Two steps forward, one step back

Multi-stage Ultra Marathon completed – Tick!

I’m very pleased to report that the Pilgrim’s Challenge was completed in some fairly challenging conditions over 4-5 February with very little ill-effects. Having set off from Sheffield at 4am the race for those of us deemed “walkers” (for me due to back issues) at 8am in temperatures hovering around -7 degrees C. Day 1 was relatively straightforward and in fact the cold weather helped keep the going underfoot nice and firm, as it looked like it could get really really muddy. With almost 11kg on my back, slipping around in mud would have become very tiresome very quickly.

-7 degrees stops the mud being too slippy

Once I got into a metronomic rhythm with my poles click-clacking along, there was no stopping me and I managed to cover the 33 miles, with 1,200m of ascent in 7 hours 51 mins. Not bad for a walker. The overnight stop was in a school hall, with about 150 other competitors, and to try to replicate race conditions as much as possible, I stuck to race rations (with the exception of a cup of tea and piece of cake). Dehydrated fish and potato, Bombay mix and peanuts for dinner. Yum. I was surprised how little I’d eaten during the day (a mini peperami and a pack of dextrose sweets – about 250 calories in total) and yet didn’t feel especially hungry.

Still smiling at the night stop

After a fitful sleep, we awoke to a 4-6 inch blanket of snow. Near disaster for the race organisers who had been up half the night trying to sort out whether or not the race would/could/should continue and where to place checkpoints and possible re-routing of the course. Sensibly they realised that most people would go out and give it a go even if they did cancel the event and so they announced the race was still on, albeit with a mass start at 8am rather than the staggered starts anticipated in the original plan.

The North Downs Way

Walking in a winter wonderland

Luckily Rich and I had packed our Yaktrax snow grippers and they served us well for the whole 33 mile return journey as we were able to take many places on the slippery descents. The route looked great with a covering of fresh snow and although clearly tired from the day before, the additional challenging conditions only slowed me up by about 37 minutes over the whole course, finishing day 2 in 8 hours 28 mins. I was pretty pleased with that result and even more pleased with a back that stood up to a pretty rigorous two days.

The last week since the Pilgrim’s Challenge wasn’t supposed to be as quiet as it turned out, but my legs did feel quite lifeless and with the snow and ice and a trip to London with work thrown in the middle of the week, it was fairly tame. Some sessions on the turbo were squeezed into a the week but the walking suffered a little.

At the weekend, I had decided to convert the week into a “rest” week and so planned less than the normal outings. Given the now melted and re-frozen conditions on the trails I think this was a sensible move. I also experimented with a little more trotting on both Saturday and Sunday and all was going well. The Yaktrax proved their worth again fighting to keep me upright although both mine and Richard’s paid the price and started to fall apart towards the end – new ones now on order from Amazon so guarantee no more snow now until next winter!

Almost back running, near Redmires

However disaster struck towards the end of Sunday’s training as I did a proper comedy slip on ice and my legs went one way, my body the other. I remained upright but I could feel my back twist and stretch, followed by a massive familiar pain in my glute and the whole area stiffened up. I spent the rest of the day trying to stretch it and calm it down, and although it’s not as bad as I feared today, it’s certainly a backwards step. I have a physio appointment this afternoon so I shall see what she says. Quite annoying.

I’ve also been busy adding the (hopefully) final touches to my kit list including food, and testing the fuel tablets we’ll be given on the race to work out how many I’ll need to take. I’m aiming to have a full race kit ready to go by next weekend, then to start taking bits out as I realise how heavy it really is.