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.

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July seems to have gone by in a whirlwind and it’s already August now as I realise that I have neglected my article writing duties for July. I’m sat in my (now repaired…. at disastrous expense!) van on top of the Simplon Pass on the Swiss/Italian border.

This time yesterday I’d had to be woken up by the air hostess on a flight back from Norway after I hadn’t even noticed that the plane had landed. Why the exhaustion? 

I’d just been in Norway for the infamous “Tromso Skyrace”, 57km with 4,800m of climb which I’d known would be the ultimate test for my body and its return to form. More on that later. I may as well start my July update chronologically otherwise I will not only confuse you the reader but also myself. 

Back to the start of the July

I’d been asked by my sponsor Adidas Terrex to attend Love Trails Festival on the Gower Peninsula, a fun weekend of trail running workshops, talks and of course showcasing some excellent dance moves. I tied it in with a quick trip back to visit the parents in Yorkshire, obviously also squeezing in fell races on each evening I was back. There really is something glorious about perfect summer evenings in the Pennines; cycling to a race, blasting around a course and enjoying the company of fellow fell runners afterwards. 

After Love Trails I flew out to the Pyrenees to race the Buff Epic Skyrace which counted for double points in the Skyrunner Series. I’d hitch hiked to the same race last year but this year I hired a car which gave me much more autonomy to explore the surrounding peaks before and after the race.

A couple of days before the race I headed up Pico Aneto, the highest point in the Pyrenees. A long hike including having to cross the glacier maybe wasn’t the best race preparation but life’s too short to sit and taper! This was my third time coming to this race, but there is so much to do in the area that it would take me a long time to get bored of it – pristine rivers, beautiful meadows, big peaks… 

Photo: Albert Jorquera/ skyrunning

Life’s too short to sit and taper

The race itself was a tough one – forecasted storms meant that the course was changed but it kept the same profile; 42km with 2,800m of climb. It was a really competitive field and I had no expectations going into the race but surprised myself (and many others) by somehow managing to finish third, after quite a battle with Ragna Debats. 

The next weekend I raced at the Dolomyths Skyrace in the town of Canazei. I am always inspired by the towering peaks of this region. Having travelled all over the world somewhere like the Dolomites really makes you realise how lucky we are in Europe to have such geographic and cultural diversity on our doorstep.

That race didn’t go particularly well and I finished feeling disappointed with myself. I always used to think that downhill running was my greatest strength – I think that comes from having been pretty rubbish as a junior fell runner, having to rely on my downhill skills to make up for all the time I would lose on the climbs. But since the foot breaking fiasco I’ve been really cautious running downhill and I think I lost my mojo a bit – I was three minutes slower on the downhill than last year so that’s definitely something I need to work on.

Beer, pizza and gelato to the rescue

I felt much better after some beers, pizza and gelato though and enjoyed a lovely “recovery” hike up Marmolada, the highest point in the Dolomites the next morning, followed by an overambitious bike ride where I bonked so hard that I was searching for discarded food wrappers in the gutter as I made my way up a final climb. 

Lesson learned, I took plenty of gels with me for my next day’s ride over the famous Stelvio Pass before meeting up with friends for a few days of training and van camping in Living. My aim of totally destroying my legs that week was very much achieved, so much so that I wondered whether I would even be able to make it round the short course of the Giir di Mont race that weekend. Of course they managed the seemingly short burst around these Italian hillsides and it was fun to have three Brits on the podium! 

Some quiet before the storm

Coming up the next weekend was the aforementioned Tromso Skyrace where I knew my legs would need to be feeling good if I was going to make it round the course in one piece. So I packed my tent, a load of food and some good books into a rucksack and hiked off into the Orobie Mountains for a few days of solitude.

It was blissful camping by a pristine lake; no phone signal, just reading, napping, overdosing on wild berries… blissful until I woke up one morning to an almighty thunder storm, huge hailstones pelting my tent and the beautiful meadow I’d camped in had become a torrent of raging water.

I knew that it was safer in the storm to stay in my tent, but I feared that with the rising water levels I risked being washed away. I had no choice but to break camp, though I was admittedly quite scared as I packed up my tent, the storm throwing everything it could at me. As I scrambled over boulder fields, my tent poles strapped to my rucksack, I was worried I would be struck by lightning. I’ve been in similar situations before and it always surprises me how calm you stay, just going into survival mode, only focused on trying to get to a safe place as quickly as possible. 

RELATED: Holly is back racing in the mountains

Safe to run another mountain 

Anyway, I obviously came out of it unscathed just a little mentally drained. Next stop Norway. After a night contending with hooded Italian youths on mopeds somewhere near Milan, I parked my van in a forest near the airport then walked past the prostitutes and along the motorway to avoid having to put it into an airport car park… I did wonder whether it would still be there when I got back. 

Tromso is well north of the arctic circle so daylight is omnipresent. The Tromso skyrace however has become well known for its terrible weather. This year was an exception. A really strong field of women lined up for the race and I had decided to run my own race, try to enjoy it and just see what happened.

I took the first few hours easy, admiring the spectacular views and making sure I kept drinking and eating. I surprised myself by running well down the steep snow and vertical descents early on, getting into second place after about two hours of running. 

More than just a running race, an adventure

I love races which combine running with some scrambling and although I was pushing hard, relished the climb along the imposing Hamperokken ridge. The organisers had put a rope up to the summit as it’s a class 4 climb and it was especially useful for lowering ourselves back down the rock face.

I won’t go into great details about the race as that’s not particularly interesting for anyone, but I was very happy to finish second, breaking the previous course record but not quite fast enough to catch the eventual winner, Johanna Astrom from Sweden. I felt strong throughout the second half which was a great confidence boost and shows that my body can still cope with eight hours of hard effort. 

Back to the Alps

And now back to my van on the Simplon pass. This year I’m taking everything race by race, not wanting to plan too far ahead. The problem with this strategy is that it means I have to draw on my terrible decision-making skills pretty much on a weekly basis.

If I had a coach I would have been told to have a rest for the next week, let my body recover, but as I don’t have to report to anyone, I have made the rather illogical decision to go to the Sierre Zinal race in Switzerland, a super fast course with next to zero technicality which doesn’t play to any of my strengths… but it’s in a beautiful location and there will be lots of fun and friendly people there.

I go to races to try as hard as I can, I’m not afraid to be beaten by people who I would ordinarily be in front of if I didn’t have tired legs; as long as I know I’ve given it my best shot, I will always come out of it happy. So here’s to a happy August. Enjoy the summer everyone!

Holly Page features in the ‘Fast 10: class of 2019’ and over the course of the year will share her running journey. You can follow Holly on Twitter and Instagram, while further information about the ‘class of 2019’ can be found here.

Are you a fan of Fast Running? Then please support us. 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 Life’s too short to sit and taper appeared first on Fast Running.