Prelude to a dream

Legend has it Steve Prefontaine said, “the best pace is a suicide pace, and today looks like a good day to die”. That’s all well and good when you’re bombing around a track in Oregon, but Pre never looked up at Skiddaw in the clag knowing he had over twenty hours of running ahead of him.

He never skidded through the bogs as you start the climb from Threlkeld up to Cleugh Head in the dark. Or had to bomb off the top of Sca Fall trying to figure what gully to take for the 3,000ft drop into Wasdale. And I’d be very surprised if he ever had to drag his tired body up the fence post scramble onto Kirk Fell in a 50mph head wind, fifty miles into a day on the fells.

I know that in two weeks I should be climbing them to fulfil one of my biggest goals and pop the bubbly having finished the Bob Graham Round

Pre can keep his gung-ho Americanisms, suicide pace lacks imagination and finesse. Anyone can blow up going too fast, but to suffer in style you have to go head to head with the weather and the fells. I’m 50% being dramatic and 50% wondering if my supporters have the steel required to give me the viking funeral I’ve requested* should I keel over at Wasdale.

I’m writing this from a window seat in The Round. About ten foot across from me are the hallowed steps of the Moot Hall. And I know that in two weeks I should be climbing them to fulfil one of my biggest goals and pop the bubbly having finished the Bob Graham Round.

If you’ve followed my blog or my instagram, you’ll know that it’s become an obsession. I’m not sure you can do it without it consuming you, to some degree. I remember being sat in Amsterdam years ago reading Feet in the Clouds. I already knew of the round but, as for so many of us, the book birthed a dream that has been impossible to walk away from.

This dream has been through the death and resurrection cycle more times than the Easter Parade

For a mid-pack runner like me, a little older and not much wiser than I’d like, this is at the edge of what I might be able to do. I’m not one of those people who can rattle it off in confidence. It’s taken me to the limit of my current fitness and determination and there’s no guaranteed success.

Walking dejectedly away from my failed McWilliams Round, my first thought was sadness that I’d never run a Bob. This dream has been through the death and resurrection cycle more times than the Easter Parade. But running through the night by Loch Lomond I realised that the only thing to do was to give it a go. I would never forgive myself not trying, the Bob wouldn’t let go of me that easily.

The last couple of months have seen me recce the route. I’ve been trying to pre-load my legs before them to help get used to fatigue. I ran up and down Scafell Pike from Honister as a warm up before even starting leg four, because what’s the point in going up Yewbarrow on anything other than tired legs?

For the sake of clarity, the only abyss at the start of leg four is the one inside of you.

It’s a funny mental place for someone who accepts their impostor syndrome. Signs are logically good. Every recce has been ahead of scheduled pace, even three and four together and were still ahead of pace and there was still life in my kege, my elevation has been great. And yet the voice in my head whispers that at some point on the round I’m going to get to the same moment of brokeness I had in Spain and I don’t know how I’ll cope. As one friend said, mercifully not about me, “is it really impostor syndrome or are you just shit?” We’ll find out, I guess.

I’ve ramped up my elevation since recovering from injury. Recceing with one of my pacers has been great, both for the recces themselves and for the chance to talk the nitty-gritty of the round. I’ve had moments of bliss, like flinging myself down Ben Vane at the kind of pace I was worried would break my neck. Or finishing a recce, having a brew, then deciding to do some more just because. But there was also an hour on Saturday where I dropped 20m behind my friend, assured them I’d be fine by the top of Red Pike, and proceeded to stare into the abyss. For the sake of clarity, the only abyss at the start of leg four is the one inside of you.

It’s a little strange to think that this thing that has taken over every life decision and dominated my thinking for months may be over so soon

This weekend I plan to do my last long run of the training cycle, and my penultimate Wainwright run, down in the Southern Fells and then fall into the taper. It’s a little strange to think that this thing that has taken over every life decision and dominated my thinking for months may be over so soon.

A friend has been warning me about having a Honhold moment on the steps of the Moot Hall, where I achieve the dream and look momentarily disconsolate, not knowing what’s next. Like the fella said, “now it was again a green light on a dock. His count of enchanted objects had diminished by one”.

With that in mind, there are more dreams already being birthed. Maps with pins and lines that no one has yet joined up. Combinations of contours forming in my mind that have the power to enchant, to conjure dreams and hopes, and quite possibly to humble and to break.

But first, the Bob.

* – Joking aside, this is a worryingly well developed plan. Down to the use of the paddle board, who gets to fire the burning arrow, and who will just wail dramatically so it feels like a tragic loss. Training fatigue has not diminished my sense of theatre.