Written by Billy Holden - https://redultrarunner.wordpress.com

The Spartathlon journey for me started with the application in January. I had half heartedly applied as I did the year before, this year I had lost so much fittness I hadn’t run since September 2015 and had gained a lot of extra weight. Christine was pregnant after 6 cycles of complicated IVF treatment and my focus was with her and our baby as we went from week to week with growing concerns for a safe and healthy delivery. By the time the list had been drawn by the international Spartathlon committee, we were preparing to bring baby Luke into the world, 5 weeks ahead of schedule, he had been under weight since his 20 week scan and it was decided he would be safer outside where we could give him better care. Luke arrived on 24th of March but due to a few complications he spent a few extra weeks in hospital. So my Spartathlon training really begin about mid April, I was at that stage about 8 months without running, 3.5 stone over race weight, and a new dad as well so I had a bit of a tighter schedule with training and sleeping.

I always thought that even from an unfit state I could run a marathon, and although you might laugh….even from an unfit state I could run 100 miles. Granted I had run a few before and they are not as daunting to me now, my body knows what to expect and my mind knows where to go, of course the times would not be good and it would break the body up during it, but I believe it’s possible on mental strength alone…..but fittness also helps, and of course being in that place before my body would know how to get there. Two weeks into training on April 26th I turned 40, I have a bit of a tradition these past few years of running my age in miles on my birthday, in 2015 I ran 39 easy in 5:11, this year I had a big lapse in fittness and 3.5 stone extra to carry around. Christine and Luke had been back in hospital so the night before my birthday I drove home got my gear on, and took the celebration to the roads & trails…it was slow and tough but I chipped away at it and hit 40 miles in 6:42, not too bad considering the circumstances. Then back to hospital to clean nappies and vomit for the day…I guess real life does begin at 40, with the weight gain I could only base train at the start, I decided to leave any kind of speed work for the two months before Sparthlon, next up was going to be the national 24hr championships in Belfast.  I would be only after doing 8 weeks base training at that stage but I could use it as a gauge for how my fittness was progressing, and I had it booked from the previous year along with a hotel break for the family. The world championships are to be held in this venue for 2017 so it would also double as a recci for that event. I had hoped in previous years to get the qualifying time needed to gain selection to the national team but that seems so so far beyond my grasp right now, still I’d at least like to get an entry into the open race that year.

We arrive for the 24hr race and I am beeming with pride to introduce Christine and Luke to the rest of the competitors. It’s a real tight ultra community in Ireland and it had been a long time since I’d seen and chatted to other runners. My plan was to get regular physio (every 2 weeks at least) to keep my muscles right. My Physio had told me that my fittness and muscle memory had returned quiet quickly but to be careful, my body would take a while longer to catch up. So with those words in mind I decided that I’d drop out at 100 miles or if things did not feel right at any stage during the race… naturally if I was feeling good and had the chance of a pb distance I’d keep going for the 24hours…but that was very unlikely. I started with a conservative 7:30 mile pace….(the year before I started at 6:10 pace and almost went sub 3 for the marathon) ….I was still leading the field this year, still too fast but I had to run with what was comfortable and felt right, the track was concrete and I had brought some pretty light shoes to the race…I had a few concerns about how long my legs would take the pounding in what we’re almost racing flats…a lot of other runners were using hoka’s…mine were new balance zante 2’s. At the 12 hour mark I had covered 67 miles and felt a pull on my left ankle and shin, ….time to DNF, it was only a practice run but it still leaves a sour taste in your mouth. I struggle with trying to do the smart thing when it comes to training and races but Spartathlon was this years goal and it would be foolish to jeprodise that. Still not a bad run with 67 miles in the legs.

For the next week I decided not to run to let the injury heel. Lucky I stopped when I did, the physio worked twice a week over the next 3 weeks with dry needles, and heat therapy, all together it took me 3 weeks, up until mid July to resume training, I base trained again for a few weeks and then started to add the odd speed session. I ran a 40 mile ultra to test myself a month before Spartathlon and lead it for the first 32 miles eventually holding on for 2nd place. I was showing something of my former self and the 153 mile distance did not phase me now….I was ready for that, ….what did cause me some concern was the heat factor, by now I had read every race report about the Spartathlon and it was clear that  to a fella with red hair (and beard) and fair skin this was not going to suit me at all. Even on a summers day in Ireland reaching 22 degrees I’d struggle on a 20 mile run. My fellow spartathlete and former Spartathlon finisher (Anto) sent me a heat training plan used a lot for badwater. It involves jogging on the spot for 3×20 mins with an adjusted recovery times in between. The goal is to do this for an hour with 2×5 minute breaks on the final week before the race. I started this training at 4am 3 times a week, running a hard 8 miles on the road before it to work up a good sweat, On the last 10 days I did this every day, I felt it was working really well, the training in general had gone really well. The only flaw in it was the 4am starts…this is the only time I could get to do my training with a new baby and as well as double run days…. Wednesday’s had become quadruple run days finishing with a speedy track session and a soak in the tub before bed. As an ultra runner we should be getting 10.5 hours sleep for recovery (ideally) I was getting 4-5 hours at best, always aware that the next injury could come at any time, my saving grace was that I was getting regular physio and I was foam rolling religiously every night before bed.

Race week came and I did my last hard run at 4am on the Monday before my sauna session, it rained fairly heavy during this run and I got a bad feeling about it. Christine had a cold and so did Luke and some other family members. I dose’d up on plenty of Vit C and tryed to put it to the back of my mind, the next day (Tuesday) I could stay in the sauna for a full hour without a break….I felt ready and was happy with the way everything had gone in a short space of time, I even started to calculate a sub 30 hour time to push for. I flew to Athens on Wednesday night and felt a bit weak and off form, I put this down to nerves and tiredness from the flight and journey, when I arrived at the hotel it was late, I tried to get some sleep but that night I could only manage a few hours at a time, again I put it down to excitement and nerves leading up to race day. The next morning I woke with a bit of a head cold…I still felt pretty good so I thought it would pass and maybe was one of those 24 hour things. Surly fate wouldn’t be so cruel as to  inflict me with anything serious the day before Spartathlon. By 11am it was clear that this was no head cold and I was on route to the nearest pharmacy…all I could take was Vit C to try to keep my immune system topped up. As the day went on the bloody thing got worse and by night time I couldn’t breath through my nose, so every time I tryed to lie down and sleep I would start gagging on my siliva…this ment absolutely no sleep on Thursday night as I had to be up at 3:30 to prepare for the race. I had thought about pulling out of the race the next morning but this was my A race for the year. some runners that were trying to reassure me told me not to worry that I wouldn’t be long sweating it Out of me once I started running. I remember the walk from the lobby of the hotel feeling so weak I didn’t think I’d make it onto the bus, how was I going to even run a mile let alone 153 of them. I have to say the setting at the Acropolis is pretty special and that did give me a bit of a lift…along with the usual rush of adrenaline. Slow down was the advice for this race, from people who knew my eagerness to speed off and people that knew the Spartathlon race well. It seemed that would have been my problem before flying out to Athens, now I had the opposite problem, the race started and far from my 6 min mile starts I was struggling to stay at 10 minute miles, I mean the effort was far too hard, it turned into an uphill gradual incline through the streets of Athens and I was running with Anto a fellow Irish runner (also my room mate) and Rolando living in Dublin but running for the philipines, once the route levelled out I went ahead a bit, I was eager to get to the marathon stage CP 11, and Corenth CP 22, I started to feel a bit better and instead of the effort the start of the race was demanding, I started running on auto pilot, I seen Rob Pinnington from the GB team and was delighted, I had followed Robs reports on previous years and had chatted to him and learned a lot from the British Spartathlon group page. I would have been very happy to run this race with Rob and it would have been a race to remember, but he stopped for a wee and I decided to keep the momentum going thinking Rob would catch up soon enough. After a while I got chatting to another another fella from the British team Duncan, we had a right good chat about training and the few miles flew by, again we got separated at the checkpoints, I had my tailwind pre mixed at the checkpoints so it was a case of just grab and go for many of the early ones. I also had a sponge soaked in water which for luck and quite by accident stayed tight inside the back neck of my t-shirt. The ice in my hat was not working well giving me brain freeze, it took a while to figure out that I worked better in a zip-lock bag.

I went through the marathon in about 4:05 I think, I know the heat was really starting to bother me at that stage but my blocked nose was gone and I seemed to have sweated any other symptoms of flu out of my body, the pressure was on to get to Corenth the 50 mile stage. Just before reaching it I ran with Vilnis Plete for a while, a Latvian guy living in Ireland, he was on a different level of fittness and soon pulled ahead, shortly before Corenth Anto and Rolando caught up with me,  they had a run walk strategie going and it was working really well, they tryed to get me to stop and walk for a break but I was overheating and I thought if I stopped running that would be it. I was almost at the 50 miles and I was at least going to run to there. I made it to CP 22 (Corenth) 50 miles in a little over 9 hours I think, I spent a few minutes trying to shade from the sun and just resting. After about 15 minutes I started off again for the next checkpoint with Anto & Rolando, and joined their walk run strategie….well when I say walk run….I’m the slowest walker ever and would trail behind the boys on the walk, so I’d mostly trot along until the run would start again. I think we hit the 100k point in 11:30 and I have to say this race is a lot easier with company, we didn’t hang about at checkpoints, the good thing about being in a group is that someone is always pushing off and taking the lead, if you hung around too long at a checkpoint you were on your own. The pervious day I had been advised by Anto to leave my head torch at CP 29 but I opted instead for CP 34 obviously I wasn’t making the ground I thought I would at this stage, and he had no problem in saying I told ya so when it got dark, good Job I was in a group. Rolando had a crew of 4 philipineo guys and they had the guys sorted at the designated checkpoints like a formula one pit stop crew. They tryed their best to feed me solid food but I was on tailwind and nutrition wise I was going good. I don’t think they grasped the terrible stomach issues I’d have as the tryed to force feed me pizza and soup. It was great to see the back of that scorching sun, however the night section would bring back my cold symptoms with a vengeance and I lagged behind again. I would be on my own for the rest of the night and I had about an hour of a cushion ahead of the cut offs, I reached the mountain base in 21 hours and wasted no time in pressing on up the base to CP:48 I fell scrambling up the mountain as the rocky path was quite slippy….but only damaged my pride thankfully. Coming down I wasted a lot of time. Afraid to put in any kind of an effort incase I twisted an ankle or fell. The next checkpoint I remember sitting for a while and wasting time without realising it. That’s where a group would have helped or reminded me to push on, the next CP I stopped again, this time I could smell deep heat, I didn’t even need it but I was obsessed with finding who had it I thought that maybe putting it on my legs would be a good idea in the hope it would keep me warm and awake….seemed logical at the time, I was cold and shivery and  I’m still not sure if it was flu related or not. Many of the hills could not be run and being a slow walker I must have bleed a lot of time getting up them. The morning got very cold and a foggy mist was starting to form, and then without warning at about 9:30 or 10am extremely hot dead heat. I had about a 40 minute cushion on the cut offs at that stage, I knew the longer I was out in today’s strong sun the more of a danger I was in. I started to notice from CP: 61 onwards that I was loosing my cushion by 5 minutes per checkpoint, everybody was walking the hills because the heat was just draining energy from everyone, I passed some strong runners from earlier on and they were in a pretty bad state. I needed to get to Cp 69….I was told it was all downhill into Sparta from there and that the cut offs would be more generous. I noticed the cushion going from 35…to 30…to 25….to 20 minutes, and that’s when I panicked. I had to run all the hills to make it, or at least that’s what I told myself,  so I ran up the hills in a pretty fragile state…burning up from the sun I was just trying to get to CP 69 and hold my cushion (20 minutes).

On reaching CP 67 I felt ok…a quick dunk of my hat and sponge and a fresh bottle of tailwind and I was off about 20 meters past the checkpoint my eyesight went funny and I got dizzy. I leaned against a wall and put my head down to rest for a moment…..the next memory I had was a few people slapping my face and eventually carrying me back to the checkpoint. I’d blacked out or maybe fallen asleep I’m not quite sure…It was after all 3 days since I had slept and the sleep before that wasn’t much either. They made me eat a chocolate bar and take a caffine gel. It was like someone gave me a shot of herroin, it brought me back to life really quickly.  Anto had caught up again and came over to urge me to get going…I said that’s my buddy can I get going, they agreed but told me to take it easy….and in the same breath said to hurry that I only had about 30 minutes to the next checkpoint….-5 minutes of a cushion. So off I went both trying to take it easy and hurrying up!!! Not an easy thing to get your head round even now as I write this, I kept repeating in my head “hurry up….take your time” like a split personality I debated which to do as I ran down the road. I ran when I could and I walked when I needed to cool off a bit and I just about made it to CP 68…I think I was a bit out on the time but they agreed to let me through, the car from the CP I collapsed at was passing by frequently and it was clear they were keeping an eye on me. I must have made it more than half way to CP 69 but whatever energy stores I had left I used up running the hills, I knew I had gone over the checkpoint cut off by a few minutes, and for about a mile before that I had been burning up in the heat again, and feeling dizzy, it was 3:20pm on a open motorway I’d say I wasn’t too far away from blacking out again…I heard a few conflicting reports, but Rolandos crew told me that the heat on the 2nd day got up to 37 degrees with the humidity about 85-90%….it felt a lot bloody hotter. so when the car came to collect me and an official got out to tell me “no more race” I couldn’t really argue with him. Typically just around the corner was CP:69. I then had to ride in a death bus all to myself into Sparta, I immediately came around once I was out of the heat and I was recovering by the minute, which only added to the regret of not making it around the corner to get more ice and cool down,  the rest of the race was all downhill, I could have jogged down it even in the heat I still had over 3hrs 30 minutes….surely I could have made the rest of it if I had made it around the corner to CP: 69 just a few minutes earlier. The heat was a Major factor in this race, I’m not designed for it and I definitly am not designed for a second day in strong sun like that. The flu virus I had didn’t help, it drained me and made it a real battle from the start. It would have been a smarter move not to start but for most runners on the eve of spartathon that would have been even harder than the actual race. The lack of sleep slowed me down I was nodding off walking up to the base of the mountain and it was a full 3 days and 2 nights without any sleep. Did I rest too long at checkpoints when I was running alone? Maybe, I could have wasted a lot of time in stupid places… How did it take me 10 hours to run the last 40 miles from the mountain base….how did it take me 21 hours to get to the first 100 miles to the mountain base….a lot of haunting questions are going through my head even a week after the race. A lot of support before and after the race and a few saying that I’ll have to come back again next year. That’s going to be tough with a young family…a bit early to say for sure. I think if I did I’d have to limit my time in the sun on the 2 nd day and just push to get home early. I’d need at least a sub 20hr 100 miles, and a big push to close out more during the night.

Anto got pulled out shortly after me “for directing traffic on a busy motorway” as he says himself. Rolando finished and had to spend the night in hospital for dehydration, he told me he was getting heavy nose bleeds for the last 10 miles, but kept going and hid it from his crew, he’s the first Philippineo to compete in and finish the Spartathlon. Another Irish guy also had to pull out Samuel Kilpatrick, I hadn’t seen him until later at the awards ceremony. Bridget Brady also finished I seen her on the last few checkpoints as I was driving into Sparta. Keith White also done very well by running a 28 hour finish, as you’d expect from the Irish 100k record holder, and Eoin Keith did what he does best and finished in a very respectable 8th place in I think 25hours something.

So how do you move on…and get over such an epic fail! …well before I left Greece I had already signed up for two more races, next on my list is the 24hr race in Barcelona. It’s more my thing….if I can get a bit more training in, and the weather should be perfect for a red haired ultra runner…..this time I’ve signed up a crew (Christine and Luke) to cheer me on.

Lessons learned, don’t jeprodise your sleep and recovery ahead of training…it may leave you vulnerable before a race. Don’t race when not 100% fit and ready, you will increase you chances of a DNF, ….although being there, for me it was worth the risk so I’d probably have have a go again.

Maybe next year I’ll return to right the wrong….and get redemption.