Karl's Ultra Ramblings

Hardmoors 200 May 2019 This was going to be a mountain to climb. A true challenge of determination and resilience. A daunting task not for the faint hearted.  The 13 Sisters stood before me, each new one towering above the last and from my viewpoint on the floor they somehow looked malevolent. Like they knew.  At seven inches tall each they may only have represented two hundredths of a percent of what I’d already climbed since the race started, but the final steps upstairs to bed could be the death of me.  How the hell did I get in this state? Let’s rewind. Jon Steele (who doesn’t let the fact that he is neither the looks nor the brains of the Hardmoors Race Series Race Director team stop him) is a man who worries.  He worries that people aren’t getting their money’s worth out of races. He worries that they may lack motivation sometimes as they approach a checkpoint and need words of encouragement. He worries that people may latch on to some of the many syno...

The Spine Race - January 2018 Foreword This race blog was originally going to be called My Way.  I had signed up for the Spine Race this year not for any particular burning reason but for a number of slowly smouldering ones. Still in mourning after my Yukon Arctic Ultra experiences I went into my 2014 Spine Race with an unrealistic mindset about British winter racing, expecting a winter wonderland and getting a 7 day rain and bog fest, on a route that was in some places more National Disgrace than National Trail. I then got ill early on in the race and death marched the last 200 miles in an increasingly zombie like state. Recovery, both physical and mental, took months.  It’s a truth of long distance endurance racing that it’s not about whether or not something goes wrong, but what goes wrong and how you deal with it.  I wasn't after a perfect race this year, they don't happen, but surely I could have a better time than in 2014!  I'm also a lot fitter ...