Ok. So why do we do it, take so many risks?
There must be a reason?
During a rare moment in front of the TV watching some
program about people surviving against the odds i began to recount my own close
escapes and wondered what drives me to do these things.
Sure i enjoy it, running gives me an amazing high when its
going well but the risks associated with failure are so very high.
Firstly there is the risk to my sanity, as a person who
suffers from depression i know that failing can (and often does) lead to weeks
of despair and desperation where my mental health suffers because i just can’t
be arsed. Every day i go without some sort of training i feel worse than the
day before, until i get to a point where I’m just no fun at all. At this point
i usually become aware that i have to do something before it too late.
There is also the risk of training injuries, which for me
have been many and varied. In fact i find i am usually carrying several
injuries at any one time and doing my best to train around them. Why don’t i
just stop and let them heal? Will some of them ever heal?
There is the risk of testing my relationship to the point of
braking of course. Running and all the other forms of training that goes with
it can put an amazing strain on any relationship, ask my mate Chris A, who has
been close to divorce on more than one occasion. Despite my partners tolerance
of my dedication to sport above almost anything else i often still feel that it
is a balancing act. How far can i push it, where is the line that i must not
cross? Will she get fed up with my selfishness and walk away from it all?
There are also financial risks, have you seen the price of a
pair of trainers these days? Trainers are a very small part of the cost of
mountain running, travelling the 6 hours each way to Fort William in Scotland
and back again, food, drink, special dietary needs and then the cost of
equipment on top. Do this for a few weeks in a row and the costs really mount
up. By the end of the summer i am usually in a financial mess and it takes
until spring the following year to catch up, when it all starts again.
Work – spending most evenings and weekends either training
or taking part in some challenge or another can sure take its toll on energy
levels and i know that this makes my work suffer, there are days when i feel
like i can barely stay awake at my desk and I’m damn sure the quality of work
I’m doing is way below par. My colleagues suffer because every Monday they know
that I’ll be tired, probably walking round like I’ve been the new boy on a
prison wing, where some big thugs decided to treat me to some fun. They also
know it will be Wednesday before I recover enough to be fully human.
My daughters don’t live with me, however they do come round
to stay every other weekend and increasingly they have been expected to come
along and watch Dad race, sometimes these races or support runs can go on for
10-12-14 hours, possibly over night. As much as they love me I’m sure that they
would rather spend the time shopping or having quality time with Dad.
The mountains are a dangerous place; i have absolutely no
doubt about this. They have had me in a minor way quite a few times and i have
lost count of the number of times i have had lucky escapes. Often it’s not
until i look back on an incident that i realise I’ve had a lucky escape, i
remember an incident on the Nantile ridge, it was night, a little wet and i was
jogging along the ridge peacefully when i slipped, slid on my arse over some
rock and landed some 15 feet lower on another path, safely on both feet with
only a bruised arse to show for it.
I may recount such an incident to someone at work and
realise as i speak that i sound daft, like I’m telling some kind of tall story,
these things cannot possibly have happened if I’m still here to talk about
them. However i can probably recount a dozen incidents over the years where,
looking back, i feel like i had a lucky escape or perhaps it was good judgment.
What i do know for sure is that these incidents are all part of the risk and
reward game.
So why do we take such risks? Hell why not. Why not find
that nice little climb at the top of Penny ole wen? Why not take the Lords rake
route up Sca Fell instead of the much safer Foxes tarn. Don’t simple avoid the
risk but manage it, take control and own it.
Which brings me to another point – why do i so often have to
do these things alone? Yes i know others have busy schedules but i do it alone
anyway just for the extra buzz, i tell myself I’m being soft if i don’t.
Hell, just get out there and do it, are you a man or a
mouse, i hear myself saying this and think – it can only lead to disaster but i
still go out and do it, if i didn’t i would give myself such a hard time i
would not be worth living with – its these occasions which can lead to a dive
in my well being – if i bottle out i feel bad and get down. My alter ego knows
this and uses it against me. It calls me names. Nasty names, names that make me
feel bad about myself and destroys my confidence.
My alter ego is a crafty bugger though because he often
works the other way, it says – i know you are tired but you can do it, push on
to the top and it will get easy again, only 3 more summits to go and you are
back at the car, we will call it quits for the day then. Forget that last leg,
you can do it another day. Oh yeah, i bet. I know for sure when we get back to
the car and get a brew we will be looking at the next climb, thinking – it’s
not so bad, an hour and all the hard work will be done, it mostly downhill
after that, go on Dave, get on with it. What you gonna say when people ask if
you managed the 14 hour reccie you talked about? What excuse will you come up
with this time?
Oh, err, it was raining, or i was err tired, i had a
blister, i scratched my knee or maybe you will say you were sweating so phuking
much it made your makeup run into your eyes and it stung a little. Go on, stop
being soft get on with it. Fell runners don’t just give in because something
hurts or they are bloody tired. 4 more hours and you have stood by your word,
no having to explain why you failed again.
So this argument goes on i my head and invariably i push on,
not always though and it’ these times that i believe lead to failure. If you
don’t push hard enough and take enough calculated risks you are going nowhere.
For me it is all part of the game, building the confidence, little by little,
not letting your body yield to fatigue. It is not just your physical body that
need to be trained, you have to train your mind also and every time i think “i
can’t do this” but push on harder, i know i am increasing my mental fitness..
As most runners know, you are only as good as your weakest point.
I believe i have very little natural ability and didn’t run
for sport until i was 40, so running in its self was a big challenge. For me,
success in mountain running is about how hard i am willing to train, i have to
reccie routes relentlessly before a race or challenge, i need to know that i
can complete the challenge before i even start, mental fitness is often my weak
link and if i don’t do things this way it often leads to failure.
When i first decided to have a go at the Bob Graham round i
spent many hours on the FRA forum and Bob Wightmans web site. Preparing maps
and schedules, making route choices and finally spending days in the lakes
doing reccies.
Like most people i reccied one leg at a time, then i started
to string them together and then its big days back to back. Finally i set off
at midnight on a final reccie and decided to see how far i could get. It took
me 14 hours to get as far as Bowfell where thick clag and heavy rain stopped
me. It took me a further 2 hours to get back to the car where my partner was
waiting to console me. However it gave me confidence in myself, despite feeling
bad that i had to give in before i was ready, i knew deep inside that i had
what it takes. I had to keep training hard and help out on some supports and i
could do it.
On the big day i had a great team and never doubted that i
would do it. The rewards are absolutely massive, there is truly no feeling in
the world like completing a challenge that you never imagined you would be good
enough for.
So what next? Well in the sport of mountain running in the
UK it was an obvious path, the Paddy Buckley round.
There is no doubt about it, i am a crap navigator, but doing
a reccie for the first time and navigating a leg of the Paddy for example,
feels good, it’s a great sense of achievement and so it brings the high, the
feeling that i can succeeded when other can’t (not many i admit). I have safely
(ish) navigated myself through mountains, from point A to point B and arrived
in one piece. Some times without incident but to be honest there is usually
something that happened along the way that i will be keeping to myself.
Sometimes sharing is not caring.
The years i spent training for and attempting the Paddy were
tough but there were so many victories along the way, nailing the climb through
the quarries out of Llanberis, the amazing run down the ascent next to Bristly
Ridge, getting the line right coming off Tryfan, finding the final scramble at
the top of Penny Ole Y Wen, small victories but in the moment they belong to me
and they feel so damn good. Each time i am on top of the world, the rush can
last for weeks.
Completing the Paddy Buckley round is without doubt the
hardest challenge i have ever done, which of course also brings with it the
highest high.
Am i an adrenaline Junkie?
An adrenaline junkie is a person addicted to the thrill of
the adrenaline rush: the exciting, pleasurable effect produced when the adrenal
glands dump a large dose of adrenaline into the bloodstream. The adrenaline
rush usually occurs when the body senses danger, the "Fight or
Flight" moment. Your heart rate increases, pleasure-giving endorphins are
released by the pituitary gland and your breathing rate ramps up. The result of
all this extra oxygen, energy and hormones is the adrenaline high, a euphoric
feeling that can last for hours.
Sports are a natural place for adrenaline junkies. Every
day, thousands of adrenaline junkies strap on a parachutes, climb into a kayak
or run up and down mountains. But does this really make us adrenaline junkies.
If wanting to feel good about myself gives me that label then so be it,
however, i don’t consider myself an adrenaline junkie. I wish it was so simple.
To be honest i’m not sure if the rewards are greater than
the risks or if the greater risks offers greater rewards but i do know i won’t
stop doing it until i can’t do it anymore.
