The Road to the Marathon des Sables
Well 1st December 2015, Myself and Gaz who work together were joined by a close friend, Mike, who I’d done Kilimajaro with in 2014, were all sat in a line in mine and Gaz’s office, prepared ready to sign up and hopefully get accepted for MDS2017. We were both apprehensive and excited, not sure what the demand would be like. We had been given a hint by a previous runner of the race, “have all your information that they could possibly, ready in a word document for a quick cut and paste”
The entires opened at 10am and we were ready from 7.30am constantly refreshing the website, as well as continuing with our day jobs. Time was dragging and although we knew registrations wouldn’t open for a few more hours, we constantly refreshed, not sure if we would get a break and get in early.
We had heard that there were many thousands of people who tried to enter every year, so we needed to be organised. unlike the London marathon this was not a ballot, this was first come, first served. Working in IT we wondered many things making ourselves more and more nervous. Our corporate internet went out via New York, would we be accepted as a UK entrant, Should we try and get on the wifi as this was local access.
10am came and we frantically got all our details in, Me first, I was in. Kinda worrying as i was also the least fit and carrying the most timber, Gaz, the multiple ironman, built like a racing snake was next. Mike was slowest to get his details in, but also accepted. That was it, we were all in. One of Mikes friends, Scott text. He was also in. A team of 4. That is where this adventure started.
Of course there had been others. Mike and I did Kilimanjaro, his idea and a misread text almost made me miss that one, but explaining to Gaz over breakfast, I re-read the text and realised I had been invited to join him. It didn’t take me long to decide I wanted to do it. My wife Sam had always know that was a life long ambition of mine; she wouldn’t mind would she? I text Mike back inquiring if there was still a space…..That again was how that started.
My wife may argue this is me fighting my age. Im 42, I will be 44 by the time my feet are buried in the sand of the Sahara. But this has always been in me. Adventure, Challenges, doing things that some may think crazy or stupid. Admittedly my pursuits have changed over the years. Growing up the Son of a military man, the RAF, we moved around a lot. My first real out doors experience was living in South Wales with holidays in Merthyr tydfil. Playing in the foot hills of the Brecon Beacons. Joining the cubs and going on camps. but this is where I think it began for me, my love of the out doors and of Mountains. From here we were moved to Lincoln. A total contrast. But at my age, it was lost on me, we had moved from the glorious landscape to a flat land, with few no mountains, and a few hills.
It was from here I was offered the chance to go to a boarding school; I’m in contact now with people who hated the regime of that school, run by prefects after 4:05pm until breakfast, one member of staff and one matron were the only two adults who were on site, so the prefects ran the place. But I found rugby and the outdoors. Rugby was a sport I loved playing for many years. It followed me though my life, or maybe I followed it, Thats certainly how things are now. It carved out my social calendar, recent holidays were planned around the world cup. But where it made the biggest impact in my life was my Army years.
From Lincoln my parents moved to Weston Super Mare. This mean that most School holiday’s were spent with my Dad in the Mendip hills. Though not as large as their cousins across the river Severn, these were my first experience with maps and compass and ‘mountain navigation’. After leaving School at 17 after re-sitting the final year and spending all of that playing Rugby and helping out the games teacher I wandered into the Army Careers office. My Dad it tow to ensure I was joining to get a trade.
My Army Career was only 7 years, but during those years i was lucky enough to play a lot of rugby; It got me out of doing a lot of things that your average Private, or in my case Signalman would do. I played rugby with senior ranks and although i never took too much advantage of this it certainly helped me. After leaving the Army. I moved to London, with my Girlfriend. I joined my current employment on the night shift. I didn’t take up rugby straight away when i moved to London. When i wasn’t working I was out drinking. This was a brave new world for me. After a very short time Jo and I parted ways and she moved home, I moved to Chelmsford in Essex, hoping to enjoy the life that Essex had to offer. I was looking forward to being single. Living with my old Army Mucka Bryan. We had joined up at the same time and shared a barrack room in Helles Barracks, Catterick Garrison in Basic training. We instantly disliked each other. He was from Northern Ireland and thought I was posh. I guess the Public School boy education, which incidentally was terrible had at least made me speak in a way that the ulster man disliked.
I did however have a secret that I wanted no-one to know when I joined the Army. However this secret was short lived.
During one of the classroom lessons the troop Sargent walked up to me and looked my square in the eye, “Yeardley, why do i know that name?” He wandered off continuing teaching us the how to survive Nuclear, Chemical and Biological (NBC) warfare. A few minutes later stopping in front of me again. “Ah! i remember now. Daddy is in the RAF isn’t he?” more in a statement than a question.
Wandering off again, leaving me to ponder where this was going. Why was he singling me out? Id spent most of my time so far trying to be unknown. “Thats it! he bellowed. Daddy is an Officer” and leaving it there. As a young boy soldier this was something i would not have told a soul, but my secret was out. Leaving it there again, possibly naivety, as nothing more was said i assumed that was the end of it. Well that was until for the first time since I joined up we had a dinner break were we had more than a few minutes to get all of the troop though the line and eaten and back outside in three ranks. Today we were left to sit and talk after eating as fast as is humanly possible. That was until the troop Sargent commanded quite in the cook house and announced my dad had arranged for me to have a birthday cake.
Bryan not only didn’t get any cake, for which even today he still grumbles about, but this did nothing to solidify our friendship. It was a few days later we were the only two people left in our room preparing for the next day he asked me in his gruff Omagh accent if he could take me for my first legal pint. I accepted. Since that pint we have been great mates.
So many years later we expected our exploits to continue. However on maybe our first or second night out in Chelmsford and before either of us had met an Essex girl, I met my wife Sam. Although I am convinced Sam thinks i am going though a mid life crisis, she supports me though it all.
We got married in December 2000. We lived in a small 2 up 2 down in a mews terrace in Chelmsford. Though out of our price range, she talked me into looking at house in the mews that had just come up on sale. We weren’t yet married and she was far more financially secure than me. I guess she took a punt on me and we had our first house.
Then came the motorbikes. I passed my test and just happened to buy a motorbike the next day. Sam with far more financial nouce than me sold her beloved Alfa Romeo Spider. We married the next year and moved to a Village out of town.
With not a lot of sport being done, she talked me into going to the local rugby club and taking up the sport again. I guess it was 3 years or so since Id donned my boot. Id only intended going back socially. But after a game for the 3rd team at South Woodham Ferrers, Id made the first team; and some real friends.
2 Years after our marriage, along came our only Daughter Megan. Now 13 she also embraces my love of the hills, I hope that it will rub off on her, but in the years of social media i suggest that they hurry up and get 4G across the hills so she can be ‘liked’ on instagram at the top of where ever i drag her.
In 2006 For family reasons, Sam followed me to Lee on the Solent to help run my mothers business while she was undergoing cancer treatment; and for the first time since I left for boarding school at 11 I now live within 3 miles of my parents and my sister and with my family happily settled in jobs and schools, Its only me who now spends the 4 hours a day commuting to work in London, to the second job I’ve ever had.
So as the least fit of us and the one carrying the most timber, its this commute that i have to some how use to my advantage in the coming year. How can I fit in my training that i will need to do to be able to complete MDS?
I completed my first Marathon in 2010. 3 years of that commute had taken its toll. I had gained a lot of weight. Id gone for the beach look in growing my hair, it only made me look worse. So in a bid to sort myself out, i signed up to do the London Marathon. I completed it in 4 hours 9mins. It still stands as my quickest time, much to my dismay. That year I also took part in the Lakeland50. To date the hardest race that I’ve done. Very underprepared 3 work colleagues, Gaz, Nick and myself all completed the 53 miles over the lake district in 18 hours. This was the first time either two of them had seen my cry as we crossed the line.
Gaz and I go back a long way. Although we work together now, We first met in 1991 after i had finished my basic training we crossed the road from Helles Barracks and went to Vimmy, also know at the time as the school of signals. Gaz was back doing his ‘upgraders’ or class one training, where i was just embarking on my class 3. Our paths crossed a few times, again as i knew a few of the upgraders who kept away from the ‘class 3’s ‘ due to the hierarchy of Army most of the upgrades were Corporals. But as a rugby player and like most sports in the military, it transcended the rank structure and you knew all the team regardless of Rank as their christian names, in the right place and time.
As my training came to an end we were all called into a room where we would be told what our units would be once we had completed our driver training. I was told i was going to 7 signal regiment in Germany. This was not what I had in mind. I had my mind set on going to York. The new home of Royal Signals Rugby. I did something here that still amazes me as a junior soldier. I called up the rugby officer, Colonel Geordie Gainsford and asked if he could pull some stings. I remember the conversation now, in his Newcastle accent he said “James, don’t worry, i will get you to York”
So York was an hour down the road from Catterick Garrison and if you ask me along with Bath was probably one of the best postings you could ask for. The camp was a few minutes from the town centre. The aim of every young soldier posted to York was to drink your wages in the first week. If it wasn’t the aim, its certainly what happened.
Again my draw to the outdoors was convenient. Dad had been posted to North Wales. Within a stones throw of snowdonia. So all of my leaves were spent going home and then going on trips with the officers mess up into the hills. Obviously as a young soldier and Officers being renowned for being useless with maps, I always navigated. We got lost a lot!
Gaz was also posted to York at the same time as me, we served in London together, where we became ‘mates’ and later in the former republic of Yugoslavia. He left the army before me and through a stroke of luck and through a mutual friend, we both now work together for over 18 years at the same company.
When I told Gaz of my commute, he said to me, “there is no way that i would ever do that”. So as a good friend Sam hatched a plan to introduce Gaz who had been divorced for a few years, to Mel who Sam works with. Gaz now gets on a train a similar time as me as he now lives 5 or so miles from me being happily married to Mel. It was in his wedding speech that he now ‘never says never’.
The first time i have ever failed to complete any event that i started was the 19th December 2015. Portsmouth coastal marathon. 19 days after signing up for the MDS. Admittedly i hadn’t prepared for it like I did the first marathon i had done in 2010. When i say the first Marathon, thats not quite true. While lying in bed in trade training a troop corporal had come round to find me in bed on a Saturday morning and volunteered me to push a wheel chair around RAF Catterick’s airfield for 26.2 miles in a team of 4. Totally unprepared for it, we came 2nd. We would have won it had it not been for our elderly gentleman getting out to go to the toilet a few laps from the end. But other than that i had not competed in a running race until the London Marathon in 2010. Since then I’ve done London once more and Portsmouth Coastal to the tune of one finish, one DNF. More 10k’s and 5ks than i remember and the great south run at least 5 times. So to not finish this year at the coastal marathon has been a wake up.
When i say my training hasn’t been the best, Who signs up for a marathon that close to Christmas. ? come on ? who? Well, for my 40th Birthday Gaz bought me a marathon place and said he would run it with me. Brilliant, just what i need the pressure of an Ironman/ racing snake hopping around while I’m dragging myself around then final 6 miles. That year however i had only managed one 6 mile run as my longest in training, but due to injury. That can’t be said the same for this year. Last November in the back of a taxi after the Autumn internationals, Mike said to me, ” do you think you can run at least 1 mile every day of the year next year” The obvious answer was “Yes” a conversation i had forgotten until New Years day when i got a text saying 1 down, 364 to go?
Right up until the 19th November I had run at least one mile a day for every day of the year. I stopped for a pint with an old mate Mark for an impromptu pint after work. I called Sam to say I wouldn’t be home and would stay in town for the night. The next day on the train on the 20th i frantically checked my garmin to see when my last run was. To my horror it showed the 18th November. Had i really missed that run! I called Sam devastate and angry with myself. As ever she was supportive. This wasn’t a challenge that only affected me. Sam cooked meals and timed them around me fitting a run in. We had stopped on our way to wales once, for me to get out the car and run a mile so i could fit one in for that day. This was a family commitment that I had agreed to without thinking of the impact it would have. I am still undecided if its something i will continue though 2016.. until the 18th of November. Or just write that day off in the knowledge that I’ve done a lot of running this year. Will it eat me if i stop? The major goal though has to be MDS2017
To add some context. Mark and I have been friends since my early army days. Although for many years after me leaving the Army and him still serving we only met once or twice a year. Once at the annual party which is the Army V Navy at twickenham. If you’ve never been to twickenham, then this is probably the best and worst of all you will ever see in Rugby. The comoradary is second to none, but soldiers letting their hair down after the years on tours they have been doing of late is something you will probably never understand unless you’ve served. I hear that the locals have requested the event be stopped. I guess too many drunk squaddies taking a piss in your front garden would do that. We also shared a room in Kisteljac in Bosnia. A tour where you were allowed 2 beers a night. Every week the beer was resupplied by another iso container. Either someone was bad at counting them as my hangover was way more than a two beer one.
Over the last few years, with Marks final tour in london we have taken the opportunity to have a few more beers. So this impromptu which was supposed to be a quick one, ruined my run 365 challenge. That said i will have run 364 days this year and well over 1200 miles.
At this point it may seem odd to say this. I am such a geek. I love technology. What i love more than running is the technology. Garmin, fitbit, tom-tom, apple watch, suunto, I’ve researched them all. It feels to me that if I’m not logging it, i may as well not have done it. My preference is the garmin fenix 3. Technology and stats make me tick. I love pulling apart my runs. What was my heart rate doing. One of the biggest (obviously not the completing it part) of doing MDS isn’t what am i going to do about my contact lenses, its how long will my Garmin last, Can I charge it. I think I’ve looked at that more times than Ive looked at what shoes should i wear.
So really i have had no excuse when it comes to completing the Portsmouth Coastal. Except I had only done a half marathon in training. I only have my self to blame. I do feel i could have finished the run, i had done 16 miles in a respectable time. But a number of things were against me. I had the fear of getting injured before starting in earnest training for MDS. My mother for the first time ever had posted on Facebook that i was doing it that morning. A post i wish i hadn’t seen. Sam an hour before the start of it had told me that my Daughter Megan was worried about me as i hadn’t trained properly. A phone call from my Dad saying that pull out of it at any point and there was no shame in it. I know i could have finished. But was this the point? just finish ? So at 15 miles I called Sam, had a garbled conversation where at the end i was angry with myself and a fellow runner, pointed and shouted “the finish is that way”.
I ran another mile before stopping in the petrol station at Hayling Island. I ordered a costa at the machine… who the fuck doesn’t take apple pay! my only way of paying. To my delight a lady in the queue for the toilet offered to buy me a coffee, at which point the garage staff told me to help myself. Annoyed with myself, wondering what Gaz and Mike must be thinking, i stood and drank my coffee.
Kommentare