The North Face 100 - 2010

As I lie here in bed, I am starting to drift off to sleep. I notice that it is 8am on a fine Sunday morning in the Blue Mountains region of New South Wales, Australia; and I am just lying down to go to sleep. I am going to bed at this early hour of the morning because I have been up for a little while running – actually, I have been up for well over 24 hours running and walking a 100 kilometre ultra marathon.

Right now, I am 37 years old, and my journey to this point has been a chequered oneI start to reflect on the last 30 years, as I struggle to stay awake and savour the moment.

It was at around the age of 7 that I can remember spending a lot of time being ‘baby sat’ by my Grandmother. Grandma lives in a house at Tannum Sands, just south of Gladstone, in Queensland, Australia, and she lives on a huge block that adjoins a park (that has actually been named after her and her late husband, John Walters – who died that year. 1979). My brother Joseph and I spent many, many hours running through the park, and up and down the beach, which was only one street away from Grandma’s. Grandma, at the age of 60 at that stage (she is still alive and living in the same house), struggled with our energy levels as young boys. I still have her words ringing in my ears; ‘gee you boys have got some energy’. On reflection, we were a bit like Forest Gump, and ‘if we were going somewhere, we were running’. I was a slightly built child, unlike Joey, who has always been heavier than me, even though I am the elder of the two of us, by only eleven months. It would be another ten years before mum and dad had more children, when they added two more boys, William and John, to the fold. Back to the age of seven, it is amazing to think that at that stage, I had no idea that those same legs, those same calf muscles, those same quadriceps, now thirty years on, would carry me for 100 kilometres through the Blue Mountains, as part of an ultra marathon called the North Face 100. Gee we loved running when we were kids. All kids do, though.

Fast forward to the age of 17, and those same legs had carried me through onto football fields and onto cricket fields around Queensland, as part of both local and representative teams. Cricket was my passion, and wicket keeping was my speciality. With some solid sporting achievements under my belt (including state carnival and school first eleven appearances, as well as a season of A grade cricket), running was always there. The prestigious boys boarding school that I attended for years 11 and 12 (Nudgee College) had an outstanding athletics and cross country team that I trained with, though never competed as part of (although I did place well in short distance sprint races). My legs remained strong from the squats required to keep wickets, and my fitness was amazing. That was, until I started smoking ... It was the worst decision that I have ever made, barring none. It would be a habit that destroyed my fitness and my ability to run fast or long. It took me the next 13 years to finally ‘mature’ enough to completely kick the habit and wake to myself. In life, although we should have no regrets, taking up smoking is one of my very few. Why is it that as teenagers, we are willing to do things we know are bad for us, only for the accolades of friends who have developed the same silly habits for the same silly reasons. Up until the age of 17, I still loved running.

Fast forward another ten years (to the age of 27), and although I had suffered terrible burns at the age of 21 (in a workplace accident), I was still playing cricket, and football. It was mostly bush sport at that stage, though, as we were living in mining towns around Australia. I did spend one season playing at a high level in Brisbane, which was an amazing experience. I continued to smoke though, again regrettably, and although I had also taken up cycling to work at that stage, my fitness had suffered significantly. Oh, and I had stopped running completely. I had neither the fitness, nor the inclination to run far. The extent of my running was 6 kilometre jogs occasionally round the streets of the towns that we moved to during those years. It was at the age of 27 that I was starting to think about giving up playing football, as my body was starting to take longer to recover each week. I used to make the comment that; ‘I will give up playing football when I hurt my knee or shoulder, and cannot play any longer.’ In retrospect, that was a crazy thing to say, because as with all self fulfilling prophesies, it was not two years later that I completely destroyed the anterior cruciate ligament in my left knee, and had to endure both and arthroscopic surgery and a full knee reconstruction. My left knee has not been 100% since, though it is close to being back to its best only now (and now that I have learnt how to stretch the muscles around the knee correctly). So, how did that affect my running – well, as I walked away from the surgeon’s office after the reconstruction, he told me never to run for fitness, and never to put on weight. The result of doing either would be the development of osteoarthritis in the badly damaged and cartilage depleted knee. By the age of 34, I had done both of the things that the surgeon recommended against. My weight had ballooned from a health 80 kilograms in my twenties, to a plump 100 kilograms in my mid thirties. Finally, again, after many years without running in my life, I had started to run for fitness.

During the last two years, two things have happened; one, I met Marc McLaren, who at 12 years my senior, is as fit a person as I know (from running), and two, I decided that it was not only good for my knee to lose some weight, but it would be good for my overall health.

Firstly to Marc, and how he has influenced my running; in 2007, Marc and I were working together in a little Queensland mining town (Emerald), when he asked if I wanted to go for a run after a hard day at the office. Although I was touching one hundred kilograms, my mind went back to when I was 17, young and fit, and able to run long and fast, and I took no convincing to go for a run around the streets of Emerald. After all, Marc was older than me (and I had given up smoking at about the age of 30), and I ‘used’ to be able to run. So, off we went, all pumped up and ready to sweat it out. We had reached about 500 metres down the road before I had to stop. I was bent over in pain was everything from shortness of breath, muscle soreness, knee soreness and general fatigue. Marc was good enough to encourage me through, and we continued for a few more kilometres, on and off, before we gave it all up as a bad joke and headed for the hotel so that I could rest up after my huge effort of running about 3 kilometres (with about 5 stops along the way). To make matters worse, at dinner that night, the waitress told me that I looked older than Marc (now, I am not overly vein, but 12 years is a big age gap, and it showed that I must have looked horrible for someone in their mid thirties). Alternatively, Marc may have looked a lot younger - the result of a fit and healthy lifestyle, no doubt (this is probably more the case, as he does hide his age well).

So, I started going to the gym, to lose some weight. That was great fun, and Joey and I competed in body building competitions. It was just before my third body building competition that I pulled out of body building to concentrate on training for a half marathon. That was a real turning point in my life, and one that has meant that I now run consistently, though still somewhat slowly compared to other competitors. From that half marathon, my passion become triathlons, and the ability to train for multi sport events has provided a real variety to my training, and of course, running has been ever present in that training regime. The next year, at age 36 was another half marathon, with another sub 2 hour finish.

More and more, whenever Marc and I got together, we ran. We ran because we could, we ran because we enjoyed each others company, and we ran because we were secretly thinking that there could be an event that we could train for that would test us both physically and mentally. We had both recently read a book by Dean Karnazes, who is an ultra marathoner, and he made ultra marathon running sound so easy. We were in, we were pumped. We signed up for last year’s North Face 100 event, a 100 kilometre run that Dean himself ran, and described as the hardest 100 kilometre event in the world. He ran the 2009 North Face 100 and he finished in about 14 hours, only 5 hours ahead of Marc, who finished in just over 19 hours. I had trained hard for the race, though three weeks out I got whooping cough, and was sidelined from all exercise for about 3 months whilst recovering. I was at the finish line when Marc finished in the early hours of the morning, and I was shattered to not be sharing the experience with him. So, on the spot, we decided to do the same event next year. I would then be 37, and the year would be 2010.

It is now 8 am on Sunday, May 16, 2010. There are still people finishing the event, as the cut of time is 28 hours. Marc and I are finished, and are back at out cabin in Katoomba, drifting off to sleep. It has taken both of us nearly 24 hours to finish the event, nearly 4 hours more than we wanted to take. See, if you complete the event in 20 hours or less, the reward is a belt buckle, to mark your achievement. We were to go home empty handed … this year.

On reflection, it is amazing that either of us finished the event. Marc had a severe case of gastro pains, and had all but pulled out of the event at the 54 kilometre check point. For me, my issue was cramping, and at 30 kilometres, I was stuck in between rock walls, trying to clamber down a steep incline, when my calf muscles locked up. I couldn't move. I was in agony. This year, I had only trained specifically for this race for about 5 weeks, given that I had competed in an Olympic distance triathlon only 6 weeks previously, and that had been the focus of my training. It was clear that my legs were not up to the rigours of running through the terrain of the Blue Mountains. I really thought my race was over. Fortunately, I was assisted by another runner, who had also suffered with cramping (even earlier in the event), and he had take some ‘great tablets’ that he took to relieve his cramping; would I like some – heck yeah. He assured me that, with these pills in my stomach, the next 70 kilometres would be achievable. I duly swallowed two of these little pills, and it was as my fellow runner has predicted; I started to loosen up. That was until about the 40 kilometre mark, when I experienced it all again, though now the cramping was in my upper legs. This time, I was on my own, and was able to stretch and move enough to rid my legs of the awful pain that cramps bring with them, and soldier on. I was resigned to the fact that I would be walking the next 60 kilometres. My goal of a 20 hour finish and a belt buckle were gone, but my spirit was not. I was determined to finish, and not be one of the 170 (of 600) entrants who would eventually pull out of the event. I would finish, and finish strong. I readjusted my goal time to 24 hours, knowing that it would mean an enormous feat of beating fatigue and muscle soreness. The finish line was waiting, and I would not go home without at least a certificate to show that I had completed this thing.

After running (where possible) for a large portion of the first third of the event, my legs were fatigued more than I could have imagined. The problem was that I had not trained on hills. The terrain that the event is staged over cannot be described to those who have not seen or experienced some of the horrendous conditions around Katoomba, New South Wales, Australia. The Blue Mountains are a beautiful spectacle, though to the uninitiated, conquering them in a running event is not for the faint hearted.

Marc and I walked the last 46 kilometres of the event together and crossed the line in 23.43 hours. The elation at that point also cannot be described. If it was not for Marc, we would not have made the 24 hour finishing time, as he pushed hard for the last 10 to 20 kilometres, with me in tow, asking when we would be having our next break. Thanks mate, it was great to be able to share the experience with you.

So, having beaten a near death workplace accident, a smoking habit, ballooning weight and a knee reconstruction to run and walk a 100 kilometre ultra marathon was something that will forever be lodged in my memory.

Now, as I drift off to sleep, the last thing that enters my mind is the burning question of ‘how can I finish the event faster, next year’ …

Note: A huge thank you to our support crew, Judy, Martin, Dave Paul and Di, who where there with enthusiasm, encouragement, nutrition and warmth at all of the check points. You guys rock. Thank you also to the event organisers – what a wonderful job, to pull all that together. See you in 2011.