Benjours 172-174 Back trouble and Saunders MM report

well, last weeks back trouble resolved itself with some gentle staggering about and stretching I started this week just gone on a bad one.. Monday 2nd July I was busy with work all day and had left the run to the evening, and then at 6pm, just after I got home with kids, wife volunteered to go back into hospital to do a transplant from father to child from the Falklands - she got home at 01:30, which meant I had to miss Monday's run altogether. Nothing I could do about it, I can't leave the kids by themselves of course (not yet anyway)..

To make matters worse - on Tuesday I slipped on the floor in the boot room at Ollie's school whilst hanging his stuff on his peg (I was wearing a pair of Toms, which is why I slipped, it had been raining outside, though the floor was dry, my own fault)- I practically did the splits, suffice to say I was in a world of pain in my back - thoracic vertebrae this time, not sacral like last week. This was a very different back pain to last weeks - it was immediate and nothing I could do could make the pain go away... Tues, Wed and Thursday nights I couldn't sleep/get comfortable, couldn't sit, very difficult to drive... running was simply not going to happen and it didn't, it couldn't .. I was thinking of jacking in Saunders this weekend just gone.. by Friday I could keep upright without pain so on Friday evening I gingerly drove for nearly 6 hrs up to the Lakes. My big sister has a house in Windermere with a great Italian restaurant just around the corner - I stuffed some good carpaccio and some pasta down my neck and tried to sleep.

I think with hindsight that I must have torn some core muscle on the back right hand side, around my liver towards my spine, though it did have some weird pain radiating "through" me from my back to my tummy - wife confirmed it was nothing boney or neural/trapped nervey.

Anyway, in the morning I felt pretty good, though I was soon to suffer my usual "jetlag-like" symptoms I get when I wake up really early and don't eat enough first thing... I'd left an hour to get from Windermere to Wastwater thinking it wasn't that far (it isn't, as the crow flies!) - turns out it's nearer 2 hrs drive... and it's all on windy roads - my pseudo jet lag, combined with eating little so early int he morning, combined with driving a powerful car on windy roads meant I got serious travel sickness which was really unpleasant (and meant I had to slow down) - I almost barfed on a marshall at the field gate when I finally arrived... not the best start to a MM - by the time I got checked in, was briefed, had transcribed the checkpoints for the weekend onto my map I was 45 mins late getting onto the fell...this was to cost me big time on the Sunday (yesterday).

I'd entered the Klets class which is a solo class since I couldn't find a partner free to run it with me (which meant I could have entered a lower, somewhat easier class!!) - Elite class it was to be. There were 51 solo entrants registered and 41 turned up on the day. I gave myself the objective of not coming last.

The splits have just been posted online and interestingly I was the only one who took the Southerly option of checkpoints on Day 1... nearly 21 miles of fell with 6,300ft climb. (LAMM was 6,700ft climb with the same distance on Day 1 also) - we were promised miserable weather which I'd prepped for which never materialised which meant I needed a lot more salt/electrolytes to ward of cramping in my quads - I wasn't expecting it to be so sunny or warm!!.. the late start meant that I couldn't get to two (or at a squeeze three) checkpoints on Day 1 which would, it runs out have a massive impact on my Day 2 run.

Overnight camp was great - I made the cut by 12 mins - Been out for over 9 hrs. The organisers close the fell at 6pm for solo competitors and if you're not back in by this time, you're presumed to be in the merde and so they call Mountain Rescue out - being the Elite class quite rightly they presume eveyone can handle themselves in the hills and make the right judgement calls to ensure they make the cut in time...if you're not back in time then something is wrong... if you're running with a partner then there is more leeway since the idea is that worse case the partner can run to get help/notify the organisers what's going on etc..

Overnight in the tent was spent re-checking grid references for the host of checkpoints I'd left on the fell to get on Day 2. I realised as I was falling asleep that my back was utterly fine and had not given me any grief at all - I'd been preoccupied with feeling carsick and then focussing on the task in hand and had no pain - even running with a rucksac full of kit.

Day 2 was a shorter timelimit (7 hrs cf 9) but given the two checkpoints I should have got on Day 1, but didn't have time to, going to get them on Day 2 took about 2.5 hrs out of my schedule and in the wrong direction to where I needed to be to bag the rest of the points - we started at 7 am and I realised by 11am I was never going to make the cut/be off the fell in time and so took the decision to retire from the race. - It was the right decision and I learnt an awful lot.

The biggest learning is that I'm simply not fit enough (yet), but I did meet my objective - I didn't come last, I was penultimate, but not last, and that makes me smile! - Someone also didn't get all the checkpoints, but they took longer to "finish" than I did, and that little detail is an important one to me and it makes me smile!

The highlight of the entire weekend's running in Wasdale was a purely chance encounter with a personal hero - Joss Naylor, MBE stood outside his house having just come back from a run over the fells at the age of 76 - not a bead of sweat on him! Utterly charming, modest and unassuming. I did a double take and realised who he was I just had to stride over to him, apologising and insisting I had to shake his hand... he was kind enough to ask "how are you getting on?" - I muttered something about my frustration with my late start on Day 1 had cost me on Day 2 and he smiled knowingly, "ah once you've lost it, you never get it back... no, you never get it back.." and there it was! never have wiser words been said! Words that resonate with me even now, from one of my heroes in a chance encounter.. If I'd not taken the decision out on the fell to retire from the race when I did, I would have missed Joss Naylor some 2 hours later...and who knows, I may never have met this truly remarkable man... spooky, but what a personal thrill and memory.. and to make things even better I've just discovered that one of my MdS tent mates, Hilary Bloor is a living legend too - Hils you dark horse!!
Hils and Joss Naylor

Benjour 172 - Saunders MM Day 1 by ben_buckle at Garmin Connect - Details
Benjour 173 - Saunders MM Day 2 by ben_buckle at Garmin Connect - Details
Benjour 174 - Cycle path by ben_buckle at Garmin Connect - Details
Take a look at the Saunders stuff on Satellite view - the terrain is stunning. The ridge to the North of my Day 2 playground was where all the chekpoints where that I would never have gotten to in time.

As to what I do about the days I've now missed due to incapacity with my back... the only thing I can offer is that I add them onto my schedule - having come so far on this challenge... the thought of starting again makes me despondent... views anyone??