Ultra Running - How it started and The Highland Fling

Paul Jones & Simon McCollum are taking on the Trail Du Mont-Blanc Ultra Marathon with support from Skinfit UK.

Here is Paul's story on how they came about taking on this epic adventure.

This all started with a boring day in the office talking about former glories. I am a former International Decathlete and my running partner (Simon McCollum) is a former England Hockey player. We discussed our current state of fitness and decided that we needed a challenge. Simon had read an article on the Trail Du Mont-Blanc and said this race would be a good tick in the life box. I agreed without really knowing what the race involved, boy, did I get a shock when I found out it was a 98km race around Mont-Blanc.

We did some research into the event and made our application, only to find out that you can't just enter this race, you have to qualify, so we entered the Highland Fling as our qualifying race. This when we realised what a challenge this was going to be (we've never even run a marathon). We sat down a put together a training plan. We broke it up into 4 week blocks, 3 hard 1 easy, building up the mileage over the first 3 weeks before easing off in week 4. Each 4 week cycle would start at a higher weekly mileage until we were up to 70-80 miles on any given week and a peak of 100+. We used our commute to and from work to get the miles in as this was 10 miles each way then a long run at the weekend, we would also include trips over to Cannock Chase and Snowdonia to get used to off-road terrain and bigger hills.

During our first few months of training we thought it would be a good idea to use this opportunity to raise some money for charity. We chose the Livestrong foundation. We also approached Skinfit UK to see whether they would be interested in supporting us through our mission, happily they said yes.

Skinfit UK provided us with much of the kit we would need to tackle a mountain ultramarathon - the Scudo waterproof jacket, caldo gillet, vento gillet and base layers. The kit was amazing and met our needs perfectly as we'd previously been using kit which was too heavy, not easily packable and not made with mountain adventure in mind. I became a particular fan of my base layers and waterproof. The base layers were light-weight, designed with runners in mind and were very comfortable in both hot and cold conditions. My waterproof came in very handy in the hills of Snowdonia during the winter months, it's light, perfectly fitted and packs away into a small apple-sized ball.

The Highland Fling

Race day had arrived and I had not felt so nervous before a race. During my athletics career I stepped onto the line with confidence knowing that I had put the right amount and level of training in to do well but this was different - I had never gone this far before over mountain terrain. During our preparation we had done back to back runs of 25-30 miles, but had never gone over 50 in one go.

We decided to started to start at the back of the field and work our way through - as we were heading into the unknown. Our pace was an easy jog to begin with, passing quite a few people on the first road phase before heading off-road, we settled into an easy 8.30 min/mile pace cautious not to be tempted to go with some of the quicker starters. As we reached the first check-point at 19 miles we felt great, felt fresh and confident in having passed a lot of fellow competitors on the way. We took on fluid and food (rice pudding) and headed back out - but only 3 miles later Simon started to feel sick, his stomach was rock hard and he was finding it difficult to keep running. Simon was having a bad reaction to a carb bar he had taken on-board during our feed station. We walked for the next 2-3 miles while Simon recovered.

Simon started to feel better and we were back running and making up ground on those who had come passed us. The terrain changed from fire-track trail to rugged ankle-breaking off-road and with no option to run across - we were forced to walk again. Out the other end, we had gone past half-way and were closing in on the 30 mile marker. By this stage the hills were taking their toll on the quads, but we still felt good and kept a decent pace. The race was full of great people, very friendly, we chatted to a lot of them during the tough parts of the race - where us mere mortals had to walk.

The 40-50 mile stage was a particularly tough part - going through shin-deep mud fields and big 1:3 climbs. I went through a real bad patch, my legs felt like lead and the hills kept coming and coming, then we hit the forest and my mood changed. This part of the race was by far the best part for me, it was beautiful, pine track weaved through the tall trees, I hardly noticed the savage hills. This was short-lived as we came out of the trees onto a dull road and it began to rain, this time both me & Simon went through a bad patch and had to drag ourselves through the next couple of miles.

We checked our map and saw that we were only 5 miles from the finish - and with that news we man'd up and headed to the finish. In the distance. there was a florescent sign - it had to be the finish. It was a sign for the finish but the cruel organiser had put this with another half-mile to go - I could have hit someone. But only 10 minutes later we had achieved our qualification into Mont-Blanc by completing the Highland Fling in just over 10 and a half hours.

After a shower, a pizza and a pint we headed back to camp where we quickly passed out. The next morning was not a great one with my legs feeling as they had been run over by a bus and the knowledge that we would have to make the long drive back to Birmingham.

Bye for now, I'll let you know how we got on at Mont-Blanc.