"Each step forward has a sacred meaning of its own"   Sri Chinmoy

Dartmoor Winter Traverse - 24 Feb 2024 - Devon, England

It was in 2005 that I last pulled on my running shoes and braved an ultra-distance event. The foilowing year I completed the South Wales Traverse (in a less than impressive time of 27 hours, while carrying a knee injury) but since then the only long events I have tacked on foot are ultra walks and solo runs. Entering an event and getting out there with a group of like-minded (or should I say like-mindless) people who also think that a marathon just isn't far enough is quite a leap from solo running. Somehow the energy of an event is special and memorable, because of the shared experience and unity of purpose. Everyone is in it together. For me personally, it was important to get back into Ultras as if you run for the Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team, it's just what you do. Unless there's a reason not to - and I found myself, after years plaqued by injury, illness, various other life challenges - without any such reason.

We stayed in South Brent the night before and I didn't get a great night's sleep but nonetheless I felt good to go in the morning, with time to meditate at my usual hour of 6am and still make it to the start. I arrived in drizzle at the village hall, pinned on a number and had a rigorous kit check reminiscent of airport security (though a darn sight more polite) which was reassuring. This team are serious. The briefing made it clear that there would be guide runners around on the course to help us with routefinding, identified by  a bit of hi viz on their backpacks. At 7.29, in the increasing but tolerable drizzle, some 80 or so runners and extreme hikers headed out along the lane and up towards the looming presence of Dartmoor.

I started close to the front, with a plan of jogging steadily and keeping the leaders and guides in sight until they were too fast then hanging back to join the next pack. That seemed to go OK, as the course took us on lanes then trails and bridleways to the edge of the moor. Then came the long slog up on to the dome of Dartmoor and an escape out into bleak, open country with the going boggy and difficult underfoot (the trails had been the same if not even harder). The rain was coming in on a stiff breeze but from broken, swirling cloud and it didn't look set in for the day. I was happy with the pace I was keeping up and - I have to admit - utterly thrilled to be putting myself through the ordeal of an ultra after so many years out.

My target was to hit the first checkpoint by 2.45 (race time not clock time) then be out of there with no more than 3 hours on the clock, giving me 2 and a half hours for each of the shorter sections that followed. The route to Princetown was dramatic, with vast open moorland views, snow-covered tors, bog underfoot followed by bog then rivers then more bog. I soon had my eye in, reading the ground, seeking out a firm footing by the colour and thickness of the grass but every so often getting it wrong and sinking ankle or knee deep in the mire. I felt as if I had never seen so much standing water, such a waterlogged trail, so many miles of thick and challenging bog. This was pure Dartmoor.

I stayed disciplined with feeding, downing a gel at 30 mins and a tribe bar at 60 (walk breaks while eating) then more gel. The unrelenting bog ended as we joined a hard, gravel trail (you could drive a car down this one. Just don't try it with mine) that led past the massive granite cross (Petre's Cross?) and up towards Princetown. Having had energy dips after each feed I stopped eating at 90 mins and just carried on to the check - missing my feed at 2 hours but not feeling that bothered. Arriving at Princetown ahead of schedule was encouraging and I felt confident of finishing in under 8 hours, even if the late climbs and post-20-mile challenges proved tough. At Princetown I sorted out a refill of my bottles, ate a banana stuffed in a bread roll and a mikly way, drunk soup and coffee then got out by the time my watch told me I was 2:45 into the run. On target with room to spare. The rain had eased off, so I emerged into sunshine after the check, wondering how things would go once I got up over 4 hours and up over marathon distance.

At first the going was relatively easy, on an old tramway from the mining era, hard gravel with deep puddles and occasional boggy sections. That led to a marked section down into a valley, then a lively crossing of a stream in spate that was too wide to leap and pretty deep too - we managed it with one foot planted on the bottom and a lurch across to get hands on the opposite bank. A quick haul up and then it was more marked trails to the road crossing at Merrivale. Here a handy marshal told us to turn left on the road then right after the big white house - I thanked him before spotting 3 big, white houses up ahead. Which one? I walked the road and ate as I went, keen to keep the calories going in, then found it was obviously the third white house that was the trailhead marker. Here I had no idea of the route (apart from the memory that we were due to climb Middle Staple Tor then straight on at the top along a ridge to Roos Tor - but there were a lot of tors in these parts). Fortunately two women also doing the run passed me at this point and appeared to have GPS so I zig-zagged up the hill behind them, fellrunner-walking now with hands on knees to the top. This was a predictable slump in energy given the mileage and the climb and the elapsed time, but at the top I came through a kind of stone gateway between two tors to see the glorious expanse of the North Moor and I was soon running again.

Once through the portal of Middle Staple Tor I shuffled on a trail that was boggy and sodden and hard going, but at least easy to follow. The weather remained mostly clear - the occasional swirling shower sweeping in but nothing sustained. After a small drop in height we climbed again to the rocky peak of Roos Tor, before the route went on over a poorly defined trail leading again through endless bog. I managed to keep feeding on the half hour and hour and that helped keep the energy levels high enough to shuffle most of the time and only walk occasionally, but soon I started to feel a bit desperate for some easier terrain.

All it needed to spur me on was a change in the horizon though and when that came - in the shape of some walls at the edge of the moor and deeply cut-up mudbath paths alongside them, that was enough. Some downhills helped too as we started to descend from the high moorland towards the Tavey valley. On the descent I just about appeared in the fringes of a photo grabbed by one of the marshals.

Here the route became extremely challenging as we followed a marked series of trails that included some of the deepest shoe-sucking bog of the whole route, interspersed with narrow footbridges and flooded lanes. The whole section eventually tipped me out on a lane that had stepping stones down one side of it, fortunately it turned out as the lane was deep under water. At the end came a T junction with no arrows and no guidance of any kind in sight. I could have waited for some company but I had a routemap of sorts in my head and followed that - a right turn, I figured, would take me north to Lane End and the last checkpoint. So it proved - I was speed-walking at this point and getting overtaken by some of those I had lost on my little surge down to and over the Tavey, but soon came to that last check point and a welcome cup of tea. I felt a bit sick with fatigue and it was cold and exposed at the check (just an open-sided gazebo on the edge of the moor) but I managed to get a refill of water and grab a brownie that I guess was delicious but was still hard to eat. I was starting the final section with 2:45 in which to finish to make my 8 hour cut-off. Just ahead of schedule and feeling kind of OK.

From Lane End came a classic fell-race type climb to the looming presence of Ger Tor - I walked and munched on the brownie, managing it eat most of it as I zig-zagged between deep sections of peaty bog and forded the mine leat that ran around the curve of the hill. A sudden hailstorm swept in but my windstopper jacket was more than enough to keep me warm and dry on the climb. I was too knackered to eat the whole brownie but I had banked a lot of calories here and there and felt I would avoid any serious blow-up. This was the final section, the end game, and I was starting it in reasonable shape. From Ger Tor the route dipped and then climbed Hare Tor and Chat Tor before skirting the sodden flanks of Great Links Tor, the going underfoot getting progressively harder and the trail less and less easy to follow.

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