To say that my last month of training for Trail Verbier St Bernard X-Alpine 140k (catchy huh) have gone badly is a bit of a simplification.

Up until mid April, it had been pretty good. I’d not quite hit my mileage targets but I was consistently putting in fairly big weeks, somewhere between the 80 to 100 kilometre mark.

Yes there would be weeks in the low 30s but I was more or less happy with the process and combined with my weekly PT sessions with Sarah, I was in a good place.

Then I went on a weekend in Dorset and something changed.

The Mystery of East Knoyle

So the first bit is no great secret. Three days celebrating a big birthday (impending or past) isn’t great prep for a huge mountain marathon.

Booze, BBQ food and unhealthy amounts of ball games meant no running was done. But a bit of a break is sometimes good, so I was happy to get back to it when I landed back in Jersey.

Except that I felt TERRIBLE.

There were no real signs of illness, but I felt knackered. Like going to bed at 7pm knackered. Old lady bedtimes!!

And I couldn’t seem to shift it because there didn’t seem to be anything to shift.

I struggled through 58k of training (that’s where ultratraining perspective is dumb), saved by colleagues, friends and the Rock N Road Runners club or I don’t think I would’ve gone out at all.

Maybe I was just due a holiday, and wouldn’t you know it, one duly arrived with a flight to San Francisco at the end of my bad week.

Surely there was nothing that good ol’ American portion sizes, the homeland of craft beer and Californian wine, or even a trip to the seaside couldn’t cure? And don’t call me Shirley.

Apart from the potential for weight gain, our British sensibility for not getting taxis and walking bloody everywhere would surely mean that I would be able to keep my fitness up.

SF (don’t call if San Fran apparently) is super hilly too so would surely mimic the Alpine passes I would soon be encountering.

Combined with 3 days in Yosemite, I walked/ran 75k with 1,500m elevation. I’ll take that for a first week of mini-retirement (one for the Gary Neville fans there).

The second week was pretty good too, kicking off with a look at El Cap and finishing with a jog around Santa Cruz and Byxbee parkrun. I even managed to walk a half marathon around the Stanford campus in Palo Alto – it IS that big – before getting a plane home.

Well the plane tried to make it home but while we had seen no fog in San Francisco, Jersey decided it wanted to get in on the act and we were back in a hotel at Heathrow after two aborted attempts. Balls.

Still, couldn’t get any worse could it…

IT GOT WORSE

I’m never good at work after a holiday. It’s just a natural back down to earth with a bump moment, usually with a list of things you need to get done or weren’t done while you were away.

But actually it wasn’t too bad this time. I sat in the kitchen with a terrible cup of coffee, sat across from my manager, discussing anything I needed to pick up as a priority when I casually went to re-cross my legs.

There was a sharp, jarring pain in my left knee and I immediately uncrossed them. I’m naturally a “cracky” person so I had no problems with my body making weird noises but this was different.

Walking back to my desks I could feel something was wrong but hoped it was just time spent sat on planes coming back to haunt me.

I could still feel it as I sat down, and then even worse as I went to get back up. Walking downstairs was slow, like the end of an ultra slow when all your joints are aching and dying for respite.

Immediately I was in panic mode and as the day, and then evening continued, the pain got worse, my movement got slower and my fears began to rise.

I would have to cancel my race or drop down a distance. But we would be in Verbier for a week, what would I do? What a let down to all the people I’d talked to about the race. Let alone what a waste of the actual training that I’d done.

I didn’t sleep well and the knee felt no better in the morning. In desperation, I contacted Ciaran Devereux who did sports massage at Crossfit in St Helier. I was praying, almost literally, that it was just tightness in my muscles or something that could be loosened up, so I could at least walk downstairs without my eyes welling up at the thought of everything that I’d lost from the year so far.

Now. I’m not saying he’s a miracle worker but…within 24 hours I ran 16 kilometres on the trail paths of Guernsey and then managed to get quite drunk on the ferry home. OK probably didn’t need to add that last bit. But with Des and Troy, my cheat sticks, and after starting out gingerly from St Peter Port, I kept pace with the other people in our group and somehow got back without any real pain to talk of.

Saturday morning I was back in to see Ciaran first thing with simple instructions “do the same on the other leg”.

And so from the pits of despair to the greatest comeback since Lazarus in the space of five days. What a rollercoaster.

Sadly I’d had to drop out of the 4x4x48 David Goggins Challenge for Centrepoint but as much as I’d managed to somehow get fit again, 48 miles with minimal sleep didn’t sound like the wisest move. To give context, I did 19 kilometres that whole week.

The next week, 40k.

And this week just gone, I took advantage of the bank holiday Monday to clock 106k – my biggest ever non race week.

So where are we now.

Five weeks out and I am getting the fear. My body seems to be in OK shape again but have I bitten off more than I can chew with this race? As I read more and more reports from past iterations, the more I worry about the open ridges, the alpine running and night, and the variability of the weather and my ability to handle it all and then get back in 40 hours.

My longest ever run was 29 hours at NDW100 and that was 3,350m of elevation. TVSB is 20k shorter, but with 3 times the elevation and potentially 10 hours more running. I almost can’t comprehend it.

I have one more big week to go before we hit taper time and I’ve now cut out booze (mostly) to try and shift a couple of extra pounds. Most of the work has been done. If I keep going to see Paul at Performance Physio, Sarah PT at Crossfit, and Ciaran, hopefully I can stay in one piece long enough to not only see the start line, but cross that finish line with a smile on my face and a full heart.

PS. I do hope that there is an actual St Bernard at the end with brandy.