Reflections on an Ultramarathon- I run therefore I am

 

Some weeks ago I completed the run of my life- a 50km ultramarathon- the culmination of five months training after five years reflection on the only marathon I have run. After running the Belfast marathon in 2017 I reassured myself that I wouldn't do anything so ridiculous again- at the time I was undertrained, unenthusiastic and deep in grief for my mum and for Ruby who had died four years previously, almost to the day. It was the most difficult voluntary action I ever performed and took a month or more to recover as I missed half my training due to a chest infection and then my mum died, suddenly and unexpectedly, two months before the marathon. I trained, if it could be called that, by running the classic combination of easy-, training- and long-runs for as many times as grief and exhaustion would allow me. This was nowhere near enough. 

The run was memorable for all the wrong reasons. I had only ever run alone and at the marathon start-line I was surrounded by thousands of people, acutely aware that I experience social anxiety in the company of even small groups. It was un unusually hot May morning, I ran out of my electrolyte drink a quarter of the way through, I ran the full distance barefoot on roads I had never run before and my soles were cut and bleeding within 10km because the surface was so stony. After the marathon I could barely walk for three weeks, my muscles atrophied and the soles of my feet were shredded. And so, considering this experience, I vowed to never do it again.

But a few years later, partly due to my interest in endurance running and long distance racing by runners who could only be described as super-human (100km mountain race, anyone? 260 miles over the Pennines? 24 hours non-stop around a running track?), I got the itch to look into my unfinished business of successful marathon completion. The usual 42.2 km (26.2 mile) length never really interested me - I only chose Belfast marathon five years ago for easily-recognisable fund-raising purposes - and so a 50km ultramarathon (31 miles) was the next logical step. I made the decision to aim for the ultra and, just like that, the commitment was cemented (this realisation about commitment was slow to grow in my mind over the years- to agree to something, even something as seemingly insurmountable as running 50km barefoot, is as easy as saying "OK, go on then" and that's it, I'm signed up). 

But there was a serious obstacle. A year previously I developed sciatica after a run of pure bad luck- three pulled back muscles in three days- and was floored for weeks with the worst pain I've ever experienced which includes motorbikes crashes, broken bones and more than one burst gum abscess. A rigorous stretching regime was the most successful treatment for the acute pain in my back at the time of injury but even though I became a little more mobile after a month and could run again within two I still woke up with sciatic pain every morning after then. A year later I had decided to run the ultra and, to feed two cats with one bowl (Tom and I decided years ago that this is a much more pleasant way to put it)- to train for the ultra and to finally rid myself of daily back pain- I bought a rusted and bent second-hand set of weights and barbell, taught myself how to deadlift on YouTube and designed a training regime. 

It worked. From that very first morning after lifting weights I woke up with no back pain, I evangelically shouted for joy with the zeal of the newly converted and jumped out of bed like a child on Christmas Day. It was revelatory and so I started training for the ultra in earnest by running three times a week (the usual short/training/long) and lifting increasingly heavy weights three times a week too. I quickly realised that you can use weights for different health/aesthetic benefits and, for me, this meant keeping an eye on "functional" body strength (being strong when moving through a range of different motions instead of just one plane- the difference between moving a sofa and deadlifting) but also using the weights to focus on running-specific exercises to increase the strength in my joints and core.

My runs changed slightly over the next five months as my cardiovascular fitness, mobility and strength noticeably increased. A typical training run might include hill repeats- in the early stages a warm-up jog down to the sea at the bottom of the hill I live on, race up the hill for 30 seconds which is as far as I could go before retching (this speed is zone 5 heart rate), slowly jog back down to the sea (zone 2 heart rate) then repeat 6 times- but by the end of five months training I was running up that hill 12 times for 50 second bursts. Similarly, my easy run started at 5-8km and ended at 15km five months later, my long runs started at 20km and ended at 40km. 

The open secret about running is that, once you can run for 5km without stopping (about 30-40 minutes), it isn't a great hurdle to run any distance because all you have to do is practise. It takes time and effort, of course, but there's no magic formula here - you simply increase the long run gradually until you are where you want to be- 10km, 50km, 100km or more. 

Early September was crunch time. It was a psychologically busy period of the year and is usually the most stressful time too- both our very old cats died within a few weeks of each other a month earlier (they had been with us for 17 years), it should have been my mums birthday on the 6th and it was also Ruby's birthday on the 13th  (she would have been 21 this year). The weekend closest to these two anniversaries arrived and part of me wanted to go to bed and ignore the world for a week which is the same part of me I have to make peace with every year (much of the management of long-term grief is about making peace with yourself, of navigating the journey rather than trying to circumvent it). 

But this weekend was different. The weather was perfect for running - chilly, bright and clear - my training was complete and it was also the tenth anniversary of when I started running, to the week. I was buoyant and I felt unusually strong so I headed out on the pavement with a rucksack full of flapjack, some peanut butter wraps and two litres of electrolyte fluid and, without warmups or fanfare or a starting gun, I started to jog round a double 25km loop on foot (which still makes me tired to even contemplate. 50 kilometeres, on foot, running, it's a pretty ridiculous idea by most standards). I was off.

Although unexciting to announce, the run mostly went like clockwork. I smiled around the first 40km or so, roads I had covered  hundreds of times over the last ten years. I ate and drank little and often and I ran effortlessly. I incidentally glanced at my smartwatch at 42.2km, the exact marathon distance, and took a big gulp as I had never run further than this in my life. But I plodded on and continued to gorge on wild blackberries growing in the hedgerows by the side of the road (the flapjack and wraps had become impossibe to digest after 30km). I pulled a muscle in my back when reaching up for this perfect autumnal roadside snack which hampered my breathing and speed for the last 8km (actually it was as painful as the broken rib I endured a few months previously but, this time, the pain dissipated by the evening) but I eventually hobbled across the finishing line, breaths like stabs, bruised soles, jellied legs but goal achieved - 50km complete. There is no shower as deeply cleansing as the shower after a long run and there is also no pizza as delicious.

So, was it a profound experience as I had hoped and had read it might be? Was I a changed person because of it? In short, yes and no. On a superfluous level (type 1 fun, as I have heard it called) I enjoyed the run for the simple pleasure of movement for movements' sake - there were times I jumped a little higher than I needed to when going up the pavement after crossing the road, times that I skipped down to the sea shore for a quick paddle halfway round and times that I stopped at a beautiful viewpoint (of which there many on that route) just to breathe it all in and appreciate the luck I have simply to be able to run. I waved at every runner, patted every dog, stroked every cat, thanked every car that gave way and gave a thumbs up to every child that looked my way. I think I even winked at a few people. One older gentleman even got a salute from me, something I've never done in my life.

But, in addition, type 2 fun is how runners really get their kicks and is the true, deeper reason we know it is worth putting ourselves through such hard work- all those cold, early mornings and vomit-inducing sprints and exhausting long runs, all the chaffing and rolled ankles and sore knees- all for the psychological rewards that sometimes arrive long after the run itself. The sense of achievement that I felt after running 50km was certainly not greater than reaching my first 5km ten years previously (I want to be able to feel that sense of joyous achievement again but have concluded, sadly, that if finishing a marathon or ultramarathon doesn't give me the same buzz as my first 5km, no run ever will) but it was nevertheless a distance to be proud of, being a man who has no real skills, no discernable talent and who hates training. 50km was a goal I had aimed for, that I had created a plan to achieve and I had put great quantities of effort into its realisation. The endeavour was worth all the hard work I had invested. 

Also, it isn't that I ran a long way that rewards me, it is that I can run a long way. The ability to move in a way that we as a species have evolved to do- particularly if I run long distances barefoot - proves that I am animal, that I am tangible and that I am afforded a place here in nature and this is where I should be. As has been stated elsewhere (notably by philosopher Heidegger) it isn't that I "have" a body, rather it is that I "am" bodily. Running a long way proves not only that I am a visceral member of the animal kingdom but also that I am psychically linked to, and coupled with, nature. My body is not separate from my brain, they are one and the same as I am with my surroundings. 

Some runners talk of "conquering" mountains, or even "combating" them, but I don't want to be an opponent. I want to be amalgamated with my surroundings and I want to relate to it. I want to be striated within it and, it turns out, running gives me this. The profoundest lesson I have learnt from running is this- to run is to be human, to be human is to be animal and to be animal is to be a component of the natural world, to be of it and within it. To paraphrase Heidegger, it isn't that I am "in" nature, it is that I "am" natural.