Fire and Ice Ultra 2014: Race Summary (Part 3)

Thursday: Stage 5 - 72km

The big day. Finally, after four days the weather cleared. As we lined up on the start line there wasn't a cloud in the sky. I can't tell you how much the sun lifted my spirit, my knees were in a pretty bad way at this point but it didn't matter! 

Stage 5: Looking back at the past four days

The first part of the stage was dropping into another lava field, scrambling over these uneven surfaces had definitely begun to take its toll on my joints. Constantly having to readjust my feet for balance over boulders and loose stones was good fun but incredibly tiring. 

After 16km the scenery changed dramatically as the course slid into what is known as 'little Sahara', aptly named due to the presence of mini sand-dunes. This hidden valley was such a pleasure, having been tumbling over ash and rock for the past four days. In fact, the dark and barren landscape which was beautiful in its own right was relatively devoid of colour (apart from different shades of grey/black and the occasional red). This had induced me to dream in wonderful technicolour,  making up for the absence of colour in real life. I had read about his happening to arctic explorers, experiencing the same colourful dreams in an environment which could only offer white (which isn't really a colour anyway is it?). Inside this hidden valley there was a quiet mountain stream flowing and one could be forgiven in forgetting that they were in Iceland at all. 

Dropping into 'little sahara'

Alas this moment was soon over and I re-emerged back onto the rocky plains, passing through the first checkpoint to restock on water before continuing. Flags now pointed the way to Dettifoss, the World's second most powerful waterfall. From a checkpoint at 41km the next two hours seemed to go on for ever. The theme of rocky ash plains and lava flows continued, until I began to see water vapour rising up on the horizon. This was dettifoss. Upon running up rise after rise, the waterfall wasn't getting any closer. This was the most difficult part of the race for me so far. I knew that there was a checkpoint at 60km next to the waterfall and once I had made it there, then I would be on the home straight. I tried not to get ahead of myself and instead focussed on reaching each flag in front of me, and not thinking about the finish. After what felt like hours (it had indeed taken several hours) I emerged from the rocks next to the waterfall, apparantly to the surprise of a gaggle of tourists who looked incredibly awe struck upon seeing this gaunt, wild-eyed mountain man bursting out of the wilderness in front of them. In my daze I thought it would only be appropriate to put on a show for these apparent fans, and proceeded to power through towards the checkpoint at a much higher pace than I had been travelling for the previous 7 hours. This although incredibly foolish, did improve my mood a bit and I arrived at the final checkpoint for my last H20 re-fill in good spirits.

Dettifoss (not my picture)

 

With only 12km to go I ramped up the pace again and pounded towards the finish, which was up on some moorland. As the sun set and I had been running for 8 hours, the landscape in front of me began to shine and ooze colour. I had heard of hallucinations occurring in these long races, and I think that a mild version of this sort came over me. The previously bland colours of the dirt track shouted Orange and green, while the skin of my hands appeared to glow bright pink. This dream-like state is like nothing I had ever felt. A wonderful euphoric episode. Mike, one of the course team had told me of hallucinations that he experienced while on many ultras in the past. He mentioned that while racing in Antarctica, after many hours on his feet and stuck in a blizzard he came upon a tent. Inside the tent was another competitor who was inviting him inside to get warm and have some hot chocolate. He was about to jump inside when he noticed that there were no footprints or evidence of activity around the tent. It was a hallucination. If he had been any more tired he could well have just crawled into the snow thinking it was a sleeping bag and frozen to death. I don't think I hallucinated but it was an interesting experience nonetheless. 

What I saw

In reality...

My legs had been running on empty for hours but they just about managed to get me to the line, in just over 8 and a half hours. After sitting down in the course vehicle before being carted to the campsite, my legs refused to move. Pain would shoot up and down from both my knees whenever they were bent and I could feel that the one blister that had arisen a few days before had worsened. The brain does a good job of blanking out pain when it's not necessary. I slept well that night, regardless of how rocky the surface was.

Friday: Rest day

Friday was a rest day. This was because in these multi-day races, some competitors can take up to two days to finish the long stage. Jing, a Canadian man of Chinese origin had been walking the whole race. He finished the long stage in over 16 hours. I can't imagine how difficult it would be to walk the race. He mentioned that he did get quite depressed at the start of the race, but such was his determination that he just put it to one side and continued to walk. He is an incredible man with a fantastic story, and a true inspiration to everyone taking part in the event. 

Getting slowly boiled. Can't understand how it's good for you...

We camped next to some natural hot springs, which we were permitted to wallow in to soothe any sore muscles. The water was full of minerals and in particular silica, giving it a soapy feel on the skin. I didn't enjoy the baths as much as most of the people who were floating around in them. I felt it similar to being a lobster on the boil. Still the day of rest was much needed. Having finished the long stage, everyone was happy and looking forward to the stage 6, the 25km 'sprint' finish on saturday.

Saturday: Stage 6 - 25km

The final stage of the race led us through steaming mud pools, up and round steep volcanoes before looping around to finish at the start line. It was an incredibly quick race. Since it was the final stage I wanted to exhaust any remaining reserves that I had left. Once again I finished third in behind Mohamed and Julen, but this time only by two minutes. Since I had finished every stage behind these two, I had managed to come in third in the overall standings. Something which I had not expected or planned to do at all, my main target before the race being to finish the race with or without injury! 

Trying not to step in boiling mud. My least favourite kind of mud.

Following finishing, we were treated to our first normal meal in over a week. Although my ration packs and freeze-dried foods weren't that bad at all, it was a real pleasure to taste some freshly prepared food and veg. 

I am so happy to have finished this race, something which is topped only by the fact that we have managed to raise over £3500 for the charity KIbera Mpira Mtanni in Nairobi. It was a real privilege to travel to Iceland and take part in such a fantastic event, something that many people around the world do not have the means to do. 

The first time a Kenyan flag has been flown in Iceland?

I have to say one final thank you to everyone who has been following, supporting and donating over the past few months. Your generosity has been amazing and I can't find the words to say how grateful I am!

To anyone who has been stirred to donate the page is still live at www.justgiving.com/fireandicekibera and any final donations are of course welcomed!

I hope that this blog has been enjoyable and not too difficult to read, as at times I understand that it has been plagued with atrocious grammar and questionable english! That aside, it has been a great way for me to share some of my experiences over the past few months so thank you for bearing with me! 

"If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried!" - Steven Wright

Fire and Ice Ultra 2014: Race summary (Part 2)

Tuesday: Stage 3 - 42km

Stage 3 involved running north for 18km to the first checkpoint and then heading around an iconic Icelandic mountain called 'the Queen'. I have to say that this stage was both awe-inspiring and body-retiring in equal measure, with the views up the mountain and across the phenomenal lava field coming at a price. Very few people have had the opportunity to traverse the wilderness on the northern slopes of the queen and it makes sense. The terrain is incredibly difficult to walk let alone run across. The pink flags guiding us were thoughtfully positioned, often snaking difficult paths through jagged lava flows and along barren ashy plains. 

Having negotiated the first 18km without too much trouble and filling up on water at checkpoint 1, things then went a bit downhill. A fierce headwind greeted me as I circumnavigated the Queen, an incredibly frustrating and energy-sapping section. That coupled with having to remove sand from my shoes every 5km began to erode my mental state. 

Rough terrain

Finally after well over 5 hours the stage finished with a dream-like scramble over another stunning lava field. Unfortunately at this point my nerves had been frayed to the extent that I wasn't thinking about taking many photos, but rather with getting into my tent and attending to my blistered toes. 

Stretching out

Losing the plot

First and only blister of the race

Thankfully we had the use of a cabin to heat up some food and get hot water in, but had to get out shortly as a truckload of gibbering Italians arrived who had booked the cabins for the evening. So retiring to our tents, most of the competitors got an early night. 

Wednesday: Stage 4 - 35km

A combination of unusually high winter snowfall and a very warm spring and summer had resulted in large areas of flooding across the first few km of stage 4. Rather than make us run through knee deep water, the race organiser decided to drive us the few km through the water and allow us to start on the other side. But this came at a price, the skipped km would be added on to the total for the long stage and final stage distances. The long stage was now to be 72km (ouch) and stage 6 increased to 25km. 250km meant 250km, no exception!

Stage 4 was spent entirely on a track that wound north for 35km. I found this to be an incredible quick stage, mainly due to the fact that 35km didn't feel like much anymore (!). Although it was a quick stage for me (just over 4 hours) I found it to be the hardest to date. I think that this was because of the fact that although it was a very open and beautiful course, there wasn't much variation in landscape to take the mind off running. There were also large stretches where the pink marker flags seemed to go on forever without a change in direction. Anyone who has driven down a long, straight and open road for too long will understand the mental challenge this poses!

A road without end

The campsite that night was at St. Peter's church, which is really just a hut perched upon a lava field. The hut is used by shepherds for when they herd Sheep in from the highlands for the winter months. It consists of a table and a couple of bunk beds, but clearly provides perfect shelter against the elements. 

St. Peter's Church/Hut

Fire and Ice Ultra 2014: Race summary (Part 1)

My body is beginning to recover from the race now, which was a truly wonderful experience. There were times of extreme difficulty which I will come to, but upon finishing it was all worth it. Right now I don't want to even think about the possibility of doing another ultra, but who knows what I will want to do in the future. 

To make this easier to write I'll break it all up into days. I won't be able to squeeze the whole race into this post but I will put in a couple of days at a time. There is no way that I will be able to do the event any justice, so this will just be a brief overview of how I got on!

SATURDAY

We drove for about 6 hours from the northern town of Akureyri, first heading eastwards on the N1 (Icelands main road around the island) before taking to an off-road route directly south towards the Vatnojakull glacier (pronounced Vat-Nya-Kul). The organisers aimed to avoid as much of the race route as possible on the way to the glacier, so as not to spoil it for us. It wouldn't have mattered though, it truly is breathtaking. Endless volcanic plains surrounded by rough lave fields in the shadow of burnt out craters and mountains, the remnants of super-eruptions which have fortunately not occurred in our life-time. You remember the eruption of 2010 whose ash-cloud caused so much travel disruption across Europe? Apparently that wasn't anything to worry about, many locals actually went and stood under the volcano to watch it blast its innards into the atmosphere. Some past-time. 

So after several hours of bouncing around on aptly named 'F' roads, we arrived at our first campsite, on the edge of the glacier, Europe's largest and smaller only to those located in Antarctica and the Himalayas. It's big. The weather wasn't the best upon our arrival and as such I don't have any pictures worth showing, you'll just have to take my word on its enormity. 

Saturday night: It's as cold as it looks

There was a cabin which we were able to warm ourselves up in, but any sleeping was to be done by tent. To save on weight and space, I decided not to take a sleeping matt with me and suffered as a result. I could feel the cold ground sucking my heat out into the ground all night. Competitors this year came from all over the world, Canada, India, Spain, Morocco Iceland, Switzerland, the UK and Kenya (whom I was representing).

Sunday: Stage 1 - 37km

I can't remember what time we started, but it was relatively early. It was freezing, with a glacial wind and horizontal rain. All competitors were itching to get started if only to warm ourselves up a bit.

The Start: swarmed with paparazzi

The stage started with a 10km loop up to the edge of the glacier, before heading north up to the magically transported campsite. The race started a bit slowly for me, I was paranoid about starting too quickly and as a result held back a bit too much for the first 10km, getting incredibly wet and grouchy in the process. 

Running with Einar and Giesli, the Icelandic father and son superteam

The route wound through some incredible landscape. Rather than poorly describe it I will show you a few pictures. Weather conditions were atrocious but even so, the area is magical.

Red ash road through lava field

More ash

There's lots of ash in Iceland

I arrived at the finish of stage 1 in third place, a recurring theme after every stage no matter how hard I pushed to get closer to the leaders. The truth is the eventual winner Mohamed Ahansal, is a world champion ultra athlete, having won 5 Marathon des Sables and many other races. The bloke behind Mohamed (Julien Urdubai from Spain) was equally experienced if not quite as decorated with awards although he did finish second in the jungle marathon (a sweaty 250km through the amazon). They are world class ultra athletes and it showed! 

Suspect choice of footwear

My time for stage 1 was just over 4 hours, and upon arrival we were ushered straight into our tents to escape the elements and did not get out of our sleeping bags until 7am the following morning. I shared my tent with Einar and Giesli, a father and son Icelandic team. They are great guys and really good company. Einar was running his third fire and ice and so had some invaluable advice for me every day. Spirits were always high in our tent, no matter how wet our kit was or how loudly the wind was howling outside. 

Monday: Stage 2 - 39km

Sliding into wet running kit before the start of stage 2 is not something that I remember with any fondness. Again I just wanted to get running and hope to dry in the wind. The weather was just as awful as the day before. Mohamed, shivering at the start line started shouting "WHERE IS FIRE??!" obviously referring to the fact that the race is named 'Fire and ice' and as of yet, there had been no fire to speak of.

I lose time removing my shoes at the river

2km into the stage there was a river crossing. The water had come directly out of the glacier and so was as cold as you might imagine. I couldn't face getting my shoes wet and so crossed it barefoot along with Mohamed and Julen, while the rest of the field splashed straight through without removing any footwear. This obviously lost us some time, but I was thankful hours later when my feet were dry and I had managed to make up for it.

Blue Sky? I don't believe it.

 The weather finally cleared a bit and we were greeted with some sun, if only for a few hours. It was enough to lift my spirits for the final few kilometres, and I once again crossed the stage 2 finish line in 5 hours. It wasn't all good news though, two days of pounding on some rough volcanic terrain had started to have a negative effect on my knees. It started with the inside of my left to begin with and then ended up spreading to the same area on the right. Scott, the event medic told me that these events tend to bring up to the surface many problems you didn't know you had. While I sit here at home a few days after finishing, my knees are still aching. A much needed phsyio appointment has been booked next week for when I am in Edinburgh.

The second campsite was at a place called Dréki, in the shadow of Askja, an old Volcano. When it erupted in the late 18th century its lava flow extended for hundreds of kilometres north to the ocean and can be seen in this uninterrupted state today. Fortunately we were able to use the cabins at Dréki for hot water and to keep warm before heading to bed. The surface under-tent at this spot was jagged rock, not the therapeutic mattress which my aching back yearned for and it would be lie if I said that I got any sleep that night.

Nothing like a bit of rock to straighten the spine

At race HQ

So I'm finally here...

Roomed with Ling, a lovely bloke from Singapore last night. Helped him with his kit list. He had things like fluffy hello kitty slippers and seven changes of underwear. Had to go.. Absolutely hilarious, he only signed up to do this less than a month ago so is HUGELY nervous and doesn't know what to expect.

 I have a feeling the 70 km stage on day three might ruin us both! Apparantly some bloke last year set off at 8am on the long stage and didn't get in until 5pm the following day. Ouch. Which explains why it is dragged over two days, some people need the time! Really hope that isn't me this year. If you finish the stage on the same day you get the whole of the next day to recover in the natural hot springs at the campsite. 

All very exciting, we've had kit checks and are about to drive 5 hours into the highlands for the start of the race which is 8am tomorrow morning. Might be able to stick a few pictures up on here as we go along but don't expect anything. My next post could well be a summary of the event one I'm back in England. 

See you all on the other side! 

1 week before liftoff

Today I ran my final training marathon. It feels amazing just to have got this far. All that remains now is a comparatively laid back 'wind-down' week where I'll do a couple of short runs to keep the legs warm and make sure that I get plenty of food and sleep. 

I've weighed my backpack and it's come to around 10kg. When my water bottle and bladder are full then the total weight is 13.5kg which isn't that much, however after 20+ miles it feels double that. 

    Weight of bag = 90kg - 80kg 

               Water = 3.5kg

   There she is. Packed and ready 

I've started to pick up a couple of niggles, which isn't ideal a week out from the event. Almost twanged my groin while doing some squats at the gym the other day, a sensation that gives one quite a scare as you will know. Following this I proceeded to mosey around the gym like a cowboy after a 12 hour ride. 

My knees have also started to give me a bit of grief and I don't blame them. Can't imagine what it would be like to be forced against your will to pound for hours on end because of some foolish goal that the brain has set out to achieve. I need to keep my body happy, the promise of rest at the end seems to be keeping it going. One thing that I'm not telling it is that I'll be heading up to edinburgh for pre season hockey just two days after returning from iceland. That could well be  the straw to break the camel's back, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. There's a fairly large bridge to cross before I even get to the next one. 

       Look at that forced smile

On the fundraising front, we've crossed the £3000 mark, great news. A couple more weeks to go before the money raised gets sent out to Kibera so please keep donating, I am eternally grateful for all the support I've received so far but it's not over yet!

      www.justgiving.com/fireandicekibera

Insight: Nutrition

Training week 29 is over, another big weekend running in fairly warm conditions. Two weeks from now I will be staring up at an Icelandic sky having completed the first stage of the fire and ice ultra. Getting excited...

Everything is slowly coming together, I have looked into my nutrition for the week and am still missing a couple of things. It is compulsory to carry 2500Kcal each day. This is to directly replace what you burn running a marathon. Without running a marathon my recommended calorie intake on an average day is 2000Kcal. So I could be burning up to 5000Kcal each day. I will undoubtably leave a few Kgs behind in Iceland!

Ultra marathon nutrition. Yum.

Breakfast: 800Kcal porridge

Lunch: 2 x energy bars, 2 x energy gel ~700Kcal

Dinner: Military ration packs ~1000Kcal

Hydration: ~3 Litres of water mixed with energy & electrolyte powders. Although will probably drink more than this.

There are a variety of dinner options available to me each night. Chicken Panang, Tex Mex Soup, BBQ chicken and sausages are the headliners. Must also mention the instant hot chocolate sachets that I'm sneaking into the pack, I have a feeling that these little pleasures will take the edge off after a days running!

Yesterdays marathon was a hot one, and left me some awful tan lines. Only afterwards did I realise how unwise to was run in a singlet. 

"Turn the heat up high reggie, I wanna burn..."

We've almost raised £3000! Absolutely incredible, this money will pay for at least a couple of school fees for children in Kibera and will go towards building a whole new teaching block for the charity. What I've really enjoyed about working with and raising money for KIMTA is the direct and positive impact it has on the community. I'll be sure to send a few photos out of what all your kind and generous donations have gone towards. Collectively your donations will empower these children living in such a deprived and impoverished place to take control of their lives and go some way to lifting them out. 

Thanks to everyone, keep the donations coming! www.justgiving.com/fireandicekibera

In the UK we have relative poverty, where some people have less money than those living around them. This is undeniable and a real problem. But I it is important that people are able to make a distinction between what we have in our welfare society and the absolute and extreme poverty present in many areas of the world. Absolute poverty describes those whose income is less than 75p-£1.50 a day (75p being extreme). Today 40% of those living in sub-saharan Africa are defined as being in the absolute category. Although poverty in Kenya can be attributed to a range of political issues and clear social inequality, education is a power that can erode away at this imbalance and go some way to improving the well-being of many living there. So even though what we are doing for KIMTA is so small, it still is encouraging to see the funds going into the enhancement of an educational charity.

Heat exhaustion in England?

Saturday saw my tenth marathon of the summer. It happend to be the toughest so far. Around mile 22 I was hit by a wave of fatigue and nausea, making the remaining 4 miles feel a whole lot longer. At the time I couldn't understand how this could happen so deep into my training program, which started to erode the confidence in my fitness slightly. Managed to push through to the end anyway, having consumed about four litres of water, double the amount that I usually take in for that distance. Funnily enough Saturday was the aftermath of an extraordinary thunderstorm on Friday night, and the air was more humid than I can ever remember in England. This and a bit of sunshine combined to sap me of energy and at times almost forced me to stop. Good to have that in the bank going forward, if I start to feel dodgy out in Iceland then at least I'll know that I've been there before and will be able to draw on that reserve.

Sodden

 

As a result of such a draining Saturday run, I cut back the distance for my Sunday run to 18 miles. As if my mood couldn't dampen any further, I drowned in torrential downpour for the first hour of running. Again, looking back it is probably quite useful to have gotten wet and downtrodden. All useful experiences for when I need that little bit extra mentally.

My kit for the race is slowly accumulating, making the race feel very real for the first time. That and booking my flight to Iceland. Mark Topham, a good friend who is soon to finish his officer training at Sandhurst, has kindly donated a considerable amount of military ration packs along with some energy/rehydration powders of various sorts. I will be eating these for the whole week and if bought from an event nutrition company would cost well over £100, so I'm very happy about to keep the costs down without compromising on quality!

Donations continue to flood in and I have almost reached £3000, who knows how much more we can raise? Thanks to everyone for being so generous and for continuing to spread the word about my undertaking. Vincent from Kimta keeps messaging me about how happy and grateful they all are with the fundraising. I'll have a message from him shortly so he can thank you all himself. 

Link to my justgiving page is www.justgiving.com/fireandicekibera or just click here...

In other news, the half one of my front teeth fell off today while I was having lunch leaving a nice looking hole in the middle. Years of drinking Kenyan water are finally coming back to bite me (!). Only a mild case luckily, I need some fillings anyway so should probably seek out a dentist.

Flourosis: dental condition caused by overexposure to Flouride during childhood

Plenty more blogging to be done before I head out to Iceland, so please keep tuning in over the next few days and weeks! 

Only 3 more marathons left to run in training, words cannot begin to express how excited I am...