Post 39 - Les Alpes

I've just spent a great week-and-a-half at a campsite by a lake in the French Alps, with my wetsuit, bike, running shoes, with great people, a massive tent, and a beast of a car christened the "Panzerwagon"...

I spent the summer of 2005 working in a hotel in Aix-les-Bains, not too far away from where we were this time around. I can't believe that was 9 years ago. Back then, I had never done any serious cycling apart from having a clapped-out bike for scooting around Aberdeen and scooting around university. 9 years ago I went to see the Tour de France in the flesh (I saw them all - Lance, Jan Ullrich and "Mr Shut Up Legs" himself, Jens Voigt, who was in the yellow jersey at the time). Having been a fan of the Tour de France since the days of big Miguel Indurain back in the early 1990s, seeing it up close was brilliant.

I learned that the Tour is not necessarily something you go to see, it's something you can go to be a part of, something you can go and do and experience for yourself. I rented bikes on my days off and went up a pile of mountains. I remember hauling myself up the 2645m Col du Galibier on a crappy rented mountain bike. It was properly tough. I remember hauling myself over the 2000m Col de la Madeleine on a crappy rented road bike, with terrible gearing. I remember bombing down the other side of the Madeleine to the small village in time to catch the last train back to the hotel, and I remember everything hurting - legs, arms, neck, back, and boy did my ass hurt too. The Alps are awesome. I've always wanted to go back and do a few more of the climbs.

Also, seeing as the Wales bike course is obscenely hilly, the Alps were an ideal place to train. I'm much more of a proper cyclist now compared with what I was 9 years ago, so I was looking forward to going and riding the mountains as a reasonably fit cyclist on a decent bike.

As I don't have a great deal of time to write this blog post (I have cooking, washing, ironing, cleaning, tidying and weights still to do, and I want to be in bed early), I am going to upload a pile of photos, with a few comments and thoughts on each one. They say a picture is worth a thousand words anyway, so I guess this will be a massive essay about the Alps...

 

The lake, view from the campsite. The water was surprisingly warm. Most people were fine without a wetsuit. I'm a skinny wimp, so I was only fine with the wetsuit on. Such a great place to swim.

 

 



 

 

More views of the lake. It was at almost 1000m altitude. This photo is looking north, down the valley. For most of the trip, a cold north wind funnelled up the valley. Nights were chilly!

 

 

 

The lake on a calm evening. Most of the time it was quite choppy, which made the swimming tough. But the Ironman Wales swim isn't going to be particularly benign, so this was good practice.

 

In the early morning (admittedly I didn't see many early mornings...), the air temperature was low - lower than the water temperature, so the lake was always steaming. Very atmospheric.

 

 

First big cycling day. A 3-hour drive over the Col du Lautaret to Briancon, to do a big loop on the bikes which took in the Col d'Izoard. The Panzerwagon needed fuel so we stopped in Bourg d'Oisans at the foot of Alpe d'Huez. We tried about 4 different petrol stations. None had Panzer fuel (Unleaded 98). The sat-nav ended up directing us to the top of Alpe d'Huez for fuel. Just a 90-minute, 1000m altitude detour. Madness. We got to the petrol station running on fumes. The photograph shows Steve, a relieved man. This was my first time on Alpe d'Huez and it was seriously steep. But then I always find that hills seem worse in the car than they do on the bike. The Ironman UK bike course looked awful when I drove it. The Ironman Wales bike course looked even worse. And I got round them OK on the bike...

 

Briancon (and France, and Europe in general) embraces cycling... These bikes were on the first roundabout coming into town.

 

 



 

Approaching the Broken Desert on the ascent of the Col d'Izoard, arguably the most scenic col in France. The hills are usually 15-20km of steep climbing, usually taking over an hour to ascend. I usually went up these hills pretty hard, sometimes getting the heart rate over 180bpm. I'd get to the top, turn around, and head back down to meet up with Steve, wherever he had got to. He was usually about 5 minutes behind me. Then we'd ride to the top together and I'd take a few photos.

 

 



 

Selfie at 6000 feet on the Col d'Izoard, at 175bpm. That's not a smile!

 

 



 

Final turn before the summit...

 

 

 

Approaching the summit...

 

 



 

Les grimpeurs sur le sommet...

 

 



 

 

Post-ride reward - awesome stuff!

 

 

 



 

Home for a week and a half...

 



 

At the foot of Alpe d'Huez, maybe the most famous road in cycling...

 

 

 

...21 hairpin bends and 50 minutes of pain later! I went up Alpe d'Huez as hard as I could. The top pros (possibly with the help of doping, but cycling is cleaning up its act) can get up the Alpe in 40-odd minutes. Marco Pantani went under 40 minutes. Lance Armstrong time-trialled up it in 2004 in under 40 minutes. When the Tour goes up the Alpe, a million people line its 14 kilometres. It is awesome to watch. I'm going to watch the Tour there someday... 

 

Anyway, I'd like to think I am reasonably fit, I have a reasonable bike, and it was a reasonable day, and I hammered that Alpe as hard as I could. There are two "summits" a few minutes apart. The first summit is where all the ski station shops, restaurants and bars are. This first summit is where the road flattens for the first time, then it winds its way through the town, over a couple of roundabouts, through a tunnel, and it rears up again towards the upper ski station where it finally finishes. I got to the first summit in 50 minutes and 3 seconds, and had nothing left at all for the final stretch. I got to the second summit in 55 minutes. Then I freewheeled back down to meet the others, and climbed up again with them.

 

 

Allez, allez...

 



 

Some of the famous hairpins on Alpe d'Huez. I knocked off another 100km that day, including two more climbs. It rained and I got soaked. I got off the bike knackered, cold and wet, and forced myself to go for a run. Surprisingly, I felt really good on the run.

 

The campsite toilets even had instructions for use. "Ouah I'm dying to go..." and "Oups I stink!"

 



 

 

 

The others did some "Via Ferrata", which translates as "The Iron Way". Basically it's rock climbing, but built into the rocks and cliffs are iron rungs, bars, ladders, tightropes, rickety bridges, you name it. There is a safety rope also secured beside the fixtures so you can't fall (far). It looks terrifying. I really wanted to try it, but I was afraid I'd injure myself or cack myself. There are Via Ferrata courses all over Europe. They are not for the faint hearted. They can take hours to complete, and can involve altitude gains of over 1000m, with sheer drops.

 

 



 

 

 

Swimming in the lake on a grey day. My wetsuit is 3 seasons old. It's a very good wetsuit, but the more expensive these wetsuits (and therefore the faster the wetsuit), the more fragile they are. My wetsuit has been patched and glued a few times and I think the arm/shoulder seams could go at any time. I had to glue it in France a couple of times. It also doesn't feel as fast as it used to, and the seals are starting to deteriorate. It's letting in more water than it should, which means I get cold and more fatigued. I think I need a new one before Wales, but they aren't cheap...

 

 

The "Dead Man's Pass" on the way to Mont Ventoux.

 

 

 

Selfie on Mont Ventoux, just before reaching the lunar landscape. There are three routes up Ventoux. Our strategy was to do each of them. So we took the first ascent at a comfortable pace. We got to the top, but the weather down the other side, where we intended to descend, was awful. And it was blowing over the mountain towards the town of Sault, where we had parked the car. So we descended 6km to the hotel/shop, where I decided I would go back to the summit as hard as I could, and descend back to the hotel, while Steve bought a few bits and pieces. I got to within 400m of the summit, and decided it was getting too wet, so I turned and headed back. We descended all the way to Sault in drizzle. Back in Sault, the weather was good, so I decided to do a bit more. I did 10 hard hill repetitions, each of 3 minutes. I almost fell off the bike at the end. The repetitions were tough. But, being handed a Yop drink perked me up again.

 

 

The summit is calling...

 

 

A poignant spot. Just before the summit of Mont Ventoux, there is a memorial to Tom Simpson. He was a British cyclist who died here in the 1967 Tour de France. The Ventoux is a tough climb, some would say the toughest. It is very hot, windy and exposed. We got it on an usually wet, cool and calm day. Tom Simpson had been ill with stomach pains and diarrhoea before the Ventoux stage. This, and a combination of brutal heat, relentless pace, pressure, and a cocktail of alcohol and amphetamines (the primitive doping that many riders were involved with), led to his death.

 



 

 

The barren lunar landscape of Mont Ventoux.

 



 

 

The summit sign.

 

 

 

Looking over Provence from the summit.

 

 

The summit of Mont Ventoux.

 

The town of Sault. Little French towns are great places. There were so many people out playing "petanque" (French bowls) in Sault. There was also a bike shop in Sault. In this bike shop was a really cool framed picture, which wasn't for sale. I should have asked more about it and taken a photo of it. I'm currently trying to track it down on the internet, without much luck. It was a painting/drawing of the main street in the town of Sault, with the residents totally absorbed in a game of petanque. Even the police were looking on. They were all oblivious to the fact that their game of petanque was holding up the entire Tour de France, and all the riders were waiting on their bikes with peeved looks on their faces. Petanque is obviously taken very seriously in Sault!

 

 

Post-Ventoux filth!

All in all, a great time in France. I enjoyed speaking some French again, and it hasn't done my fitness any harm. But it was very hard to come back to London after spending time out there.

Post 38 - Cardiology

The past few weeks have been a difficult time with all the problems and issues I’ve had. I’ve been monitoring myself and my body very closely, looking for signs of recovery, signs that I can up the training again, or signs telling me to ease off and give myself more time to recover. The trouble is, if I am to compete at Ironman Wales on 14^th September, I don’t really have a lot of time. Further trouble is that I am due to spend ten days in the French Alps from next week, avec mon vélo/with my bike. I’ll be staying at a campsite by a lake, with loads of high Tour de France mountains nearby. It will be great training for Wales, because not a single part of the Wales course is flat.

However, health is the number one priority. If I’m not happy that I’m healthy enough and recovered enough then I can’t push myself in training, I can’t ride up 7000-foot mountains in France, and there will be a question mark over Wales.

I’ve recently noticed a few odd heartbeats. Nothing prolonged, or nothing that makes me feel like I’m about to collapse, but just the very odd soft/hard beat, along with a strange feeling. Everything is normal, then boom, the funny flutter and funny feeling comes, and then a second or two later, it’s gone. These feelings have perhaps been compounded by being fairly stressed over the past weeks, and perhaps because I am very lean at the minute, and had a high level of fitness, and a low but strong resting heartbeat, I’m more inclined to notice my heartbeats.

I was wondering what on earth was going on. Was it something benign and not to be worried about, or was it something that the infection had brought on? Was it something serious? Was it risky to train hard? Should I be training at all? I realised that thinking about doing another high level Ironman so soon, or even going out to the Alps to train at altitude, was something that could only be done after an investigation and an all-clear.

I’d already been checked over a million times in hospital, I’d had a medical check-up just before Ironman UK, and I had a more thorough medical check-up immediately after Ironman UK , which included an electrocardiogram heart analysis. All of these checks were absolutely fine, but I felt I needed something a bit more in-depth. An electrocardiogram only monitors the heart’s activity for a very short period of time. I knew that an ultrasonic echocardiogram, which takes longer to carry out, looks in detail at the heart’s structure. I also knew that 24 or 48 hour electrocardiograms were possible, and if I had one of these, hopefully it would pick up one or two of these irregular heartbeats to allow it to be analysed in detail.

I also know that doing Ironman triathlons and the associated training, elevating the heart rate for prolonged periods of time, does put a lot of stress on the body. Many other athletes at a similar level would be getting regular detailed heath and heart check-ups. I’ve never had a detailed heart examination and felt it was something worth doing, for peace of mind and to get the confidence back that I can push myself hard in training and racing.

I knew the whole process would be a nightmare. Arranging appointments. Travelling around London in its maddening crowds and maddening public transport (I really, really hate doing this). Spending ages in waiting rooms. Possibly having to take time off work, or leaving work early, or coming in late. Compromising my training. Possibly compromising my sleep. A nightmare. But it had to be done. So I phoned the NHS (National Health Service) non-emergency number to ask for advice. They said the first thing to do was to see a doctor. I know that it can take weeks to get an appointment, so I phoned the surgery at exactly 9am the next morning, right at opening time. I got through straight away and asked for an emergency appointment. Later that day, I saw a doctor.

I explained the situation and he did some initial checks, and said everything seemed fine, but that a 24-hour electrocardiogram would be a good idea. He said that on the NHS, it would take a few weeks for the appointment to come through. This was no good to me. I had 2 weeks before going to the Alps. I wanted an all-clear before the trip. Fortunately, I have private medical insurance with my work, so I was able to go to a private hospital after a lengthy phone call with my insurers to discuss the problem and cross my fingers that they would cover everything. They said they would, so very soon I found myself talking to a cardiologist at a private hospital in east London.

He did his initial checks and said everything seemed fine. He wanted to do another short electrocardiogram, then an echocardiogram, and a 48-hour electrocardiogram monitor. This needed another phone call to the insurers to see if these would all be covered, which they agreed to. The initial electrocardiogram only took a few minutes and involved him attaching about ten electrodes to my chest, shoulders and ankles. These then fed into a computer that produced a print-out of what my heart was doing.

I could see him looking at the print-out of the electrical activity of my heartbeat. I could see he wasn’t completely happy, and he said, “Now, I’m going to have to tell you this…” For a split second I was worried. He explained that the results showed that I had slightly thickened heart muscle.

I already knew this was common in endurance athletes, and I also knew that very thick muscle was a bad thing. He said an echocardiogram would determine just how thick, but that his initial impressions were that it didn’t seem abnormally thick. He then explained his diagnosis: Ectopic heartbeats. During our discussions, I really grilled him on everything I could possibly think of.

Ectopic heartbeats are actually really common in most people, but they are generally not noticed. There are a huge number of cells in the heart that must all fire electrically at precisely the same time to make the heart beat. There are four chambers in the heart, each of which will expand and contract. Sometimes, a very small number of these cells can fire prematurely, which causes the ectopic heartbeat. It is essentially a weaker beat, followed by a corrective stronger beat. It causes a strange sensation, but only lasts for a couple of beats. I was only experiencing them fairly infrequently, and so I was reassured by the cardiologist that there was nothing to worry about.

When you are more in tune with your body, and when you have a really low body fat and a strong, low heart beat, these ectopic beats can become much more noticeable. Also with a low heart rate associated with a high level of fitness, there is more time between beats for a few cells to fire prematurely, and for all of these reasons ectopic heart beats are more common, or certainly more commonly noticed, by people with a high level of fitness.

I grilled him some more on the effects of endurance sports on the heart, and again was reassured. He said that from a health point of view, I would get the same benefits from much more moderate, shorter periods of exercise, but didn’t see a significantly higher health risk from high-level endurance competition. He said that my heart muscles would not thicken significantly more with continued training. He spoke of the need to de-train properly when I “retire” from competitive racing, rather than a complete and immediate cessation. This could have detrimental effects, causing my heart muscles to turn to “jelly”. Not what I want.

He said that all of this would hopefully be backed up by an echocardiogram, which was scheduled for a couple of days later. He said that a nurse would carry out the procedure, and would be able to give me her opinion. She would then pass the results to him, and he promised he would phone me for another discussion.

So a few days later I was back in the hospital, lying on a bed with my top off, being jellied up by a humorous nurse. An echocardiogram takes about half an hour and involves being poked, prodded and rubbed by an ultrasonic probe. The jelly is applied to create a better “connection” between the probe and the body. A real-time image of the heart is then projected onto a computer screen, and detailed measurements and analyses can be carried out.

The probe occasionally makes noise, beeps, and transmits the whooshing, glugging sound of the heart doing its job. It was quite amazing. The nurse would tell me when it would make a noise, and what kind of noise it would make, I guess to stop any potential panic. Apart from when her pager went off. It was like in the movies, when someone is in intensive care, and all of a sudden the alarms start blaring, computers start beeping, and doctors and nurses appear from nowhere, galvanised into urgent and life-saving action. Her pager sounded exactly like this. Really loud, “BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP….” For a split second it took me by surprise. But I was immediately reassured. “Don’t worry darling, you’re not dying, it’s just my pager!” I know that expectant mothers have ultrasound scans of their babies. I asked the nurse what would happen if she found a baby. “I hope I find a baby because if I do, we’ll be rich and famous…” Unfortunately, or fortunately, there was no baby…

The nurse’s impression of the echocardiogram was favourable, and she said she would pass the results to the cardiologist, who would phone me. They were as good as their word, and I had another lengthy discussion with the cardiologist. My heart muscle thickness was “in the upper range of acceptable.” If 1 was normal, and 1.3 was the upper limit of acceptable, mine was 1.2, which was pretty much “normal” for an endurance athlete. The echocardiogram had not shown up anything untoward, and the cardiologist was confident that I had a normal heart, with no problems and nothing to worry about. He was very confident in his diagnosis of harmless infrequent ectopic beats. I could continue training with no fear, push myself, go to the Alps, and carry on racing. This was great news.

Below is my heart, as shown in the echocardiogram. It's pretty amazing, and pretty taken for granted. Try making a fist, and squeezing it tight once or twice per second, even for a few minutes. It gets pretty tiring, pretty quickly. Try doing it for a lifetime. That's what the heart does...

 

The cardiologist was really thorough and I liked his attitude and approach. To leave no stone unturned, he suggested that I wear a 48-hour heart monitor in the hope that it would capture an ectopic heartbeat or two. This would allow them to be analysed in depth and absolutely confirmed as harmless. A 48-hour monitor involves having a few electrodes stuck to the skin, and carrying a small portable receiver box that captures the data over a 48-hour period. However, there was no time to do this 48-hour monitor before the Alps trip. The cardiologist was very confident that there were no problems and said he was happy for me to go and train hard, then have the 48-hour monitor done when I get back. His email report to me read as follows:

I really am quite happy with the result.

 

As we discussed on the 'phone I take a cut off of 1.3cm for the thickness of the left ventricular wall - yours is 1.2cm and so normal, especially for an athlete. The heart internal dimension is also within normal limits at 5.6cm, but again I would accept 5.8cm.

 

I note the comments about the RV appearing large, but this is subjective, appears OK to me and it works well.. There is also 'mild MR' (mitral regurgitation) but this is an extremely common finding with the sensitive equipment these days where some blood is seen to go back through the closed mitral valve, and it is of no consequence.
 

Again, putting the echo in the whole context of your symptoms I have no problems with you training and good luck with this.
 

I am of course very happy to go over this again in clinic when we have the results of the heart monitor too.

 

I'll have a few more questions for him, but having talked with him, and the nurse, and received this email, I'm satisfied there is nothing serious gong on. I’ve since done some reading up on ectopic heartbeats and have found people on various internet forums who have experienced exactly what I have felt, and who have also been investigated and given the same diagnosis and all-clear that I have been given. There seems to be a feeling that they can be brought on by a few things: caffeine, taurine. Too much sugar. Stress. High fitness and a low heart rate. Lack of sleep. Exercise. A change in fitness levels or exercise habits. Or they can happen for no reason at all. Most of these reasons are applicable to me. I was told that while wearing the 48-hour monitor I was to try to induce the ectopic beats. So maybe I’ll stop sleeping and start drinking coke…

 

A few quotes from various websites and internet forums that I've come across and can completely relate to:
 

• It's common in trained athletes and, especially if only occurring at rest, harmless. Usually felt as a 'flutter' (the early beat) and then a 'thump' (the next 'normal' beat that is more forceful than usual as the heart has had time to fill with blood during the time it needs to re-polarise after the early beat). As you say, caffeine can exacerbate them as can viral illnesses, hangovers and general tiredness. The slower your resting heart rate, the more likely you are to get them - all heart muscle cells are connected electrically therefore if one cell fires off, the whole heart beats. The sino-atrial node (pacemaker) has the fastest intrinsic rate and normal heart beats originate there but the slower it gets, the more likely other heart muscle cells are to depolarise (fire off) before it and cause an early beat. Studies have been done looking at people with frequent early beats and structurally normal hearts and there is no increase in risk compared to people who do not get them.

• ...you have the impression you miss a beat, then a next one is stronger, and your stomach feels exactly like when you're flying and the plane drops for a second or so...
• Happens to me once every hour or two when I start getting into exceptional shape. It's to the point now that it's become an indicator of when I'm reaching top form. Only happens when I'm not working out though.
• The feeling is very distinct, definitely like a 1-2 second free-fall followed by a super hard double-the-strength beat that is easy to hear internally.
• No worries. You have had the work-up and you know the cause. My resting heartrate in my 20's and 30's was about 36 so anytime I had caffeine I got the thump fest. Really unnerving, especially as a medical student rotating through cardiology and watching some of the patients die from fatal arrhythmias. Worse at night if you lay on your left side because then there is no way not to notice and also when sitting still quietly doing whatever. As an athlete you likely have sinus bradycardia and a larger more powerful contraction which really heightens your sense of what it going on. Now in my early 50's, my resting heartrate is 44 and the caffeine no longer has the same effect. As long as you are not having prolonged episodes, I would try to forget about it. Your heart will probably last your lifetime. ;-)
• That's when your heart beats out of synch for like 1-2 beats (one really slow, then a pause, then two fast ones or something similar), right? That happens to me sometimes (sometimes once a month, sometimes once a day). I got an echocardio and an EKG, there is nothing to worry about because it is something that is pretty common.
• Try cutting out the sweetener Aspartame from your diet. The little blighter crops up in all kinds of food.
• Caffeine, changes in workout routine, etc., all can be associated with some ectopy. You've been checked and cleared. The only time I'd get concerned is if you got into an atrial fibrillation rhythm, where your HR is constantly erratic for a long period of time.
• I go through periods of getting these when I'm resting. For me I think it coincides with my cardiac fitness making rapid shifts up or down - say I mostly get them when I stop training for a while, or bump my training back up, as though they are caused by my system readjusting to the change in fitness. Therefore, nowadays when I get this when I'm training heavily I actually take it as a positive sign that the training is working!  
• Anyway, don't understimate stress and how it might impact your symptoms, even though you may not realized you're not stressed. It may be that you're not relaxing. I went for three years thinking it had a completely physical origin.

 

I’m a lot happier now than I was a few weeks ago, and I do feel a bit sharper too. Hopefully ten days in the Alps next week will do me a lot of good, and then after that I’ll have one more tough week of training followed by a two-week taper before Ironman Wales. I really hope I go to Ironman Wales and deliver a performance that I’m happy with…

Post 37 - The Thunder/Murder Run

In terms of training, eating and sleeping, this has been my first “normal” week since the middle of June – there have been a few unexpected hurdles in the way since then – getting sick, going to hospital, trying to balance enough recovery and enough training to get to the start line of Ironman UK, tapering down, recovering after the race, and getting everything tidied and cleaned after the Ironman. I feel much better than I did a few weeks ago, and the more time that passes, the better I will feel (I hope). I still intend to have a medical check-up next week, as I will be going to the French Alps the week after next. I’ll be bringing my wetsuit, bike, and running shoes, and hopefully getting in some good mileage and altitude training on some of the famous Tour de France mountains.

Training this week was as follows:

Monday 28^th July 2014: Rest
Tuesday 29^th July 2014: 1:10 turbo (1 hour hard), 20 minute run
Wed 30^th July 2014: 30 minute fartlek run
Thurs 31^st July 2014: 1:20 turbo (8 x 5mins easy, 5mins hard), 20 minute run
Friday 1^st August 2014: Swim 3.1km (paddle drills), 1:02 turbo (10 x 2mins left leg/right leg/both legs)
Saturday 2^nd August 2014: 3:05 turbo (with 6 x 5 mins very hard), 30 minute run
Sunday 3^rd August 2014: Swim 3.3km (with 13 x 50m very hard), 90 minute run

Totals: Swim 6.4km, Bike 145 miles, Run 28 miles

At the end of last week I went to the “Thunder Run”. This is a 24-hour run that people can choose to tackle solo, in pairs, or in teams. It is an off-road, lapped course, with each lap being 10km. The venue is in the middle of nowhere, somewhere in the Midlands. The object is to complete as many kilometres as possible between midday on Saturday and midday on Sunday. You could argue that it makes Ironman look like child’s play… My housemate Natalie was competing in the solo female event, having had some success last year as a mixed pair. My other housemate Steve and I went to support her. Some of their other friends had entered a team of 8 and I agreed to run a few laps on their team.

I had no idea what to expect at this event, and hadn’t really thought too much about it, since it followed so soon after the Ironman. I’d been told it was like Glastonbury for runners, as the thousands of runners and supporters all pitch tents and camp for the weekend. Some take it very seriously, and for some it’s a bit of fun with a few drinks to take the edge off the madness of it all.

I expected the course to be fairly benign, maybe lapping around a lake, or a nice flat wooded trail. On arrival, I could see that the campsite was in a big flat grassy field, behind which was a huge wooded hill, with the course seeming to meander up this hill and through the woods. There were tents and runners everywhere. The heat was fierce. It must have been pushing 30 degrees C. Madness. Free water was available from big water tankers, and there were a few pricey food stalls, but other than that, runners and supporters were on their own.

Natalie got going, and I didn’t think too much more about the race other than meeting her after every lap, getting her some food and drink, checking her position on the timing screens. The rest of the time was spent cooking food, filling water bottles, pitching tents, sorting out gear, putting on suncream, sweating, putting on more suncream, drinking water, drinking more water, and wishing it wasn’t quite so hot. There was no escaping the heat. On finishing one of her laps, Natalie asked for something cold. There was nothing cold to give her, everything was warm. The water was warm. No respite. Litres and litres of sweat were being lost.

 

Pit-stop after 7 hours... 7 hours! 17 to go... 17!

At around 6pm, I was due to run my first lap. I hadn’t yet seen much of the course, apart from the start/finish straight (which I was soon to discover was the only flat part of the entire 10k lap), and a few other stretches in the trees on the hill. If I had thought that the whole event was a bit mad and crazy before running my lap, within 1km of starting my lap I was thinking that the whole thing was absolutely and totally mad and crazy. After a few more kilometres, I was thinking that it was downright murderous. For me, the terrain was a nightmare. Steep hills, steep descents, rocky, rough, bumpy trails and grass, tree routes, twists, turns, heat, dust, awful cambers. There were gasping soloists, only 6 hours in. Most people were shuffling along or walking. I was petrified, as it was so well suited to twisting an ankle. And people would be running this at night, in the dark, with no floodlights, and nothing other than a head torch.

The route passed the campsite, and some kids had water pistols. Had they been more enterprising, they could have charged a fortune. People would have thrown money at them for a squirt of water. I was glad when my lap was over. I pushed it reasonably hard and did 39 minutes for the 10k. I went back to our site. “How was it?” I was asked. My response was along the lines of “murder run, not thunder run…”

All the while, Natalie and the other soloists were clocking up lap after lap. It was amazing. There was a tremendous camaraderie. How could there not be? The atmosphere was unreal. There was a magnificent sunset over the start/finish straight, and the temperature finally dropped. Then darkness fell. And the atmosphere become even more unreal. A focussed quietness fell over the event, as the start/finish line announcer ended his shift, the music switched off, and bobbing head torches made their way along the course, up the hills, through the trees, not yet halfway through the 24 hours. Some of these head torches were like full-beam headlights. Teams and supporters were strategising their sleep plans. Some soloists wouldn’t sleep at all. Some would sleep for a few hours. Teams would ensure that they had people awake to continue an unbroken 24 hour relay.

 

Sunset and night running

The weather turned late at night, and it rained. At this point Natalie came into the tent, ate a hot meal and took a couple of hours of sleep. This was smarter than continuing to run. As morning came, the place came back to life. Everyone was up, the weather was back to the searing heat of yesterday, 18 hours down and 6 to go.

 

I ran another lap at about 8am. I decided that I wouldn’t push it too hard this time, I would go with the flow and run how the course wanted me to run, rather than fighting it. I was very careful with my footing. But I was still flying past everyone else. I almost felt like a bit of a fraud. Soloists had been out for 20 hours. Teams had been up all night. All I’d done was run for 40 minutes. The soloists were distinguishable by having a yellow “SOLO” badge on their backs. I gave them all a “well done” as I passed. I overtook Natalie. OK, she wasn’t quite running at 40 minute 10k pace, but she looked strong. Some soloists looked delirious, and were struggling to maintain a straight line. Most were walking. Natalie was doing just fine. I heard a few rumours that some soloists had suffered heatstroke.

I finished my lap and was very surprised to only be one minute slower than yesterday. This told me that it wasn’t a lap to be forced. Forcing it needs heavy “braking” and “acceleration”, taking a greater toll on the body, with an increased risk of turning an ankle. Forcing it takes a lot out of you. After my lap, I did a recovery jog, got some porridge and a banana down me, and drank a load of water.

As the midday finish approached, the atmosphere really ramped up. The start/finish straight was packed. “Heartbreak Hill”, about 500m from the finish and visible from the finishing straight, was packed. Supporters were cheering everyone up it. Soloists got the biggest cheers. Natalie managed 14 laps. 140km. Unbelievable. And she looked pretty fresh after it. No dramatic collapses, like some finishers. No inability to speak. No incoherence. She did really well. She was maybe a couple of laps down on what she had hoped for, but for a first participation in such an event, she did really well. I think there would be a lot to learn for next year, from both her point of view and from the point of view of the support team as well. I wonder will she go back next year? 17 laps won it for the female soloists. Natalie did 14 and could easily have done 15. A bit of focussed training and proper nutrition, hydration, rest/recovery/sleep, treatment/massage, and a well-organised support crew, would definitely help to add a lap or two or three...

 

Soloist going up the last hill for the last time...

 

Team runners going up the final hill on the final lap

Male soloist finishing

Sheffield girls finishing

 

24 hours...!

 

Natalie went off to the shower, while Steve and I dismantled the tent and packed up. It was a tired car on the way back to London… What an awesome event. I couldn’t ever comprehend doing 24 hours. Absolute respect to everyone who did the 24 hours. Wow. But “Thunder Run”? I don’t think so… “Murder Run” would be much more appropriate…