Oh, to have that blissful freedom of the fells again.
Soaring highs and smashing ankles
It had been another crazy summer of running an outdoor centre, my fitness had ebbed but in that joyful moment nothing else existed, the sun was setting, the cold was crisping in and I was inhabiting an intensely focused flow bounding down Whernside at 8.5 mph. I was flying, soaring in fact, then quicker than my sharp mind could fathom I smashed into the path and the peace was pierced by my screams of pain and desperation. Dear Jesus, I’d never felt pain like it, how the hell, and within days of me twisting my other ankle too. I started to cry (something I’ve nothing against but seldom do), not with the physical pain but the pain of knowing this might be my Spine race gone! That’s when I realised how much this year’s race really meant to me. I couldn’t load bear and I went to ring Mike but of course there was no signal and despite all my spine kit the cold was nipping fast. There was no choice but to woman up and hobble off, knowing I was only going to make the injury worse.
This was basically how my training started in mid-Oct. Thankfully though my stubborn rather than depressive self-took the reins and I became obsessed with making my 30 mile weekly goal even if it included my 2 mile hobbles to the shop and back. Little and often it was but walking rather than running. This pride came tumbling down when I went to a foot expert who proper bollocked me for load bearing at all. I basically paid him to lecture me in how my ‘reckless downhill running’ would cost me the nerve endings in my foot and that my sprain was due to my recent successes making me cocky. Oh, and look at me walk, I had no core stability, so how could I even consider doing this race. Cocky I thought, well, how are you supposed to get better if you’re not prepared to push your limits and sometimes fail. It’s not like rolling my ankle happened every week! He scared the shit out of me, but I wasn’t giving up that easy. If I needed to work especially hard, so be it.
My ankle scan wasn’t as bad as we’d thought but it highlighted other critical tendinopathy problems resulting from my non-existent running technique. It was a lot to swallow in Nov, major ankle rehab, core stability work and now learning from scratch, how to run, on top of strengthening all these newly found muscle groups. It might have all been too much had I not been part of a WhatsApp group comprising all the women Spiners in the Ribble valley. For the first year ever we’d loads of women mountain rescuers taking part, with three from our neighbouring MR (mountain rescue) team all innocently excited to face the beast. It was amazing, our recee’s, our support, banter, socials, they were the very best part of the whole experience. Together we created something formidable, a synergy of support, the stuff the Spine is really made of but it wasn’t always straightforward. Let me explain….
The tension of competition
This is not going to be a comfortable chat and it’s not in my interests to write this, but I think as a critical psychologist it’s something we ought to discuss more, and that’s navigating the tension of being both friends and competition. This was especially new to me as I’ve literally only got the confidence to be competitive since my last race, the fellsman.
Being part of this group brought up lots of conflicting feelings I’d never experienced before. I was the only one to have done it before, I had the record, but by no means was I the mother hen or guaranteed to be the fastest. Did this matter, well frankly - yes, because I wanted to break the record. I wanted a win this time that reflected what both I and women in MR were capable of. One of the lasses in our group however was 10 years younger, a better runner and was seeing a top running physio and personal trainer, another I didn’t know but was an experienced ultra-runner and getting coached by Jayson Cavill of all the people. She wasn’t sharing any of her expensive secrets and this was both really annoying and really motivating. Things got complicated because what mattered more than my burning desire to win was that we all finished (read my previous blogs to understand my why). I wasn’t much of a runner but my experience and savvy in the hills gave me an edge. Was it foolish to give all my secrets away and let them have the only competitive edge I felt I had? Was it selfish and mean of me to keep it to myself? Was I arrogant to think any of my tips would make a difference? Who was I to have such delusions of grandeur!
The outcome was inevitable as I adopted my usual mountain mama position and spent our runs going through every thought process, every gear hack I knew. I even shared my master spreadsheet detailing just about everything there is to knew about the route. Who knows if they ever bothered to look at my thesis whilst I swung between feelings of pride and regret. How could I give it all away, but not sharing it felt dirty and totally against the spirit of the mutually supportive spine family. As D-day was approaching, I was grateful for the inspiration to focus on my running rather than strategy but was preparing myself for the what if’s of racing and losing to what had now become a dear friend, or even worse what if we proper raced each other and I left her out in the field, how would that make me feel. Could our friendship withstand it? Jesus Steph, did this matter to anyone but you?
I needed to find a way of graduating out of this submissive limiting mindset. To have the bravery to be vulnerable and truly explore my potential.
Time is running out
December went in a tiresome whirlwind and I got my knickers in a twist over my lack of running, the lack of spine weather and that I’d only started wearing my spine pack a few weeks before. How was I supposed to calculate my pacing now? Complicating matters was Mike (my 6ft6, lakes reared, whippet, of a fiancée, who was also running the MRT challenger) who kept winding me up with the idea that we were somehow racing each other and that I should consider the possibility of me passing the Gargrave coop before it opened. This preposterous distraction was way too stressful and delusional a thing to fathom so I carried on overthinking the long list of other more plausible problems. I tried not to feel disheartened by the fact that I went to great efforts to beg, steal and borrow lightweight kit for it all to be negated by the fact that I was nearly a stone and a half heavier than the last time I’d started. Not to mention the weather. I mean I thrive on the survival bit but honestly I was praying for tame weather.
Boo to wet knickers
A massive part of the appeal for many is battling the elements, completing the distance, but I’m a caver and I’d done it before, so withstanding misery held little interest. I had nothing to prove, I was out for one thing and one thing only and when it became clear the weather and ground conditions were going to be utter horseshit my motivation took a massive wobble. Oh god how could I weather a death march knowing I’d be slower than last time, but more seriously and scarily how was I going to manage the river crossings? All this training, the adversity I’d triumphed, and I was going to get taken out within the first 20miles in a river crossing. All the toughness, scheming and fancy gear in the world wasn’t going to save me from the inscrutable fact that I couldn’t outsmart drowning or hypothermia.
The Irish are always late
I didn’t sleep a wink the night before. I couldn’t think straight and if it weren’t for Laurence I’d not have made it to the start on time. The siren went off, Mike had a banana stuffed halfway up his gob and we were still fastening our bags and frantically putting kit on. My nerves had gotten the better of me and I set off running feeling sick to the pits of my stomach. By the time I was going up Jacobs ladder I felt so astoundingly crap I honestly thought I’d have to DNF? What was wrong with me, maybe I wasn’t better from the antibiotics I’d finished only 24 hours before? I couldn’t need to eat this early surely? Oh you forgot to eat breakfast, you eejit. The mountain fuel went in and away went the legs. In an instant my whole world changed, and a race had opened up before me. The winds buffeted but it didn’t bother me like I’d feared. In fact, I was thriving not surviving, Steph how could you have doubted yourself and from this relief bubbled a furious desire to smash the arse out of this race. I wasn’t in it for the journey this time. I was in it to take massive risks, to push my hardest and to stare straight into the possibility of having a very public failure. This was strangely exciting and incredibly liberating.
A fire burning
I passed snake pass with a surprising amount of discipline despite my newly lit fire and was massively cheered to see spine family. Bleaklow was a quagmire, its path lost to a messy pit of swollen pulsing rivers, but I passed it unscathed and boosted by the number of challengers I passed along the way. Each one visibly happy for how much fun I was unexplainably having.
Above Torside, I caught up with a lovely friend of Carmines I’d met on a recee and we helped each other trudge through the deep sucking bog before meeting the mountain rescue heroes by the weir. I was astonished to be keeping to Mikes ridiculously ambitious splits but the river beyond was tanking and I was not at one with the impending doom. I was also surprisingly disappointed to hear all the MR ladies had stuck together for the craic and my notions were clearly irrelevant to them. I had no one to race but myself so off to the swimming pool below Black Hill I went. I was making swift and savvy progress at this point, staying disciplined and not wasting energy or tendon elasticity into the horridly mush ground and I was elated to find a long but safe diversion around the worst of the raging river. The world was my oyster now, as I literally wailed out loud with joyous relief. I had survived and the savage hailstorm at Wessenden tickled rather than phased me.
I knew the weather was to get real cold and the gales to strengthen so I pushed onto the M62 where I promised myself a butty and a pee, what luxury! It was here last time I started to get a niggle in my groin and hamstring which had sadly reared its ugly dormant head again this mid December. My last-minute overtraining was showing up weaknesses and I’d prayed I’d had enough time to strengthen em out. It was faintly there on the startline but all was good thus far, my memory serving as a reminder to thin line between - daring greatly and just being a prize chancer.
Which was it to be? Time would tell
Blackstone edge was epic, the vis could have been worse, but I could barely stand-up in the gales and my poles were serving only to spank my legs and trip me up further, and to add to the theatrics I looked up to a surprising flash of lightening in the sky, only to have it confirmed by an almost immediate crack of thunder and a most spectacular hail storm. The MR stand at the White house was a very welcome, if temporary reprieve, from the viciousness of the hail. The next very runnable section along the reservoirs was disappointingly slow and tested my mantra to ‘accept and adapt’. The hail was so ferocious that I could barely look up and with my head down I nearly ran off course whilst following the wall of a reservoir, the holy mortifying shame of it! I had to fix it quick and even more so pull my big girl knickers up for what would be a hell of a wind over the exposed Studley Pike.
Variety was the spice of weather
The ups and downs over the moors of Hebden whilst tiring offered variety from the weather and I arrived at CP1 a touch weary but utterly cheered to find Mike leaving as I was coming. It turned out Mike was having a savage run and I was greeted to tales of his speed, then phaff, only to find my impending arrival a spectacularly fast motivator for his departure. The craic amongst the competitors was mighty and the spine staff utter superheros, you wouldn’t get treatment like it in a 5 star hotel. I sat down whilst someone literally kneeled down in front of me and untied my mud caked shoes and asked what brew I wanted. The selflessness of these angels is just beyond words. I’m sure this didn’t come across in my super intense state as I proceeded to methodically go through my to-do list whilst food and drinks were quietly put out in front of me.
Chasing the elixir
The stop had done me the world of good and even though the already harsh weather had clearly only been flirting with us, my well-chosen gear was working wonders and I continued passing folk beyond clough foot. The ascent up High Withins was fast upon us, the legs were moving flawlessly and I felt intensely alive. This is the euphoric flow you do this shit for. Not the glory, pride or proof. This insatiable elixir of life, the Nirvana the mystics talked of.
That was my heroin!
This was where I caught the fabulous Antonio, we’d met first at Hut 2 on the full spine whilst I was spine safety and like so many spine family we’d kept in contact. I had intended on hanging out with him but something unexpected happened. In that moment he turned to me, he stepped aside and said Steph, go, go, go, you are flying. A man of his calibre stepped aside for me. Reading this he’s prob going to think it's really weird but for a split second I felt truly witnessed, like he just got what I was experiencing, and he was so flippin happy for me. I swear to God it felt like I levitated over that bloody hill and I was at Ponden before I knew it meeting the steam engine of a lad who’d been busting Mikes balls thus far.
How could this have happened, I was now fighting for 2nd place overall, this was gonna show the girlies. I remember talking about what a mission Mike was on, but he was quick to point out that I was clearly on one myself and he stepped aside telling me to go ahead. The buffeting headwind over Ickornshaw was unrelenting but I seemed to bound over it unfeathered until the haven of Lothersdale. My god those folk are utter legends and never has a bacon butty been more appreciated or needed, the hard bit was yet to come and it was clear I would hit Gargrave before the coop opened. OMG I was NOT expecting this. I was not expecting the degree of awe and excitement as people witnessed me clearly in my element. Their joy for me was so incredibly heartening.
So much done, so much to do
It was 4am, I’d been out in the lashings of rain and gales for nearly a day now and bore it basically all on my own, and the hail on Pinhaw was painful even through my balaclava. I’d noticed my asthma wasn’t quite as it should but priority laid with remaining upright in violent gusts on steep tractionless farmland. I fell, I laughed…. I got up, I ran, I fell….., I laughed, but it was wearing on me. The intensity of the attention it took was all encompassing and I ached for a break. To see someone, to feel something different against my face, to be able to actually hear the music I’d so luxuriously carried these 80 odd miles. I finally arrived in a sleepy Gargrave and my heart sank when no one was there. Instead, I consoled myself with the luxury of a seated public toilet and the 2 minutes of peace from the weather. I rang Mike to perk me up and he regaled the utter hell that awaited in the sodden pastures between there and Malham, but the light gently rose and the weather calmed, some reprieve finally. Like my mantra, nothing lasted forever not even death ☠️
The climb up Malham cove was so peaceful and I was excited to see Spine Legend Sarah Fuller at the field studies centre. This was meant to be a flying stop but I was feeling concerned about my asthma and I was so shocked and pleased with my run to there I totally took my foot off the gas. But it was too early for that carry on and Fountains fell became an utter nightmare to cross. My legs were raring to go but something else entirely had caught me off guard, my lungs! I spent so much time obsessing about my physical training but the neglect of my overall health was starting to catch up with me. #majorlifelesson
Wild and ferrel
Crossing Penyghent was hilarious. Out of context I looked ridiculous, and some folk actually expressed concern for me. It’s Sunday morning, the sun is shining and I’m still dressed in the arctic gear from the night before, strewn head to toe in mud and shite, the arse hanging out of my torn trousers, goggles cocked one way across my forehead, my torch cris crossed the other. It was a sight to behold, this sleep deprived, bedraggled eejit swaying and wheezing her way up Penyghent and all with the finishing touch of a red flashing light. Could you imagine if I told them then I was in mountain rescue. I’d have been carted off to the nearest hospital with free accommodation for life.
The up was slow and tortuous on my lungs but the downs I could gently run. Finally, I made it towards Horton to find loads of my local friends cheering me on and the absolutely fab Spine safety chap (I wish I knew your name) who came out to check up on me. I have to say I was a little scared by my asthma. It wasn’t a nice feeling. I’m a woman who’s used to feeling in control and this was freaking me out. All sorts of thoughts were going through my mind, even the possibility of DNF’ing at Horton. The thought broke my heart into a thousand pieces, to have had the run of my life and this of all the things to take me out. ‘Accept and adapt’, ‘take it one step at a time’ and I did. I got myself to the familiar comfort of the Craven pothole club and my hearty welcome both softened and strengthened me. I spoke to a friend, a doctor whose first prescription was to just stop talking LOL. They reckoned they’d never heard someone struggling to breath talk so much, so I stocked up on inhalers and set off tentatively into the dying light.
Cam High was Cam Low
I’m not alone in saying that I hate cam high and this next 14 miles whilst tame weather wise was yet again the stuff the spine is really made of. Here I was again, first place women and a new record for the taking but what happened next really illustrates the seriousness and magnitude of this race. I’d managed to survive 108miles, the end sniffing distance away. I’d been pushing now for over 36hrs and my asthma was deteriorating. Despite how utterly determined I was the sleep monsters and hallucinations were creeping in.
I finally turned off the Cam High onto the open fell, I knew this bit could be the crux if still racing so I’d receed and visualised it, all was on track as I revelled in the ease it brought me, but the lovely snow
clothed heather kept whispering in my ear, I’m so comfy and soft, 5 minutes kip and you’d be……
Time passes unbeknownst to be, I stumble over the heather but I’m confused, where’s all the footprints gone, how did I get here, I look at my watch and map and I’m out in the middle of the fell and what’s more I’ve no recollection whatsoever how I got there. I’d clearly fallen asleep on my feet, sleep walked into the middle of a marsh and tripped myself back into reality.
I spent the next couple of minutes disoriented and confused before a face full of snow woke me up and I found my way again.
This really makes me chuckle but hell it was hairishly close. If I gave in, if I…. The stuff of proper adventure, wouldn’t have it any otherway.
Needless to say, the snow I shoved in my face worked wonders and I made it to a cheery reception in Hawes.
VICTORIOUS - UNAPOLOGETICALLY HELL YEAH :-)
I did it, I set out to face my fears, to be vulnerable, to really try, to explore my potential and to do my little bit for representing women. I worked my little arse off, and I was lucky enough to witness it pay off.
Overjoyed and content are the words, and the cherry on the cake was seeing the pride on my fiancées face, his medal hanging from his neck. He too having really tried.
Mike won the MRT challenger outright, I came 2nd overall, 1st women and absolutely astonishingly I took 5 hours off the women’s record. I got it down to a time I felt closer represented what women in mountain rescue are really capable of. The sprinkles being this, the first year, more than 1 woman finished the MRT challeng I couldn’t havebeen happier but cloud 9 is a long way from the floor.
Win it all, loose it all
Representation for women means the world to me so to have an opportunity to have the 3 women finishers on the news was a fantastic opportunity and of course my ego loved it too, not to mention what a needed boost it would be for our small outdoor business. I was incredibly grateful to Ruth for the opportunity, as she’d arranged it all, and forfeited her chance for me to shine. We giggled like children on the train and I was so excited to watch the piece with Mike when I got home. I opened the door gleefully and hollered up to no reply. I then entered the sitting room to find Mike slumped over in floods of tears. In an instant my whole world came tumbling down, had someone we loved died? All the monies gone he said. The rush of relief was immense, so nobodies dead, I said, everyone's ok? Yes, but they’ve got into our work account somehow and they’ve cleaned us out. He was inconsolable.
It all got sorted in the end and Mikes swift reply to the Fraud team meant we got our money back eventually, but it was a few days of intense hell. It reminded me of the privilege us racers have. It put all my obsession, my determination, my need to ‘find myself’ in perspective. It’s the product of utter privilege. We don’t know how good we have it, to have the means and space in our lives to explore such extremes of existence. For a fleeting moment I got a glimpse of what it might be like being totally and utterly broke, not knowing how I was going to live from one day to another, how I’d keep a roof over my head. The people who survive this everyday deserve the medals not us. It took me right back where I needed to be.
Grounded!
Do ya know what though. Those bas777d’s could have taken all our money but no one could have ever taken our achievement from us.
We are the richest people in the world, for we have our Spine family, the bestest bunch of nutters in the world. Just sunny 10k’s next time yeah? 😉
THANK YOU's
I have so many people to thank, too many to list here but for a starters I want to thank all the folk who believed in me and have invested in me. It has changed my life and legs immeasurably.
My spine safety team family who constantly shun a light on my potential, I will forever be grateful for yer encouragement and antics, to Laurence and Anna who lent me kit, sent me books, samples of food, shared spreadsheets and actually got me to the start line. To Becca of Eye-Bex sport therapy who’s blessed hands repaired the relationship between my ambitions and my legs so often, to Tomi of TNT fitness for your ever reliable beastings and weekly DOM’s, to the amazing friends who keep me going there week after week, to Jill for dragging my ass there in the first place and literally changing the course of my life. To Rupert of Mountain Fuel for supporting our caving expedition, I love your stuff, its tasty, lightweight, good value rocket fuel and it made a significant contribution to my success. To Mark of Paragon physiotherapy for getting my running right and taping my ass back together before this race and Petzl. We are not sponsored by anyone, but they do heavily support our caving adventures (checkout ariocavesproject.com) and we used their amazing lightweight torches on the race.
To all the Spine volunteers and the amazing MR teams and groups of lifesavers, Craven Energy tri club and the Craven Pothole club, who put up voluntary checkpoints. We simply couldn't do this without you.
To all the amazing friends who came out along the way to cheer me on, especially you fab Craven lot who came to Lothersdale in the middle of the night to witness my divaness. Ye know who ye are and I flippin love ye all.
And finally, to my partner in life and mischief Mike, and our families. I’ll spare ye the mush.
I will do a critique of what went well and didn't, what kit I loved and hated in a separate blog but in the mean time, fair play for getting this far. Now you too have done an ultra...of sorts :-)