Falling flat on your face and making mistakes — Running a 50k ultramarathon in the harsh, British winter.
I sit here, ready to write whatever is here to expressed.
And nothing seems to be there.
Just a haze of an experience. One that I think, is this even worthy to write about?
Who do I think I am to share my experience?
It was only 33 miles..
The route was cut short due to to weather.
I’ve ran further and for longer before.
People have done way more arduous, inspiring feats than this.
What’s the point?
But that’s just all noise and resistance. I yearn to express!
On Saturday 17th December, I ran 33 miles (53km), in the lake district. On Nav4’s Tour De Helvellyn event.
It was supposed to be 38 miles, and more of a mountainous loop, but the short course was used due to pretty dangerous weather conditions.
This is a story about finding something quite hard.
And it not really getting that much easier.
And, all the mental arguing that I observed for the entire 8 and a half hours.
After just having the coldest week of the year, temperatures averaging -6, I felt rather determined about one thing —
I mustn’t get cold.
Running for a long time, in the mountains, gradually becoming somewhat calorie deficient, wind, heat loss from sweat, fatigue..
You don’t want to get cold.
That is a catastrophe waiting to happen. I didn’t want a catastrophe.
So, I did what I do. I ordered a million and one things. Enough merino wool to warm a village, 4 pairs of gloves that I could’ve bought my first house with.. and the rest.
Oh, and I must carry 3L of water with me, just in case.
A down jacket, a Gillet, a waterproof..
Every “just in case” item, went into this bag.
Oh, and contrary to all of my past experience, knowledge and all advice you can ever seek anywhere ever —
I ran with a bag I’d never ran with before.
Which brings me to point number 1 — “Floating”. I’ll return to this.
I arrived at 7am, with the plan to get out and run 5–10 miles before I officially started, the short course was said to be 25 miles.
But I was so prepared and excited for a longer day, distance and all else.. and prepared for some good, sticky, painful “fun”, experiences, lessons..
I got out of my car, and suddenly realised — oh.
I see why it has been shortened.
Literally, every item to exist on the ground, was frozen over. Even grass had a sheeting of black ice over it.
So I stubbornly slipped my way towards Askham fell, sliding around in darkness on this icy road in the middle of Askham village, the reality of maybe this isn’t’ a good idea struck me, but I choose to ignore it.
Once I reached Askham fell, there was thicker snow/ice, which was somewhat less slidy to run on. The first 2 miles were done at about a 20:00 min/mile pace, from resisting and fighting the ice.
I also came to realise that this bloody bag, was a bit heavy. And super uncomfortable, bouncing around every step.
But oh well, it was what it was, “it’ll be fine”, I told myself.
I ran a steady 5 miles, watching the sunrise, and I had a lovely few moments of just complete awe at the world.
From dark to light, headtorch to the hazy darkness of my sight and seeing the world wake up. My favourite time of the day. The silence was so loud.
I was running back to the start point, to register, and officially start, and a load of runners who had already started were passing me.
There was a loud, confusing crunchyness coming from this throng of women (yes I just used the word throng), and they were also somehow running up a hill, on complete black ice.
… without slipping?
Whilst I was gripping onto the wall, soaked wet through feet of practically walking inside a bush to avoid slippage.. these ladies were running, on black ice, up hill.
Confusion.
They were wearing their crampons.
I have never used crampons before, and didn’t really know what they were until last week when I saw someone on facebook said “is anyone bringing their crampons?”
I realised I wasn’t, because I didn’t know what they were and didn’t have any. So I ordered some, and thank the heavens above I did.
I didn’t realise you could wear them on tarmac.
So instead of snapping my femurs in half from sliding down this road, I stopped and put my crampons on.
I wore them pretty much the entire race. And not a chance would I have been able to do any of it without them, given everything was sheeted over with thick ice.
I registered, had my kit checked over, and had some laughs with the guy checking my kit about “wow, that’s a big bag!”. Looking on at everyone else’s small, compact running bags, I felt like a bit of a tit. And also jealous.
But at least I wasn’t fretting about getting cold. And given that I seem to be someone that even in the blazing hot summer, is cold, it’s something I really didn’t want to risk.
Off I went.
10 miles in, my traps were already beginning to get sore from my bag and I could feel myself becoming increasingly irritated by it’s flapping around with every step.
As alluded to earlier — lesson/point no1 — floating.
I’ve only just gotten into being on mountains, trails, and ultrarunning, this year.
I ran my first ever ultramarathon, GB Ultra’s Pennine 50, in May. 50 miles up & around Malham, Fountains fell (twice) and the Yorkshire 3 peaks. It took me 13 hours 45 minutes.
In September, I ran GB Ultra’s Snowdon 50, 50 miles up & around some of the biggest mountains in Snowdonia. It took me 18 hours and 9 minutes.
This being my 3rd ever ultramarathon, and never having grown up in the outdoors, I’m really quite new to this whole thing.
As a result, for the 2 ultras above, I supercharged my already somewhat inherent tendency to go all in and neurotically obsess about every last detail.
I couldn’t have been more prepared. And whilst it was exciting and purposeful as ever, it was also somewhat stressful, because I had attached so much weight and meaning to me doing completing the events.
Meaning the build up was somewhat excruciatingly painful, sat in a soup of spiky anticipation.
Something was going to go wrong before meaning I couldn’t do it, injury, illness, travel, you name it. All I could think about was the event.
This had a place, for sure.
But this time, I think I needed to just float.
By “float”, I mean — not really think about it all that much.
Yes, I prepared my stuff, REECE’d the route, went on a map reading course with Nav4, trained consistently..
But even the 3 days prior, I had no nerves or really any thought about the fact I was going to be running an ultramarathon in the lakes, in the mountains, in winter, with no support crew, friends or family, navigating in the dark, and all else that comes with it.
I didn’t really think about my pace, effort, timings with eating.. meaning I kind of fucked all of them up.
How I see it, is that we have to go to extremes in order to find the middle ground.
And it doesn’t matter the advice someone gives you, the books you read, the things you inherently “know”..
Personally, I sort of just need to go both extremes, i.e obsessively plan and prepare and not leave a single stone unturned, and even, add 50 more stones into the mix.. vs the other side of floating, “it’ll be fine”, sort of attitude.
Both have a place, because there’s lessons to be had in both. And that creates a desire for more, and an opportunity to learn, grow and to do differently next time.
But I really do think that without firsthand experiencing the shortfalls of your own approach, the regret of the heavy bag, of the lack of experience, of crampons, clothing, etc, you don’t really learn much from it.
Being shit is invaluable.
And in the world of continuous perfectionism and endless information.. I think it’s one of the most underrated aspects of life.
We fear being shit. And so we do nothing.
And this is one of the most elusive and enticing thing about ultrarunning to me — I really have no idea what I’m doing.
But I’m prepared to experience whatever I need to experience, get a face full of mud, but to learn from it and to do differently next time.
Isn’t that kind of the whole excitement of being alive?
It’d be boring and unsatisfying as hell if the second you did something you did everything perfectly and there was no moments of misery or regret.
Or else, the trap of the perfectionist is you do nothing, ever, because you’re constantly waiting till you’re ready, or till you can do it perfectly.
And of course, that time never comes, and you’re never ready.
It’s all just a big soup to bathe in and learn from.
So a big lesson here for me is to not float and fall back on “it’ll be fine”, and also that I don’t need to neurotically obsess about every minute detail.
There’s a little middle ground for that. That I’m sure I’m beginning to land near.
But when “they” say about enjoying the journey, for me this is exactly it. Enjoy the process of being a bit shit, but so willing and open to learn and do differently.
The floating thing, transpired in many ways.
And it resulted in me finding this really quite hard.
As mentioned earlier, I wasn’t stringent about my eating, drinking, and general self management.
“It’ll be fine”
Again, something I knew conceptually, that it wouldn’t be, but I think I needed to do it and learn that actually, it isn’t fine.
14 miles or so in, my knee started hurting. A pain I’ve not had for years.
I realised I also hadn’t eaten in 2 hours. And I was also really bloody hot.
But I didn’t want to stop to take a layer off.
It’ll be fine.
It wasn’t. I know it never is.
But I guess a bit like kids, you have to let them drink a bottle of cheap Vodka outside Tesco’s to learn that it’s not a good idea, or else they become destined alcoholics.
I took notice, shoved a rice krispie squares bar down my throat, took a layer off and well, just remained aware of my knee.
We were beginning to climb up a valley, approx 400m high, I was beginning to get a bit tired and fed up.
The thicker snow and ice seemed to be quite tiring. Or maybe that was just a story I was telling myself.
Only 14 miles in. I kept thinking to myself.
This shouldn’t be this hard. I shouldn’t be finding this so hard. I should be having fun.
Point number 2 — Mentally arguing with reality.
The reality was, I was finding it hard. For many reasons, likely.
But in the moment, these reasons didn’t really matter because there was nothing I could do, in the moment, to change it.
All I could do was sit in the shit puddle for however long I needed to, and I knew eventually I’d come out the lul.
But what I could see myself doing, was fighting how I was feeling.
People then kept overtaking me, not because I was slow (well, I guess so), but just because that’s just how events work. Some move faster, some move slower.
I could feel this negative mental spiral gaining some depth, and started feeling even worse about the fact people were overtaking me. Despite me not actually racing for a place or time, but just to complete it..
Why am I so unfit?
What’s wrong with me?
Why is this so hard?
Why am I so shit?
This fucking stupid bag.
My knee hurts.
I stopped, for a minute.
Realised what I was doing.
Took notice and accepted that I wasn’t having a good time.
And stopped trying to change it.
Just let my mind do whatever it needed to do..
Have a tantrum, feel all the feelings of inadequacy and shitness, alongside the heavyness that seemed to be taking over my body.
Just be where my feet are, with whatever feelings are there.
No trying to change anything, just being completely present with it.
Relief, instant relief.
I eventually got to the top of the valley, climbing over icy snow covered rocks, took me straight out of the hurricane in my head and brought me to my body.
This is fun.
The views unravelled themselves, snow capped mountains overshadowed the horizon, and now it was time for a fun downhill section, with these awesome crampons that stop you from slipping.
I felt good.
Another key lesson, I learnt from my first ultra, that always seems to present itself..
Peaks and troughs, always. But they never last.
They do when you try to change them, though.
When you fight. Resist. Want it to be different than it is.
I let my legs loose, the lightness within me came out and I felt such elation and joy running down the mountain.
Opening up my stride, gaining some speed, no longer fighting or straining, just utter complete freedom of moving downwards, no longer fighting all the forces that be.
I arrived at the only real checkpoint, refilled my bottles, took my crampons off, stuffed my face with salty nuts and carried on.
I felt good.
A moment of such a deep, profound insight came over me too..
Errr why don’t I just pour out this 2L of water in my bag I’m unnecessarily carrying..?
I laughed at myself and called myself a dickhead, in a light loving way. I could’ve done this 16 miles ago!
Lesson no3 — get familiar with when/where you can refill your drinks so you don’t have to do so much “just in case” shit and have this stupidly heavy bag bouncing around on your back.
I also took off my coat that I was meaning to take off about 10 miles ago. I felt so much better.
No longer about to reach legitimate boiling point mentally or physically.
Onwards we went.
The short course we were doing, was an out and back.
So reaching a point, then turning around and going back on yourself to the finish.
I read it was approx 25 miles, and so the now regrettable action of mentally calculating when the turn around point, was now coming into play.
I knew when my watch reached EXACTLY 17.5 miles, it was time to turn around (not 12.5, from the 5 miles extra I did at the start).
16.8 miles in, back down into a trough I fell.
Struggle. Heavy legs. Tiredness.
People running past like spring chickens.
I could see all that mental arguing re appearing, but I chose to just not engage with it. Watch it from a far.
17.2 miles.. so confused as to why I felt so tired and lifeless.
I looked up, to see a throng (bingo) of runners going up the zigzag track up a mountain..
Hahaha. Oh yes, of course it’s not exactly 25 miles. A nice little slap round the face and reminder to not do that to yourself.
To not get sucked into the numbers, because it takes away from your experience and takes you out the moment.
Running 5k feels hard because you know the end is soon, and so you keep checking to see how close you are to finishing.
Running 50 miles feels somewhat easier because the end is too far away to even think about, and so you’re present.
Up the mountain. More lightness, ease. Still hard physically, but I was coming to a realisation and acceptance that it just feels hard, and that’s all.
I don’t need to figure it out, fight with it, change it, compare. It just needs to feel hard because it does.
Also although there are a few legit reasons & lessons I am aware of as to why it felt hard, sometimes — it just does.
Some days, you run and you feel like you’re flying, it feels great.
Some days, you run and you feel like you’re dying, it feels shit.
The human experience, that’s just it.
The beautiful mountainous landscape opened up, snow, views, beauty. Wooo! Fun fun fun.
Got to the turn around point, tapped a bridge.
Had some laughs and chats, which felt very much needed.
I think just coincidentally where I positioned myself re start time, pace, all that, I’d not really spoken to or seen anyone.
Until this moment, I forgot the importance of shared experience.
The camaraderie. Being pulled outside of yourself.
And just the necessity of laughing.
Ultras, running, life — can get really serious.
Especially when you’re doing somewhat hard things.
You can get really serious, intense, single pointed.
Again, it all has a place, but the place the laughter, conversation and shared experience has, is huge.
The humility to laugh at yourself is so vital to so many things.
And other people facilitate this. It’s hard to do when you’re alone, in the way of nothing but yourself.
Back down I plodded. Still nursing this general sense of tiredness and hardness.
With a background humming of shouldn’t, should, comparison.
Point number 3 — Awareness doesn’t necessarily get rid of the discomfort.
There’s this subtle idea, at least in my mind, that if I’m aware of something, it takes away all the pain, discomfort, general uncomfortable feelings..
To be aware of the voice of judgement, the voice that tells me I’m shit, not good enough, that this should be easier, blaaaaaah..
Gives space, I am no longer that. It’s not as intense, not as debilitating, not as in your face..
But it’s still there. It’s still a bit uncomfortable.
But that’s ok. I can handle discomfort.
The more you allow yourself to feel these things, the sooner it passes and moves.
The more you fight, the more you need, you are guaranteed struggle and suffering.
Suffering isn’t necessary, discomfort is.
There’s a big difference.
Mile 23.
Checkpoint, refilled bottles, nuts, the usual.
And stupidly, stood directly in the firing line, of the smoke of a nice warm fire.
So whilst filling up my bottles, adding in my electrolytes, trying to not spill them, awkwardly shoving them in the bag without them popping..
I was inhaling all this smoke, and I remember at the time, thinking
“Oh that’s not nice” and coughing.
But not moving out the way..
Instead, just stood, faffing, whilst being hit with smoke and hot bits from a fire..
Silly, yes.
What has really been emphasised for me through this whole experience, is really listening to that first initial feeling that arises, and says —
“Eat”
“Take off a layer”
“Drink”
“Maybe move out the way of all this smoke rather than unnecessarily standing directly in it..?”
Again, this is something that I KNOW.
The number rule of ultrarunning, DON’T IGNORE A PROBLEM.
Sort it out immediately.
But this floating approach of “it’ll be fine”, again, I guess needed to be expressed like the 14 year old getting their stomach pumped after the cheap vodka escapade.
Feeling a bit sick from the smoke, and just a bit tired from having ran 23 miles up 1,300m of acscent..
I began the climb up, again.
The sun was beginning to set, the sky was changing colour, the earth was gaining that peacefulness that it does before the time of dusk.
I love it.
Except you could hear no birds, probably because they’re all dead from bird flu. Great.
I got to the top, admiring the view, taking a breath.
Then, headache and nausea, came knocking.
And a wave of light headedness.
I need to eat..
I ate. Felt a bit more sick.
Oh for fuck sake.
Ok, it’s fine. Just eat more, I need sugar.
*reaches for ritz crackers to start choking and almost gagging on the dryness*
Ritz crackers are not the most sugar dense food item, I know this.
I ate some more.
Running down the valley, every step was jarring my stomach.
Nausea was creeping up in intensity, followed by that marvellous feeling of needing to burp, but then nothing but a warm fluid sensation arising at the back of your throat.
TMI, sorry.
Well fuck it!
I realised tampering with this and trying to stop it was going to do nothing, so I just decided to continue running as normal, knowing I’d done all I can.
Stomach felt horrid, but it eventually went away.
I also did a great burp about a mile later. It wasn’t wet.
27 miles in.
Somewhat shocked about how I’d ever ran 50 miles, twice, on way harder terrain, way more elevation.
The 5k effect, I’m sure.
And poor self management. The little things really do add up.
I was finding it hard. My feet were beginning to ache a little, my desire to walk rather than run was ever increasing..
I just laughed at myself.
Then my nose started bleeding, I laughed more.
I had prepared, wait for it — tampons for this occasion. To put in my nose.
I seem to always get spontaneous nose bleeds when running ultras. I say that like I’ve ran many, I’ve ran 3 lol.
Anyway, when packing my bags I remember thinking “I’m not going to use them, waste of space”.
(But the 40 pairs of socks weren’t)
I ended up running half a mile with one of the orange toes, from my toe sock, shoved up my nose.
I’m not sure what’s worse, a tampon or a toe sock.
I kept going. Sparing the inch of headspace I appeared to have available to appreciate the views, the silence, the sky changing colours.
There wasn’t an immense feeling of awe. But I was ok with that.
Forcing feelings is never a good idea.
It just adds in another layer of “I should”, “I shouldn’t”, which creates mental stress.
You should because you do, and you know that — because that’s what’s true.
Whatever I did feel, was acceptance for my experience.
This sort of brings me to my next point..
To recognise and not get too attached to the peaks and the troughs.
Whilst the peaks are fun, you feel light, joyous, love, happiness, awe..
They soon go.
As do the troughs.
But we can’t want one and not the other.
If we forever try to push away, deny and change the troughs, that are uncomfortable, unpleasant, hard..
But cling on for dear life to those that are light, fun, joyous, exciting, awe-inspiring..
You’ve got yourself a stressful time.
The highs are going to go.
So are the lows.
But what I’m learning, is there’s a spot beneath both of these. Call it contentment, acceptance, peace, whatever you want.
True freedom is to be at peace with the peaks and the troughs.
To not wish them away or to stay.
This moment of realising I’d not recognised or appreciated the beauty or views, was good.
Because it made me stop and look, and gave my eyes and soul a sense of “ah”, but it wasn’t awe-inspiringly amazing and full of love.
It was brief, and then straight back to discomfort, aching feet, mental tiredness and all else.
It was a good moment because I recognised that was ok.
I didn’t need to stand in complete awe of appreciation at the mountains.
I needed to just appreciate my experience for what it was, right now.
Sometimes it’s great, sometimes it’s not so great. That’s ok!
It’s an experience, it’s all an experience. Different, but one isn’t better or worse.
All these feelings can be devoured & appreciated when you lean into them.
Even the ones claimed to be “negative”.
30 miles in.
Ah! I guess it is ok to feel tired now.. 🤣
I also came to the realisation, that running 50 miles doesn’t just get hard at mile 49 and 50.
In my experience, it gets hard at mile 20.
Then harder at 25.
Then hardest at 30. Then just sort of dips in and out of this.
The difference isn’t the hardness or discomfort, the difference is in that you just keep going and you sit with it for longer.
My feet all of a sudden felt like they exploded. Ah fuck it, only got 3 miles left. It’ll be fine.
(Theme of the day)
I kept plodding.
31 miles.
2 miles to go, I thought — I’m going to treat myself to some music.
I rarely, if ever, train with music and never have raced with it, because it uses so much mental energy.
For me anyway.
Although at the time, it feels great, fun, you feel energised and free..
What goes up soon has to come down.
So nearing the end, I knew I could use up some more beans.
Headphones in, music on.
Strong emotion and an urge to cry came over me.
Nothing came out, probably too dehydrated.
But it felt good and very cathartic.
I could also feel myself coming out of a trough, and I didn’t actually want to stop running.
I was really so tempted to do an extra loop, I was coming back to aliveness again, energy was coming back and I wanted to fully live it.
But, lets call it a day, I decided. The extra tissue damage isn’t worth it.
Plus, I’m nearing cake.
0.5 miles left, the pinky on my right foot was in agonizing pain from this new blister. I felt it as much as I could. It really hurt, but it felt kind of good in a way.
This is what I came here for.
I finished.
Collected my finishers, award winning, Nav4 purple mug.
Collected cake, and walked to my car.
The sun had set, it was getting dark.
I turned my car on, heaters blowing, sat on the seat with the door open, eating my cake, looking at the sky.
I took my shoes off in trepidation of what was going to be beneath me, trench foot? Maybe.
I painfully put on a fresh pair of socks, some different shoes, and drove home in silence.
I got home, got some welcome congratulations and cuddles by my dog Pig, who sat on my face.
I ordered pizza and went to bed.
I felt fulfilled as ever.
I asked for the solo experience, and the universe for sure listened..
The 2 ultras I’d done before, I’d had an amazing support crew. The most incredible friends and family who came to help, refilled my bag, sorted my feet, cheered me on, banged on some pans, and all the rest.
I’d also met so many people, lots of chats, laughter, shared pain..
They were also in pretty good conditions, running in shorts and a vest.
Part of me desired a solo experience, with less help, less support.
Harsher conditions, in the winter…
Really, just to see what it was like, how different it was.
How I would cope.
Perhaps there’s a very subtle subconscious element of trying to prove something to myself, that I’m not reliant on anyone, can do things alone.. but who knows.
I think that part of you never gets filled, or proven to. So at least consciously, it’s not something I’d chase or try to fulfil.
But the conscious, choice making part of me — just wanted to experience what it was like.
And a big realisation and conclusion I’m coming to — people are fucking magical.
The people you meet, get chatting to, the people who give up their time to help, to support, to almost forget their own needs for a day..
The space that gives for encouragement, humility, openness and to not get in your own way, is unending.
People truly are one of the best parts about life.
I know this, you know this.
But it was also really special and important to experience what it’s like doing something like that, somewhat, completely alone.
I think you get tested more, you get pushed more, you go to deeper depths and you have nothing but yourself to get yourself back on your feet.
And that’s a cool thing too.
I’ve learnt so much from this experience, and is going to be so valuable for trying to run 106 miles in June..
I read somewhere, someone once said that ultrarunning is like experiencing a lifetime in one day.
That seems pretty true and relatable.
Whilst it wasn’t really all that far, comparatively speaking at least..
I for sure had an experience, one that I will treasure and take so much from.
To be a human, even when it’s messy, muddy and dirty is beautiful.
The entirety of the human experience, is something of beauty.
Aliveness, lethargy..
Inspired, tired..
Elation, sadness..
Love, fear..
Pleasure, pain
Fulfilled, yet yearning for more..
To be open to experience, whatever you do — is true freedom.
Ultra-running shows me this, and teaches me this.
Every. Single. Time.
You’re going for long enough to see exactly that.
The highest of highs, the lowest of lows..
The excitement, the joy, the euphoria, to the depths of pain, misery and darkness..
The love for what you’re doing, to the fear of what will happen next..
You see your mind, for what it is.
And you gain space.
to watch, to observe, but to make a choice.
A choice to keep going anyway.
I am fascinated by ultrarunning and all it seems to give, always.
And extremely excited at the prospect of how much earth there is to play on.
I’m sure I’ll be back next year, in hope for better weather conditions and to complete the full route!
Thanks to Nav4 for an incredible event.
Time for a bit of rest, and then a solid 6 month training block of figuring out how to run for 106 miles in June..
