First Ever Solo off-road run from Lands End-john O'Groats.
1,254 mile mountain-marathon: Lands End -John O'Groats
(details: www.benumber1.co.uk/lejog )
On the 12th of July I completed the Lands End-John O'Groats fell/trail run I'd been planning for sometime. As the support crew dropped out at late notice I had to run the challenge Mountain-Marathon style.
I should have written this report much earlier but since the run I've found it diffcult to motivate myself to even get out of bed somedays - never mind much else, I suppose fatigue comes into it - but I didn't really feel tired, just plain depressed; perhaps result of an endorphin crash? Anyway I'm starting to feel more like myself again now and have finally got round to writing about the run- the last stage anyway, which I hope explains my delay in posting.
The week following the run I kept waking in cold sweats several times a night, sometimes accompanied with tears, in a confused state with one thought going round my head "I can't do more, it's not possible" - somehow I kept thinking that; I hadn't quite finished and had more to do - or I kept returning to the last week in Scotland.
After that week my sleep became more normal, but I realised I felt really uncomfortable talking about the run, I actively tried to not think about it as it made me feel sick and nervous and scared - it might sound melodramatic but through a mixture of poor choices (made when tired) and over-enthusiastically estimating my abilities I found myself ill equipped to handle the task before me, I dramatically and unnecessarily magnified the levels of stress (emotional and mental and physical) that I had to face, to the extent that the experience was traumatic.
The body perceives little difference between the source of stress, i was already pushing my body close to it's limits through physical and mental stress, adding emotional stress could and should have been avoided with better planning, however it wasn’t.
The state of over-training/under-performance syndrome and clinical depression share nearly identical signs and symptoms, leading some experts to claim the two are one and the same, essentially a fatigue of the entire organism - a burnt out central-nervous-system, not a localised muscular fatigue, it can take weeks-months even years to overcome; I've learnt to read my body quite well and know I am now starting to recover from the ordeal. (external signs such as writing this, and joining a gym to cross-train, regaining fitness are obvious indicators of a better state of mind also).
The first 5 weeks of the run went fine 1000.5 miles - a handful of blisters, very manageable levels of fatigue. The last 8 days was very different, 254 miles over much tougher terrain (wild fell/mountainous terrain). The extra miles per day over tougher terrain was a much tougher effort physically and the mental effort in controlling motivation was greater but this was part of the foreseen challenge, I was looking forward to it and had prepared for it.
The big mistake was food. the run had always been planned as a supported effort - a motorhome following me, a warm bed each night, company and dry clothes etc would all have been nice, but most importantly was being able to control what and when I ate - having meals carefully planned and packed in the van. without the support crew I had to eat what I could find as and when I came across outlets, in England this was manageable but hardly ideal - not many health-food shops along the Pennine way selling protein shakes, electrolytes and healthy oat bars; my diet consisted of chocolate, cola and crisps - with salt sachets taken for electrolytes - it got the job done.
in Scotland, north of Fort William things went very bad. I ran out of cash in Fort William and was severely limited to how much food I could purchase, still I wasn't going to give up; I calculated a minimal calorie intake I thought I could run on (this called for me to lose almost a lb a day in stored fat, but I knew although uncomfortable it was possible - In training I fast twice a week for upto 24hrs before running 20+mile runs to teach my body to run on fat first and treat sugar as a added bonus if present).
I did the calculations fine, but in the shop (prob’ due to fatigue) I incorrectly divided the weekly amount of calories and bought 1000cals less per day than I needed. I didn't realise this until 2 days of running/eating later when the rations seemed to be shrinking quite fast. I emptied my sack and counted the calorie of all the food - I had enough for 1,200 cals a day if I could maintain a strong pace. I was using over 7000 a day - this would mean losing over 1.5lbs a day for 5-7 days, a state possible to push through if hiking but very tough if running(walking in a well trained athlete can be done on fuelled from fat stores, so long as the fat is there to burn, running even in highly trained athletes requires some sugar - this would have to be found by destroying body muscle, in this state the brain becomes foggy - it's preferred fuel of glucose being absent) , I began to worry, to be more efficient I had to slow the pace.
North Scotland called for many river crossings, most of which are impossible if the rivers are in-spate. Early on the fourth day of that week I was half way up a climb to a shoulder I had to pass when I heard lightning, then again - it was getting closer. I should have dropped not to safety, but with the lightning came heavy rain I had to cross a large river on the other side of the pass, If I dropped and waited for the storm to pass the river would be in spate - which might mean camping and waiting for the water to drop or a 15mile tarmac detour to a road bridge and back - both options were impossible on with the food restrictions I had, I had to cross the river that day (there was two more mountains and one other sizeable river to cross that day) I pushed on and up, trying to silence the voice in my head calling me stupid and reckless - climbing in a storm. The rain lasted all day, I didn’t stop to change into waterproofs, keeping a fast pace to generate body heat, after crossing the river, the next pass was littered with burns that had swelled to the size of fast streams/small rivers, it was a pathless pass and the going was slow; it was too late when I realised I'd not changed into waterproofs in-time. I was cold to the extent of shivering (yes in July) as I ran, I changed layers but for the rest of the day I was physically and mentally slower than normal - having let myself become dangerously wet and cold in windy conditions. My pace was well behind schedule, the ground being more difficult to cover when so wet underfoot; and my shivering cold body reusing to generate the effort I was asking of it. I realised I had to pick up the effort and pushed harder, this just led to repeatedly tripping over obstacles and falling over- landing on boggy marshy land and feeling like I was getting wetter/colder (not possible when wet to the skin and cold to the bone but it definitely felt that way). after one fall I shot up and carried on running ( a force of habit from fell running, a sprained ankle usually only stiffens if allowed to stiffen, if you can keep running although extremely painful for a minute or two it remains agile and useable). But everything was dizzy, I don’t recall what hit where, I know I was winded from my back slamming on the ground, perhaps my head had whipped back and received a sizeable blow also - I felt panicked and dizzy and scared, I had ran over 1000 miles and fell just twice, this was my 4/5th fall of the day it was disconcerting, which accounts for feeling scared (I was lucky not to have fell on a rocky section) but the dizziness could only be explained by a blow to the head, I hoped it wouldn’t get worse.
It wasn't all bad - at this point I was running through a Glen surrounded by Munroe’s - the most remote and stunning location I have ever ran in - and I wasn’t just running here - I had ran here! All the way from the tip of the country, I knew I was doing great.
After a few more miles of running, the dizziness still very much hampering my progress, I realised I had to stop being foolish and persisting in a dangerous state, running in over rocky tracks and boggy moorland in a remote area un-supported is dangerous enough, running over the rocks in the rain when dizzy is plain stupid no matter how much stopping might feel like 'giving up' I had to call the plug on that days effort at just under a marathon distance had been covered (I needed to cover 40miles).
The unplanned stop meant taking an evening’s meal from the rations, and an unplanned breakfast - I recalculated my rations, My stomach was aching I had food in-front of me and couldn’t touch it.
***continued in next post***
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