We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time. T S Eliot
The valiant few who struggled on to the final paragraph of The Adventure Alternative: Part one may have grasped that I was arguing in favour of what my erstwhile college lecturer, Colin Mortlock, referred to as “frontier adventure”. Put simply, making the opportunity to move out of your comfort zone into uncharted territory where the outcome has a degree of uncertainty. I would like to continue on the same theme, to encourage you my fellow adventurer to try at least one mountain marathon or similar event in 2010 that is not in your usual repertoire of races.
Jules Carter, an awesome adventure racer and wannabe alien
Having just read a back-issue of my running club’s newsletter I am aware that some regular runners do not favour such events, and would perhaps encourage members like myself to move aside. Naturally I disagree. In my opinion our club raconteur and national treasure Mick McGeoch, once summed up the situation very well in his comment: “Diversification is simply the result of adapting to age – twenty years ago athletes would feel obliged to retire, thankfully today’s more diverse agenda is giving those same athletes the opportunity to excel in other running-related activities.” I would add that one of the strengths of Les Croupiers Running Club, the club to which I proudly belong, is the very fact that we are large enough to absorb a diversity of interests, which smaller clubs perhaps cannot do. There is strength in our diversity.
I do not possess the speed or running pedigree of many vets in the club, nor longevity of membership. However, despite my dismal talent as a runner I still feel the affects of ageing, making it desperately hard to retain the speed (relatively speaking!) I possessed in my youth, and well nigh impossible to produce more PBs. Nevertheless, instead of retiring from running and perhaps leaving Les Croupiers in favour of Fitness for over Fifties at Fairwater Leisure Centre, I prefer to diversify and focus on events other than road racing, such as mountain marathons and the occasional orienteering event, cycle sportive or duathlon. My first love is running, but I choose not to keep on running the same road events and see myself getting slower. In mountain marathons like the OMM or the Rab Mountain Marathon, and adventure races like Questars, speed certainly counts, but so too do other skills like navigation, teamwork, flexibility and the careful choice of kit. This simply adds new and challenging dimensions to running.
Interestingly, the name of the club I frequent is Les Croupiers Running Club, which to the uninitiated implies that we are a bunch of gamblers who enjoy running. Adventure racing is something of a gamble. The stakes are so much higher than in road racing where one’s performance is generally predictable to within a few minutes or even seconds for the shorter distances; hence the precision of our times for club handicap races. There is no such predictability in an adventure race or mountain marathon; the outcome invariably has a high degree of uncertainty, where a tactical error or simple mistake in navigation can result in a poor time after months of planning and preparation. A finishing position below the bottom quartile rather than the top quartile can rest on such things. Tim O’Sullivan, friend and Les Croupiers runner commented in an article for our club newsletter: “On the first day of the OMM Denis and I briefly met up with, and left in our wake, a pair of runners even more lost than us. They’d finished in the top twenty in the medium score in 2005 and were last seen heading in the opposite direction to the control point we eventually found.” In short, adventure racing is a risky affair and something of a gamble regardless of planning, ability and teamwork.
Ruth Pickvance, a highly talented Les Croupiers off-road runner, showing another competitor how to run uphill!
Anyway, back to my theme of the adventure alternative. If you prefer to read about road running or cross country only – look away now. At this point I am tempted to dawdle and reminisce over past adventures and even times of misadventure. I should be writing at a brisker pace to lead you the reader to a swift conclusion for fear of losing you as a DNF. But I’m sure you’re an endurance athlete, not a middle distance runner, so bear with me a while longer on this episodic equivalent of a long Sunday run. However, to ensure this article does not become an ultra-distance event I shall now confine myself to just two aspects of the adventure alternative – teamwork and the inner journey. Maybe a part three will discuss additional topics.
Many organized events with an adventurous flavour require a team, or at least offer the opportunity to enter a team. This alone adds a new and interesting dimension to the sport of running. Most of us are familiar with running solo; running our own race in competition against those we know and those we don’t. However, running as a team, which is not the same as running for a team (as in cross country races), requires personal skills that are not commonly used in our sometimes-humdrum daily lives.
Simon Nurse and Jules Carter still going strong after 42 miles and an overnight start at the High Peak Marathon. I am trailing behind close to heart failure.
On mountains and in other challenging environments friendships are forged (and sometimes lost) through common endeavour and the need to work together as a team. When the going is tough, for better or worse, the true personalities of individuals are revealed. The selfless and uncomplaining team members become the stars. “In all forms of wilderness challenge”, wrote Colin Mortlock, “there is no place for grumblers. Personality quickly becomes a real fact of life because the true nature of man is revealed. The ideal companion tends to be one who does his job quietly and patiently, and above all, keeps cheerful until he disappears into his sleeping bag at the end of the day.” 1 This has little to do with fitness, with leadership even; but it does have a lot to do with humility, the human spirit, with selfless endeavour and the readiness to sacrifice personal goals for the good of the team. When we pit ourselves against a common element we are all in the same arena and share a common bond that often develops into camaraderie, albeit sometimes in a competitive context. “Although I wanted an end to this exhausting and endless stage”, wrote Les Croupiers runner Andy Cleves about his crossing of the Atacama Desert with Jules Carter, “ I couldn’t help but enjoy the strongest camaraderie with these three other guys at this late stage of the race. … I felt very buoyant, and again sensed a great sense of companionship.”2 Perhaps the harder the mutual challenge the deeper and more sustaining that sense of companionship becomes?
Andy Cleves finishing day four of the 2006 Atacama Crossing. Tough stuff!
In Colin Mortlock’s second book, Beyond Adventure3, he takes a personal and autobiographical approach to the concept of adventure. It is an exploration of his inner self, a reflection on the inner journey he has taken over many years of solo quests in wilderness areas and on the sea. Perhaps for many of us running is in part a personal journey, although we may not think of it in quite such an erudite way. We all have our own reasons for running, and communing with nature at close quarters may not be one of them. Perhaps to contradict myself I should mention that I have rarely felt at one with nature in the way that Colin Mortlock has articulated in his books. Quite frankly, I have often felt that nature is against me on the occasions I have jogged disconsolately up a muddy hillside while being pelted by horizontal rain and driven backwards by a force 9 gale. On these occasions one cannot help but question the sanity of the quest (“Just remind me why I’m doing this!”), but with hindsight each journey has seemed worthwhile and certainly memorable, a chance to replenish the spirit and reconnect with the grandeur of the great outdoors.
A more practical reason for taking to the hills or trying multi-discipline events that embrace pursuits like cycling and kayaking, is to reap the benefits of cross training. Few runners would deny that going off-road results in less stress on body parts than slogging away on roads and pavements – provided you don’t twist an ankle of course! Regular readers of Runner’s World will know this (I used to be one of them until I realised I was reading much the same advice over and over again). Cycling is another pursuit that complements running. Judging from the running talents of the passionate cyclists in our club, undeniably it does no harm. Mountain biking is a standard discipline in adventure racing, as too is kayaking in some form. While kayaking may not help running so directly, like swimming it does help with core strength and contributes to all-round fitness.
To close, here are four events in South Wales I would personally recommend. Each one is organized as a long distance walk and not a race, but runners are welcome. Inevitably a bunch of runners set off together and an element of competition arises, but mountain skills, particularly navigation, play a significant part.
Black Mountains Roundabout
Saturday 17 April 2010
25 miles with 6,000 feet of climbing around the Black Mountains. The start is at Crickhowell.
Big Black Mountains Challenge
Saturday 15 May 2010
A choice of three routes (43, 29 or 16 kilometres, with the start and finish for each route at Llanthony Priory.
Caerphilly Summits Challenge
Saturday 3 July 2010
12, 23 or 32 miles among the hills to the north of Cardiff. In 2009 all routes started and finished at Machen.
Talybont Trial Saturday
Saturday 9 October 2010
20 miles with 4,500 feet of climbing around the Brecon Beacons, starting and finishing at Talybont-on-Usk.
I should also mention the Sleepwalker Night Race 20, a fairly new event, starting and finishing at Talybont-on-Usk. Unlike the above events it’s actually a race and is run at night. This year’s event was on Saturday 28 November, but more about that event in a later article.
Well, must stop writing. I’m off to cycle a few miles while the weather’s fine. I’m fair weather cyclist!
Carpe diem!
Graeme Donnan
PS: Roald Amundsen allegedly said: “Adventure is just bad planning.”
1 Colin Mortlock’s second book, Beyond Adventure, published in 2001 by Cicerone Press, page 63
2 Atacama Crossing 2006, ACE Winter edition (Les Croupiers RC newsletter), December 2006.
3 Both of Colin Mortlock’s books are still in print; available on Amazon.co.uk.
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