4th August: UTLD 100 - Lakeland Fails

A minute, 60 little seconds is such a short period of time, something normally so insignificant yet at the same time can be an immense insurmountable mountain as I discovered attempting the Lakeland 100… In writing about my failure rather than basking in a glow of relative success, believe me its not a plea for a cup of tea and some sympathy (U ok hun?), it just gets filed under ‘shit happens’ and to kind of paraphrase Alanis Morrisette: you live, you learn, you regroup, you return.

Where did it all go wrong?.. If you trace anything back far enough you can pin it to a circumstance at a point in time and lay the blame all-in on that rather than taking ownership and responsibility on it yourself. True I could say for me there were plenty of less than ideal circumstances that could be said to contribute, but that’s not the point. The point is I allowed myself through arrogance or just a general throwing of myself on the mercy of the fates to not adhere to the principal of the 7P’s: perfect planning and preparation prevents piss poor performance… And paid the price.

With the race starting at 6pm on Friday, on the Thursday I managed to finish work earlyish but still ended up packing in a hurry and leaving an hour later than planned. Within an hour the drive to my overnight stop at LSS’s parent’s in Lancashire hit the first snag: our junction for the M5 had closed, so we followed a poorly sign-posted diversion for an hour through the centre of Cheltenham, then later encountered another closure on the M6 which sent us on a diversion where the traffic was stationary for lengths of time… Eventually we arrived at LSS’s parents at 2am, some 6 hours after leaving on a journey that would normally take just over 3.

Shit gettin' real at the event base!

After just 4 hours kip, I travelled up to Coniston, hoping to catch-up on some lost shut-eye once there, parking at the event base of the John Ruskin School’s field. As soon as I was able to I registered, passed-trough the kit check (you need to carry appropriate waterproof top & bottoms, leggings, long sleeved base layer, hat, gloves, medical kit, whistle, compass, phone, emergency food, emergency drink, hard sided cup, head-torch & spare batteries) and back in the van packed my race pack with all of these along with the food & drink I would need to see me to the halfway point, plus things like suncream, sunnies, insect repellant, power bar & headphones for distraction tuneage along the way should it be needed... It was now I realised I’d forgotten 2 essential (but not compulsory) pieces of kit: my Garmin & salt tabs, both I’d remembered looking out and could have sworn I had packed, but I must have left at home. Bugger. It looked like I would now be recording the run on my phone, which I needed to be turned off for power saving and in a waterproof arm band for accessibility when resorting to ViewRanger to double-check on nav. For the duration I would have no idea of current mileage in relation to time and would have to wing-it. My timing would be based on a proper watch and guessing how long each leg would take when consulting the road book at the aid stations, judge required effort for each leg from profile maps and hope I can maintain my running within time-limits.

Disappointed with my basic house-keeping errors I met up with running buddy Lucinda who was in for the 100 as well - normally she is a bit faster than me but in suffering from chronic back issues was just hoping to make a go of it and keep on the course till she was either hooked for time or bails through pain... Her plan was start slow & get progressively slower, so probably quite similar to how I would be!

I lunched on pasta washed down with a pint of the specially-commissioned-for-the-event ale then retired to the van to attempt a couple of hours elusive sleep seeing as I could be on my feet for 40 hours once shit got real and we started! The weather however had other plans as the heat was stifling with soaring humidity; on the field it was nudging 30 degrees and in the marquees it was noticeably hotter. I had to leave the shaded side door of the van open to try and keep some cool air flowing and just lay there with my eyes closed, fruitlessly searching for some shut eye.

Brief!

When my alarm sounded, having just lain there with my eyes closed, I changed ready for action and made my way to the sweltering school hall for the briefing, where we sat with sweat pouring off us all. To be fair to organisers Marc & ‘Uncle Terry’ they keep it as brief and light-hearted as possible, although for the first time in its 11th year of running they had to issue a lightning warning!.. The heatwave the country had been in thrall to was due to break spectacularly over-night. We would be starting in 30 degree heat but overnight the rain and storms would come, along with feisty winds (fortunately not quite up to gale force) and hail! The organiser’s main concern was for us being out in exposed areas should lightning storms break and we were urged to use our collective loaves with regards to balancing our personal safety and chasing time! For those who are interested, the course stats on a GPS track look like this.

Briefing over and there was just enough time to grab our kit, drop bags and visit the toilet one final time to drain the nerves. All gathered in the start corral and the event anthem of ‘Nessum Dorma’ was sung & we were off, in my case waved-off by a face in the massed cheering crowd of marathon buddy Luke who was running the 50 the following day… The start is absolutely awesome and as good as the start of the UTMB: from the school all the way through the village of Coniston the roads are lined several people deep all of them shouting, clapping and cheering us on, with my ‘Eat Pies’ shirt getting some love, especially passing the pubs!

Coralled.

Once off the high street the course proper commenced with an immediate long hard climb - the first of 3 ‘category 1’ climbs on the route and one of the longest overall - can’t beat a baptism of fire can you! We ascended the side of the ‘Old Man of Coniston’ through the oppressive stifling heat, only relieved by an occasional gentle gust of wind taking the edge off. Eventually there was a respite to the climb with some downhill, so I opened my legs and let fly… Mistake! As I bounded gaily along I caught a rock with my toe, stumbled and realised I was not going to recover my balance… Looking in front I could see a grassy patch without rock so I managed my stumble, dropped my shoulder and rolled out the fall onto it, getting straight back on my feet to carry on running, albeit slower, so I could dust myself down and check my person for damage: Just a gashed knee so all good! I got a few admiring comments from people as they overtook about how I managed to style-out the fall. Years of practice from tripping over rocks I suppose! The method originally came from my footballing days when speaking to people I know who did martial arts: don’t fight against the momentum of the fall as this is what causes damage, use it if you can to an advantage; tuck, roll, push off and you’re back on your feet immediately rather than stuck to the floor!

Running over one of the flatter sections of this first leg we found ourselves amidst a cloud of flying ants, which were landing and crawling over us as we passed through it - an ominous sign as they only fly when rain is coming so as to soften the ground-up for them once they’ve landed. Looking forwards at the sky you could see why they were flying with a gun-metal grey canopy of rain clouds gathering over the mountains obscuring them in a dark haze: this was where the rain was... exactly where we were heading. Dropping down into the valley for our first checkpoint and it was now teasing us, the sky darkening, the humidity rising and all of us wanting to be cooled-off.

On the first climb.

Into the first CP at Seathwaite and there was the day’s first casualty, someone suffering from a pulled muscle. Plenty of people start the race chancing it whilst injured or not fully recovered to see how they get on as once you are entered, beyond a certain date there are no transfers or refunds - although if you inform the organisers you are bailing they donate your entry to their charity partners.

A quick downing of drinks, crisps and an orange and it was back out on to the course chasing the waning sun. The hope was to get to the next CP at Boot in some form of light to avoid a stop to rummage in my pack for my head torch and lose a bit of time as a consequence… As we climbed up in to the hills once more we were teased by the rain. We could see it raining in nearby valleys with the tops of hills surrounded by clag and the sky over us would periodically ominously darken, but this was merely a tease… The hoped-for cooling downpour was not coming, well not yet at least, save for a few spots and 5 minutes of light drizzle before we made it in to Boot as darkness properly enveloped us.

Lake Coniston in the distance.

As I entered the CP I was confronted by the visions of people emerging from the darkness to hurl into the bushes... At a half marathon distance there were people already dropping through physically being unable to continue, most of whom I suspect had fallen foul of running too hard in the strong sun and humidity on the first climb and had over-cooked themselves at the very start, that and taking-on too many gels rather than having some proper food which had caused their stomachs to ‘flip’ and ruin their race almost as soon as it had started.

As I enjoyed the restorative powers of a cup of tea and a couple of hob-nobs, a few minutes later a pained Lucinda made it into the CP fairly flustered and looking beaten.

The worst thing they say you can do is quit at a CP, so I persuaded Lucinda to give it a go as the next leg was not too intense on the climb front once we hit the moors… I knew she had already mentally quit, but its one of those things that if you can get moving sometimes it works by distraction with the whole mind over matter effect when you concentrate on the moment. In a few minutes you’ll know if it is going to work or not, but halfway up the hill and Lucinda decided her back and her stomach really weren’t up to it and she turned back into the darkness and I was left to push on alone into the night.

Halfway up the trudge and the heavens properly opened, giving me a proper dousing; the rain passing through the beam of the head torch like strobes which made seeing things a little more challenging, but with how hot I was and the relative shelter of the terrain I decided not to stop to find my waterproof and ‘boil in a bag’ but just to carry on and allow myself to cool down as the air temp was still very warm and I was still sweating like Michael Jackson on Sesame Street… Soon I noticed something on the floor shining back at me not too far off and saw it was one of the soft cups us competitors are given that must have fallen off or out of someone’s pack, so I picked it up and now had a quest that if I failed meant I had a free cup… Every time I came across another competitor I asked them if they had dropped a cup and eventually I found its owner as I plateaued at the start of the bogs by Burnmoor Tarn.

I realised with no clear path over the bogs I was weaving like a drunk at closing-time attempting to pick the path across it which was invisible in the darkness. Fortunately with the dry spell it was not too wet underfoot for a stretch that is notorious in most years for soaking your trainers and leading to the on-set of ‘tripe feet’ (trench foot to the uninitiated) for many runners as once wet most people’s feet will not be drying-off till after the race is over.

As I ran along this mercifully flat and fairly dry stretch (for a bog) I was chatting with a guy from Bolton. With the lead item on the national news being the fires on Winter Hill the other week, where some local numpties set fire to the whole hillside, I was interested to find out how it had affected the area with my loving of running up and down it when staying at the in-laws. He was saying how great it is just to keep going up and down without repeating yourself on the numerous different routes you can find just following the paths, but now all the paths have been obliterated by the fire so it is very difficult to see where they were or to remember exactly where they lay as there are now no longer any recognisable features, so at present all the fun has been ruined as you can’t just run there but have to seriously think about where you are and figure-out a path.

Having entertained him with my accidental dogging tale from the carpark at the bottom of Winter Hill, he was also saying about the various other places to go running and came-out with an absolute gem: “Burnley, now those that live there say that its the Rome of the North West, what with being built on seven hills as they claim… The thing is that Rochdale also claims to be the Rome of the North West as they’ve built seven tower blocks!”

Soon we left the plateau and I headed down the hill, attempting to home-in on the lights in front of me, running through some forrestry trail until I hit the valley floor and the next checkpoint.

Having been greeted in the darkness by a very cheerful yellow Power Ranger, I crossed a stone bridge to the barn that was the Wasdale aid station which was manned (and womaned) by super-heroes with Elastigirl from the Incredibles pouring hot drinks, Spiderman prancing around making sangers, Wolverine busying himself ensuring people were ok and a few other Marvel & DC characters besides doing other checkpointy things. You might have thought this was the most bizarre sight of all and the beginnings of sleep deprivation, but no; I was totally lucid and not suffering from a cheese-dream… The genuinely eery sight was reserved for the rogues gallery that befell me.

Looking back again to Lake Coniston.

There was not a seat to be found as they were all full of the broken and defeated: some just sitting shivering from what they had endured through the night so far, others wrapped in foil survival blankets from their exposure to wind and rain over the hills, but all of them, all of them bore the haunting expression of the thousand yard stare you’ve seen in pictures of shell-shocked soldiers from WWI & beyond; the look that says they have been pushed to the edge and are teetering on the brink rocking back and forth before toppling one way or the other, faces of those who have stared into the maw of a Nietszchean abyss and have seen it stare back at them. The silence of the aid station was only punctuated by the patter of rain and the enquiries from those running the aid station of the needs of new arrivals. There was nowhere to sit through the mass of casualties and the floor was wet from the rain so those of us carrying on were in a bind of finding somewhere dry to park our bums. Fortunately I found a patch of table to prop myself against and I gulped down a few cups of coke & squash, scoffed some crisps for salt to replace everything I had sweated out and slurped a wonderfully warm cup of tea as I studied the road-book and cut-off for the next leg: a leg of some serious climbs, including the second of the 3 ‘category 1’ climbs of the course, starting almost from the get-go. I was an hour and 15 inside the cut-offs, so was feeling chipper about getting up over and down to the next stop keeping an hour in the bag.

Leaving behind something that could have been in Apocalypse Now when Captain Willard is heading up river in search of Kurtz, the climbing began and did not seem to stop.

Killer climbs are so much better in the dark as you cannot see the mammoth slab of rock that lies in front of you with the snaking switch-back of a path that goes on forever topped by false summit after false summit… You can see the lie of the path by looking up, highlighted by the beams of head-torches in front… But don’t look up as it just disheartens as you realise how much higher you have still to go. Black Sail Pass was a killer. Unrelenting. I had to stop several times to gather my equilibrium, drenched in sweat and thirsting for a drink… Shortly before halfway we crossed a waterfall on the path, so I stopped to soak my buffs in the water to cool me, wash the sweat from my face and pour the coolness over my head to refresh… I then drank the fresh pure water straight from the fall in front of me, the chill water pouring over my face, the sense of touch heightened in the pitch black of night with my sense of sight diminished. Looking at my watch it was 1am and I thought that’s a pretty unique thing to be doing at that time.

After an eternity I reached the top of the pass, but at this point I could not see the way down… I could see the head torches of those in the valley a couple of hundred feet below, but none on the descent to give away the path. I faffed around a bit trying to figure the route, making a couple of wrong turns and being careful not to fall of the edge of a cliff, before slowly making my way down what looked the most likely side including a slide and scramble over wet rocks until I reached the valley floor, found the youth hostel building and started for the next climb out of the valley.

Again the path was indistinct on top and I lost time to wrong turns and consulting nav to figure out where I was before eventually finding the correct route and ploughed on. Eventually I could see through a gap between the hills and I could make-out the distinct shape of the silhouette of Fleetwith Pike in front of me, a hill I had taken LSS and her lads up a few years back on holiday, so I knew I was nearing Buttermere. The descent soon had me on the largely flat and even lakeside path, so I was able to make good time with those fellow stragglers around me - 4 of us were getting a wiggle-on to make the cut-off and we entered the aid station with 8 minutes to spare… That meant 8 minutes to be out of site of the aid station. 

Sky darkening as the sun disappears.

Leaving the aid station with my hands full with a bag of crisps, a couple of twix fingers and a sausage roll as there was no time to properly eat anything in sight of the marshals I rounded the corner to hit the path... Before I could make it to the iron gate I needed to go through, I could make-out someone lumbering out of the darkness coming back off the course towards it. He crashed through it, nearly falling over as he relied heavily on his poles for balance, steadying himself as much as he could as he hobbled and stumbled past me... I asked if he was ok and he emphatically said no.

I found out why he said no afterwards. He had taken a bad fall a couple of miles in and had broken his leg... His only choice was to try and get back to the aid station for urgent medical help. He posted the pictures of his leg on the race page on Facey and believe me it was not pretty: bits sticking out where they shouldn’t; a special kind of nasty that makes the squeamish reach for a basin… And he had managed to gather his wits together and make it back off the course. Immense strength and fortitude.

Chastened by the sight just befallen me I stumbled onwards, taking wrong turns in the darkness that nearly led me into a gorge. At this point I thought I’d sit and eat what I was holding so as to free my hands-up & consult the road book at the same time... 3 hours to get the next 9 ‘lumpy’ miles under my belt. With how everything had gone so far I realised it would be as tight as a duck’s arse, but that’s what it was, so onwards forever onwards as there is no turning back!

Descending commences in the fading light.

I knew that this was the last of the ‘hard’ legs until I got to about 65 miles, so the terrain would flatten a bit and allow me to claw back time if only I could get to Braithwaite. I forged on through the dark watching as the sky lightened and dawn began to break revealing the trail in front of me, although it did not stop me from slipping off it at one point and gashing my other knee and taking more wrong turns. The worst one gave me a choice in my exhausted state: either about half a mile extra to retrace back to a fork on the trail I had missed, or a scramble through knee deep heather of about 50 metres to gain about 20 in height where the path was.

Once back on track I sat to catch my breath and took some pics in the early morning light. Able to read the roadbook without torchlight I could kind of figure out that it was pretty-much all downhill for the next 3 miles to get to the CP. Time to get a wiggle-on as I was right on it to hit there in time.

This long descent to Braithwaite saw me overtake 3 on the descent, being told by 2 there was no rush, there’s still half an hour to make the cut... But I was sure it was NOW, so carried-on pushing to squeak in… Off the fells and into the tiny village I found the CP and entering the hall I was told as I dibbed-in “Sorry, you just missed the cut... by a minute.”

Chasing the storms.

Immediately my mind raced thinking of what I could do… I could choose to accept my fate and do as I was told, or I could just do a runner, but realistically would I make the time back on the course especially as I would not be stopping to eat or drink anything?… I knew the course was due to flatten-out by comparison to what we had done up till now, potentially helping me to gain that valuable time… But there was no guarantee! My crap hill climbing skills and nav errors from Black Sail onwards had cost me way too much time having to correct back on track and had added 2.5 very hilly miles in the darkness. Back on planet reality and it was time to be stoic and face the honking klaxon of reality: game over.

About 5 minutes after me, as I tucked-in to a bowl of pasta and rice pudding (separate bowls before you say ‘ewww’), one of the guys I overtook coming down the hill came in, was told he had timed-out and to hand his chip and tracker over on dibbing-in as he was being hooked from the race, only for him to get a bit aggy with the marshals over this insisting the cut-off time was 6:30, not 6 and he was carrying on. He was flatly told it was 6 and he was out, at which point he did a runner!.. Only for his details to be taken and was instantly DQ’d for ignoring the marshal’s instructions. I think I made the right choice as I did not come across as a complete tit by doing the same.

I tried to be cheerful as I waited with the other dozen runners left in the aid station for the coach back to Coniston, which was about an hour off… Watching from in the dry warmth of the village hall as the heavens properly opened again with an absolute deluge made me glad in a way not to be out there receiving another soaking!

As we returned to the start at Coniston, the coaches taking the 50 runners to Dalemain were embarking, and part of me wanted to jump on with them and get a lift to the start and get out and do the second half of the course, but reality hit and I went for a shower and some shut-eye.

The aftermath
 
Any failure is a chastening experience, but learning from the what, where, when, how and why it went wrong allows you to change your approach to ensure a greater chance of success next time, rather than just repeating the same thing ad Infinitum with the identical outcome. There is a caveat though to my failure… This year only 51% of starters finished - the average is 55% over its 11 years, with most of those retirements coming before or at the halfway mark.

What did I learn from this?.. Plenty: first up is trying to do something that requires you to be physically at your best is not something you can ‘wing’, something you can just rock-up to, lick your finger, check the breeze and say ‘yeah I fancy it today’… I know I could have made it to the end, mentally I was there, but to be blunt physically I proved I was not. The last 9 months of battling plantar fasciitis has robbed me of the form I had built-up over the previous year until the bastard floored me... When it happened last November it pretty-much wiped-out my running outside of pre-entered races and Sunday mornings until the snows of March. What speed I had before has long gone and I am carrying nearly a stone more weight than I was last year at the same time through the lack of exercise, as training on tarmac has just been too painful with the day after I find myself struggling to walk… Not great when your job entails being on your feet all day.

Dawn breaks.

Having less than ideal prep immediately before a race so you are rushing around, leave things behind after you have looked them out and a journey schedule that through circumstance affords you a mere 4 hours sleep in advance of a race that will require you being awake for the thick-end of 40 hours is not helpful… But that’s the rub, things seldom do go as you hope and plan, the trick is to react to this and keep going regardless.

Some things did go right... When I timed-out I was absolutely fine to continue, I had got over 2 of the 3 biggest climbs of the course and was still feeling ‘fresh’... Nutrition was good; my ‘homemade’ energy drink was keeping me going to the point food was not an issue, so making sure I grabbed something in the aid stations to eat meant that from my own stash I only ate one energy bar, a pack of jelly and 2 gels over the 35 miles... Definitely something to continue with.

What do I need to do for the next time?.. Spend time on the sections of the course that I don’t know to avoid nav errors concentrating on the darkness legs, in other words the section from Boot onwards to Braithwaite. Work on my speed and hills, which will in turn help to drop my weight leading to an improvement in my climbing ability… From now on every run I go on by myself MUST be hill intensive - well what passes for hills around this way where I live. Every race I undertake between now and the next Lakeland must be targeted to hit a PB or as near as dammit on them as a means to monitor my progress… And hopefully to get a sub 4 hour marathon in before the year end.

Looking west at dawn.

Running without a Garmin… Now this was very liberating, I was able to run how I felt in the moment, as if I would when out bimbling on local trails at home without continually looking at my wrist to see how I was faring. It was more a case of running to my heart rate and monitoring myself so that I did not red-line on effort and when I felt I was doing so I sat down to rest and calm before heading on again. Whilst it was great running this way, not having a reminder on my wrist of my pace and current distance was a real handicap when trying to hit the CP’s in time and left too much to guesswork. The Garmin (or lack thereof) was the largest factor in my timing-out, although in reality with one on and factoring in my fitness would I have just timed-out instead after 60 or 70 miles?

35 miles over challenging trails is a good run-out in anyone’s book, throwing-in 1.5 miles of vertical ascent to boot certainly shows it wasn’t a stroll! I know this was the hardest third of the course and I completed it - its just frustrating that I could not get out onto the relatively easier next third!

Something I noticed along the way was the sheer number of people toting wizard staffs, or cheat sticks, or Nordic poles to call them by their proper name; I reckon about 4/5 of the field had them. They are allowed and obviously people find them advantageous. Lucinda was using some being a recent convert to them as she nurses a back issue, and I must admit they do seem very tempting, however I want to prove to myself I don’t need ‘mechanical assistance’ to help me finish a race of this nature. I still believe that anyone who finishes a race using them should have an asterisk after their name.

I didn’t really feel like hanging around the event base for longer than I had to afterwards so I was back in Chorley at LSS’s parent’s place that evening. The day after when the MiL very kindly put my honking gopping running gear into the machine to wash them, as they reached the spin cycle, the stench of them must have got too much as the machine with an almighty grinding sound decided to commit hara-kiri!

So on the Monday before heading-off for a week’s rest in a field in Devon I had to help the FiL to pick up a new washing machine and get it back to their house!

Entries for the 2019 Lakeland 100 open at 9am on the 1st September. I’ll be hovering over my computer keyboard as there’s unfinished business to attend to!

Eat pies.
Drink beer.
Run far.