Ok, dear reader, let’s not get carried away.  That P.S. isn’t a romantic little postscript.  No – the P.S. – that’s Palm Springs.

I’d booked flights to LA some time ago – at least in part to try Air New Zealand’s new Club seat  - but then totally forgot to plan anything else for the long weekend.

Time was short but you can pack a lot into four days.  I briefly considered whether it might be possible to drive across the States – Gumball Rally style. Or whether I should try my luck getting to the summit of Mount Whitney in winter.  Or even run a section of the Badwater Ultramarathon (somewhat easier in December than July)

But after a rather high-octane few months, I thought it better that I re-learn the skill of lounging by a pool. I had an uncharacteristic urge to sit quietly and read a good book by day, before gorging on high-calorie American food by night.  If that’s what you want, there’s no better place to do it than at the Parker in Palm Springs.

Famous as the late-1950s hangout for the Rat Pack, Palms Springs is very much cool again.  Nestled at the bottom of the Coachella Valley, it’s dwarfed by the San Jacinto Mountains to one side and the San Bernardino Mountains to the other.

Two hours East from LA, Palm Springs and its Mid-Century Modern architecture, felt like the appropriate destination to celebrate what I was trying to pretend wasn’t a significant birthday. Still a little sore from a race earlier in the year, I figured this would be the first step in my rehab. So I flew to LA, picked up a rental car – a little two-seater cabriolet since you ask - and headed East on Interstate 10.

]]> http://www.wainhouse.org/2011/12/21/the-wharf-at-sunrise/feed/ 0 http://www.wainhouse.org/2011/12/17/its-all-about-the-paper/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=its-all-about-the-paper http://www.wainhouse.org/2011/12/17/its-all-about-the-paper/#comments Sat, 17 Dec 2011 17:29:40 +0000 Owen http://www.wainhouse.org/?p=2700

On my summer holidays, on a far-off island in the Med, I like little more than a week-old copy of the Economist.  Or a three-day-old copy of the FT. Devoid of daily editions, and short of reading material, I’ll read them from cover to cover, savouring obscure articles until the paper becomes worn and the staples wear through. Then I’ll admonish myself and wonder why I never paid more attention to politics in Brazil, or hedge funds in China, or whatever.

It’s a break, more than anything, from overwhelming choice.  The luxury of more time and less choice.

This Christmas holidays, I’m hoping to be snowed in. With television unplugged and laptop run flat, maybe I’ll have the chance to read the papers from cover to cover.

I’ll be starting with Monocle Alpino.  Cool pages, by a warm fire. Perfect.

“Please return to your seats, fasten your seat belts, put your seat into the upright position and stow your tray tables for landing”

You know the drill: the familiar sound of the flaps descending; the whoosh of air as the undercarriage deployes.  The end markers of the runway come into sight, then – hopefully – the gentle thud of the gear making contact with the ground.

That’s how it’s supposed to be. But Los Angeles International airport – LAX to its friends – was having a bad day last Wednesday. The worst windstorm in 10 years so they said.

We spent a while circling, not particularly uncommon at peak times. Not that I was complaining. Watching the nighttime urban sprawl of LA never gets tiring.

But we were getting bashed about by the wind. Not since I flew into Munich the day this was filmed have I had such a rough approach.

Yet the flaps came down, the gear deployed and the runway markers came into view. The problem was they were only in view out of one window as the pilot struggled to keep the plane level. Out one side was nothing but runways out the other nothing but sky.  Not a good way to land.

Seconds later the two massive General Electric engines whirred to life and the plane, now all but empty of fuel after a long flight across the Atlantic, and much lighter, soared skyward like a rocket.

A flustered-sounding pilot quickly came over the intercom to say something about wind sheer and how we’d be coming around for another try.  We circled bumpily over the pacific again, me happy to have more time taking in the view.

Second time around was only marginally less bumpy than the first.  I wasn’t particularly confident that the pilot wouldn’t fluff it again. But in a rather assertive move, he forced the undercarriage onto the tarmac with a thwack and we eventually came to a rather shaky stop on the taxiway.  Even at standstill, the wind buffeted the plane like a child’s toy.

As the tow truck lugged us to the gate, a couple of bright flashes lit up the sky. With a cloudless sky, it wasn’t lightening but, it turned out,  an electrical substation blowing.

Immediately the floodlights on the airport apron fell dark, then a few seconds later so did the lights in the terminal.  The huge LAX airport was plunged into darkness, including, rather alarmingly, the control tower.

The pilot came back over the intercom to say that it might be worth making ourselves comfortable whilst the ground crew came up with a plan to get us off the plane. Clearly the jetways wouldn’t budge without power and with a terminal in darkness, it was probably better for us to wait on the plane. Besides, the ground crew had other priorities, like fetching stray baggage containers that were being blown about the airfield.

The cabin crew, who must have been tired after a long flight, quickly got to work raiding the galley and handing out water, crisps, coffee, newspapers, magazines – whatever they could find, they put to use.

The contrast with last week’s debacle at Heathrow couldn’t have been starker.

After about 45 minutes, power was restored and LAX flickered back to life.  The doors were opened and I made a dash for immigration.

But not before I thanked the crew and asked – to myself – if they could provide training for British Airways.

Fog had yet again crippled Heathrow, whose resilience to bad weather is comically poor.

My first flight was cancelled. And the second delayed by nearly five hours.  Hungry and mildly irritated, I breathed a sigh of relief as we touched down around 23:30 on Sunday evening. With no luggage I thought I’d be out and onto the Heathrow Express in time to catch the last tube home. Or so I thought.

After parking, the pilot announced that there were no steps for the plane because “lots of planes have arrived at the same time”. Isn’t that the sort of thing that usually happens at airports? Then there were “not enough staff to bring the steps to the plane.” So we waited and waited.

Once we were finally off the plane and into the terminal, we met a huge mass of people – at least a thousand deep – waiting at the border for passport control.  I counted just three officials slowly processing passports. Perhaps they too were surprised by passengers arriving at an airport.

Welcome to Britain.

I’ve written long ago about queues at immigration and the problems with new biometric passports. But this wasn’t so much a queue, as a crowd.

Half an hour passed. Then an hour. We had hardly moved.  And hadn’t seen a single member of staff – not from BA, Heathrow or the UK Border Agency.

Having been delayed for hours we were all tired, hungry and thirsty. I’m sure we had passed hoping for a bit of hospitality from British Airways.  A bit of humanity would have sufficed. Just handing out bottles of water would have been nice. Even if only to families with crying babies.

There was no one to organise the queue. Some people started pushing to the front, others started complaining. I’m surprised no fights broke out.

Eventually some people further back started shouting “there’s three of them and three thousand of us.  Let’s just all walk through together.” The crowd started cheering.  Others started shouting.

It wasn’t long after this that things started moving.  My guess is that one of the border officers must have pushed a panic button and decided to fasttrack things to avoid a riot.  Ultimately if several thousand passengers had decided they were fed up of waiting to enter their own country, the few staff on duty would have been powerless to stop them.

Few staff on duty – that is the problem. That is always the problem. Every time I’ve been stuck at Heathrow, the problems could have been solved by ramping up the number of staff available to help.

When things go wrong, the customer service phone lines get jammed and websites crash.  People get angry because there is never any official representation to explain what’s going on.

When I finally got through immigration, a little after 1am, the tube and Heathrow Express had closed for the night – leading to more queues for taxis and more fuming.

But it doesn’t have to be like this. Paradoxically it’s when things go wrong that airlines can actually pick up good will amongst passengers. All it takes is a simple emergency action plan and a few more staff.

When things go wrong it’s time for everyone to muck in.  Couldn’t BA cabin crew be asked to stay a bit longer after work during bad weather to hand out bottles of water to soothe waiting crowds.  Couldn’t BA management start shovelling snow when the weather turns? Rather than shovelling blame.

Couldn’t a few staff stick around to advise passengers how to get into town after the public transport had shutdown.  Couldn’t someone have thought to ask passport officers and baggage handlers to stay on a bit late when delayed flights were expected. Even train some staff to help out with other jobs when needed.

Of course it’s always the same answer – ‘it’s not my job’.  And with shoddy management who can blame them.

We don’t need new airports or new runways. We just need someone in charge to show a bit of initiative, to treat their staff like they’re the most important part of the business. And then perhaps they’ in turn will treat passengers like the slogan suggests.

For a while I’ve wanted to do a bit more with this blog than was possible with a blog hosted on wordpress.com.

So while things might look a bit different, it’s the same content. And the same rules.

For the last four years, I’ve spent a good part of my summer holidays in Chamonix. All the time captivated by a race, almost to the point of obsession.

That the race is hard is part of its allure.  Hard, to the point of absurdity. That some 2300 mountain runners spend the best part of a year training for the race, and that fewer than half make it to the end is testament to its toughness.

So it became my dream: to depart west from Chamonix, and return from the east some one-hundred miles later. To circumnavigate the Mont Blanc massive – the highest mountain in Western Europe – over narrow trails and high passes; on foot and under your own power.

Everything I’d read about the race claimed that there is only one way to finish.  You have to start without the slightest doubt that you’ll finish.

For if you don’t, over those long cold hours, alone on the mountain, even the slightest niggle will grow and spread like some horrid cancer, destroying any remaining confidence.

Without that belief, those doubts will takeover your mind, until exhausted, emotional, battered and bruised, you will surrender to the pain.

So, they say, you have to start knowing that there are no circumstances under which you will quit.  You will finish, whatever it takes.  Whatever it takes.

Over the preceding weeks you try to prepare yourself mentally. You run through various scenarios in your head.  You tell yourself that anything that the race will throw at you, you will bare gracefully.  You will make it to the finish or they will have to pull your lifeless body down from the mountain.

Perhaps this preparation was why I was in such a foul mood when I started the race.

I had spent Friday lying around in my hotel room, trying – and failing – to get some sleep.

We were supposed to start at 6:30pm on Friday, but the race organisers had decided to delay things by five hours to avoid the worst of a passing storm.

In the morning they sent us a text message:

UTMB: important storm + cold weather + rain or snow. UTMB start at 11:30pm. The route doesn’t change, except Vallorcine-Chamonix by the bottom of the valey (sic)

It wasn’t until about 10pm, and with driving rain outside, that I started to feel cosy in bed and just a little bit sleepy.  But by then it was time to start getting ready.

At around 11pm I pulled on my waterproofs, picked up my rucksack, left the hotel and headed out into the rain.  It was just a short walk from the hotel.  The town was buzzing with runners finishing the shorter CCC race.

I inserted myself into the crowd in the starting enclosure and waited.

Last year, waiting at the start, I was both nervous and excited.  As Vangelis’ Conquest of Paradise played loud over the speakers I felt waves of emotion.  This year I was just bored and irritated.  Bored because I knew the drill, and irritated because I was tired.

I kept getting annoyed at the people around me in the crowd. The guy behind me pushing me forward, and the guy in front pushing me back. It was silly really.  But there I was, already in a bad mood.

There was remarkably little fanfare at the start and no count down. There might have been a bang of a starting gun going off, but if there was, I didn’t hear it.  At 11:30pm we just all surged forward through the town and out into the night.

Maybe it was just my foul mood, but the start seemed less good-natured than last year. There was more pushing and shoving.  Perhaps we were all just anxious to get going.

So we covered the route I knew well from last year.  Relatively flat to Les Houches. Then up an over the first mountain to St Gervais – where the race was cancelled last year.

As we started climbing my heart rate surged.  First 85% then 88%, 89%.  I started working hard to keep my heart rate down; trying to relax. I knew this level of effort was unsustainable.  I kept pulling off the course to let my heart rate drop. It’s hard though to stand there and let people pass.  Every time I started off again, my heart rate surged.

After St Gervais it was a long slow climb up to Croix de Bonhomme.  The rain soon eased off, but not before it had soaked and destroyed my iPod, depriving me of any music for the rest of the course.

That may not sound like a big deal, but I had put a lot of thought into the music that would keep me going during those hours of isolation. Music to keep me awake. Music to make me go faster. Music to lift my mood.

By the early hours the rain had eased off but lightening was still visible in the distance, lighing up the sky. Aside from that it was pitch back. There was no moon.

At around 3am I started feeling the first sleep demons, willing me to just sit down and have a few minutes sleep.  Even as I pulled hard up hill I could feel my eyelids growing heavy. In a panic I broke into my supply of caffeine energy gels, alarmed that I had needed them so soon.   With no music to buoy me up, I tried to find someone to talk to, just to keep awake, but already I was alone.

The caffeine soon kicked in, but I was already scared at the powerful effect that the need for sleep was exerting so soon.

Dawn broke by the time I reached Croix du Bonhomme. A light dusting of snow covered the ground. The organisers had certainly taken the right decision to delay the start. It can’t have been nice up here in the worst of the stom.

From the Col du Bonhomme the mountains were stunningly beautiful.  It felt like a reward – a reward for the foul weather – that we were given this stunning view of the snow-capped mountains in the middle of Summer.

On the drop down to Chapieux I could feel my stomach start to tighten.  Exerting less effort going down hill, I quickly grew cold.  I made the mistake of trying to push on to the checkpoint, rather than spare a few seconds to stop and pull more clothes on.  I reached Les Chapieux, in the bottom of the valley, 8 hours 19 minutes after leaving Chamonix, and some three hours ahead of the cutoff.  Even at this early stage the cutoff times weight heavily on your mind.

At Chapieux I started to gorge on food.  I got chatting to another English guy.  Mid-conversation I could feel something wasn’t quite right.  I excused myself and stuck my head outside the tent. With three heaves I vomited out the contents of my stomach.  I instantly felt much better and returned almost straight away to my conversation and my food.  It wasn’t until a little while later that I began to realise quite how far we stray from social norms and polite etiquette on the trail.

After Chapieux, roughly a quarter of the way around, I set my aim on Courmayeur – the half way point.  Leaving Chapieux we started to climb again.  After the clear night it had grown cloudy and soon it started drizzling.

As we climbed higher the weather again grew worse until we were back in the snow and hail.

The weather had taken a turn for the better when I approached Courmayeur.  Again I made the mistake of not stopping to remove excess clothing and sweated my way to Courmayeur.

Shortly before Courmayeur I checked my phone. There was a new text message. It read:

UTMB News: course change after Champex, Bovine inaccessible due to a deterioration after bad weather of yesterday.  Track deviated by Martingy. = 170km, 9700D+

I’d never heard of Martingy before, but anything which meant we wouldn’t have to go over the Tete aux Vent, was in my view positive. I was still in good enough shape to for the extra distance to make me feel good rather than bad.  Bring it on, I thought.

I arrived at Courmayeur at 13:45 on Saturday – 14:15 minutes after leaving Chamonix. I knew that I was well up on time – four hours ahead of the cut off – so I made the decision not to rush things. I would take as long as necessary to eat a good meal and tackle the nausea.

The big sports centre in Courmayeur is notionally the halfway point. It’s also here that you get access to your drop bags.

I delighted in changing into fresh socks. I washed my face, brushed my teeth – I know this sounds a ludicrous waste of time – and ate as much as I could.  I tried stretching and massaging out a couple of knots in my quads. You know the clock is ticking, and it’s hard to fight the urge to rush out the door. But these little things really make you feel so much more human, I’m sure it’s time well spent.  And besides, I reminded myself, I was four hours ahead of the cut off.  That made me smile.

I knew the route well from Courmayeur. It was a long slow climb out of town, but bathed in the afternoon sunshine.

At this stage I can’t quite remember when the pain began or when I started to notice it.  It started just above my right ankle and grew steadily worse. It was half on the bone and half to the side in the muscle.

It must have started as a niggle. You get plenty of little aches and pains on the trail. And I mustn’t have paid this one much attention, assuming it would soon fade. It didn’t

I don’t know whether it was the switch from sugary energy gels to slower digesting pasta in Courmayeur, but it wasn’t more than a couple of hours out of Courmayeur when my brain started to go haywire. It must have been a combination of hitting the wall and being short of calories.

Suddenly my mind was racing, but with random crap, totally disconnected thoughts and assertions.  “Chickpeas are a strange building material.  Why’s that man wearing a red top?  Why can’t I see Mars? Who has stolen the moon. Did I leave the oven on?”

And so it went. More and more rapidly with various questions and statements flowing into and out of my head.  I was at least conscious enough of it being a bit weird. I thought someone would cart me off to Shutter Island.

Afterwards someone suggested that my brain was probably starting to dream whilst I was still awake.  At the time it felt like I was going insane. It  was pretty unnerving.

I must have reached for another caffeine energy gel because soon after normality was restored.

It was on the descent into Arnuva that my right shin really started to throb. It wasn’t so bad up hill, but the descents were becoming pretty uncomfortable.  I assumed it was a muscular pain so didn’t really pay it much attention and didn’t ease off the pace. It was later diagnosed as a stress fracture. Easing off might have helped.

After Arnuva we were climbing again. I started recognising people who I had chatted to earlier on as we kept leapfrogging each other.

Soon it started to grow dark again.   I pulled out my head torch and extra clothes. and popped a couple of Panadol.  Soon all the other aches and pains disappeared leaving nothing doing almost nothing to dull the pain in my shin.

It was on the descent into La Fouly in Switzerland that my left knee also started to grow sore.  I pushed on hard to the rest stop. Again, I probably should have slowed the pace but I was anxious just to get to the next rest stop. Both my right shin and ankle were giving a lot of grief by this stage, almost bringing tears to my eyes when I took a particularly hard impact.

I arrived at La Fouly at about 22:30 on Saturday evening but it already felt like the middle of the night.

I must have been hobbling pretty badly by this stage because one of the volunteers came up to me in the marquee and suggested I go to the physiotherapist to get myself sorted out.  I questioned her at length about whether the physios were allowed to disqualify me from the race if they didn’t think I was in good enough shape to carry on. She swore blind that they wouldn’t be able to force me to stop, so I agreed to go and see what they could do.

I followed her directions down a dark alley and around the back of a house. Gingerly I opened the door and was confronted with a room full of walking wounded. It looked like a military field hospital.  There were about seven treatment beds and another ten or so mattresses on the floor.  After about 10 minutes wait, I was shown to a bed and asked what the problem was.

After some discussions with a colleague, the physio immobilised my foot to stop any movement at the ankle.  It was a pretty professional looking job – with my lower leg looking something like an Egyptian mummy – but it was taped in such a position that it permanently hurt.  That was the only way to immobilise it, they told me.

They offered me some painkillers, but I had already taken my maximum dose.

So after about twenty minutes I bade them farewell and trundled off into the night.

It was probably because I was so anxious to get going again, that I neglected to mention the pain in my left knee.  And it was my knee that became the defining problem of the next twenty hours.

From La Fouly it’s a long shallow descent towards Praz-de-Fort.  Normally it’s a great stretch to pick up time, as it’s a smooth path and a perfect downhill gradient.  But now I was struggling to keep up a jog.

My knee was getting progressively more painful. Uphill was bearable but downhill was hard.  And getting alarmingly harder with each step.

I reached Champex at just after 2:30 on Sunday morning.  It had been a lonely climb up the hill to Champex and I was glad of the company when I saw the lights of the town coming into view. I was cold and feeling pretty empty inside.

I looked at one of the revised maps on the wall of the tent.  It showed three mountains left. The second had been crossed out with marker pen and replaced by a descent into a valley.  The third mountain was also scribbled out – replaced by a flat section to the finish.  I told myself that at least it was only one more – long – downhill section. If I could do that I could make it.  This was perhaps my only flicker of doubt, about whether I should pull out.

Going down hill had become all but impossible. I was really struggling and putting a lot of weight on my running poles.

I’ve never really done a race where the route is changed so much mid course. But I consoled myself that this meant that if I could get myself down into the gorge, I would be able to finish.

After a bit more food I left Chamonix and skirted along the lake and out of town. I was feeling pretty sorry for myself by now. The pain was becoming all encompassing.

My overriding memory of the next few hours was hobbling forever downwards into a gorge. It felt like we were journeying into the centre of the earth. This was the deviation. It was a new course for me and I didn’t know how long it would go on for.  The path was unrelentingly steep.  I had to keep pulling over to let runners past. That humiliation made things worse.  They were still running and I was virtually crawling.

Even a couple of months later, as I write this, the memory of the pain hasn’t quite faded.  When I reached the bottom of the valley, I stopped and just sat on the tarmac in the little town.  I felt totally destroyed, mentally and physically.  I think I might have started sobbing.

We stated climbing as dawn slowly broke. It was then that I was suddenly hit by another overwhelming attack of the sleep demons. There was virtually nothing I could do to keep awake.  I was wandering all over the road in a kind of drunken stupor, jerking awake then wandering some more.  I pulled up short of a nasty drop. I think that shocked me back awake.  I could have gone over the drop and finished my race – and my life – right there.

I thought we now faced a simple climb up and out of the valley. I could just about handle that.  But after about half an hour of climbing we were going back downhill again.  I started to feel outrage that the deviation wasn’t what I had expected. I felt I had been lied to – promised it was a manageable up hill climb – and here we were going down hill.    Maybe the anger was helpful, it kept me going and gave me something to fight against.

In Martingy – around 7:30 on Sunday morning – I saw another medic and asked about getting my knee strapped up. She obliged but suggested I take a local train to go to the hospital to get my knee scanned.

I was by now in a pretty bad mood. I had been warding off a tantrum on the downhill stretch to Martingy.  I had been in pain all night and as dawn broke was feeling decidedly sleepy. I regret that I didn’t take too kindly to someone suggesting I might pull out of the race for a scan.

“I’m not going to hospital” I said, perhaps rather aggressively. “I didn’t come here to end up in hospital”

“Well it’s your knee” she said. I feel now that I was rather unkind to the poor doctor.  But this negativity wasn’t what I wanted to hear.

What I had wanted to hear was “It might hurt a bit, but don’t worry you won’t do any permanent damage. Here are some wonderful painkillers.”

So I stormed out of the medical tent. Or at least, I tried to.  Storming out doesn’t really work when you need someone to help you up off the stretcher.

Leaving Martingy was mostly up hill.  The pain was still there but wasn’t quite as all encompassing.  I could almost keep up with others around me. With every step I worried that I was doing some permanent damage to my knee.  Was it worth that to finish, I asked myself.

The descent into Trient was tough.  I was reduced to an almost crawling pace.  There was a long stretch of steps cut into the hillside. I tackled these backwards as it was marginally less painful.

Cheering crowds in Trient almost brought me to tears again. In Trient I succumbed and went to see another medic. While she prodded and poked my patella, I explained that I had ripped off the last bandages in a fit of rage, after being convinced that they were making things worse.

The doctor called another for consultation. Both of them poked and prodded some more.   They talked about cartilage and ligaments or so I supposed. To their credit neither of them suggested I pull out.  I would need a couple of months break from running afterwards they said.

“Really?” I said in delight rather than disappointment.

We established that there were 25 kilometres left and I had about 10 hours until the cut off time. 2.5 km per hour I thought. If I have to, I can crawl that.

I left Trient thinking I had a fairly simple route along the valley bottom.  I didn’t think to enquire about the route. I should have done.

As I left the checkpoint in Trient, there was another flight of steps. I established I could only handle steps by going backwards down them. Slowly and painfully I reached the bottom and turned around to begin shuffling along the path.

It was perhaps a measure of the pain I was in that when I turned around and saw another flight of steps I began a pathetic little sob.  It was as much the pain as the disappointment.

And so it would continue from there until the finish, each time thinking it was nearly over, only to discover another seemingly impossible escarpment to scale. Each time my emotions raged between anger, despair and bloody-minded resolve.

Soon the path took a sharp turn upwards. This was the first sign that my anticipation of a flat route to Chamonix would be dashed.

We climbed and climbed in the baking heat. With a solid hour of hard work up hill I was sweating like a pig.  I wasn’t so concerned about the hard work, but dreaded the inevitable descent that would follow.

The drop down to Vallorcine was where I must have really started hallucinating.

At first I started thinking about how bad I was at going downhill. Why were my legs so bad at it? What was wrong with them? It was then that my legs started answering back. First they were blaming me for not buying better legs in the first place. I was so spaced out that it didn’t seem in the slightest bit off that my legs were talking to me. Then it got worse, my legs seemed to be talking to each other, about me.  I thought it rather rude, but not particularly odd.

I soldiered on to Argentiere, each time asking passers by how far it was to the next check point, and each time being dismayed at the answer.  It seemed never ending.  I knew I was going too slowly. I was running out of time. I was going to end up missing the cut off time. All this pointless race would be for nothing. It was starting to bring on a sense of panic. Yet there was nothing I could do. I felt totally impotent.

I must have been wavering all over the road at Argentiere because several members of the crowd looked concerned that I would fall.  As I passed through the town there was a huge cheer. It was really amazing. One guy looked me right in the eyes, pointed at me and said “Owen, you are going to make it to Chamonix.  We are going to be waiting there for you.  You are going to finish. Don’t stop now.” I had to bite my lip to stop it trembling as waves of emotion washed over me.

It was from Argentiere where things really started to go pear-shaped.  The path out of Argentiere passed by the little train station. But it was covered in rocks.

Clearly my mind was pretty addled, because I started composing, in my head, a letter of complaint to the Argentiere tourist board. My letter asserted that the rocky path would give a bad first impression to people who got off the train there.  The stones could have been no more than large pebbles, no worse than a muddy path you might find in a wood, but to me there were almost impossible to move over. I started getting angry at the rocks hadn’t been removed.  ‘What if someone wanted to bring a wheelchair over here’, I fumed.

Now I feel embarrassed at my rage. But at the time it all seemed perfectly rational. Indeed a disabled person might want to bring their wheelchair over the alps. And I was going to complain that they couldn’t.  Clearly I was looking for someone else to blame for my woes. It was all pretty unpleasant, and I feel a little ashamed of it now.  If the test of a person’s character is how well they cope under duress, I’m not quite sure I came out shining.

I passed a few walkers coming the other way. “How far to Chamonix?” I kept asking.

‘Not far. Only a couple of hours’ they would reply. My response probably doesn’t bear repeating.

I started railing against the organisers for changing the route.  I started bashing my running polls against the floor. I might even have started shouting incoherently.  I knew I was running out of time and I didn’t know whether I had an hour left to go, or three.

Several times I saw cars further up the path. I was delighted as a car park meant I must be near town. Each time, as I grew nearer, the cars turned back into rocks or bushes or whatever. I was clearly hallucinating again.

Once I saw what I took to be a giant army tank and started off the path towards it, wondering why the British army were out training in the Alps.  Soon it too turned back into the rock it always was.

It didn’t occur to me that I was hallucinating, but each time I kept getting disappointed when things I was looking at turned into something less helpful.

Eventually about five or six runners started to group together.   We didn’t talk. We were all far too gone for that.

Then the course took a sharp right, uphill. It was clearly marked and there could be no mistaking the route.  It was met by all of us with sheer incomprehension.  Chamonix was at the bottom of the valley but the path was going up hill.  I knew if I went uphill I wouldn’t be able to come back down.

But someone started, so I followed.  Eventually – though it can hardly have been another ten minutes – we became convinced that we had passed Chamonix. As I looked back on down into the valley, I was convinced that I could see Chamonix behind us. I thought we had gone wrong or too far.  I looked at my watch and thought I had just half an hour till the cut off time.

I was convinced the route was wrong. I could hardly walk.  I couldn’t go back as there was nowhere obvious to go. And I didn’t want to go forward as I didn’t think I was going in the right direction.

It seems strange now, but we came across a little kid with a kite, who someone asked the way to Chamonix.  But he ran off without giving us an answer.  His were parents nowhere to be seen. It was only as I was recounting the story some days later that I began to wonder whether he really existed.   It felt like the middle of a panic nightmare, just before you wake up. But I wasn’t sleeping. This was real.

Word somehow slowly filtered back that someone up ahead knew the route and knew we were on the right path.  It was starting to get dark again by now. I started to grasp the concept that I might actually make it to the finish. That started to flight my spirits and the pain started to recede.

I started to consider how I would approach the finish. Part of me didn’t want to give the organisers satisfaction of me finishing.  It seems ludicrous now, that I would even consider such a protest.  But I was so angry, at myself, at the world.  I didn’t feel physically exhausted, just completely disabled by this knee.  I knew that without this knee injury – and my shin pain – I could have done so much better. It was maddening.

As we approached Chamonix I knew my mood started to change.  A crowd had grown to welcome the final runners into town. Of those who would finish, we among the last. Most of us wounded, most of us like zombies.

Some of the crowd started to run with me.  I tried to pick up the pace to more than a hobble.

The crowd were cheering my name – it was written on my bib.  Words really cannot do the feeling justice. I could feel my hair stand on end.  I felt a little unworthy. Just moments ago I had been willing to blame anything and everyone for my distress.  I was on the point of screaming and tantrums.  That’s what over 60 hours without sleep does. But now a crowd were cheering me, willing me to finish. Sharing my emotions.

Those dark hours, all alone, were finally coming to an end. I was delighted to just be in the company of other people.  No longer alone.  No longer a prisoner with my own hallucinating brain.

Writing this now, it’s hard to recall the feeling.  I felt simultaneously more alive than I have ever felt, and closer to death. I felt sad too that I would never have this feeling again.

I raised my hands as I crossed the line and rather over dramatically turned and bowed to the crowd.

Someone – presumably one of the race organisers shook my hand.  I slummed on the decking behind the finish line and through the din heard the announcer say that there were just 13 minutes to the cut off.

By the time I had been helped up and had collected my finishers’ jersey, they were already starting to dismantle the finishing arch.

There’s cutting things close and there’s cutting things close.

45 hours 16 minutes 59 seconds was my final time.

Just 47% of those who started the race made it to the end. That’s way below normal.

Normally you’re given 46 hours to finish. Normally the race is 166km rather than 170km.  Normally it doesn’t snow in August.

I now realise there is absolutely nothing normal about this race.

Uneasy flyers say that if God had meant us to fly, he would have given us wings. I say if he had meant us to swim, he would have given us floats.

Once, as a child aged six or seven, I did a sponsored swim. Whilst my classmates spent hours clocking up laps, I did just one length. It wasn’t that I was feeling uncharitable. No, one length was all I thought I could achieve. My swimming was bad but at least I knew how to set achievable targets.

I thought about this as I stood on the pebbled beach in Nice. I thought how far I’d come. And how far I had left to go. The training was behind me. An Ironman lay ahead: 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile cycle and a marathon.

The sun was just rising and shimmered off the sea. It would have been a nice time for a swim, were it not for the company.

Around me stood some 2500 other neoprene-clad athletes. They would shortly be bashing their elbows into my head and scrabbling at my feet. For now though we just smiled at each other sympathetically, knowingly. We were all in the same position.

It didn’t escape me that no one made these people come here. Yet they were summoned here, by themselves. Summoned for a million different reasons, yet with just one common aim – to finish the Ironman.

Still in the calm before the start, I thought about the day ahead.  I thought too about all those cold, dark mornings at the pool before work.  Waking up more tired that I had gone to bed, and still training.

And now the swim. Just six months ago the idea of that swim – now very much this swim – would send my heart racing and my skin clammy.

Ever since I signed up for the Ironman I had pictured this moment on the beach, waiting for the starting gun. Back then the swim had seemed anything but an achievable target.

But now I felt ready. I had done everything I could to get my swimming up to an acceptable standard. If I couldn’t do it now, I never would.

I placed myself in the section of the beach for those aiming to finishing the swim in under 1hour 22 minutes. I had spent a few moments debating whether to go in the next slowest category, but in the end thought I’d be ambitious.

As we waited, there was a lot of discussion as to the exact route and which buoys we had to swim to the right of, and which to the left.  For all the staring out to sea, I couldn’t make out where we were supposed to be heading, but I figured I couldn’t get lost.

After a blaze of pumping music, the starting gun went off. The more lunatic among us charged into the sea. The rest of us surged in more tentatively, cautiously. Thousands of people swarming into the same patch of sea – it looked absurd. I allowed myself a little laugh and told myself to enjoy the moment.  I swam for a while with my head out of the water, my arms protecting my head. Suddenly the rest of your body – particularly the sensitive bits – felt particularly vulnerable to getting kicked.

By now the sun was peaking above the mountains and casting a wonderful glow on the water. As I tilted my head one way I’d get a brilliant glow of sunshine. The other way a view over the mountains. Straight down a view of deep azure blue sea.

I got into my stride fairly quickly, managing to defend my space. It wasn’t long though before my goggles took a whack and I had to pull them back down from my forehead.

Eventually we passed the first buoy, and I allowed myself a glance back to shore. It looked impossibly far away, like looking through the wrong end of the telescope.

After the second buoy we were heading back to shore with a psychological boost. But I could feel my arms beginning to tire and my wetsuit starting to chafe on the back of my neck. The onset of a headache didn’t help.

I reached the shore again after some 50 minutes. I glanced behind me and there still hundreds still in the water. I wasn’t at the back. I wasn’t last!

After a short few meters along the beach it was back into the water for the second shorter lap. There was more of a swell by now and I had to work harder against the chop. As the crowd spread out you had to pay more attention to where you were going. Then around the final two buoys and back to shore for the last time.

I’m sure I was getting a bit disorientated towards the end of the swim as fatigue started to set in, but I could see the shore closing in.

Then, from nowhere, someone’s elbow collided with my mouth. I was so taken aback that it knocked me out of my stride. I checked my teeth were still in place before pushing the guy away to make room.

Out of the water for a second time, I felt a surge of emotions and a huge smile rippling across my face.  1 hour 17 minutes on the clock. I had done it.  There were still plenty of swimmers in the sea and bikes left in the transition area. I wasn’t last!  I had swum 2.4 miles – 3.8km – and lived to tell the tale.

I pealed off my wetsuit, donned my helmet and bike shoes and set off cycling hard along the promenade, still grinning.  My mouth still felt numb from the salt water.  I downed as much liquid as I could, to rehydrate after the swim, along with a couple of energy gels. It was still early but already it was starting to get hot. I knew it was going to be a day’s battle against dehydration.

It was a fast ride along the promenade, then inland along side a river before we reached the mountains. Then a couple of hours climb.  Normally I love climbing, but this time it felt frustrating and unsatisfying. The hard swim had taken the edge off. I didn’t feel like I was making progress.

After the second or third aid station I tried to take down a bit more water, but as I set off down hill something didn’t seem quite right.  Before I knew it I was throwing up.  I took one hand off the handlebars and tried to avoid being sick over myself, but simultaneously struggled to grip the brakes with the other hand. I managed to lock up the back wheel. I came to a stop, still being sick. I was like a human fire hydrant. Liquid kept coming out of my mouth. I began to wonder with alarm where it was all coming from. Clearly as I’d worked hard up the climb, nothing I drank was being absorbed.

After I’d stopped throwing up, I felt surprisingly better and set off again hard. I picked up two bottles of coke at the next aid station and my stomach settled down like magic.

The course was spectacularly beautiful, through Mediterranean woods and over exposed Cols. A scented warm breeze were blew over us.

All the pain of climbing during the first half of the course is forgiven during the second – it’s all downhill. It’s fast and technical. You really have to concentrate. But if you do, and work the bike hard, you can fly past other riders. It was tremendous fun getting up over 60kph then braking hard for a hairpin bend.  I saw just one accident involving what looked like a motorcycle, a bike and a crash barrier, but didn’t dwell on it for long.

It was then a final flat stretch to the transition area.

I pulled my feet out of my cycling shoes and I jumped off the bike.  But I hadn’t figured how sore my back would be. I stretched my back out to a number of expletives. After 6 hours and 26 minutes in the saddle the muscles in my lower back had become angry. For a minute or two I was reduced to hobbling along.

My bike was taken off me by a helpful volunteer and I stumbled off to find my running kit. I pulled on my trainers and headed out onto the marathon course.

As I left the transition area I took a deep breath.  Four laps of the promenade awaited. A full marathon in the baking heat of the Med.

The routine of running and the four laps made it all go rather quickly.

Through each aid stations, roughly ever 2kms, I adopted a bit of a routine. I’d break my running pace and walk through the aid station. The first glass of water I’d throw over my head. Then, at the next table, I’d grab an energy gel and squeeze it down, followed by a glass of coke. Leaving the aid station I’d throw a glass of water down my back and over my arms. Then, summoning all my willpower, I’d start running again. The routine somehow seemed to dull the pain.

By now I’ve pretty much forgotten the pain. But at the time it was everywhere, from head to toe, every part of your body telling you to stop and walk. The heat was overpowering. I was sweating everywhere. I was as wet as if I’d just come out of the sea. And still I was too hot.  By now I was dreaming of getting back in the sea for a swim to cool down. Dreaming of swimming again? What was happening to me?

After the first 10km lap I thought it might just be possible to finish the marathon in under 4 hours. That would be classy I thought, as I kept trying to push the pace up. But slowly, on each lap my time began to slip.  I was spending longer at each aid station. It was taking longer to keep my liquids down and settle my stomach.

Everyone ran on the same course – from town out to the airport and back. Yet some people were on their first lap, others their last. On each lap I’d collect my wristband to prove another lap over.  I’d find myself looking at the wrist of everyone I passed to see which lap they were on. Mentally putting them behind me.

The Red Cross were kept busy. I saw dozens of people being carted away. One guy almost collapsed on top of me. This freaked me out a bit. I don’t do well in the heat and I didn’t want to finish my Ironman on a stretcher – at least not until I’d crossed the finish line.  So I struggled to take on more liquids and my stomach rebelled.

On my final lap though I threw caution to the wind and ran through each aid station, figuring that if I tried to drink anything else, it wouldn’t be pretty.  

I pushed that last lap hard. By now a lot of people were walking and I was getting a huge mental boost by passing people. I felt like I was really motoring.

It was painful but also exhilarating. Pleasure and pain strangely mixed. As I got closer to the finish I suddenly had a thought that I didn’t want it to end. Soon it would all be over. Everything would be done. Never again the fear of the first Ironman. It wouldn’t be the same again.

Then there comes a point where after four laps with your three wrist bands you are allowed to pull off the course towards the finish line.

I checked no one was behind me – no one wants to be overtaken on the final stretch – I zipped up my top, took off my cap and sunglasses, pulled back my shoulders and let out a huge roar.  The crowd roared back.

As I soaked up those final few meters the announcer spoke those magic words:

 “Owen, you are an Ironman”

I raised my arms and smiled for my photo.

You hurt more than you have hurt before. Yet it no longer matters.

You have overcome everything. And become an Ironman.

It’s all over.

And then, slowly, you wonder whether this is really the finish, or merely just the beginning.

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