From Mountains to Marathons

 Hello again

In the first installment of my story, I shared with you about how at the ripe old age of being “an over 50” and having lived with a significant physical disability since my teens, I found myself accepting a challenge to enter the Mountain Run in the epic New Zealand adventure race that is the Katmandu Coast to Coast.

With my good mate Tim James offering to act as my guide and go with me I began to prepare for what would be the biggest physical and mental challenge I had ever faced.

The “Coast” website describes the Mountain Run as

“The 33km run is mainly off trail with the rocky riverbed often the only direct line up the valley. Competitors encounter multiple river crossings with frigid crystal clear water and an elevation gain of nearly 800m on their way to Goat Pass and the start of the descent. With the very fastest athletes taking nearly 3 hours the run is as much a test of coordination and strength as it is out right speed”.

I had none of the attributes described above, coordination, strength or speed, well I thought, maybe the race organisers would stop me from going because it would all be just too hard.

When Tim contacted Katmandu Coast to Coast race director Richard Ussher to explain what we were wanting to do, Richard’s response was

“How can we help”?

I think Richard recognised that this wasn’t about a disabled guy trying to live life as non-disabled, this was a disabled guy wanting to live an effective life with a disability.

I will always remain grateful for the opportunity to experience “the Coast” that Richard gave me, his support in making it happen meant it was “game on”.

So my journey to race fitness began and over the next 9 months I started to prepare with workouts at the gym, seeing a specialist rehabilitation trainer, lots of off road trail and river stone walking, hill climbing and entering local off road trail events.

Like anybody in training for an event it came with its sacrifices, time spent socialising or other activities, weekends, weeknights, everything revolved around and became centered with getting fit for “The Coast”.

After 9 months training, on race day Tim and I set off in near perfect clear, cool conditions into the unknown. Had I done enough work? Would we make the cut off at Goat Pass? How would we manage getting through “boulder valley”? All of these questions were about to be answered.

Despite our best attempts of wading through up to chest deep water, clambering over boulders, scrambling up and down banks all the while criss crossing mountain streams, at our pace, we simply ran out of time.

Eight hours after we had started having been passed by pretty much everybody else in the race it came to an end, we were about 2k from Goat Pass with half an hour to get there before the cut off time.

If you don’t make it to Goat Pass (effectively the summit of the run and the start of the descent) by the cut off time you are finished, it’s a mountain safety issue and a nonnegotiable race condition. It was clear that our pace meant we were not going to make it in time, for us the Mountain Race was over.

We were helicoptered out, as I sat watching out of the helicopter window I could see other competitors making their way towards the finish, envious that the feeling of making it to Klondyke Corner the finish of the Mountain Run was not something I was going to experience.

I had failed at achieving the goal and as we came into land I was already thinking about what it would take for me to get to the finish should we go back to the mountain.

I was asked after the race if I thought we should have gone down for a pre-race trial, to see what we were up for rather than just heading into the unknown. It was certainly an option and in terms of race preparation it’s a very good option and certainly something the elite athletes incorporate into their training.

I’m not an elite athlete and for me part of the challenge and a big part of the adventure was heading into that unknown. A quote I had found inspiring while preparing said that “Only those who risk going too far will discover how far they can go” Although I believe Sir Ed though put it best when he said:

“It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves” – Sir Edmond Hilary

I didn’t have any time after the Coast in February to sit around in regret, as during this time of preparing to do the Mountain Run, I had been given the opportunity in November later that year to head over and take part in the New York City Marathon.

I was about to go from one race of a few hundred and no spectators in spectacular Mountain country, a race I didn’t finish to be in quite a different race with over 50,000 other competitors and 1 million spectators cheering you on in the streets of New York.

Could I get back up from my Mountain Run failure and do a 42k marathon? That’s another story for another edition of GrownUps.

Regards

Richard

Read more of Richards posts here…

Image – Richard and Tim heading off at the start of the 2015 Coast to Coast Mountain Run.