Continuing from Overlooking the Ghost Front (Part 3).
There were only four Brits running the inaugural Legends 350: Sam, Claire, Jon and I. Back at the start of the race, amidst the 100-odd runners taping feet and devouring carbs, we'd each spotted one another. Whether it was our British mannerisms, accents or Centurion patches, who knows - but within minutes we were round a table holding a pre-race strategy meeting.
I started by sharing the weather forecast I’d found last week. As I read out the balmy conditions predicted for the days ahead, eyebrows went up around the table. So we pored over my weather app to work out where the discrepancy lay.
It turned out the forecast I’d been using hadn’t been for the Ardennes at all, but rather for a town a thousand kilometres south, on the Mediterranean coast. In stark contrast, conditions up in the Ardennes looked pretty bleak.
Casting around for a conversational pivot, I landed on my choice of running shoe, the Inov-8 Trailtalon Max. But this also received quizzical looks, and a suggestion that it mightn’t be the wisest choice for the terrain. “Certainly, it’ll be muddy, but I don’t think you need lugs that deep… have you brought anything more comfortable?” I hadn’t, of course.
Scrabbling for a topic that wouldn’t expose any more of my ignorance, I very nearly volunteered my nutrition strategy, marzipan - but caught myself in the nick of time. Better, I realised, to leave the sharing to others. “The route” I asked. “What do you all know about it?”
That prompted a lively conversation, over the course of which I learned that we Brits knew precious little about the route, or the Ardennes for that matter. Yet none of us showed the faintest hint of concern.
Instead, there were two stereotypically British traits on display: the blithe indifference of Private Pike, and the fatalism of Arthur Dent. We appeared more than happy to face down the enemy armed with our home-knitted scarves, remarkably versatile bath towels and flasks of hot tea. Which was how I coined my mantra for the race: Keep Calm and Carry Oolong.
And the oolong seemed to be working for Sam. He’d cruised past me shortly after the CP1.5 halfway checkpoint, looking in fine fettle. Given how tight Legends’ cut-offs were, I had expected him to perform a double-quick turnaround at CP2, gulping down his food and heading straight back out onto the trail. I really hadn’t expected to find him still lounging around the checkpoint, sipping a cup of oolong.
CP2
“Hey, Sam!” I exclaimed, giving him a friendly wave across the checkpoint table. I leaned in to whisper “Aren’t you worried about being timed out?” Sam dismissed the question with one of those sardonic grins that Sergeant Wilson was so famous for. I could imagine him responding “Do you really think they’d time us out, sir? Awfully unsporting, wouldn’t you say - especially after we’ve come all this way…”
The other two Brits, Claire and Jon, must be somewhere behind, I figured; chasing down the cut-offs on their way to CP2 even more urgently than Sam and I. Perhaps Jon was channelling his inner Corporal Jones, screaming “Don’t panic! Don’t panic!” - but then again, perhaps not. It seemed I was the only Brit showing the remotest concern for these cut-offs.
I settled into my seat and accepted a vegan curry, which I enjoyed so much I straight away asked for a second helping. Then I followed it with a steaming cup of oolong, and I found myself slipping into the same Lyons Corner House afternoon tea reverie that I’d cautioned Sam against just a half-hour prior.
While nonchalantly nibbling on paprika crisps, I aired my feet and charged my devices, and tweaked my clothing by removing my midlayer. That left just my wafer-thin baselayer and a windproof. It was all I strictly needed in these mild winter conditions, I thought, even moving as slowly as I was.
After 90 slothful minutes indulging in curries and oolongs, it was time to face facts. The clock was ticking, and my Achilles was only getting worse the longer I sat here. Whether I’d even be able to coax it back into action, I wasn’t sure - but if I could, it only had to carry me fifty more kilometres to my red line at CP3, where I would, clearly, have to leave this race.
Eight years of ultrarunning had built up to this moment. Forty-odd ultramarathons, without a DNF. It had all come down to my Achilles heel. The arrow had found it here, in this race, at this moment. I couldn’t change the result, but I could still choose where I fell.
CP3 was where I would execute my strategic retreat. That was how this would end, I decided. At CP3, in the Ardennes, the place where Legends are written.
My plan was set.
Codename: Operation Oolong.
I felt a little chilly wearing only two layers up on the blustery flatlands around Verleumont. A ‘nip in the air’ would usually spur me into a more enthusiastic running pace, but under the circumstances I could only glower at my foot, and my knee, and all my other knackered muscles, themselves mere victims of my stricken Achilles. Feeling cold was a small price to pay to go out on my own terms.
Considering I’d been awake for over 30 hours, it was unsurprising that my eyelids were starting to grow heavy, and my mental acuity was fading. The atmosphere seemed to be shifting too. The sky looked ominous, and the forecast I'd read back at CP2 agreed: heavy rain was fast approaching, which would last for hours, only to be replaced by high winds for the rest of the race.
These didn’t seem like great conditions in which to tackle the notorious ‘High Fens’ after CP3. If only I had some idea what they were like, I’d be able to estimate the effect of the rains. I’d know what to wear, and what gear to pack.
My thoughts drifted back to my drop bag, sagging moreorless empty, offering up only its wet socks and marzipan. Well… I could at least pack more marzipan.
Would there be enough time to sleep at CP3, or was I running too close to the cut-offs? Because if time was tight and I needed to head up and onto the High Fens overnight, that’d be my second night without sleep. Without a sleeping bag small enough to fit in my pack, or a proper bivvy, how might that end? This race hadn’t come close to the arctic conditions of the Winter Spine, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t go on to develop its own, uniquely Legends style of perverse savagery.
After all, that was what Jandalf had intimated might happen. That was why I was here, I supposed. Limping around the Ardennes like a wounded stag, destined to arrive at my inexorable end, up on those barren, enigmatic, primeval High Fens...
Wait a minute - why was I planning for the High Fens? Operation Oolong had me DNF’ing at CP3, long before the High Fens got underway. It had to be the sleep deprivation. I only needed to focus on the here and now.
And right now, the fact was the going was easy, and the route was lovely. I was trotting over forested tracks & trails that could have been lifted from any of England’s green and pleasant lands.
The trails grew hillier and more exciting as darkness fell over the Ardennes. One of them reminded me of a woodland above Stocksbridge, Yorkshire. Despite not knowing where on earth I was within these forsaken forests, I felt at home here.
And yet so helpless. My Achilles had deteriorated to the point where I was struggling to walk. Jon, one of my fellow Brits who’d trailed me at CP2 coasted past now, looking in infinitely better shape than me. I wanted to run along with him, but there was nothing I could do. I had to keep stopping to stretch my Achilles; a tactic that had afforded me crucial minutes of respite earlier on, but was proving completely ineffective now 130km deep into the race.
Down in the town of Trois Ponts I eyed a stone wall, an ideal stretching post. While giving the Achilles a much needed stretch, I spotted another runner approaching. Not keen to engage in conversation at that precise moment, I hobbled off at pace well in advance of him, but he still caught me up in seconds - and he was only walking...
Setting my humiliation to one side, and not wanting to appear unsociable, I worked hard to match his extraordinary walking pace, in order to strike up a conversation with the Dutch runner/walker Jonathan Koutstaal.
I was fascinated to learn that, following his own troubles with injuries last year, Jonathan taught himself how to walk at the mind boggling speed of 9km per hour. To put this into perspective, that’s a 4 hour 41 minute marathon. Which is the average finisher’s time - the average runner’s time - for the London Marathon. In other words, this guy could walk a marathon faster than most well trained runners could run one.
As a particularly slow walker myself, I find encounters with such folks inspiring and infuriating in equal measure. But today, hobble-running alongside the speedy Dutchman, I leaned into the side of inspiration and peppered him with questions about how he’d managed to achieve such an incredible feat. And I decided there and then that I too would teach myself to walk quickly. Or at least to walk at a regular pace. Somehow…
Emerging from our engaging conversation, I was surprised to find myself in the heart of this cosy town on a busy Friday evening. We made for a burger van parked across the road and bought towering piles of chips, devouring them as we strode on, while I contemplated whether these greasy starch fingers were more or less healthy than my block of marzipan. I certainly appreciated the salt.
The Dutchman motioned up a side road, explaining there was a halfway checkpoint up there. How he knew this I had no idea, but true to his word, we found one of Legends’ gazebos at the end. Jonathan greeted the volunteers but cracked straight on, while I collapsed into a chair, desperate to give my Achilles a break. In one hand I clasped my huge tray of chips, and into my other hand the checkpoint team thrust a steaming mug of vegetable soup. I would certainly not die of starvation in this town!
Having juggled my steaming feast between my hands and consumed as much as I possibly could, I hobbled off once more, moving much more slowly than before. Both my buggered Achilles and my bulging stomach played their part in that.
I left the warm lights and night-time energy of Trois Ponts behind, dropping back into the pitch blackness of the Ardennes. Only through the solitary beam of my headlight could I see evidence of a world outside of my own private consciousness.
The trail broke north into Bâleur wood, a hidden gem offering me a glorious welcome: beautiful woodland trails marked with quirky children’s trail signs, bedecked with colourful illustrations of plants and animals. The French texts probably explained the wood’s ecology and wildlife.
I crossed the quaintest of naturalistic, beaver-managed streams, and beamed the widest of smiles, feeling as warm and fuzzy and contented as it was possible for one to feel in this little haven, the Autour de l’Étang du Bâleur.
But, argh - fuck’s sake. Garmin was warning me I’d deviated from the prescribed route. I backtracked, sliding back over the slippery wooden bridge, cursing my Achilles and my knee for their incessant pain. And now Garmin pointed ahead, but there was no ‘ahead’ - there was only dark, dense, impenetrable jungle.
Perhaps I wasn’t exactly where Garmin thought I was. After all, GPS signals are often affected by dense tree cover. I backtracked, but that took me even further away from the GPS track. So I edged this way and that, forcing my body through pine trees, briars and thicket, trying to forge a way forward. It was all impassable, and I was forced to retreat back to the kids’ path, taunting me with its vibrant colours and childish babble.
I followed that stupid path all the way to the west, hoping to find an alternative route north; but alas, that too led nowhere. I backtracked once again, gazing with increasing disquiet at these kids’ signs. Shouldn’t their illustrations show happy butterflies and birds? These didn’t show anything of the sort. Come to think of it, what on earth were these forsaken things? Warped depictions of the eeriest of creatures. Monsters of the jungle…
I was back where I’d started, none the wiser and far more unsettled. But there was nothing for it, I simply had to move forward. So I forced my way through the jungle once more, farther than I’d dared go before. I ducked beneath, leapt over and contorted my body around the wooded thicket; I manoeuvred leafy branches, ripped my jacket out from the grasp of thorns. But now I stood before a truly impassable wall of jungle. Without a bulldozer, there was no further I could physically go.
I rotated 360 degrees, searching for a way out. But in the process I lost my sense of direction, and the jungle wall closed in around me. All I could see was foliage and spiders and thorns right in front of my eyes, as though I had managed to insert myself into the middle of a thick hedge. I barrelled through where I thought I’d come, but that led nowhere - and now I really couldn’t see for leaves. I tried to retreat, but had no idea where I was going. I turned to my Garmin for guidance, but its screen showed one of those kids’ illustrations: an indecipherable ball of red yarn, where I’d frantically sought a way out of this jungle of horrors.
I charged forth, tearing and scraping and clutching as the jungle whipped me, smacked me in the face and tore at my flesh. I veered this way and that, smashing and bashing and jumping and crawling and picking up my headtorch as the motherfuckers cracked my head in again. I’d fucking get them! I picked up a branch, and thrashed my way forward like a man possessed.
I came to a halt and froze, mouth ajar. Leaping out of the blackness was the illuminated face of a child’s doll. It was Chucky from the horror film Child’s Play. He was wearing the widest, most evil, sadistic grin imaginable. His eyes were boring straight into me. I raised my branch.
Rustling stole my attention from the left. People approaching. Chatting. It sounded like runners’ chat? Self-aware now, I glanced down. My legs were scraped and bloodied from the jungle, but I was on a path. It looked like the kids’ path. And ahead of me was a sign, with one of those bizarre illustrations. It wasn’t Chucky exactly, but it bore a close resemblance.
The chatty runners emerged from beyond some trees, speaking in English. “Do you know the way?” they enquired, politely. I explained that I didn’t; that I’d checked out every which direction, but like Hotel California, I couldn’t seem to leave.
Having only just arrived at the jungle of horrors, these runners had no cause to be perturbed as yet, so I left them to enjoy their time with Chucky. Myself, I headed toward the river. I planned to wade across, for I wagered I might have better luck on the other side.
As I lowered myself down a rock face, I glimpsed the faintest of gaps in the thicket. Could it be...? “This way, head toward the river”, I bellowed into the darkness, as I crashed through this most overgrown of paths. I’d made it out. Battered. Bleeding. But alive. Chucky could go fuck himself.
The woods weren’t quite done with me yet. The rain that had been forecast was just getting underway. For now it rolled harmlessly off my DWR windproof, but it would surely build.
I slogged up a notable climb leading to a thoroughly muddy 250m descent. Not sticky mud, or particularly deep mud, but a muck - a particularly gritty muck - that seeped into my shoes, around my socks, encasing my feet with millions of abrasive shards. I ripped off a shoe and tried to scoop out the worst of it, but all I managed to do was smear the grimy mess all over my arms, legs and pack. I left my other shoe well alone.
The next climb was no less mucky. Yet when I broke free from the trees at the summit, I was stopped in my tracks by the vista before my eyes. Out of the vast darkness of forest beneath me, I could see a cluster of vibrant lights: a little Ardennes town. And, shooting across my field of vision, a streak of light: an express train. Both looked so cosy, so welcoming. Like a Christmas postcard, it evoked childhood memories, and sparked imaginings of idyllic worlds.
After this magical moment, I found I was much less bothered by all the gritty muck. I limped quite enthusiastically toward the distant lights of the town, following the lead of the train. I hardly cared if the GPS led this way or not - I wanted to see the town!
The historic tourist town of Coo was busy this late Friday evening. Its hotels and restaurants were heaving, diners sat outside under cover, cars vying for spaces in its main car park. A Legends volunteer pointed me toward the stone bridge over the Amblève river. Signage on the bridge told me I was passing the “Cascades de Coo”. I could indeed hear the sound of a waterfall, but it escaped my vision in the darkness.
It was while crossing the bridge that I remembered Jandalf mentioning there was a self-service food dispenser along the route, and I wondered whether this busy town of Coo might be where I’d find it. Seconds later on the other side of the bridge I found the answer to my question: a Cola-Cola vending machine. It wasn’t a company I felt happy supporting, so I simply smiled and ran past, content at least to have located it.
The route broke away from Coo up onto what was clearly a tourist hiking trail. A series of steep staircases zig-zagged up to a viewing point. No sooner was I up and over this hill, I dropped down into an even larger town, Stavelot. Oozing with history, its cobbled streets were adorned with an overabundance of brightly coloured flowers. The route revealed quaint squares, bars and restaurants, alongside poignant memorials to the ravages of WWII.
One minute I was passing a takeaway, considering whether to stop and buy a non-marzipan meal; and the next, I was stumbling around the ruins of the Abbey of Stavelot, wondering whether I had time to read the signs explaining its storied history.
Now Garmin was directing me off the roads of Stavelot and down onto a tourist trail beside the river. Heaving from rains and melt, its stepping stones were submerged, making this popular trail feel reminiscent of a traditional Legends wade - though still, many times more civilised than last night’s swimming up the Ourthe. The water at least flushed the worst of the mud from my shoes.
Before long I was back on roads and solid trails, crossing off the last few easy kilometres of the leg. Up ahead I could see the lights of CP3: my red line, where I’d committed to DNF.
My right Achilles was wrecked, my heel was knackered and my gait was unbalanced. That’d overloaded half of my leg muscles, triggering opposing compensations which had gone and overloaded the other half.
At best I could run-walk, at worst I couldn’t even walk. Put simply, I was fucked. I couldn’t continue a 350km race in this state. But did I have it in me to do what I’d never managed to do before in 40 ultramarathons, and actually quit?
The only alternative would be to drag myself up onto the High Fens, battling torrential rain and high winds, straining to stay awake, with barely any gear to fall back on when my Achilles finally gave out.
I could feel another one of Sergeant Wilson's sardonic grins coming on.
Do you really think that’s wise, sir?