The sweetest finish
I have learned a new word in the last year or so. Patience.
More importantly I have learned what it means.
If you are reading this then you may have to be patient too. If you
aren’t and just want to hear about the race then I’d advise you skip to page 6
right now.
It’s no secret that I have a long and unsuccessful history
with the Spartathlon, going right back to 2004 but at times, 2007 in particular
when I attempted it within a month of doing UTMB, I have been impatient.
You see, I have been worried about getting too old to
achieve a finish for over 10years now, the more so recently since I turned 60
this June. There are runners who do finish Spartathlon at 60+ but they are
usually grizzled veterans who have been knocking out finishes on a regular
basis for years. There are a lot fewer who manage it for the 1st time
at that age and I was distinctly worried that any prospects I did have of ever
finishing were growing smaller and smaller every year.
I had basically retired in 2012. That year I was part of the
77% who failed to finish and the following year I had a back injury that
threatened to stop me running altogether. It put me out effectively for the
whole of 2013 whilst I recovered from the operation. In 2014 I was able to
return to running of a sort and very glad to be able to do so, but it wasn’t
stirring stuff and I was fat and slow.
Somehow though, in 2015 I started to lose weight and started
to get faster again. I have no idea why really, since I wasn’t doing a lot
different but just recall being glad about it. It was the first time I started
to consider the possibility of a rematch. I looked for something that would
push me and found the Spine. Although the race itself is the polar opposite of
Spartathlon they do share the requirement of needing a near perfect mental
state to get anywhere near to a finish. And I did finish. The finish rates were
on a par with Spartathlon but this time I was on the good side.
2016 went from good to marvellous and I decided to enter
Spartathlon again … But didn’t get in. I got to the very top of the wait list
but there I remained. No.1 in the world not
to get to do it. The fact that I had been able to knock 1¼hrs off my 2007 GUCR
PB was tainted by the fact that the new, harder entry requirements for 2017
meant that it was still ½hr too slow. It’s a shame since in 2016 I was the
fastest I had been for a good 10-15years
over all distances and I would for the 1st time have been able to go
into the race with some confidence of a finish. Patience.
In looking for a qualifier for 2017 I ran at Tooting in
2016. I hadn’t thought that running round a track for 24hrs was likely to be
too interesting but I really enjoyed the experience, getting my qualifier and
knocking 3¾hrs off my 100mile PB in the process. It confirmed my feeling that
2016 really could have been my year.
Then my knee went. Running downhill on a session down at my
running club towards the end of the year I heard as much as felt a loud
‘pop’. ‘That was the end of your femur
collapsing’ the consultant told me when diagnosing an osteonecrotic condition
known as SONK. There was a lot of bone oedema but he told me that if I was
patient (that word again) took regular Vitamin D and offloaded the joint whilst
it healed, it is usually a self-limiting condition and should heal 100%. So
followed 4months on crutches, 2 months in a brace and much of 2017. I didn’t
get in again anyway and was a lot further down the waitlist this time. I
couldn’t help but compare the popularity of the race now with what it had been
in 2004 when there were only 5 Brits, I had left it until May to enter, there
were nearly half as many entrants and the race didn’t fill up anyway.
I was able to return to running again in about June/July
2017 on the condition I built up gradually. I was patient and my only Ultra of
a sort that year was a few laps of the Equinox 24 with a team from work. It was
good though and I dared to harbour thoughts of building things up again until
whilst just walking down the hall at home in October, I caught my left leg
against the dogs cover. As innocuously as that, I tore my Left meniscus. This time the consultant didn’t have good
news. He told me that basically the meniscus was shot. It was hard and
crumbling, the tear was inoperable and degenerate - stitching it would be like
stitching frayed cotton and the stitch would just pull through. Moreover, it
was unlikely to heal given the poor blood supply to the meniscus. He would
review it again in 3 months but considered that the pain would stop me from
running on it again. In the meantime it was back to the brace. Patience.
I wasn’t expecting much in January but against the odds the
consultant told me he could see some evidence of repair. He said this was
unusual but put it down to the fact that the tear was right at the end of the
meniscus in the only place where it has any real blood supply. A cyclist
himself he’d heard of Kouros and knew of my desire to compete in Spartathlon
again. He didn’t rule it out but told me that the clock was ticking in respect
of the meniscus’ degeneration, that my cycling career was likely to be longer than
my running one in the long term but I would in any event be guided by the pain.
He did however tell me I could ditch the brace and if I gave it another couple
of months of patience I could try light running on it, 1K at a time. Time was
very definitely ticking but in a fit of optimism I entered Spartathlon again. I
didn’t have any option really. If I harboured any hope at all I had to. This
year I would have 4 names in the lottery hat but if I didn’t enter and left it
another year, I would be back to zero.
So, in January 2018 I walked a 50K with my brother… the
consultant had told me I could walk, he didn’t say how far. My physio daughter
had her spies out and they were all instructed, as they passed me running, to
make sure I was behaving and just walking. In February I was allowed to
jog/walk on a 15mile cake eating cross-country run with my wife and in March I
increased to the 4 Inns, a 40mile run/walk across the moors with my son. It was
my 1st Ultra at 17 and also now his at the same age. It was a proud
moment and I remember thinking that if my running career had to end here and
now I would be happy enough. But my knee seemed ok, it grumbled a bit on some
of the downhills and hated Grindsbrook but seemed fine on tarmac where I could
be more confident of my foot placing. I then progressed to running the Grand
Union Canal Race again in May. I knew that it would be hard given the lack of
training and continuously had to remind myself that it was the beginning, not
the end of my training and that it would be mainly training of the head – to
see if I still had it.
GUCR was painfully slow. I had to keep permanently reminding
myself of the fact that it was the beginning of my training and not a yardstick
of progress. Overnight we had a torrential thunderstorm. I thought at the time
that this sort of training was not at all representative of what I would be
facing in Greece – how little I knew! I felt my knee at about 120miles and so
exercised patience, telling myself that I was in it for the long game and deathmarched
the rest in, missing my train and having to kip out at Little Venice
(fortunately dry by then) overnight. The
beginning of my training was however nearly the end of it too since I
contracted cellulitis in my left ankle over the course of the run. A day or so
after the race I noticed my ankle stiffening up which I though was odd since I
didn’t remember going over on it. Fortunately when the shivers started I
recalled all those GUCR pre-race notes I’d studiously read over the years and
knew straight away what it was. It put me out of running for another 6 weeks
altogether. Even when my ankle went down, every time I started to try to run on
it, it would swell up again. Patience.
Eventually however I was able to run, starting from scratch
yet again, but the clock was ticking and I had another issue now. Since it had
been my 60th birthday in June I’d been treated to my choice of a
holiday of a lifetime by the family and I had chosen to walk the Inca Trail in
Peru, something I’d always wanted to do. A year previously when we’d decided on
it, Spartathlon had sounded like just a pipe dream and I’d felt that I couldn’t
just put my life on hold on the off-chance I’d be able to run again, but now
they were perilously close to each other. Because I couldn’t risk my ankle
wrecking the holiday I’d had to drop out of LLCR and my training was now
limited to about 6weeks running, 3 weeks in Peru not running, a week back to
running when we got home and then another 2weeks, mostly tapering. It was
getting to feel very much last minute and the ‘wing and a prayer’ preparation
that I’d promised myself I’d never allow to happen again.
I put myself into running again trying to build up
incrementally but I knew there wasn’t a lot of time. I wasn’t sure there’d be
enough time but I had to try. It was my last chance. I managed to increase my
mileage from a very lowly 20mile week, to 30, then 40, then 50, then 60 and
this time I was helped by the weather. Running a couple of 50K training runs in
what I considered was likely to be a much more representative 28-31c in our
most atypical extended British summer I was able gradually to get to the pace I knew I’d need out in Greece, in
the heat too and without wrecking my ankle or more importantly my knee. My knee
had been a star. When I’d started out earlier in the year it had felt
distinctly weird. For a mile or so from cold I’d have to limp before something
would almost just click into place and it would feel fine, with no need to limp
or run off balance. Eventually I was able to shorten this distance down to ½ a
mile, then ¼ mile but I was having to break the habit of a lifetime and
actually warm up to get my knee into the groove. Its still like it even now. When I start a
run, for the 1st few hundred yards it still feel like something is
not quite in place and until I’ve been able to hammer it back, I do have to be
very careful. I guess sooner or later its going to give up the ghost again,
after all the degeneration is a one-way street but I was beginning to hope that
I might just be able to eke out its running career for perhaps just a few weeks
longer. I did fear that it was just waiting for me to commit and then just
grind me to a painful and unrewarding halt on a hot and dusty road next to an
oil refinery just outside of Athens but my head, still strong after all it had
been though even just this year, was getting more and more determined to say
‘what the hell, lets just do it’.
I’d been training my head patiently too. 6 prior DNFs when I
was younger and faster is not the best way to get some confidence but I knew
that to finish this race you can’t have an off day. If you can’t be confident
that this time you will finish, then you are immediately at a mental
disadvantage. I was never going to manage that but I had to strengthen my determination
and I had been very singleminded all year. I had survived all that could be
thrown at me and come out of it stronger. I knew my head was as good as it ever
had been. Deathmarching GUCR had shown me I still had it despite the time it
took me and I’d been using lots of little things to constantly hone the edge.
On my phone I had the most atmospheric photo I’ve ever seen of Spartathlon
(thanks Mark W) so I’d know what I needed to do every time I used it. I also
bought a BST Spartathlon mug – only a little thing for sure but little things
stack up. I’m not sure if Louise ever noticed but whilst I often made her a cup
of tea in it, I never drank out of it myself. I hadn’t earned the right
yet. Little things like that stack up
and I knew my determination was stronger than it had ever been. Just let me get
out there.
Every little helps
There’d also handily been a showing of Barneys ‘Road to
Sparta’ in Derby only a few weeks before the race. It was an excellent mental
preparation for what I would be going back to but I’d felt a bit of a fraud
responding to the Q and A’s. I’d not been to see the showing at the BST do at
the beginning of the year. I’d felt I need to withhold from that do since I
wasn’t a Spartathlete ... yet. It was
part of an exercise in catharsis and I certainly didn’t want or need the ‘so
how many times have you finished …’ conversation. I could go once I was a
finisher and not until.
Anyway, my knee survived all that Peru could throw at it. It
managed 3 weeks of no running, a 17,100’ acclimatisation peak, 4 days of the
Inca Trail, a further 2 days climbing in/out of a canyon twice as deep as the
Grand Canyon, white water rafting and even sandboarding. It had told me to be
careful a couple of times but I had come back as light as I can recall ever
being before and certainly as light as I have ever been since the age of 18
before I found beer. I might not have been as fast as I’d been in 2016 but I
was certainly as fit as I’ve ever been since 2016 and a lot lighter than on any
previous Spartathlon attempt. Things were looking good at long last … apart
from the weather forecast.
I’d been keeping an eye on the weather pointlessly, for
weeks. As if the BBC can accurately forecast the weather a day in advance in
the UK let alone 3 weeks, the other side of Europe. At first the forecast
seemed to be the same furnace in Europe it’d been all summer but as Spartathlon
got nearer the forecast looked a bit wet. One day it looked very wet and the
next it was back to a bit wet. Thunder was even forecast a few times but the
forecast varied so much that I knew I couldn’t rely on it, but it did worry me.
Not that I feared running in the wet. Having spent most of my life running in
wet weather in the UK I was more than used to it but it introduced yet another
variable into the mix. I would have no crew out in Greece and in addition to
figuring where I’d put what in the way of hydration, food, warm clothing and
wondering whether I’d ever need it, I now needed to factor in what I’d do to
protect myself from rain, chafing and from cooling down from being wet for long
periods at a time. As the day approached I found it hard to work and hard to
think of anything else but I figured that this race was still going to try and
find something I hadn’t thought of or hadn’t prepared for to throw at me, just
to tell me ‘I told you so, it’s not for you’.
Oh dear, I’ve just noticed I’m getting a bit carried away. 5
pages already and I’m not even out in Greece yet. I hope some of you are still
here at any rate. I wanted to set the scene and show just how much a finish in
this race would mean to me and how much an ever present part of my life being
intent on one day getting a finish out of this race it has been, even if it’s a
race that really doesn’t play to what remaining strengths an old mountain
runner still has. I hope it also shows just what a fixation this race can
become, eating its way into every part of your life if you let it … and you
just do. One of my remaining strengths though apart from the new one of
patience has always been stubbornness. Louise tells me it’s not always a
positive character trait but it is necessary for an Ultra runner. I just needed
to know whether the race would ultimately and eventually reward that
persistence/stubbornness with a finish or if it would just ridicule another
pathetic attempt and tell me I should really have given up, got on with my life
and stopped wasting what time I had left well before now and what did I really
hope or expect to achieve at 60 that I couldn’t achieve at 46.
Fast forward now to Athens and it’s all comfortingly
familiar and close to becoming a 2nd home. Last time I was here at
the beginning of 2017 was on crutches having had to drop out of the Athens 48 but
having paid for the flights Louise was much happier doing the tourist thing. I
was up at Herod Atticus to remind myself what the start looked like and could
have posted my 2017 entry by hand.
Nerves were mounting by the time I arrived at the
Fenix. I met Laurence, with whom I have
shared many a GUCR hour and Spartathlon failure in the past, virtually straight
away. Laurences persistence and ultimate success in 2017 was one of the major
spurs for me to get my act together and I looked forward to reminiscing and
planning this new adventure with him. For me though this year the planning was
going to be as simple as possible, no crew just Hokas, Tailwind and S-caps,
topped up with pinole/blue corn Ultrabites and strategic Weetabix drink
placement. The Ultrabites had been
pre-prepared by opening them up and retaping closed (and fortunately bore no
taste resemblance to the blue corn chicha morada that had been everywhere in
Peru) but the Weetabix drink was a problem. I hadn’t been able to bring it over
with me in hand luggage and scouring Glyfadas shops found very little in the
way of breakfast cereals or drink. The 1st part of the plan was
already awry and chocolate milk would have to do instead. Nerves carried on
getting the better of me at one of the race briefing too. Blimey, this race was
a big thing these days.
The BST team. It’s a
big thing these days. Me top left … trying to hide
The race start at Herod Atticus below the Acropolis just
before dawn is the most amazing start you could imagine. This year there were
no stars above and this was good. It meant no sun to burn into me from dawn
onwards. There were even toilets so that meant no hunting for a vacant bush in
the pre-dawn.
I hung around at the back and sat down with Sam from
Ireland. Sam has been one of my major inspirations over the years. He’s a
couple of months older than me so whilst he carries on, I have no excuse not to
either. This year Sam has done Badwater
and a couple of weeks later did a 100miler to Sparta qualifying standards. I am
in awe. Sam in his early days here had problems similar to me and it took him
2-3 times to get a finish. He even got over the mountain one year only to
succumb to hypothermia. It’s a warning that this race never gives up but he
seems to have the knack now and is a regular finisher. We are relaxed and chat
until a few seconds before the start until I take up my place and try to hide
in the midst of other runners towards the rear. Sam is even more relaxed and
stays sat down for a while longer. No hurry, it’s going to be a long day.
And then we are off
downill on wet cobbles as dawn arrives. I haven’t warmed up my knee but
I figure I’m not going to be pushing it so I am not worried. I take time to
cast my eye behind me a couple of times to catch sight of the Acropolis, all
lit up and dominating the skyline still, after all those thousands of years.
It’s a reminder of what this race is all about. We are all Pheidippedes in a
last ditch attempt to get the Spartans help in saving us from Persian hordes. I
need to be with Leonidas in Sparta by sunset tomorrow. This race has history.
The race
Things quickly become a blur only hours after the race so I
really ought to have got this down sooner but in truth the first few miles did
disappear very quickly. The route seemed all too familiar even though it had
been 6 years since I was last here and I ran from the back up the hill to Dafni
Monastery and down the dual carriageway on the other side, all in a low
drizzle, not enough to put on waterproofs but enough to keep me cool, meeting
up occasionally with a few Brits now and then until differing pace and each
running their own race forced the necessary separation. I ran with Russ for a
while but spent most of the 1st few miles with Paul Ali since we
appeared to have synchronised our wee stops.
Paul A and I in between
wee stops
I’d noticed right from the start that I was having to wee
more than I usually do. After a while I noticed an occasional pink tinge. I was
momentarily concerned but I knew it wasn’t going to stop me so closed my eyes.
Potentially foolish perhaps but I decided I would pay the penalty. I was
drinking enough and taking my S-caps so I knew there was no more I could do.
I missed the schoolkids with the wall of high fives at Elefsina.
I found out afterwards that the kids had all been given the day off school in
view of the approaching storm. It was perhaps a good job I didn’t know this at
the time but in my determined state I would have run no differently.
As it was I was running what to me was a perfect race. I got
to Megara at the first marathon point in 4.07, maybe a little faster than my
planned 4.15, but right on the money.
I knew after that that I next faced ‘the hill’ my nemesis
and least favourite point on the route. It’s not that its particularly steep,
it’s just very long. In the past when I’ve had a maximum of 10-15 minutes
buffer and been forced to walk in the heat, my buffer has evaporated in a
matter of a couple of miles. I knew this early on that to walk the hill would
be fatal and was prepared to give it my all. As it happened it wasn’t the beast
it usually is, partly because it wasn’t as hot as it had been in 2012 and
partly since I was ready for it. I ran the hill apart from the odd step and was
rewarded at the 50K point, my drop point in 2012, with the loss of only a
minute or two buffer. So far, so good and confidence not dinted.
So far this was feeling too good to be true. I had ticked
off the drop points in 2012, 20010 and 2007 and was feeling good, apart from a
niggle in my R hip that I had felt in the weeks before I left. Last time my R
hip had troubled me was when I had flattened off my orthotics and on
commissioning a new pair, it had gone. Maybe I was due for some new ones but
too late to worry about that now. My quads were making themselves known too but
nowhere near as much as they had in 2007 when I’d tried to run within a month
of UTMB and died about here as a result. The trekking in Peru was certainly
paying off in my ability to move up the hills but maybe my quads weren’t fully
recovered from it.
The 2nd marathon is where I’ve always found it
hard. My lack of pace has always put me too close to the cut-offs and left me
with no margin for error but today I was building on my buffer and not seeing
it drip slowly away. As a consequence I really was enjoying myself. It’s hard
to explain just how much easier it is not to have the mental burden of worrying
about whether you will actually reach the next CP in time, places upon you.
This race over 152miles has 75 CPs all with their individual cut-offs and if
you fail to make just one of them, that’s it, that’s your race over. That the hard bit for me has always usually
been between 25 and 50 miles has on occasion made my race much shorter than a
trip out to Greece really warranted.
The next issue I faced was with my nipples. I had remembered
to tape them before the start but the rain had washed it off. I had replaced it
at a CP but it wouldn’t stick.
Eventually I was offered some Vaseline at another CP and used it
profusely. It removed the issue but not the signs of it and my BST race T shirt
made it look more heroic than it actually was. I did have to decline more
Vaseline at every subsequent CP until I covered up at dark since I didn’t have
the luxury of having packed a spare this early on.
Does anyone have any
Tip-ex?
Again the curtains dropped down protecting me from too much worry.
When you are feeling good the miles seem to go much quicker but as a result you
remember less about them. If alternatively you are in anguish over an
evaporating buffer you can do nothing about, every step seems to take about 5
minutes and miles turn over so slowly. I vaguely remember looking out over the
gulf, passing ships and refineries and through dusty little towns, generally
enjoying myself really. Even if some of the photos show an old man grimacing, I
was smiling inside.
The Hellas Canneries 50mile cut is 9½hours and before you
get there there’s a tough ascent up to the bridge. When I’ve made it this far
in the past I’ve often found that I’m better off walking – something I can do
quite fast and that proved to be the case today too. I was catching and even
overtaking runners just by walking but encouragingly I’d found that I didn’t
want or even need to walk all of it. It was also at the point that I’d started
toing and froing with Dean Karnazes.
He’d said that he’d been clipped by the wing mirror of a car in one of
the preceding towns. He was ok but it had alarmed him a bit and he had slowed
down. It certainly doesn’t take much. The roads are narrow through these towns
and the cars do come alarmingly close at times. There’s not a lot you can do
about it and so you just tend to carry on in a blinkered jog whenever you can.
In Greec e I’d found that in the main pavements are for parking cars on and so
you do have to run a lot on the road even where there is a pavement.
Corinth canal is one of those places that make it to your
head as a major ‘tick’ point. It’s a great sight and a milestone on the route.
In the past I’ve always been guilty of thinking that when you get here your
right at Hellas Cans, but you are not. In reality it’s a good couple of miles
away along a busy road. Today my head was ready for this and took it all in its
stride. I really was having a good day.
My day got even better when I eventually arrived at the CP in 8.40,
50minutes up on the cut. In the past even on a good day I’ve never had 5minutes
here, let alone 50minutes and I’ve always had to just run in and out like a
frightened rabbit, with my chest doing cartwheels and no time to refuel – the
start of an ever downwards spiral until you just run out of fuel entirely, slow
down even more and eventually time out. In 2004 my day and 1st
attempt had ended here grinding to a halt with a seized hip.
But that day was not today.
Today I had a buffer to be proud of. I had hoped to get here in around 9
hours and as a consequence worried that I was going too fast. But I had time to
eat, drink and be merry. Rob came up as my de facto crew until Russ arrived,
got me some food and my drop bag … but I wasn’t allowed to sit in Russ’ chair
(in no uncertain terms) since he was almost here too! Anyway, I knew that
buffer or not once I’d took in some fuel I might as well get on my way since
the hard earned minutes evaporate much quicker than you can build them up, if
you are not careful. I took with me the canisters of Tailwind prepped for a
quick mix at future CPs, stowed them in my utility belt and opened up my 1st
chocolate milk. Yuk it was strong. Now, I am a great fan of both chocolate and
milk but together I now found I am not. It was however calories in the bank so
I necked it nonetheless but wishing as it went down that they ate Weetabix in
Greece.
Approaching Hellas Cans
and the 50mile point … I think (and close to smiling too!)
After Hellas Can the route gets more rural and nicer as a
result. The weather also seemed better too and it had even stopped raining and
I managed to get back into the zone again to-ing and fro-ing with Russ and DK,
with both of them passing me each time I stopped for a wee.
Ancient Corinth
Ancient Corinth came and went. It was good to see the ruins
but it was really a stop for those with a crew so I just filled my bottle and
cracked on to Zevgolatio, the 100K point. Zevgolatio is one of my favourite
CP’s. A lot of CP’s, especially those in the villages have their own character
and tradition. Elefsina has the schoolkids and their wall of high fives and Zevgolatio
has the kids all looking for autographs. It’s been the same since I first got
there in 2006 and for me it’s part of the race so I didn’t mind at all sparing
the time to write my name and number in their books along with a little Union
Jack flag. I must have done 6 or 7 and must admit to being a little
disappointed on seeing some runners just waving the kids away. Zevgolatio is also the place where I stow
some warmer kit and my headtorch, although today it was far from dark. I picked up my drop bag and spied a ‘vacant’
chair to open it up on, only to be told in no uncertain terms by a crew member
rushing up to me, that the chair had been ‘reserved for Mr Karnazes’.
He arrived shortly after, most apologetic for his crews over
zealousness but I assured him that I didn’t need a sit down, just somewhere to
open up my bag and sort the kit out and that the pile of bricks next to the
chair would do fine for that. We’d had a couple of chats already over the
miles, the main one being in respect of his advice what to do to protect the
nips (for some reason he seemed to think I needed advice here, can’t think why).
I even got to see his and his nip- guards.
Quite a nice chap I thought but a lot slower today than he normally is,
which he put down to being put out of his stride by the wing mirror incident.
It had been a while ago now and many miles in the past, but it doesn’t take
much to knock you back. I picked up my torch but decided I didn’t need a dry T
shirt since it hadn’t been raining for a while now and I was dry again. I
jogged off with a chocolate milk – still yuk, but easier to get down this time.
I was well out of Zevgolatio and heading up into the hills when
it started to get dark. It’s a shame that probably the prettiest part of the
route is done in the dark, but at least I was seeing some of it this time since
I was now over an hour up on the cut-offs and over an hour up on the fastest I
have ever been at this point. I was looking forward to getting my head down and
pushing on past my 2006 failure point, the next in the little ticks that would
give me a further mental boost.
But I guess it was too much to hope for that it would be all
plain sailing from here on in. Up until now I had run a perfect race but it was
about to start getting tough. As I got closer to the hills in Halkion where my
race had ended in 2006 it started to rain again, lightly at first. It seemed
innocuous enough and I thought (and hoped) it might just be one of the
sometimes heavy but shortlived squalls you can get at this time of year, but it
got gradually heavier and heavier – and the wind got up too. I cracked out the
plastic poncho I’d been carrying from the start and wondered how long it would
last.
It was only a few minutes after that that I realised it was
no squall. The wind was now whipping my
poncho around and in minutes the road was running with water. My Hokas helped
me stay out of a lot of it at first but it wasn’t long before we were running
though ankle deep puddles the width of the road and into a fierce wind. As I
approached the hills at Halkion that had seen me off in the past, the water was
running down the road like a stream. I barely noticed the hills though. What
had ended my race in 2006 barely registered this time and I found I was much
stronger on the hills than most. I had slowed to a fast march up the twists and
turns but was still able to march past some of those who were trying to run.
It got no better. Soon the rain was washing down streams of
mud into the road, making my road soled Hokas slip and skid around. I was close
many times to falling over but I learned that the deeper the water, the less
mud there was likely to be, so gave up trying to avoid the puddles. After all
we were all soaked from head to foot so it mattered very little.
It was like that all the way to Nemea, the half way point.
I’d caught up with Russ again on this bit and we pushed into the CP pretty much
together. Russ went to his crew and I tried to find somewhere where I could
sort stuff out. There wasn’t a lot of room inside. It was full of wet runners,
trying to eat and change, and the odd one trying to convince the CP staff that
they were too unfit to go on. One guy next to me was getting a bit of an
earbashing to get him out there again in it, but he was having none of it. He
seemed ok to me and was well over an hour up on the cut-offs but had clearly
decided that was it for him.
I dried off as much as I could and put on a showerproof
jacket I had in my drop. It wouldn’t keep me dry but with the poncho would
hopefully keep me warm. I ate some real food, filled up my handheld and got out
there again. It had taken me much longer than it would have done if it had been
dry but it was very necessary to use some of my buffer to get sorted for the
next section – to the mountain, still over 20miles away.
It felt very lonely back out on the road. There didn’t seem
to be many runners around and I was finding it hard to see the markings on the
road because of all the water. I knew the route, but not well and a couple of
times wasn’t 100% sure I was on the right road. There then followed a long
downhill section which helped me to get warm again. My hip seemed ok now but my
quads were still hurting and I had to be careful with them. The next section
was uphill and off-road. Again I found I was stronger than those around me when
walking and quickly left the couple of runners I caught up with behind me. The
only annoying thing on this section was the continual crew cars coming up the
road and forcing me off the centre of the track, the only bit mud and water
free and into the mud at the side of the road, splashing me as they passed. Had
I not been so chuffed about getting this far into the race, that could have
easily turned into a Mr Grump moment.
Eventually the hill relented and started to go downhill
towards Malandreni. It was at this point that one of the most bizarre episodes
happened to me that I have ever encountered whilst running and I am still not
100% it wasn’t a dream or a hallucination. I had just waded through one of the
deepest and longest puddles, about 25 metres (I know I am old but I am in
Europe so metres will do, as long as its metres and not meters) and over ankle
deep when I came across a Japanese lady stumbling across the road. As I got nearer she staggered up to me saying
‘sleepy, sleepy’ and gestured that she wanted me to slap her across the face. I
recognised her as the Japanese lady who has the back of her head shaved and a
face painted on the back so that she looks like she is running in two
directions … apart from the fact that at present she was actually looking in
only one direction with a hood over the other face. Anyway, she wouldn’t let me
go and kept urging me to slap her. I held up my hands and said ‘look duck, I’m
not going to hit you’ at which point she grabbed one of my arms and proceeded
to whack herself about the face with it.
After a couple of whacks she let go and I chaperoned her to the next CP,
which was fortunately only a short distance away handing her over to their care
before blasting away as quick as I could. I was convinced she was a goner at
that point and no-one was more surprised than me when I actually saw finish
photos of her, having beaten me by about 30minutes. Either the whack about the
chops had done its stuff or someone else had given her a few more. Either way
this episode certainly woke me up.
I am not keen on the route into Malandreni. It is steeply
downhill but the cut-offs recognise that and so you have to run it all, and
quite fast too, or lose time against the cut-offs. Today it was painful on my
quads and I was also worried about going too fast since I was still having to
run through streams of mud and worried about slipping over. In Malandreni itself, there is often a party
going but tonight was so wet there were fewer people around. I got some young
lads to make me a quick coffee and since it had about 6 teaspoons of coffee in
it I thought it would do me some good. It was very strong but I’m pretty sure
it helped. The route out of Malandreni was equally steep downhill and by the time
I got down to the valley bottom, my quads were shot.
Coffee stop
It was about this point that I hit my darkest hour. My quads
were so painful that even though the route was now flat I just couldn’t run and
runners were coming past me. I could see my buffer slipping away and knew that
I had to speed up. I took some Paracetomol and just hoped for the best but I
seemed only to be able to run for a few yards before pulling up in pain. It was
also still raining.
The valley bottom was a dark place and I was losing ground
on those who overtook me. The only relief came as we approached Lyrkia and
started to go uphill again. The change of angle seemed to help and I made up
some ground, even though it was mainly fast walking. In Lyrkia itself I stopped
for some soup and this, or the Paracetoml finally kicking in, seemed to make a
difference and I was able to jog towards Kaparelli, the CP before the switch
backs a lot more easily.
It was around here I caught up with Russ again too. He
seemed inordinately worried about the cut-offs and that we didn’t have enough
time to make it over the mountain. Now I’d been worried about this myself just
a few miles previously but now I knew I was going better again and knew we
still had over an hour on the cut. I tried to reassure him but I’m not sure he
was convinced. Anyway, as we approached
the notorious switchbacks at the base of the mountain I was feeling a lot
better and my pain and frustration of only a few miles previously were a thing
of the past. It’s strange how things can change so much in such a short space
of time. One minute you can be as low as low can get, harbouring all sorts of
black thoughts and the next can be as high as a kite again. If I hadn’t been
experienced enough to know that these dark moments can be so transitory it
could have done for my race. Even so,
and even though you are half expecting one of these moments to arrive at
some point it’s difficult to prepare yourself for just how low you can actually feel. At the
time it really does feel like the end of the world with no resolution in sight.
At this point I was walking with a German guy who lived in
Miami. He’d had a go before and had failed but was feeling better this year
too. He asked me how far was the furthest I’d got in any of my attempts. I
answered by pointing to the CP about 100yards away – there, I said. And it was
true. My best race so, far back in 2009 had ended in a mess of puke and
diarrhoea about 50metres after this CP. I’d been the last person allowed through
about 10minutes down but only yards afterwards my race had ended in ignominy in
a drainage ditch at the side of the road, a result of having had to rush
through the last half dozen checkpoints without the time to refuel.
But this time I was halfway up the switchbacks already and
feeling strong on them, probably as a result of my hill training in Peru. I
carried on through and onto new ground for the first time in the race. Head
down I powered up the rest of the switchbacks and up to the mountain base CP.
It was great to be on new ground and finally meet the mountain, after all these
years.
I hadn’t wanted to spend much time here. It was wet and
there wasn’t a lot of shelter. The tent was full and I had to lean into a
wooden gazebo out of the rain to change the batteries in my headtorch. I
managed some bread and soup and just headed off. Although I had dry kit here and a waterproof,
it wasn’t really the best place to strip off and although wet, I was still
warm.
Immediately onto the mountain path I found it hard to see
where I was going. Visibility was poor and light from my headtorch was just
bouncing back. I had to turn it down to its lowest setting and just put up with
the gloom it produced. The path did get steeper but I must admit I was
wondering what all the fuss was about. Sure it was steep, wet and slippery in
my road shoes but it wasn’t the hand over hand stuff I’d been led to believe it
was. I was overtaking runners on it too and on the way to the top caught up
with DK again. From the rather gentle but insistent and repeated ‘oh dearing’ and slipping around, he was
clearly having a torrid time. I was impatient to get past but the path was too
narrow to try. At one point he slipped and waved an arm out which hit me over
the head behind him, but I’m sure it wasn’t deliberate and at another turn he
allowed the group of us to pass. I powered away again and although the top was
a bit further away than I thought, I wasn’t unduly troubled. In fact the only
issue came when I reached the top and found I no longer had a race number … or
race belt either come to that. I do remember the wind whipping at my poncho at
one point and it must have ripped away at the Velcro fastening and sent my belt
complete with two sets of numbers, wheeling off somewhere into the mist and
wind. I had to explain to the staff what had happened. It surprisingly perhaps
didn’t seem a big deal to them, they said they would look out for it and I was
ok to go on. I did have to explain however at 20 odd more CP’s why I didn’t
have a number though. So, anxious not too cool down I did carry on, without a
break at the summit.
It was harder work down the other side. My knee is still
good for climbing but doesn’t like steep downhill anymore and I was anxious not
to tax it. One slip or twist and it could be game over. The route was rocky, slippery
and treacherous and the visibility less than the distance between light sticks.
This meant that you had to set off in a direction you hoped would be correct and
then vary it when the next light stick came into view. If it didn’t you were
going wrong and needed to look around. As a result I was slow going down the
hill, cold and soaked by the time I reached Sangas village and also down to
about an hour over the buffer. I had
just done 100miles in exactly 21hours though. My only faster time over this
distance was round a track in Tooting in 2016 and today was far from being the
picnic that day had been. There was also a long way left to run. 50miles in
fact.
And then it started to get hard. It was still dark and I was
running painfully downhill towards Nestani. I was cold, my quads hurt and I was
struggling to run on them. I’d heard this was usually a nice, easy stretch in
fine weather. Easily downhill and so a recovery run into the breakfast CP. I
had lost some time down the mountain but was struggling to get it back again in
the 5miles to Nestani. The route was a little convoluted too and I ended up
getting momentarily lost in Nestani itself. I couldn’t see any road markings
due to the shiny, wet tarmac and ended up coming into the CP from 180 degrees
out.
Rob told me to get in and get out, and that Russ was not far
behind me but I knew I needed to do something drastic or I ran the risk of just
tailing off as it is easy to do on the next section even in good weather. I
still had an hour over the cut-offs but I needed to do some drastic running
repairs so I went to toilet to prevent me from having to do this in a less
hospitable spot, stripped off all my wet gear and put on new kit. I also ate
properly and picked up a new batch of Ultrabites and Tailwind canisters. It’s
never good to waste time at CP’s since after all, there are 75 of them and a
minute in each is an hour and 15mins. It was a hard decision to use up so much
of my heard earned buffer but if I had just raced in and out I ran the risk of
running out of energy and even succumbing to the cold. I hoped therefore the
pit stop was a sound idea even if it did mean I was now only 35minutes up and
with not now a great deal of leeway.
In fine weather I reckon I would be confident in building my
time back up over the next section but I confess I didn’t really enjoy it today.
I was able to run again after my break but I felt like the route was bitty and
unnecessarily twisty and turny and the more open nature of the course mean that
the wind was harder to cope with. The route to Tegea really dragged and several
times I stopped a run in despair of ever getting out of that wind/rain and in
pain with my quads. I was convinced my pace was slowing off so much that I
would inevitably lose my buffer. The CP
boards however, comfortingly said otherwise. On other occasions these boards
have confused an addled brain and converting kilometres to miles had proved
just too awesome a task. Today I was trying to simplify it and just look how
far ahead of the closing time I was and that told me that whilst I wasn’t
gaining any time, I wasn’t losing any either and consistently over the next
10-15miles or so, I remained 35minutes up.
Eventually the country road turned into the main one and the
big, long hill that had looked so intimidating on the route profile. I recall
John Foden telling Glyn Marston on this hill back in 2004 that he couldn’t walk
it or he would gradually erode his buffer. I also recall other runners talking
of just fading on it being out the race before they knew it.
Again the wind made it hard but once again I found my
walking pace better than those around me and to be almost as fast as others
running pace. As a result I was able to
just power it and not lose much to those who tried to run it all. I was able to
jog more of it than I thought I would too and again the buffer remained
constant and as I reached 130 and then 135 miles I dared to start believing
that it would be enough to get me to the end, but the more negative side told
me that that road into the wind, which was getting stronger and stronger was
surely going to have another go at spoiling the party.
My last drop was at the Monument at about 138miles. As I got
to this CP the wind was now showing just how strong it was. I felt guilty at
asking for my drop bag since the physio tent was in tatters and open to the
elements and the majority of the CP staff were just trying to hold the main
gazebo down on the ground. In some of the previous CPs the mood of the staff
was unfailingly encouraging despite the wet adversity that everyone faced including
them and I simply cannot thank them enough for their sterling efforts to keep
us runners on the road despite the conditions.
Eventually however, one of the staff emptied a box full of water to find
my drop bag at the bottom. I had spent too long here but needed the fuel to
stand any chance of getting me to the end and it had to be done.
I couldn’t believe it would get any worse, but it did. Not
long after Monument the wind turned up the dial big time and the rain was
slashing at me like knives in my face.
My poncho was now shredded and I was having to pull it together tight
over me to keep any protection. I had
held onto my headtorch after leaving Nestani since it wasn’t quit light and now
that paid off since I was able to use it to keep my cap and poncho hood
battened down over my head. The noise of my poncho hood blatting around was so
loud but it did provide some helpful respite from the elements, if I could only
hang onto it.
By now I could barely stand up in the wind let alone walk or
run in it. I knew now my pace was really slowing off. It must be, I was barely moving.
At this point it seemed almost funny to think that I had tried to foresee what adversities
this race would throw at me and prepare for them. It seemed just so comical
that this race had done it again to me and after letting me get so far, it had
turned out to be something so bizzarely unexpected as a hurricane that at
140miles into a 152mile race was going to end my day, just like the snow in the
Cheviots only 10miles or so from the end of the Spine in 2016 had been so close
to doing. There it had taken us close to
24hours to do what usually takes no more than 10 or so, because of the deep
snow and wind.
I was cold and wet and thought that I was only going to get
colder. Surely I’ve no chance of finishing now.
In the UK this race would probably have been stopped by now but as time
went by no-one came to collect me. There was no death bus picking up drowned
rats so I began to think, what would Rocky do if he had been knocked down –
well, he would get back up again. And what would Leonidas have said at
Thermopylae if the Persians had told him to lay down his arms and surrender –
well, he would have said ‘molon labe’ or ‘come and get them’. I just had to stop feeling sorry for myself.
I kept looking ahead out into the wide open landscape of the mountain road
sweeping round. I could see a sparse line of competitors all with their heads
tucked down into the wind. I had no option but to just do the same and just try
to march into it as strongly as I could. I would not give up.
It carried on like that for I know not how long in a seeming
alternate reality where time just seemed to stand still, until I was dragged
out of my trance with the route turning off the main road. Having to do
something else other than trudge into the wind brought me back into the real
world and I trotted off down to another CP. A lady ran out of the CP towards me
telling me that because of the weather everyone who got to this CP would be
allowed a finish, even if it was outside the 36hr limit. I was pleased at that
news. I didn’t see the CP time board so I wasn’t sure how long I had but I knew
now that one way or another I would finish the run. Would I be happy with a
finish outside 36hrs? Well, I told myself I was and that I was never coming
back although I’m not sure I would have been 10minutes after I’d finished, but
by now my brain was a bit fried and I had no real idea how long I had left or
how far I had to go.
I carried on anyway, now downhill. Now that I was off the
wide open mountain road and going past houses I could see just what the storm
had been doing. It was still windy and raining hard but not as exposed, but I
could see tree branches across the road, roof tiles all over the road and one
house even had the whole of its rendered front sat in a pile on the
pavement. I had only seen stuff like
this on the news before.
The next CP arrived quickly and I was met by a British
support crew. Darren was still there and we jogged off down the road together.
I told him I was worried that we might have to finish outside the36hr limit
since I had worked out from my watch that we had about 9 miles left to do.
Darren assured me however that in fact it was only about 6 and he knew we would
do it because he had done this final section before and knew how far it was. It
looked like my watch was a bit out. I had put it on the lowest GPS setting so
that the battery would last 36hrs and as such, over 140+miles had lost about 3
of them. It wasn’t much over that distance but this far into the race it meant
about ¾hr of time. Enough to get there in under 36hrs.
When I realised that and started to see signs to Sparta
which confirmed the distance a huge weight lifted from me. I could have run
faster down that last long hill if I’d had to but I knew now that I would make
it. As a result I started to take it a little easier and just trogged happily
down that final road into the outskirts of Sparta. We crossed the Evrotas which was swollen,
fast, full of debris and very brown and looking more like something Wildebeest
would crash through, through an ankle deep puddle on the bridge and whilst being
splashed by cars. I didn’t care and just ran through it all like I was on a
cross-country race.
We passed the final CP on an island, but it had been
effectively abandoned and there was nothing there but debris strewn all over
the island. It looked like … well I suppose it looked like it had been hit by a
hurricane.
After that we came into Sparta proper. I knew the route was
a bit circuitous but there were no kids on bikes to guide us. Instead the
locals were all out on their balconies cheering and waving. I dumped the tatters
of my poncho into a skip and turned the final corner. There he was right in the
distance, Leonidas, waiting for me. The
last strait is a long one and half way down Darren told me to crack on ahead
and ‘milk it’. I was all for waiting for him and running in together but he was
insistent that it was my moment. And that moment will live with me forever.
Aftermath
So will I do it again? I certainly don’t need to do it again. Had the weather on
the Saturday been as favourable as it had been to me on the Friday then I
reckon I could have retained or even built on my 1¼hr buffer, but this race to has
never in the slightest been about time to me. Instead it has been just about
survival and just somehow grinding out a finish. Now I’ve done that I really
don’t think I could ever replicate the feelings I had on that final stretch
into Sparta, or indeed and more to the point I don’t think I would ever want to
water down that unique feeling by another finish, maybe a bit easier next time
or worse, another failure. I have often thought that I might in fact have become a better runner over my advancing years for not having finished this race till now, with constant training for a possible race finish as the carrot to keep my ‘Eye of the Tiger’. A finish earlier in my running career might just have allowed me to take up retirement much more easily, and sooner.
So, I think it was probably a one-off rematch. One
time in 7 the variables might just be right for me to finish but I’m not sure
my knees have it in them or I can stave off old age and inevitable decrepitude
long enough for that to all come together again. I am never going to get an autoqualifier so it could be another 3years or more before I get in again even if I did apply.
But that run (ok, run
might have a bit of artistic licence here) down that final road to Leonidas was
just indescribable, just something otherworldly. It certainly wasn’t the finish
I’d had in my minds eye. No adoring crowds drinking beer and lining the roads,
cheering me on. No kids on bikes escorting me to the finish, but it was still
the best race finish by far that you could ever imagine and I never want to better
it. The road to Leonidas has been a very long one, so much more than 152miles
but it now has an ending and is not the Greek tragedy I feared it might be.
There was I confess, some trouble holding it together as we
tramped through puddles below the cheering balconies into Sparta and some
dampness of the cheeks not cause d by the rain as I arrived at the statue after
Darren had kindly urged me on ahead. I
will treasure the memory forever but my time at the statue was all too brief.
The Evrotas water I drank had certainly not been pulled from the river recently
but was the sweetest reward, before I was tenderly escorted away. That this was
for my feet to be washed would make Louise cringe (my feet, like every ultra
runners are not a pretty sight at the best of times let alone after having been
immersed in water for 36hrs) and brought me back into the real world, one where
I could sit down without feeling guilty and think about life again.
Finally, my
thanks to the BST - I never started with a crew, but I felt like I ended with
one. To the ISA for organising such a great race and holding it together in
such demanding conditions. To Darren for calmly reassuring me at CP72 that we
would make it in time and for sharing those last few miles with me. To Mark for
all these years believing I could do it but mostly to Louise who, whilst she
could never understand why I wanted to keep going back to this race with only a
23%-50% chance of a finish, allowed me to chase and ultimately realise that
dream.
Oh, and finally
thanks too to Pheidippedes, without whom we would have no such race at all.