My other skill was running - or endurance.
I wasn’t fast by any means but I could
just keep going. Naturally tall and always
skinny I was blessed with the perfect build
to run so when cross country season
came around I’d happily make the school
team year on year. The difference between
art and running however was a desire to
succeed. I wanted to run myself into the
ground; I enjoyed the leg crushing and
lung bursting pain. Crossing the finish line
struggling for air, sucking in oxygen whilst
trying to prevent my lunch going in the
opposite direction - I loved it.
My early running career was short. With
no training or even a warm-up on a wet
day in the mid-90s at the local schools
cross country championships I finished
13th out of a couple of hundred. The top
10 were selected to represent the county
and the remainder were left disappointed.
I was 11 years old and just missed out on
county honours. Unfortunately my school
was more focused on nurturing success
in football and rugby so my efforts went
completely unnoticed. I didn’t run again for
15 years.
Jump forward to 2010 and a friend
encouraged me to join in at the local
running club. I went along for a few
sessions and found that I still had that
natural endurance base making me
capable of some pretty decent 5k and 10k
times. I represented the club regularly and
quickly became one of the better runners.
I enjoyed the hard training sessions,
seeing results get better and times come
down. The excitement didn’t last long
though and suddenly I was searching for
a bigger challenge. I really didn’t know
quite what I was looking for but I stumbled
across a book by Dean Karnazes called
Ultramarathon Man. The book would
change everything and send me in a
direction that I never even knew existed. I
was going to become an Ultrarunner.
day and night so therefore need to
carry any spare equipment or supplies on
your back.
I’d never run more than 10k but in six
months I’d be on the start line of a whole
new challenge. I trained harder than I’d
ever trained before and encouraged
a friend to enter with me to share the
experience. To cut a long story short we
finished the race in just over 13 hours.
It was the most horrifically painful but
incredible experience of my life. On
crossing the finish line at 3am in the
morning my friend turned to me and said
“I am never doing anything like that ever
again”. I felt the complete opposite; I was
ready to enter a much bigger challenge the
very next day.
I tore a muscle in my
foot at around mile
30. The pain was
excruciating but I ran
on it for 70 miles simply
because I got used to it.
It’s unlikely you’ve ever heard of Karnazes,
but he’s regarded as one of the fittest men
on the planet. His achievements include
running an eye watering 350 miles non
stop without sleep and completing 50
marathons in 50 U.S states in 50 days. He
was my new hero.
My shorter club running continued but my
passion was now longer events. After a
few more 30-50 mile Ultras I put my name
down for the 2012 South Downs Way 100
- a one hundred mile race the entire length
of the South Downs Way national trail.
My experience gained through additional
longer races meant I finished the race in
just over 23 hours. Starting at 8am on a
mid-summer Saturday this meant running
all day, all night and into the next morning
- a truly new and strange experience. I was
now truly hooked, seeing what my body
was capable of was now an obsession.
How far can I go? How much pain can I
tolerate? I wanted to push my body to the
absolute limit.
On turning the final page of his book I
entered one of the UK’s toughest and
hilliest 50 mile races - The Lakeland 50.
“One of” you might say, and you’d be
forgiven. The world of Ultrarunning is small
but growing. An Ultra is considered a
running race of anything over 26.2 miles,
although they are very rarely less than 30
and commonly between 50 and 100 miles.
They’re rough too, often taking in long
distance national trails over mountains
and fells. An added challenge is that the
distance means you’re often out running all
During such long races it’s your mind that
takes the most damage and ultimately
decides whether you finish or not. If you’ve
ever run a marathon you’ll know the pain
upon crossing the finish line and in the
hours after. Now imagine crossing that
finish line and being asked to run back
to the start, or carry on for three more.
The pain doesn’t get much worse; it’s just
about how long you can put up with it.
During my South Downs Way attempt I
tore a muscle in my foot at around mile 30.
The pain was excruciating but I ran on it
for 70 miles simply because I got used to
it. During a marathon you’ll often hear the
term ‘hitting the wall’. This is where your
body says “no more, we’re stopping now!”.
In an Ultra you can hit three, four or five
walls. It’s the mental tenacity to just keep
putting one foot in front of the other that
can get you through any challenge.
I was once at around mile 60 of a 100 mile
race between London and Oxford along
the Thames Path. It was minus degrees,
the middle of the night, I’d been running
on my own for hours and it was starting
to turn from rain to snow. I broke down,
burst into tears and rang my Dad to come
and pick me up. Thirty minutes later he
was parked on the side of the road and I
just ran straight past. If there’s one thing
that truly scares me it’s quitting. Unless I
can put my hand on my heart and say “If
I don’t stop now I’m going to die”, I’m just
not willing to stop. The pain, exhaustion
and fear of it all cr 6