DNF

It had to happen eventually; I’ve DNSed (Did Not Start) a fair few races due to injury and scheduling clashes but today was my first DNF (Did Not Finish).

Today was the ROC Scotland; the pre-race video came out a few weeks ago and discussed the bike choice with the presenter suggesting that a mountain bike would probably be better for the middle section than a gravel bike. After much vacillating I decided that if it did turn out to be a mountain bikers’ course then I would be walking those bits anyway.

And I was right…I drove up the day before the race and a sinking feel started coming over me as the rain started in Manchester and followed me all the way to Kinlochleven where the race start and my camp site were a gap in the rain followed which was much appreciated for pitching my tent.

My renewed hopes were short lived; when I checked the weather we had a severe weather warning for rain and flooding until Sunday morning (the day after the race). Still I was ready to take the race organisers instructions on which sections of the course we were doing.

The preparation for this race had gone surprisingly well; I came off the back of hernia repair surgery followed by a herniated lumbar disc, but had recovered from both of those and had built up my volume steadily until our three week Canadian adventure and, somewhat unexpectedly, I’d managed to maintain both race weight and decent fitness through the holiday.

This left me September to really build up – which I did, albeit slightly nervously anticipating a new or recurring injury due to the rate of increase in volume required. But training seemed to go virtually flawlessly which meant following careful carb loading (just a couple of hundred extra calories per day in the 3 days leading up to the race) I woke on race day raring to go.

I wasn’t overly disappointed when I discovered the swim section was being cancelled; I had been concerned how easily I would get warm again after the swim, it turns out I was indeed worrying about the correct thing…

I made it to the start line, the rain having been continuous since the previous evening (and forecast to be continuous until the day after the race) to discover they had also cut the summit section of the run as the river near the summit was now too dangerous to cross due to the extra volume of water.

The swim had been replaced by a 1.5km run; I set off feeling a little pre-race nerves but overall very ready for what was ahead.

The first run was done in 4:07 min/kms – I thought this was a good compromise for what was likely to be a multi-hour event, not too fast, but still keeping me in touch with the leaders. I came into transition and discovered that laced shoes for the bike were a poor choice (albeit my other choice would have been to buy more shoes…) so T1 took a little longer than planned, but the first bike section suited me again; a nice road section that turned onto a super steep well surfaced gravel section which allowed me to pick off pretty much everyone who had overtaken me in transition.

So far so good, I let my effort go well over threshold as I had a feeling that I was going to start haemorrhaging time on the technical sections; make hay while the sun shines and all that… And then the bike section started to get more technical I slowed down and picked my way through it and even started to get the hang of it for a while and then we hit the river and boulder sections!

I’ve blocked out most of that hour from my memory, but there was a lot of walking much of it at least ankle deep in cold water, finally we got on to a nice well surfaced section and at this point I realised I had a problem.

I was ending up coasting sections and having to drag the brakes downhill as I was so cold I was struggling to operate the brakes and couldn’t afford to go to fast. The shaking with cold and terrain I had failed to cycle up was telling me that I was going to be walking even more of the return if I attempted it. I was hugely relieved to see T2 hove in to view but I had no idea what I was going to do next; I had no doubt that I was capable of doing the run and staying warm on the run if I could just get warm again. I also realised I had stopped shaking with cold but that I was no warmer; I’ve done enough wilderness first aid and open water swimming to know that this is a bad sign and not something to be ignored.

A marshall came over and said I looked terrible and did I want to warm up in the back of the ambulance. I didn’t even hesitate…

I got to know the two lovely ambulance technicians very well over the next 40 minutes. Lots of hot tea, foil blankets, a hot water botel and many blankets later I came back through shaking with cold and out the other side to warm again. We’d established by this point that I was, and had been, very aware of my own condition and what to do about it thanks to my own wildnerness first aid training; the two medics agreed that if I thought I could do the run then they had no objection to me doing it. The race organiser was happy to either get me a lift back to the finish or let me continue once I’d done the run; but I knew at that point that doing the same bike route on return would put me and my would-be rescuers in danger.

I had no doubt I was fit enough to do the mountain and that in full waterproofs I could stay warm enough; I was cautious enough to know that if it was looking like the descent would be really technical I would turn back early rather than risk cooling down on a slow descent. So I set off delighted to be moving again with some exuberant 4:30 min/kms on the road to the path up Nevis.

The first section was a bit of a dull rocky stair case, but after a km or so the views opened out and I was in my element and warm and I knew I’d made the correct choices – I had no illusion that I was going to finish the race so I was just cruising the run fast enough to keep warm and take in the views and what stunning views they were.

And a couple of hours later it was all over, so hear I am sat in the pub keeping warm until I get some dinner, a few celebratory ales and back to the tent. Thanks to the organisers of the ROC Scotland and to the two lovely ambulance technicians who warmed me back up and then chatted to me while I waited for a lift back after the run.