of Chamonix calling us to the finish line. More up, up, up but this was a different up of almost straight up without the zig-zags. I’ve got a slight second (third/fourth) wind and that ‘falling asleep’ on my feet sensation has passed, I’m still excruciatingly tired but 100% focused on finishing. I arrive at the top of Col de la Forclaz expecting a CP but it’s not to be, I grit my teeth and carry on following the excellent markers that have lead me this far, shortly I see Trient below me and start my descent.
For some reason (lack of knowledge) I thought Trient was Vallorince this would of meant that after this check point I would have 3km to the top of Col des Montets then it would all be sweet downhill and more or less direct back to the finish line and my loved ones. I meet Helen again (this girl just can’t get rid of me!) and with the thought of Montets just 3 km ahead I try to get out of there asap. I run with Helen until the path steepens, this is where we say our final (and first) good bye.
Helen’s gone, I take a couple of pain killers and a gel ready for the ascent to the col, I figure this could see me well to the finish line now. The breathing problem had subsided slightly but now it returned worse than before. I think about how carefully I’d packed my bag and how I took into account how likely I was to use the contents. I remember seeing my blue inhaler there and my hand hovering over it then moving on to the next item. The only time lately that I’ve ever needed this little fella is when I’ve drank a spirit that didn’t agree with me (cheap vodka or the like!). I told myself that I’d be fine without it and carried on. My groin problem was suddenly not my main problem any more. If Steph was to fetch my inhaler and meet me at the top of Montets would it be considered cheating and could I be disqualified? While I wrestled with these thoughts my breathing became worse. Throughout the race I’d seen lots of other roadside assistance with people changing shoes in the back of cars, items swapping hands and the like. Would getting an inhaler of Steph be so bad?
I made the call ‘Hi Steph, I’m having trouble breathing and need my inhaler, I wouldn’t have called if it wasn’t important, meet you at Montets, ok bye’, the deed was done! Half an hour or so later Steph calls to say that she’s parked at Montets and walked down past the campsite to the CP, has she missed me? The penny didn’t drop at first, how was she at the CP when I’d left it an hour ago? Had she parked at Forclaz and walked to my last CP, but where was the camp site, something was seriously amiss. As I round a corner near the top of my climb I look down and around me and only then it sinks in that the last check point was not Vallorcine but Vallorcine was somewhere far below me. At the same time as I’d realised my idiotic mistake Steph had confirmed with the officials that I had definitely not passed through that checkpoint. All the time I was expecting to see Steph dash around the next corner with inhaler in hand. No not this corner, the next one, no, where is she? Shortly after I receive a text ‘The records show you are on your way to Vallorcine, so I’m going to wait for you here. Keep going you are doing fine’. On reading this a few thoughts passed through my head, the first was a very negative one along the lines of ‘great, you sit and have a nice cuppa whilst I die trying to reach you’ the second was ‘well I shouldn’t be getting any help at all so what’s a few more miles down to the CP?’. I carried on running but I was suffering even more, it took 40 minutes and no sign of Vallorcine to text Steph ‘Please walk up a bit, I’m really suffering’. Steph reply was ‘I’m coming up as fast as I can. Sorry!’.
Some 20 minutes later I see Steph coming up, just as I see her I stub my toe on my bad side and a brutal paid shoots though my groin like someone’s just used a cattle prodder on me. A quick cuddle and a couple of puffs on my inhaler and we’re running/limping downhill. My breathing immediately improves but the discomfort in my groin has just grown by vast proportions. Every time I weight my left leg slightly at the wrong angle a jolt of pain would burst through my groin as if I’d been hit by lightening. Even at this point of the game I knew I was going to finish, but I little voice in the back of my head was trying to push forward and tell me otherwise.
I limped into Vallorcine CP knowing that there was definitely only a small hill ahead then the long straight into Chamonix, I can do this. Once in the CP tent my mouth just opened and asked for a medic. I’d never once contemplated asking, it just happened. I’m now in the make shift medics room which is usually the train ticket office. I try to explain to the medics that I will make it to the end with or without their help, if they are going to pull me from the race then I’ll just walk (limp) back out and carry on. I text Steph to let her know where I am. I try and explain the pain to them and ask if some support in that area would help.
As they lie me down on a stretcher I have to fight back tears, I’m beginning to feel as if things are so bad I’m not going to make it back up again. Steph enters the medic room and I can see the concern on her face. As the young male doctor fondles both sides of my groin I send Steph off to find out the final statistics – how far and cut off time. She comes back with the answers as the medics are having fun wrapping my upper thigh up in sticky elastic bandage, 15km to Chamonix, 9pm cut off time. I felt like Lt. Dan on the boat with Forrest Gump screaming at the storm ‘Come on, it that the best you can do?’. I hobble out of the CP with a renewed mental strength, I will get to Chamonix sooner rather than later, take what it may! I think most normal people would have thrown the towel in by now but not me, I’ve never seen myself as normal. I do the next 3km up to the top of Montets with Steph close by, she knows that if I can’t make it up here I aint going to Chamonix by foot!
Despite the pain and discomfort I was mentally strong and made my way down the Chamonix Valley with the odd cattle prod jolt in my groin to remind me that I’m not invincible. Just a couple of km’s short of Chamonix and the race organisers put one final twist of the knife into the runners by sending us off the nice riverside path back up into the hills to join the original finish. In some ways this was to be expected after all we’ve been through so far. I saw one runner point blank refuse to go up the hill and ran straight past the marshals on the lower path. From this point on it was soon over. Steph and Todd were waiting to finish the last bit with me while Keith, Jayne and Oliver stood by the finish line. A French man wanted to hold hands and speed up a bit for the finish line, he was very insistent. The last thing I need now is to be caught fighting just before the finish line, not that it would have been much of a fight!
I’m over the finish line and feel elated that it’s over but I’m not the happiest of bunnies, but I know this will come. We make our way back through Chamonix to our apartment, I’m feeling a complete wreck, once again I’ve pushed my body and brain to complete exhaustion. In the apartment I ask for a cup of tea (not beer!) and to be helped into bed. Sleep comes almost immediately; I close my eyes in pain but with the knowledge that I beat the UTMB.
Facts
2370 people started the UTMB, 1193 abandoned the race
I came 742th in a time of 42hrs 47mins.
Conclusion
I’ll not do the UTLD100 or a 10km race just before my next attempt of the UTMB. I’ll train harder and be more focused and take my inhaler with me! Apart from my unexpected ailments I lost 2 toe nails.
Thank You
I’d just like to say a quick thanks for all the support my family, friends and fellow Spartans have given me during training and the race, without it I may never have even toed the line!
