Feeling the Burn

We are stood here in the middle of nowhere, definitely going nowhere. Reading a map can’t be this hard can it? Maybe the organisers messed up and gave us last years route by mistake? That’s got to be it. No one can be this bad at finding their way around the countryside. It must be that we have the wrong map. If only we could find our way back to Margam and let the race officials know about their mistake.

The offending map

We are currently in the middle of the mountain bike section of the Burn adventure race at Margam Park or maybe that should read orienteering section of the Burn race which just happens to involve tiny sprints of mountain biking in between getting lost and staring at the map again. Of course, we do have the right map, we are just massively incompetent at using it. Apparently adventure racing is not about endurance, fitness and keeping a mountain bike upright, no, it’s all about the map reading and actually working out where you have to go. Why the hell didn't I listen more when I was in the Scouts?

Training had gone well, by well, I mean we had done lots of running, the occasional bit of falling of mountain bikes and absolutely no map reading, but then how hard can it be to find out where you are? People survived in the age before sat navs. My only bit of map reading experience before the race came whist I was out training with my run club. A competitor in an orienteering race ran past us at some speed before clattering straight into a tree. Clearly this was man ruled by the map, if a landmark wasn’t on it then it didn’t exist. The rather sizable lump appearing on his head told this chap that the tree was most definitely real. I made a mental note to not only look at the map but also the real world. That was the extent of my training for the orienteering part of the race.

So while we hadn’t bumped into any trees, finding the way home was proving rather elusive. Of course, I lie when I say that adventure racing isn't about endurance and fitness, it really is about that. The map reading should be secondary but as we pull out the now rather dog eared bit of paper yet again, it seems to tell us nothing. Margam Park is just behind this last hill but we are stuck at a crossroads with seemingly all routes a possible way back home. In our exhausted state we have given up on the final check points but we can't work out which trail will actually lead us home. All the lines, dots, squiggles and supposedly helpful markings are telling us bugger all. The whole page has merged into a tangled web of dead ends and wrong turns. We may as well be trying to read Chinese. In the end we pick a route which turns out to be the one leading us in the opposite direction to where we wanted actually wanted to go. Will we ever make it back to the finish and something to eat other than an energy bar?

It had all been going so well at the start of the day. The run had taken us up over some of the hills behind the country estate of Margam, we had managed to keep the leaders in sight for a while and took in the views looking back over the river Severn. Even the Kayaking had gone well. We had generally kept the thing pointing in the right direction, only accidentally cut one corner and at no point felt like we were going to capsize the thing. As we hopped onto the bikes we had dreams of more silverware after our success in the Mini Burn earlier in the year. 

Any excuse to use the photo of Stewart and I after winning the Mini Burn!

Ah the Mini Burn. A 3k run, 1k Kayak and 10k mountain bike on a marked course without a map insight. The weather that day may have been bad enough to have made us think about using the Kayak for the whole race but it had been a fantastic event. Adventure racing was definitely for us. On a high from the success we figured the next step before booking our flights to Patagonia was to enter the full on Burn Race. 3k running turned into 10 and 10k on the bike turned into 40. Maybe we should have thought this through.

Things were looking good though as we pedalled off in to the South Wales hills starting the mountain bike section of the race. We couldn’t see any of our competitors behind us, just a little jaunt out on the bikes and we would be back in time for lunch. Who were we kidding, the race had hardly started.

Still happy after reaching the first couple of check points.

The sign of things to come was at the very first checkpoint where we completely missed the trail taking us down to it. No worries we told ourselves it was down a huge hill anyway and there are plenty more checkpoints out there to get. The next two proved easy to find, this adventure racing thing is a doddle.

It was on the way down to the next check point that alarm bells started ringing. Half way through a joyously long and quick decent we were met by pretty much most of our competitors slogging their way up the hill in the opposite direction. Either they were all going the wrong way or we were, the odds were stacked against us.

The next two hours involved plenty of getting lost, many wrong turns and lots of pushing bikes up paths that were definitely not meant for cycling. Surprisingly we realised that everyone else had been going the right way. We were just riding round in very long circles missing check points that were staring us in the face. We had stopped to have something to eat, practically leaning against one of them without realising.

And so finally after our extended tour of the Welsh countryside we make it to the cross roads, one last four pronged decision and then the short ride back to Margam. Inevitably we decide on the wrong route before turning round and then taking another wrong track, luckily though this one led us in roughly the right direction. All we now have to do is throw the bikes and ourselves over the stone wall that is blocking our path and we are practically home, cancel the search party guys.

Relief after finally making it back to the finish

After one final blast downhill we finally make it back to familiar sights and stagger across the line, sneaking inside the cut off time by a matter of minutes. After the initial elation at our survival, our competitive instinct kicks in when we realise that with just a little bit of preparation we could have done this race so much better.

I admit I had my doubts about the map reading from the start, I am probably the only person ever to get lost in Chessington World of Adventures whilst actually carrying a map. Instead of listening to the lingering doubts I had chosen to employ the ostrich tactic, bury my head in the sand and trust to luck that it'll be ok on the day. I’ve now found out that the organisers run a course in orienteering just for people like us. Even if I don't come back for the race next year I'm definitely going to sign up for it. Who knows, it may help me find my way round next time I visit a theme park.

Cardiff Half 2016- Pacing Myself

Earlier this year I was standing in just about the same spot, outside the front of the castle with thousands of other runners. Just like six months ago all of us are brimmed with nervous energy, doing what we can to warm up in the tight confines of the starting area whilst trying not to hit anyone else with flailing limbs.

Way back on a rainy day in March around the same streets in Cardiff I was running in the World half marathon, the same roads I ran during the half in 2014. Today I am looking to beat my time from earlier in the year. With a real sense of deja vu I cross the start line to begin another 13.1 mile journey. Here we go again, again.

The team from CDF and our fellow Nike Squad Dockside runners before the start.

The beginning of the race follows a familiar pattern, the nerves before the start, the jostle off the line, the way too quick first mile trying to settle into the pack and the early glances at the watch to check my pace. As usual I’ve started too fast, I really made a conscious effort to run a more conservative first mile but the excitement of the day and the natural competitive instinct has taken over and I just can’t summon the mental discipline to run slower and save my energy. This always happens. I know I will regret it later.

Just after the first mile though the race changed, it became different to the run six months ago. In fact it was different to pretty much all the other races I have run. I'd been past the first mile marker, had the first beep from the watch telling me I was way ahead of schedule. Around the next corner I bumped into my club mate Jason. He had the splits for 1.22 written out on his hand, about the time I was hoping for so we decided to stick together, to pace ourselves. 

Six months ago I saw him at about the same point, lost in the chase for a PB and in a desperate attempt to bank some time and get ahead of schedule we exchanged a few quick words before I was back in my own lonely world again, chasing times. Now for the first time during a race I thought about what could happen later, about the wall I was going to hit, I chose to keep something in reserve for it. We also had the added benefit of keeping each other company. As the miles ticked by we kept each other on pace when the temptation was to try and run that bit quicker. 

Jason and I just past the half way point still looking happy

In many ways pacing myself during a race is similar to how I have to deal with my M.E. A lot of the time it's all about trying to keep something in reserve for later, storing some energy for when you need it further down the line. How to use my energy and when to try and leave something in reserve to cope with the unexpected is one of the most difficult things to learn. It's something I'm still trying to get my head around.

On the days when I feel good, it's so tempting to do as much as I can, to use up those reserves. It's so hard to hold myself back and tell myself I may just need that energy for later. It takes huge discipline not to do something you want because of the possible consequences. It's a challenge that more often than not I fail.

The difficult thing is keeping energy in reserve for things that may never happen. A few weeks ago I did two races in two days, something that looking back was kind of stupid and which left me feeling completely shattered. In the days afterwards work became unexpectedly busy and I struggled to keep on going. It was my real world equivalent of hitting the wall in the marathon, I had run out of energy and just didn't have the reserves to carry on. Of course if those days hadn't been so busy then I would have recovered just fine and would be sitting here writing about just how I could cope with two races in days and how I much better I was dealing with my M.E. The problem with M.E and life in general is that we can't see into the future, I can't judge how much I need to leave in reserve for the events I don't know are going to happen yet. It's the known unknowns as Donald Rumsfeld once put it in probably the only semi sensible thing he said. I know that there are a load of things that will happen to me that I currently don't know anything about. It's impossible to plan for them. I can try and keep energy in reserve but then if nothing happens I regret not using all of that energy for the task I was originally doing.

Coping with the unknown is the biggest challenge when dealing with my M.E. When I am feeling I'm completely knackered and that extra job comes in at work It feels like getting to the finish line of the race and someone asking you to run an extra mile.

This is what the reserves need to be for, trouble is when you are caught in the moment it's so easy to say "To hell with the future and the unknowns that may not even happen."

And so this is how I always used to approach my races. “I've got all this energy, I'm feeling good, let's give it all I can in the first few miles, I can get onto the shoulder of that runner who is just too fast for me and try and keep up. If I get ahead of my scheduled pace I may just be able to hang on, who knows?”

Inevitably two thirds into a half marathon at about the dreaded 9 mile mark I would really begin to suffer, the rest of the race would be about hanging on, desperately trying to keep going. Races became about survival. This time hopefully things would be different.

And so after what seems like no time at all we reached the point where I always hit the wall. It’s a section of the course around Roath park, one of the most scenic on the course. I always hate it. If you drive these roads in a car they feel flat. Run it and you realise they are anything but flat. It’s a long slope by the lake, ready to snatch your last reserves of strength and positive energy. It’s always at this point I regret that first mile.

Half way up this non hill is the 10 mile sign, and on this day things were different. Rather than hitting the wall I still felt strong. At the point where runners normally start passing me, I was feeling strong, able to keep the pace and catch those in front of me. The last few miles became a chase to try and get under 1.20. The early pacing had meant I could push in the second half of the race and my dodgy mental arithmetic told me I could get somewhere close. I had to give it a go. This time though the clock just beat me by a few seconds. Still I guess it’s something to chase for next year.

Splits from the race, if only I had been 8 seconds quicker!

Finally I had learnt to pace myself during a race, it felt like a much better much more controlled way to run, no longer was I trying to survive to the finish, I was fighting to reach it as quickly as possible. If only I had just paced myself 8 seconds quicker. It's strange being disappointed with something that you didn't think possible at the start of the day.

So now I’ve learnt how to pace a race now I just need to work out how to pace my life, It’s something I could be working on for a long time.

Just after the finish, Happy with the days work!