All photos courtesy of Stuart Shipley and Stuart Holloway
Well that was the worst race I have ever done. The Hill Ultra aim is to complete fifty five times up and down a hill. I
managed thirty times or ninety miles. Just a little over half way. The Race Director
Mark Cockbain says that if he didn’t do extreme sports he would be a serial
killer. Well he sent fifteen poor souls out
on to the most horrendous course in atrocious conditions and he nearly got off
to a good start.
But that is not really the place to begin. After
failing Spartathlon for the second time, despite being trained by Cockbain, I
wanted to try something as soon as possible to get my confidence back. Not long
after Mark came up with The Hill Ultra. Fifty five times up and down a hill, in
the Peak District, in winter, 160 miles long
and 4 miles of elevation.
Training would be easy. I live in a village built on the side of the
Taunus Mountains. Just run up and down there and I’d be sorted. In fact I did
an overnight run, twelve hours up and down a one mile course covering forty six
miles with one and half miles of elevation. Fit as a butcher’s dog me. But 12 hours
& 45 miles and 26 hours & 90 miles are very different things.
My day started with a bus, train, tube and flight from
Wehrheim to Manchester, then after renting a car I drove over the Peak District
to Sheffield to pick up Jo Kilkenny. A
bit of shopping for supplies later, back in the car to the other side of the
Peak District to Macclesfield to pick up Nastsha Farid and Tom Foreman. Jo was pretty quiet in the car and I wasn’t
sure if it was something I had said. But
then Tom got into the car and I prayed for the silence to return. That man
could talk all sixteen legs off an Arcturian MegaDonkey. He was talking so much
he drowned out the voice of the sat nav. Great stories about Piece of Sting
from Centurion Running though. It was amazing we made it to Buxton in time for
supper at a nice little pasta place.
We drove up to the Cat and Fiddle. We were rather
early, but it soon started to fill up with the idiots who were to be Mark’s
guinea pigs. Seeing how dark it was and listening to the rain and wind lashing
the building I have never felt more like a sacrificial lamb. I had bought tons
of kit, but I still fretted about whether I had the right stuff. But then Drew Sheffield was sitting there in
shorts...turned out he would run in them. Despite his protestations that skin
is water proof and tights would soak up water and make a runner colder I still
think he was mad. Nice chap, but mad.
Tom Foreman was still chatting away when I asked the
barmaid for a pen.
“Are you going perform an emergency tracheotomy” he
asked.
“Only if it would shut you up”
He then bought three Jack Daniels, not all for himself,
although he did drink two as Natasha only wanted a sip.Some would say all his talking was nerves, but I
reckon his is just naturally effusive and don’t forget he had done POS the
previous week.
I finally decided on what to wear. A base layer of Craft
Keep Warm top and shorts.
Good to minus five according to the manufactures claims, and they were
soon to be put to the test and passed admirably. I didn’t feel cold at all during the entire
event.
Then Sealskinz, these are breathable double skin socks. They together my Asics GT Trail shoes from 21run.com kept my feet
lovely and warm. In fact when my gloves
were sodden after the half of the first night on the hill I put a spare pair of
these on my hands and they were better than what I had on before.
My top layer was Montane
Minimus Jacket and Trousers. In between was just a mixture of technical
shirts, a fleece from TOG 24 that I use for snowboarding and bog standard
adidas tights. I had an old builder’s
high vis vest that I picked up on Deutschlandlauf and a Petzel torch.
Nutrition wise I had Sisgo bottles, Viper energy bars (they come
loaded with 139mg of Caffine) for the night. Gu Gels and home
made energy bars for the day.
The start was delayed due to some later arrivals and
Drew and I hid in the pub while we waited for the slacker. At 8:15pm we set off with Richard Weremiuk guiding us down
the A537 ( the most dangerous road in Britain) until the turn onto the
trail. As we started up this I thought
great it is going to be tarmac. After
all Mark said it would be runnable and he loves tarmac to run on.
The Start
My hopes were soon dashed as the tarmac turned into a
rain sodden slippy cobble field masquerading as a track. This angled upwards
and turned sharply to the right at the top. Then we had a rutted track for the
next half of the course. It was flattish; however the ruts so deep they filled
with water and then a hump of grass in the middle that was so uneven you could
not run on it. Half way along came a Gate that was shut and we had to negotiate
a pool of ankle deep mud and water around the side of the gate. The track
continued on for some way and then a couple of glow sticks indicated we turn
left over a grass bank and down onto the Hill proper.The wind came up the hill so fast, Phil christened it Hurricane Alley. It buffeted you from one side to the other. At one stage I got blown into the electric fence, which was quite shocking.
At this point on the first lap Phil Smith and others
missed the turn. To quote Tom Jones “getting
lost on a single track, glow stick marked course, when following other runners
who are going in the right direction is a skill set one can only admire.” Phil
is a top bloke but does make silly mistakes. This is unfair as plenty of people even when the sun
came up missed the turn. The wind blew so hard you lent over face down and your
field of vision was a football sized circle of illumination cast by your head
torch. Later in the night the rain stopped only to be replaced by freezing fog,
which made your field of vision even smaller.
Then came the longest bit of the course, down a
winding path made up of compacted gravel and mud this dropped down and for what
seemed like an age and then climbed up again.
The Hill
It was so
dark and the path up the Hill so steep that it seemed as if we were heading for
green stars in the sky. On several spots there was just mud and we had to skirt around them or risk losing our shoes. Finally when you got to the top is was
another large area of shoe sucking mud to be avoided and then we could dip our
key into one of two boxes to register that we had got to the top.
Then it was back down the route and a return
to the Cat and Fiddle for refreshments and a second dip.Starting at 8:15pm meant we had a
whole night of twelve hours to run before we saw day light. It was bloody
awful. You couldn't see where you were
going, if it wasn't raining and windy, it was foggy and even less visibility.
Cockbain is an evil man for designing such a race. Remember to qualify for this race, the runner had to have completed at least one hundred mile race, so they are
all tough cookies. However, by the morning of first day there were just eight left
of the fifteen that started. It was horrendous.
The day was quite nice, the rain
and windy let off a little and we could see where we were going. I kept
trudging on mainly with Phil Smith. The windy meant we couldn’t converse a lot,
but what we did do kept us entertained.
As we got closer to the evening
dark clouds full of foreboding drew across the sky. Jo Kilkenny broke down and
said she couldn't go through another night like the first one. I knew exactly what she meant and I thought
as long as I got through the night I would be OK. It was a matter of being mentally strong
enough to take the battering, as physically it wasn't too bad. OK the wind, the
rain and the cold eat into you, but as long as you kept moving you stay warm.
Me running with Seaskinz on my hands
I had an issue with my gloves
getting wet. But after I put my Sealskinz,on my hands I was fine.
I was starting to lack energy but
Stuart and Mark told me to keep eating and that would boost me back up again. “Remember
the stomach is your furnace, keep it fed” one
of them said.
Night fell around 5:30 and so that
meant another fifteen hours of darkness. I kept plodding on and the field
started to thin out again. After twenty or so hours on my feet nagging doubts started to
creep in and I was then trying to fight them off. It was the same at Sparta,
“Why don’t you quit?” said the evil
voice inside of me
“Because physically, I am fine” I
reply
“But I am bored and we won’t finish,
find a reason to stop”
“There is nothing wrong with us and
what else would we do?”
“Sit in the cosy pub”
I find this the hardest thing to do
on ultras. This internal voice that
wants me to stop for no real reason.
It was about this time the
hallucination started to kick in. They come gently at first. The green glow
sticks seem to start moving towards me instead of me going to them. Especially on the steep bit they were flying
out of the air at me. Then they started to spin and talk
to me. They were evil bastards ,
although I have no idea what they said as I don’t speak glow stick.
I took a break in the camper van
and started to talk to Stuart. Then I noticed somebody sitting next to him. I
first asked Stuart if someone was sitting next to him. When he said yes, I then
asked what colour jacket he was wearing. Stuart said blue and at that point I
knew something was wrong. Because to me this guy had a big white beard and red
jacket. It was Father Christmas.I couldn't work out if they were
pulling my leg or not.
I set off again and as I reached
the summit the wall behind the dipping boxes started to move up and down. I
reached for the sign post beside of me, but that was moving as well. How the hell was I going to lean down and dip
my key? I just collapsed on to my knees and crawled to it. As I left I explained my
predicament to Bryan Rudd.
“Mate you need more food, here take
some Haribo”
“Ok I don’t like Haribo “
“It does matter you need sugar”
I greedily stuffed them down my
throat and felt a little better.
As I neared the Cat and fiddle, I
first noticed the walls were breathing, slow in and out audible breaths.Then I noticed Jon Steele and Gavin
Felton following me. I was starting to get paranoid and was convinced that Jon
was trying to persuade Gavin to beat me up.
I got a bowl of pasta and went to
the pub. As I sat trying to eat it the paranoia was getting the best of me. Phil
Smith came over to talk to me. As he
asked me if I was alright, his face started to melt in front of me. Like candle
wax dripping down his face his forehead disappeared and then his eyeballs
popped out.
Paranoia creep in
This was seriously weird and I
thought get out again and get going and it will be alright. But I was frighten
of Jon…so I went out with Riccardo Giussani who promised to protect me.
As we went over the first hill we
came across Tom Jones, who was suffering.
His quads were shot and after walking with him for some time he returned
to base camp.
We crossed paths with Jon Steele
and I went to shake his hand. I was trying to defeat my irrational thoughts. I
only went out again when Riccardo offered to protect me. I defeated them by
shaking his hand. I convinced my irrational mind that if Jon refused to shake my
hand then I would chin him. My father always told me to get your retaliation in
first.
The rest of the evening was a blur.
I know now after twenty six and half hours it was enough. My evil voice got the
better of me and gave up at around 11:45 on the second night.
I have spent a while chatting to
people about why the defeatist voice conquers me. I can go down the steps in awful
conditions and physically I am fine, but this voice keeps getting me to stop.
Some very experienced runners I have talked to say they get the same thing.
Praying for a dog to attack them, for example.
However I need to stop flopping
around and know myself. I need to build a key to open the door to the way out.
This year has been about building a base level of fitness. I got further than ever at Sparta and was one
of the last few to drop out of a race that was created to be virtually
unfinishable.
The Hill got me down the steps and
put me face to face with the gatekeeper of the steps going up. The gatekeeper
is me. Only I have the key....because no one else knows me, so no one else can
help.
