Its a Saturday lunchtime , You’ve got an 8kg rucksack on under an Xmas Pudding Costume and you are running along The Greensand Way to get to your next checkpoint which is one of 10 pub stops you are visiting . You are hot , tired , a little confused and the Guy next to you dressed as a christmas turkey laughs and reckons you’ll both die of heat shock before the next pub……as he offers you a hip flask with Advocaat in it……
let me take you back to the previous day to explain how I found myself in this situation and why I will look you in the eye and tell you its all in preparation for the Sahara next year ……. honest .
Just Like Patrick Bauer ( the founder of the Marathon des Sables ) I am also the founder of a multi stage cross country event known by almost no one as ‘The Toughest Festive Drinking Running Half Marathon in South West Surrey ‘ . It all started 5 years ago when I traversed 3 pubs with 3 friends near my house dressed as wise men and an angel ( I WAS NOT A FAIRY ) . Since then the event has ballooned to an incredible 35 people and additional pubs were added as the press criticized that the event was too easy and becoming a mid life crisis for middle aged men from Surrey.
I am a Hasher , which means once a week I join a ‘drinking club with a running problem’ and follow flour trails set through the Guildford countryside and enjoy a beer after the run. Anyone training for big events should spend as much time as possible having fun when exercising rather than sitting at home procrastinating or being in a boring gym or park run.
I set the annual nativity run which means that the night before the event this year I needed to go out and run over 13 miles through the dark countryside of the Surrey Hills to leave flour blobs at regular intervals so that 35 inebriated confused runners in the dark could find their way. Think of it as a kind of victorian GPS.
13 miles of trail requires about 12 Kgs of flour , which I dutifully put in my new WAA MdS rucksack when I got back from work. 13 miles after a day at work , in the dark , with more weight than I’ll carry in the desert (we will come back to that later) is the perfect training run for anyone building up to a a multi stage Ultra in the new year,
As tradition dictates the ‘night before’ run setting the trail is known as the Chumbawumba run . This is because we have a whisky drink …then a vodka drink …..then a lager drink…. you get the idea. If we get knocked down we get back up again. All good mental preparation for 155 miles though the Sahara. Thirsty , confused…..still moving forward.
After our first ‘sports drink’ 4 of us set off from the White Horse at Hascombe and straight up a sodding great muddy hill. I quickly ended up at the back sweating hard and wondering how a single whisky had done so much to dent my ability to run . It wasn’t until the next day that I realised I had failed to take the 4 kgs of lead pouch weight in my bag ( to simulate food etc for the MdS and get my rucksak up to my expected 8kgs) . I was therefore running with a whopping 16kgs plus water…..FOR 13 MILES.
The first section was tough, and being on a Greensand Ridge very sandy and undulating…. not exactly like the Sahara but not dissimilar. Plenty of hard work for the legs .
The evening flew by, fuelled by ‘Jam Donut Martinis ‘ and after some stops for pub chips and a few more ‘sports drinks’ we got back to my house in the woods at a respectable 1.30am ready for a poor nights sleep and the same run all over again the next day .
In the morning at the crack of 11am 35 hashers assembled in various fancy dress (the theme is ‘shit nativity’ so you come as the last kid picked in class for a nativity) . Where the MdS has ‘highway to hell’ we start with the rousing Mariah Carey – All I want for Xmas . And we were off ! For me and Lite Bite (my turkey companion) it was to be our second half marathon and tougher than day one.
At The Merry Harriers in Hambledon some of the faster ‘Marathon de Nativite’ runners who were ahead of me overheard a chap telling his friends about the time in October when a guy in a SMART car found him pissed in a dark country lane trying to walk 7 miles home as he had missed the last train. He had no idea who the guy was and he hadn’t taken any money , simply being pleased the guy had got home safely.
My friends recognised the story , as I had told them about it , as it has been me that was the Good Samaritan driver , despite being tired from an amazing evening meal with Sir Ranulph Fiennes in London and needing to get up the next day for a 100 mile race called the Autumn 100 (see one of my previous blogs) .
I was pleased to find a ‘ Karma Lager’ waiting for me from this chap as he had to head off before I got there . He was still traumatised having been told that the Samaritan ‘Little Pecker’ (my hashing name …ITS IRONIC ALLRIGHT ?!) was about to arrive dressed as an xmas pudding.
I was also a ‘good samaritan’ again that day. As I took an …ahem…alternative route to avoid a big hill… and …er….check for stragglers that might be lost on a more direct route. I encountered a hasher cleverly using compression gear to avoid running injury. This compression gear came in the form of an engine in a Fiat 500 he was using between pubs. Sadly he was lost and I felt it only fair when I found him to get in the car with him and take him personally to the next pub.
Overall lots of people had a great day. Some had never run 13 miles before in their life and hardly noticed . For me I’d managed a marathon , in full MdS weight, with an xmas pudding outfit on . I had had simulation of dehyration running , being too hot, carrying weight over tough terrain, multi stage running , night running and running tired and confused.
I’ve learnt over the years that the more fun you make your training and the more you keep it varied the less of a chore is becomes. But you do need to just ‘get out there’
I fell asleep at 9pm and slept soundly for a full 12 hours.
There was absolutely no way I was going to sleep in an open sided tent with 7 other people. that night …only an idiot would do that .
