Go Veggies have gone ultra crazy lately. Jenna G, Steve C
and Mick W have all pushed their endurance capabilities to the bonkers end of
insane in three truly character-testing gruellers.
The Bullock Smithy
For reasons of officialdom, and accordingly promoted as a
long-distance hiking event, the Bullock Smithy is really a
fearsomely tough fell race that relentlessly grinds competitors down over 56,
yes… 56 miles of the truly horrendous climbs, descents and leg-snapping
underfoot conditions of Derbyshire’s celebrated Peak District. Jenna G and Mick
W decided to risk their ability to walk in later life and - with a genuine and
entirely justifiable fear of the unknown - took to the start line.
It bears a pause to think about the true difficulty of such
an arduous event. For many, a marathon on fairly level ground is an event too
far. A marathon over the fells of the Peak District is an altogether different
prospect - we’re indisputably talking about a serious endurance effort. So, imagine
doing such a marathon, then - without even pausing to stretch out - doing another;
then - for good measure -sticking another four miles on top of that; oh, and also
battling the difficulties of navigation throughout the course of the night. This
kind of stuff breaks people.
Even for stick-thin ultra-endurance racers who permanently
bear the ‘gaunt and haunted’ look, and who have decades of fell experience,
this is serious stuff. To be kind, Mick was pretty under-prepared for this kind
of mega-effort with only a couple of years of high-peaks racing experience
under his belt. In contrast, Jenna, in spite of being a very natural runner,
was - by any measure - impossibly
under-prepared. With parkruns, PECOs , Trunces
and similar short / hard efforts underpinning her running experience, something
like the Bullock Smithy - according to conventional wisdom - should be
impossible. Luckily, Jenna doesn’t ‘do’ conventional.
It’s fair to say that both suffered unimaginably during one
full day and night of sheer purgatory but against all odds - and some very dark
patches - both succeeded. Mick finished in 17 hours and 49minutes Jenna
finished literally just behind in 17 hours and 54 minutes. Mick did incredibly
well but Jenna’s achievement was simply astonishing: perhaps the GV performance of 2017.
The Chorley
6-Hour Road Race
Meanwhile, Steve C, in a genuine test of mental as well as
physical endurance, put sanity on hold and took on the Chorley
6-Hour Road Race. This event is based in Astley
Park (in Chorley )
and never leaves it. In fact, it hardly even threatens the park’s boundaries at
all: because the full six hour race loop measures only 732 metres (under half a
mile). Competitors were released from their responsible adult at 10.00am and
were expected to run round-and-round-and-round-and round that very same loop, non-stop,
until 4.00pm that afternoon.
As if that wasn’t enough, the day itself was wet and windy
and the track muddy from works being done to install pipes right in the middle
of the course.
Steve reported:
“I suppose that
something over 1100 feet of climbing in 48km wouldn't be that surprising on
most runs but I had rather expected the park equivalent of a genuine running
track. Predictably I had a bad 90 minutes in the middle of it which blew away
my chances of the 55km or so I'd been hoping for and I just scraped the 30
miles. Best news was that the prizes were done in alcohol with the winners
getting vodka, the placers wine and the rest of us a couple of bottles of ale.
A parkrun, but not as we know it.”
Steve has now been made aware it’s possible to skip the
totally unnecessary six hour precursor and simply buy a bottle of decent ale
from a supermarket for about £1.50
The White Rose Ultra
Is what it says, an ultra in the White Rose county of Yorkshire - just. The course is based in
the (very lumpy) Pennines right to the west of
the county and, at times, runs perilously close to the boundary with the
permanently wet and grey side of the hills. Two GVs turned up to face the
relentless hills: a relatively fresh
Mick W and an injured Steve C; still sporting numerous muscle tears and a
generally broken body from his 6-hour Chorley
trackathon.
Steve, in spite of being held together with KT tape and
quite literally reduced to a hobble in the very first 100 yards of the 30 mile
effort, knuckled down, fought the pain and - incredibly - succeeded in making
the distance.
Mick recounts his own personal experience:
“During idle chit chat
with a fellow parkrun regular whilst awaiting the start of our local 5k I was
informed of an upcoming event that he had already entered, but which I’d never
heard of: the White Rose Ultra. Apparently you have the choice of entering a
30, 60 or 100 mile version of the race based around the same 30-mileloop,
mostly off road and always hilly. Intrigued by what I’d heard and needing to
know more, a quick search online whilst recovering from the parkrun effort
revealed that with only a few remaining weeks before the event I was faced with
a tough decision. It turned out that from midnight that very night, the few
remaining places were more expensive. I wasn’t trained for, and had no
intention of running, an ultra and - after all - my curiosity was really only
driven by a desire to see what my fellow park runner had entered. But, faced
with the screen and panicked at the thought of a remaining place costing more
the next day, the Yorkshire tight-arse in me took
over and unable to fight four decades of socialisation I hit the payment
button. A confirmation e-mailed pinged back almost immediately and then the
realisation sank in… what on earth have I just done? The immediate horror was
soon put to one side - I’d saved a tenner, that’s what I’d done!
With a much needed
requirement to get up to ultra distance fitness from my 5Ks of a weekly
parkrun, plus a curiosity to see the course I convinced my bro that a steady
recce would help maintain his out of tri-season fitness. Blind-sided with the
promise of a free lunch, he was in and a date was duly set. On the day and with
only fifteen miles of the recce run (the first half of the course), I was
completely spent and couldn't comprehend having to do the same again, especially
as the second half of the course profile looks even harder. Not to worry, there
was still two and a half weeks to go, one of which was completely taken up by a
family holiday away… oh crap.
The start came all too
soon and the first half of the course was a familiar retrace of the recce with
no surprises. My plan was to stick to the similar ‘steady’ pacing we’d knocked
out a couple of weeks before knowing that today was double the distance.
Unmanned water stations were alternated with full on feed stations with a vast
array of goodies that any ultra runner could wish for - right down to the flat
‘roller cola’. I took nothing; I was, after all, ‘only’ doing the 30 miler and
had come fully prepared with ‘Tailwind’ and a Snicker (see pic for motivational
confectionary message). I hit the halfway mark a full 20 minutes ahead of the
race plan and, although secretly proud of the swift pace, knew that it was
likely a drastic mistake regarding the second half. It was.
The northern half of
the loop started with an immediate and incredibly steep road climb that for me
was unrunnable. I shamefully walked, eating chocolate! The climbing continued
but eased enough for me to adopt a run/walk strategy to the top which seemed to
go on forever. I wrongly assumed that the finish would be essentially downhill.
It wasn't, and any opportunity to include more climbing whilst winding back to
the finish had been cruelly incorporated by the course planners. I felt for the
60 and 100 mile competitors who had a further 1, or 2 plus, more laps to do respectively.
I crossed the finish
line to a welcome cheer and applause, collected my finisher T-shirt and medal
and was pointed to some food, the marshal asking:
“Would you like some
free chilli or soup?”
“Yes please, I’m from Yorkshire . Do you have anything vegetarian?”
“It’s all vegetarian”.
Now, that was a
result.”
For the 30.08 mile course incorporating a height gain of 4544
ft Mick’s finishing time was 5:21:03 and his overall position was 34/202. A
truly impressive performance.
Jenna and Mick still in Bullock Smithy denial
Mick and Steve C mustering for The White Rose Ultra
Mick smashing the White Rose Ultra
Judgementally sneering confectionary