My First Ultra – Last One Standing, Castleward, Northern Ireland
I do a little bit of fell-running and one day last November I was out running in the Pentlands with a few guys from my old running club. We got chatting and one of them, Alan, mentioned the Last One Standing. I was vaguely aware of the concept, having once read something about Laz’s Back Yard Ultra but had no idea there were other ones about. ‘It sounds fun’ I said. ‘Come and have a go then’ he replied. Despite the little voice in my head saying ‘don’t be so #@$%ing stupid’ the words which actually came out were ‘OK’ and then ‘How does it work again?’
For those who don’t know the concept is simple, if not the practice. There is a fairly short lap, 4.2 miles in this case, which everyone has an hour to complete. At the end of the hour you must be on the start line ready to go again. Anyone who is not on the start line at the allotted time is out. This is repeated every hour, on the hour, until there is just one person left.
As an introduction to Ultras it actually sounded quite a sensible one. There was almost no way I could get lost, I wouldn’t have to carry any gear, I would get fed every four miles and if I did hurt myself I wouldn’t be stranded on my own in the middle of nowhere.
‘How far do you reckon we’ll need to go?’ I asked. ‘Last year’s winner did forty-one hours’ was the reply. Forty-one hours?!? That was considerably more than I was expecting, more than I could seriously contemplate, what on earth had I just agreed to? Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea after all.
In the ten weeks between this point and arriving on the start line I decided that it would probably be a good idea to do a bit of training. I had run the Lahrig Ghru a few years ago, coming absolutely bog last with a knee injury, but that stood as my longest ever race. I had once run forty miles not in a race, but that included café stops and a pub stop long enough to watch the rugby, neither of which I was expecting to have during the event.
I therefore did a thirty-mile run, with a café stop, and felt fine after that, that was a good start. I then did a thirty-five mile run without a café and got myself completely lost up on the grouse moors in the dark and the fog, there’s a long story there which I’ll save for another time (I wasn’t actually lost, I was fifty yards from I should have been but someone had planted a new wood since my map was printed fifteen years previously and that, along not being able to see more than three feet, was messing with my head) I felt surprisingly OK after this run too. I then did one final ‘long’ run (well, it felt long to me) twenty miles back from the outskirts of Edinburgh to my house after which I felt utterly rubbish,and then declared myself ready. What could possibly go wrong?
Well, Storm Dennis for a start. I was working in London on the Wednesday and Thursday before the race and the train back up to Edinburgh was late (Well obviously, it’s a train, of course it’s late – Ed) not helped by either the storms or someone putting an electric train on the non-electrified King’s Cross to Aberdeen route, you couldn’t make it up. I was therefore also late collecting George from Edinburgh and then even later arriving at Alan’s house in Falkirk having taken an unnecessary detour into Fife on the way passed the bridge. Still, who needs sleep anyway.
Storm Dennis made the journey down to the ferry surprisingly wobbly, a large slab-sided van isn’t great in force eight crosswinds. It also turns out I’m not great in them either, feeling a little queasy on the ship and having to head up on deck for a bit of fresh air. My companions, a tug-boat caption and a chap who grew up on a very small island and appears to have spent his entire childhood in a boat, were of course hugely sympathetic.
Oddly enough this was my first trip to the island of Ireland. My first impressions of it were that, compared to Ayrshire just across the water, it is less windy, less snowy and more full of roadworks. In a dramatic break from tradition we were the first to arrive at the venue on Friday afternoon, I’ve never been early for anything in my life. In another break from tradition we had an early night, listening to the rain bouncing off the roof of the van as it swayed in the wind.
I was up early enough to be able to have two breakfasts. The medical tent had blown down overnight but nearly everything else appeared to be intact. Not necessarily where it had been left, but still intact.
I was actually quite nervous as I made my way to the start (a mad last-minute rush as usual, no matter how much time I have for anything I’m always late). We’ve all heard of Type-1 fun, things which you actually enjoy at the time, and Type-2 fun, things which are fun with hindsight but not necessarily enjoyable whilst you are doing them. I was wondering if the same distinction could be drawn with fear? Type-1 for things like jumping out of aeroplanes or being chased by a lion and Type-2 for things like this, a kind of apprehension that this is going to hurt but I’m not sure just how much and which gradually builds up in the weeks prior to the competition.
As I was still busy pinning my number on (lucky 17) when the hooter went I was the last of the one hundred and ten runners to set off. It was a remarkably relaxed start, none of the mad sprint into the first corner which one gets in pretty much any other race. I hadn’t done a practice lap and so this was a bit of mystery tour for me. There had a been a practice session a few weeks previously and the big names had used that to work out their pacing, where they had to push and where they could back off and save their energy. This early on I was just tagging on to the rear of the bunch, turns out it’s quite sociable at the back.
I completed my first lap in fifty-three minutes. I was taking it easy, taking my cues from the people in front of me, none of whom seemed to pushing very hard. This did however mean that I had much less of a rest than I was expecting, it was a much slower lap than I had anticipated but since everyone else was more experienced than me and that’s what they were doing then I assumed this was the way to do it. It was still enough of a rest to be able to get cold though, the winds of Storm Dennis not really helping in that respect.
Everyone was back on the start line again ready for lap two. The lap itself was a mixture of everything, some fields, some forest paths, some Land Rover tracks and even a short stretch of tarmac. There was a lot of standing water around, not as much as Ciara and Dennis had deposited elsewhere but enough. This early on the mud wasn’t much of a problem but it was clearly going to become an issue when the course got churned up as the race progressed. Is race even the right word? I have no idea what you call this.
My first few laps were largely uneventful, just jogging along near the back, enjoying the craic (see, learning the local lingo) and making sure I was eating well between laps. I decided to go a for a quicker lap just before sunset in order to buy a bit of time to change to some warmer clothing but this didn’t really go to plan. I stopped for a quick pee-break about half way round during which I managed to break the button on my shorts and then completely failed to fix them by using a safety pin from my number (They are not as safe as the name would have you believe and a little bit of blood was lost in the process) The rest of the lap was run in a style which would have certainly have got me a job at the Ministry of Silly Walks.
The problem with the laps taking longer than I had expected was that I didn’t really have much time to be able to do anything about this. Some of the more experienced competitors were saying that this was about four or five minutes a lap slower than they were expecting. There was the option of simply running faster of course but I had been warned about going too quick, it might be fine for a couple of laps but going slowly was definitely the consensus.
I eventually conceded defeat about 2am and decided that I really would have to change my shoes and went for it at the end of that lap, right one first. The mud made it rather difficult to get the laces open but I had passed the point of no return when the two-minute call was given. I somehow got it off, removed the sock, hurriedly pulled a new one on and then crammed a new shoe on over it, one trail shoe full of mud and one clean, comfy and warm fell shoe, that would have to do. I sprinted for the start line, crossed it just in time and then stopped to adjust my sock and tie my laces the other side of it, a process not helped by having pretty cold fingers which wouldn’t really bend.
I quite enjoy running in the dark, just the little pool of light from my headtorch in front of me, one small patch of ground to focus on. The rain was coming and going, but wasn’t as bad as the forecast had lead us to expect. The wind was still pretty strong though and the shelter of the trees was most welcome to warm up again after some of the exposed sections.
I was however going quite slowly. I was concisous of how much faff changing one shoe had been and wasn’t certain I would have enough time at the end of a lap to change the other and so I just left it, odd shoes didn’t seem to matter, they were both so full of mud and grit anyway. The only problem was with the new one on the right-hand side (is that the correct term? The right-foot side is more accurate but just sounds wrong somehow) I could feel something underneath the ball of the foot, every time it struck the ground, It felt as though I had got the sock on a bit wrong in my hurry and it had bunched up, there was definitely a lump of something there and it was surprisingly sore. Maybe it was just fatigue making me over-sensitive.
I pushed on in my odd shoes for another three laps but I was in quite a lot of pain by this stage and decided that I really would have to do something about my foot. I paused just after crossing the start line, knelt down and, once I got the laces apart through all the mud, pulled my shoe off and then a blood-soaked sock. That wasn’t really what I was expecting, it wasn’t a fold in the bottom of my sock at all but rather a flap of skin which had come off and sort of rolled up underneath my foot, no wonder it was sore. There was very little I could do about this apart from pull off the offending epidermis, replace the sock and shoe and carry on.
This had cost me a reasonable amount of time and so I had to push quite hard on that lap, well as hard as I could,not catching up to Amy, the last placed runner, until the tarmac section about two thirds of the way round. She said that she was sure she wasn’t going to make the cut-off and urged me onwards. Wondering just how much time I had lost earlier I pressed on, thinking that if I did one of these again I really should bring a watch.
Running at that sort of pace with that much skin missing underneath my foot and the associated ingress of mud and grit into my flesh took its toll. My next lap was much slower, I was really starting to struggle, mainly the pain in my foot but my thighs were also hurting and getting stiffer and stiffer. I kept telling myself that this would be the final lap in the darkness, the sun would be up next time round and if it was anything like a bike race this would be accompanied by the arrival of my second wind.
However, unlike a bike race here one cannot afford to have a single bad lap, the format is utterly unforgiving, one sub-standard circuit and it’s game over, as it proved to be for me. 17 laps, 17hrs16mins31secs and I was out. Time to sit down, eat and try to get some feeling back into my extremities.
This is where I would usually end a race report but of course the race itself was still going on, after I timed out there were twenty-five runners still circulating. Alan, George and myself had agreed that whoever was out first would be allowed two hours sleep and would then become a helper for the remaining runners. So, a quick shower, try to staunch the blood-flow from my foot, a far too brief nap and then I was up again and on pasta, porridge and potato duty. Why do runners eat so many potatoes? There was no sign of the rice pudding us bikers use to fuel ourselves.
It is a surprisingly good spectator sport, especially once it gets down the last few. I was hiding from the weather in the bunkhouse with a bunch of far more experienced runners, listening to their tales from other races and their speculation as to how this one would pan out. We were getting through a rather large quantity of Guinness and inventing the Bunkhouse Buster Back-Yard Cocktail, a combination of Irish stout, Scotch whisky and ginger beer, basically whatever we had lying around. It tastes a lot better than it sounds.
Alan survived twenty-five hours, George made it to twenty-nine and had become something of a celebrity in the bunkhouse by this point, an outstanding effort for his first Back-Yard Ultra. In the closing stages of the race everyone was mucking in to help all the remaining runners, the spectators were keen to see it dragged out as long as possible, there was some, possibly optimistic, talk of making it to fifty hours.
By thirtylaps we were down to the last five and it was getting really tense.
I know nothing about shoulders.
Veteran Pat Staunton timed out at the end of lap thirty-one, by nineteen seconds! So close, every second really does count. Four still standing.
Clare Bannwarth was the next to break. She set out on lap thirty-two but had to abort. She looked a wreck when she staggered back into the bunkhouse shortly afterwards, collapsing into a chair and then vomiting rather profusely. To be honest that was what we, the spectators, liked to see, not vomit per se, but someone who really had given it everything they had. She was first girl and an extremely impressive fourth overall. Three still standing.
Gwynn Stokes’ supporters had moved into the bunkhouse to find a bit of warmth and shelter for him, he was looking strong right up until the moment he very suddenly wasn’t. He appeareddecidedlyqueasy at the start of lap thirty-five and almost refused to go out again before being pushed out of the door and towards the start line by his wife. Ten minutes later he was back, he had made it as far as the bottom of the hill before his body just gave up completely. Two still standing.
Eoin Keith and defending champion Peter Cromiewere fighting it out for the win. They were being very cagey, keeping themselves separate as they returned each lap for food and encouragement and apparently fairly separate out on the course too. We could see Peter each time he came in, through the kitchen where we were and in to the lounge where his supporters had set up camp to get a bite to eat and to sleep in three-minute bursts. Eoin and his helpers were keeping themselves to themselves in the back room, the mind games had started.
It was passed 1am. I had been awake for forty of the last forty-two hours and had drunk rather a lot of whisky, along with a Bunkhouse Buster Back-Yard Cocktail which mysteriously seemed to be topping itself up as I drank. With the speculation that this could go over fifty hours I decided to head off to bed for a bit of sleep and then get up early to hopefully watch the finish.
I was sadly disappointed in this respect. Arriving back in the bunkhouse just after 7am I found that the race was already over. Eoin had made it to forty hours before calling it a day. Peter had gone out for one final solo lap to seal the victory at ten to five Monday morning, having been running since noon on Saturday. An extremely impressive performance by both.
Peter had won the privailage of being able to do it all over again, a coverted Golden Ticket entry to Laz’s Big Dog Back-Yard Ultra in Tenessee. With forty hours completed it looks likely Eoin will get a wild-card entry too.
One final word about this, my first ever Ultra. I had shown up as a complete novice, vaguely knowing only two people and with absolutely no idea what I was doing. By the end of the weekend I had met pretty much everyone and they were all lovely. I had been made to feel most welcome and had a great time despite the storms, mud, and loss of significant amounts of skin. I do feel that I underperformed somewhat, it turns out that running muscles are indeed different to riding muscles, so I have unfinished business and will be back again next year. I’m really looking forward to it. Thank-you to everyone there for welcoming me so heartily into your mad little world, it wasn’t such a bad idea after all.
Pictures by Alan Risk, Sammie Daye and Adrian Daye
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