The alternative title to this
should possibly be “the anatomy of a DNF” or “a study in failure”
Admittedly I probably entered the
UTMR stage race this year for the wrong reasons. I had failed on it before so I
had to go back, right? I had got a deferred entry from the previous year after
volunteering as a race marshal, so it would be a waste not to use that entry,
right? So, I entered and feigning a cheerfulness that I did not feel I
dutifully lined up on the start line already feeling tired from a poor nights
sleep the night before the race (not unusual) a poor nights sleep before
getting an early flight (again not unusual) but also several other poor night’s
sleep in the lead up to it, all the time the enormity of the event and my
woeful lack of fitness playing on my mind. Its fair to say training had not
gone well, moving house and moving jobs had meant that for nearly month in the
early summer I had barely run a step and for the rest of the training time
available I had tried to concentrate on long slow hilly plods as per
conventional ultra training wisdom would have you believe is necessary.
I’m not sure hanging out with other ultra
runners before a race is too hot an idea either as they tend to exchange
stories about their ultra race epics and you sit there quietly, realising that
your race tally for the summer has been 3 half marathons, some extremely slow
walk/jogs in the mountains and mega doses of ferrous sulphate for anaemia. If I
have ever felt out of place somewhere this was it. Finding out that you are
struggling mid way through a long event is one thing but going into it knowing
that you are not fit and well prepared is another matter entirely. There’s
definitely a difference between nervous anticipation and total dread.
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| Did i bring too much race food? |
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| Race kit |
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| And extras in case of snow |
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| Kit check |
I realised by mid-July that I had
to hurriedly get myself in shape for the race if I was actually going to do it
but by mid August I had totally discounted it in favour of an enjoyable holiday
exploring the trails around Zermatt rather than yet more training and route
recces. Much as I love running in the mountains and being in the mountains
training was becoming a bit of a grind if I’m honest and it seemed to be taking
up all my weekends and, probably the true root of the issue, I was tired. The
idea of running the UTMB has been firmly etched at the back of my mind for
quite a few years as my ultimate target race but it’s easy to see how the
mission to collect enough race points through doing other equally long hard
races such as this one to be able to enter the race ballot, not even the race
itself but the ballot for the race, could start to be all consuming in terms of
time, energy, holidays, money etc. This target now seemed more further and
further away than ever.
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| The start |
Anyhow there was no backing out
now, so I lined up in the early morning darkness of Grachen and immediately
everyone else seemed to be setting off at a pace I found hard to live with. I
stuck with it and followed the line of runners along the narrow trails and
paths alongside what I could make out as dew covered meadows in the early
morning half light and through narrow forest trails by the light of head
torches carefully trying not to trip over tree roots, rocks or be impaled on
the spikey end of a trek pole of a careless fellow runner.
I wished I had taken the time to
stop and take a photo of the tops of the mountains appearing in the morning
sunlight as it was a glorious sight but feeling unbelievable slow and sluggish
I was too worried about being left behind and missing a cut off time and so I
kept moving. I only stopped moving in order to help haul
a runner out of a ditch into which he had managed to somehow fall and was
firmly wedged in lying on his back like a beetle with its legs in the air.
Fortunately for him it was a dry ditch. And I stopped to assist a runner who
had been stung by a bee or a wasp but there was little I could do to help.
The first section of the stage along the Europaweg
had been sadly abandoned after a recent rockfall had closed the path which was
a shame as this trail is something worth experiencing. Instead, we were
directed down the hill into the valley joining the tracks and roads passing
through little farmsteads along the valley floor at Herbriggen. And I was
walking already. On the flat and on the down hill I was walking. This was not
good. And I as started the climb from Randa it went from bad to worse. After
losing yet more places on the climb I eventually reached the bridge. Too tired
and depressed to worry about the bridge crossing I pushed on to the checkpoint
at the Europahutte only to see the girls from Deeside already coming down the
hill some considerable distance ahead having checked in and had their food and
drink at the checkpoint. I stopped at the checkpoint and had a slice of cake
and pondered my options, one of them being to head back to Randa and either
walk or jog back to Grachen the way I came or to get the train from Randa. I
went back down to the bridge and against my better judgement I decided to cross
it. It was swaying quite a bit due to other runners trying to run on it (which
the race organisers had specifically instructed against) which as you can
imagine I enjoyed greatly, Not. I suspect my voice may have been a couple of
octaves higher than normal at this point as I gripped the railings at the edge.
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| That bloody bridge! |
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| The Matterhorn coming into view |
At the other end of the bridge I
again wondered about following the path back down to Randa but decided to carry
on to Taschalp. The path was great, it was a glorious sunny day, not what the
weather forecast had been predicting and the views were amazing as the
Matterhorn loomed into sight however I was moving so slowly as I plodded along
from orange route marker flag to marker flag. There were some little tunnels
that we had to pass through and an interesting concrete structure which had a
projecting overhang with the concrete spalling very badly. I felt there was
more chance of that landing on someone’s head than a rock fall. There was also
an interesting stream crossing involving stepping on pegs hammered into the
rocks. And then I was at Taschalp. From Taschalp I knew the path was pretty easy
going (I was still unable to run much of it though) so I had another slice of
cake and carried on. And I spotted a marmot, the sighting of this gorgeous
little furry creature was easily the best part of my day. It was all I could do
to resist grabbing it and sobbing into its fur like some sort of alpine teddy
bear.
I was also reminded about the
other joy of walking at the back of the field, no not the ignominy, but people trying to have a conversation with you
mid race when you are at your least chatty and really can’t be bothered with
small talk. Walking. Cake. Chatting. I felt like I had stumbled into a coffee
morning not a race.
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| The Europaweg |
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| The Matterhorn,Klein Matterhorn and the Breithorn |
As I neared Zermatt the
Matterhorn, Breithorn and other 4000m peaks all came into view in all their
magnificent snow capped glory and after what seemed like a long descent I
plodded into Zermatt and reached the finish. I sat for some time and stared
blankly into my soup totally undecided about what to do now. This all seemed
light years away from my mountain adventures of two weeks ago when I felt as
though there was no where on the planet I’d rather be and that I could just
keep moving through this mountain landscape forever. Despite the stunning scenery
and the fantastic atmosphere of the event I was just exhausted.
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| Zermatt |
The final straw was another poor night’s sleep and
yet again the joy of room share, something i struggled with before. If I’d
managed to have some down time and relax, maybe read a book and have a cup of
tea, after dinner I might have been able to fall asleep. I’d rather have 6
hours of quality sleep than 9 hours of staring at the ceiling but lights out
was deemed to be 7.45pm with me having little say in the matter so that was
that. I barely slept. And so the final nail was hammered into the coffin of my
UTMR race.
I always thought if I was going to have to pull out
of the race I would be inconsolable but strangely that was not the case. I
merely shrugged my shoulders and went in search of apple strudel in Zermatt.
They say love and hate are opposites but personally I think they are simply
different sides of the same coin. I would say that the opposite is indifference
and that sums up a how I felt. Indifferent. The result wasn’t entirely
unexpected so I couldn’t really feign anything like disappointment. For most of
the summer I had thought I would probably not start the race and just go and
volunteer again and what training I did do probably lacked focus for this
reason, but I kept prolonging making the final decision to drop out until it
was eventually too late.
I am
not sure the whole “time on your feet” idea for training runs totally suits me
either as I’ve done quite a few very long runs this summer and I’ve never felt
so slow and unfit. I was definitely fitter earlier in the year from faster
marathon based training when the heavy snows brought by the so-called “beast
from the east” had ruled out long days in the mountains. Maybe that is all in
my head, but then isn’t that half the battle? If you feel fitter and more confident
then aren’t you going to run better? I was certainly missing the intensity of
speed work, hill reps and shorter races.
On the plus side though I was in
Zermatt. Happy me!! That did somewhat alleviate the disappointment as I'm not
sure there is anywhere else I would rather be. I checked into a hotel, dumped
my bag there and headed off up the hill to see some of the race which involved
a wee cable car trip and a hot chocolate at the Gandhutte before going up to
the glacier. On heading up the hill I was decidedly dizzy, at one point having
to grab hold of a railing to stay upright. I put that down to a combination of fatigue
and anaemia though it did cross my mind that maybe not starting the race today
had turned out to be a good idea after all. Running at altitude with
anaemia is never really going to work either as your body fights with the lack
of oxygen.
I got to the mountain checkpoint
in time to see the 170k runners come through, some looking happy and strong,
others decidedly not smiley or chatty and I was in the right place to assist a
DNF in the 170k, a French runner who as far as I could work out reckoned that
he had got food poisoning the night before the race and was a bit dizzy and
wobbly so I walked back down the mountainside with him and got him safely back
to the station in Zermatt so he could make his way back to Grachen.
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| Skorts for blokes! :-) |
The following day I woke up to
heavy rain and a low mist shrouded the valley and the town. I lay in bed
reading for a while before deciding to get up and explore Zermatt a bit more. I
wandered through the old town taking photos of the rickety wooden chalets
imagining what Zermatt was like before the draw of the Matterhorn and other
4000m peaks had started bringing people into what was a tiny alpine farming
hamlet and turned it into the busy tourist centre it now is. I also managed to
get a look inside the church. There was a classical music festival on at the
time and the orchestra were rehearing their performance of Mozart for the
evening. I managed to sample local delicacies such as Rosti and an amazing “nut
tart” which I think I established to be pecan all accompanied by some nice
glasses of wine.
The race was a great opportunity to catch
up with some friends, it was brilliant to see Keith, Ant, Debbie and of course
Richard again so for that reason I’m very glad I went and the evening after the
race is always entertaining but my failure to finish niggled at me and i am sure this feeling will increase as time goes on.
I had seen this race as a step towards
gaining the much coveted UTMB points and usually I adapt well to stage races
but not this race. For some reason not this race. Maybe when I’ve put some time
and distance between myself and this race I might feel differently and want to
go back to try again but I don’t think it will be any time soon, certainly not
next year. The UTMR is a fantastic event, it totally lives up to its billing
“bold, beautiful and brutal” and I would definitely tell anyone to have a go at
it if they like the look of it, it is friendly and brilliantly well organised
and there can be no criticism of the race itself but for some reason I struggle
very badly with it. Maybe its purely a case of being psyched out by the event,
after all I changed my training from something that worked to something that
obviously hasn’t purely because I didn’t feel I was doing enough long runs of 5
hours plus. I regret doing that. Maybe too, the anaemia took a greater toll than i realised. It is well and truly back to the drawing board with training, health and fitness.
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| The final checkpoint at Hanigalp |
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| Hanging out with the Deeside Runners |
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| Grachen at sunset |
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| 170k race winners |
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| Tired race organisers chilling out |
Happily I always have Fife AC hill running
captain and all round legend at hand to provide the pep talks and stop me getting
depressed. It’s the final SHR “counter” next weekend at Ben Resipol and Jocelyn
won’t allow me to weasel out of that one!
