I'm sitting in London in the middle of January having just received the news this week that I have got a place in the 2010 North Face Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc. I am absolutely chuffed to bits but as recently as 18 months ago I had not even heard of the UTMB nor would I ever have considered entering it!In the summer of 2008 I had a bit of a think about what I had achieved since leaving university back in 2000 and fairly swiftly reached the conclusion that not a lot was probably the right answer. I didn't enjoy my job and was treading water as life went by. I decided that I needed a challenge that would be totally different to anything I had done before and preferably not something that any of my mates had done either. I had heard of the Marathon des Sables and had a look at that and saw that there was a 2 year waiting list and figured I needed something I could get stuck into immediately. Surfing the net I came across Racing the Planet and looked at their 4 Deserts series and Racing the Planet series and saw that they had a race in May 2009 in Namibia. I liked the idea of trying an event that hadn't been done before and thought that 9 months would be long enough to go from gym fit to desert fit (a painful transition!) so I signed up and went to buy a pair of trainers!
I am not a what you would call a natural runner, I had done the London Marathon back in 2004 but that was for the experience and 4hrs 20minutes is not exactly express! I had a lot to learn. Having to go from running 5ks on a treadmill and playing 5 a side football to doing cross country back to back marathons carrying a 10kgs pack was hard to say the least. Discovering the hard way about shin splints and chaffing were the low points of the next 9 months. Completing my first ultra (50 mile Thames Trot) and realising I could run from London to Brighton over a weekend and not feel totally destroyed after made me think I might just be able to complete this thing. Luckily I had a Saffa mate, Carl, who has done marathons (including the OMM) and knows all about kit and training and he was an invaluable in helping me choose kit and manage my training as unsurprisingly there is no beginners guide to how you train for a 7 day 250k self supported run in a desert in deepest Africa!
When it came to it I was pretty nervous knocking about the hotel in Windhoek the night before we were to be bussed to start down in the Fish River Canyon - I felt like I was totally out of place the bio's of my tent mates that I had read on the plane read like some sort of who's who of Racing the Planet legends and serious endurance athletes. I had visions of finishing hours after them each day if I managed to finish at all! Needless to say they were awesome tent mates to have and there is no way I would have got through the week without their advice and the banter we had each day which invariably had me laughing as I dragged my aching body into my sleeping bag at the end of each stage. Rowley's coffee was a great change from the increasingly sickly energy and recovery drinks, and his chili flakes made my re hydrated bolognese really quite tasty! Lucy and Frank (the couple in the tent) were brilliant in particular on the long stage where without them I would never have made it through the last 40ks in the middle of the night. Frank's stories of past events and very English dry sense of humour (unusual for an American!)
was very entertaining and his ability to find some duct tape when my gaiter broke on the morning of the "dunes" day was a total life saver! The fact I am in touch with them all almost a year later is testament to the bonds you build in these things which was definitely a factor in wanting to do another!
In the end I managed to finish 56th out of almost 220 starters which exceeded all my expectations. But the result was I had the bug and having not got myself organised to join up with some of the people I met in Namibia for the Sahara race last autumn I realised I needed to pick a new race. Frank had told me about the UTMB out in Namibia and had completed it last August. You need to have done qualifying events to apply for a place and I figured I probably wouldn't be doing these events every year so it was time to use my events of 2009 to see if I could get a place. Which brings me to where I am now - had the news this week that I am in and the 50k run over the north downs with Carl in a few weeks now marks the start of some serious training! Am signing up to do a charity run up Tower 42 (one of the tallest buildings in London) in Feb and that should give the thighs a good taste of things to come! I have lo
ts of advice coming in from Frank and Stephanie both 2009 UTMB veterans (and proper endurance runners!) which is awesome and I am hoping that I can join the 51% of those who actually finish the event! Guess 103 miles in 46 hours taken into account the height of Everest in elevation is not going to be easy....!
ts of advice coming in from Frank and Stephanie both 2009 UTMB veterans (and proper endurance runners!) which is awesome and I am hoping that I can join the 51% of those who actually finish the event! Guess 103 miles in 46 hours taken into account the height of Everest in elevation is not going to be easy....!