Tag Archive: Ultra Marathon
There’s a rock, somewhere between Malga Travenanzes and Col dei Bos, and every time I pass it, I know that I am fully alive. I know because two years ago, at my lowest point running wise, I lay down on it and tried to give up. Why I thought lying on a rock in the baking midday sun was the solution to my problems is a mystery. Then a fellow Brit went past and told me to get up and get going, and it was a bit awkward. I was embarrassed for the guy because he seemed to think I could continue. Silly. But out of embarrassment for his misjudgment of the situation, I got up and continued climbing to the Col. When I passed the same rock last year, tired but not yet beaten, it was the catalyst for me to push on and turn things around. So, when... View Article
I would say I’ve had a score to settle with Lavaredo, but that’s not strictly true: I’ve had a score to settle with myself and the Dolomitic mountains that host Lavaredo Ultra Trail were the amphitheater in which it had to happen. Last year’s race was a perfect trifecta of ill health, spiralling over training as I tried to mitigate it, and a complete inability to pace sensibly. Three glorious hours of fun followed by a very long death march. In the year since I had to stop running for a while, get medical help from a specialist sports doctor, and accept that my training had become unhealthy. I was recommended a coach with specific experience in helping people who had experienced over training syndrome and so, since January, I’ve been rebuilding for this weekend. One year on, it was time to go again. Call it recovery, call it redemption,... View Article
I had a startling moment of clarity as I slogged my way along Val Travenanzes: I’ve got life wrong, I thought. It’s all wrong. I’m not capable of running ultra marathons, my body can’t hold this much stress. I can never, ever, do this again. Time to quit running and spend my money on therapy. You can’t run from your problems forever. I was done. It had started gloriously. I’d came into the race off the back of a horrible training spell where nothing would come together but, as we started the ascent out of La Val early morning, that faded away. I felt like my halcyon days had returned. I was controlling my effort and still making good time. Hundreds of bodies moving in what seemed to be a single organism, first in a crowd but morphing into a long line. We were being lured into running fast through... View Article
Ultra Trail Métropole Nice Côte d’Azur – 100M race report For a good few hours on Friday night, I though it was on. I felt invincible, blinded by adrenaline, pushing myself back up through the field. It’d been a rotten start. I felt fatigued and under the weather from the get go. I decided to start near the back and take things easy, knowing I should be able to make up places later on. The first section is a short climb on a fire road followed by a trail with switchbacks to get you down into Saint-Étienne-de-Tinée, where local school children formed a scream tunnel of outstretched arms that echoed, “allez, allez, allez”. From there it’s straight into a 1400m climb up to Refuge de Rabuons. The early afternoon heat was oppressive and the climb seemed to go on for days. I took a good long stop at the aid... View Article
September 9, 2023,
by Pete
There’s probably not a large amount to be written in a race report for a race you DNF’d 2km in, but I did learn something about myself: I discovered I’m the kind of person who’ll be violently ill for six hours then try to run across the alps in a snow storm. I might not achieve my goals, but I’m relieved to know I’m still stupid enough to try. I’d been feeling pretty confident in the morning. There was a severe weather warning – snow, wind, plummeting temperatures – but I thought that could play to the advantage of British runners. As I frequently assert, I’m from the north. I was in the right head space to try something hard. It felt like this was a moment I could grasp. As I gazed up as the storm clouds drifting across the Alps, I thought of Antoine de Saint-Expury in Sand,... View Article
It all started with an invite to Jane’s birthday party. She moved to Switzerland, seemingly 50% for the skiing and 50% so she could send photos of mountains home to taunt the rest of us. So her party happens to be in the shadow of Mont Blanc: bit of a long way if we’re honest but it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make for friendship. I’m benevolent like that. I start to look at flights and wonder if it wouldn’t be best to combine the trip with a little running. One thing leads to another, It’s UTMB week after the party and Chamonix starts to whisper my name. Could I really fly home only to sit in front of my laptop dot watching races and wishing I was there? In spite of my conflicting feelings about their influence in the sport, every year it feels like everyone is at UTMB.... View Article
November 26, 2022,
by Pete
I don’t like razor wire. It looks really sharp. I realise this is the point but still, it’s not my favourite. So when you’re squeezing through a gate at the exit from an airforce base at the highest point in the Valencia region, hands frozen and struggling to stay upright in the wind, razor wire is the last thing you want to negotiate. But that was later, of course, and we’ll get there. That must have been almost seven and a half hours after the fireworks illuminated the skies above the small town of Finestrat. A few hundred runners burst from the plaza, headtorches illuminating the streets as they headed for the hills. A tension pulls at us; not wanting to go off too fast but dreading the bottleneck if you start slow. Ultra Trail Costa Blanca had began. Moments later we’re single file, a thread of illumination weaving its... View Article
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... View Article
February 8, 2022,
by Pete
When I was very young, just an infant really, my mother dipped me in the shuddering waters of the River Styx. Holding me by my heels she submerged me in the inky flow to ensure I was invulnerable. And — in fairness to her — it almost worked. Almost. But those heels, the only area not to be dipped, would inevitably become my weakness. Okay. Not quite. I may have appropriated Achilles’ story a little. But I have a surprising degree of empathy for the lad at the moment. We both found ourselves engaged in quests of epic proportions. He took his ships to Troy, I took my S/Labs to Troutbeck. And both of us were let down by our weak spot. All of this to say, I hurt my heels. “Be strong, saith my heart; I am a soldier;I have seen worse sights than this.” -Homer, The Illiad One... View Article
December 22, 2021,
by Pete
The best adventures are almost always spontaneous. Going from the thought of an average few days ahead to adrenaline, dopamine and challenge in the blinking of an eye. No time to dwell, anticipate or expect, just go and get it. I’d planned to do a winter tea round last January, start as I meant to go on. Unfortunately it was illegal to travel alone to the hills, and I didn’t have enough cheese and wine to pass it off as a business meeting. The hills remained a dream until the end of March and the winter tea round was forgotten. Forgotten, that is, until I indulged my Thursday tradition of checking the mountain weather. Warm on the tops, it said, with a cloud inversion thrown in for good measure. The kind of forecast you’d happily take any time of year, let alone three days before the equinox. If ever there... View Article
