Mad Max Runs

Some 12 hours before the start of my R86+ revenge round, I spotted a new bruise on the lower inside of my shin. The attachment point of the peroneal, outside of the leg above the ankle, was also a bit more sore and twingey than one would expect, having done little else but ride in taxis and trains all day. Even the three mile shakeout walk I had planned failed to materialise, but still there sat the exceptionally un-funny comedy duo of Bruise and Twinge, daring me to dare greatly.  Into the epsom salt bath went I, pleading with the fates to let me have my meticulously-planned day in the sun. Nothing else hurt.  This would become a theme. Long story short, it could have gone either way. Had the stars aligned slightly jigged to the right, or left, or anywhere else but where I found them, it really could have. It all went so right, until it went so wrong. If ultrarunning had a mantra, I think that'd be it. I woke for the R86+ redux with great anticipation and greater co...

Near on two weeks later and I'm still waking up on the Pennine Way in my dreams. Usually a technical bit, the rocks underfoot distant cousins of the one that tripped me up and fractured my finger on the Ridgeway back in May, this time buried to the left of a steep drop off. One false move and I've got a motherless disabled son at home. Good lord what a journey was that Spine Sprint. To start with, I finished. I finished while walking with Joy (quite literally, my trail companion from darkness to finish line was a redhead named Joy, like some kind of mantra in my skull handing out deliverance "you'll finish and you'll finish happy and here's just the person to rally with.") We had some 29 minutes to spare, after 17 and a half hours of what was for me the most stunning, anxiety-riddled, clock-chasing, addictive race I've ever done. My goodness, I actually did it. How on earth did I finish this race? I trained my arse off from the minute I booked ...