5am. I can see the headlights of a waiting car outside but seem to be locked in a guesthouse. I stumble around in the dark trying to find someone to open it. “Namaste, Namaste”, I call as I find a sleeping security guard and try to shake some life into him. Bleary eyed, he comes to the rescue, opening the door and allowing me to start my journey to Manaslu Mountain Trail Race.

A long bus ride to a bridge to meet the rest of the runners. Patchy phone signal. Turns out it’s the wrong place. Flagging down a dusty lorry, we hitch a ride to the right bridge 20km downstream and sit and wait for the bus of cheery folk on their way from Kathmandu.

We’re greeted with friendly faces and delicious oranges from the event organisers as we make our bumpy way to the race start village.
Manaslu Mountain Trail Race is a nine day stage race, though stages seven and eight are “hiking” days and don’t count in the overall results. It’s just over 190km with over 11,000m of climb.

The race is organised by Richard Bull and Lizzy Hawker, pioneers in the promotion of trail running in Nepal, putting on various events throughout the year, for the right reasons; low-key, non-commercialised and with a focus on giving back to local communities.

Five star service in the mountains

The race is supported by a team of cooks and a mule train, which means that not only do you need to carry just your “day bag”, you wake up to a cooked breakfast of eggs, pancakes, porridge, endless tea and coffee… there’s a packed lunch, a hearty hot soup waiting at the finish line each day, afternoon tea at 4.30pm and then a seemingly bottomless amount of food at dinnertime. Needless to say I think I actually put on weight during these nine days rather than losing anything!

Although conditions in Nepalese mountain villages are certainly “basic”, it felt like a total luxury compared to my experiences on the previous week’s Dhaulagiri trek and Annapurna mountain bike ride where I’d been carrying everything myself, including melting snow on the glacier drinking water.

Toeing the startline on the first day I was a little apprehensive as to how my (hopefully no longer fractured) foot would cope with the inevitable stress it would be put under. I hadn’t run a step for a month. I had my poles at the ready and a non-competitive mindset. I had to remember what a privilege it was just to be there, running in such places is such a luxury.

Most people in the mountains are subsistence farming and wasting energy through running would understandably be considered a frivolous endeavour for them.

Photo: Manaslu Mountain Race – Jeevan Lama

Uphill from the start

We began by winding our way up the Budhi Gandaki valley, almost 4,000m of climb and 2,500m descent over the first two days, so it wasn’t entirely uphill! Due to the linear nature of the event, there were no cut-offs, and so people could take as long as they needed on each stage. After a quick river wash (at least at the lower elevations!), it was fun to cheer everyone on as they came into the finish line throughout the afternoon every day.

There was a wonderful community feeling amongst all the participants; being with a small group means there’s real opportunity to properly get to know each other; as one of the guys said “it’s like ten years of friendship in nine days”.

By day three it felt like we were really in the mountains, views of Manaslu appeared and the culture became more Tibetan. Running up to 4,700m in my shorts and T-shirt in horrible snowy conditions was a little on the chilly side but otherwise we were really lucky with the weather.

After dinner each evening, we had a briefing by race organiser Richard, his dry sense of humour could land him a stand-up comedy gig if he wanted it, always managing to make jokes even when everyone else was feeling pretty tired! I’d picked up a stinking cold by the fifth day; far from ideal as we headed into the higher altitudes, but it didn’t dampen my spirits too much.

Confidence growing

I even managed to gain some confidence in my foot and clocked the fastest time on four of the seven stages. It was quite a risk to even start the event as I could have done a lot of damage, but hopefully I’ve been sufficiently conservative to let it continue healing.

Nepal has always been a top destination for trekkers but the trail running scene is really taking off with events springing up across the country. For me the events that Lizzy and Richard organise (Manaslu in November and Mustang in May) really are something special; I’m coming away with the most wonderful memories and a strong desire to return to this beautiful country very soon!

Photo: Manaslu Mountain Race – Jeevan Lama

The “kid’s race” in Oman

I treated my foot to a whole week of doing bugger all exercise and stopped off in Oman, where I’d been invited to participate in the UTMB race there. Although my initial invite was for the 130 or 170km races, I said I would come for the 50km…”the kids race” as I liked to call it. Well, the kids race which is 53km with 3,400m+… I had hoped to be able to run it properly, but I knew that my foot was not fully healed yet and that’s a lot of descent in a pair of trail shoes…

So I donned my trusty waterproof hiking boots and a non-competitive spirit and crossed my fingers and toes that I would be okay.

I wasn’t exactly raring to go on the startline, I would quite happily have stayed in bed; my legs were so stiff when I set off, but I gradually got into the swing of things as I jogged merrily up the main climb.

Slow and steady start

Once the sun came out it became crazy hot, I felt a little bit like a poor lobster being thrown into a bubbling cauldron to be boiled alive, and the Gore-Tex shoes were wholly unnecessary in the desert!

But I had a nice time, working my way through the field as the overexuberant men started to fade with the demands of the course and despite stopping for lots of pictures and clomping around like a woolly mammoth in my boots, I ended up finishing 8th overall. I took the downhills very steady and my foot seemed to survive – hooray!

My watch informs me that I now need 120 hours of recovery, shame I only have about 100 until my next jaunt – a three day stage race in Patagonia. Then logistics, weather and foot pending, perhaps a little escapade up Aconcagua…

Are you a fan of Fast Running? Then please support us and become a patron. For as little as the price of a monthly magazine you can support Fast Running – and it only takes a minute. Thank you.

The post Into the mountains again appeared first on Fast Running.

October brought with it the Sky Pirineu race, my final event of the Skyrunner World Series before the Grand Final in Italy a few weeks later.  It was my last opportunity to score points in the series and I was finally feeling quite fit. I’d been to the area a few years previously when I’d cycled over to the Pyrenees on a whim from the Alps, but this time I took the lazy option of using transport with more than two wheels. 

The Catalans always provide a splendid welcome and I very much enjoyed eating crema catalana until my heart’s content. My performance in the race itself was a little disappointing; I was in second place throughout the climb but pulled away from third towards the top.

For some reason I presumed I would catch the leader at some point on the downhill, but I never saw her, so contented myself with a second place. It was only when I crossed the finish line and found out that she was just 90 seconds ahead that I realised I should have been pushing harder from the start and never let her get away.

I normally finish races feeling like I’ve really given everything I have, but on this occasion I think I could perhaps have made up that deficit at some point on the four hour course. 

Running above the clouds at Sky Pirineu Photo: @lauraerrephotos

Always one more fell race…

Back in the UK, I packed my belongings and made plans for the upcoming months; Italy, Nepal, Oman, Patagonia… not an easy jaunt to pack for with kit for high altitude glaciated peaks and desert all to fit into one rucksack.

Despite a torrential downpour and a stinking cold, in the knowledge that I wouldn’t be doing any more fell races in 2019, I cycled over the hills to Haworth for a local fell race. Given I had the final of the skyrunning series the next week I ran very conservatively, taking no risks and really enjoying the race. It was however rather tricky to cycle back with the ridiculous prize haul – you can’t beat a good fell race for keeping the wine, beer and chocolate stash topped up. 

That same dreaded feeling…

The next morning I set off for a run, but a couple of minutes in had to stop and loosen my shoe lace as it felt like there was a lot of pressure across the top of my foot. Shoe loosened, there was no change. I walked back home with a sinking feeling in my stomach. The foot felt exactly the same as when I had fractured it back in March. I knew something was wrong, and leaving for my big trip in 3 days meant I didn’t have much time to find out what. 

After a lot of shenanigans with the local doctor’s surgery, I managed to get a referral letter to go and get a scan done privately; I needed to know for sure if it was fractured or whether I was just imagining things. The day before leaving for Italy I got the scan done and after more shenanigans about getting the results, I had my suspicions confirmed – the foot wasn’t fully fractured, but “prolonged weight bearing activity” would cause the microfracture to grow.

Quite a shame that all my plans for the foreseeable future involved prolonged weight bearing activity. 

It never crossed my mind to cancel my plans. What was I going to do stuck in the UK, go aquajogging and hop around in a moonboot? That didn’t really appeal so I decided to go ahead with my itinerary and just take each part as it came. 

One perk of being on crutches at an airport is getting priority treatment; my crutching skills became top notch and although it was difficult, I accepted having to watch the Skyrunning Final from the sidelines rather than competing. I might not have won the race but I did my utmost to win on the dancefloor at the afterparty with my exceptional hopping skills. 

Onwards to Nepal

The next day I squeezed my sorry self and bags into a tiny Fiat 500 with some British journalists and headed back to Milan for my onward journey to Nepal for the Final of the Golden Trail Series.

Although I couldn’t join in any of the running, I had a great week with my trail running friends from around the world. Just like the previous weekend in Italy, it was hard to see everyone out running in the mountains, but I tried to stay positive, enjoy some downtime and the day of the race I hired a mountain bike and went on a circuitous route round to the finish line so that at least I felt I’d had my own “day out”. 

Once the main group left Nepal, my plan had been to hike the Dhaulagiri circuit trek, one of Nepal’s “wild” treks where you have to carry all your food and equipment for at least a week as there are no tea houses to stay in (unlike most of the other well-known treks). I knew that it was too risky to attempt such a committing route, so, having enjoyed my mountain biking experience, it was decided that a good “non-weight bearing” alternative could be to mountain bike the Annapurna circuit instead. 

I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been properly mountain biking (as opposed to inadvertently off roading with my road bike). But my friend Tom and I rented some bikes of questionable quality, got some trekking permits, negotiated the bikes onto a few buses, and got our way to the start of the Annapurna circuit. 

Nappies for Tom

Because it had taken all day to sort everything, we started out in the dark. I quickly learnt that the mountain bike would indeed go over rocks and I didn’t need to keep putting my feet down in fear on the downhills.

We’d managed to acquire one pair of XL Chinese cycling shorts, but Tom soon realised that a pair of running shorts would not be sufficient protection for his derriere, so after declining the man in the shop’s suggestion of cutting up his own carpet and sewing it into Tom’s shorts, he purchased six nappies and enjoyed not entirely comfortable days of riding along with occasional “nappy slippage” as they fell out into the dust. 

The route was tough but beautiful, we climbed from the hot tropical rainforest up into the high snowy Himalayan peaks, temperatures plummeting and oxygen becoming increasingly scarce as we worked our way up to the Thorong-La pass at 5,400m. This certainly beats aquajogging as a “non-weight bearing activity”.

Each night we stayed in tea houses, small basic rooms and simple food, but incredibly hospitable people who were surprised to see us on bikes, and particularly surprised to see Tom’s nappies drying by the fire in the evening. 

We cracked out a very long (and tough!) last day to avoid having to sit on a bumpy bus for hours on end, returning to Pokhara as the sun was setting. My foot seemed to have come out of the biking relatively unscathed, so we decided to risk the Dhaulagiri trek.

Dhaulagiri escapades

It was a quick turnaround; shower, beer, food and packing our things for the trek. 36 hours after setting off on Nepal’s infamously steady public transport and death defyingly unsafe road network, we arrived at the start of the trek. 

We thought our bags were heavy but it was humbling to see the ridiculous loads being carried by local people, expertly negotiating the icy paths in just a pair of flip flops. We weren’t particularly lucky with the weather and got caught in a storm on the second day, a tent pole snapped on the third night setting up camp on a glacier, I got a fairly severe bout of diarrohea and ended up having to extricate myself from to the tent multiple times in the night, barefoot on the freezing glacier digging little snowholes with my bare hands.

Our wet shoes froze completely so we couldn’t put our swollen feet inside them until we had defrosted them down our jackets, all water sources had frozen so we could only melt snow down our tops / on the gas stove or on one occasion get some water out of a glacial pool after hacking at it with an ice axe. 

Into the storm

Despite avalanches crashing around us, at Dhaulagiri Base Camp we were lulled into a false sense of security, spending an afternoon relaxing under pristine blue skies. The next morning we awoke to a howling gale. We spoke to the only Sherpa at the base camp, in charge of a group of Dutch hikers who were having their things carried by porters and mules. He said that the conditions were too dangerous to continue that day and that if the storm didn’t clear the next day he would send for a helicopter evacuation. 

We both had insurance for a helicopter rescue but I didn’t feel that the conditions were bad enough to warrant it. Nothing a bit of Yorkshire grit couldn’t handle. So I made a difficult decision to pack up our camp and venture on into the storm. Tom had been feeling weak with the cold and the altitude but I told him that as long as we kept moving and eating we would be able to brave whatever the weather gods threw at us.

And throw at us they did. We endured snow, gale-force winds, freezing temperatures as we spent 80% of the day exposed above 5,000m. But eventually we pulled through the other side and after 10+ hours we finally started to lose some elevation and the weather calmed down. We had planned to camp somewhere en route but in the end cracked out a 13 hour day and got all the way down to the valley floor – a return to “civilisation” involving hitch hiking with a party bus full of youths who’d come from Kathmandu. 

What an experience it was. Importantly, the foot seems to have come out of it relatively unscathed so I can hopefully join the Manaslu Mountain Trail Race in the coming days… even if I will only be hiking it!

More tales from Nepal, or any of her adventures, can be found on Holly’s Instagram page here.

Are you a fan of Fast Running? Then please support us and become a patron. For as little as the price of a monthly magazine you can support Fast Running – and it only takes a minute. Thank you

The post On through the storm appeared first on Fast Running.