Tape, tape. There’s tape…

Running 50 miles. What could possibly go wrong?

In our bizarre need to keep pushing the envelope of endurance events we found ourselves signed up for ‘The Conquest of Avalon’ a tough trail ultra through Somerset with the last leg over Glastonbury Tor.

The gang for this race was slightly different, me and Scott (sporting a spectacular moustache picked specifically for the event), IronGran and Scott’s brother in law Ian, a Comrades veteran and the voice of experience. I’m not sure why his experienced voice didn’t shout, “don’t do it, you crazy fools…”

We stayed in a lovely Airbnb in Glastonbury, where the event was based, and a coach was provided to take us all to the start at Ham Hill Country Park, somewhere west of Yeovil.

Registration at the park was very low key, a chap with a list, race numbers and possibly a dog. He did have a rather spectacular beard too. Shout your name, grab your number and assemble for the race briefing.
Briefing was possibly too accurate a term. Although the race organiser spoke at length about many things including national anthems, furthest travelled competitors and beat-boxing, any reference to the event we were about to undertake was alarmingly brief.  He did mention that the route was marked, sometimes, had been checked, sort of, and he was sure we’d all not get too lost, hopefully. I was really taking to this chap… If I was going to organise an event it’s how I would do it.

“For those of you not vegetarian or vegan there are sausage rolls at checkpoint one.”
“For those of you that ARE vegetarian or vegan there are sausage rolls at checkpoint one.”

Love him, he should be on the stage.

The build-up to the start was electrifying. Toned endurance athletes poised like coiled springs waiting for the off. A heady mix of wintergreen and deep-heat filled the air until a west-country accent chimed, “off you go then” and a stream of runners charged into the distance only to stop after 20 metres as we all queued for a gate and a narrow path. Finally, we were off and running, down a dip, left into a copse, through a little valley, 400m down, 79,600m to go and what’s this? All the leading runners running back towards us until the clearing was full of fellow competitors, looking at watches, phones, maps, feet and skyward wondering where to go. Finally an exit was agreed upon and we were all off again. So, it was going to be one of those sort of events?

At 1700m we turned right into a forest track marked with red and white tape, by 1900m we were all stood around again as watches and other devices were telling us this wasn’t the way. A quick back-track to the main path and the modern technology was happy again.

It wasn’t actually all of us. Sarah had by now disappeared off into the distance on the wrong route. As we now had no chance of catching her we just put her down as a casualty of the event. We’d tell her husband Dan that she’d been eaten by wolves. I think he’d take some comfort from that.

So, some of the route was marked, some wasn’t and some had been marked and then subtlety altered by nefarious persons. The day was starting to shape up nicely.

This is the point where I have a confession to make.

When the organiser posted the final route maps his Strava files looked a little weird. His route seemed to often run parallel with roads and footpaths, straight-lining fields and other features. It was obvious in some sections that we were meant to run on a trail but his route was ‘clunky’ like a smooth curve drawn using straight lines. I assumed that this was a GPX conversion error so when I split the route into three sections I ‘corrected’ the route so that it now followed the published footpaths, trails and minor roads as visible on Strava and other mapping software.

More often than not, in reality, we were off course when it said off course, of course…

Of course, on the day, following his route it quickly became apparent that the original GPX route was pretty much correct and we were meant to cross fields, valleys and hillsides on paths that didn’t exist and pretty much ignore defined trails, paths and minor roads! Consequently, and infuriatingly, my watch didn’t really have the ‘correct’ course on it so sometimes we were on course when it said we were off and off course when it showed we were on. More often than not, in reality, we were off course when it said off course, of course…

Therefore navigation techniques generally consisted of being sort of on-course by the watch and searching for red and white tape somewhere in the vicinity that seemed a logical direction.

The day quickly became clumps of competitors visible on the skyline heading in different directions and the sudden rousing cry of, “tape, tape, we’ve found tape!”

There were some steep climbs on the route and I’d been training with trekking poles to save some of the legs. I started the event wearing the poles but now that we arrived at checkpoint one at 16km I gave them to Jane saying that I didn’t think I was going to need them. Oh how these things come back to bite you.

Checkpoint one was just say ‘hi’, drop of empty bottles, grab a sausage roll and press on so we didn’t linger.

Somewhere around 21.5km I knew I was carrying a problem. Despite all the training my left quad was complaining every time I planted my foot. It was just that sharp spike of pain on each stride. I was hoping it was just one of those pains that appears and disappears and it wasn’t going to be an issue. I popped a couple of ibuprofen, whilst being gesticulated at by a man in a tractor, and pressed on. It’s quite common when running to find that you’ve suddenly broken your ankle or lost an ear but usually after a couple of minutes everything’s back to normal.

It didn’t help that stingies had given my legs a fair thrashing but that was nothing compared to Scott who had missed his footing coming off a stile and saved himself by thrusting his hand deep into the pesky blighters. I refused to laugh. We found dock leaves and did the customary countryside self-medication technique, all the time wondering if it was just another old wives tale.

We soon spotted Sarah coming towards us leaving checkpoint two at 34km about 3 minutes ahead of us. Cleary she’d fought off any wolves, corrected her course and was now out in front. I guess we’d see her at the end now! At least I knew it wasn’t my round.

Checkpoint two at Castle Cary was a pivotal moment. It marked the end of the first GPX segment. One down, two to go. We had our own mid-race checkpoint at 45km, Checkpoint Louise. Here, at checkpoint two I had two choices. The first was to retire, let Scott press on to checkpoint Louise and let them come back and collect me later. The second was to press on to checkpoint Louise together and retire there. Galhampton Hill had been excruciating and at only 30km in me and my left quad had little hope of making the 80km.

We’d agreed months earlier, when Scott and I had entered this event, that through thick or thin we were doing it together. Now I urged him to press on and I’d hobble to the next checkpoint, call it a trail marathon and retire but he was having none of it. He strapped my leg at checkpoint two and we pressed on through the rain, missed the first left turn and then back-tracked to get back on route.

I can’t deny that the next 10k wasn’t a challenge. It started on a wet trail through damp foliage soaking you from the knees down then climbed through thistle marked slopes, with red and white tape on thistles and through pretty orchards. I dosed up on Scott’s big paracetamol as I ran, trying to numb the worst of the pain. It climbed steadily, not ruthlessly, but constantly through stubble fields or freshly rained-on grass that soaked the shoes. We dropped down into Bruton for the first time and navigated its charming back streets before climbing out the other side toward Bruton Dovecote.

A quick selfie and a Snickers later and I was off again hobbling after Scott. We left the asphalt after Park Wall and switched to stubble fields again steadily climbing. Over the top and back into wet grass. We were almost chasing the tail-end of a heavy shower that was just not quite raining on us but leaving the ground soaked. I could feel that the KT tape on my feet had now bunched up into a wet ball in my sock and wouldn’t be doing its job. Finally the terrain flattened and dropped and we were heading downhill to Redlynch and checkpoint Louise. Hooray! Made it!

I hobbled into the checkpoint and it was great. Louise, Jane and Caz leapt on us like a Formula 1 crew. With shades of Barkley Marathon they sat us down, fed us, took away wet things, brought back dry things, took away empty things and brought back full ones. It was fabulous. In all the pampering I totally forget to retire – still don’t know how that happened. My trekking poles were here and Caz was joining us for the last 32km. Somewhere deep in my mind I felt that trekking poles would give me a fighting chance to get to the finish and Scott would now have someone to run with.

The next checkpoints were all relatively close together so I made a plan. I’d struggle on as fast as I could using the best Nordic walking technique I could manage, Scott and Caz could run the 32km and there were enough checkpoints ahead that I could retire if it all got too much and let them scurry off into the distance. It wasn’t a brilliant plan but it was a plan.

So off we went, the happy gang of three. Running was absolute agony. The drugs took the edge off some of the pain and I could jog until I could bear it no longer, wincing with every step, trying to run without bending my leg and finally staggering to a halt. It was worryingly similar to the Vale Coastal Ultra but I was fighting quad rather than calf pain this time. Luckily power-walking with poles was barely any slower than jogging and I could maintain the effort almost indefinitely. Weirdly I seemed to have the legs on the other two up the hills.

Checkpoint three came up at 49km. I barely stopped knowing that it was followed by a good climb. This meant I could hobble off while Scott and Caz did the checkpoint thing and sooner or later they’d catch me up after the climb. As expected they caught me after ten minutes but not before we’d met another competitor coming the other way having lost checkpoint three.  I managed a little jog with the gang but it was no fun. The girls passed us on their way to checkpoint four and we had the pleasant surprise of Damian following on behind them. His van looked lovely, spacious and with clearly enough room to hide a suffering ultra-runner. Before I could hatch a plan to jump in the back and persuade him to drive at 8 km/h for as long as the route followed the road he was gone in a cloud of disappointment and diesel fumes.

We stopped on the descent into Bruton at 54km as this was the furthest we’d ever run before. In no particular order I managed a nibble of a pasty crust, a little celebratory dance and wolfing down one of Caz’s co-codamol tablets.   I’m not going to say which one did me the most good.

By now I’d also noticed something interesting – Scott is allergic to cows.

At Bruton my second GPX file finished and I loaded the third. This had great significance as we were effectively on the home stretch relatively speaking. We found tape leading us off road and we could see other runners in the distance. We shortly found ourselves on course but at the base of a steep grassy hillside. My watch said climb. The distant runners had followed the valley but they too, in the distance, were starting the climb. I think the only way was up. I can’t pretend that it wasn’t tough but the view from the top was lovely. Was it worth the climb? Not saying…

The only protection we had was a ‘caution runners’ sign, my trekking poles and Scott’s big stick.

We crossed a minor road back onto a trail and then started a rocky descent. At this point we had the first glimpse of Glastonbury Tor way in the distance and possibly, pure coincidence, we then met a chap coming up the rocky trail bearded and barefoot. Unfortunately my descending skills were pretty pathetic and I had no opportunity to high-five him and say, “dude.” When I say pathetic I mean pathetic. I couldn’t actually walk down the rocky descent and had to sort of go sideways, one foot at a time. As it levelled out I could see Scott, Caz and our new running friends disappearing into the distance. I hobbled on down the path until it was just a gentle slope and tried a little jog. Not too bad. I passed another runner at the gate where we met the road and jogged on into Lamyatt, spotted the tape for the right turn onto the trail and then passed another runner across the recently harvested field. I think the co-codamol was talking so I jogged on and caught up Scott and Caz and we managed to stick together up to the A371.

I came in at the end of the dispute to find all the cows going one way and Scott and Caz the other.

This was an odd section of the route as we were on the main road with not even a verge. The only protection we had was a ‘caution runners’ sign, my trekking poles and Scott’s big stick. We clung to the northbound verge preferring to dice with cars heading north to Shepton Mallet rather than the HGVs heading south to Wincanton. Thankfully it was a brief section and we turned quickly into the recycling centre. 

How picturesque, we were really taking in the sights of the Arthurian legend now. I had no recycling so we followed the path through the industrial estate past Sir Lancelot’s Lighting and Camelot Carpets and back onto the trail.

The simple drop off the road and onto the trail had me stumped. My legs just didn’t want to do ‘down’ and I feared for a trekking pole induced impalement if I tried to use them to halt my descent. I briefly considered lying on my side and rolling down but finally adopted a sideways shuffle and wobble. Things went a little pear-shaped near the bottom and I was forced to stumble and recover using my damaged quad. Once the stars had cleared from my eyes I wolfed down a few more painkillers in case and staggered off in pursuit. I caught up with them negotiating cows in a field. I came in at the end of the dispute to find all the cows going one way and Scott and Caz the other. Clearly the meeting had broken up without any clear agreement but all parties appeared happy with the result. Around the corner of St Mary’s Church in Ditcheat was checkpoint four at 64km and the welcome sight of Damian and the girls again.  

A quick pamper, a refill and a bottle of coke to go and I was off again leaving the rest to catch up with my hobbling form. It was only another 16km now and I was confident that I could drag myself to the end. Checkpoint four had been my last opportunity to retire easily and I chose to press on, earning brownie points, kudos and possibly muscular skeletal anomalies for the rest of my life.

More cows turned up to see what we were doing and I remembered something I’d read before the race about a runner that had been trampled.

“I think that a combination of things freaked out the cows. It was thundery weather, there were calves in the field and it was nearly evening when apparently cows can go a bit berserk. At the hospital they even remarked that it was cow trampling season…”

I checked my watch, hmmm, nearly evening. The weather, it had been raining but hardly thundery. I checked google calendar, no mention of “cow trampling season”, what to do?

Without thinking of my own safety I sent Scott and Caz ahead, a simple tactic of hobbling slowly and being overtaken. Once in the field, I positioned myself in the middle of the group to avoid the prime trampling spot and took a firm grip on my cow poles and kept close to the vulnerable looking lady runner that we’d been shadowing. She looked feather-light, easily light enough to toss toward any bovine aggressor in the event of a possible trampling. One thing I was certain of, I was never going to out-run a cow at this point in the event. I never caught her name but thankfully her services weren’t required.
By way of compensation I did take to holding electric fences up for fellow competitors using my trusty poles, it rather salved my conscience for a while.

Weirdly, I’d had an interesting pain in my chest for the last couple of field and only now that my alarm went, telling me to drink, did I notice that my soft flask of coke was now blown up like a balloon pressing into my chest and looking rather vigorous. Careful decompression allowed a well-deserved squirt of its sugary goodness roughly in the right direction.

We climbed out of Wraxall following the ridge line towards West Pennard. It was about now that I casually commented that I was looking forward to my pint of cider with a slice of lemon at the finish.

After what seemed like only two or three thousand steps we arrived at the summit and took a peek around.

I think this also coincided with Scott taking a caffeine gel. “Do you know the cider and lemon song” says Caz. “Nope”, we both respond, at which point Caz sings what turns out to be ‘Buck Rogers’ by Feeder thus starting the argument whether the line was “drink cider from a lemon” me and Caz, or “drink cider from eleven”, Scott. Enter Spotify to settle the argument (it didn’t, even though Scott thought it did) however, we sang our way to West Pennard and beyond to an impromptu playlist from Scott who ran around like a child after too much red pop, bouncing off hedges and startling livestock.

Finally we hit West Pennard and checkpoint five and about 6km out from Glastonbury. 6km is nothing, but, we had to go over Glastonbury Tor first.

The route went across a field of cows. We didn’t. That’s how we roll, besides, I’d misplaced my cow fodder somewhere and I like Caz too much to see her trampled on my behalf. We chose the safer route around the minor roads, easier running and better singing.

So, we sang our way across the final fields and to the base of a long hill where I managed to climb at a good pace knowing I didn’t have too far to go and it was the only thing I could do well in my weary state. Finally in the dusky gloom we arrived at the base of the Tor and began the steady climb up the narrow steps. For the last few kilometres we’d been able to hear a distinct beat coming from the Tor and as we got closer it was obvious that it was exactly that. Not music where we were just picking up the beat but simply a constant drumming with the tower clearly its source. After what seemed like only two or three thousand steps we arrived at the summit and took a peek around.

It turned out that the drumming sound was a man with no shoes and a drum in the tower.  I’m not an expert but I’d have traded the drum for shoes if it was me. After the obligatory summit photo the youngsters set off down the hill to Glastonbury whilst I negotiated every single treacherous step, all three thousand of them, on the way down in the gloom. I don’t want to poke fun but Glastonbury is clearly a very special place for some very special people.

A quick loop around the town trying not to step on the toes of those with no shoes or trip over those asleep on the pavement and we were back to where we’d started that morning and our finish line in the dark and our happy gang of supporters.

The clock stopped at just over 80km, Sarah and the gang were there, the medal had purple sparkles on it and the bar was open.
Sarah was second woman home and Ian had unfortunately retired with an injury half way round.

Now that was an ultra-marathon.

This note would be nothing without my two special running partners. Scott’s refusal to leave me meant I had to finish no matter what. To not do so would have let us both down and I wasn’t having that. He compromised his own race to let me complete mine. He’s my hero. Caz’s chirpy enthusiasm, big bag of drugs and willingness to just be there was the glue in the group that kept us together through those dark moments.

Despite the agony and lasting discomfort I had a wonderful day with my friends battling demons and cows.
Glastonbury is a nice place full of strange people.
You can quickly get bored of stiles.

As always, we couldn’t do these things or enjoy them nearly as much, without Jane and Louise supporting.

Writing this nearly two weeks after the event I’m still limping and still can’t run or ride my bike yet but had such a nice day that I would quite happily sign up for another 50 miler.

These things really change you…

♪♫♪ I think we’re gonna make it… ♪♫♪