It’s 5 in
the morning, and I’m already climbing out of the valley, my sights on the
sun-tipped summit above me. The record from our Czech cottage to
Boubín (1362m) and back stands at 1:52 (Václav Paris, 2012), a time that seems impossibly fast to me
today. I’m not even taking the fastest route, and there’s a good chance I’ll
need to stop somewhere along the way.
 |
| Team Paris-Rawlik(jr.) set the Boubin buggy record |
There’s a
difference to this summit bid though... it’s a team effort, and only one of the
pair is pulling their weight. The other is asleep, wrapped in a sheepskin to
keep off the morning chill, dreaming of her next feed. She doesn’t even wake up
when I reach the col and transfer her to the carrier, stashing the buggy in the
bushes as I clamber the last 1.5km upwards along the boulder strewn track. I
reach the top, touch the cairn and turn, supporting her head with my hand as I
pick my way down. Back at the buggy I execute a hasty changeover and we’re
running again, flying down the hill through the forest. We arrive back at our
cottage in time for breakfast. My teammate sleepily stretches and smiles, clearly
delighted to have run our target sub-3 hours time (2:53).
My teammate
is our daughter, Rowan, born in November just 10 days after her last fell race
as a ‘bump’. She surprised everyone by entering the world bottom first,
eschewing convention from the word go. Seven months later, I’m preparing to go
back to work (Konrad will be on baby duty for a couple of months now), and it
seems like a good time to write up the next instalment of our running diary.
In spite of
Rowan’s unconventional presentation, I was lucky to have a fairly
straightforward labour and delivery. By the following morning we were out walking
with our dog Moss, and within a couple of weeks I
was venturing into the Pentland Hills with Rowan in a sling on my tummy. At 4
weeks post partum I started a bit of gentle jogging (with Moss, I didn’t run
with Rowan until she was 6 months old), and after my 6 week GP check I slowly
eased back into training. Konrad and I developed a routine in which he would
look after Rowan every day from 6 to 8 am whilst I went running. Other, more innovative ‘maternity leave
training’ strategies included hill reps and intervals, whilst Rowan slept in
her buggy in full sight.
 |
| Ready to race at the Mourne Highline |
Returning to fitness wasn’t all plain
sailing. I pulled something in my back when lifting Rowan up in the night, and
just as I’d recovered from that I developed mild posterior tibial tendonitis
(an injury I’ve had once before), which grumbled on for about 6 weeks,
stubbornly refusing to settle. With these breaks in training, my first serious race
back - the opening counter for the British Fellrunning Championships (Mourne
Highline, Ireland, in April) - arrived all too quickly, and I lined up on the
start line feeling somewhat unprepared. The weather (pea soup fog) and the
linear course (necessitating that I finish) did little to quell my nerves, and
I purposefully started well down the field. To my great surprise, I not only
made it back to the finish without getting lost and before Rowan started to
cry, but I also finished first lady. The rough terrain helped by slowing
everyone down, as did the fog (I raced Emma Gould for much of the race, but she
went wrong on the final descent), nevertheless it was a great boost for
post-baby running morale. Caitlin Rice, a good friend who also started out with
Glossopdale Harriers, finished second, which I was delighted about. She has
since won the short counter (Tal Y Mignedd), which we didn’t travel to, so the
next two races in the British Championships should be exciting.
My next race, just a week later, was the
Teenager with Altitude in the Lake District (24.7km, 2300m ascent). Rowan had received
her vaccinations the day before, and spent the majority of the night awake, so
my preparation wasn’t exactly ideal, although it did involve a generous amount
of midnight cake eating. The day was also unseasonably hot, more suitable for
swimming than running, but it did make for wonderful views. Sharon Taylor had a
great race, and although I could see her in front of me for much of it, I had
nothing in my legs to mount a credible chase. Nevertheless, it was my longest
run since having Rowan, and I was plenty happy with the result.
 |
| On Beinn an Oir (second Pap) |
A month later, after another chunk of
training and a couple of 24-hour round supports (a Bob Graham and a Ramsay –
both involving ‘pass-the-baby’ from daddy to mummy between legs), we travelled
to Jura for the annual highlight of my racing calendar, the Jura Fell race. It
felt great to be there, racing, and part of the scene again. Despite a fall
coming off the third Pap, during with I slashed my knee open (fellrunning
legend Wendy Dodds and I had matching injuries at the finish, although she had
4 stitches, whereas I just got glued together) I finished in 3:49 (1st
F, although still 11 minutes off a PB). The following day Liz Barker and I
swim-ran the islands of Small Isles (more on that to follow), and the remainder
of the week was spent taking Rowan onto the Paps for her first race recce,
introducing her to the sea, and trying not to let her eat too much sand.
 |
| Team coach, in obligatory LAMM mid-camp attire |
On Thursday we headed north to Harris
for the Lowe Alpine Mountain Marathon (LAMM). To those who don’t know, a
mountain marathon is a 2-day orienteering-type race, which is run in teams of
two, carrying everything necessary for an overnight camp. When this year’s
fantastic location (Harris) was first announced last winter, we predicted it
was going to be something special, and set about trying to work out how we’d be
able to compete with Rowan in the mix. We made a plan that involved my mum
carrying Rowan into mid-camp, where she could sleep with me and breastfeed
overnight before travelling to the finish the following morning with my mum.
Luckily for us the organizer Martin Stone was incredibly accommodating, and set
up a private email correspondence with my mum to ensure she would know the
mid-camp location (something we wouldn’t know until our clock started ticking
on day 1 of the event). Konrad and I had originally planned to run the Elite
class, but after some deliberation we switched over to the Score class, on the
premise that the 7-hour daily time limit would be preferable as a fixed end
point for Rowan. I expressed a bottle of milk for day 1, and my mum packed the
breast pump for me to use at mid-camp to do the same on day 2. We were set to
go.
It felt simultaneously ridiculous (most
people wouldn’t even dream of mixing the two), and also completely natural
(fell runners are not most people), to be travelling to a mountain marathon
with a baby. In the end, as I predicted, the support from everyone was
overwhelming, and Rowan was made to feel very welcome. In fact, she was
extremely well behaved and even those camped right beside us hardly heard a
cry. Moss, who also walked in with my mum, actually caused more hassle, as he
went acutely lame overnight and thus secured himself a lift out of mid-camp on
the boat with the injured runners on day 2 (by the evening he’d recovered, so
we think he just wanted a boat ride).
 |
| Reviewing our route choices at the end of day 2 |
Anyway, to get back to the race... We
had a steady first day, neither of us feeling particularly brilliant, not
taking any risks and finishing with 10 minutes to spare. It was a little too
hot for racing, but the views were absolutely spectacular, in particular the
final descent to mid-camp (which was located at Loch Crabhadail, a splendidly remote
stretch of soft green grass beside an incredible white-sand beach). Being
amongst the first teams back, we were sure that others would pass our temporarily
leading score of 300. But we were wrong; by the end of the day we were still in
front, albeit with several teams barking at our heels (with scores of 295, 280
etc.). With this incentive, we went out hard on day 2 and gave it everything to
try and keep the lead. We even took the option (which secured a 50-60-35 point
control trio) of climbing back over An Cliseam (799m), a summit we’d already
bagged on day 1. We cut it fine, a little too fine in fact, and finished 2
minutes over time, both falling at the finish control – me because I tripped
up, Konrad because he was overcome by the heat. Still, we came away with a day
2 score of 379 points (385 minus a 6 point time penalty), which gave us a
comfortable margin over the next team. Martin announced at the prize giving
that this had been the last ever LAMM, and received a thoroughly deserved
standing ovation that refused to finish. In these circumstances, our win felt particularly
special. Although as I’ve come to realise, the greatest prize in any race is now the little person with the beaming smile, waiting for us at the finish
line.
