Written by Mike Raffan - http://ultramiker.blogspot.co.uk
As you will no doubt have read in the last blog after UTMB I lost any reason to train, so I planned to sign up to the hill. Only problem was I couldn't sign up as I didn't know when I was travelling to Boston for Annette's sisters wedding. After confirming dates I was able to sign up to the hill with 2 weeks to go. With lake of time for specific training this meant I was relying to UTMB fitness.
The Hill for those that dont know is 1.45 ish miles up a hill, dib your dibber at the top turn around and go back to the bottom of the hill (pub/checkpoint), repeat 55 times for a total 160 miles. If you stop for more then 30 min your out. If you get to a point where the race crew dont think you can complete the distance within the time you are out. The race is in December so the weather has the potential to be really bad. The race starts at 8 pm in the dark it gets light at around 8am in the morning and then dark again around 4 pm, repeat for a second night. Last year was the first running of the race and Jon Steele was the only person to finish in 47 hours 31 min
Duggan drove me down to the race so he could shout abuse and most importantly drive home again. The rules are you are not allowed any outside support this includes buying anything from the pub. We arrived at the bar with plenty of time and the only person that I knew we Sean Malay from the double Cateran earlier in the year. This also meant nobody knew who I was either. I heard Mark Cockbain the race director mentioning to someone that they were the favourite to win the race, I don't know who it was.
With the race being in the dark for 10 hours at the start I didn't feel the boredom that everyone predicted, instead you just get the tunnel vision form the head torch. You start at the side of a busy road for about 200m then turn off to the right. it was around freezing so everything was icy. after another 200m your on to land rover tracks for the rest of the hill. a gradual incline. to you get to the hole in the wall and the bit I described to myself as the start of the hill. down for a few hundred meters then the proper hill starts, Its still not that steep, Mark wants the whole thing to be runnable. The first lap I had no idea where we were going so I stuck with the group until we got off the road but after that the pace felt too slow. I had my Sunnto on just clock mode so I was just running to feel. I got to the top and turned back down, I counted in my head when I passed the next runner, 30 seconds. First lap just under 24min, I was told I was going to fast by the race crew, I just laughed at them.
I got told later the social media chat was was along the lines of 1st lap "dont know who this Raffan guy is but its going too fast". lap 3 "hes still going, its freezing outside and he is wearing shorts he must have northern spirit", "no hes Scottish". Lap 5 "he is still wearing shorts and he has a beard, he is hardcore!" by this time it was well below freezing and my beard was getting icicles forming it it. When I grew my beard for the whole year last year one thing I wanted to do was get a snow beard and didnt, so now job done! For the rest of the the night and day it was a steady gaining a few minutes at a time on the guys behind me. When you dibbed in there was a screen at the check point and if you could think straight you can workout how far behind the next person was. 2 laps was a comfortable lead.
It was a full moon and the sky was clear which meant that you could see enough without a head torch, I think this actually helped me keep the pace up. Throughout the race I went into the pub 3 times to get some more layers on,as I slowed I started to get a bit colder. I managed 100 miles in about 19 and a half hours this was going to plan as i knew the weather was not going to be as nice in the seconds night. After every second rep I stopped to have some food, I started with my own, chia charge bars and some other things i had in my supplies box like dried fruit. In the morning I started to get some food from the race crew, usually porridge, I would ask for it on one lap and they would have it ready for the next time I was there, I wasn't worried about it being hot I just needed to pack the calories in. I added my own custard to the mix just for extra calories. On the laps that I didn't pick up real food i grabbed a gel from the race supplies. They were sponsored by Gu gels which I have never had before, turns out they are now my favourite gels. I have no idea what flavors they were ( I liked them all) but it was the consistency that I found really easy to eat wile running. Mark told me to take some home at the end of the race, but guess what I forgot.
The race was 160 miles this was far too much to get your head around when you are running, just thinking about how far you have left to go is not nice, even laps were to much. I ended up breaking down into how many double marathons to go, or somethings marathons. It somehow seems like a smaller number. Like the distance, the lure of the ware pub was there to make you want to stop. I tried to stay out of the pub as much as possible, I think I was in there 3 times to get extra layers or new batteries for my torch.
Most times when I stopped I started to get cold, I would put my buff on at the start of the lap and my thin gloves. By the end of the road section my buff would come off as I was hot again an at the top of the hill the gloves would come off for the trip down.
During the day the wind gets up and the freezing fog comes in. Every time on the down lap the wind was just at the right angle that i couldn't protect my face. Down the right ride of my face was feeling cold. Every so often I had to rub my right eye just to warm it up. After a few laps i could see a milky blur in my eye. bugger the wind must have scratched my contact lens. oh well nothing I could do about it as I didn't have any spares with me.
At about 5 am on the second night my batteries started to run out on my torch, luckily I had put some spares in my pocket, what I didn't think about was they I had to get the batteries the correct way round. The ran out just before the hole in the wall, I hid down out of the wind and tried to use one of the glow sticks that was placed to mark the route to see what i was doing, this was not a fun experience, especially when I was falling asleep while running. I didn't think this was possible before but now I was running along and suddenly waking up when i would kick a stone further down the course. I had been holding my head torch in my hand to try to waken me up a bit. Not long after I changed the batteries it seemed like the sun came up again very soon. it may have just been the concentrating but I was awake again. This was enough to get me to the end an the lead that I had force in the first few laps I was able to keep right til the end.
Mark the race director joins ever runner for the last lap
New course record 38 hours 1 min 58seconds, I think I would struggle to be able to claim another record on any race by 9 an a half hours.
After the race my nose suffering from the wind, like a typical winder cold. My eye still had the milky blur that started about 12 hours previously. One of the other runners had some contact lens solution so I was able to take my contact out an it was still there, bugger! After hearing about Paul Giblin freezing his eyeballs last winter I was straight on the phone to the optician and managed to get n appointment the next day. We hang around for the second person to finish in 39:58:14 then we shot up the road. Just as we set off in the car Duggan asks if i want the music turned down so i can get some sleep, I don't answer I am already asleep. We kept an eye on the facebook page as we went up the road and one other runner finished as the weather got worse in 44 hours.
When I check my phone it stops updating my email count when it reaches 400 facebook notifications. The amount of people following of the race has been over whelming and thanks for all the support. I couldn't replay to all the comments there was just too many of them,
The aftermath
I got home on the Sunday night, when i got up the milky blur on my eye had gone, I still went to the optician and he said the eye has a remarkable ability to repair its self within 24 hours, so the sleep probably helped.
On the Tuesday my right leg had a bit of cankles, just what I would normally expect. the left leg all the way up to my knee was swollen to about double size. I had stretch marks on my feet it was that swollen. the 7 hour flight on the Wednesday probably didn't help. After 4 days the swelling was almost gone but I still couldn't move my left foot up an down. A friend of the family we were visiting happened to be an orthopaedic surgeon specialising in feet and ankles and sports injury and trauma, handy huh? his diagnosis was nothing was broken and it was either a muscle hemorrhage or the equivalent of carpal tunnel in my ankle. 10 days later all the pain has gone but lateral movement is still restricted. Exactly what I expected after UTMB! mission complete, I now have a reason to rest.
Would I go back? Yes I still think there is time to be taken off.
Interview with John Kynaston for the west highland way podcast http://westhighlandwayrace.org/2014/12/09/podcast-episode-70/
Full page spread in the local paper
