It wasn't long ago that road running was the be all and end all in for me. Trails and hills were for hillwalkers and ramblers and the roads were the domain of marathoners and 10kers. This slowly changed. First I started to train on trails. More so to give my legs a rest from the tarmac. Then came the Devils and I had found what I truly enjoy. Ultra running off road. Everyone is friendly. It's all more relaxed and to me it is a much sterner test of what your body can do and put up with. There is another type of running that is gaining popularity nowadays. Adventure running. Sure I had tried this before running Hellrunner in Milngavie last year. What they had promised was that I would get wet and muddy. There was a couple of bits that were muddy but mostly it was trail running with none of the river crossings that they had promised. So it was time to try another adventure race. The Mighty Deerstalker. Yet again they promised that you would get wet. I didn't believe them. They promised we would be running in the dark. I didn't believe them. They promised an assault course. And still I didn't believe them. They promised I would be cold. I believed that. Its March in the Southern Uplands.
Debbie and I arrived in Inverleithen in plenty of time. The B&B that Debbie had booked was amazing. A lovely house with excellent views of the OMG!!!! the course? As Debbie and I looked up the hill behind the guest house we could see what looked like ants making their way slowly to the top. Except they weren't ants. Dressed in skin tight lycra and deerstalker hats it could only be the easy Deerstalker. The 5km version of the Deerstalker for kids, novices and southern softies was already running. The first section of the Mighty Deerstalker, our race, follows the same route as its sibling up what looked like an incredibly high hill.
Anyway it was about now that I made the first of my mistakes of the day. seeing that the hill was covered in trails and thinking back to the Hellrunner I decided to wear my roadshoes for the race. oops.
It was a really nice bright evening and this is when I made my second mistake. The race is 10km long. I should be able to walk that distance and still get back while it is still twilight. I don't need a head torch. And so I left it. Debbie forgot to lift hers and so for a 3rd or maybe 4th time I sprinted back to the car to get it for her. I think by this time I had already ran 10k.
This was when I made my 3rd mistake. As I said before Hellrunner didn't even get my feet wet. I should be able to run this deerstalker race with my car remote. If anything looks deep I can hold it in the air.
Then I saw it. The first water feature. It looked at least knee deep so to be on the safe side I decided to take my car remote out of my pocket and hold it in the air. I was in first position as I jumped in and straight under. Completely soaking from head to toe. My remote was soaking as I put it back in my pocket. Oh well I tried. Perhaps its water resistant. Next up there was a steep muddy hill. I couldn't get any traction in my road shoes as I dropped to 3rd, 4th, 5th, and then 6th position. Onto trails I managed to catch back up and kept within a group of 3 not far off from the leaders. This was when we made a fatal mistake. Instead of taking a left turn down from the top of the hill we took a right turn and went even higher up the hill. Once we realised our mistake we came back down and ended up behind a large group of runners with no way of passing them. As we got to the bottom of the hill someone called out to the guy in front "You're in 60th mate, well done" 1st to 61st position in 20 minutes. Great.
As we reached back into the village I remembered that the map had a long straight section. Good. A road. I should be able to catch some people up now. Wrong. The road was a river and we had to run 300m up that river. My legs were numb, my feet were number and there was a real unpleasant stabbing pain between my legs. I felt sorry for a chap that I passed that only looked like he was 5ft 5. The water nearly reaching his head.
I still wasn't really catching many people by now and I was starting to tire with the effort of trying not to slip at every muddy bit. Luckily the next hill was a scree slope. Unlucky for everyone else but seeing as I used to do loads of hillwalking I had the technique for getting up. I started to pass a lot of tired people and as I reached the top I turned to see hundreds of lights behind me. Everyone had their head torches on and it was getting dark. Really dark.
I really struggled to get through the last parts of the race as I couldn't see a thing and had to rely on catching people with torches and running with them until we caught someone else and then running with them. Another few river crossings, a really steep slope that had a rope to help you down but I couldn't see and so jumped down it and a tunnel full of what looked and smelled like sewage. Finally I was getting close to the end. Spent another 5 minutes lost before finally the finish was in sight.
Before Debbie finished I thought that it would be a good idea to go to the car and get some dry clothing for us both. I ran back to the car (again) but the remote didn't work. Debbie finished and we both sat shivering beside the car as I tried with numb fingers to dry the remote out enough to allow us to open it. Finally we got it open but the car was now stuck in the field and we had to get 3 of the car park attendants to help push it out.
Finally we were back to the B&B to get showered and have a wee night out.
The next morning though the remote didn't work again and so we spent 30 minutes drying it with a hairdryer. We had met 3 lads that are training for the Marathon des Sables next year. It sounded like excellent fun and we chatted for 2 hours about running, ultras, food etc.
