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The mountains claim most attempts, but the key is to survive and fight another day

We’re back in Chamonix safely after a long couple of days on the Matterhorn, which unfortunately didn’t present a summit opportunity. It didn’t look likely from the start so we were under no illusion – even from our overnight camp as we climbed higher, we could see there was far too much snow, which resulted from the very unusual conditions in the Alps over the summer.

There were unprecedented amounts of snow, meaning the usually stable and rocky route is currently covered in slippery and unstable snow, with a high risk of avalanche. However, it was an incredible experience, with our guides getting us used to the terrain of the Matterhorn. Even though I had read many accounts of the climb, it wasn’t how I expected. The majority of the ascent was rough rock scrambling, presenting an almost constant need for three points of contact between us and the mountain. The steep areas had fixed rope and although the whole climb was technical, it was easier than the climbs on our tough training trips, which proved the importance of the training in getting us used to these conditions.

However, the difficult parts are the ones that give this mountain its notorious reputation – when there was no fixed rope we were only roped to our guide, and because of the sheer exposure of the mountain a fall would mean us both going together. The snow was the biggest danger, as a fresh icy layer was melting on the loose rock, nearly blinding us and preventing us from getting any secure footing. We climbed to roughly 3750 metres, just 700 metres from the summit, and in the right climbing conditions in a normal summer summit period we could have continued, as snow usually only lies on the last 200 metres or so.

Very few climbers have summited the Matterhorn this summer, but all of them were among the best climbers in the world. Sadly, we are just not at that standard yet, and as usual safety was the priority, which was the reason we had to turn back. It was still an amazing experience, and even just being in the shadow of such an iconic mountain was rewarding. For now we have the knowledge of what the terrain is like, we just need the right conditions and hopefully one day we will have another crack. Thanks to Edison for giving us the opportunity and for such a memorable experience. We will be back!

The Chamonix expedition continues

Another short update of todays climbing!

Starting from the Italian side today, we climbed a peak called Aiguille De Marbrees (3535m). A lot more technical than what we’ve done before, requiring a mixture of crampon work, rock climbing, abseiling and rope work. Its the first time in a long while that I’ve gotten nervous, the drops were intimidating but the guides expertly and successfully helped us traverse this exposed and rocky ridge.

June turned out to be a great month

Training was either tough or directly affected preparation for the Matterhorn expedition. We started with WWTW’s Cumbrian Challenge. Opting for the tougher of the two distances, my team mates were all Edison staff. The rain was promising to hold off and the scenic paths of the 33-kilometre course (give or take a few kilometres) awaited us.

I don’t know about the rest of the team, but I wasn’t expecting quite as many climbs! Every time I go to the Lake District, I’m blown away by the size of the mountains and can’t believe there is something so beautiful in England. The team worked the terrain valiantly, continuously climbing upwards and winding downwards.

I always prefer the climbs to the descents, because after a while the impact on your knees of repeatedly stretching your steps downwards really builds up, making the descents uncomfortable and each step sending a bone rattle from toe to teeth!

Nevertheless, the team stuck together. As the day came to a close, Oliver, Toby, Charlie and I crossed the finishing line and completed what I thought was a challenging but great day outdoors. My legs were a bit wobbly and I would have loved to stay and partake of the free beverages on offer to all the competitors, but unfortunately I had a long drive back. I’d like to say thank you to all the Edison members of staff who took part in the event and welcomed me into their team, and to all those who helped and volunteered for WWTW. It was a spectacular event!

The following week I headed off to Munich, Germany in preparation for an ultramarathon. I’ve only ran two other races longer than 100 kilometres in one go. The first was in mainland Antarctica, where I almost lost my mind when I couldn’t make out a horizon in the distance and the sky was as white as the endless blanket of snow before me. The second was when I ran the length of Hadrian’s Wall in the UK, and projectile vomited (something I always though was myth) for the first time as a result of taking in too much salt and electrolyte drink than water. I stumbled over the finish line both times, but nearly reached the end of my abilities.

The Munich event was through the mountains. I was with my sponsors, UVU, and when I joined the rest of the team (a group of very experienced and, in some cases, the best runners in the world), I felt a little out of my league! The amount of climbing throughout the course was just over 5,400 metres, almost the equivalent of climbing Mt Snowdon five times over a 62.5-mile course.

As with every other race when I felt unsure, I just put one foot in front of the other and tried to see how much longer I could carry on doing something as simple as taking one more step. It was brutal! In the early stages I ran the down hills and the gentle undulating sections of the course, but as the big climbs approached I dropped my pace and tried to find a continuous stride. The aid stations on the course were brilliant, well stocked with food and drinks, but as expected I started to get stomach cramp and could only eat oranges.

As the day went on and we wound our way through the mountains of Zugspitze in Garmisch, I was grateful that I could just take a minute and appreciate the scenery. Snow-capped mountains protruded from lush green forests, the sound of bells jangled for miles around as all the cows had a Bavarian-style signal around their neck.

The ascents and descents felt steeper the more tired I felt, and as darkness fell my footing became less stable, often making me fall and jerk my already aching knees. With only the spotlight from my head torch in front of my feet and my energy all but gone, I still had no doubt that I’d finish. Thankfully, putting one foot in front of the other eventually saw me through to the end!

However, I was in a state. My mouth was full of ulcers as a result of only eating oranges and my stomach was incapable of keeping anything else down, but luckily these things were only temporary. I’m now resting before my first trip with Chris to Chamonix in a few weeks’ time, when we will start to adjust to the altitude and test-run our kit before the Matterhorn ascent. We have the Edison flag at the ready!

Training continues…

After some frustrating months of training when I suffered from tendonitis, I decided to change my training regime from running to mainly cycling, leaving for Brittany for a week of training up and down the hills of the Blavet river valley and surrounding countryside.

Although the area certainly doesn’t resemble a mountain range, it is rather hilly and no sooner have you descended a hill at 30 miles an hour than you find yourself crawling back up a bigger one…and so the story went on for six hours a day! The French signposting system took some getting used to, and given the bizarre habit of changing road names and destinations at every roundabout or junction or (apparently) whenever they choose, the experience of crossing France was a bit like falling asleep on a train – you never really know where you’re likely to end up! This made a road map an essential ally, which I soon found was rather open to interpretation when it came to the small country roads – only a select few seemed to even appear!

So with a bike (of course), two litres of water and the obligatory cheese and ham baguette, I set off each morning on a self-styled orienteering and endurance exercise. Given that it had been a while since I had undertaken any proper hill climbing and my legs were initially a bit more tender than I might have hoped, I was surprised how quickly my muscles fell back into the routine and it wasn’t long before I was racing up hills with what felt like very little effort. It was a fantastic week and by the end of it I was still feeling fresh and energised, hopefully a good sign for Chamonix training and Zermatt. It was also encouraging to know that the normal/daily training routine I keep up at home was more than enough to keep my body ticking over for high-endurance and high-intensity exercise.

One thing I noticed immediately, which I assume was down to the cycling and postponed running routine, was a wonderful feeling in my knees – certainly a marked difference to the constant pain I felt when running in Iraq. To put my knees to the test, it was time for the WWTW Cumbrian Challenge, the event last year where I met the Edison team that is so kindly enabling my Matterhorn expedition. The results were exactly as I had hoped, my injuries are fully healed and the 41km trek did not aggravate my knees at all. I was again with one of the Edison teams and the three team mates accompanying me were great company. We finished the event in 20th place, which was a fantastic result and it was great fun to be able to spend time with the Edison team. I felt everyone dug pretty deep to keep up a good pace, which was really impressive. However, I was not so happy when we were overtaken by a team of men dressed as nuns less than a mile from the finish line!

The next stop is meeting our IFMGA guide Miles Bright in Chamonix in the French Alps for altitude training and climbing experience on some other peaks before the Matterhorn attempt at the end of July.

Once again, a huge thanks to everyone at Edison for their wonderful support and for making this dream, we hope, a reality!

May started as I intended, with marathoning.

The first stop was the Milton Keynes Marathon – I wasn’t expecting anything dangerous like last month’s North Pole venture, but I was ready none the less. Little did I realise that the race was huge! Calling in nearly 6,000 runners, it was starting to feel like a capital city race, but the sun was shining, many of my friends from the 100 Marathon Club were there and overall it was a steady run. Nothing particularly striking, unfortunately – probably the entry fee, but let’s just leave it there! I finished in just over four and a half hours and completed my 124th official marathon.

Besides my own personal training sessions, there weren’t many races in May. I was due to run the Rock ‘n’ Roll Liverpool marathon on 25 Msy, but sadly I didn’t take part due to illness. So I spent most of the month enjoying the good weather and continuing my PPL course.

However, towards the end of the month I competed in the Kent Roadrunner Marathon, a 17-lap circuit on a tarmac track with the promise of a massive finisher’s medal. My first challenge of the day was driving the 200 miles to the start of the race at an ungodly hour and my first mistake was forgetting my lucky running cap (it’s practically falling apart and has no right to be called a cap, more like a piece of material that sits on my head, but it’s been with me on more races than I’ve had cooked dinners). The day turned out to be beautiful and hot, and during the event my frail unprotected skin was at the mercy of the elements. I struggled, no lie. I was tired and sunburnt and thought I’d have to pull out of the race. Quite odd really, knowing it was only a simple marathon-distance race that I’d completed so many times before, yet I was struggling as if it was a mountainous ultra-marathon. I guess if you’re having a bad day you’re going to have a bad run, no matter how experienced you are. So after a few quiet words to myself, I dragged my body over the finish line well over the five-hour mark, completing my official 125th marathon. I wasn’t that impressed with the overall finish time, but happy that I stuck with it through to the end. Now just a short 200-mile drive back home!

May wasn’t as exciting as previous months, but I learnt not to get sloppy about preparation, regardless of how many times I lace up my running shoes!

June promises to be more exciting and just as challenging. With the Cumbrian Challenge just a few weeks away, and an actual mountainous ultra-marathon booked in Germany (the Zugspitz Ultratrail), it’s shaping up to be a good month!

The race continues.

Keeping the momentum going into April

After last month’s semi-successful training, I wanted to keep the momentum going into April. To do this correctly I had to plan rest breaks to maintain the intensity, and so my Alaskan Malamute Hank and I are now subject to very long walks. It’s great for him being outdoors and on the trails, and great for me to stretch and loosen up taught muscles.

The first major event of the month, and very much the year, was the UVU North Pole Marathon. It’s run exactly where it says! Well I lie, it’s run at 89 degrees north, at the makeshift Russian camp of Barneo. Surprisingly it’s not so difficult to get there, providing the weather allows passage, which I was lucky with. First we landed in Svalbard, a northern archipelago of Norway up in the Arctic Ocean, a beautiful mountainous place, mostly used for mining the ground’s rich mineral deposits. Another interesting but chilling fact is that polar bears outnumber the residents by two to one on the island, so there are a number of requirements if you plan to go out wandering those icy landscapes.

Svalbard was only a stop of a few days, though, enough to put all the required safety briefs and race plans in place, then we were off to the ice. Just that same week, the Russians had parachuted onto the ice with all their gear and made enough of an established camp for the likes of marathon runners and other adventurers, scientists and researchers for the short period when the ice is cold enough to stay strong.

The thought of camp was both amazing and worrying. A previously parachuted tractor had carved out a runway, and here we were about to land on the frozen ocean of the Arctic. We were assured that the ice was at least two metres deep, but as we touched down with the aircraft, two metres didn’t feel enough to separate us from the icy waters.

My first thought when I stepped out onto the ice was great wonder; the place felt unnatural, like the Grand Canyon or Mount Everest, as if there was a giant green screen in front of me displaying a beautiful but intimidating landscape. The second thought was the extreme cold, which bit into any exposed skin and seeped through the many layers of clothing and into the bones.

The race course was soon marked out and ready to run. With 24-hour daylight there were no restrictions on when we could start, and with the wind low and the clouds lifted the start was well underway. It was 12 laps around Barneo camp, clearly marked and well protected by roving polar bear guards. The guards were armed, although in the very rare case of a polar bear coming this close to a camp of well over 60 people, opening fire was a last resort.

With this is mind, the whole operation was planned and carried out in the most ecological way possible – with the wonders of our world, we leave it as we found it, we don’t do anyone any favours by destroying what is there for all of us. These were the thoughts that filled my head as I worked my way around the 12 laps, stopping after each loop and warming up in the camp’s kitchen and mess tent. The lack of sensation in my fingers prompted a blatant check every time I stopped. In this sort of cold (the thermometers were reading -32c), I didn’t want to take any chances.

The ground was harsh to work through; the snow seemed so fine that it didn’t compact as expected after so many footprints, but churned into a mush that was every runner’s nightmare. Those loops felt like forever, as with almost any hard physical activity, but there was an end after just over 7 hours 40 on the course. As I was trying to run a 4.5-hour pace, you can see how the terrain made the times scale!

The euphoria lasted a long time after I got home from completing marathon number 121, but preparations were already underway for the next race. I planned to use a marathon in Northampton called ‘Easter Run around the Reservoir’ as a ‘cool down’ race. It’s a marathon-distance race covering seven loops around a surprisingly stunning reservoir.

It was at the opposite end of the scale to the North Pole, but what was great about this race was what made me love long-distance running – the people. Throughout 2011-12 when I ran 100 marathons, I got to know the community, heavily dominated by the 100 Marathon Club. As the name suggests, it’s the number you need to complete before gaining entry. As these runners had completed so many races all over the world and had so many achievements between them, I didn’t expect them to be as down to earth and humble. This sort of community made me love running all the more.

So marathon number 122 was completed, albeit a little leisurely! During a quick conversation with the 100 Marathon Club chairman and good friend Traviss, I was invited to his ‘St George’s Day Marathon’ at the last minute, just three days on. Of course, I agreed.

Marathon number 123 was held in historic Deal, quite a drive from home, but as I was soon to discover, well worth it! Again it was just a simple course of seven ‘out and backs’ along the coastline of Deal. The weather was uplifting and so were the local spectators cheering us on. I was again accompanied by some of the friendliest runners around, and used this race as a gentle day out on my feet. It took just over five hours to complete this one, but listening to my body and knowing the training I have planned in the forthcoming months, I was glad not to push myself too hard.