Written by Jess Williams - https://runninglynxjess.wordpress.com/
“That’s the trouble with losing your mind; by the time it’s gone, it’s too late to get it back.”
– Bill Bryson
They are huge. The faces on the edge of the cliff look like grotesque carnival masks; Mount Rushmore if it were sculpted by Dali. I am in a waking nightmare and it isn’t just the faces….. the pain had started hours before.
Let’s start at the beginning; last year the biblical weather and the getting endlessly lost around Land’s End had led to a small group of us climbing onto a bus at the centre there and getting a lift to Sennen after we timed out by about 10mins. Wet and dejected I sat in Sennen check point and swore; never again. To be fair it took me a while to actually commit to it, I signed up in June after a good result at the Quest, and a move that meant I would be able to train on a tough section of coast path daily. Fast forward to February 10th 2017 and there I was on the start line, feeling strong and confident, I knew this wasn’t my ‘A-Race’ of the year, that comes later at Lakeland 100, but I still wanted to do justice to my training and felt ready this time.
I had allotted five and a half hours to the first section of the race as a maximum so if I could shave some off that would be good, although I felt cautious about whether this was sensible since I had set a fairly stiff goal for myself. Still, I felt good and I decided to run strong whilst I could. I arrived at the first checkpoint at Porthleven in around 5 hours, changed socks, filled up on supplies and food and carried on quickly, hoping to get as far as I could before the sun went completely. I was conscious that I had perhaps played something of a Queen’s gambit, which as this was only my second 100 miler might prove to be my undoing, still I felt happy with everything at this point, so I put it out of my mind and stuck to my guns. I reached the road section to Penzance and unlike the previous year I ran it all at a fair clip, arriving into the checkpoint approx 50 mins ahead of my schedule and still feeling comfortable with the pace. I ate a little, chatted to friends who were there supporting and volunteering and then left.
It was in Penzance that I made a tiny but ultimately disastrous mistake, I decided that as the night was still plenty warm and I was moving well to keep my shorts on. My feet were beginning to grumble about the long tarmac section and I was grateful to pick my trail shoes up from Duncan in a lay-by just outside of Mousehole. A swift uphill climb out of the village and I finally rejoined the coast path, there had been one or two other runners doing the shoe switch at various points before the turn but the field spread out again quickly and I was alone. Running alone in the dark is a great joy for me, it’s a chance to experience the world in a different way; the eyeshine of nocturnal creatures fleetingly there as they catch your torch beam, the smell of the damp earth, the ghostly tree branches looming overhead, the occasional tawny owl and the early daffodils. Before long I reached the beach at St. Loy with it’s incredible dragon egg boulders – the result of a glacial process that makes this beach a geological gem – a short hop along it and I was back to path and winding once more through the gorgeous woodlands. It had started to get considerably colder as the night wore on and whilst I was at this point, mostly running and happily grooving my way along the coast path to the sound of ABBA – good job there was no-one too close as they would have heard me belting out SOS – I had noticed that on the steps my quads were beginning to cramp around the knees. I took some salt and ate a little, but as I rounded Land’s End the cold began to bite. The lack of covering on my legs meant that the blood to my feet was just not warm enough and every step started to become uncomfortable, then my finger tips started to go numb.
Land’s End is a confusing and badly labelled jumble of paths that in daylight are fairly easily distinguished, at night however they plunge off into seemingly nowhere or end in bushes. Steve who I was with at this point managed to navigate us back onto the right path after some confusion and we also found Lee, Martin and Barden. I soon separated from the guys though, as the soles of my feet were not happy and the rough ground was making it painful. When I finally made the checkpoint I was still running on schedule but I had lost my time in hand which was a blow. I pulled on my thermals and tried to warm my freezing fingers inside, I was shivering badly and the warm pack I was given seemed to barely touch it, my core was frozen. The volunteers gave me a couple of heat packs to stick inside my mittens which helped, but I was dreading going back out into the cold as I was barely any warmer, and sunrise was still hours away. My stomach decided to add to my woes add this point and revolt against food, I tried some bread and instantly urged. From that moment I knew it was going to be a battle, no calories equals no warmth. Reluctantly, I headed back out into the night, at Sennen I saw Fergie (RD) and grumbled about having blown it. The cramping quads had been joined by cramping calves now and every little hill felt like a mountain.
Around Botallack I lost sight of all others and with only the ruined tin mines looming out of the black night for company I realised that I had taken a wrong turn. The wind was freezing now and snow was falling, I couldn’t afford to stand still as I was already cold. I pulled out my gps – no fix on my position, awesome. I frantically called Duncan to see if he could see where I was on the tracker, apparently near the path. No signs and paths in every direction were not helping, add to that the fact that there are unstable mineworkings everywhere. I burst into tears, frustrated and lonely and yes, a little bit scared that I might meet my doom at the bottom of a mine shaft. I was tempted to pull out my bivvy bag and just go to sleep. GET A GRIP, I slapped my face. Suddenly, another head torch. “Oh thank f***” I shouted to the stars, the solution was suddenly simple, I had just needed to run a few metres down the public footpath to my right and the coast path was at the bottom. Over half an hour wasted, and now even colder, constructive thoughts at this moment; you’re definitely going to get frostbite, probably freeze to death….. shut up brain. I decided to put some music on to stop the negative thoughts, AC/DC Hell’s Bells, cheers random mode.
“Hell’s bells, they’re dragging you under”
– AC/DC
A sign reads, “Welcome to Pendeen, this is what hell feels like”, well, there isn’t, but there’s a sign shop somewhere that’s got it on back order I am pretty sure. On fresh legs I love this section, it’s wild and technical a roller coaster of rock hopping and using your arms to swing over the giant boulders my favourite kind of running, on trashed legs it’s probably the worst thing I’ve experienced since that final descent at LL100. I cursed every step, the shoe sucking bogs, the nasty boulders that your knackered ankles know just how to get stuck between. I sat down on a rock and pulled out my phone, I tried to call Duncan just for some moral support, no reception, urgh, it was only appropriate that the next song on my list was ABBA, SOS (again), no s***.
“So when you’re near me, darling, can’t you hear me S.O.S.?
The love you gave me. nothing else can save me, S.O.S.
When you’re gone, how can I even try to go on?– ABBA
It could have been written about my quads. Or my calves. Screw you legs, you miserable turncoats. I put on my waterproofs hoping it would warm me up, instead it started to hail arghhhhhhhhhhh, I was moving like a snail. My best time so far around this section – 2hrs 59mins, race time – a dismal 7hrs 25mins. Every headland bought another drop and another hill, followed by another headland and no sign of St Ives. Finally the tiny church on the horizon, but still the endless coves. Maybe I died at Botallack and got sent to purgatory, it felt like it, I had to physically lift my legs over the stiles now, and I sat on one and just sobbed, SOS, where are those happy days?.. I firmly decided that I was not going to carry on, St Ives couldn’t come quickly enough.
By the time I reached St Ives, I was walking with all of the ease of the pre-oil tin man. I felt like I had done a million squats and my calves were castigating me with every step, up, down or flat, perfect. Duncan was in the distance, and I was so happy to see him, no-one wants to stumble along with a broken runner and it had been a lonely night. I arrived into the checkpoint still frozen since Land’s End and with around 40 mins before closing time – I had planned on arriving by 9am. Jason Sherwood who I shared some miles with in the early legs of Lakeland 100 and Paul Golley fellow Mudcrew were there. The checkpoint team were lovely offering me soup, biscuits and coffee. My legs were a miserable wreck, the pain wasn’t intense like the busted ankle at Lakeland but my muscles were otherwise working then, now they were just locked up and stiff as hell. I wasn’t the only person going through hell, Stu Wilkie from the Mudcrew ultra team was not a face I expected to see sat across the table from me at this stage, he offered that it was finishing that mattered. Trouble is, I had scraped a finish at Lakeland and it was Summer then so at least it was warm, I didn’t just want to finish 100 miles again, I wanted the race I trained for, all those lonely miles, all that climbing for nothing, it hurt. I couldn’t believe it was happening again.
After a lot of pressure I agree to walk to the end of the town. Anna Pascoe the sweep persuaded me to try the next few miles, and so it went, it was flat and pretty easy so I just kept walking, sometimes a 15 min mile (the one trick I have up my sleeve is a speedy walking pace even when broken!). We chatted pretty much the entire way and I was so grateful of some patient happy company. The not entirely accurate distances nearly broke me though, when I thought Portreath was one mile away I was fine, as soon as the sign said 2.5 it nearly finished me. I was also tripping the light fantastic by this stage, crazy silhouettes became the creepy judderman, and finally the carnival faces, leering and ghastly, not just on the cliffs but every mat of vegetation composed of tiny ones and drystone walls eyeing me at every turn. My legs were absolutely shot and I was almost falling asleep as I walked, Sarah Clemence last years second lady who went through a similarly gruelling experience joined us for the last three miles to Porthtowan, and cheered us with a sweary alphabet game, it took my mind off things.
Until the steps. I had been dreading the steps, not only were they steps but they were your typical badly maintained steps which are lethal at the best of times, yay! I powered up and down them in under 10 mins though with sheer grit, I just wanted it to end by this point. Every metre seemed like a mile, when I finally saw Porthtowan I wish I could say I was elated but I was simply relieved. The last few yards were a time pressure, and I made it with officially just 12s on the clock. Fergie cracked open a bottle of Bollinger, and we shared it with the few hardy folks who remained behind. It was done.
So a week later I am not sure how I feel, an odd sense of pride, an overwhelming sense of disappointment at how quickly things snowballed into disaster, a sense of relief that I learned these lessons now rather than in July and the knowledge that you never learn from the ones that go well, that the law of averages dictates that they can’t all go this badly…… It’s awesome to have so many friends rooting for you and offering kind words all along the route, there seemed to be a hug or a word of support everywhere and it certainly put a smile on my face. Onwards, and upwards, I’ve learned a lot, and I am looking ahead to Lakeland already, with a little smattering of the Dolomites in between.
Finally, Duncan; it’s a crap lot being in support, wiping the tears, tying shoelaces but you always make me feel better and I am so grateful.
“Super Trouper beams are gonna blind me
But I won’t feel blue
Like I always do
‘Cause somewhere in the crowd there’s you”– ABBA