Breaking the levee.

Streatley - Bury Down

‘…What's the plan, and would you like some company?’

The text had largely come out of nowhere two weeks prior to the big event, and I grinned when I saw it. Despite my natural aversion to accepting help from anyone for just about anything, this was nowhere near an offer I’d be declining—it was from my friend, fellow runner, and previous R86 finisher, Hobs.

We’d originally thought that he’d catch me up at some point early in the day on Easter Monday, but when my pace had aligned my arrival in Streatley with an easterly sun rather than the previous night’s pitch, this, like so many other plans, went out the window. We agreed I’d ping him later when I was getting ready to move again, as I’d be staying in my basecamp room for some time.

I was so knackered that I didn’t bother to shower before settling in for a 2 hour nap, which was startlingly interrupted when a cleaner barged halfway in to me shouting ‘HELLO!? HELLO?! I’M SLEEPING!’ He slammed the door and dashed away behind a mumbled apology. Amazingly, I dropped straight back off and woke an hour later feeling rested enough. My head had other ideas and I only wanted to get moving again. I popped into the shower to wash off more of the past and get ready for the battle to come.

To my horror, Cleaner Guy had a second go at the door just as I was stepping out of the shower, and nearly got an eyeful of my birthday suit before I knocked him back again, this time with my biggest Chicago voice. Minutes later, I’m now wrapped in a towel as the proprietor comes knocking with a bit of extra furious energy, then reels back in horror when he realises it’s me, and it had been a mistake for any of them to come knocking at all (at least I hope that was the realisation and not the sight of me in a towel which caused the reaction). It seems Our Cleaner thought I was a previous male(!) guest sleeping off a hangover when I was merely a mad woman in the midst of harpooning one elusive chalk whale.

Now that I think of it, perhaps there’s not that much of a difference between me and that guest when it comes to compulsion.

I hadn’t yet packed the bag for legs 2 and 3 of the original planned journey, having decided when I set up this checkpoint that I’d consider the conditions from the first segment to consider what to include. Nevertheless, it still took me hours, as I was held hostage by decision paralysis of the highest order before I closed that pack. In the end it was minus a third of what I’d originally planned to carry along.

Most surprisingly, the sleeping bag never made the cut. After witnessing the soggy state of the trail and having been so desperately cold when I stopped moving the night before, I knew there was just no way I’d be hoping for any kind of reasonable rest on the trail. I decided that I’d go until I no longer could, hoping the sleep I had on board would largely be enough to sustain me. The emergency kit to hand was only the tent and a foil bivvy bag, merely to enable me a small bit of heat out of the elements for a brief respite. Neither would ever come out of the pack.

Yet again, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

By the time I was ready to go, the sun had taken up residence in the west, my clock time had gone from 23 to 30 hours, and I knew beyond contestation that I was going to finish the Ridgeway on this occasion no matter what I had to do to make it happen. I let Hobs know I was about to be on my way and he told me he’d be waiting for me at Bury Down, about 8 miles ahead. Better still, with a McDonald’s. Tell you what, if I had a pound for the number of times I’ve dreamed of eating a burger in the middle of an event I’d be a very wealthy woman indeed, so this was motivation on top of motivation.

I knew the departure from Streatley would be emotional, but never imagined it would inject me with such a massive rush of power and positivity as this. I felt so lucky that the earlier slow pace had given me an unexpected daylit departure, which I capitalised on by pausing repeatedly to look around and soak it up. I reached the junction where the trail forks left, looped around Lough Down, now the golf club, now past Thurle Down, up until the fingerpost told me Streatley was now 1.9 miles in my past. I’d seen that sign before but not like this.

Never like this.

I’m out. I’ve done it. Let's fucking go.

The intensity of emotion is impossible to describe, and despite me being of many words, for this I have none at all.

I captured a snap for posterity and started up yet another hill that I’d expected would scratch and crunch underfoot but was delighted to be so wrong again – soggy and soft won the day. I reached the top, dotted with puddles and the odd flooded patch, but nothing yet too severe. I could see more of that glorious gold in the fields, which drove me on still further.

The further away from Streatley I got, the more the wind made its presence felt. In the absence of rain, it was reasonably tolerable for the bulk of time, but started to grow fangs as I turned right onto the paved Churn Road. I thought best to pop on the headlamp as the sun was doing tonight’s disappearing act and remembered that first R86, chatting with Jason, the guy I’d been walking with, both of us getting a bit frustrated that we weren’t yet at the checkpoint at Bury Down when our calculations dictated otherwise. I pondered just how disheartening it is when your lack of knowledge of a route lets your head game slip in a race.

But today there was no such urgency – I’d get there when I got there, as long as I kept moving forward. A lesson I’d long since learned from my Rukai. A lesson I’d long since expressed to anyone who’d listen.

It’s ok to go slow, as long as you go.

It’s a good thing I was so comfortable with the slow pace as it wasn’t long before I entered more flooded channeled terrain that was like chugging along in treacle. It started drizzling and I popped the foil poncho on more for a windblock than anything. I was nearly at my wits end and the point of maximum tolerance of battering by the crosswinds, when I finally stepped underneath the A34 bridge. I’d never previously noticed the scenes of battle along the walls, but they seemed about the perfect fuel to sharpen my thoughts about whay lay ahead. As I finally stepped up on to Bury Down, I looked into the distance for signs of life.

My eyes fixed on a set of lights that seemed to keep dancing closer before magically – and frustratingly – receding. They reminded me of the Pennine Way’s ever-taunting Stoodley Pike, which had felt like a 20 year epic to reach once we’d spotted it during the long ago Spine Sprint.

‘I see your headlamp.’

Another text that drew a grin, dragging me out of my latest angst just as I was about to start creating new words to call those lights. Within the next few minutes I spotted Hobs smiling underneath a headlamp in front of me. Before I knew it, I was sipping a hot cup of tea and chowing down on a burger in a warm car, rather than shivering my way through a blowy pitstop, alone.

Let me tell you, this accepting help lark always feels a bit scratchy, but I’m pretty sure it’s a goer.

I wasn’t feeling too wackadoo at all, and we chatted for a bit, before he kitted up to join me for a few miles while I sorted my feet and snipped off a hangnail that had been catching on my glove for the better part of the journey. I hoiked on my pack and started off while Hobs held back to sort something preventing the car from locking up. When he caught me a few minutes later I realised instantly just how much faster the miles go with conversation (and the company of someone with legs twice as long!)

Eventually it was time for him to turn back. He’d meet me up at Sparsholt Firs, roughly mile 62. I waved him off, feeling far more gratitude than I probably expressed in the moment, took a last glance behind me, and kept moving further away from Streatley.

I looked to the heavens and thought of my Pop, wondering if he was looking down right now, wondering what he’d say about all of this. He never knew me as a runner. I never did anything like this when he was alive. And just like my Ma is, I know my Pop would have been so proud of how no matter how many times I get knocked down, I will forever keep getting back up. Of how I refuse to quit when it can be prevented. Of how I stay strong under pressure and true to myself.

I tilted my head down and pressed onward.

There may have been a hell of a crosswind, but on this night it could only stoke the blaze.

___

This is our time, this is our time
Buried our roots on the front lines
Digging in deep for the long night
Heart beats steady, heart beats steady

Been fighting so hard all of my life
Gettin’ so close and it feels like
I’m taking my place in the spotlight
Better get ready, better get ready

Never gonna raise up a white flag
Didn’t come this far just to turn back
The curtains fall for the last act
Breaking that levee, breaking that levee

Oh, we don’t back down, this is what we’re made of
Oh, standing our ground, here it goes now

Oh, you and me, we’re gonna be legendary
Oh, wait and see, we’re gonna be legendary

Ain’t no time like the here and now
Yeah we showed up, now we’re showing out
Oh, you and me, we’re gonna be legendary

- Our Time, Paper Kings

(8 / x)

Prologue: https://madmaxruns.blogspot.com/2024/04/in-search-of-inner-greatness.html

Part 1: https://madmaxruns.blogspot.com/2024/04/why.html

Part 2: https://madmaxruns.blogspot.com/2024/04/when-adversity-comes-calling.html

Part 3: https://madmaxruns.blogspot.com/2024/04/once-more-unto-breach-dear-friends-once.html

Part 4: https://madmaxruns.blogspot.com/2024/04/dream-big.html

Part 5: https://madmaxruns.blogspot.com/2024/04/the-big-chill.html

Part 6: https://madmaxruns.blogspot.com/2024/04/let-it-begin.html

Part 7: https://madmaxruns.blogspot.com/2024/04/keeping-faith.html

Part 8: https://madmaxruns.blogspot.com/2024/04/breaking-levee.html

Part 9: https://madmaxruns.blogspot.com/2024/04/of-rage-and-guts.html